The Reluctant Duke (A Seabrook Family Saga)(31)
When he danced with Miss Hamilton it would be a waltz. Because, bloody hell, he had to get his hands on her.
Hopefully, after he did dance with her, this crazy obsession he had––to hold her and to touch her––would end. Thomas frowned when Amesbury came up beside him.
“Should you not be taking this opportunity to dance with your Lady Beth?” Thomas asked.
The marquess shrugged his shoulders. “I will, in due time.”
“Where is Myles?” Thomas looked out on the dance floor and shook his head. “Never mind, I see he’s dancing with Lady Daphne. He’s wasting his time. She’s fortune hunting for her daddy to replenish the family coffers he so wastefully spent on his mistresses. I hear she is free with her favors as well. On second thought, Myles had said he didn’t want a virgin bride. She might just be the one.”
“Over my dead body,” Amesbury huffed.
Thomas cocked a brow.
“She is a stupid girl.” Amesbury added, “I’m quite certain she is still a virgin, although not an innocent. At least not when I––”
“Amesbury?”
“What? It was one little assignation in a dark garden last season. She giggled like a silly schoolgirl. She would never do for Myles.”
Shocked at his friend’s admission of seduction, Thomas tucked that to the back of his mind and eyed the dancers flitting across the ballroom floor. When he spotted Sebastian and Emma dancing and laughing as they changed partners, then came back to each other again, he made a rude noise.
“Did I just hear you snort?” Amesbury asked, smirking.
“No, you did not,” Thomas grumbled.
“Who is the lucky young lady attracting the eye of the famed Duke of Wentworth? Otherwise known as the ‘Reluctant Duke?’” His friend snickered.
“Sod off.” Thomas stormed away and wandered out onto the veranda to cool his temper. When he spied three of the most persistent marriage-mart mamas he detoured back, hoping he hadn’t been seen. The Season was not an enjoyable time for a single, titled gentleman who wanted to remain that way.
***
Emma’s heart pounded and her head spun as she took to the dance floor for the fifth time in a row. She was once again dancing with Sebastian. It was her first waltz and the first time she had ever been this close to a man. No wonder some places banned the waltz. It did feel indecent with her hand clasped within Sebastian’s and his other hand resting lightly on her waist, her hand on his shoulder.
“You do realize this is our last dance this evening?” Sebastian said. Emma smiled up into his face as he twirled her gracefully around the dance floor. Sebastian danced as though his feet hardly touched the ground. She had not realized gentlemen could be so light-footed.
He grinned teasingly down at her. “If we dance a third time people will take it as a sign we’re betrothed.”
“Oh!” Emma didn’t look at him; rather she looked around to see who watched them.
***
Sebastian winced at the sound of Emma’s ‘oh’ and tried to ignore the sudden tensing of her body. Did she not find him worthy to be her husband?
They made another sweeping turn around the floor, and he found his brother’s eyes openly glaring at them. No. Not at them. More precisely, at Emma––with a possessiveness that sent icy tingles up Sebastian’s spine.
Bloody hell! Did Thomas want Emma for himself? He would not dare… Thomas would have to be blind not to have seen the way Sebastian looked at Emma. The way Sebastian already longed for her and craved her attention. He knew his feelings were obvious to anyone who knew him.
Sebastian would discuss his feelings for Emma with his brother later that evening. He could not bear to lose Emma to his brother––or to any other man, for that matter.
Staring down into her upturned face and holding her close seemed the most natural thing to him. Never, ever had he burned for anyone like he did for this young American. All he had to do was hear her soft voice and heat burned down low in his belly. His body craved hers, and he knew damn well if he visited a ladybird it would not help. Only Emma would do.
Though he was younger than Thomas by four years, and his brother still saw him as a young lad, he was anything but. He had lived and experienced love and life just as the duke had. And he’d run the estates here for over a year in his brother’s absence, even improved some things.
Still, because he had the misfortune to be born the second son, he knew finding true love would be difficult for him within the ton. Most of the silly females around him wanted a title. Well, he didn’t want any of them anyway.
Emma was different.
And Sebastian wanted Emma. He wanted Emma to love him for himself and not for some stupid title he did not possess or ever want to possess. Though he had to admit, if she wanted a title, over simply having him, he’d yearn for that title, too.