CHAPTER FOURTEEN #4
"It's absolutely true. You've faced more adversity in the past two years than most people face in a lifetime. And you're still standing. You're still fighting." He took her hand. "That takes courage, Harriet."
She looked back at the small room, at the window through which Wordsworth must have gazed a thousand times. "I want to try. Publishing, I mean. When we get back."
"Do you?"
"I think so. I'm terrified, but I think that means I should do it." She squeezed his hand. "Will you help me?"
"Of course. Whatever you need."
"I might need a pseudonym. Something appropriately mysterious."
"Might I suggest something classical? Sappho, perhaps?"
"Too obvious. Everyone would know immediately."
"Hmm. What about something botanical? Rose Thornwood?"
"That sounds like a character in a Gothic novel."
"Exactly. Very marketable."
Harriet laughed, surprising herself. "You're ridiculous."
"Ridiculously supportive of my wife's literary ambitions, yes."
They walked back to the cottage through a light rain, their hands intertwined, talking about poems and publishers and pseudonyms. Harriet felt something that she had almost forgotten existed: hope.
Not hope for a child. She was trying to let go of that, as her mother had suggested. But hope for herself. Hope for her writing. Hope for a future that didn't revolve around her body's failures.
It was a strange feeling. Fragile and new. But it was there, blooming quietly in her chest.
And for now, that was enough.
***
The letter from London arrived on a rainy afternoon.
Sebastian was sitting by the window, reading, while Harriet wrote at the small desk they had positioned for optimal lake views. The domestic scene was so peaceful, so ordinary, that he found himself reluctant to open the letter.
It was from Lady Fordshire, her familiar handwriting bold and decisive on the envelope.
"News from your mother," he said, slicing the seal.
Harriet looked up. "Is everything quite all right?"
"Let me see." Sebastian scanned the contents. "The mining income from Fordshire Park is exceeding expectations. Your mother is considering renovations to the east wing."
"How exciting."
"There's also gossip." Sebastian smiled slightly. "It seems Lady Davies is having a difficult time of it. Her husband is rumored to be conducting an affair with a widow in Surrey, and their son…" He paused, rereading the line.
"…apparently bears a striking resemblance to the family's former stable master."
Harriet's eyebrows rose. “Surely you jest?”
"I'm reading your mother's exact words…The child has the Sinclair colouring but the Jameson chin, and everyone has noticed."
"The stable master's name was Jameson?"
"Apparently so."
Harriet was quiet for a moment. Then she burst out laughing real, genuine laughter that shook her whole body.
"How unfortunate for them," she managed, wiping her eyes.
"Terribly unfortunate."
"I should feel sorry for her. Lady Davies, I mean. It must be humiliating."
"Should you?"
"I don't, though." Harriet shook her head. "Is that terrible? She was so cruel to me, and now..." She trailed off. "It seems wrong to take pleasure in her suffering."
"Perhaps. But it also seems very human." Sebastian set the letter aside. "Lady Davies made her choices. She wedded Davies knowing what kind of man he was. She built her sense of worth on being superior to others. Now she's facing the consequences."
"I suppose." Harriet turned back to the window, her expression thoughtful. "It's strange, isn't it? A year ago, I would have given anything to have what she has. A husband, an heir, the approval of society. Now..."
"Now?"
"Now I realise that none of it would have made me happy.
Not without love. Not without this." She gestured at the cottage, the lake, the quiet life they had built here.
"Lady Davies has everything I thought I wanted, and she's miserable.
I have nothing that society values, and I'm..." She paused, as if surprised by her own words. "Happy. I'm actually happy."
Sebastian felt something ease in his chest. This was what he had hoped for…not just escape from London, but actual healing. Actual peace.
"I'm glad," he said quietly. "That's all I've ever wanted for you."
"I understand," She crossed the room to him, settling onto the arm of his chair.
"You're rather wonderful, you know. In case I don't say it often enough."
"You could say it more often. I wouldn't object."
"You're wonderful. Adequate. Occasionally tolerable."
"That's quite a range."
"I contain multitudes."
He laughed and pulled her into his lap, and they sat together watching the rain fall on the lake, and Sebastian thought that he would happily spend the rest of his life exactly like this.
***
The storm trapped them inside for two full days.
It came without warning, the sky darkening, the wind rising, the rain lashing against the windows with a fury that made the cottage shake. Harriet, who had feared storms since childhood, found herself curling against Sebastian as thunder rolled across the mountains.
"It's just a storm," he murmured, his arms wrapped around her.
"I know. I'm being irrational."
"You're being human. There's nothing wrong with being afraid."
She pressed her face against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, letting it anchor her. "Richard used to sit with me during storms. When we were children. He would tell me stories to distract me."
"What kind of stories?"
"Adventure stories, mostly. Pirates and explorers and daring escapes. He was terrible at them, the plots never made sense and he kept forgetting his own characters, but it helped."
"Would you like me to try?"
Harriet lifted her head. "You want to tell me a story?"
"I could attempt it. I should warn you, I've never done this before. It will probably be even worse than Richard's."
"I find that difficult to believe."
"Your faith in me is touching."
But he did try, and he was, as predicted, terrible at it.
The story involved a sea captain named Bartholomew, a treasure map that kept changing locations, and a villain whose motivation Sebastian kept forgetting.
Harriet found herself laughing more than cringing, and by the time the thunder had faded to a distant rumble, she had nearly forgotten her fear.
"That was dreadful," she said, when he finished.
"I warned you."
"You did. And yet somehow it was worse than I expected."
"A rare achievement."
She kissed him, soft and slow. "Thank you. For trying."
"I'll try anything for you. Even storytelling."
They spent the rest of the storm reading aloud to each other actual books, this time, not Sebastian's improvised disasters. They played cards, which Harriet won handily. They talked about their childhoods, their fears, their hopes for the future.
It was, Harriet thought, the most intimate two days of their matrimony, not only in the physical sense, but in the sense of truly getting to know and understand someone.
When the storm finally cleared, she almost wished it would come back.
***
On their final days in the Lake District, they made a decision.
They were walking along the shore of the lake, the sun setting behind the mountains, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose. Harriet's hand was in his, her stride matching his, the easy rhythm of two people who had learned to move together.
"I don't want to go back to how things were," Harriet said. "In London, I mean. The balls and the dinners and the endless social obligations."
"Then we won't."
"We can't avoid society entirely."
"Why not?"
Harriet shot him a look. "Because we have responsibilities. Positions to maintain. People who expect…"
"People who expect things that make you miserable." Sebastian stopped walking, turning to face her. "Harriet, we've spent two years trying to meet society's expectations. And all it's done is break your heart. Why should we continue?"
"Because..." She trailed off, unable to find an answer.
"We could spend more time at Thornwood. Travel. Stay in London only when absolutely necessary." Sebastian took both her hands. "We could build the life we want, not the life everyone else thinks we should have."
"And the question of children?"
"If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, we have each other." He squeezed her hands. "Let's stop trying so hard. Stop monitoring and timing and all the clinical desperation. Let's just... live. And see what happens."
Harriet was quiet for a long moment. "That sounds like giving up."
"It sounds like choosing happiness over hope."
"What's the difference?"
"Hope is waiting for something that might never come. Happiness is appreciating what you already have." Sebastian lifted her hands to his lips. "And what I have, right here, is everything I could ever want."
Her eyes glistened. "Even without…"
"Even without. Always without. I don't care about anything except you."
She stepped into his arms, holding him tight, her face pressed against his shoulder. Sebastian held her back and felt, for the first time in years that they might actually be all right.
Not perfect. Not complete in the way society defined completeness. But all right.
Together.
"Yes," Harriet said quietly, into his chest. "Let's do it. Let's stop trying. Let's just... live."
"Then that's what we'll do."
They stood there, wrapped in each other, as the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the first stars began to appear. And Sebastian thought that he had never been more content in his life.