Page 51 of Marriage Most Scandalous
Margaret bit her lip. “I’d really prefer that you wait a day or two to question him until he can regain some of his strength. The fever drained him, as did the loss of blood, and he’s barely eaten anything yet to help him recover because he’s slept almost all day.”
“You really think he’ll keep to his bed that long?”
“I think he’ll need to follow the doctor’s orders for at least a few days.”
“Very well. That will give John time to nose about in the lower quarters, I suppose. By the by, Maggie, have you had a chance to think about my suggestion of a trade?”
She gasped at his audacity in bringing that up again, but before she could reply, he drew her to him there at the top of the stairs and kissed her hard, almost angrily. It caught her completely off guard. Considering what they’d been discussing, it was also uncalled for, leaving her to wonder if Sebastian had been thinking about kissing her the whole time without giving her the least clue that he was.
There was no getting out of his hold, either, not that she had any thought in that direction at the moment. He had one hand gripping her derriere, one firmly across her back, and both were pressing her so close to him that she could feel his arousal.
Despite her resolve to resist him, desire rose up in her with alarming swiftness, so it was a few minutes before she managed to break away to give him an answer.
“That suggestion was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“In other words, no?”
“Most definitely no.”
“Then I’ll have to think of some other way to improve my sleeping arrangements,” he said idly.
He left her there to wonder what he meant by that.
Chapter 28
THERE WERE ONLY TWO PEOPLEin the dining room when Margaret arrived, grandmother and grandson. And she caught them laughing. Not for the first time, she thought how incredibly different Sebastian was when he was around Abbie. Like night and day. It made her yearn to know the old Sebastian ...
Sebastian rose from his seat when he saw her, and Abigail said, “There you are, m’dear,” and patted the seat on the other side of her.
Margaret hesitated to take that particular seat, which would put her directly across from Sebastian. But since they were the only three there and quite possibly would remain just three for dinner, she couldn’t very well refuse. And besides, Sebastian was courteously holding the chair out for her with an amused expression on his face. It reminded her of how this family used to fight for her attention. Douglas had wanted her to sit near him, Juliette had wanted her to sit near her, and Abigail had wanted the same. And of course those three camps had never sat near each other, so it used to be a matter of who spoke up first when she arrived at the dinner table.
No sooner had she sat down when Sebastian asked Abigail, “You don’t hear that?”
“Course I do, but it’s just a normal sound in this house, sort of like the pots banging in the kitchen.”
“Someone should mention to the two people making this ‘normal sound’ that they should be more considerate while Douglas is convalescing,” Sebastian said.
Abigail chuckled. Margaret couldn’t help smiling herself, he’d said that so dryly. The noise, of course, was the muffled shouts of Denton and Juliette fighting upstairs. And Abigail hadn’t exaggerated. It really was a normal sound in this house, so normal that half the time the inhabitants didn’t notice it. But Sebastian had a point. Douglas needed to rest, and his son and daughter-in-law’s shouting at each other down the corridor was definitely going to disturb him.
“I’ll speak to them,” Margaret offered as she chose one of the two wines the footman came forward to present to her. “I’m sure they can be persuaded to take their battles outside for a few days.”
“Not refrain from having them?” Sebastian queried.
Abigail snorted. “That would be asking a bit much. We’ve all tried—uselessly.”
The shouting got louder, indicating that they were coming downstairs. In fact, they could all hear Denton clearly now saying, “I don’t give a bloody damn whether you want to face him or not. He’s here. Deal with it.”
“You will regret this—!”
“I’m sick to death of hearing that as well. Say it again and I may be the one you need to fear.”
“You don’t care if he knows?” Juliette’s voice sounded amazed.
“By God, I may tell him myself.”
A laugh, full of scorn. “You won’t.”
Was Denton actually dragging her downstairs? Yes, he was, which was apparent when he shoved her into the room ahead of him. Juliette jerked her arm out of his grasp, stiffly straightened her clothes, and then, without a glance at the others in the room, took the seat as far away from Abigail’s end of the table as she could get, without actually sitting in Douglas’s chair.
