Page 18 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

She studied Amelia a moment longer, and something in her expression shifted, curiosity giving way to a more careful attention. "He did unsettle you."

Amelia set down the brush she had picked up without any memory of doing so. "He did not. He was simply arrogant. Insufferable. He argued with me as though losing were a personal affront, and I have no doubt he is, at this very moment, composing some elaborate justification for why he was correct after all, when he plainly was not."

"That is a great many words about a man you claim not to be thinking of."

"I did not claim that."

Amelia rose from the window seat before Mary could press further. "I am tired, Mary. I would like to go to bed."

Mary studied her a moment longer, and Amelia could see the exact instant she decided not to push it, sisterly affection winning out over curiosity the way it generally did between them. "Very well. Keep your secrets, if you must." She rose too, gathering her shawl, pausing at the door with a smile that was fond rather than triumphant. "Though for what it's worth, dearest, I have never once seen you this flustered over a man you claim to find merely insufferable. I do hope London survives whatever this turns out to be."

"There is nothing for London to survive. I shall likely never see the man again."

"Of course not." Mary's smile only widened. "Good night, Amelia. Sleep well, I daresay you will not."

The door clicked shut, and Amelia sat alone at her dressing table, working the last of the pins free with hands that were not nearly as steady as she would have liked, and found that no amount of telling herself the evening was finished, filed away, done with, did anything at all to quiet the memory still sitting stubbornly behind her ribs: a carriage lamp swinging overhead, his gaze tracing the line of her jaw, the reckless half second in which some foolish, ungovernable part of her had wanted, quite desperately, for him to lean in.

"You are in an unusually fine mood for a man who spent the last evening being publicly dismantled by a woman half the ballroom is still discussing."

Sebastian did not look up from his correspondence, though he felt Tristan drop into the chair opposite his desk with the lack of ceremony he reserved for houses he considered nearly as much his own as Ravensmere House itself. "I am in my usual mood. You are simply determined to find something remarkable in it."

"I am determined to hear about the woman in purple, which is a considerably more interesting occupation." Tristan helped himself to the decanter on the sideboard. "Nathaniel says he has already had three separate matrons inquire after her family this morning, which is a remarkable feat for a woman none of them can name."

"I have no notion who she is."

"You spent a good part of the eveningarguing with her."

"I spent a good part of the evening being interrupted by an aggravating girl who apparently enjoys arguing more than she enjoys being agreeable, which I assure you is not the same accomplishment." Sebastian set down his pen and reached for the next letter, though he found, irritably, that he had read the same line of his steward's report three times without absorbing a word of it. "She was tiresome. Opinionated well past the point of good manners. I have already given her considerably more thought than she merits."

The fire in her eyes when she refused to give her name. That is what merits the thought, if he were being honest about it. He did not say it aloud. He was not entirely certain he wished to examine it even privately, and yet found himself doing so regardless, the memory arriving uninvited and entirely too vivid as the carriage lamp swinging above her, her breath catching, the half second in which neither of them had moved to close the gap between them, and the considerably longer moment in which he had wanted to, with an intensity that had nothing at all to do with the argument.

"Have you." Tristan settled into the chair with his drink, entirely too pleased with himself. "Because you have now mentioned her twice, unprompted, in the space of a single conversation I had not yet steered toward her at all."

"You asked after her directly not a minute ago."

"I asked after the woman in purple. You are the one who has since supplied her disposition, her manners, and a full accounting of your opinion on both, none of which I requested." Tristan's grin widened, insufferable. "That is a great deal of detail for a woman who means nothing to you, Sebastian."

"It is precisely the amount of detail required to answer your question thoroughly."

"Mm." Tristan did not look remotely convinced, and made no effort to disguise it. "Nathaniel wagers she'll have three proposals inside the fortnight, purely on the strength of everyone wanting to know the woman capable of besting four dukes at once."

"Then Nathaniel is welcome to lose his money on it, as he generally does."

"Perhaps you ought to make it four proposals." Tristan lifted his glass in mock salute. "Save the poor woman the trouble of choosing and spare yourself further sleepless nights composing arguments you insist you are not thinking about."

"I am not marrying anyone, Tristan. I would have thought a decade of hearing me say so might have settled the matter by now."

"It has settled nothing. It has simply made the eventual capitulation more entertaining to watch." Tristan swirled his drink, considering him over the rim of the glass like he found the moment genuinely diverting rather than merely provoking. "Though I confess, I begin to wonder whether any woman alive could actually satisfy your particular requirements, should you ever trouble yourself to marry. You are exacting in scholarship, exacting in estate management, and considerably more exacting still in the bedroom. You would have her on her knees at dawn and bent over the bed by dusk, begging to be used again. Few ladies possess the stamina or the willingness to endure such relentless use. That is rather a great deal to ask of one unfortunate duchess."

"That is a dramatic way of putting it."

"Given how thoroughly Lady Ashbourne complained of it." Tristan's grin turned wicked.

Sebastian shrugged. "She was perfectly satisfied until I declined to become emotionally attached to her."

"She did not complain about the lack of satisfaction."

"No."