Chapter 29 #2
Sebastian studied him openly now. “That’s new.”
Edward’s mouth curved faintly. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “You’ve built your life on not being careless with your name.”
Edward’s gaze drifted to the window. “Perhaps I was wrong to.”
Sebastian leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. “Edward… when a man starts thinking his reputation doesn’t matter, it usually means someone does.”
Edward let out a short laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Am I?”’
Edward waved a dismissive hand. “You’ve been away from Margaret for too long.”
“And you’ve been away from honesty long enough,” Sebastian replied mildly.
Edward stiffened. “Don’t.” He turned fully toward the window. The hills beyond Bath lay green and unbothered, untouched by gossip or consequence. “The ton forgets because it always does. I knew that going in.”
“And yet,” Sebastian said gently, “you’re irritable, brooding, and you removed yourself entirely.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “I came home.”
“You fled,” Sebastian corrected. “Which is not the same thing.”
Edward didn’t answer.
Sebastian sighed. “Is it Beatrice?”
Edward shot him a look. “Don’t.”
“Oh, I absolutely will,” Sebastian insisted. “Because you haven’t stopped thinking about her since the day you married her, and we both know it.”
“That marriage was a mistake.”
“Perhaps,” Sebastian allowed. “But you don’t brood over mistakes like this. You brood over losses.”
Edward’s voice lowered. “You didn’t live with her.”
Sebastian smiled faintly. “No. But I’ve watched you live without her. And you’re doing it badly.”
Silence stretched.
“She doesn’t want me,” Edward finally said.
Sebastian tilted his head. “Did she say that?”
“No.”
“Did she act as though she despised you?”
Edward hesitated. “No.”
“Then what did she do, exactly?”
“She withdrew,” Edward muttered. “She became… distant. Polite. As though I were merely a piece of furniture she could no longer be bothered to move. To her, I will always be the man she once wrote about. The rake. The disappointment.”
Sebastian nodded slowly. “Ah.”
Edward scoffed. “Don’t start.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Sebastian said. “I was simply going to point out that withdrawing is not the same as indifference. Sometimes it’s self-preservation.”
Edward stepped away from the window, he leaned down, his hand curled around the edge of the desk. “I wasn’t going to beg her to feel something she clearly didn’t.”
Sebastian stood up. “And there it is.”
Edward frowned. “What?”
“You didn’t stay because you were afraid,” Sebastian said softly. “Not of her rejection, but of how much it would cost you if she didn’t reject you.”
Edward’s breath caught, sharp and unwelcome.
Sebastian clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to decide anything now, but don’t lie to yourself and call this peace.”
Edward looked away, his throat tight.
Sebastian smiled again. “Come. You can brood tomorrow. Tonight, you’re drinking with me. The ton may have forgotten your scandal, but I, sadly, remember all your worst habits.”
Edward huffed a reluctant laugh.
Dinner was also unremarkable in the way Bath excelled at being unremarkable. The soup was properly hot. The wine was appropriately decanted. The candles flickered gently.
Edward noticed all of it because there was nothing else demanding his attention—and because noticing had become his habit.
Sebastian, by contrast, seemed determined to supply interest where the house would not.
“You’ve always eaten as though meals were an interruption,” he said, watching him from across the table. “Margaret says it’s because you prefer control to pleasure.”
Edward lifted his glass. “Margaret attributes far too much psychology to table manners.”
“She’s rarely wrong.”
Edward ignored that. “You didn’t come to Bath to discuss my chewing.”
“No,” Sebastian agreed easily. “As I said, I came to see whether exile had improved your temper.”
“And?” Edward asked dryly.
Sebastian considered him. “Not worse. Possibly more… pointed.”
Edward set down his glass. “You didn’t ride all this way to hurl polite insults. What is it?”
Sebastian smiled into his wine. “London news.”
Edward stiffened. “I thought you said the ton had moved on.”
“They have,” Sebastian affirmed. “Which is precisely why it’s interesting.”
Edward waited.
Sebastian dabbed his mouth with his napkin, deliberately casual. “Your Duchess has been making herself useful.”
Edward’s hand paused halfway to his cutlery. Only for a moment. “Meaning?” he prompted.
“She’s been visiting orphanages,” Sebastian explained. “Quietly. No announcements. No patronage displays. Just… turning up. Asking questions. Making arrangements.”
Edward kept his gaze on his plate. “Beatrice has always believed in order.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said gently. “But this is not order. This is care.”
Edward said nothing.
Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “One of the matrons mentioned that she brings lists. Names. Ages. Needs. She listens. Apparently, she intends to return.”
Edward’s mouth twitched before he could stop it.
Sebastian caught it immediately. “Ah,” he said, delighted. “There it is.”
Edward looked up sharply. “What?”
“That.” Sebastian pointed to his face. “That look when you forget you’re meant to be unmoved.”
Edward scowled. “I’m not—”
“You’re smiling,” Sebastian cut in. “Very slightly. Like a man who’s just been handed something precious and is pretending it’s nothing of consequence.”
Edward reached for his wineglass. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” Sebastian tilted his head. “Because you didn’t ask why she was doing it. Or which orphanages. Or with whom. You simply reacted.”
Edward took a measured sip. “She’s kind.”
Sebastian’s voice softened. “She’s more than that, and you know it.”
Silence settled, heavier this time.
Edward finally spoke. “You said the ton has forgotten.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s free to move as she wishes.”
Sebastian nodded. “Largely.”
Edward looked down at his plate, his appetite gone. “Good.”
Sebastian studied him for a long moment. “You’re a fool,” he said without heat. “But you’re not blind.”
Edward gave a humorless laugh. “Careful.”
Sebastian rose. “Finish your dinner. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”
Edward did not stop him.
When Sebastian left the room, Edward remained in his seat, staring at his own reflection in the wineglass until several hours passed.
Later, in the study, the fire had burned too low. He noticed because the room had cooled, not because he had been watching it. He rose from his chair, set his untouched glass aside, and reached for the poker. The logs collapsed with a dull clatter, sending up a brief flare of heat.
Better.
He sat back, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair.
Orphanages, he thought. Beatrice with her lists. Her careful handwriting. Her insistence on noticing what others overlooked.
Beatrice standing in rooms she did not need to enter, choosing discomfort because it mattered. And him leaving because it hurt less to withdraw than to hope.
He closed his eyes. The distance had not soothed him. Rather, it had sharpened him, cut him cleanly down to the truth he had been avoiding since London.
He missed her. Not the Duchess. Not their arrangement. Not the civility. But her. Beatrice. The woman who hummed without realizing it. Who corrected him without condescension. Who loved fiercely and quietly and entirely, even when it cost her.
He loved her.
The realization did not frighten him. That was the most startling part. It did not rush in or overwhelm. It settled. Firm. Correct. Like a truth that had waited until he stopped resisting it.
He straightened abruptly, the decision settling with a calm that surprised him.
He stood up, moved to the window, and stared out at the land he had governed for years. Every hedge cut to rule. Every path accounted for. A world that responded to him because it was meant to.
Beatrice did not. She never had.
This was not something to be managed from afar. Not something that would resolve itself through patience or propriety. If he stayed, nothing would change. If he stayed, he would lose her.
He crossed the room and rang the bell.
The butler appeared promptly. “Your Grace?”
“Have the carriage readied, Davens.”
The butler glanced at the clock. “In the morning, Your Grace?”
“Now.” Edward’s tone left no room for negotiation. “ To leave at first light. For London.”
The butler inclined his head. “Very good.”
Edward hesitated for only a second before adding, “Tell Hargreaves to pack a light trunk. No need for ceremony.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The door closed, leaving him standing alone, the fire crackling merrily in the grate.
In his room, instead of sleeping, he sat awake, staring at the fire, knowing one thing with unsettling certainty: Sebastian was right; reputation no longer mattered.