CHAPTER FOURTEEN #3
Sebastian laughed, surprised by the lightness in her voice. This was the Harriet he had fallen in love with, sharp and quick and prone to outrageous declarations. This was the Harriet that London had been slowly grinding down.
He had known she was struggling. He had watched it happen, helpless to stop it, as month after month passed without a child and the whispers grew louder. He had held her after balls and dinner parties, feeling her cry against his chest, and felt a rage so profound it frightened him.
Not at Harriet. Never at Harriet. At the world that measured a woman's worth by her fertility. At the society that smiled to her face and shredded her behind her back. At his own powerlessness to fix the one thing that was breaking her.
He had money. He had influence. He had all the advantages that birth and fortune could provide. But he couldn't give her the one thing she wanted most. He couldn't make her body do what it refused to do. He couldn't protect her from the grief of empty months and dashed hopes.
All he could do was bring her here, to this quiet place, and hope that peace would heal what he could not.
"Come inside," he said. "The housekeeper should have everything ready."
They explored the cottage together, the cosy sitting room with its deep fireplace, the kitchen stocked with local provisions, the bedrooms with their views of the lake. It was smaller than what they were used to, simpler, with none of the grand furniture or elaborate decorations of Thornwood Park.
Sebastian loved it immediately.
"There's only one bedroom suitable for us," Harriet observed, peering into a chamber clearly meant for servants.
"Is that a problem?"
"No. I just..." She smiled, a real smile that reached her eyes. "It feels like an adventure. Like we're escaping from something."
"We are escaping from something. We're escaping from London."
"From society."
"From expectations."
"From everyone who has opinions about our matrimony." Harriet crossed to the window, looking out at the lake. "It feels almost scandalous, doesn't it? Running away in the middle of the Season."
"Deeply scandalous. I'm sure we'll be the subject of gossip for weeks."
"Good. Let them talk." She turned back to him, her expression fierce. "Let them wonder. Let them speculate. I don't care anymore. I just want…"
She stopped, struggling for words.
"What?" Sebastian asked gently. "What do you want?"
"To remember who I am. Who we are." Harriet shook her head. "Somewhere in the past two years, I lost myself. I became Lady Vane, the one who can't conceive. That became my entire identity. And I hate it. I hate how small it makes me feel."
Sebastian crossed to her, taking her hands in his. "You are so much more than that. You're a poet. A wit. A terrible chess player and an excellent debater. You throw bread at me when I'm being insufferable, and you always know when I'm lying, and you make me laugh even when I don't want to."
"That's a rather comprehensive list."
"I've been compiling it for years." He kissed her knuckles. "You are not defined by what your body can or cannot do. You are defined by who you are. And who you are is extraordinary."
Harriet's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "You really believe that?"
"I have never believed anything more."
She pulled him into an embrace, holding him tightly, her face pressed against his chest. Sebastian held her back and let himself feel, for just a moment, the profound relief of having her here, away from London, away from pressure, away from everyone who was slowly breaking her heart.
"Let's unpack," she said eventually, pulling back. "And then I want to walk. I want to see everything."
"Whatever you want."
"That's a dangerous promise."
"I know. I make it anyway."
***
The days settled into a rhythm.
They woke late, ate simple breakfasts of bread and cheese and fruit, and then walked.
They walked along the lake shore, through meadows dotted with wildflowers, up hills that offered views that stole Harriet's breath.
They walked until their legs ached and the sun began to set, and then they returned to the cottage and sat by the fire, talking about everything and nothing.
It was, Harriet thought, the happiest she had been in a very long time.
On the fourth day, she began to write again.
It started slowly…just a line or two, scribbled in the margins of a book.
But by the sixth day, she had filled an entire notebook with poems. They weren't happy poems. They were sad and raw and full of grief…
grief for the children she hadn't had, for the expectations she couldn't meet, for the woman she had been before all of this began.
But writing them helped. Somehow, getting the feelings out of her head and onto paper made them more bearable.
She showed Sebastian one of the poems, hesitantly, expecting him to look concerned or sympathetic. Instead, he read it with that expression that still made her breath catch the one of intense concentration, of genuine appreciation.
"This is beautiful," he said, when he finished.
"It's sad."
"Sad things can be beautiful." He looked up at her. "You should publish these."
"No one publishes female poets."
"Some do.” He handed the notebook back.
"These deserve to be read, Harriet. They're too good to keep hidden."
She turned the idea over in her mind as the days passed. Publishing. Putting her grief and her hopes and her fears out into the world for strangers to read. It was terrifying. It was also, she was beginning to realise, something she wanted.
But not yet. For now, it was enough to write. To have Sebastian believe in her. To be here, in this quiet place, remembering who she was.
***
On the tenth night, they finally talked about it properly.
They were sitting by the fire, Harriet curled against his side, watching the flames dance. The cottage was quiet around them, the silence broken only by the crackling of the wood and the distant sound of wind through the trees.
"I need to tell you something," Sebastian said.
Harriet lifted her head. "That sounds ominous."
"It's not. Or I hope it's not." He took a breath, organizing his thoughts. This was something he had been wanting to say for months, but there had never been a right moment. Perhaps there would never be a right moment. Perhaps he simply had to say it anyway.
"I don't care about an heir," he said. "About the title, the estate, any of it. If we never have children, I will not love you any less. I will not resent you. I will not spend the rest of my life wishing things were different."
Harriet was quiet for a moment. "The title would go to your cousin."
"My cousin Marcus is a perfectly adequate man. A bit dull, perhaps, but competent enough. He can have the title."
"Sebastian…"
"I mean it, Harriet." He turned to face her fully, needing her to see the truth in his eyes.
"I entered into matrimony with you because I love you.
Not because I needed you to produce children.
Not because I wanted a broodmare. I wanted you…
your wit and your fire and your stubborn refusal to let anyone tell you what to do.
If we never have children, I will still have exactly the life I wanted.
I will still consider myself the luckiest man in England. "
Harriet's face crumpled. For a moment, Sebastian thought he had said something wrong, had hurt her instead of helped. But then she was in his arms, crying against his chest, her tears soaking through his shirt.
"I was so afraid," she managed, between sobs.
"So afraid that eventually you would resent me. That you would look at me and see failure. That you would wish you had married someone else."
"Never." The word came out fierce, almost angry.
"I could never wish that. You are everything I ever wanted, Harriet. Everything."
"Even without children?"
"Even without children. Even without a title or an estate or anything else. You are enough. You have always been enough."
She cried for a long time, great heaving sobs that shook her whole body. Sebastian held her through all of it, stroking her hair, whispering reassurances, wishing he could take her pain and carry it himself.
When the tears finally subsided, she pulled back to look at him. Her eyes were red, her face blotchy, and her nose was running. She looked positively dreadful.
She had never been more beautiful.
"I love you," she said. "Have I mentioned that recently?"
"Not in the last hour."
"Well, I do. More than I know how to say." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I think I needed to hear that. What you said. I think I've needed to hear it for a long time."
"Then I should have said it sooner."
"You've said it before. I just wasn't ready to believe it." She leaned against him again, her weight warm and solid against his side. "I think I'm ready now."
They sat by the fire for a long time after that, not speaking, just being together. Sebastian felt something shift in Harriet, some tension that had been coiled tight for months finally beginning to ease.
It wasn't fixed. He knew that. Some wounds took longer than others to heal. But it was a start.
It was enough.
***
They visited Dove Cottage on a grey afternoon, clouds hanging low over the mountains.
It was smaller than Harriet had imagined a modest stone building with a slate roof and a garden that had been carefully restored to something approximating its historical state. This was where Wordsworth had lived and written, where he had composed the poems that had shaped English literature.
She stood in the tiny rooms, touching the walls, imagining the words that had been born here. It felt sacred, somehow. Like standing on holy ground.
"What are you thinking?" Sebastian asked.
"That he was brave. To write the way he did. To put his heart onto paper and send it out into the world." Harriet turned to look at him. "I don't know if I'm that brave."
"You're the bravest person I know."
"That's not true."