* * *
A duke had no business attending an investment summit. Glances followed Sebastian around Greenfield’s town house, and he knew he would have raised less gossip trawling a low-class bordello. But men like Julien Greenfield wouldn’t pass insider information on to Sebastian’s investment manager, nor over a discreet dinner; officially grace my home, and receive first-class intelligence in return, that was the deal. Even business was never to be had without the politics, certainly not without the petty power plays.
Greenfield plucked two brandy tumblers from a tray floating past. “I suggest we proceed to the sitting room; these chaps are really keen to make your personal acquaintance,” he said, handing one glass to Sebastian and wrapping his plump hand around the other.
Sebastian carried his untouched drink down the corridor, listening to Greenfield’s assessment of the diamond mine of which Sebastian planned to become a shareholder. The two South African business partners in Greenfield’s sitting room could potentially add a million pounds to his accounts, depending on how trustworthy he found them.
His first impression was promising: firm handshakes, good eye contact. The younger of the two had started out as a mining engineer, so he knew the business inside out and his description of the current project status matched the information Sebastian’s man had compiled on the duo.
Disaster struck when he caught a familiar figure from the corner of his eye.
The businessman’s speech turned into meaningless noise.
Annabelle.
There on an easel, guarded by a footman, was a life-sized, breathtaking, glowing version of Annabelle.
Her green eyes stared back at him heavy-lidded with some private triumph. Her shoulders were thrown back, her hair whipping about her like the flame of a torch in a storm. From below the hem of her clinging white gown peeked a familiar pale foot.
A giant fist seemed to squeeze the air from his lungs.
Hell. He was in a peculiar sort of hell, where all paths always circled back to the same thing.
He drew closer to the painting as if in a dream, his gaze riveted on her face.
He had stroked these proud cheekbones; he had kissed the fine nose. He had felt this lush mouth on his cock.
Two men were at her feet, bare-chested and on their knees, one dark, one fair, their heads tilted back to glower at her with a rather too-familiar expression of awe and resentment and longing.
Helen of Troy, not as a prize, but as a vindicated puppet master.
“I see you’re admiring my daughter’s handiwork,” Greenfield remarked.
Sebastian grunted.
“Extraordinary, isn’t she?” Greenfield tipped his glass toward Annabelle. “Before my own daughter nagged me into letting her go up to Oxford, I was convinced all bluestockings sported beards and warts. Imagine my surprise when she introduced this young woman to us at your New Year’s Eve ball. I stood happily corrected.”
“I’d stand happily,” the engineer said. “I’d launch a thousand ships for that.”
“I say, she’d launch me,” drawled the older one, and they all sniggered.
“How much,” Sebastian said, his voice edged with such menace that the sniggering stopped abruptly. “How much for this?”
Greenfield’s bushy brows flew up. “Now, I don’t think it is considered for sale—”
“Come now, Greenfield,” Sebastian said, “everything has a price.”
The banker sobered. This language, he understood. “It is certainly negotiable,” he said. “I’m sure Harriet could be moved to part with it for ample compensation.”
“Excellent,” said Sebastian. He knocked back the brandy in one gulp and set his tumbler down hard on a sideboard. “Have it wrapped and sent to my house in Wiltshire. Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
He stalked from the house, leaving a trail of worried and bemused people in his wake who had accidentally been hit by his black stare. A murmur rose: Did you see the aloof Duke of Montgomery storming out of Greenfield’s place, looking dark and mercurial like Vulcan himself?
Meanwhile, the ducal landau was on course to Victoria Station at breakneck speed.
* * *
The back garden of Claremont smelled of mud and dead leaves.
“Your Grace!” Stevens looked pleasantly surprised to see Sebastian striding toward the stables in the fading evening light.
“Prepare my horse,” said Sebastian. “Only him. I’m going alone.”
Stevens’s eyes widened as he registered his employer’s mood, and a short time later, he led a saddled and haltered Apollo from the stable. The stallion released an accusing whinny when it spotted Sebastian, and he absently scrubbed the soft nose that was thrust at his chest.
“He missed his master,” Stevens supplied. “Bit McMahon on the behind the other day.”
Sebastian frowned. “Have you moved him at all?”
“Not too much, no. The weather was naught but rain for the past few days; fields are soft as mush. He might be a wee bit skittish, Your Grace.”
He contained Apollo on the ride down the drive. Tightly coiled tension vibrated in the animal’s muscle and sinew, a spring ready, oh so ready to be launched. One slight tap of his heels, an inch of give in the reins, and they would take off unstoppably like a shot.
He had avoided his country home lately, because everything in Claremont reminded him of her. The harder he tried to keep control, to keep the thoughts and emotions firmly buried, the more anarchical it all became, as if a lifetime of leashed passion had broken free and was coming for him with vengeance, as if he had only been spared the lunacy of love before because he had been destined to be brought down by this particular woman.
In another life, he would have made her his wife. She’d already be his wife.
They emerged from the drive and acres of fields opened to either side of them. The twilight leached the colors from the trees, the soil, the sky. Gray, gray, gray.
Enough, he vowed. Enough of this.
He’d leave London and return to Claremont. He’d return everything to normal; he always did.
He leaned forward in the saddle, and a jolt went through Apollo.
They galloped along the path, then veered off onto the field headlong to the distant forest. The wind bit his face like a blade. Cold tears streaked across his cheeks from the corners of his eyes as speed overran his senses, the rapid thud thud thud, the whistling in his ears, the landscape rushing at him. The mind became a blank; there was only focus, speed, the cold.
Enough, enough, enough.
He ran Apollo harder, faster, until the forest loomed at the edge of the field like a dark mass.