Johanna Lindsey by Marriage Most Scandalous

wouldn’t have married her if he’d known. Sebastian could have resisted her if he’d known. He didn’t trifle with married women.
    He’d actually considered himself lucky. There was the irony. Juliette was extremely lovely, vivacious, a bit too flamboyant for his usual tastes but so charming he’d been unable to resist her. He’d always enjoyed women, certainly didn’t turn down such blatant offers like Juliette’s. It wasn’t the first time he’d left a party with a rendezvous arranged.
    But it was the last time…
    Even if she instigated the duel that sent you packing?
    Good God, why? So she could marry him instead? Had that been her plan? She’d already seduced him, so she might have been confident that she could woo him to marriage as well—if Giles was out of the way. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t marry a divorced woman. The upper crust were still sticklers about that. A widow was acceptable, though. But did she really think he’d marry his best friend’
    s widow after he’d killed his best friend?
    He wouldn’t have, and that’s why the notion that he could have been set up had never occurred to him. But Juliette might not have known that, or she could have been counting on her charms to sway him.
    If that had been her plan, it had definitely gone awry when his father disowned him because of the duel and he’d left England. So had she settled for Denton instead? And perhaps Denton was on to her?
    Margaret said they fought all the time. That could be why.
    “Should I be packing, sir?”
    John had to repeat the question before Sebastian finally heard it and joined John at the table. “So you were listening?”
    “Of course.” John grinned. “Part of my job, don’t you know.”
    “Yes, we’ll leave in the morning. And maybe I will refurbish this place when we get back. I’ll need something to spend Lady Margaret’s money on.”
    John started to laugh. “You’re really going to charge her?” Sebastian raised a brow. “When this job was forced down my throat, as it were? I see no bloody difference in what Margaret pulled off due to a slip of my tongue and what that tyrant in Austria tried to do. Neither job would I have accepted without their blasted machinations. So you’re damned right I’m going to take every copper she’s got.”
    “I wouldn’t exactly call it a job, finding out what’s happening at home.”
    “No, but if I don’t treat it as one, then I won’t go. It’s that simple,” Sebastian said, then added, “I don’t exactly give a bloody damn if she blackens my name across the breadth of Europe.” He said it without anger, but the anger was there. You just had to know him really well to detect it.
    And then he shrugged.
    “It’s my own fault for being sarcastic with her. She wasn’t supposed to agree to that ridiculous price, but she did, so I’ll live with it.”
    “I don’t recall Lady Margaret as a child,” John remarked offhandedly. “Turned out to be quite a handsome woman, though, didn’t she?”
    Sebastian grunted noncommittally. He remembered little Maggie Landor as a precocious, daring chit who’d been snooping on her sister’s friends at Eleanor’s engagement party and had interrupted him while he’d been kissing one of them—deliberately, he didn’t doubt. She hadn’t shown the promise of turning out this pretty. Her sandy brown hair wasn’t remarkable, though her eyes were a striking dark brown, almost black. Rich sable came to mind. Her complexion wasn’t quite ivory but a blend of snowy cream. She wouldn’t tan well in the summer was his guess. She wore no makeup. Like many highbrows, she probably considered it too artificial. But then she needed none. Her dark lashes were naturally thick and long. Her dark brows were narrow, delicately arched. Her lips had their own rosy tint and a fullness that almost demanded a taste…
    She was on the petite side, her head barely reached his shoulders. But she wasn’t a narrow wisp of a chit.