Chapter 6 #3
“You are not a failure,” he said firmly, settling beside her on the stone bench. “You are many things—kind, intelligent, generous to a fault—but never a failure.”
Sarah laughed bitterly, the sound harsh in the quiet garden. “Kind and intelligent. How those words must sound to a man seeking a wife. ‘Oh yes, Lady Abbottsford—she's very kind. Quite intelligent too. Perfect qualifications for spinsterhood.’”
“Sarah—”
“No, let me say this.” The words tumbled out in a rush, all the self-doubt and pain she'd been carrying for years finally finding voice.
“I've been lying to myself, George. Pretending that someday the right gentleman would see past my ordinary face and unremarkable accomplishments to discover some hidden treasure beneath.
But there is no treasure, is there? There's just me—plain, boring Sarah Abbottsford, whose greatest achievement is being friends with someone actually worth knowing.”
George's hands clenched into fists on his knees, and when he spoke, his voice was rough with suppressed emotion. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
“Is it?” Sarah turned to face him, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“Then why am I sitting alone in a frozen garden on Christmas Eve while the man I thought might care for me announces his engagement to someone else?
Why have I attended dozens of social gatherings without receiving a single serious offer of courtship?
Why does everyone treat me like a pleasant but forgettable accessory to other people's lives?”
The questions hung in the cold air between them, each one a small wound that had festered into something larger and more poisonous. George stared at her for a long moment, his expression cycling through pain, frustration, and something deeper that Sarah was too distraught to identify.
“Because” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper, “the men you've been hoping to attract are fools who wouldn't recognize true worth if it was standing right in front of them.”
“Or because I'm not actually worth recognizing,” Sarah countered, her voice breaking on the words. “Maybe this is simply who I am, George. Maybe I'm destined to be the friend everyone values but no one desires. The woman who helps other people find happiness but never experiences it herself.”
George made a sound that was almost a growl, his careful control finally cracking. “Stop. Just stop saying those things about yourself.”
“Why? Because you find them uncomfortable?
Because it's easier to pretend I have some secret appeal that I'm simply not displaying properly?” Sarah pulled his coat tighter around her shoulders, drawing what comfort she could from its warmth.
“I'm tired of pretending, George. Tired of hoping for something that's never going to happen.”
“It will happen,” George said fiercely. “Sarah, you are the most remarkable woman I know, and someday—”
“Someday what?” she interrupted, her composure finally shattering completely. “Someday some gentleman will take pity on the old maid and offer her a marriage of convenience? Someday I'll lower my expectations enough to accept whatever scraps of affection someone is willing to throw my way?”
The tears were flowing freely now, and Sarah buried her face in her hands, no longer caring how pathetic she must appear.
“I wanted what Alice has,” she whispered brokenly.
“I wanted someone to look at me the way Calum looks at her—like I was the most precious thing in his world.
I wanted to matter that much to someone.
But I never will, will I? I'll always be just... kind and intelligent Sarah, who makes an excellent friend and a perfectly adequate companion but never inspires the kind of love that moves mountains.”
George was silent for a long moment, and when Sarah finally looked up, she was startled by the intensity in his grey eyes. He looked like a man at war with himself, his jaw clenched so tightly she could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.
“Sarah,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, “if you only knew—”
But he stopped abruptly, his hands fisting in his lap as if he were physically restraining himself from reaching for her. The moment stretched between them, heavy with unspoken words and possibilities that neither seemed ready to voice.
“What?” Sarah asked softly, caught by something in his expression that made her heart flutter despite her misery.
George shook his head, his shoulders sagging with defeat. “Nothing. It's not... this isn't the time for...” He took a shuddering breath. “You're hurting, and you need a friend right now, not... not anything else.”
Sarah stared at him, sensing layers of meaning in his words that her emotional state made impossible to parse. But before she could pursue it further, George stood and held out his hand.
“Come,” he said gently. “Let me take you inside before you catch your death. Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and whatever else has happened, you deserve to spend it somewhere warm and safe.”
Sarah allowed him to help her to her feet, his hands steady and sure as they guided her back toward the house. As they walked along the frost-covered path, she found herself leaning into his solid strength, drawing comfort from his presence in ways she'd never consciously acknowledged before.
At the garden door, George paused, his hand resting lightly on her elbow.
“Sarah, I want you to know... whatever you're feeling right now, however hopeless things seem, it won't always be this way. You have so much to offer the world, so much love to give. The right person will see that, and when they do...”
He trailed off, but Sarah caught the fierce conviction in his voice, the absolute certainty that somehow made her battered heart feel marginally less broken.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked quietly.
George's smile was soft and infinitely sad. “Because I know you. The real you, not the version you think you need to be to please others. And that woman—generous, passionate, brilliant, beautiful—that woman deserves every happiness this world has to offer.”
The words settled into Sarah's chest like a warm ember, not enough to chase away the cold entirely but sufficient to remind her that not all was lost. Whatever else might be uncertain, she had this—George's friendship, his unwavering support, his absolute faith in her worth even when she couldn't see it herself.
It would have to be enough. For tonight, for Christmas Day, for whatever came next, it would have to be enough.
Even if a treacherous part of her heart whispered that it might, somehow, be everything.