Page 19 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"Quite the opposite, as I recall."

Sebastian gave him a flat look.

Tristan grinned and swirled his drink. "She said you were the most demanding man she had ever encountered. You were dreadfully particular about how you wanted her, exactly how long, exactly where a woman's hands ought to be and where they ought not. She was absolutely ravaged."

"She had a limited range of experience." His mouth twitched. "Tristan, I decline to discuss Lady Ashbourne further with you."

"You never decline to discuss anything with me, which is rather the entire foundation of our friendship." Tristan set down his glass, and something more genuine crept into his voice beneath the teasing. "I only mean, Sebastian, that a man so particular about everything else in his life is unlikely to settle for a wife chosen purely for convenience. You would want someone capable of matching you. Genuinely matching you, not merely tolerating you, which I begin to suspect is a considerably rarer creature than either of us has yet encountered."

"I have no intention of marrying at all, matched or otherwise." Sebastian set his pen down properly this time, meeting Tristan's gaze across the desk. "I have seen precisely what a wife does to a household, Tristan. I watched my father's judgment corrode by degrees over the whole of his marriage, until there was nothing left of the man I am told he once was, only the shell of a title going through the motions his duchess required of him. I have no wish to discover whether I would fare any better."

He studied Sebastian for a moment, the teasing gone from his expression, and then gave a small nod. "Fair enough."

Sebastian picked up his pen again.

Tristan rose from the chair and straightened his waistcoat.

"I should stay and torment you further, but I have a lady waiting, and unlike you, I do not believe in disappointing women unnecessarily."

Sebastian glanced up. "With whom?"

"With Miss Eleanor Vane." Tristan's grin widened.

"I thought you had already met her."

"I did. She requires my company for a second time."

"Be gentle with her, she has a frail frame."

"I make no promises."

Tristan opened the door, then paused and looked back.

"And Sebastian?"

"What?"

"I will say, for a man so entirely uninterested in the woman in purple, you have spent a remarkable morning proving otherwise."

"Leave."

Tristan laughed and walked down the corridor.

And, with the faintest trace of amusement still at the corner of his mouth, Sebastian returned to his work.

Or attempted to. He read the opening paragraph of his latest paper twice. Then a third time.

The argument was sound. He had tested it against the principal sources, checked the translations himself, and revised the conclusion twice before allowing the draft onto his desk. There was nothing in it that required alteration. At least, there had not been yesterday.

Sebastian picked up his pen.

The evidence demonstrates that⁠—

He stopped. the mysterious woman’s voice came back to him with irritating clarity.

You have not yet earned the right to know my name.

His jaw tightened. He crossed out three words.