Page 52 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

Chapter Twelve

Sybil knocked once at Montgomery House and was already slipping inside before the butler had finished opening the door. He was a frightfully proper sort, with whiskers that curled with the aid of pomade and a monocle he liked to look through with great disdain. But he was secretly fond of her, ever since she had shared her sugarplums one Christmas morning, reaching over the iron railing between their houses with her short, little arms.

“Good afternoon, Chevril,” she greeted him with a weary smile, dropping onto the bench that was still sitting under a painting of a hunting dog no one in the family had ever owned. The bench was in the exact same place as it had been the one other time she had dared venture through the front door of dreary Montgomery House. It was that day she was fourteen and decided to bring a doll for the newly born Sophie and a basket of plums for Keir, who only stared at her. Rightfully so—who brought plums to a young man after his mother died? Especially when they had not spoken for months.

The things he had said to her then. In this very hall, by this very bench. That there were expectations of his title, that she was too much but also not enough. Beneath him. Still a child when he had grown up.

Words calculated to enrage her, now she thought about it.

She hated this hall, this bench.

Perhaps this was a bad idea.

He still stared at her, after all. Only now it was different. It was all different.

She nearly went up in flames, spent nights tangled and sweaty in the sheets, unable to stop replaying their trysts in her head, and he just went about his day, doing whatever it was that he did when he was not courting Lady Violetta and being pelted with snow.

She should come up with another plan. Any other plan.

But as she could not, and as she was desperate, she remained where she was.

If she was lucky, he would not be at home.

As she had not been lucky for a single moment since she woke up that morning, from spilling her breakfast tea on her dress to her abduction, she was not at all surprised when his footsteps sounded down the hall. The light struggled to get between the heavy drapes, the swaths of velvet.

There was, of course, just enough light to readily display the state of her hair: falling out of its pins in tangles.

The state of her face: flushed and blotchy. Red around her neck where the sack had been tied too tightly.

The state of her dress: wet and torn and wrinkled beyond what could be reasonably explained.

The state of her in general: bedraggled.

Chevril and Keir both stared at her. She tried a cheerful smile despite suddenly feeling bone tired and as if her veins were full of coffee and champagne bubbles and cold, sharp pins.

They continued to stare as a small puddle melted under her boots.

Keir was the first to speak. “What the hell happened to you?”

It was more of a roar. A bellow. From a man best known for his quiet, stoic commands.

“Good afternoon, Lord Blackburn,” Sybil said, more primly than she had ever said anything in her entire life. “Chevril, might I trouble you for a cup of tea?”

Chevril turned on his very well-kept heel and departed in what could only be called a canter. “And call for the doctor!” Keir called after him, his eyes never leaving her.

“I don’t need a doctor,” she assured him.

He did not look assured.

He finally crossed the marble floor and crouched in front of her. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “Not a bit.” All things considered. Although, truthfully, she felt several bruises blooming from her knee to her hip. She probably ought not mention those. “It was only a minor abduction.”

Keir went still. As he had not been particularly restless, the effect was chilling. His eyes glittered. The fire popped somewhere in a room behind him, a warning. “I beg your pardon?”

“Miniscule,” she insisted. She knew she should have kept her mouth shut. “Honestly, I’m not sure they knew what they were doing.”

She felt certain they knew exactly what they were doing, but as Keir looked to be on the verge of some kind of apoplectic fit, she decided a small, comfortable lie was in order.