But the parties and the bill weren’t what truly had Sebastian in the devil’s own mood tonight. He could handle those insignificant bothers deftly enough. No. Tonight he was in a rotten temper because Lord Hazelton—that unmitigated arse—had had the temerity to ask Sebastian about his wife. His least favorite subject.

“How is the duchess?” Hazelton had drawled in a fake-innocent voice as if he hadn’t the faintest clue what a sore subject the duchess was for Sebastian. “Seems as if Society has been missing her for a bit. She’s not ill again, is she?”

It was longer than ‘a bit’ and they both bloody well knew it. It had been two years. Two years and three months, to be precise, but who was keeping count? Regardless, it would be a frigid day in Hades before Sebastian let a fool like Hazelton see that he’d been affected by his words.

“She’s well,” Sebastian had answered smoothly. Clearly, he’d used the excuse that Veronica was ill one too many times. “I’ll have to speak with my lady about gracing London’s ballrooms more often.”

Hazelton knew it was a damn lie. The entire ton knew Veronica had left Sebastian. Or at least the rumor mill had been correct when it reported that she’d packed her trunks only two months after their enormous July wedding and left for their country estate in Essex. Noticeably without her husband, with whom she’d appeared to be so in love only days prior.

No one had seen her since. Least of all, Sebastian. But he had it on good authority from his closest friend and Veronica’s brother, Justin Whitmoreland, that she was, in fact, alive and well, if still nursing a huge grudge against her husband. A grudge Sebastian wholeheartedly returned. But he’d be damned before he admitted to the ton that at the age of eight and twenty, he’d been left by his wife. Instead, he’d done what any good nobleman would do under the same circumstances and acted as if nothing was amiss. Her Grace merely preferred the countryside as far as Sebastian was concerned, and he needn’t explain that to a bloody soul. How he would explain that he hadn’t produced an heir and never would, was a different matter entirely, and one that he refused to dwell on for long. Whenever the disturbing thought arrived on the doorstep of his mind, he ignored it completely, preferring instead to toss himself into his work, his boxing matches, or Parliamentary proceedings. Anything to take his mind off the fact that not only had he failed as a husband, but he also would never be a father.

Justin helped a great deal in perpetuating the illness story, and between the two of them they’d managed to, if not convince anyone that Her Grace was in the countryside for reasons other than an unhappy marriage, at least generate enough doubt that no one had asked Sebastian directly for the truth…until Hazelton’s little venture today.

And of course that arse hadn’t left it at that. “Excellent,” Hazelton had replied. “So, Her Grace will be at our Twelfth Night ball next month? She’s missed the last two, I seem to recall.”