Chapter Twenty-Two #3
He must have expected a fight from her, but she had none to give just then. Ergo, he turned and led her back down the stairs and into his study. She noted the whisky on his desk, half-drank, with two empty glasses next to it.
She hadn’t spent much time in here these past weeks, mostly popping in to tell him something or give him a midday kiss while he did his work. Now, she saw that it was a masculine, imposing room, with large carvings in the woodwork and heavy, dark drapery. She found that she did not like it.
Sebastian walked over to his large desk and stood behind it, as though it were a shield of some kind. He inhaled, readying himself to speak, only to lose momentum and sigh it away.
She knew that she could have eased some of his agony by speaking first. She refrained.
“Words cannot express how sorry I am.”
She cocked her head, immediately disliking his phrasing. It felt as though he was trying to get out of apologizing while also looking contrite. Another trick. “Oh, can they not?”
Sebastian, to his credit, did not flinch at her mocking tone. “If such words exist, I have not found them. If I am honest, I cannot fully articulate my apologies in my own mind, let alone express them to another. You will, therefore, have to imagine the depth of my regret.”
Ah, yes. Another thing that she would have to do for him. “I imagine this is all quite embarrassing for you.”
“It is more than embarrassing,” he said, defensive. “It is crushing.” Leaning in, he planted his hands on the desk as if to hold himself up and looked at her, his blue eyes piercing. “Augusta, I feel the greatest shame for what has been done to you. I never…never thought it would end like this.”
If Sebastian were a lesser man, he might have hung his head. Instead, he continued to stare into her eyes with a kind of anguish that made her want to look away.
“Shame never got anyone anywhere,” she said coldly. “So you can stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
The hypocrisy of her words was not lost on her.
“Perhaps I deserve that,” Sebastian said. It was only at that moment that he finally did hang his head, his hair covering over his features which were, could she have seen them, likely shameful.
But Augusta had been taken for a fool once already.
She would not allow his act to ensnare her again.
Whatever pain he was feeling, it was not from her rescinding her love.
It was from the shame of being caught and the difficulty of living with someone who was not pleased with him.
Sebastian had been liked his entire life.
Now, he had to remain attached to the one person who wanted nothing to do with him.
No, she would not forgive him, nor would she sympathize with his poetic words of remorse. Instead, she cleared her throat and got straight to business.
“Well, best to get this all out in the open now, so that we might move forward. We are, the both of us, trapped in a loveless marriage.”
Sebastian’s head snapped up to look at her. Unbridled fury playing in his eyes. When he finally spoke, it was with the tense, low timbre of one about to commit murder.
“You may say a great many things about us and what I have done. But you will never again say that this marriage has been loveless as though it were so obvious a fact. I may not have loved you before our vows, but I have greatly loved you since. I believe I love you more so now for the wanting of your company.”
She would not bend. She would use this pain as an opportunity to get what she wanted. “Instead of continuing your charade, it would be best for the both of us if we approached our future with some practicality.”
“I cannot think of anything more practical than loving my wife.”
“I am not your wife, I am your savings account.” She swallowed. “As such, I believe we should keep all conversation from here on out strictly about business. It will be the only way to move past…everything else.”
Sebastian looked as though he was going to defend himself. Then, the wind appeared to be knocked from his sails, and he conceded.
“What business, then?” he asked.
“It was a grave mistake to allow Lord Bancroft to find out about my time with Dr. Pinkton. However, now that it is known, I would like to be fully transparent. Working with the doctor is the only thing that I have ever-”
“No,” Sebastian said flatly. “No, I know what you are going to ask, and the answer is no.”
She pressed on, believing that this would somehow make him hear her. “If I could only continue to attend the occasional visit…” she began, choosing the meekest, least threatening words she could find.
“No,” Sebastian said once more, shaking his head, and she felt that nothing she said would penetrate him.
This time, when she forged ahead, she ignored the tears that burned in her eyes.
“In exchange, I will provide you with an heir and a spare without complaint and will give you no further cause for embarrassment. You may return to the country whenever it pleases you, while I shall remain in London. Would that not be amenable to you?”
He looked very much that this was not amenable to him, though Augusta had so carefully chosen her turn of phrase. And yet, her husband looked at her as though she were asking him to gather the moon.
“No,” he said. She wondered if that was the only word he knew.
“Augusta, you will end your relationship with the doctor immediately. Put this alienist work out of your mind. We could…” He stopped, running a hand down his face in frustration.
“We could start fresh. Go to the country. Start a family...”
He went on, listing out the beautiful things that two people who actually loved each other would do together, but Augusta did not hear him. Instead, her head spun with his rejection.
The idea of starting fresh was so laughable to her that she struggled to comprehend it at all.
After all the work she had done, all the time she had put into this opportunity with Dr. Pinkton, he expected her to happily toss it aside and play-act as his doting wife at the Derbyshire estate?
All while knowing that he had never wanted her to begin with.
She realized that the room was silent. Sebastian looked at her, hope quickly draining from his expression.
“You are distraught,” he said. “I am sorry. I did not mean to foist so much upon you all at once. We do not have to think of starting over immediately. I understand if you need time.”
“That is…” she started, then caught herself when her breath hitched. “That is not what I am distraught about.”
Sebastian halted, utter confusion playing across his face. “What is it, then?”
Then, it came to Augusta in a single wave; the rage.
This con man in front of her, who had gained his fortunes from trickery and deceit, could never understand the slow and steady building that she had put into her apprenticeship.
He could never understand the stolen lectures and secret studying.
To him, this marriage was the only important thing that Augusta had ever done.
Knowing that made her want to hit something.
“I am talking about my work, Lord Brightwater,” she said, hardly containing the anger in her voice as she grit her teeth.
“Your work?” he asked, incredulous. “Augusta, you have to have known that I could never allow you to continue it. What would we do if anyone outside of Bancroft found out? Our entire family would be in scandal.”
His words were full of censure; the exact censure that she had always anticipated hearing from Reginald in the case that he ever found out. Hearing it come from her brother would have been painful enough. Hearing it come from the man that she had loved only days ago was like a knife to the chest.
The sensation brought with it an understanding, clear as the morning sun: Sebastian was not going to bend on this. She truly would never work with the doctor again.
“I see,” she said shakily. “Then I suppose there is nothing more to discuss.”
She turned to leave, hoping against hope that she could once again make it to her bedroom before the tears flowed freely.
“Wait.”
He said it with such desperation that she halted, her hand still on the study doorknob.
“Please, take breakfast with me tomorrow.”
Blind hatred dried the most potent of her tears. The audacity of him to make such a request of her when he had just taken away the only thing she’d ever worked for.
“No, Lord Brightwater. I do not believe I shall feel up to it.”
Before he could demand further audience, she fled from the room and made her way down the hall, praying that he did not follow.
God must have looked upon her favorably then, as the study door remained shut.
Good. There was nothing else to say. Even if there was, Augusta had already expended the entirety of her energy for the day. Wasted it, if Sebastian’s utter lack of understanding were anything to go by.
The walk back to her room felt long, the hallways cold and echoing. When she reached her bed and crawled into it, she felt much like a man crawling back into the bed of a lover after a long time away.
Weeks ago, she had sealed her fate. She had handed her future to Sebastian on a silver plate.
He controlled it all, and he did not love her, and he had no incentive to keep that silver plate safe.
If he wanted - and, evidently, he did - he could toss it to the side without a glance, and she would have to smile and sit beside him at dinners and practically thank him for the opportunity.
That was the last thing she thought before sleep overtook her. Her dreams were troubled, and she felt throughout them that she was being crushed by a heavy boulder until all the life force within her had leaked away.