Chapter 11
As morning light doth chase the night away,
Your love dispels the darkness from my day;
With every dawn, my heart anew doth sing,
For you, my love, are life's eternal spring.
The New Ladies’ Valentine Writer (1821)
* * *
December 19, 1821
Harriet awakened as the pale light of morning filtered through the curtains, casting a soft glow over her bedchamber. A deep warmth curled through her limbs, the lingering tenderness of the night before wrapping around her like the heavy coverlet.
Blinking, she propped herself up on one elbow, pushing her tousled hair from her face.
The tenderness of memory moved through her. Sebastian’s voice in the firelight, unhurried and unguarded. She had been given, for one evening, the life she had not chosen, and she had held it as carefully as she knew how.
She had left him sleeping on the settee downstairs.
The thought arrived with a small, domestic warmth that she did not quite know what to do with.
Sebastian was asleep in her painted room, his long frame ill-suited to the furniture, her blanket drawn over him.
She wondered if he had woken yet. Whether Mrs. Finch had found him first and what that conversation might have looked like. The thought very nearly made her smile.
But the warmth of recollection faded the moment she saw him.
Sebastian stood near the fireplace of her antechamber, fully dressed save for his coat, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression carved from stone.
His piercing gray eyes were fixed not on her but on the wall above the writing desk.
On the painting.
A slow, dreadful realization curled in her gut.
No.
She did not need to follow his gaze to know what he had found. She had known, lying awake in the small hours, that this moment existed somewhere in the future, patient and inevitable. She had simply not expected it to arrive before breakfast.
His eyes moved to hers at last, and what she saw there was worse than anger.
“You lied to me.”
The words struck her deeper than she thought possible. Harriet’s lips parted, but no sound came.
“I came upstairs to tell you I was heading home,” he continued, his voice controlled in a way that frightened her more than anger would have done. His gaze returned to the wall above her writing desk. “Instead, I found that.”
Matteo di Bianchi’s lost work, the one she had sworn to him she no longer possessed, hung in plain sight upon her wall. A cruel revelation framed in gilt and shadow.
Her breath caught. “I—I could not let it go.”
Sebastian let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head as if the sight of it was too much to bear.
“No,” he said, his voice quieter now, but no less cutting. “I suppose you could not.”
She drew her wrapper close about her shoulders, shame pooling in her stomach like lead.
“Sebastian, please, let me explain—”
“Explain?” He scoffed, pacing away before rounding back on her. “Do you think there is anything you could say that would undo this? That would make me believe you meant anything you have said these past days?”
His anger, sharp as a blade, sliced through her, and Harriet flinched.
“It was never about the painting,” she said desperately. “Not truly.”
“Then why lie?” His voice was raw now, stripped of the patience he had once offered her so freely. “Why deceive me, Harriet? Have you no faith in me at all?”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
“I was afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid that if I told you the truth, you would take it from me. And I could not bear to lose it.”
“Not even for me?” His voice was quieter now, but there was no mistaking the devastation beneath the question.
Harriet swallowed past the ache in her throat.
“I have lost everything before,” she whispered. “This was all I had left.”
Sebastian’s lips pressed into a hard line.
“No,” he said, shaking his head once. “You had me.”
And then, without another word, he turned on his heel and strode toward the door.
Panic seized her, the significance of her choices crashing down upon her like an unforgiving tide.
“Sebastian, wait—Once we made our arrangement, I planned to give it to you on Christmas Day.”
Sebastian stopped, his hand hovering over the doorknob. His shoulders were rigid, the taut lines of his back betraying the effort it took to contain his temper.
Slowly, he turned, his expression unreadable. “Planned to?” he echoed.
Harriet nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes. That was always my intention. I only wanted …” She hesitated, her hands gripping the robe as though it were the only thing keeping her from unraveling. “I only wanted a little more time.”
His mouth twisted. “Time for what?”
“For us,” she whispered.
Silence hung between them, heavy with things unspoken. The dying embers in the grate crackled, casting flickering shadows across the room.
Sebastian exhaled sharply and ran a hand through his hair, his movements tight with frustration.
“For pity’s sake, Harriet,” he ground out.
“You speak of time as if it were something we could steal back. But time was stolen from us long ago. By you. And now, once again, you have chosen secrets over trust.”
She flinched at the accusation, her pulse hammering against her ribs. “I was going to tell you,” she insisted. “I never meant to deceive you, not like this.”
Sebastian’s laugh was low and humorless. “Not like this? Then how, exactly?” He gestured toward the painting. “You let me believe it was gone. You lied to my face. How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”
Harriet’s fingers curled into fists, nails pressing into her palms. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“And yet, you have.”
His voice was quiet, but there was something far worse than anger in his tone now. Disillusionment. Disappointment.
Her chest ached to hear it. “You think I do not regret it? That I do not hate myself for not telling you the truth sooner? You cannot imagine what it has been like … to feel as though every choice I make only drives you further away.”
Sebastian shook his head. “No, Harriet. That was your own doing.” His voice was hoarse with emotion, and his hands flexed at his sides. “All I ever wanted from you was honesty.”
A lump formed in her throat.
“I thought if I gave you the painting too soon,” she confessed, “you would leave. I thought once you had it, there would be nothing left to hold you here.”
Sebastian’s breath caught, something flickering behind his gaze. “You truly believed that?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Yes.”
His jaw tightened, and for a long moment, he simply looked at her. The fury was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but something else lurked beneath it now, something more vulnerable.
“Do you think so little of me?” he asked finally.
Harriet’s heart clenched. “No,” she said fiercely. “Never.”
I think that little of myself was the errant thought she had been fighting all these months as she walked the path of sobriety and tried to find a return to the happiness she had shared with Sebastian so many years ago.
Sebastian exhaled heavily, rubbing his temples as though trying to will away his frustration. “You could have told me,” he said, his voice quieter now, the edge of anger dulling. “I would have understood. But, instead, you chose to deceive me. Again.”
Harriet’s throat tightened. “I did not mean—”
“But you did,” he cut her off. “You always mean to, whether you admit it or not.”
She shook her head. “I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of losing you,” she admitted, voice breaking.
Sebastian let out a ragged breath, and for a moment, he looked as though he might soften. Then his expression hardened once more. “You never had me to lose, Harriet.”
The words were a death knell. She sucked in a sharp breath, the pain of them cutting deeper than she could have anticipated. Sebastian turned back toward the door, his hand clenching into a fist before releasing. He hesitated for only a moment, then grasped the doorknob.
“You asked for more time,” he said without looking at her. “But time is the one thing I can no longer afford to give you.”
And then, with quiet finality, he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
Harriet sat frozen in place, the sound of his retreating footsteps echoing in her ears.
She supposed she should be concerned that the other women in the house would be alarmed by his presence and their own security if Harriet ruined her reputation.
In that moment, she could not find the will to care.
The room felt impossibly empty without him.
She turned slowly, looking over her shoulder at the painting that had betrayed her.
No. That was not right. She had betrayed herself.
And once again, there was no one to blame but herself.
* * *
Sebastian stormed into the Scott residence, barely acknowledging the footman who opened the door before shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over a chair in the entryway.
His boots struck hard against the polished floor as he strode down the corridor, his fury barely contained beneath the surface.
Harriet.
Her lies. Her secrets. The way she had looked at him with those wide, pleading eyes as if she had not just shattered whatever trust had been growing between them.
He had spent the evening at his brother’s house, facing the cold disapproval of Philip and the barely concealed unease of the others.
He had defended her against them all, against every muttered doubt, every veiled warning.
He had sat there, knowing full well that his family did not approve of his courtship, did not trust Harriet, and still, he had been determined.
Because he had believed in her. Because he had wanted a future with her.
And what had she been doing all that time? Lying to his face. Smiling at him, allowing him to believe in something that had never been real.
A deep sense of betrayal twisted in his gut. He had been a fool.