Chapter 6 #2
“We have arrived,” Lady Wood murmured, tucking away her book.
Sebastian reached for the door and stepped out first, turning to offer his arm to Harriet. Her gloved fingers slipped around his elbow, soft and warm, and for the briefest moment, he felt something old and familiar wake in his chest. Then she was stepping down, and he let go a little too quickly.
Inside Hatchards, the air smelled of leather, paper, and burning oil. Harriet brightened immediately, her gaze sweeping the towering bookshelves like a conqueror surveying her new domain.
Sebastian peered down at her, unsettled by how familiar this felt.
“Shall we make a list first or dive in blindly?”
Harriet tilted her head. “Where is the adventure in making lists?”
He chuckled. “Where is the sense in wandering aimlessly?”
Harriet sighed. “Very well. A brief list, then.”
She led them toward a quiet corner, where she and Lady Wood scribbled down titles and subjects while Sebastian leaned against a nearby shelf, watching her.
Harriet had changed. There was something more guarded about her now. More careful. But then she would smile, truly smile, and she was the girl he had once known again. Which one was real? And which one would break his heart if he let himself believe in her again?
“Sebastian?”
He blinked.
Harriet was watching him, her head tilted in curiosity. “You looked lost in thought.”
He straightened. “Just wondering how long I shall be made to carry your selections.”
She laughed and turned away, moving toward a tall shelf. Sebastian followed at a measured pace, watching as she scanned the spines, her fingers trailing over the leather bindings. Then she spotted something.
Without hesitation, she grasped the ladder and began to climb. Sebastian felt his pulse quicken unexpectedly.
She moved with ease, stretching upward to reach a volume on the uppermost shelf, her posture intent and unselfconscious, and there was something in the simple grace of the movement, the natural ease of it, that struck him more forcefully than he could account for.
And then—
A gasp.
A slip.
Harriet’s foot missed the rung.
Sebastian moved forward without thinking. She spun around as she fell against him, her momentum knocking them both back slightly before he steadied them. And then … silence.
Harriet stilled in his arms. Sebastian’s heart pounded heavily as he realized how close she was. Her face was mere inches from his, her breath warm against his cheek. His hands were firm around her waist, holding her steady. Slowly, she tilted her head up. Her lips parted ever so slightly.
Sebastian’s grip held. And then he realized they were alone. No one in sight.
Something shifted between them. An old, wordless understanding, the kind that did not require speech. He looked at her, and she looked at him, and the years fell away until there was nothing left but the two of them and the question neither had yet dared to answer.
And Sebastian, heaven help him, closed the distance.
The kiss was soft, tentative, asking rather than claiming.
As if testing whether a memory could be trusted.
It lasted only a moment, and yet it carried the weight of everything unsaid between them: the years apart, the farewell that had never been properly made, the letter he had written and the painting he had sent her.
It was not passion that undid him, but tenderness.
The quiet, devastating tenderness of a feeling he had never fully left behind.
Footsteps in the next aisle brought him back to his senses.
Time had passed, and they were no longer a couple.
And Sebastian was no longer the boy who had loved her so recklessly.
He stepped back, breathing carefully, his hands falling from her waist. Harriet stared at him, her lips still, her eyes bright with something he could not yet name—something that looked, painfully, like hope.
And Sebastian knew, with absolute certainty—
He was in danger. So much danger.
* * *
Harriet’s breath caught in her throat, her heart slamming against her ribs like a wild bird desperate for escape.
Sebastian’s kiss had been warm and unhurried—tender rather than bold, as though he, too, had not anticipated the moment but had been helpless to prevent it.
The scent of him—sandalwood, winter air, and something altogether familiar—stole into her senses, leaving her adrift in memories of what could have been, what should have been.
For a single, heart-stopping moment, she had let herself feel it. The quiet certainty of his hands at her waist, the stillness that had settled between them, the aching awareness of all they had lost and all they might still find if only she had the courage to reach for it.
Italy. The thought had crept in, unbidden. What if she went with him?
What if, just this once, she leapt without hesitation, without calculation, without the endless weighing of risk and ruin?
What would it be like to walk the narrow streets of Florence with her hand tucked in his, to drink coffee beneath a painted ceiling, to wake each morning knowing she had chosen love over status?
But then a footstep creaked nearby, and the moment had shattered.
They drew apart abruptly, her heart still beating hard, barely managing to suppress a gasp. Sebastian’s hands fell from her waist as they both turned sharply toward the sound.
Evaline.
Dear, observant Evaline, moving through the next aisle with unhurried grace, seemingly unaware of the tempest raging between them.