CHAPTER TWO
She did not sleep well.
Oh, she tried. She changed into her chemise behind the screen, slipped beneath the covers of her bed, and closed her eyes with every intention of surrendering to exhaustion.
But her mind refused to quiet. It kept circling back to the evening's conversation, to Sebastian's unexpected vulnerability, to the way he had spoken about Richard with such obvious grief.
I keep expecting to see him. Isn't that strange?
It wasn't strange at all. Harriet did the same thing, caught glimpses of her brother in crowds, heard echoes of his laugh in strangers' voices, and woke sometimes with the certainty that he was just in the next room, waiting for her to join him for breakfast.
Grief was strange that way. It didn't fade so much as transform, becoming part of the landscape rather than the whole of it. You learned to navigate around it, to build your life in its shadow, but it never truly disappeared.
She wondered if Sebastian had anyone to share his grief with.
Richard had been his closest friend, she knew that much.
But who else? Sebastian was not known for his warmth or his willingness to form attachments.
He moved through society with the same sardonic detachment he had displayed tonight, keeping everyone at arm's length.
Everyone except Richard. And now Richard was gone.
Stop it, she told herself firmly. You are not going to feel sorry for Sebastian Vane. He laughed at your poetry. He humiliated you in front of your family. Whatever loneliness he feels, he has brought upon himself.
But the words rang hollow, even in her own mind.
The truth was, she didn't know why Sebastian had laughed that day.
She had never asked, had never given him the chance to explain.
She had simply decided he was cruel and built her hatred upon that foundation, brick by careful brick, until the wall was too high to see over.
The type who builds walls. Very high ones.
Curse him for seeing that. Curse him for naming it so precisely.
From across the room came the sound of movement, sheets rustling, and the creak of the bed frame. Sebastian, apparently, was not sleeping either.
"Are you awake?" His voice came soft through the darkness.
Harriet considered pretending otherwise. But what was the point? "Yes."
"Ah. I had hoped one of us might find rest."
"It would seem not."
A pause. Then: "Would you like to talk? Sometimes I find conversation more restful than silence."
"What would we talk about?"
"I don't know. Anything. Nothing." Another pause. "We could discuss the weather. I understand it's a traditional topic for English people who have nothing else in common."
Despite herself, Harriet felt her lips twitch. "The weather is abysmal. There. I believe that exhausts the subject."
"You undersell yourself. We could discuss the variations in abysmal, the particular quality of the rain, the intensity of the wind, the probability of flooding by morning…"
"Lord Vane."
"Sebastian. If we're going to be awake together in the dark, we might as well dispense with formalities."
Her name would be the reciprocal offering. The expected exchange. But something in her resisted giving him her Christian name as it felt too intimate, and too much like surrender.
"I am not certain we are on first-name terms," she said instead.
"We are sharing a bedchamber. I should think that qualifies."
"Under duress. I did specify the badger option first."
"So you did. Though I maintain the badger should feel insulted by the comparison."
Harriet found herself almost smiling. This was... not what she had expected. This easy back-and-forth, this gentle teasing. It felt dangerously close to comfortable.
"Why don't you sleep well?" she asked, surprising herself. "You mentioned demons. Regrets."
The silence stretched long enough that she thought he might not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was different, quieter, stripped of its usual sardonic edge.
"I said things I shouldn't have. Did things I can't undo. The usual litany of human failure." A soft, humourless laugh. "I'm not certain I deserve to sleep well, most nights. Perhaps the insomnia is penance."
"That's rather melodramatic."
"Yes, well. It's easier to be melodramatic in the dark. The light demands more dignity."
Harriet turned onto her side, facing the direction of his voice even though she couldn't see him. "What did you say? What did you do?"
"If I told you, you would only add it to your list of reasons to despise me."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps not. I've learned recently that my list may not be as accurate as I believed."
Another long silence. When Sebastian spoke again, his voice was careful, measured.
"There was a moment," he said slowly. "Years ago. When I could have chosen kindness, and instead I chose... something else. Fear, perhaps. Pride, certainly. I've regretted it ever since."
Harriet's heart was beating faster than it should. She had the strangest feeling that they were approaching something important, some truth that had been waiting years to be spoken.
"What moment?" she asked.
But Sebastian only sighed, and when he answered, the wall was back in place. "It doesn't matter now, as it is a thing of the past. We should try to sleep, the morning will come whether we're ready for it or not."
"Sebastian…"
"Goodnight, Lady Harriet."
The finality in his tone brooked no argument. Harriet lay in the darkness, listening to the storm and the crackle of the dying fire, and wondered what he had been about to tell her.
She was still wondering when sleep finally, mercifully, claimed her.
***
The storm broke sometime before dawn. Harriet woke to pale grey light filtering through the windows, the rain reduced to a gentle patter, and the unfamiliar sensation of having slept deeply despite everything.
She lay still for a moment, disoriented, before the events of the previous night came flooding back.
Sebastian. The room. The conversation in the dark.
She turned her head carefully, half expecting to find him watching her from across the room. But his bed was empty, the covers thrown back, and through the gap in the dressing screen she could see that the door stood slightly ajar.
Her first emotion was relief as she would not have to face him immediately, or have to navigate the awkwardness of a shared morning. Her second emotion, following close on the first, was something she refused to examine too closely.
She rose and dressed quickly, doing what she could with her hair in the absence of her maid.
The face that looked back at her from the small mirror above the washstand was pale and tired, with shadows under her blue eyes that no amount of cold water could banish.
But there was nothing to be done about it now.
She found Sebastian in the inn's small dining room, seated at a table near the window with a cup of coffee and a newspaper.
He looked... different, somehow. Or perhaps she was simply seeing him differently.
In the grey morning light, without the drama of firelight and storm, he seemed more ordinary… .more human.
He rose as she approached, a courtesy she had not expected.
"Good morning," he said. "The roads are still muddy, but the innkeeper believes they'll be passable within the hour. I've taken the liberty of ordering breakfast."
"You do seem fond of taking liberties."
"Old habits." He pulled out a chair for her, another unexpected courtesy. "Did you sleep?"
"Eventually. You?"
"Eventually."
They regarded each other across the table, and Harriet was struck again by how strange this was ,sharing breakfast with Sebastian Vane as though they were acquaintances, or even friends, rather than two people who had spent seven years pointedly ignoring each other.
"About last night," she began, not entirely sure what she meant to say.
Sebastian held up a hand. "There's nothing to discuss. We were both tired, both... melancholy. Things were said that needn't be repeated in the light of day."
"I wasn't going to…"
"I know." His smile was brief, perfunctory. "I merely wished to spare us both the awkwardness of acknowledging it."
Harriet felt a flash of irritation. There he was again, behind his wall, the sardonic, distant Lord Vane she had always known. As though the man who had spoken to her in the darkness, who had admitted to regrets and sleepless nights, had never existed at all.
"As you wish," she said coolly. "I shall endeavour to forget the entire conversation."
"That would be best."
They ate in silence after that, the easy rapport of the previous night replaced by something stiff and formal. Harriet told herself this was preferable as this was the relationship she knew how to navigate.
But some small part of her, a part she refused to acknowledge mourned the loss of whatever had begun to grow between them in the dark.
***
The journey to Fordshire Park took longer than expected.
The roads, despite the innkeeper's optimism, were in deplorable condition.
Sebastian's carriage, larger and better sprung than Harriet's hired vehicle, handled the ruts and puddles with reasonable grace, but progress was still agonisingly slow. They had agreed, without discussion that Harriet would travel in Sebastian’s carriage while her hired conveyance followed behind but this arrangement meant spending several hours in close proximity with nothing to do but stare out the window and pretend the other person didn't exist.
It was, Harriet thought, going to be a very long journey.
For the first hour, they maintained their silence.
Harriet watched the countryside roll past, green fields turning to brown mud, bare trees stark against the grey sky and tried not to think about how aware she was of Sebastian's presence across from her.
He had a newspaper, produced from somewhere, and was ostensibly reading it, though she noticed that the pages turned with suspicious regularity.