Perfect Bride (19 page)

She hoped it wouldn’t be she.

“Are you all right?”

He made no answer. Strong hands closed about her waist. He set her aside bodily. It flashed through her mind that he looked right through her.

Undeterred, she raced after him, grabbing a fold of his cloak.

He spun around. “Are you trying to choke me?”

She let go. “You haven’t answered me, Sebastian. Are you all right?” She peered up at him.

He looked at her then, and she saw it all. Through the rain, through the dark, she caught a glimpse of the ravaged tumult in his soul.

A rush of emotion squeezed her chest...She hurt inside, just as she knew that he hurt.

Yet not half as much as he hurt.

For there was something stark and vulnerable and lonely about him just now.

The heavens opened up, and so did her heart. Rain gushed from the skies, a drenching torrent. She stood her ground, uncaring that the rain pelted her face and soaked her nightgown, freezing her to the bone.

She braved a step forward. “You don’t look all right.”

Cursing beneath his breath, he whipped off his cloak and swung it over her shoulders. “Go inside,” he ordered roughly. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

Engulfed in his warmth, engulfed in
him
, she shook her head, her throat so achingly tight she could not speak.

“
Devon
.”

A world of pain bled through in the sound.

“I can’t stay, Devon. I
can’t
. Not now. Not tonight.”

Devon sensed his frustration, felt it in every fiber of his body, heard his despair in his ragged expul
sion of breath. He didn’t know whether to push her away or drag her close.

She allowed him no choice, but hurtled herself against him.

“Then take me with you,” she pleaded. “Wherever you’re going, take me with you.”

he caught at his vest...She caught at his heart. Trapped in a maelstrom of emotion, he felt every muscle in his body constrict. He couldn’t breathe, for his lungs were on fire. He couldn’t find the strength to break away. He couldn’t summon the will to leave her behind.

Her heavy hair had fallen down. Already sodden, it lay plastered to her scalp. Her gown clung to her skin—he’d shielded her too late. Dusky rose nipples poked tight little buttons against the silken confine
ment. Her lashes were spiky and wet ...Tears or rain? he wondered achingly.

But it was the way she gazed at him...her lovely features so fervently expressive, those delicate, small-boned fingers so tightly gripping his vest. She could hide nothing, her golden eyes half pleading, half hopeful.

He felt as if he’d been punched squarely in the gut.

“Devon,” he said helplessly. “Ah, Devon...”

She shifted, moving her right hand, the movement ever so slight. A fingertip poised at the very center of his heart. The others twined even more tightly in his vest.

“Take me with you,” she said quaveringly. “Sebas
tian, please,
take me with you.
”

She wouldn’t let go.

Nor could he.

When the carriage sped forward, they were both in it.

Sebastian questioned no further. She pressed him no longer.

It was enough that she was here.

Enough that they were together.

London was left behind, along with the rain. An hour later, they hurtled down the narrow roads, lurching up the hills and chasing down the other side. A half moon slid out from behind a silvery frill of clouds. Sebastian found himself wishing for day
light, that Devon might see the glittering sapphire lakes and lazy placid valleys.

They rounded a curve. A wheel struck a pothole. Devon pitched forward into his lap. His arms closed around her instinctively, but it was a far different in
stinct indeed that kept her there. When she would have righted herself, there came a wordless sound of protest.

His.

Their eyes caught. Within hers lay a silent ques tion. His embrace tightened, all the answer she ap peared to need. When Sebastian tugged her small, slight form against the solid breadth of his chest, she nestled against him, turning her nose against the side of his neck, seeking his warmth. As he arranged
the cloak around them both, he fancied he felt her smiling...

Dawn bathed the eastern hills in gilded splendor when at last the carriage turned up a long, winding lane, through massive, ivy-twined gates, past clipped, manicured lawns and gardens.

He roused Devon, who had fallen asleep just a short time earlier. She stirred, all sleepy-warm and drowsy. He kissed the small hand curled atop his chest and gently pushed her upright. “We’ve ar
rived,” he said lightly.

A half smile curled his lips as they approached the house. It was, he decided as always, an impressive sight. Tall, Grecian columns dominated the center of the house. High mullioned windows framed in white marched down each wing. Devon’s mouth dropped open as he swung her to the ground.

He smiled crookedly. “Welcome to Thurston Hall,” he murmured.

Though Sebastian’s appearance at the family es
tate was unexpected, a crimson-and-gold liveried footman was there to usher them within. Sebastian put Devon into the hands of a capable maid named Jane.

“Why don’t you have a bath and a nap?” he sug
gested. “I’ll meet you here at”—he glanced at the grandfather clock ticking near the stairs—“noon-ish.”

Her eyes roved searchingly over his features. “And what about you?”

He fingered the stubble on his jaw. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I suppose I do need a bath and a shave—”

Her mouth curved. “You
always
need a shave.”

He was aware her question ran much deeper.

Tenderly he ran the backs of his knuckles over the curve of her cheek, marveling at its texture, uncaring what the servants might think of the caress.

“I’m fine.” And he was. The heaviness in his chest had lifted. There was no need to ask himself why. He loved Thurston Hall. Loved it above all else, but this time it had nothing to do with the fact that he was home . . .

And everything to do with the woman at his side.

But at noon Devon wasn’t waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Thinking she’d overslept, he rapped lightly on the door of her room. Jane looked up from straightening the bed and informed him she’d de
parted promptly at a quarter before the hour.

He found her in the portrait gallery. She looked re
freshed, her hair combed and drawn back from her face with a ribbon. Her necklace gleamed silver and bright about her throat. Jane had seen fit to clothe her in one of Julianna’s gowns. He nearly groaned.

He approached, careful to keep his eyes from dwelling on the expanse of creamy bosom exposed.

“Hello,” she greeted. “I was wandering.”

Sebastian chuckled. “I should have known. You do have that habit, don’t you? Just don’t wander too far. You could get lost in this house and no one would find you for weeks.”

“Ah, but the real question is this, sir...if I were ever lost, would you look for me?”

His gaze roved over her profile, the place where a tiny, silky curl waved into the shell of her ear, the de
lectable corner of her mouth. “Every minute,” he said quietly.

“While searching for missing treasures, no doubt,” she teased.

“No, Devon. Only you. I wouldn’t rest until I found you.” He meant every word.

Her gaze flashed up to his, her eyes mutely ques
tioning. There was a sharp stab in his belly. Oh, Christ, what was he doing? He shouldn’t have al
lowed her to come. But he had, and now it was too late...And, God help him, it felt so right, her being here . . .

He smiled slightly. “I must thank you for coming with me. I didn’t mean to drag you away in the mid
dle of the night, you know.”

“That’s not quite how I remember it, but it’s gener
ous of you to put it like that.”

His smile ebbed. “I’m not sure I can explain it. Justin...well, as you saw last night, I couldn’t stay. And I just...I needed to be here. I needed to see”— for a moment his throat closed off and he struggled to speak—“all this again. I needed to be home.”

A small hand crept into his.

He squeezed her fingers, then gestured toward a heavy, gilt-framed painting.

“I see you admire the family portrait. It was painted only a few months before my mother left. My father wouldn’t allow it to be hung while he was alive. But I take the view that it belongs here, with the rest of the Sterlings.”

“You look very young,” she ventured, then bit her lip. “How old were you?”

“I was ten, Justin was six, Julianna was three.”

“My, but you were tall even then—not so very far behind your father.” Her gaze moved on to the tiny, chestnut-haired little cherub who stood alongside her eldest brother. “Julianna looks very sweet.”

Sebastian’s eyes softened. “She is. She hasn’t
changed a bit since she was a child. She has the most generous, giving nature in the world, with a voice like pure sunshine.”

Devon’s gaze had moved on to the fine-boned, dark-haired beauty draped in royal blue velvet. Though her expression was properly demure, the vivid sparkle of her eyes betrayed her true nature; it was almost as if she defied the somber-visaged man at her side.

An unseen hand seemed to close around Sebastian’s heart. Little wonder, he thought . . .

For that was the way it had always been.

“Your mother is stunning,” Devon murmured.

“Yes, she was, wasn’t she? Justin greatly resembles her. Julianna has her delicacy, while I have my fa-ther’s stature.”

But not his nature.

Dear God, never that.

As if she knew the precise direction of his thoughts, Devon’s scrutiny moved on to the head of the family. The painter had captured William Sterling’s essence remarkably—his stern austerity, the disapproval with which he viewed his family... why, the world! Even in the portrait, though all of them stood before the fireplace mantel in the library, William Sterling maintained his distance from his wife and children, a distance both physical and emotional.

Sebastian frowned. He looked upon the portrait daily when he was in residence. Odd, but this was something that had escaped his notice until now, the way his father held himself apart.

It was as if he saw the portrait through new eyes...through Devon’s eyes.

And he wondered, with a touch of his brother’s cynicism, if perhaps the Sterling family was cursed when it came to love and marriage. He couldn’t imagine Justin taking a wife—what woman would have such a rogue? And Julianna’s experience with love had proved disastrous. For she too had borne a scandal of her own...

Little wonder she had decided no man would turn her head again.

His marriage would be far different from his par
ents’. It had to be. It
had
to.

“It must have been awful for you,” Devon mur
mured, “when your mother . . . left.”

Beneath the flowing white cambric of his shirt, Sebastian’s shoulders went taut.

“I saw her, you know. I saw her leave. I-I’ve never told that to anyone,” he admitted, his voice sound
ing oddly strained, even to his own ears. “And it was awful, for a long, long time. Julianna was too young to really comprehend. All she knew was that dear Mama was gone. But Justin”—Sebastian shook his head—“it was hardest on him, I think. He has the charm and vivacity of our mother—her wildness. In fact, he’s so like her, it frightens me sometimes.”

“Why?” she said softly.

A shadow passed over his features. “Justin has a dark side, Devon. You caught a glimpse of it last night. He can be so reckless, as if he doesn’t care about anything or anyone.”

He paused. “I love him,” he said suddenly. “You know that, don’t you? I don’t want you to think we’re constantly at each other’s throats.”

“I would never think that,” Devon stated immedi
ately. “I’ve seen the two of you together, remember?”

“We both behaved abominably. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to lose my temper, especially in front of you.”

“You don’t have to explain, Sebastian.”

“I want to,” he said quietly. “Justin can be outra
geous, and no one will care. No one will think twice about it. Justin doesn’t care a fig about scandal. But I do. Dear God, I still remember how people whis
pered and stared. At my father. At
us
. It lasted for years...”

Perhaps it was the way she looked at him. So earnest. The way she cocked her head to the side and listened. As if she understood the angry hurt that rent his childhood in two.

The ache of remembrance battered him. He tried to steel himself against it and failed. Suddenly it was all pouring out and he had no hope of stopping it. Maybe he didn’t
want
to stop it.