Chapter Eight #2
Georgiana laughed—light, charming, entirely without warmth. “Poor Cecilia. Always wanting what you cannot have. First Thornfield, then your ridiculous dreams of a Season, and now a duke. One would think experience might have taught you better.”
“Miss Ashwood.”
Sebastian had not intended to speak. Had not intended to reveal that he had overheard. But the words were out before he could stop them, and both women turned to face him. Georgiana’s colour drained; Cecilia’s expression froze into barely contained mortification.
“Your Grace,” Georgiana said at once, summoning a bright smile. “How unexpected. I had not—”
“Clearly.” His tone was courteous, perfectly level—and edged with such unmistakable coldness that Georgiana faltered. “I wondered whether I might speak with your cousin.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the pianoforte seemed to fade into the background.
“My… cousin?” Georgiana repeated weakly.
“Miss Cecilia Ashwood,” he said. “With whom you were just conversing.”
Whatever he allowed her to see in his gaze made her take a half-step backwards.
“I—of course— we were merely—”
“I heard what you were merely doing.”
The sentence landed with dreadful precision. Georgiana’s lips parted and closed again; Cecilia looked as though she might wish herself invisible.
“Your Grace,” Cecilia said quietly, “there is no need—”
“There is every need.” His voice gentled, despite himself. “Miss Ashwood—would you take a turn with me? The rain has passed, and I find myself in want of fresh air.”
The impropriety of it was unmistakable. A duke did not invite a dependent girl to walk with him before witnesses. Tongues would wag. Consequences would follow.
He knew it.
He asked anyway.
“I—” Cecilia hesitated, glancing at Georgiana, then at the gathering knot of observers. “I am not certain that would be—”
“I am perfectly certain that it would not,” he said, very calmly. “I ask nonetheless.”
A breath. A calculation. Then, so quiet that he almost missed it:
“Yes.”
He offered his arm. She took it.
They stepped through the tall French doors into the rain-washed garden, the room behind them stunned into silence.
Georgiana remained by the window, rigid with disbelief—her pretty smile quite gone, leaving only the stark, wounded fury beneath.
***
“That was unwise.”
They were walking through the garden, following a gravel path that wound between hedgerows still dripping from the afternoon’s rain. Cecilia’s voice was steady, but Sebastian could see the tension in her shoulders, the careful way she held herself.
“Probably,” he agreed.
“More than probably. Certainly. Everyone saw. Everyone will talk.”
“Let them talk.”
“You may afford to say so. You are a duke.” She stopped, compelling him to stop as well. “I am not. I have nothing to shield me but obscurity, and you shattered it in front of half the house.”
“Would you have preferred that I let your cousin continue?”
The question stalled her. Pain, anger—and something like reluctant gratitude—crossed her face before she mastered it.
“What Georgiana said—”
“Was cruel. And false.”
“Was it?” She met his gaze, steady despite the tremor beneath. “I know what I am. A dependent. An encumbrance taken in from duty. A woman whose circumstances render her… easily overlooked. Georgiana merely stated what everyone else thinks.”
“She stated what she believes everyone thinks. That is not the same thing.”
“Is it not?”
He moved closer—close enough to see the fine drops of rain in her hair, the quick pulse at her throat—and forced himself to stop there.
“What she said of courtesy, that I speak to you only because good breeding forbids me to turn away…” He searched for words that would neither presume nor frighten. “That is not the truth of it. And I think—I hope—you know as much.”
“I know what you have said,” she replied softly. “I know what I have felt.” A breath. “But I also know that house parties end. Guests go back to their lives. Whatever has existed in that library will not survive beyond its walls.”
“Why must that be so?”
“Because the world is as Georgiana described it. A world in which dukes do not marry poor relations—and poor relations do not invite notice without paying for it.” She stepped back. “I ought never to have come walking with you.”
“Cecilia.”
Her name arrested her. The struggle in her eyes—hope against caution, longing against sense—cut him to the quick.
“I am not exercising politeness,” he said quietly.
“Nor idly passing the time. I have come to that room day after day because it has become impossible to do otherwise. Because you are…” He faltered, then chose restraint.
“Because your company has reminded me that I am still a person beneath the part I play.”
“Sebastian—”
“I know the obstacles. I know what would be said—by my mother, by your family, by society entire. Every argument points one way: speak pleasantly, withdraw, forget.”
“Then why do you not?”
He hesitated—not from doubt, but because the truth felt too naked for speech.
“Because I find,” he said at last, “that I cannot.”
The stillness between them deepened—not empty, but perilous.
“What is it you want?” she asked. “From this, from me? What do you truly want?”
The answer was too large to be spoken.
“I want to go on knowing you,” he said instead. “To go on speaking—honestly—while we may.” He stopped short of the rest. “There are desires I have no right to voice. But I am not yet ready to pretend they do not exist.”
“And if the cost is mine to bear?” she asked.
The words struck like a blow. His mother’s warning echoed in his mind: it will fall upon her—and it will ruin her.
“I would never wish you harm.”
“Wishes do not alter consequences.” She folded her arms, as though to brace herself. “By morning, everyone will have heard that the Duke of Ashworth chose to single out the poor relation. They will draw their conclusions. It is I who must live beneath them.”
He understood then—fully—what his attention had risked.
“What would you have me do?” he asked.
“I do not know.” Her gaze turned outward, toward the dripping lawns. “Part of me would have you walk away—leave me to the safety of being unseen.”
“And the other part?”
A long pause.
“The other part is… foolish,” she said at last. “And learns nothing from experience.”
“It need not be folly,” he murmured. “If we are brave.”
“Brave?” She gave a soft, bleak laugh. “I have been brave through grief and loss and the unravelling of everything I once expected my life to be. Bravery does not feed a woman, nor keep her housed. I cannot gamble the little that remains to me on a hope that may never become anything more.”
Sebastian wanted to promise—protection, provision, safety—but the words would ring hollow. He was not free to offer such pledges, and she was too practical to believe them even if he did.
“Tomorrow,” he said instead. “There is to be a picnic at the ruins. You will be there.”
“I shall be carrying Georgiana’s shawl. That is not quite the same as being there.”
“I know.” He drew breath, a decision settling in him. “But I shall see you, and you will see me—even if we must behave as though nothing has passed between us. Whatever others choose to imagine—we shall at least know the truth.”
“And what truth is that?”
He lifted his hand—slowly, giving her time to retreat—and let his fingers brush her cheek. She went very still.
“That you are not unseen,” he said softly. “Not by me.”
Her eyes closed. For a heartbeat, she leaned into his touch.
Then she stepped away.
“We must return,” she said. “Before our absence is remarked.”
“Cecilia—”
“Tomorrow.” Her voice steadied, though feeling trembled beneath it. “We shall see what tomorrow brings. But tonight—we must remember ourselves.”
She turned and walked back toward the house, her grey gown fading into the dim, rain-washed light. He watched her go, and something within him settled—not peace, but resolve.
His mother wished him to end this. Society expected nothing less.
But Sebastian understood himself now with unsettling clarity.
He was done retreating into reason.