Chapter 24
They rode back to the estate in silence. Not that Sebastian noticed. He was too lost in his head. Too emotionally shattered from the evening. Too lost in his thoughts as he tried to reckon with what had just happened and what it meant to him. What it had revealed.
There was no question about how he felt about the children at the orphanage. How attached to their safety he was. He had not put himself through all of this because he thought it might make him look good, or because he was trying to get away with something. He simply cared that much.
Rather, it was Helena’s presence that he focused on the most. That from which he could not escape, and how significant it felt to him.
When they had climbed into the carriage together, rather than sitting across from him as she always did, she chose to take the spot right by his side. She then took his hand and held it in her lap, not because he asked her to, but because she wanted to.
She wanted to comfort him. To make him feel better. To make him realize that he was not alone in this.
He dared to glance at her. She was staring out the window, deep in thought. But he noticed often throughout the night the way she had looked at him.
It was the same look she held him in each time she saw him with the children. As if she was seeing another side of him. A side that she was not afraid to get close to, that she wanted to get to know better.
For a moment, Sebastian’s thoughts strayed back to the previous night when he confessed how he was starting to feel about her. She had turned him away, confirming that she wanted nothing to do with him. It had hurt, but he accepted it, even recognizing that it was for the best.
Only now…
She is as confused as I am. As stubborn and desperate to deny what is growing between us. Like me, she is terrified of what might happen should we give in. And like me, she will do almost anything to stop that from happening.
But she was here now. Maybe it was just because of how she cared for Daniel?
Only that felt like a small fraction of it.
In truth, he knew that she cared for him. She was here because she wanted to comfort him through this moment. Because their lives were attached, whether they wanted it or not. And that was what mattered.
Sebastian considered the situation.
Last night, Helena had said that he did not know her, which was true enough. And she used that as a shield to defend her decision not to grow any closer.
If Sebastian wished it, he could respect her wishes and forget about her. Divorce himself from his feelings and admit that the two of them were about to go off alone.
Only, do I want such a thing? She does not know me, as I do not know her. But if she were given the chance to see the real me, would that change? Do I want it to?
He did, he realized. Despite what they both claimed, this marriage had changed beyond what either could have imagined. And if it stood even the smallest chance of growing further, Sebastian felt he owed it to himself to try.
He remembered how she was with Daniel. A smile reached his lips. She was so much more than she let herself believe. And so was he.
“I am not who you think,” he began. As he spoke, he looked ahead, a thousand-yard stare trained on the carriage wall.
“Excuse me?” Helena turned to him.
“When you look at me, you see where I came from,” he continued in a whisper as if he hoped she would not hear it.
“The perfect pedigree. Raised to be everything my father could ever want,” he scoffed.
“He did not want a son, truth be told. He wanted a tool he could use, one to further his reputation and political goals. Of which there were many.”
“Sebastian, what are you…”
“And that’s what I became. And I was good at it.
I learned how to use my tongue like a sword, how to craft lies to make them sound like truths.
I was given the best education, admired by all, seen as the future of my family’s line.
” His lips curled into a sneer. “But despite everything I did, how I yearned to impress my father, I was only that same tool. Used as he wished when he wished it. I had no friends. No one I could trust. To me, people were pieces on a chessboard, and my father was always careful that I saw them as little else.”
He said nothing for a moment, expecting Helena to ask what he was doing. But she stayed silent, watching him closely, seeming to sense where this story was going and why he was telling it.
She wanted to hear it, he could tell. Through pretending that she wanted nothing to do with him, she was starting to accept what he knew—that this marriage could be so much more if they allowed it.
“I wasn’t happy,” he admitted solemnly. “In truth, I don’t think I knew what happiness was.
A trick. Or…” He turned his gaze to her and smiled sardonically.
“A trap. What good was happiness? It brought you nothing. It gained you nothing. All I cared about was my future, as seen through my father’s eyes. ”
“What changed?” she asked softly.
“Who said anything did?”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “The man you just described would not have spent an entire night by the bed of a sick child who is not related to him. So…” She squeezed his hand again and made sure to be looking right at him. “What changed?”
Sebastian allowed himself a smile, liking the effect it had on her.
“My only respite from my father’s dominion was found in random trips I would make to London.
I was forced to sneak out. I would wear common clothes so I would not be recognized.
And when I reached the city, I would…” He shrugged.
“I would just walk. Nowhere to go. No one to see. All it was was a chance to be free.”
She laughed. “I know the feeling.”
“I started doing it when I was fifteen, but it wasn’t until I was seventeen that I met…” He felt a lump form in his throat, one he could not swallow. “That I met Thomas.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as the memories washed over him.
He could still remember that first day, how random the meeting was, how unexpected.
How unsure he had been, then how wonderful he had felt.
And the way Thomas had changed his perspective on life, giving him what was in every sense a new lease on a life he despised, such that he was happy for perhaps the first time in memory.
“He was a street urchin,” Sebastian continued.
“Only ten years old, living in allies, eating the little food he could get his hands on, with no future, no past, nothing to live for at all. And yet…” He smiled, and he felt tears of happiness well up in his eyes.
“He was happy. Despite everything, he loved his life, unlike anything I was able to imagine.”
“Sounds like quite the character.”
“He was,” he agreed, still smiling. “When we met…” He laughed again.
“He thought he was rescuing me. I was dressed as a commoner, but I had forgotten the fact and was getting into an argument with a shop owner who was a little too close to kicking my backside for daring to walk into his store. Thomas grabbed me, dragged me away, and helped me to hide. He thought I was just like him, and he did not judge me. More than that, he saw me as a person. Not a tool, not a lord, but an equal and a friend. And why? Just because he was that sort of person.”
He felt a pain in the back of his throat as the good memories turned ugly. He swallowed the pain, still staring ahead, forcing himself to continue.
“He called me Bastian. And over the next year, every time I escaped into the city, we would meet. We would never do anything particularly exciting. But that was the point. It was just enough to have someone in my life who wanted to be my friend and did not ask for anything in return. I had no idea how much I needed that.”
He let the silence fall between them, because for this next part of the story, he needed a moment to compose himself. He was still looking ahead, shaking slightly, taking deep breaths as he waited for the question.
“What…” Helena hesitated. “What happened to him? To Thomas?”
“It was winter, and I was eighteen. It had been several months since I’d made it into the city—my father was starting to pressure me more than usual, as I was a man and his expectations of me had grown.
But I managed to sneak in, excited to see him…
and worried, as that winter was a particularly harsh one and I knew that Thomas had nowhere permanent to sleep.
I went to our usual meeting place…” He swallowed past the lump in his throat.
“He wasn’t there. I spent the whole day looking for him, until I became desperate and approached that same shopkeeper who Thomas had saved me from all those years ago. ”
“Oh no…”
“He died,” Sebastian said flatly. “Taken ill from the cold, the shopkeeper was the one who found his body. If not for him, it might have been weeks until someone did. He was just… He had no one. Alone. In the cold. Knowing he was going to die and that nobody would save him.”
“Sebastian…” Helena shuffled closer to him.
“I often wonder if he thought about me. If he wondered where I was and why I wasn’t there. But mostly, I ask myself why I didn’t do something sooner.”
“There was nothing you could have—”
“There was,” he hissed, his anger mounting.
“I knew how hard his life was. I knew he had nothing. And every winter that passed, I knew well the struggle he was put through. We would spend the day together, I was happy to pretend that we were the same, only to return to a warm home, food on the table, with not a damn care in the world. And Thomas…” He was shaking, and Helena put an arm around him. “He had nothing. Nobody.”
“That’s why you helped build the orphanage.” It wasn’t a question.
“I never wanted someone else to suffer as Thomas did. He did not deserve it, just as no child does. Treated as less because of where they were born. Their life expendable for no good reason. It is not right.”
“But you are helping,” she pointed out. “You are doing so much.”
“Not nearly enough,” he sighed. “One orphanage helps, but there are hundreds like Thomas. Worse, wanting to help them is seen as a weakness by my so-called peers. I am forced to act a certain way, play their game, slowly moving pieces together that I hope might lead to something. I…” He shook his head, his shoulders slumping.
“I failed Thomas and Helena. I cannot fail again.”
His body sagged, exhausted from reliving what was the hardest moment of his life. And Helena, to her credit, did not push for more or try for words of condolence because they would do no good.
What she did instead was exactly what Sebastian needed. She stayed silent but kept her arm around him for comfort, showing him that she was there for him, as he should have been for Thomas. And what was more, she did not judge him.
The remainder of the ride passed in silence, and for that, Sebastian was grateful. But he could feel Helena’s compassion for him in the way she held him and how she looked at him. He could feel the gap between them closing. He could sense the change slowly taking them both.
He had married her for good reason, and that was still what mattered most. But if more might come out of this marriage, he wondered what Thomas would think.
Likely, Thomas would be proud of him. Likely, he would simply be glad to hear that Sebastian was happy.
Happy…
Rarely had Sebastian felt such a thing since Thomas died, and he could not help but wonder if he ever would again. Or if he even deserved it.