Page 36 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"Delayed is promising. I do hope you mean to make up for lost time. The private alcoves offer finer company. Would you care to explore?" Her fingers traced a slow line down his forearm, an invitation plain enough that a fortnight ago he'd have met it without a second thought. Tonight he found himself watching the gesture from some small distance, as though it belonged to someone else's evening.

"Another time, perhaps."

Something flickered across her face, surprise more than offense, and she withdrew with good grace, drifting back toward the hearth in search of better fortune. Sebastian took a long swallow of his wine and found it did nothing at all to loosen the knot sitting behind his ribs.

It went on like that for the better part of an hour. A widow with clever eyes, an actress he'd known two Seasons past, a young matron whose husband was conveniently occupied elsewhere in the house, each of them offered with easy warmth and each of them declined with a courtesy that cost him rather more effort than it should have.

Julian sat near the fireplace with Nathaniel and Tristan, each holding a glass, their conversation already well underway.

Tristan turned. "Finally."

Sebastian approached them. "I was not aware my absence had been noted."

"It was," Julian said. "Nathaniel has been forced to endure us without you."

Nathaniel glanced over. "I was doing perfectly well.”

Sebastian took the empty chair beside them.

"What are you arguing about?"

"We are not arguing," Nathaniel said.

Julian smiled.

"We are discussing."

Sebastian listened with half an ear.

It was familiar. Comfortable.

The three men had already settled into the rhythm they had developed years ago. Which was the effortless exchange of opinions that required no invitation and no ceremony. Sebastian knew when Tristan was about to provoke Nathaniel. He knew when Julian was about to introduce some obscure philosophical principle simply to see whether the others would object.

Normally, he would have enjoyed it. Tonight, he found himself staring into his wine.

"The delight of pleasure, as I was saying gentlemen," Tristan murmured to the circle, his voice low and teasing, "comes not from haste but from the lingering caress that leaves a lady trembling for more."

Nathaniel gave a quiet laugh, turning his glass slowly between his fingers. "Indeed. Patience has always been underrated. A gentleman who is too eager to reach the conclusion has missed half the pleasure of the pursuit."

Julian nodded softly. "And when she yields that final surrender, arching against you with such sweet abandon—ah, that is the true art. Yet what of the man who demands more than mere yielding? One who seeks a partner to match his every command without falter."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. “That depends entirely upon the lady.”

Julian snapped his fingers. “Precisely.”

"You are becoming something of a legend tonight," Tristan muttered, moving into the chair beside Sebastian with undisguised delight as the others carried on in their discussion, "for entirely the wrong reasons."

"I am simply not in the mood."

"You are never not in the mood, Sebastian. It is practically a founding principle of this house." Tristan gestured lazily at the room, the wine, the music, the general glorious chaos of it. "And yet here you sit, having declined no fewer than three perfectly willing women, drinking rather more than usual and saying rather less. I begin to suspect you have attended this evening only in body. Your mind is off somewhere different, arguing, I'd wager, about the exact same subject it was arguing about this afternoon."

"You know nothing of this afternoon."

"I know you came here looking for a distraction and have spent the whole evening failing spectacularly to find one, which tells me a great deal on its own." Tristan's grin gentled, some of the teasing falling away. "What did she say to you?"

Sebastian turned his glass slowly between his fingers, watching the candlelight catch and slide across the surface of the wine. "She saw something I have spent years making certain no one saw. And she did it in the space of a single conversation, without trying particularly hard."

"That does not sound like a woman to run from."