Chapter 29
The lamps in Brooksey’s men’s club glowed low, throwing long shadows over the haze of smoke and spilled brandy.
The air was thick with laughter and smoke, the clink of glasses, the slap of cards against the green baize. A few ladies of uncertain reputation trailed their perfume near the fire. It was a place he had once called home, where nights had dissolved into dawn without memory or consequence.
Sebastian sat hunched at a table near the fire, glass in hand, staring into the amber swirl as though it might hold an answer. He took a sip that burned down his throat, sharp and familiar. For a moment, he almost welcomed it—the numbness creeping, the blessed forgetting.
So this is what I am without her, he thought grimly. A hollow thing. A drunk at a table. A man who once lived only for vice and found it easy.
“Sebastian,” a voice drawled from behind, half-teasing, half-appalled. “Of all the tables in all the clubs in London, must you sit at this one, brooding like Hamlet with a hangover?”
Edward dropped into the chair opposite him, folding his arms.
“I am not brooding,” Sebastian muttered.
Edward chuckled slightly, signaling for his own brandy. “No? Then what do you call sitting here glowering at a glass as though it insulted your family name?”
Sebastian smirked faintly. “I was considering drinking it.”
“By staring it into submission?” Edward leaned back, one brow cocked. “A bold new method. Do let me know if it succeeds; I’ve a rather stubborn bottle at home.”
Sebastian ran a hand through his hair, restless. “It is not working.”
Edward studied him a long moment, then said lightly, “I’ve known you to sometimes lose at cards, to lose at horses, and once—memorably—to lose your dignity in Lady Wrexham’s fountain. But I have never seen you lose to a brandy glass. What has you so undone?”
Sebastian scowled into his glass. “Go away, Edward.”
“Not likely.” Edward leaned back, surveying him. “So. What is this? A triumphant return to old habits? You swore you were done with all this, but here you are sulking among the dice-throwers.”
“I was done,” Sebastian muttered, pouring himself another measure. His hands shook slightly, though he prayed Edward had not noticed. “But then…” His throat closed. “But then my heart shattered.”
The words cracked like glass in the silence between them.
Edward’s eyes gleamed. “So, it is a woman.”
Sebastian’s head snapped back. “I did not say—”
“You did not need to.” Edward took a slow sip of his brandy. “The great Duke of Ravenscourt, stripped of his wit, undone by silence? Only a woman could wreak such havoc.”
Sebastian’s hand curled on the glass. He tried to summon a careless retort, but the words lodged in his throat.
Edward leaned in, his tone softening beneath the banter. “Margaret. You care for her.”
Sebastian shut his eyes briefly. A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Care? Perhaps. Or perhaps I am merely a fool chasing shadows. Either way, the damage is the same.”
“You sound almost afraid,” Edward said.
Sebastian laughed bitterly. “Afraid? No. Concerned, perhaps. For her. For what my name, my family… my mother… might do to her. And yet… I cannot seem to let her go.”
Edward swirled his brandy. “Then you are trapped between pride and love. An old tale, that one.”
“I do not love her,” Sebastian snapped, too fast. His chest ached with the lie. “Not…” He broke off, staring into the fire. Not yet. God help me, perhaps not ever. But something holds me fast.
Edward tilted his head. “You might try convincing yourself a little harder. You almost sounded sincere.”
Sebastian let out a strangled laugh. “You are insufferable.”
“And you are transparent,” Edward returned smoothly. He leaned forward, voice steady. “So, what’s your plan? You plan to drown in brandy and smoke until you forget her? Chase every courtesan in London until she is but a memory? That was your life before. Did it ever bring you peace?”
Sebastian’s gaze flicked around the men roaring over dice, one slumped insensible in his chair, another weaving toward the door with his waistcoat askew. Once, he had been them. Once, he had gloried in it. Now, the sight repulsed him.
“No,” he admitted hoarsely. “It brought nothing but emptiness. And now…” He broke off, his chest tight, as though the truth itself might kill him. “Now emptiness is all I have left without her.”
Edward sat back, exhaling slowly. “Then find her. For God’s sake, Sebastian, stop wallowing, and go after her.”
Sebastian’s hands curled into fists on the table. Go after her. Drag her back. Pretend the wound she carries does not exist, that the shadows do not haunt her. The thought both terrified and electrified him.
“She does not want me,” he said at last, his voice low, ragged. “She has made that plain.”
Edward’s eyes narrowed. “And you believe her? Since when do you take words at face value? You’ve lied your way through a dozen scandals with a straight face; you of all men should know hearts do not speak so plain.”
Sebastian almost smiled. “Perhaps hers does.”
Edward swirled his brandy thoughtfully. “Then fight. Fight for her, for the truth, for whatever this is. Better to fail trying than to drown in brandy.”
Sebastian’s gaze snapped to him. “Fight? For what? For her heart? For a marriage already fractured? What if the truth demands I release her?”
Edward tilted his head. “And what if it demands the opposite?”
The question landed like a stone in his chest. Sebastian sat frozen, thoughts colliding. What if it demands the opposite?
For a long moment, Sebastian said nothing, his thoughts a storm. He had sworn not to speak his suspicions aloud—not yet, not to Edward, not to anyone. But the weight of them pressed heavily.
He set his glass down, unfinished. “I will find the truth first. Only then will I know what battle lies before me.”
Edward studied him with keen eyes, then smiled faintly. “Well, at least you are not drinking yourself into idiocy. That is progress.”
Sebastian huffed a laugh, low and tired. “Do not tempt me.”
“Tempt you?” Edward rose, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “No. I intend to drag you out of here before you become truly pathetic. Come, if you must wrestle with fate, do it on your feet, not hunched over a brandy glass.”
Sebastian allowed himself to be pulled up, though his heart remained heavy. He did not yet name the feeling gnawing within him. But as Edward steered him toward the door, one thing burned clear: he could not… would not… surrender Margaret without a fight.
Sebastian reached Brighton as the afternoon light slanted low across the sea, the wind sharp with salt. The carriage had scarcely halted before the Duncaster Estate when he was down from the step, boots striking the pavement with a force that betrayed his impatience.
His coat hung askew from the long ride, the dust of the road dulling its dark cloth.
Shadows marked the hollows beneath his eyes, proof of nights robbed of sleep.
His hair, usually so precisely ordered, had fallen loose across his brow, lending him a look more restless soldier than polished duke.
Yet the set of his shoulders was unyielding, driven by a purpose that no fatigue could soften.
Mrs. Fowler, startled by his sudden appearance, dropped into a hurried curtsey. “Your Grace! We had no word you were coming—”
“Where is she?” His voice cut cleanly, the demand clipped, urgent. “My mother. Where is she?”
Mrs. Fowler faltered, her eyes widening. “Her Grace, she… she is not here, Your Grace.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “Not here? Then where?”
“She left some days ago. We were told she meant to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells, but no letter came after. We expected her return…” The housekeeper trailed off, wringing her apron.
Sebastian strode through the hall as though his mother might yet materialize in one of the rooms, calling her name softly, then louder—“Mother? Mother!”—but each chamber echoed with nothing but his own voice and the muted lap of waves beyond the windows.
At last, he stopped in the drawing room, the fire cold in the grate, the air stale with disuse. His eyes swept the mantel, the chairs, the empty space where she might have been. The urgency that had carried him this far pressed harder now, a heaviness beneath his ribs.
He turned sharply back to the housekeeper. “When precisely did she go? Who attended her? What carriage? What direction?”
The woman stammered under his gaze. “I cannot say, Your Grace. Her maid went with her, but she has not returned either. We were given no instructions save to keep the house ready.”
Sebastian pressed a hand to the mantel, the cold marble grounding him against the swell of frustration. Gone. Always gone. Even when I need her most.
He straightened abruptly. “Bring me her correspondence. Every scrap. Letters received, letters sent. I will see them now. Also, fetch Parsons for me.”
The housekeeper bobbed and hurried away, leaving him alone in the hollow silence of his mother’s drawing rooms; every tick of the clock seemed to mock his impatience.
Sebastian closed the drawing-room door with a sharp snap and crossed the hall to his mother’s office, the only room in the Brighton house he ever felt had any weight to it. The scent of ink and paper was faint but lingering, a trace of her presence clinging to the polished mahogany desk.
He dropped into the chair behind it, his hand raking once through his hair.
Margaret’s face rose unbidden, pale, stricken, her voice breaking as she said she could not stay.
He clenched his jaw, the memory cutting deeper than any blade.
She leaves, and I let her. She bleeds, and I stand useless.
God help me—what if I have already lost her?
His gaze fell on the neat arrangement of quills and sand, the blotter smooth as if untouched for a long time. No letter half-written, no trace of her hand.