Page 80 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

When she looked toward the shore again, Sebastian stood motionless beside the blankets, watching her as though her delight were the only sight upon that vast coast worth seeing. The tenderness in his expression struck more deeply than the cold water and made her happiness feel suddenly, perilously complete.

CHAPTER 26

Sebastian followed her into the sea, cutting through the waves with powerful, assured strokes. Darcy watched him with open admiration and laughed when he turned in the water and offered her his back.

“You mean to carry me farther out?” she asked, though she was already wading toward him.

“Only far enough to show you what you came to see. I shall not let the sea steal you from me.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed herself along the strong length of his back as he carried her into deeper water. The sea stretched endlessly around them, dark beneath the rising moon, its restless surface catching glimmers of silver with every swell. Each movement of his body beneath hers made her newly conscious of his strength, of the heat he seemed to retain despite the cool water, and of how naturally she trusted him to bear her wherever he chose.

“This is so beautiful,” she said softly, her voice filled with wonder, “and also a little terrifying.”

He laughed, the sound low and unrestrained. “My father brought me here when I was a boy. He had already taught me to swim in the lakes, and when he allowed me into the sea, several people declared him reckless. My mother was convinced I would be swept away and never seen again.”

“And yet he allowed it?”

“He believed I could do it,” Sebastian said simply. “And I did.”

Darcy studied him. Moonlight silvered his damp, disordered hair and sharpened the proud lines of his face. There was something almost elemental about him in the sea, his powerful body moving easily against the waves, his expression stripped of the polished indifference he wore in society. The raw sensuality of him made her pulse quicken, and her hold upon his shoulders tighten before she could prevent it.

“You have good memories of your father,” she said quietly.

“I do,” he replied, though his gaze had turned distant, fixed upon the horizon.

“I am sorry he deceived you for so many years.” Despite their many conversations in the library, this was the first time Darcy had dared offer him sympathy so plainly.

A faint, humorless scoff left him. “There was no obligation for him to confess his infidelity to his son. Men of his rank are almost expected to keep a mistress discreetly tucked away, as though betrayal becomes respectable when concealed behind money and good breeding.”

Darcy fell silent, her chest tightening. Mistress. Society would reduce her mother to that single word and strip away every tender, complicated truth Darcy had known of her. “I am sorry for my mother’s part in it,” she said at last, her voice soft with sincerity. “I am deeply sorry.”

“Why should you be?” he returned. “You had no hand in their choices.”

Moved by something she could not quite name, Darcy leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his nape.

“I have other letters,” she admitted after a moment. “Exchanges between my mother and your father. They are intimate, though not in the manner one might suppose. There is tenderness in them. Friendship, even. They spoke to one another as though each had become the person before whom the other need never pretend.”

He said nothing, though she felt the subtle tension that passed through him.

“There is one,” she continued, “stained with my mother’s tears. She wrote of her anguish that he was married and asked why he had permitted her to fall in love with him when he could never truly belong to her.”

The waves shifted around them, a steady rhythm beneath her words.

“He replied that his marriage had been arranged rather than born of love, though in time he came to love his wife deeply. He wrote of respect, admiration, loyalty, and the life they had built together. Yet he told my mother that the first sight of her had struck him like lightning and that he could not imagine his life without her presence in it.” Darcy hesitated. “He also wrote that ceasing to love his countess would be like cleaving a limb from his own body.”

“Damnable nonsense,” Sebastian said, his voice turning cold. “Marriage is a vow. A man’s willingness to honor it speaks to his integrity, his character, and his worth. It matters very little what he felt. He should have mastered himself. He should have turned away from whatever tempted him to betray a woman who trusted him and believed herself loved.”

Darcy tightened her arms around him. “I agree,” she said softly. After a moment, she asked, “Was that why you brought us to Derbyshire? Not merely because of the scandal sheet, but because your mother intended to return to town?”

He turned his head enough to meet her gaze. The chill that entered his blue eyes unsettled her, reminding Darcy of the man she had first encountered: distant, controlled, and determined to reveal nothing he had not chosen to give.

“The scandal made our departure prudent,” he said. “Though I have no notion when my mother will return, I would not have her learn of my father’s other family through whispers, conjecture, or some damned scandal sheet.”

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “I understand.”

“Nor do I wish her to speculate upon your place in my life before I have decided how such speculation is to be answered.”

“Then you never intend to tell her the truth,” Darcy said carefully. “Not about your father. Not about Emelia, Jane, or Sarah.”