Chapter Seven
“You are smiling again.”
Cecilia schooled her features into careful neutrality, but the damage was already done. Georgiana regarded her in the mirror with an expression that combined curiosity and suspicion in equal measure.
“I was not aware smiling was forbidden.”
“It is not forbidden. It is merely… unusual.” Georgiana turned on the dressing-stool to face her directly. “You have been different this week. Lighter. Almost—happy. It is most unsettling.”
“I beg your pardon if my contentment gives offence.”
“Do not be pert with me, Cecilia. Something has altered, and I wish to know what.”
Cecilia continued arranging Georgiana’s hair, her hands steady though her pulse had quickened.
Four days had passed since her first conversation with Sebastian in the library.
Four mornings of stolen meetings; of talk ranging from philosophy to politics to the practical difficulties of tenants and land; four days of feeling, for the first time in five years, like a person rather than an instrument.
She had known it could not remain secret forever. She had simply hoped for longer than four days.
“Nothing has altered,” she said calmly. “The weather has been fine. Lady Marchmont’s library is admirable. I have been sleeping well.”
“The library.” Georgiana’s eyes narrowed. “You have mentioned the library repeatedly. One might almost suppose you spend a great deal of time there.”
“I enjoy reading. You know this.”
“I know you used to enjoy reading, before my family came to Thornfield. I was not aware the habit had persisted.”
There was an edge in Georgiana’s tone—sharper than her usual harmless vanity—and it unsettled Cecilia. Her cousin was not a fool, merely inattentive; and if she had begun to pay attention…
“The library here is unusually well stocked,” Cecilia replied. “I have been making use of the opportunity.”
“And has anyone else been making use of it? In the mornings, perhaps—when the organised activities have not yet begun?”
The question struck like a blow. Cecilia’s hands faltered for a heartbeat before resuming with deliberate care.
“I could not say. I am generally occupied with my reading.”
“Are you.” It was not a question. Georgiana watched her in the mirror, calculating. “The Duke of Ashworth has been absent from several morning engagements. Lady Marchmont remarked upon it. She wondered where he might be.”
“I am sure I could not say.”
“Could you not?”
Silence settled between them—heavy, suggestive. Cecilia continued to place pins and thread ribbons, performing each step of the familiar ritual while her mind ran ahead through possibilities and dangers.
Georgiana could not know. She was testing, probing, waiting for a reaction. If Cecilia remained composed—if she offered nothing—the suspicion might drift away.
“There,” Cecilia said at last, stepping back. “The rose ribbons flatter you exceedingly.”
Georgiana turned her head, momentarily absorbed by her reflection. Vanity, as always, asserted supremacy over curiosity; and the style was, undeniably, becoming.
“It will do,” she conceded. “Though I still maintain the blue would be better.”
“The blue is for dinner. Rose for the morning.”
“You always have an opinion,” Georgiana sighed, rising to smooth her skirts. “Very well. I must go and converse with the other young ladies while we wait for the gentlemen to finish their shooting.”
“A severe trial.”
“Do not mock me, Cecilia. Not everyone may hide in libraries all day.” She paused at the door and glanced back. “I shall be watching. If something is happening that ought not, I shall discover it.”
She swept out, leaving behind a haze of rose scent and unease.
Cecilia sank onto the dressing-stool, her composure fracturing now that she was alone. Georgiana suspected—perhaps did not know, but suspected—and Georgiana had never been famed for discretion.
She should end it. She should stop going to the library; stop seeking him out; stop this perilous, impossible thing before it destroyed them both. Every rational thought urged the same conclusion.
But the prospect of returning to the grey invisibility in which she had lived before he looked at her—and saw her—felt like a kind of living death.
One more morning, she told herself. I shall go once more, explain that we must stop, and then it will be finished.
She had been telling herself the same thing for four days.
She suspected she would tell herself the same thing tomorrow.
***
The gentlemen returned from shooting in high spirits, their morning’s sport apparently successful. Sebastian had participated—his mother had insisted—but his thoughts had been elsewhere entirely.
In the library. With her.
He had waited for her that morning, as he had waited every morning since their first conversation; and she had come, as she always did, slipping through the servants’ door with a book clasped to her breast and caution in her eyes.
They had spoken for an hour. About nothing of consequence—a passage in the book she had been reading, his thoughts on a speech he had heard in Lords, the particular challenge of managing servants who had served one’s father before oneself.
Small things. Safe things. The kind of conversation that could be explained away if necessary.
But beneath the words, something else had been building. A tension that grew with each meeting, each exchanged glance, each moment when their hands nearly touched and did not. Sebastian felt it like a physical weight, pressing against his chest, demanding acknowledgement.
He wanted her.
Not merely her conversation, though that was remarkable enough. Not merely her mind, though he had never encountered its equal among the women of his acquaintance. He wanted her—her presence, her attention, her rare smiles that transformed her serious face into something luminous.
He wanted things he had no right to want, with a woman he had no business approaching.
“Brother.” Evan’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You look like a man on his way to the gallows. Was the shooting truly so dreadful?”
“I acquitted myself adequately.”
“A ringing endorsement.” Evan fell into step beside him. “Mother wishes to speak with you. She has that look.”
“What look?”
“The look that suggests she has observed something and intends to address it. If I were you, I would prepare myself.”
Sebastian suppressed a sigh. His mother noticed everything. He had hoped his morning absences might pass unremarked in the general whirl of the house party.
He had been wrong.
“Did she say what she wished to discuss?”
“She did not. But she asked me three questions yesterday about where you had gone that morning—which may furnish a clue.” Evan’s tone softened. “Sebastian. Whatever you are about—”
“I am about nothing.”
“You are about something,” Evan said quietly.
“You have been distracted all week. You scarcely spoke to Miss Ashwood at dinner—the golden-haired one—and Lady Marchmont noted your absence from the card-room. Something holds your attention, and it is not any of the young ladies Mother has gathered for you.”
“Perhaps I am tired of being gathered.”
“Perhaps. But that does not explain where you vanish each morning—or why you return looking as though you have seen something remarkable, and are determined no one should notice.”
Sebastian said nothing. There was nothing safe to say.
“Be careful,” Evan murmured. “Whatever this is—whoever this is—be careful. You have more to lose than you think.”
“I have nothing to lose but the expectation that I shall marry suitably and continue the line. That expectation will survive my occasional walk in the morning.”
“Will it?” Evan stopped, compelling Sebastian to pause as well. “Brother, I am not blind. I have seen the way you look at her.”
Sebastian’s heart lurched. “At whom?”
“The cousin. Miss Cecilia Ashwood—the one in grey, who stands at the edges of rooms and endeavours not to be seen.” His voice held neither mockery nor censure, only concern. “You watch her. Not constantly. Not conspicuously. But enough that a man who knows you might observe it.”
“You are imagining things.”
“Am I?” Evan’s voice gentled further. “Then why did you tense when I spoke her name?”
Because the secret was not so secret as he had believed.
“I have spoken to her,” Sebastian said at last. “A few times. In the library. She reads agricultural treatises. I found her conversation… refreshing.”
“Refreshing,” Evan repeated, eyebrows lifting. “If that is our word for it.”
“It is accurate. She does not perform. She says what she thinks. Do you know how rare that is among the women I am urged to court?”
“I can guess. But Sebastian, she is a dependent. She has no fortune, no standing, no prospect. Even if your feelings—”
“I have no feelings.”
The denial came too swiftly. Evan’s expression shifted to something like pity.
“You have feelings,” he said quietly. “Anyone looking at you could see it. The question is what you intend to do about them.”
“Nothing,” Sebastian said. “We talk. That is all.”
“And when the house party ends? When you depart, and she returns to whatever life awaits her? Will you simply... stop having feelings?”
Sebastian did not answer. He could not.
“Be careful,” Evan said again. “For both your sakes.”
He walked on toward the house, leaving Sebastian alone on the gravel sweep—staring at nothing, and trying not to think of impossibilities.