Page 78 of A Virgin for the Ton's Wolf

He handed the reins of his horse to the groom back in Wolverton Estate and strode back up to his rooms without even greeting his guests or his mother.

After he had deposited the special license in his drawer, he stripped off his jacket and unknotted his cravat. Any other time, he might have summoned his valet to help him dispense with the unnecessary clothing, but he was in a dangerous enough mood. He pushed the sleeves up his forearms to wash off the dust and dirt from his impromptu journey when he heard it. A hesitant footstep, someone trying to approach unobserved.

Narrowing his eyes, he whirled quickly. His time on the battlefield had honed his reflexes to a deadly edge, and with his nerves and control frayed beyond recognition, he was a simmering pot waiting for the perfect opportunity to explode. In two rapid movements, he had managed to drop the enemy to the floor, immobilizing them.

Except this was no enemy, no foreign soldier wrestling with him in the mud and gore, but a vision draped in sage green fabric and smelling of flowers instead of gunpowder and death.

“You! What are you doing here?” he demanded, helping her up.

“Well, it is lovely to see you, too,” Scarlett grumbled. “You could have given me a warning before attacking me.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. Was she talking about manners when she was the one who was most inappropriately in his bedchamber?

“I… was not expecting to see you here,” he said instead.

She shrugged and casually sat down on his sofa. “I suppose I came here uninvited.”

It was a miracle the Dowager Countess still let her out of her sight after what happened at the ball last night. Hudson still did not trust himself to get within a mile of her, and right now, she was in his room. Sitting on his goddamned sofa.

The same sofa where he’d been wanting to do such… indecent things to her.

“And to what do I owe the purpose of this visit?” he asked hoarsely.

The sooner she stated her business, the sooner she could leave. Hudson was already struggling to concentrate when his head was swimming in her fragrance and his hands were itching to reach for those decadent curves he knew lay beneath the swathes of fabric she was wearing.

She tilted her head at him like a curious, little sparrow. “So, you have it then?”

“I have what?”

Bloody hell, but his mind was not functioning quite as well as he’d hoped this morning. Then again, it never did whenever he was in her vicinity.

“The special license,” she spoke softly, slowly, as if to a child. “Mama told me that you went to get one this morning.”

Yes. Yes, he did just that.

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you said a hasty marriage would only trumpet our guilt for all the world to see.”

No, not that. Not her guilt. It was always his burden to bear. Never hers.

“All the Dukes of Wolverton were wed in the chapel in this estate,” he told her. “I daresay the Archbishop had been waiting for this exact moment—when another Duke of Wolverton would come banging on his door for a license.”

She let out a snort that sounded very much like stifled laughter. Damn it, but that made everything seem infinitely better than when he’d woken up that morning to a raging headache and an even worse temper.

“Banging? Really?” She pursed her lips. “Are all the Dukes of Wolverton so cantankerous?”

“Not all of them.” Some of them were even worse.

“I see.”

No, she did not see, and it was best that it stayed that way.

“You must be tired after your journey,” she said, rising from the sofa in one smooth motion. “I should leave you to rest.”

Now, he was confused.

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it?”

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