56 #2
I am not made of marble simply because I have better manners than he did."
She flinched.
He saw it and closed his eyes briefly, as if restraining himself from softening the sentence too soon.
When he opened them, his voice was lower. "I did not mean that as cruelty."
"I know."
"Do you?"
She looked at him.
Sebastian gave a short, quiet breath. "I watched you come back from that pavilion looking as if he had finally handed you something you buried with the girl who loved him."
Dorothy's throat tightened.
"That is not a crime," he continued. "It is not betrayal. It may not even be love. But it is something, and every time I try to pretend it does not touch me, I become less honest with you than I promised to be."
Dorothy crossed her arms around herself, not defensively at first, then perhaps defensively after all. "He said the selfless thing."
Sebastian's expression changed.
She looked away because saying it aloud made it worse. "He said he would not interfere if you made me happy. That is all."
"No," Sebastian said, not harshly, but firmly. "That is not all."
Dorothy's eyes returned to him.
"It is the thing you wanted him to say when wanting it could still save you," he said. "And he has finally said it now, when I am the man standing next to you. Do you think I do not understand the cruelty of that timing? Do you think I do not see how it cuts you?"
Her eyes burned.
She hated how well he saw her. She had wanted to be understood for so long, and now understanding had become its own exposure.
"I do not want him back," she said.
"I believe you."
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because not wanting him back is not the same as being free of him."
The room went silent.
Dorothy had said something similar to herself in fragments, never with that much clarity.
Hearing it from Sebastian made her want to deny it.
She wanted to say that she had signed the future away from Trevor, that she had chosen Sebastian's hand in front of everyone, that she had told the entire ballroom Trevor's mess was no longer her life. All of that was true.
Yet the pavilion had shaken her.
Trevor's promise had shaken her.
Not because it rebuilt love, but because it reached the ruins and made them visible.
Sebastian came closer, then stopped with a visible effort, leaving a few feet of space between them.
"I can fight Vanessa. I can stand beside you in a ballroom. I can endure the public comparing me to him, though I dislike it more than I admit. I can wait for grief to move through you at its own pace.
What I cannot do is pretend I do not bleed when the man who broke you finally learns tenderness and you look at him as if mourning the woman who could have lived if he had learned sooner."
Dorothy's eyes filled.
The tears angered her.
She turned her face slightly away. "That is not about wanting him."
"I know."
"Then do not make it sound like I am choosing him."
"I am not."
"It feels like you are."
"Because you are afraid I am asking a question you do not want to answer."
Dorothy looked at him sharply.
Sebastian's face was pale with restraint now, his control fraying at the edges but not collapsing into cruelty.
That was almost worse. If he became unfair, she could defend herself.
If he became possessive, she could leave.
Instead, he remained painfully honest, which left her nowhere to hide except anger.
"You chose this knowing I was not simple," she said.
"I did."
"You knew Trevor was part of the pain."
"Yes."
"You knew I could not cut out three years of marriage because you were kind to me."
"I did not ask you to."
"You are asking something."
"Yes," Sebastian said.
The admission stopped her.
He stepped closer then, only one step, but enough that the distance between them felt intentional rather than accidental.
"I am asking you to stop protecting me from the answer by making the question sound unreasonable," he said.
Dorothy's breath caught.
Sebastian's voice softened, but the softness did not weaken him. "I would rather be hurt by the truth than comforted by your confusion dressed as reassurance."
She looked at him, and for the first time since he had entered her life, Dorothy saw the limit of his patience not as threat but as humanity.
Sebastian had given her space, choices, time, shelter.
He had not demanded immediate healing. He had not used her weakness.
But he wanted her. He had said so. Wanting did not become painless because it was disciplined.
She had leaned on his steadiness as if steadiness cost him nothing.
That was unfair too.
"I don't know what you want me to say," she whispered.
His eyes held hers.
"The truth."
"I am trying."
"I know."
The echo of Trevor's phrase struck both of them at once.
Dorothy flinched.
Sebastian's mouth tightened, and the first real crack in his restraint showed, not as anger, but as pain.
"There," he said quietly.
She closed her eyes.
"Do not," she whispered.
"I am sorry."
"No, you are not."
"No," he admitted. "Not entirely."
She opened her eyes.
The honesty was brutal.
Sebastian looked at her as if he would rather wound himself than wound her, but the question had already risen between them, inevitable now that the morning had pulled the last comfortable lie from the room.
"I need to know what I am standing beside," he said.
Dorothy's fingers tightened around her sleeves. "You are standing beside me."
"Yes," he said. "But part of you is still standing in that pavilion with him."
The words landed softly.
Too softly.
Dorothy felt them more deeply because of it.
Outside the library window, the winter garden lay pale beneath the morning sun. Somewhere beyond the hedges, Trevor had already left. Yet his words remained in the room, not because he had forced them there, but because Dorothy had carried them back with her.
If he makes you happy, I will not interfere.
Too late.
Too right.
Too cruel in its timing.
Sebastian took one more step, then stopped again, as if the question required distance to be fair.
His eyes were no longer guarded.
"Do you still love him?"