Loving Lady Georgianna (Spirited #2)

Chapter 33

Sebastian Bartholomew Stuart, sixth Duke of Burkeley, listened to the door shut with a clack as the quiet of his study surrounded him. Light split through the curtains, causing dust motes to dance before him and he groaned, rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

By god, but it had been a day.

Making his way to his chair, his heavy weight sunk in, the furniture groaning beneath his bulk. He was a big man and his father had been before him. It was custom made with fine upholstery and sturdy wooden legs, but Bastien still felt oversized for it.

But confound it! Bastien had had a day from hell and it only made sense that someone—or something—else should suffer right beside him.

Hesitating, Bastien glanced around his study, surveying the surroundings and dark corners of it, but when he was assured that it was just him within, he sunk deeper into the chair. Bastien laid his head back, letting his body loose in a lazy sprawl. In this moment, Bastien could just...be.

It was something Bastien could show anyone else. The sheer will it took to keep up his reserved mein. When he had been just a boy, Bastien remembered glorying in his position. In the dukedom. It was a lofty feeling for a child who was a touch too scrawny, his collarbone protruding and his dark hair a shaggy mane over his forehead. For all intents and purposes, he had been a weakling. Sickly and outcasted from his peers, so what did it matter if he closed himself off still further. Become what was expected of him and worked damn hard to strengthen his muscles and have a formidable presence.

Although there had always been that one person who had seen right through him. That made him want to say to hell with the dukedom and show her just how bad he could be...

But those thoughts wouldn't lead him anywhere. He basked in the silence of the room until it too became heavy, oppressive.  Those familiar stirrings began to build deep within his chest and his palms sweated as he sat up straight. He fisted a hand against his chest, knowing that despite the action, it wouldn't soothe the unrest inside him.

His vision wavered.

Bastien detested the momentary weakness, but hadn't it always been thus? Beating his panic into submission and portraying to the world that which was his right.

His due.

His curse, more like.

Palms sweating, Bastien set his hands on his desk, breathing through the unbearable pain. He hung his head between his arms. In another few minutes, the sensation would pass, the tightness would ease, and everything would be alright.

Perhaps, Bastien decided, he should go to White's, get lost in one of the many chairs and rooms, hidden away behind the clouds of cheroot smoke and the prattle of gentleman talking and laughing. At least there, he didn't feel half alive.

As if every last breath would be his last.

That gel has made a fool of you. Your father would roll in his grave, knowing the laughingstock that has come of our reputation. 

Lady Elizabeth's words rattled in his skull. It was a refrain he had heard all too often, dogging his every move. No matter how hard he tried, how much he studied, or how put together he was.

Duty sat heavily upon Bastien's shoulders and he bowed under its weight, but alongside that came an image of Miss Sophie Beaumonte. Her blond hair gleaming bright against his eyelids, and with it, he felt the damnable pressure lift the barest of millimeters. She always had a careless smile on her features and a glint in her golden eyes. Not only that, but the woman seemed to have an ease about her, unruffled and unflappable, as if she were amused by the trappings of society as much as she dared the world to challenge her.