Chapter 27
Sebastian bent over the sheaf of correspondence strewn across his desk, the quill suspended uselessly between his fingers.
Ink gathered in a dark bead at the nib, threatening to fall, while the words on the page swam like minnows, slipping out of reach no matter how he tried to pin them down.
He had read the same line thrice yet could not have spoken it aloud if his life depended on it.
With a growl low in his throat, he shoved back from the desk.
The chair shrieked against the parquet, the sound grating as his own temper.
Heat prickled beneath his collar, his pulse hammering at his temples.
Since morning, he had sworn… commanded himself not to think of her.
Not of her mouth yielding beneath his, not of the way she had trembled against him.
And yet… damnation. His hands curled uselessly into fists on the desk. Every nerve in his body screamed for her. To find her in some corridor, to seize one more stolen moment, to claim what sense… what damned pride… demanded the release.
He dragged a hand through his hair and forced himself to sit again. There was work enough if he could just force his mind to the task—
The door burst open. Rook, usually the picture of composure, stood pale in the threshold.
“Your—Your Grace…” His throat worked as though the words themselves rebelled. “It is… the Duchess—”
For a heartbeat, Sebastian could not breathe. The steady, imperturbable Rook… reduced to stammering? The sight chilled him as much as the words themselves.
Sebastian was on his feet in an instant, his chair toppling backwards. “What is it? Rook, speak plainly.”
But the man only stammered, his hand gripping the doorframe so tightly his knuckles blanched. “She… she has…”
“Rook.” Sebastian’s voice cracked like a whip. “Get a hold of yourself.”
The effort seemed to wrench the words from him at last. “She has fainted, Your Grace. In the gallery.”
For one blinding instant, Sebastian could not move. His heart seemed to stop, then slammed into life again so violently, he felt it in his throat.
He was already in motion before thought could follow, striding past Rook with such force the man flattened himself against the doorframe.
The corridors narrowed around him, his boots striking hard against marble and wood, portraits flashing by in a blur as though the whole house bent itself to deliver him to her.
He found her crumpled at the base of the gallery wall, her gown spread in pale folds, her skin ashen as death. Rook trailed behind, panting, but Sebastian heard nothing but the roaring in his ears.
He was on his knees in an instant. “Margaret.” Her name came rough, broken as his hands framed her face, his thumb trembling against her cheek. “Margaret, look at me.”
She lay still, lashes dark against her skin, her breath so faint he thought he imagined it. His pulse thundered, drowning sense.
“Rook!” His voice cracked the gallery air. “Fetch a physician—now. Run!”
But even as the man stumbled off, Sebastian bent closer, refusing to let go.
He pressed his fingers to her wrist, desperate for the flutter of a pulse.
Faint—God, so faint—but there. He dragged in a breath, steadied his shaking hand, and with the other loosened the fastenings of her gown at the throat, willing air to reach her.
“Margaret. Do you hear me?” He brushed cool fingers against her temple, her throat, anything to rouse her. Nothing.
Panic clawed higher. He seized a silver vinaigrette Rook left on a console nearby, snapped it open, and held the sharp salts beneath her nose.
At last, a tremor shook her. Her lips parted, lashes quivered, and breath shuddered into her chest.
“Margaret,” he said again, softer now, his thumb stroking the line of her cheek as if touch alone might anchor her.
Her eyes opened slowly, dazed and heavy, but instead of turning to him, they fixed, wide and unblinking, on the portrait looming above.
“Sebastian,” she whispered, her voice no more than a ragged thread. “Who is that man?”
He followed the line of her gaze, startled, then shook his head briskly. “Never mind that now. You ought not even to be sitting upright.” He slid an arm beneath her shoulders, attempting to lift her. “Come, there is a bench by the window. You need rest, not questions.”
But she resisted, her trembling fingers curling into his sleeve. Her eyes never left the painted face above them. “Please. Tell me.”
He gathered her carefully into his arms, rising with the same tenderness he might have carried a wounded bird. “Enough,” he muttered, voice taut. “You are not lying here on cold stone another instant. You need air, water, rest—”
“Sebastian.” Her voice was a rasp, weak but insistent.
“Hush. Do not speak.” His stride was already carrying her toward a nearby bench beneath the windows.
He set her down as though she were made of porcelain, then dropped to one knee beside her.
His hands busied themselves with smoothing her sleeve, righting the folds of her gown, finding something…
anything… to do to disguise the terror still scalding his veins.
“Rook will bring the physician. You must not exert yourself.”
Her fingers, trembling, caught his wrist. “No, listen. That man—”
“Margaret.” He tried for firmness, but it came out almost pleading. “You are as pale as death. Think only of your strength.”
She shook her head, the motion small, stubborn. Her eyes did not waver from the portrait above. “Tell me. Who is he?”
Sebastian stilled. He followed her gaze at last and exhaled, the sound sharp. “That is my late uncle. George, the Marquess of Redmere.”
Her grip tightened. “Your uncle.” The words tasted foreign on her tongue. “Then he was real. Not some phantom born of fever.”
He frowned, searching her face. “What are you saying?”
She lifted her eyes to his, wide with a terror he had never seen in her. “It is he, Sebastian. The man who haunts my dreams.”
He went very still. “Margaret—”
“I swear it.” Her voice shook, but the conviction beneath it rang like iron. She turned back to the portrait, her breath uneven. “That face… I have seen it again and again, looming over me in the dark. It is the very same.”
Sebastian’s jaw clenched. For a heartbeat, he said nothing, only studied her, as though by sheer force of will he might wrest sense from the impossible. His hand covered hers at last, firm, steady, as though anchoring her to the world.
“You are overwrought,” he said lowly. “Fainting, fevered dreams—”
“No.” Her gaze snapped back to him, fierce despite her trembling. “You think me mad, but I know what I saw.”
He faltered, struck by the blazing certainty in her eyes.
The gallery had grown crowded in a matter of moments.
Mrs. Hardwick and the other maids were wringing their hands, footmen hovered uncertainly, and the physician shifted from foot to foot.
Fanny appeared breathless, clutching a steaming cup of valerian tea, her wide eyes darting from Margaret’s pallor to Sebastian’s grim face.
“She must drink, Your Grace,” Fanny pleaded, pressing the saucer forward.
Sebastian reached to refuse, but Margaret’s hand lifted weakly, her fingers trembling as they closed around the handle. He steadied the saucer with his own hand, guiding it to her lips.
“Slowly,” he murmured, his voice gentler now.
The bitter steam curled upward as she swallowed a few tentative sips, the color in her face no better but at least no worse. Sebastian did not release the cup until she leaned back against the cushions again, spent by the effort.
Only then did he glance toward the house physician, who was hovering with anxious importance. “Doctor, wait in the anteroom. If I require you, I’ll send for you.”
The man bowed, muttering about the dangers of lingering weakness, but Sebastian silenced him with a look. Then he turned to the maids, all pale with fright, their whispers pricking Margaret’s raw nerves. “That will be all.”
Fanny lingered, wringing her hands. “But Your Grace—”
“She has had enough.” His tone left no room for dispute.
The maid’s mouth opened, then closed again as if she might argue.
She bent into a curtsy so low that it was nearly a bow, muttering all the while.
“If she swoons away entirely, I’ll never forgive myself.
Left her to ghosts and fainting fits, I did.
Oh, they’ll say it’s all my fault when she perishes, and I’ll be haunted forever by her poor pale face… ”
“Fanny,” Mrs. Hardwick hissed in warning.
Fanny snapped her mouth shut but shuffled backward, still casting mournful looks over her shoulder as if expecting Margaret to expire on the spot. At last, she vanished through the door with the others, her whispered lament drifting after her.
Reluctantly, they curtsied and withdrew, skirts swishing down the gallery until the door closed upon them. Sebastian placed the cup of tea beside Margaret, his forehead creasing with worry.
Sebastian kneeled beside Margaret once more, his voice dropping low. “It’s only us now.”
Her lashes fluttered, her fingers twisting in his sleeve. But her gaze, restless and haunted, slid back to the portrait above.
“Margaret,” he said gently. “It is only a painting. Nothing more.”
Her head moved in the smallest shake. “No, Sebastian. You do not understand.”
His chest tightened. “Then make me.”
For a moment, silence stretched between them, taut as a drawn bow. Then her lips parted, the words dragging out as though torn from a wound.
“The night of the fire… just before the flames took hold…” Her voice fractured, thin and broken, and she pressed trembling fingers to her temple as though the memory itself scorched her skin.
“I was only a child. I woke to shouting. My father’s voice was thunderous with anger, my mother’s sobs were wrecking.
And another voice, low and hard… a man’s.
I did not know him then, but the sound made me afraid. ”