Chapter 10
Beneath the moon's soft silver light,
We wandered through the tranquil night;
Your hand in mine, our hearts entwined,
In love's sweet dance, our souls aligned.
The New Ladies’ Valentine Writer (1821)
* * *
Harriet wrapped her hands around the porcelain cup, letting the warmth seep into her fingers as she stared into the fire.
The painted room was a sanctuary, but tonight, even its familiar elegance could not ease the constriction in her chest. The events of the evening had left her raw, her composure stretched too thin.
She had sat through dinner with people who despised her, people who had every right to.
She had smiled, spoken when spoken to, and kept her back straight, but now that she was alone, her past sins crashed down upon her. The guilt was a heavy thing, settling in her belly.
Sebastian. Perry. Brendan. Her cowardice.
Even now, she burned with remorse over the afternoon she had drunk far too much wine, lamenting the loss of another admirer to a less sophisticated woman, and then pressed her unwanted attentions on Brendan in his own home.
His wife had walked in and discovered her there, while the panicked baron was already drawing himself free of her grasp.
How could Sebastian forgive her when he learned the truth? How could anyone forgive her? She had been a terrible person. Now she could only claim to be a regretful person. It was surely premature to claim the right to be considered good after all her sins.
A quiet knock at the door startled her. Jem’s small, freckled face appeared in the dim candlelight.
“My lady,” she whispered. “You have a visitor.”
Harriet frowned. “At this hour?”
The girl hesitated. “It is Lord Sebastian.”
Her stomach flipped. The firelight flickered over her wool-clad knees as she set her chocolate aside, forcing her voice into calmness. “Send him in.”
Jem disappeared, and a moment later, Sebastian stepped inside, closing the door behind him with quiet firmness.
He was still dressed in his evening clothes, though he had loosened his cravat.
His gaze moved over her, from the loose tumble of her hair to the thick wool wrapper drawn close about her, the state of a woman at her fireside, private and unguarded, who had not expected the evening to bring further company.
“You should not be here,” she murmured.
“And yet, here I am.”
Harriet tilted her head, studying Sebastian in the flickering glow of the firelight.
He seemed unsettled, his usually sharp gaze unfocused, as if he were warring with thoughts he had no wish to voice.
His lips were pressed into a firm line, his hands clenched at his sides, and though he was standing mere feet away from her, he appeared caught in the grips of something far away, something painful.
“Sebastian?” she asked softly, rising to her feet.
He did not answer.
Instead, in two swift strides, he closed the distance between them, his hands cupping her face gently before she could speak. He looked truly looked at her, with the full weight of everything unresolved between them … and then he kissed her.
Harriet went still, her fingers finding the lapels of his coat as if she needed an anchor.
It was unlike anything that had passed between her and the hollow parade of others she had sought in the dark years since.
How many times had she imagined this very moment, alone here with nothing but regret and longing to keep her company?
But this was no dream. This was Sebastian. And he was here, kissing her as if the years apart had never been.
When he finally drew back, his breathing was uneven, and she saw the glint of raw emotion in his eyes.
“From how many did you seek consolation, Harry?” The question was quiet, not an accusation but the kind of honesty that asked for honesty in return.
The question was a blade, slipping between her ribs and lodging itself in her heart.
She stiffened, but she did not look away.
“Too many. Fewer than people think.”
Sebastian’s jaw tensed. “How many?”
“Why does it matter?” she whispered.
“How many, Harry?” he repeated, his voice low, insistent.
She hesitated, but then, what was the point of lying? Here was a small truth she could give him when there were so many secrets to hide.
“Seven or eight,” she admitted, her voice barely audible. “I always imagined they were you.”
A muscle flickered in his jaw. The grip he still had on her loosened, his thumb resting absently over her cheekbone.
“Does that include Horace?”
She exhaled inelegantly, some of the tension in her chest easing. “My late husband could not remember his own name, never mind that he had a bride lurking in his halls. I stayed out of his way until he departed.”
“Ruthless.”
“It was,” she admitted, her voice quieter now. “But I am no longer proud of that. I should have taken a chance on you. On us.”
Sebastian’s eyes grew distant.
“What about you?” she asked, the words leaving her before she could stop them.
He exhaled, stepping back slightly, as if putting space between them would soften the blow of whatever he was about to say. “It is difficult to say. Fifteen? Twenty, perhaps? I was foxed most of the time until Lorenzo convinced me it was time to stop.”
Harriet swallowed against the jealousy that surged within her, unwelcome but undeniable.
She had no right to it. After all, she had sought her own oblivion in the company of those she cared nothing for, with the aid of wine to make her forget the one she truly loved.
But hearing him say it made it real in a way she had never allowed herself to think about before.
She had spent so many years trying to forget him, numbing herself with wine and hollow companionship. But he had done the same, had tried just as hard to erase the past with women who would never mean anything.
“We were a world apart, yet we spent our time doing the same thing,” she murmured, half to herself. “Trying to forget.”
Sebastian reached out, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. “Spirits and the seeking of comfort where none could truly be found do not heal a broken heart.”
“No,” she agreed, voice thick with regret. “They do not.”
For a long moment, they simply stood there, the fire crackling in the hearth the only sound in the stillness between them. Harriet felt raw, exposed, as if a small part of her burden had been lifted, but there were so many more parts to contend with.
And, in that moment, she did not feel entirely alone. Sebastian had carried his own burdens. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could find a way to set them down. Together.
Sebastian’s expression shifted as he watched her, the firelight casting golden flickers against his sharp cheekbones and firm mouth.
He reached for her, his hands settling at her waist with a steadiness that told her this was not impulse.
Whatever had brought him here tonight, he had arrived at it by deliberate degrees, the way a man arrives at a decision he has been avoiding for years.
He drew her close, and she did not resist. She had spent so long resisting the memory of him, the pull of what they had once been to each other, the evidence of her own heart whenever it had the impertinence to remind her what it was capable of feeling.
She was very tired of resisting. And beneath the weariness, quiet as a creditor waiting in the hall, the truth she had not yet spoken waited too.
His scent of clean linen with a hint of sandalwood settled around her like a familiar room she had been locked out of for years and had only now been permitted to re-enter.
“You are playing with fire,” she whispered, though she did not move away.
“I have been burning for years,” he murmured in return.
She had no answer for that. So she did not offer one.
He kissed her then, and it was nothing like the careful, wondering kisses that had come before.
This was the accumulated weight of years of waiting and loss, of longing that had never found another object worthy of it.
Her fingers curled into the lapels of his coat, and for a long, suspended moment she allowed herself to simply feel the solidity of him, the terrible, magnificent relief of being loved by the one person whose loving had ever truly mattered.
It was Harriet who pulled back.
This was not the practiced withdrawal she had deployed so many times before, the bright smile and the graceful step away that said this meant nothing before anything could be said at all.
This was different. Her hands pressed gently against his chest, her forehead dropping to rest there for just a moment while she steadied herself, while she found her breath and the words she needed.
“I cannot,” she said quietly. “Not like this.”
Sebastian was still. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her palms, the controlled evenness of his breathing.
“Explain,” he said, and the word held no accusation, only the patience she had come to expect from him.
She lifted her head and looked at him, and the firelight made it easier, somehow, to say the true thing.
“It has meant nothing for so long. Every time. Years of it meaning nothing at all.” She pressed her lips together.
“I am afraid that it will mean nothing with you, too. That I have lost the capacity for it to be otherwise.”
He drew breath to speak. She pressed her fingers gently against his chest to stop him.
“And I am more afraid,” she continued, her voice dropping further, “that it will mean everything. That I will be quite undone by it. I am not ready to be undone, Sebastian. Not with so much still between us that has not been said.”
A long silence. Then, very quietly: “That is the most honest thing you have ever said to me.”
She gave a small, unsteady laugh. “Do not grow accustomed to it. It cost me enormously.”
His expression shifted, softened in a way that was almost worse than his intensity. He reached up to brush a loose strand of hair from her cheek, his touch entirely unhurried, and said nothing at all for a moment.