CHAPTER NINE
She had kissed him.
Sebastian had been awake since dawn, staring at the canopy above his bed, replaying the moment with the obsessive attention of a man who had lost all claim to rationality. Harriet’s flushed face as she admitted to him that she was willing to take the risk.
And then his hands on her face, and her lips against his, and seven years of longing crashing into a single, perfect moment.
She had kissed him back. That was the part his mind kept snagging on. He had initiated, yes, but she had responded with her fingers in his hair, her body leaning into his, a small sound in the back of her throat that he would remember until he died.
Harriet Fordshire…Harriet Vane, she was Harriet Vane now, his wife, legally and officially his wife, had kissed him back.
He was going to be of no use today.
Sebastian dragged himself out of bed and submitted to his valet's ministrations with less than his usual attention.
His cravat was probably crooked. But he couldn't bring himself to care.
All he could think about was the way she had looked at him afterward, flushed and breathless, saying this doesn't mean I like you with a smile that suggested otherwise.
She liked him. She might even…
No. He wouldn't let himself think that. Not yet. Hope was a dangerous thing, and Sebastian had learned long ago to keep it carefully contained. Harriet had kissed him. That was enough. That was more than enough. He would not ask for anything in return.
He arrived at the breakfast room before her, as had become his habit. The newspaper was deployed, the coffee poured, the mask of sardonic composure firmly in place. Whatever chaos was happening inside his chest, he would not let it show.
And then she walked in, and every carefully constructed defence crumbled to dust.
She was wearing a blue morning dress that brought out her eyes, her dark hair pinned up in a simple arrangement that made him want to pull out every pin and watch it tumble down.
She looked beautiful. She always looked beautiful.
But today there was something different, a softness in her expression, a hint of uncertainty that made his heart clench.
"Good morning, wife," he said, because he couldn't help himself.
She stopped in the doorway, her chin lifting in that familiar defensive gesture. "We are not discussing last night."
"I wasn't aware I had mentioned last night."
"You were thinking about it. I could tell."
"I think about many things. You flatter yourself."
The words came automatically, the banter being a shield they both hid behind.
But Sebastian was thinking about last night.
He would be thinking about last night for the rest of his natural life.
He would be ninety years old and senile and still remembering the exact pressure of her lips against his.
Harriet moved to the sideboard, selecting her breakfast with the focused attention of a general planning a campaign.
Sebastian watched her over the top of his newspaper, the graceful line of her neck, the way her fingers hesitated over the toast, the slight flush on her cheeks that suggested she was not as unaffected as she pretended.
She kissed me back, he thought again, and had to fight the urge to smile like an idiot.
"You're staring," Harriet said, without turning around.
"I'm reading my newspaper."
"You're staring at me over your newspaper. I can feel it."
"You cannot feel someone looking at you."
"I can feel you looking at me." She turned, plate in hand, and fixed him with a pointed look. "It's very distinctive."
"Is it? I shall have to work on being less distinctive."
"Please do."
She sat down across from him, and they ate in what might have been companionable silence if not for the electricity crackling between them. Every time Sebastian looked up, he found her looking away. Every time he looked down, he could feel her gaze on him.
This was torture. Exquisite, wonderful torture.
"The weather looks promising," he offered, because someone had to say something.
"Does it."
"I thought we might walk after breakfast. If you're amenable."
"I suppose that would be acceptable."
"High praise indeed."
Harriet's lips twitched. "Don't become accustomed to it."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
They finished breakfast in silence, but it was a different silence than before, charged with possibility, heavy with things unsaid. When Harriet rose to leave, Sebastian caught her hand.
She stilled, looking down at their joined fingers.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For last night."
"I didn't do anything."
"You let me kiss you. You kissed me back." He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. "That's not nothing, Harriet."
She was quiet for a moment. Then, so softly he almost missed it: "No. I suppose it's not."
She pulled her hand free and left the room, but not before Sebastian caught the hint of a smile on her lips.
He sat alone at the breakfast table for a long moment afterward, his coffee growing cold, his newspaper forgotten, thinking about that smile and what it might mean.
Hope was a dangerous thing. But perhaps, just perhaps, it was also a necessary one.
***
The walk was a disaster.
Not because anything went wrong, precisely, but because Sebastian could not stop noticing things. The way Harriet's hair caught the light. The way she gestured when she talked about the gardens. The way her hand occasionally brushed against his as they walked, sending sparks up his arm.
He had walked with her dozens of times before. He had spent years in her company, cataloguing every detail, memorising every expression. But everything felt different now. Heightened. As though the kiss had stripped away some protective layer and left him raw and exposed.
"You're very quiet," Harriet observed, as they paused near the ornamental lake.
"I'm enjoying the scenery."
"The scenery you've seen a hundred times before?"
"It looks different today."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed any changes."
You're the change, Sebastian thought but didn't say. You're looking at me differently, and it's making everything else look different too.
"Perhaps I'm simply in a contemplative mood," he said instead.
"You? Contemplative?" Harriet raised an eyebrow. "I thought you preferred to fill every silence with sardonic commentary."
"I'm capable of depth, you know. I contain multitudes."
"You contain an excessive amount of self-regard, certainly."
"That too."
She laughed, that warm, genuine laugh that he had worked so hard to earn. Sebastian felt something expand in his chest, threatening to crack his ribs.
I love you, he thought. I love you so much it terrifies me. I have loved you for seven years, and I will love you for seventy more, and I will never, ever deserve you.
He didn't say any of this. Instead, he picked up a stone and skipped it across the lake's surface.
“A gallant show…” Harriet muttered.
"Would you like me to teach you?"
"I know how to skip stones."
"Do you? I've never seen you attempt it."
"Because it's a pointless exercise. The stone sinks eventually regardless."
"That's rather pessimistic."
"It's realistic. All things end. The stone simply ends faster."
Sebastian turned to look at her, struck by the wistfulness in her voice. "Is that what you believe? That all things end, so there's no point in enjoying them while they last?"
Harriet was quiet for a moment, her gaze fixed on the lake. "I used to believe that. After Richard died, I believed it for a long time."
"And now?"
"Now..." She hesitated, and Sebastian saw her walls waver. "Now I'm trying to believe something different. That some things might last. That it might be worth hoping."
Sebastian's heart clenched. "Harriet…"
"Don't." She held up a hand. “It is not a matter of great importance. I'm simply... making an observation."
"An observation about hope."
"An observation about stones." She picked one up and threw it at the lake. It skipped twice before sinking. "There. I can skip stones. Are you satisfied?"
"Immensely."
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, and Sebastian thought that maybe, just maybe, they were both learning to hope again.
The second kiss happened three days later.
They were in the library, arguing about the arrangement of books on a shelf. It was, objectively, the most trivial disagreement they had ever had. Harriet insisted that books should be organised by subject; Sebastian maintained that alphabetical order was more logical.
"Alphabetical order makes no sense," Harriet said, her voice rising. "Why would you place a treatise on agriculture next to a novel about adultery simply because they both begin with A?"
"Because then you know where to find them. Subject categories are arbitrary and subjective."
"They're not arbitrary, they're intuitive. Anyone with half a brain would look for a book on gardening in the gardening section, not between Aristotle and Austen."
"Anyone with half a brain would learn the alphabet."
"You're impossible."
"And you're stubborn."
"I'm right."
"You're opinionated, which is not the same thing."
They were standing too close. Sebastian wasn't sure when that had happened. One moment they had been at opposite ends of the shelf; the next, they were inches apart, voices raised, cheeks flushed.
Harriet's eyes were blazing with irritation. Her chest was heaving with indignation. She looked, Sebastian thought distantly, absolutely magnificent.
"You are the most infuriating man I have ever met," she said.
"So you keep telling me."
"I cannot believe I…"
She didn't finish the sentence. Instead, she grabbed his lapels and kissed him.
Sebastian's brain stopped working.