Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“I cannot rescind myself from the event,” she continued. “There are few moments like this in a person’s life, where they have the chance to change something for the better. I believe that if I do not take it, I will bitterly regret it.”
At her final words, her voice caught. She cleared her throat, but it was too late; her weakness had so clearly been displayed, and he could see that she hated herself for it.
All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her, to kiss the top of her head until the tears retreated, but he knew it would be wholly unwelcome.
To keep the impulse at bay, he turned to look out the window, holding his hands behind his back as he pondered.
It was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous to even consider allowing her to attend such an event, let alone be the face of it. If he did that, he might as well toss up his hands and admit defeat, admit that he had no control over his own household. It would be such an obvious loss.
Then again, he had already lost, had he not?
It was true. Whatever facade he’d maintained of lording over his household was merely that - a facade. A thin one, at that. And beneath it, he had a gambling, scandalous father, and a bad childhood, and a friend with a broken nose, and a wife who looked at him as though he were her jailkeeper.
“You would…” he started, then stopped himself, thinking some more, as though staving off the inevitable would make this whole thing go away. Finally, he finished the thought. “You would need a speech writer. If you did it.”
The silence was heavy. He resisted the urge to turn and look at her, worried as to the expression that he might find upon her face.
“Do you, erm…know of one? That I might contact?” Her voice was hardly above a whisper.
“No. But I am certain Bancroft does, and as it stands, he happens to owe me a great favor.”
He had not intended for it to be humorous, but his wife gave a sharp inhale, her signature response to anything she found funny enough to respond to, but not funny enough to laugh at.
When he turned around to face her again, the slightest hint of a smile remained on her face, which was still reddened from tears withheld.
“You offered a negotiation,” he said.
“Yes,” she rushed to say. “And, while I pray you’ll be kind, I will state plainly that anything you ask of me right now I am very, very likely to give.”
“Alright, then. When word gets out about your involvement, there is likely to be a lot of unrest in the ton, as you have already alluded to. I would like to go to the Derbyshire estate with you immediately afterwards. We could…” he was not sure if he wanted to voice his next words, to give life to so precious an image he had held onto.
He swallowed. “We could have the holidays there, with Mother and Georgie. Sit by the fire, sleigh rides, all of that.”
The relief on Augusta’s face was so obvious that it was nearly comical. “Of course. I will go on a thousand sleigh rides and sit by a thousand fires. Anything you wish.”
Having awoken in the cold, lonely guest room that morning, Sebastian could not believe his luck at hearing his wife’s words.
He also could not believe the great misfortune that would befall him the following weekend, when his shame was bared to the entire world, plain as day.
How the two feelings could exist at the same time was a mystery to him.
“Well,” he finally said, dropping his hands at his sides and feeling terribly impotent. “I suppose that settles it. I should procure a writer for you by the end of today. In the meantime, I, erm…well, I have an appointment to attend to.”
A lie, technically, as he had only decided upon the appointment at that very moment - an appointment with the famous Dr. Pinkton himself.
Augusta nodded. “Yes, of course, I shall leave you to your work. I assume we are to dine together again tonight?”
If there were one thing that could quell the rising angst in Sebastian’s chest, it would be the fact that Augusta did not sound disgusted by the idea of dining with him anymore.
“Yes. I shall update you then.”
She started, then, toward the door. Sebastian thought about not doing what he did next - he had, after all, already conceded just about everything he could concede to her. At the last moment, though, he called out her name.
She paused, turning to look back at him, her hand still poised on the door.
“I love you.”
For a flicker, the air was thick with tension, alive with uncertainty. Before, when he had said those words, he’d known for a fact that he would be met with silence. This time, he had no clue what he might be met with.
Finally, his wife let out a soft sigh. “Thank you, Sebastian. For everything.”
Then, she disappeared into the hallway.
*****
God damnit.
God damnit.
The day was frigid, with smoke rising from every chimney in London and snow threatening to fall, but Sebastian accounted none of it as the carriage rolled toward Pinkton’s office. He had his swirling thoughts and many, many feelings to keep him warm.
When his carriage pulled up outside of the office and he hopped from it, he actually relished the sting of the air as he traipsed toward the building wherein his enemy resided. It took only a few meandering hallways before he came to the door with a name he recognized.
With a sharp knock, Sebastian made his presence known.
“Come in.”
He did not know what he’d expected Dr. Pinkton’s office to look like - perhaps black, like a cave for the troll. He didn’t expect the bright, modern room that he walked into, with Pinkton seated behind a fresh oak desk.
The man raised a brow at the sight of Sebastian. “Can I help you?”
Sebastian had only seen the man once before - upon his retreat from Sebastian’s townhome. He was a stocky man with dark wavy hair and a finely trimmed beard. Not terribly memorable in appearance, were it not for the fact that Sebastian had wanted to kill him at the time.
But Pinkton had never become acquainted with Sebastian. An introduction was in order.
“I am Lord Brightwater. Augusta’s husband.”
He said it pointedly, hoping for a bit of shock from the doctor. None arrived.
Instead, he got a cynical smile from Pinkton. “You’ve not come to kill me, have you? Because I assure you, there are many witnesses in the building.”
Sebastian ignored the mocking, albeit perhaps-slightly-funny statement. He came to stand in front of the desk and crossed his arms authoritatively.
“Why her?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Why Augusta? Why not some bluestocking chit? You knew exactly what would happen to her, and yet you encouraged it. Why her?”
“Oh God,” Pinkton sighed, rolling his eyes. Then, he gestured to a chair beside Sebastian. “Well, by all means, take a seat. The Brightwater family seems to believe all I do is sit in my office and await their company.”
Sebastian did sit, just as Pinkton’s last sentence struck him. “She has been here, then?”
Pinkton raised another eyebrow at him, that arsehole. “Of course she has. Did you truly expect her to perfectly drop everything and walk away?”
He had expected her to do exactly that, though now it felt supremely stupid to have done so.
Dr. Pinkton continued. “You are asking me why I took her on? It was actually she who approached me, after a lecture I gave. I suppose she’d snuck out to see it.
I admit that I did not think much of her right away.
I often have people from the ton attend my forums, typically just to ogle over the more lurid cases I discuss.
They then toddle back to their homes and forget all about it.
“I assumed Lady Brightwater would be the same, but she…
well, she pushed far more than anyone else did.
She had endless questions, and they seemed to come out of nowhere, like she had already done plenty of reading outside of the lecture.
So, I invited her to another talk. And another.
And eventually, everything else just sort of…
happened, I suppose. Like it was inevitable, in a way.
“I knew from the visit with our very first patient that it was meant to be. Lady Brightwater wilts in a crowd. But as an alienist, listening to our patients, she is simply radiant.”
Ah, so there it was - the admission that Sebastian had expected from the man across the desk. “Radiant? Is that it, then? Are you in love with her? Upset that you could not have her hand, so now you send her out in front of the wolves?”
He’d expected, by all accounts, to be met with a look of jealousy or anger. Instead, Dr. Pinkton merely frowned at him. As though Sebastian were simply an annoyance.
“Has it ever crossed your mind that your wife is precisely what I have just said she is? Brilliant. Capable. All the things required of an alienist. She is all those things to me and nothing more, I assure you.” Looking down, his fingers drummed against his desktop in agitation.
“I will tell you, for posterity, that I am in love. But it is not with your wife. It never has been.”
Now, he leaned forward. “However, I shall give you some marital advice. Do not tell her that you came here and accused me of this. Go home to her, and pretend that you have believed in her as I have from the beginning. Tell her that everything she has to say is of vital importance. When she goes against the crowd, she will need that belief.”
Feeling like the lowest creature on the planet, Sebastian looked down at his hand, which tapped in agitation against the seat of his chair. “What if I cannot support her in the way she wants?”
“Then support her in the way you can. I tell you, chap, I am no marriage expert. That little bit of wisdom I just gave is all I have - anything else will cost extra.”
Under different circumstances, with different timing, Sebastian might have liked the company of the man in front of him. He may have even invited him to the club to have drinks with Browning and - blast the man - Bancroft.
As it stood, Dr. Pinkton only reminded Sebastian of what he had gambled and lost. Therefore, he did not like the man a bit.
He sighed, feeling that he might deflate completely now that the confrontation with the doctor had amounted to nothing. There was no enemy - not Augusta, not Doctor Pinkton, not even his own actions.
“I do not know what to do,” he finally conceded. “I do love her. I just worry that she will never believe me when I say it again.”
“Well, perhaps it is high time you stop saying it and start acting on it. The rally is at half-eleven in Trafalgar Square. You may use that information as you see fit.”
Sebastian knew by the man’s tone that this was it - he had been dismissed.
“Alright, then,” he said, standing up, feeling lighter and yet also feeling as though he had once again lost the battle. “I suppose I shall be seeing you again soon. In Trafalgar Square.”