Chapter 15
The letter to his mother sat on Sebastian’s desk, sealed and ready to post.
Please arrange the introduction at your earliest convenience. I am amenable to the match.
Amenable. That was one word for it.
But it was the right thing to do. He'd been telling himself so for the better part of an hour.
It had yet to become convincing.
Sebastian leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling of his study. The fire had burned low. He ought to ring for someone to stoke it, but the cold felt appropriate. Deserved, even.
He could still feel her. That was the wretched part. The press of her lips, so sweet and soft. Her palm over his racing heart. The way she'd tasted and the small sound she'd made when he'd deepened the kiss, half gasp and half surrender…
And then her face afterward. The way the hope had drained out of it, slow and terrible. The precise moment she'd believed him. The way she'd squared her shoulders and said Lord Blackwood with careful formality.
He'd taken the brightest, bravest woman he'd ever known and made her feel small and foolish. But what was the alternative?
He scrubbed a hand over his face. The feel of his tight, scarred skin was the reminder he needed.
Even if she could look past his physical defects, she deserved so much more from a husband. Even before the fire he’d had a notoriously foul temper. Of course, back then his bad moods were tempered by his desire for revelry and amusement.
He’d been a half-decent conversationalist back then. But he’d always hated small talk, and he’d never known how to put a gently bred young lady at ease.
He poured himself a whiskey and didn't drink it. Even if she could get past the temper and the lack of civility and the burns… It wouldn’t change the fact that he had no right to be so happy.
There was no world in which it could be called fair that his best friend wound up dead trying to be a hero, and he—the villain—got the happy ending.
No. No, it would not do at all. He could hardly live with himself as it was. To let himself be that greedy, that selfish…
It could never happen. He’d known that all along, but now he had a memory of her kiss to torment him until the day he died.
The irony of it all was that he might never have noticed Estella if the fire hadn't happened.
He'd been a different man before. Not a bad man, necessarily, but selfish. Careless. And, like most spoiled and entitled young men of his acquaintance, he’d been unforgivably shallow.
He'd been the sort of man who chose his companions for their wit and their connections, and who never once looked beneath the surface of anyone or anything.
If someone had pointed out Estella Hale to him then, he'd have been polite. Perhaps even charming, since there was no doubt she was beautiful. But also…utterly indifferent.
He'd have noticed the pretty face and missed the woman entirely. And then he’d have moved on to whatever bright, uncomplicated amusement presented itself next.
But that fire had killed off the man he’d been back then.
The grief and the guilt and the months of pain.
The scars that made people flinch. The tremor in his hand that made every simple task a reminder.
He'd been broken apart and put back together, and in the rebuilding he'd developed eyes that could see what mattered.
And what mattered was Estella.
Not her beauty, though she was beautiful. What mattered was the way she'd held her family together without complaint or recognition. What mattered was her innate kindness and her sweet sincerity. The way she loved her impossible sister and her broken father with a steadfastness that humbled him.
So the fire that had killed Andrew and given Sebastian eyes to see what truly mattered had also ensured he could never act on what he saw.
The tragedy that had led him to love her was the very reason he couldn't have her.
He stared at the sealed letter. Lady Clarissa Whitfield. Sensible. Amenable.
There was a knock on the door. His butler appeared in the doorway, looking apologetic. "My lord. A messenger."
Sebastian frowned. "From whom?"
"A Mr. Gage, my lord. From the—" The butler cleared his throat and stepped forward with a missive. "From an establishment in Covent Garden."
Sebastian frowned. He had only had business with one establishment in Covent Garden, and it had been on behalf of Estella’s father.
The handwriting was a rough scrawl.
Blackwood—
Thought you'd want to know. There's a young lady here asking questions about Viscount Hale's debts. She's brought a friend who keeps asking about my accounting methods.
I’ve kept my mouth shut, but she's stubborn. And she's not leaving.
—Gage
Sebastian was out of his chair before he'd finished reading.