I.

Lady Peyton’s ball was in full swing, but Cecelia stood alone at the edge of the dance floor with a glass of champagne in her hand. While her eyes were upon the dancers, her mind was engaged in puzzling out a matter of dates and weather. It was the first week of April, but the winter had been long and cold, and the spring flowers were late in coming out. It might yet be too early, better to wait another week, to be sure, another two.

“Penny for your thoughts, Lady Cecelia?”

The gentle, familiar voice broke Cecelia’s reverie and she turned with a smile to Major Charles Godfrey. Hovering about him, one arm coiled around his, was Miss Astley. Cecelia’s smile widened, not with warmth.

“I wouldn’t let you have them for a pound,” she said.

“It was probably dinner,” Miss Astley said. “I find when a woman is looking pensive, it is always dinner she is thinking of.”

“That must explain why you never look like you have any thought in your head at all,” Cecelia said gravely. She paused just long enough to see the irritation spark in Miss Astley’s eyes and then continued, “You are so slender, I mean.”

That was the contrast between the two women: Helena Astley, so tall and narrow and fair, and Lady Cecelia Price, so small and soft and dark. Cecelia, who was a little older and a great deal wiser than Miss Astley, was too sure of her own beauty to spare any jealousy for another woman’s, but it still amused her to see the worried spite gleam in Miss Astley’s eyes at the hint of a slight.

Or perhaps it was Major Godfrey who sparked that worry. His arm might be entwined with Miss Astley’s, but his eyes were Cecelia’s alone. She met them without blushing or blinking.

“Since I’ve been so accused,” she said lightly, “I might as well protest my innocence. It was spring flowers I was thinking of, though I will not tell you which kind.”

“Daffodils,” Major Godfrey guessed.

Cecelia gave him a closed smile and shook her head. “No. They would never suit my complexion.”

“Have you tried Pear’s Powder?” Miss Astley asked sweetly. “My grandmother swears by it.”

“I’m wearing it right now,” Cecelia said. “I tried rouge as well, and a little lead paint, and then a patch to cover the freckle on my nose, but the mirror did not approve what I had done to myself, so I scrubbed it all off. Alas, there is no saving some of us.” She sighed heavily and looked at Major Godfrey. “That’s your cue to shower me with compliments, by the way.”

Major Godfrey chuckled. “If you encourage me to start, Lady Cecelia, there is a very real danger that I might never stop.”

Miss Astley’s expression soured, spoiling her good looks. “I should think you make it more difficult for a man to pay you compliments by begging for them.”

“Perhaps that is the point,” Cecelia replied. “Sometimes I quite feel suffocated in men’s admiration. Don’t you?”

“Now don’t fault us that, Lady Cecelia,” Major Godfrey said. “It might be in a man’s power not to compliment a woman, but it is not in his power not to admire.”

Cecelia swatted him with her fan. “So might the scorpion say to the frog!”

Major Godfrey gave an exasperated shrug, which had the effect — quite deliberate, Cecelia thought — of dislodging Miss Astley from his arm. “I see I cannot win with you! You have an answer for everything. So I will take the loser’s part, and as forfeit give you… my hand?”

He spoke as the music faded for an interval. Cecelia turned away on the excuse of watching the dancers move off the floor. She could not tell what, if anything, Major Godfrey truly felt for her. Nor was she sure what she felt for him. For more than a year now they had been circling each other like leaves floating in the eddy of a river, never drifting closer, never drifting away. Miss Astley was a new development in the major’s life, but Cecelia doubted she had stirred the waters between them. That she had formed an attraction to him was obvious, but he appeared to enjoy it rather than return it, with that arrogant, tom-cat streak Cecelia had noticed in all men, to take pleasure in thinking themselves desired even by objects they did not themselves desire.

“That was me asking you for a dance, Lady Cecelia,” Major Godfrey pressed when she did not reply.

“I know it was,” Cecelia answered, turning back to him. “Maybe I will dance with you. Perhaps later tonight. I’m not sure.”

“How can I persuade you?”

“You cannot. I’m all whim and fancy tonight. It’s spring, you see, and it goes to my head.”

“Perhaps that’s the champagne,” Miss Astley said. “I would certainly dance with you, Major Godfrey, but you have not asked.”

“That is why I do not ask you,” he replied with a tom-cat smile. “I already know your answer. The fun, Miss Astley, lies in the uncertainty.”

There were times when Cecelia was not sure if she disliked Major Godfrey very much indeed.

At the other end of the salon, one leaf of the double-doors opened for a late arrival, allowing a draught of cold air into the room which rippled the hum of conversation. Cecelia glanced briefly over then turned for a closer look. The newcomer was dressed not for a ball but for travel, in a shabby greatcoat which glistened with rain across the shoulders. His hair was plastered down over his forehead, right down to his eyebrows, and as she watched he swept it back with one hand and blinked the rain from his eyes. Something about the gesture sparked a strange sense of déjà vu within Cecelia, and the more she looked at the man, the queerer she felt, like she was in a dream, like nothing around her was real — not Miss Astley, not Major Godfrey, not the dancers or the orchestra or the marble beneath her feet, nothing but the man with the dripping hair.

“My goodness, who is that?” Miss Astley’s shrill laugh brought Cecelia sharply back to her senses. “He must be a lost servant, perhaps seeking a job as a footman. He has the looks for it. Though he’ll never get hired after walking in like this! Lady Peyton can’t abide incompetence.”

Even as she spoke, Lady Peyton was trotting across the dance floor towards the man, her stout figure bouncing with the briskness of her movement. But her briskness was not from anger: when she reached the young man, she laid her hands upon his shoulders and kissed each of his damp cheeks. They spoke in low tones, drowned out as the music rose up again.

“Who on earth is he?” Miss Astley asked.

“Never seen him before in my life, I’m sure,” Major Godfrey said, frowning. “Rude of him to come in like this. He might at least have taken off his coat.”

As they watched, Lady Peyton scanned the room and then pointed across the salon towards them. The young man looked directly at Cecelia. It was too far away to say he met her gaze, too far away even for her to discern what colour his eyes were, but in that moment a shock slid over Cecelia as if she had unexpectedly swallowed a lump of ice. She knew this young man, she was sure — but how?

She would soon find out. Lady Peyton was crossing the floor towards her, forging a path between the dancers, and the man was following behind. As they came closer, Cecelia saw that his eyes were grey, grave-like in both expression and colour.

“Mr Sebastian Price,” Lady Peyton said, nodding briefly at Major Godfrey and Miss Astley. “My brother’s secretary. And, of course, family of yours, Lady Cecelia.”

And now Cecelia knew. It was a wonder she could ever have forgotten. It had been six years, of course, and he had changed from boy to man within that time, a change marked by the breadth of his shoulders and the shadow of fair beard on his jaw, marked most of all by the horrible, weary expression in his eyes. Frozen by his gaze, she could for once find no words.

Sebastian bowed, breaking the spell. “I didn’t know you would be here. I’m sorry. I’m not dressed for a ball or I would linger.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lady Peyton said. “There’s no need to stand on ceremony — have a glass of champagne. Supper comes at midnight, if you would like to join us.”

Sebastian shook his head — once, and very slightly. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“But of course, you must be exhausted, poor boy. I’ll take you to your room. Come, come.”

She put one firm, fat hand on Sebastian’s shoulder and hustled him towards the door. He did not, Cecelia noticed, put up resistance to the hustling. He did not even look back.

“Who is he?” Miss Astley asked. “A cousin of yours?”

“No,” Cecelia said faintly. “He’s my husband.”

A/N: I meant to post this last summer, but time got away from me. Since it’s Valentine’s Day today, there’s no better now than now.

II.

Miss Astley gaped surprise, while guilt flashed across Major Godfrey’s face. At any other time, Cecelia would have laughed at them both. Now, she drained the last of her champagne without tasting it, trying to counteract the dizziness that had come over her at hearing his name.

“I did not know you were married.” Miss Astley’s tone contained a hundred unasked questions.

“For some years. My husband works abroad.” Cecelia slipped her empty glass onto a passing footman’s tray. She was not going to explain more than that. Not now, not to Miss Astley. By the guilt still lingering on Major Godfrey’s face, there would be less to explain to him, perhaps nothing at all. He had known her longer. He had certainly known she was married, though they had never had cause to talk of her husband — not until now.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Cecelia said. “Our dance will have to wait for another night, Major Godfrey. I have a matter to attend to.”

As she walked away, she heard Miss Astley beginning to press urgent questions upon Major Godfrey. Even if the major did not answer them, others in the crowded ballroom would no doubt be eager to repeat what they knew and invent what they did not. Cecelia’s heart sank. It was old gossip by now, but it would still hurt to have it dredged up again.

Upstairs, the hallways were in darkness, but Cecelia followed the sound of voices until she came to a lit room. Lady Peyton was making a bed, with the brisk competence that exposed that she had not been born into the wealth she now possessed. Her husband’s fortune and title had been earned on the naval battlefield, and she had been there with him, or as close as she had been allowed to get. Sebastian was slumped in an armchair, still in his greatcoat, his hand over his eyes as though to shield them from the dim light of the candles on the mantelpiece.

“…I’ll have beef tea sent up,” Lady Peyton was saying. “Nothing like beef tea on a damp night.”

“Excuse me?” Cecelia said.

Lady Peyton turned and Sebastian dropped his hand from his eyes. Lady Peyton was the first to react, setting down the pillow she held and moving to the door.

“I suppose you do need to talk about it,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone then. You call for whatever you need, Sebastian.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said, his voice rasping with tiredness. Then his eyes shifted back to Cecelia, and she felt again frozen.

She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. Despite her shock and surprise, she didn’t feel much emotion at seeing him again. There was no rush of anger. There was certainly no rush of love. She was perhaps a little anxious, because this was very odd and she liked her life well-ordered, and perhaps a little irritated, because Sebastian had made a scene and Cecelia hated scenes.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice, she was relieved to hear, sounded normal, not too nervous.

“I needed a place to stay while I was in London.”

It explained nothing, but then Sebastian had always been like that, half-answers and half-questions and a whole world within unspoken. Having a conversation with him was like a swordfight in a stageplay: a lot of noise and movement but no blood drawn.

“What are you doing in London? Where is the ambassador?”

“Paris.”

Never ask two questions at once. Not with Sebastian. Cecelia tried again.

“What are you doing in London?”

“Sir William sent me.”

Even one question was useless. Cecelia took in the weary lines around Sebastian’s eyes and gave up. Maybe in the morning, when he was rested.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” she asked.

“I thought you would not like it.”

There was honesty in that, at least, almost the hint of apology too.

“It will look bad for me if my husband stays in another woman’s house, Seb.”

The old nickname slipped out without her intending, and the dull tiredness in Sebastian’s eyes sharpened into sudden alertness before fading again.

“I didn’t think of that.”

“We don’t always think, do we?” Cecelia tried to smile. “It’s your house too, you know.”

“Not really.” Sebastian rubbed his face. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

She did not know. It had been six years since she had even laid eyes on him, long enough that she had forgotten his face or that it had changed beyond recognition. More than his face. But she did not hate him, and she was not afraid of him. No, what lay between them was absence, cold and empty, like Pandora’s box after every bad thing and hope with it had been let out.

“I don’t want people to be saying my husband is having an affair, or that I am, or that we are to be divorced, or any of the sort of nonsense they will say if we live apart in the same city. I can’t imagine even the ambassador would prefer you stay with his sister than with your wife.”

“Probably not.” Sebastian took in a deep breath, held it for a long moment, then slowly let it out. “You’re right. I was stupid to come here. I didn’t think.”

He had thought, of course, Cecelia knew it. He had thought how awkward it would be to have to see her again.

“You can stay here for now and rest, and I’ll take you home in an hour or so,” she said.

“I’m tired. I’d rather leave now. But I can walk, and you can stay here with your friends.”

“You can’t. It’s raining, and anyway, my servants won’t know you, they won’t let you in. I’ll have to go too.” She cast her gaze over his pale face and hollow cheeks and thought without regret of the dance Major Godfrey might have by the end of the night inveigled from her. “We can leave now. Just let me order the carriage and say goodbye to Lady Peyton.”

He gave her a lifeless nod then let his head slump against the back of the armchair. He must have been exhausted from travelling.

“I won’t be long,” she said, and left.

Downstairs, she found Lady Peyton, whose brisk competence made it an easy thing to explain what was going to happen. She cancelled her order for beef tea and promised Cecelia that she would send on Sebastian’s luggage when it arrived. Cecelia had not thought about luggage. She often didn’t think of things like that. She had never had to. Then, as she did not relish waiting in the bedroom with Sebastian and was wary of returning to the salon where all eyes would be upon her, she went to the bottom of the hall stairs to wait for the carriage. While she waited, she heard a soft step behind her, and she turned without surprise to see Major Godfrey.

“It is hard for me to believe that Mr Price has returned,” he said softly. “His was such a long absence.”

There was a guarded emotion behind his tone of voice. Again, Cecelia had the feeling that they were eddying around each other, neither drifting closer, nor drifting away. The feeling prompted her to say, “He is my husband.”

“The husband who went off and left you, not a week after your wedding night.”

Cecelia found she could not meet the major’s eyes, nor refute the challenge in his words. She looked away and shrugged.

───

On the carriage seat beside her, Sebastian leaned back with his gaze unfocused through the window. He seemed to be trying not to look at her. All the same, Cecelia had the idea that he was very much aware of the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. He no longer looked so much a stranger to her. His features were stronger now, but they still followed the lines she remembered, the long, flat planes of his cheeks, the angular shadows under the brow, the deep crook where his throat met his jaw. And she knew also the blank, formulated expression on his face. It was the same one he had always worn when talking to her father, or mother, or brothers. It closed every bit of him inside, and every bit of you out. He had been wearing that expression the day they first met.

She had been eating tea with her brothers and their new tutor in the schoolroom. The old tutor had been an elderly man of rasping voice and weeping eye. The new tutor was straight-backed and almost young, and wore his white-blonde hair far too long. He promised to be an object of interest in Cecelia’s rather dull and well-groomed life. At breakfast that morning, he had interrupted Cecelia’s father mid-sentence and said, “No, no, my lord, you are quite mistaken. That was not Plato. That was Plutarch.” Nobody had ever told Lord Hatherington he was mistaken before. Not in Cecelia’s presence, anyway.

At tea, the tutor welcomed her presence and introduced himself as Price. He was the only person who welcomed her presence at the table. Her brothers unanimously considered Cecelia a nuisance, even Paul who was younger than her. Mr Price was just teaching Cecelia how to fold a rose out a napkin, an act which forever cemented her admiration for him, when Lady Hatherington breezed in through the schoolroom door pushing Sebastian in front of her. He wore his very blankest expression. Cecelia thought he looked more doll than boy.

“Really, Mr Price,” Lady Hatherington said. “I did not know your son was the same age as my Westhart.”

“Fourteen,” Mr Price said, with a shadow of Sebastian’s closed-offness. “What are you doing here, Seb?”

“I found him at the vicarage,” Lady Hatherington said with the air of a botanist discovering an interesting new species of mushroom at the bottom of the dustheap. “In the schoolroom. I brought him here. He’s going to be friends with my boys.”

Sebastian’s face did not flicker at this proposal, but Westhart and Edmund exchanged smirks. Lady Hatherington did not see them.

“You might as well teach them all together,” she said blithely, pushing Sebastian down into a chair. “It will do no harm to my boys to have Sebastian in the schoolroom with them, and be better for him besides. The village school cannot offer a proper education.”

Mr Price did not tell Lady Hatherington she was quite mistaken, though he looked as though he wanted to. Instead, with a faint air of resignation, he told Seb to help himself to bread.

After tea, the boys always went out into the garden to play and run about for a while before their next lesson. Cecelia always followed them. Westhart would pinch her and call her a cretin and a bunion and other such names. Edmund preferred to call her a maggot, while Paul, with a nine-year-old’s vocabulary, would only dance around jeering that they didn’t like girls. Cecelia, for her part, called them ugly and fat and stupid and short — she was, at that age, the tallest of the four, though Westhart was catching up at last. Sometimes they would get along well enough to play a game together — cricket, or racing, or seeing if they could throw chestnuts through the gatehouse chimney. If a ball went into the bushes, they would try to make Cecelia run after it, but she would always refuse until Westhart bullied Paul into running after it instead. If Cecelia ever started to win a game, the boys would find some reason to stop playing it.

That day, the five of them stood awkwardly around the leaf-dotted lawn before Westhart said, “We might as well play cricket. Me and Edmund against you and Paul.”

“What about me?” Cecelia demanded.

“Cretins can watch,” Westhart said loftily. “We can’t make two teams out of five players.”

“If I play with Edmund and Paul, and you play with Sebastian, it’s fair. Paul’s little and Sebastian’s tall.”

He was. He was a foot taller than any of them, though as she spoke, he hunched his shoulders and did his best to hide it.

“I won’t play with a girl!” Paul said. “You can watch!”

“I don’t even want her to watch,” Westhart said. “Her gaze stains me.”

“That’s jam,” Cecelia retorted. “You spilled it on your breeches at tea.”

But she ended up watching anyway. There wasn’t really anything else to do, not once Westhart had ordered Paul to fetch the bats and ball and Sebastian to find twigs to use for wickets. The first twigs he found weren’t long enough, so Westhart ordered him to find new ones. Sebastian went obediently to hunt under the elms that bordered the lawn.

“Testicular boil,” Westhart said loudly to Edmund.

“Worm,” Edmund agreed.

Cecelia did not think Sebastian was out of earshot, but he returned with three more sticks, and as Paul had now come back with the bats they were accepted.

Despite his height, Sebastian was not a good sportsman. He could run, but he could not bat, which aroused many scornful remarks from Paul. As Westhart could not bowl, it did not much matter though; the balls kept sailing past the wicket and Edmund kept having to run for them. Every time he ran, he shouted abuse to Sebastian, whose stolid face seemed to register none of it.

Then at last he managed to get a really good hit in, and the ball went flying past the elms and into the kitchen garden beyond. Edmund took two steps then stopped and looked at Sebastian.

“Go fetch it,” he said.

Sebastian put his bat down obediently.

“You go fetch it,” Cecelia shouted from the edges of the field they had marked with their coats. “You’re the one fielding!”

Sebastian stopped and looked at her.

“Don’t you dare go after that ball,” she told him, stamping her foot. “They always try to make me do it, because they’re too fat and lazy and stupid to do it themselves! And now they’re trying to make you do it, because if they go you’ll score a hundred before they come back. Cheats!”

“I’m sick of cricket anyway,” Westhart said, kicking the wickets over. “Edmund can’t catch and you can’t bat. You’re really useless. You only hit the ball once. Even Paul’s better than that.”

Sebastian’s expression did not falter. Westhart frowned.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” he demanded.

“What do you want me to say?” Sebastian asked.

“I think you ought to apologize.”

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said. “I’m not very good at cricket.”

“That’s not much of an apology. On your knees. Go on.”

Sebastian dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry.”

“Ask for my forgiveness.”

“Will you forgive me?”

“Beg, Testicles.”

Cecelia could see that Sebastian was going to do it. Somehow, that enraged her far more than it ever did when Westhart tried to bully her or Edmund called her names.

“Don’t,” she said. “Westhart can’t bowl, so it doesn’t matter that you can’t bat. All the boys are rubbish at cricket. That’s why they never dare play with me.”

Westhart pinched her, making her squeal. “Shut up, Pus-Tongue. This is none of your business.”

She rubbed her arm where he pinched her. “If you make him beg, I’ll tell Mama about the prints you hid in the schoolroom atlas. What’s a cunny, Westhart?”

Sebastian’s blank expression rippled for a moment about the lips. Then it was smooth as ever.

“Rat!” Westhart spat. Then he turned and ran towards the kitchen garden. Edmund and Paul chased after him. He turned back at the gate.

“Don’t follow, Testicles. You’re not allowed.”

Sebastian made no move to follow. Instead, he got to his feet and began to pick up the cricket things.

“Why don’t you stand up for yourself?” Cecelia demanded. “The more you give in, the worse they’ll treat you. Westhart’s a pig. You have to let him know it.”

He met her eyes expressionlessly. “It is not my place to contradict my betters, Lady Cecelia.”

“That means if I told you to do something, you’d do it?” she asked curiously. “You’re not a servant. And even they don’t always do what I say.”

“I have an idea your servants outrank me.”

“But I don’t want you to follow orders. I order you not to.”

“Isn’t that a logical paradox? I cannot follow that order if I follow that order.”

“Confound you!” Cecelia frowned. “What if I ask you nicely not to follow any order I ever give you? Please?”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at her, as though thinking. Then suddenly his blank expression broke and a smile spread across his face.

“I think that might just work.”

It was a surprising smile, coming from that blank face. And it was a nice smile, bringing life and sunlight into those grey eyes. It made Cecelia’s stomach flutter just looking at it. It prompted her to say, “Will you be friends with me, Sebastian?”

“Maybe,” he said. And then explained, “I’m not sure yet. But I think so.”

Cecelia liked him more for taking the time to make up his mind about it. And they had become friends, and very quickly, though Sebastian had never been friends with her brothers, not even when Westhart was being nice to him. Somehow it pleased Cecelia to know that Sebastian had a smile that only she and his father ever got to see. With her family, he always kept his face closed.

And now, with her, his expression was closed again. She was shut out. It occurred to her for the first time that perhaps she always had been. A smile could hide feelings just as well as a frown.

III.

It was difficult for Cecelia to sleep that night, very conscious of Sebastian lying in the room three steps across the corridor. It did not feel real. Six years she had been married, and six years she had neither seen a hair nor heard a whisper of her husband. At times, she had almost forgotten she had one. Once, in the blackest depth of the night, she got out of bed and crept across the passage to his door. She did not go in, but she listened for the sound of his breathing. The bed creaked, and she fled back to her room.

In the morning, she dressed with rather more care than usual then sat regarding her reflection in the mirror and trying to make up her mind what to do about all this. Her mind was still unmade when, ten minutes before breakfast, she crossed the passage and knocked at Sebastian’s door. A sleepy grunt was her only response, so she walked in.

He was nothing more than a lump under the covers, the flash of a stained shirt collar peeping out from the blankets, and a tuft of fair hair sticking up at all angles. In the light coming through the windows, she saw now that his hair was darker than it had been six years ago, nearer the colour of sand than sunlight.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

“Mmph.”

“It’s ten minutes until breakfast — I always eat at nine. I get so hungry in the mornings.”

“You always had an appetite,” Sebastian said sleepily. “I think I’m hungry too.”

Covers quaking and billowing, he rolled over and levered himself to a sitting position. His movements were awkward, slow, like an old man’s, and the weary set to his eyes had not faded with rest. Her heart gave a leap of alarm which was not entirely subdued by telling herself that really she should be annoyed he had said nothing of being unwell last night.

“You look poorly,” she said. “Should I send for the doctor?”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“I was injured and took ill. That’s all. I’m better now, but Sir William insisted I take leave. That’s why I’m here.”

Faint colour was seeping into his pale cheeks now. Cecelia relaxed.

“You’re not going to die, are you?” she said. “If I knew you were, I’d have left you at Lady Peyton’s.”

He smiled briefly, but it wasn’t like it used to be. “I promise.”

“Then I’ll send your breakfast up and you can stay in bed.”

She did so, and he remained in his bedroom for long after, after his trunks came from Lady Peyton’s, after Cecelia had gone down to the drawing-room for her usual visiting hour.

It was Miss Astley who came first. Cecilia had suspected she would. She came, worse, with her mother. Mrs Astley no doubt had heard the gossip of Cecelia’s marriage and had told her daughter all of it. After the requisite round of greetings and how-do-you-dos, Mrs Astley started it.

“My daughter has been telling me how handsome your husband is,” she said. “I tell you, Lady Cecelia, I do not take her word for it. My daughter is too easily impressed.”

“If you won’t take her word, you’re hardly more likely to take mine,” Cecelia said. “I’ve a reason to be biased.”

“He was not so handsome,” Miss Astley sniffed. “I merely said, I was surprised, since you kept him hidden away, that he was not an ogre.”

“He is very busy with his work in Paris.”

“I didn’t even know you were married!”

Cecelia smiled pointedly. “There are so many things you do not know, Miss Astley.”

“If I had a handsome husband” —Mrs Astley was a widow— “I would not let him hide away in Paris all year. Do you not miss him, Lady Cecelia?”

“Very much,” Cecelia lied. “Though we write.”

At least, two years ago Sebastian had written his condolences upon Paul’s death, and she had thanked him very nicely for them. Sebastian had hated Paul. She had never quite managed to figure out if that made his condolences kind or cruel.

“You must be so glad he is back now — a wonder it is that he does not come more often. Paris is not so far.”

“He is kept very busy with his work.”

“Or that you do not visit him. All the fashions in Paris. And it is quite safe now, I hear.”

“My parents wish me to be close to them.”

“But of course,” Mrs Astley finished with a sly wink at her daughter, “some couples are happier apart.”

“Tea?” Cecelia asked as a distraction.

When the tea came, so, with a man’s instinct for victuals, did Sebastian. He was now dressed in a proper, but very French, suit of forest green velvet, tapered and tight over his narrow waist, with narrow fawn trousers below. Cecelia felt rather overwhelmed seeing him in her own drawing-room. Again, he seemed more real than what surrounded him. She introduced him to Miss Astley and her mother, and he gave them stiff bows — there seemed something French about that too — then sat down to tea and petit-fours. Mrs Astley scrutinized him from top to toe then shrugged helplessly; Cecelia took that to mean she did not agree Sebastian was handsome. She wondered if Sebastian would find it funny if she told him. Women like Mrs Astley used to amuse him, but he seemed very grave and mirthless now.

“Why have you returned to London, Mr Price?” Mrs Astley asked. “So suddenly after six years — it caused quite the stir, you know.”

Cecelia felt a sudden panic that Sebastian, not versed in the ways of London gossip, might say something to embarrass her. But he only smiled over his cup.

“Sir William gave me leave.”

Even Mrs Astley could not be so gauche as to ask why. She busied herself breaking a biscuit into her tea.

“My mother has told me so many interesting things about you, Mr Price,” Miss Astley started slyly.

“Has she? Then I find myself at a disadvantage, for I know nothing of you.”

That was almost flirtatious, which disconcerted rather than worried Cecelia. Sebastian didn’t flirt. Had he learned that in Paris?

Miss Astley gave a fluttery laugh. “There is nothing interesting about me.”

“Nobody,” Cecelia said kindly, “is interesting at eighteen, so it’s not your fault.”

Beside her, Sebastian’s lip twitched. But it had been wrong to goad the Astleys. Mrs Astley leaned forward.

“I do think it is cruel, what people are saying about you, Mr Price. I am sure it cannot be true.”

“It probably isn’t,” Sebastian said, selecting a violet-iced petit-four from the cake tray. “My dear, I don’t suppose you’d mind very much ordering Cook to make some good old-fashioned English seed-cake, would you? Having just left Paris, I’m in no desire to so hastily encounter it at home.”

The endearment surprised Cecelia until she recognized that it was for the benefit of her guests. “The problem is my chef is French,” she said apologetically. “And I’m sure he could cook seed cake if I asked, but he’d probably add almonds or orange jus or something French to it.”

Sebastian sighed and licked sugar from his fingers. “That’s the way of the world. Killing cats by drowning them in cream.”

“We are very fond of French things in England, for all we dislike the French themselves,” Miss Astley said. “You must be very cultured, living in Paris, Mr Price. Perhaps you will be bored in London.”

“It’s fashionable to be bored,” Mrs Astley said. “Particularly for men. They declare themselves bored of their wives.”

Sebastian gave a small, polite smile, as though he recognized that there had been a joke but it had not amused him. The conversation faltered. They drank more tea and ate more cake.

At length, Mrs Astley mused, “I remember when you married — well, about then. You would have been very young, Lady Cecelia. Not above fourteen, I imagine?”

“Flattering, but I was sixteen,” Cecelia said drily. “Not so young.”

“But a little young to be so certain of your choice? I married at seventeen, and that felt very young. But then, I do think my mother made most of my choices for me.” A regretful sigh. “Not that she did not choose well in Mr Astley.”

“I think it sounds romantic,” Miss Astley said. “To marry so very young, I mean. But I am surprised your parents allowed it. Mama tells me I must wait til I am nineteen before she will consider a match.”

Cecelia could not prevent herself from looking at Sebastian then, but he at least had enough control to appear devoted to the petit-fours.

“My parents are very fond of Mr Price,” Cecelia lied. “My mother particularly.”

“I am trying to remember about the wedding now,” Mrs Astley said, frowning. “Where was it?”

“At home,” Sebastian said. “Where we were living at the time.”

“Lord Hatherington’s house in Richmond Park? By special license?”

“Not special license.” Sebastian gave a charming smile. “There is a chapel on the grounds.”

He was so good at lying, Cecelia thought, that he had managed not to tell a single concrete untruth while giving the impression of an absolute falsehood.

“And when did you go to Paris? I hope it was not too soon after your wedding. It would be such a shame to part a newly-wed couple.”

“It was not two months after,” Sebastian said. “We had a little time together.”

That was not a lie either, though it was untruthful. He had been gone in two weeks.

“If I had a husband,” Miss Astley said, “I should not let him leave me two months after our wedding. I should make him wait at least two years. By that time, you see, I might be just a little bored of him. One does get bored of men — don’t they, Lady Cecelia?”

There was a curious barbed smile with that one, directed not at Cecelia, but at Sebastian. He was choosing another cake; Cecelia hoped he had missed it.

“Men are very interesting creatures,” Mrs Astley said. “But even two months — I would have cried my pillow damp every night. I cannot understand why you would want to leave, Mr Price. Not all the way to France.”

“I won’t promise my pillow wasn’t damp every night too,” Sebastian said. “But as Sir William’s secretary, when he went to France, I had no choice but to go too.”

────

Lord and Lady Hatherington had given Sebastian no choice about it. They wanted him out of sight, and Paris was as far out of sight as they could send him in haste; Sir William was in town to visit his sister, and Lady Peyton was a loyal friend whose discretion could be relied upon.

In due course, Lady Peyton called with her brother. The first thing Lady Peyton said to Cecelia was, “Well, my dear, I don’t quite know if I should congratulate you or not.”

Nobody else had, so Cecelia suspected she should not, but regardless Lady Peyton kissed her on each cheek and offered her hand to Sebastian.

“Commiserations would be more in order,” Lord Hatherington groused from over by the drinks tray. “She has made a fool of herself. The boy has made a fool of her. Anyone for brandy?”

“It’s not yet noon, my lord,” Lady Hatherington said. “Put the brandy away. The boy will do his best, Sir William, if you will but give him the chance.”

“Will you, my boy?” Sir William said. “And how good is your best?”

“I can promise it, Sir,” Sebastian said woodenly. “And I hope it is good enough.”

“He has great abilities,” Lady Hatherington said. “He is capable of any task you put to him.”

Sir William looked doubtfully at Sebastian. “And did you do your best by Lady Cecelia?”

“He would have done better to leave her well alone,” Lord Hatherington grumbled, pouring a thick finger of brandy into a tumbler.

“You will make Sir William think Sebastian is a villain,” Lady Hatherington protested. “He has always treated my daughter with kindness, Sir William. And pour that away, Hatherington.”

Sir William grunted. “Did you, Sebastian?”

Sebastian opened his mouth to speak, but Lady Hatherington cut in:

“Why, I remember he always made sure to pull out her chair when she came down for dinner. He never let the footman do it.”

“That may have been kindness to the footman,” Lord Hatherington said, tossing his brandy into the fire with a grimace.

“Kindness to all people, Sebastian is kindness to all people. Forgive my husband, Sir William. He is fond of the boy, really — he was very fond of his father — but his feelings at this moment, as a father himself…”

Lord Hatherington’s feelings were of the sort that could never bear to be mentioned. He went to the door. “You know the situation, Sir William, and my wife can give you the details. When you have made up your mind, come to my study and we’ll make the arrangements.”

He left the room and shut the door loudly enough to leave it in a shock of silence. Sir William went to the window and looked out. The weather was clearing and sunlight sparkled through a gentle rain.

“Perhaps you will guide me around the garden, Sebastian,” Sir William said. “I find fresh air clears my head.”

“If you would like, Sir,” Sebastian said.

Lady Hatherington made to get up from her seat, but Sir William held out a palm to stop her. “I should think it is too cold for the ladies today.”

It was not cold. It was looking to be a rather steamy spring day. But Lady Hatherington knew when she was being gotten rid of and smiled gracefully. “How thoughtful you are, Sir William.”

As Sebastian left, she shot him a warning glare before pressing more tea and biscuits upon Lady Peyton.

“He’s a good boy for all my husband says,” she said. “Young, but very dedicated.”

“I am sure he is,” Lady Peyton said. “But foolish, surely, to have married so young, before his future can be assured.”

“Youth must have its follies,” Lady Hatherington said. “He was to have a future. He planned for the law. He had the ability. Unfortunately, his poor father died and left him in no position to take to it.”

Lady Peyton frowned. “Could not Lord Hatherington have provided?”

“We would have done, if only he had been content to wait for Cecelia. Haste led him to folly — his only folly. We need to expedite his future.”

Lady Peyton selected a cream cake with the sanguine incaution of a woman who had said farewell to her figure twenty years and forty pounds ago. “Of course a position in politics requires a certain caution of manner.”

“In only love for my daughter has he allowed his emotions to run away with him. In all other things, he really is very wise for his years.”

It was not pleasant for Cecelia to hear such warmth about Sebastian from the same tongue which had recently lashed him. And Lady Peyton was looking at her very intently, as though trying to read her face. She tried not to look as though her mother was lying.

“And his abilities,” Lady Hatherington said. “I cannot rate them more highly. He speaks fluent French, you know. His accent is like a native’s. And Latin, he has very good Latin too, Lord Hatherington tells me.”

“It is his character that is the real question. Any man of moderate abilities can be trained into intelligence, but a crooked soul cannot be made straight.”

This flustered Lady Hatherington. “I have never known him to be dishonest.”

“He did run off with your daughter. That speaks to a certain deceit.”

Lady Hatherington coloured. “Or depth of feeling.”

Lady Peyton narrowed her eyes at Cecelia, who still dared not speak. “Or depth of feeling, it is true.”

“And depth of feeling, passion, is important for a man. It would be dangerous, I believe, for a man to care about nothing.”

“That is true.” Lady Peyton took another cream cake and ate it slowly, thinking it over. “Though he did not look to be a very passionate boy. Wooden, I thought.”

“He doesn’t show it,” Cecelia blurted. She blushed hot as both women looked at her. “He has a face which doesn’t show things, unless he wants to. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel them.”

Lady Peyton raised her eyebrows. “Is that so?” She finished her cake. “Do you know, I would like to speak to him myself. I do not quite know what to make of him. I daresay I will catch Will up easily enough, Lady Hatherington; you need not come with me.”

She got to her feet and strode out the French doors. Lady Hatherington turned to Cecelia. “Now you’ve done it!” she hissed. “What on earth did you say that for? Lady Peyton is no fool. If she sees through the boy, she’ll tell Sir William not to take him on.”

“But it’s true,” Cecelia said miserably. “He doesn’t show his feelings on his face.”

“Or he doesn’t have them!” Lady Hatherington scoffed. “The boy tricked you, Cecelia. He has been out for all he can get from the beginning.”

Cecelia sniffed back tears. “That’s not true. You don’t understand him.”

“I understand him better than you do. I am not blinded by rose-coloured glasses.”

────

Perhaps her mother had been right. After the Astleys left, silence fell over the drawing room. Cecelia found that now they were alone she did not know what to say to Sebastian. They used to be able to talk about nothing for hours on end. Now she found herself desperately in need of a something. There was none. Perhaps Sebastian felt the weight of the silence too. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. He plucked at a loose thread in the upholstery of his chair. He ate another petit-four.

“They’re too sweet,” he complained.

That hadn’t stopped him eating seven of them. Cecelia shrugged.

“I ought to apologize,” he said abruptly.

“I’m not the one who made the cakes.”

“I mean, I didn’t think of the consequences of returning to London. People will talk, about me, about you, about us.”

“You were sent back,” Cecelia reminded him. “Besides, it’s six years too late. That was when you should have thought.”

“I should have thought?”

“Oh, me too,” Cecelia said crossly. “It’s my fault just as much as yours. If we’d waited, asked my parents their blessing…” She trailed off, realizing that her parents would never have granted permission for her to marry Sebastian. Perhaps that would have been better though, to have her heart broken once at sixteen than to forever live with the consequences of gaining her heart’s desire. “It doesn’t matter,” she finished. “Let them talk. We did nothing improper, not really. You were very much the gentleman.”

Cecelia thought she caught an emotion flickering beneath the surface of Sebastian’s unreadable eyes. Perhaps not. He resumed plucking at the loose thread on the chair and silence fell once more over the room. Cecelia was relieved when it was broken by the clanging of the doorbell. A minute later, the butler announced Major Godfrey. Alarm flared in his eyes when he saw Sebastian, but he accepted Cecelia’s introduction with practiced politeness and also her offer of a cup of tea.

“Back from France then, Mr Price?” he said, as though they were old friends.

“Back from France,” Sebastian said, as though he had never seen the major before in his life.

“Will yours be a long visit?”

“The ambassador has given me six weeks’ leave.”

“It is a very good time to visit London.”

Sebastian inclined his head. “So they say.”

“Of course, having lived there so long, you might prefer Paris by now. I enjoyed Paris very much — once we got Bony out of it.”

“A little too much, I think,” Sebastian said drily. “But I won’t talk politics in the drawing-room; my wife would not approve.”

Cecelia had no objection to politics, but she did not wish to contradict Sebastian and say so.

“Quite right,” the major said. “It would not do to bore Lady Cecelia with masculine topics.” He paused, as though trying to think of a feminine one. “There are tulips coming out in the Park, Lady Cecelia.”

“It is the time of year for them,” Cecelia said.

“I thought you might like to drive with me this afternoon, actually.” Major Godfrey shot a wary glance at Sebastian, who had once again returned his ardent attention to the petit fours. “You were talking about spring flowers last night.”

“Not tulips.” Cecelia kept her tone level and her face unsmiling. “Perhaps another time, Major Godfrey. I have a great deal to do today.”

“I understand, of course. You must have a great deal to talk about with your husband. It is he who ought to be showing you the tulips and daffodils — except it wasn’t daffodils, was it, that you were thinking of?”

“It was not.”

Sebastian ate a cake in contemplative silence. Major Godfrey shot him another wary glance, seemed to take confidence in it, and turned his gaze back to Cecelia, a gaze suddenly uncomfortable with unspoken feeling.

“Let me guess then. Was it wood violets? There won’t be any in the Park, but perhaps if we drove into the country.”

“It’s too early for violets,” Cecelia said. “Perhaps another time, Major.”

It was as close as she had ever come to dismissing him. All their communication so far had been through insinuation and irony. There was defence in that. You could never tell how strong a person’s feelings were — how strong your own were becoming.

Major Godfrey was too polite to outstay his welcome. He made polite talk for another few minutes, finished his cup of tea, and excused himself.

When he was gone, Sebastian dropped the cake he had been nibbling back on his plate.

“I don’t mind if you indulge in flirtations,” he said. “Most married women do. And it’s not like ours is a real marriage — not anymore. Perhaps it never was.”

“It’s not a flirtation,” Cecelia said. She felt bad for ever encouraging the major. Was he in love with her? She did not think she was in love with him. Not really. But he was amusing company. “Major Godfrey is just a friend of mine.”

“If that were true, you’d have gone for a ride with him,” Sebastian said. “I suggest next time he asks, you do.”

He left the room, and left Cecelia wondering if her husband had just granted her permission for an affair.

It was hard to tell, sometimes, with Sebastian.

IV.

It was very strange, having Sebastian in the house with her. He was quiet and uninterfering, spending most of his time in his room or going for long, meandering walks around London. He expressed no interest in attending any of the balls or plays she went to, and made no comment on any of the friends, male or female, she attended them with. They spoke little to each other, but he was unfailingly polite. Cecelia did not dislike having him back, but it made her uncomfortable, and she was not a woman used to discomfort.

A week after his arrival, a card came at breakfast inviting the two of them to her parents’ house in Richmond for dinner that night. When Cecelia handed it to Sebastian, he only shrugged and said they had better go then, as though they had a choice.

Lady Hatherington greeted Cecelia at the door with kisses on her cheeks then cast her hand in Sebastian’s direction without looking at him. He bent and kissed it as though he saw no insult in her manner.

“Sir William sent you back. I hope you did nothing wrong,” she said by way of greeting.

Sebastian answered her mildly, “I’m on leave.”

“Yes,” Lady Hatherington said, “but why?”

“Sir William thought it was time.”

“Sebastian has been ill, Mama, and Sir William gave him leave,” Cecelia said, hoping to forestall an interrogation.

“Ill with what?” Lady Hatherington demanded. “I hope it is not catching.”

“He was injured,” Cecelia said.

“And how did that happen?” Lady Hatherington demanded. “What reason has he to be injured, I want to know. He is a secretary.”

Until now, it had not occurred to Cecelia to wonder. She looked to Sebastian, who was examining a life-size portrait of Westhart astride his favourite hunter.

“I never was a horseman,” he said, sounding faintly embarrassed.

Cecelia knew it to be a misdirection, and her heart shadowed with anxiety, but Lady Hatherington accepted it with a contemptuous roll of her eyes.

They went into the drawing room, where Lord Hatherington and Edmund sat by the fire. Westhart preferred to spend his time and income in Brighton, but Edmund had only a meagre allowance and lived at home. When Cecelia entered the room, he ignored her and instead grinned up at Sebastian, without holding out his hand.

“Don’t suppose you’re still of the mind to run around fetching my cricket balls,” he said. “You’re Sir William’s batsman now.”

“Sir William doesn’t play cricket,” Sebastian said.

Edmund laughed. “You never could see a joke, could you? Go on, Price, laugh.”

Sebastian only smiled, and even that, Cecelia thought, was too much.

Lord Hatherington was both less cruel and less friendly. He nodded briefly in return to Sebastian’s bow then turned his cheek for Cecelia to kiss. He did not speak until dinner, but Edmund kept up a light nattering with Sebastian, reminding him of shared memories — none pleasant. As Edmund was content to dominate the conversation, and as Sebastian showed his usual stolid indifference, Cecelia attempted no contributions of her own.

At the dining table, Edmund succumbed to the distractions of food and wine, and Lord Hatherington at last spoke.

“I hope,” he said to Sebastian, “that you are availing of the opportunities before you in Paris. You are in a position where you may make something of yourself if you try.”

“I work hard, my lord.”

“I do not believe that just because your birth was low you cannot climb high. Many men, these days, do not come from great families yet manage to make something of themselves. Why, just look at Lord Peyton. His grandfather was a stowadore. If you keep your eyes open, you will find opportunity everywhere you look.”

Sebastian gave a level nod to thank Lord Hatherington for his advice.

“Sir William could be a great friend of yours indeed,” Lord Hatherington added. “I did not place you under him merely to put you in a respectable position. It is a position from which you may rise, a position from which you have a duty to rise.”

“If he can.” Lady Hatherington heaped salad on her plate. “You forget, Lord Hatherington, that not all men have talent. We may plant the seed, we may water the ground, but oaks will only grow from acorns.”

“Let us hope that Mr Price is an acorn then,” Edmund said jovially, pinching Sebastian’s arm. “You look more like a chestnut to me.”

Lord Hatherington disapproved this — and all — levity. “A duty,” he continued as though his wife and son had not spoken, “to your wife to rise up as close as you can to the position in society from which she came. A duty to us to return in gratitude and industry what we have given you in patronage and charity.”

Sebastian’s eyes flashed across the table to meet Cecelia’s. “I am aware of my responsibilities towards Lady Cecelia,” he said.

“I do not think you are,” Lord Hatherington said. “Do you understand that you have the chance to make it right? The wrong you did us all?”

Cecelia’s hands tightened on her fork. Sebastian swilled his wine as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

“I don’t think you feel the weight of your position,” Lord Hatherington said. “You seem unconcerned.”

“There is little point encouraging bad feelings for the sake of them,” Sebastian replied.

“On the contrary, our bad feelings may guide our conduct to righter paths. A little shame expressed, Mr Price, would not go amiss.”

“I have done nothing of which I am ashamed, my lord.”

“He always was an unfeeling bastard,” Edmund said half-admiringly.

Lady Hatherington set down her wineglass empty. “The point, Mr Price, is that you have brought shame on us. On my daughter.”

At that, Cecelia almost spoke. She made a move to; Sebastian caught the move and looked at her. When she met his eyes, she knew she was ashamed. Not so much of him. Of herself. She had eloped. More than that, she had put her trust in a man she was no longer sure of. That was something to be ashamed of. Being tricked. If she had been.

“Our daughter was born to a certain position in this world,” Lady Hatherington said. “In one night, you dragged her down to a far lower one. The cruel look on and laugh behind their hands at us, at our daughter, at what you did to us. The kind pity us and fear the same fate for their own daughters. And yet you show no remorse. You show no comprehension of what you have done to us.”

“I comprehend fully the manner in which my actions have discomfited you,” Sebastian said. “And I can only assure you once more that I will work hard to raise my own position so that hers will not be shadowed. But I will not pretend to be ashamed of marrying Cecelia.”

Lord Hatherington thumped the table, making Cecelia jump. “Work hard! That’s what you said last time! Pah! I do not believe it! If you had any intention of working hard, you would never have married her in the first place!”

────

“Work hard!” Lord Hatherington scoffed, striding up and down the drawing-room carpet. “Why, if the boy meant to work hard, he’d never have married her in the first place! He did it for her money, Anne! And it cannot be undone. It can never be undone.”

That had been after Lord Hatherington had calmed down long enough to cease shouting, and Lady Hatherington had gathered her wits well enough to keep her tears at bay. Cecelia and Sebastian sat on the couch like prisoners in the dock awaiting sentence while her parents argued the matter over their heads. She could not look at Sebastian. It was the seventeenth time her parents had said he had married her for her money. She could not believe them, but there was the chance that if she looked at Sebastian and saw something in his eyes, it would confirm it. She dared not. Instead she looked at the carpet, at Sebastian’s boots, the Gretna Green mud flaking from them.

“But what are we to do about it?” Lady Hatherington said. “We must do something. Perhaps we can hide it.”

“To what end?” Lord Hatherington demanded. “Make her pretend she is a spinster all her life? No. The situation cannot be hidden. It cannot be undone. It cannot be improved.”

“It must be improved.”

“And how? Tell me, Anne, how!?”

Lady Hatherington was silent. But Lord Hatherington was the rare breed of man who did, on occasion, listen to his wife. His doughy forehead creased in deep thought.

“If we cannot hide it, then we must pretend we are not ashamed. We must send a notice of it to the papers. Pretend we have sanctioned it. Pretend we approve it.”

Lady Hatherington looked as though she had bitten down on an apple to find it was rotten inside. “Save face, you mean. We must save face. No one must know they eloped. We must tell all our friends they married here.” She frowned. “We will have to tell them that he is a nice young man. That we are making something of him.”

“More than that,” Lord Hatherington grumbled. “We’ll have to truly make something of him. We’ll have to find him a position somewhere — somewhere far away, out of sight, but as high as we can. He cannot live on Cecelia. She comes into nothing until she is twenty-one, so for five years at least he will have no reason to avoid work.”

Sebastian stirred on the couch next to Cecelia. “I will work hard, I promise. I never planned but to do otherwise.”

Lady Hatherington scoffed. “You married her for money. It is clear as day and old as the hills. Don’t try pulling the wool over our eyes, boy.”

Sebastian had looked at Cecelia then, but she had not wanted to see what lay in his eyes and turned away.

────

When the women went to the drawing-room and left the men alone to their port, Lady Hatherington continued her attack, this time behind Sebastian’s back.

“The boy has come back for your fortune,” she said. “He always was a lazy, conniving creature. He has given up on politics, and he is here for your fortune.”

“Mother, if that were true, he would have returned ten months ago, when I turned twenty-one.”

Lady Hatherington waved the protest away. “He is taking his time about it, no doubt figuring out how much you have and where it is put away — the danger, Cecelia, the danger in marrying below your class! Without a contract! Everything you have comes to him now — he knows it! He will never return to Paris. He will never work again. He will become a profligate idler, like so many other young men of vice and fortune.”

It crossed Cecelia’s mind that Westhart was such a man, but she dared not speak the thought. It was not that Westhart was even a particular favourite of Lady Hatherington’s, but as the eldest son, it was his inviolable right to be profligate and idle. If Westhart wished to buy hunters only to lame them or win fifty pounds at hazard only to lose five hundred at faro, then, why, it was a pity to be sure, but there would always be more hunters to lame and money to lose.

“I would rather you did not abuse my husband to my face,” she said quietly. “It is not pleasant to hear this, Mama.”

“The truth is a bitter pill,” Lady Hatherington said spitefully. “No good you being unarmed against him, Celia. You could never stand to believe you were tricked. You are too innocent. Too naive. What do you know of the world?”

Cecelia looked down at her hands and wondered. Truth be told, if Sebastian wanted her money she would gladly give it to him. Her wealth must have been at least part of why he married her. She did not wish to believe it was the whole part. He had once said he loved her, but it might have been a lie.

────

It had been the day after the funeral for Sebastian’s father.

Perhaps Cecelia had been morbid, certainly she had been selfish, but part of her had been grateful for the funeral, for the opportunity it gave her to see Sebastian again. He had been away at Cambridge for nine months and she had missed him. When the men came back from the funeral, she lingered about the hall in a lilac dress with black ribbons tied around her arms, hoping to speak with Sebastian. But it was a generous funeral — Lord Hatherington had been fond of Mr Price and had made the arrangements himself — and all she received was a polite shake of her hand and an enquiry after her health before he turned away to thank somebody else for their condolences.

Later that night when her mother sent her away for bed before the funeral supper, Sebastian managed to catch her in the passage. There was no opportunity to speak — Westhart was within earshot — but Sebastian pressed a folded note into her hand under the guise of bidding her goodbye.

I must speak with you. Tomorrow at dawn. Meet me at the gate to the park.

That it was so obviously forbidden only made Cecelia more determined to go. She woke early and crossed the dew-covered grass to the back gate that led into the woods of Richmond Park. Sebastian was waiting for her. When he took her hand, the tears started to fall from his eyes. Cecelia, who had never seen raw grief before in her life, certainly never suspected Sebastian capable of feeling it, did not know what to do. So she listened to him speak and held his hand and walked with him into the woods where they sat down in the peace of a bluebell glade and he wept.

At length he stopped crying. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for coming. There’s no one else — they’re all very kind but they don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I understand either,” she said, feeling guilty now for her gratitude at the funeral. “I don’t think I can. But I…” The words would not come. She fell silent.

Sebastian shook his head. “You understand me. I’ve never felt with you like I have to hide what I feel.” His cheeks coloured. “But sometimes… I have… I have feelings for you. I think you know that. But I didn’t dare voice them.”

Her heart fluttered. “You may… dare.”

For some moments he did not dare, plucking at the grass as abortive syllables stumbled from his lips. Then he managed to organize them into words and the words came very fast.

“I love you. I’ve loved you for years. I want you to know that. Our paths must verge away now my father— my father has passed. But I want you to know. I want you to remember.”

“I had a suspicion you did,” she said, trying to remain composed despite the racing of her heart. “But there is no risk I will forget. We need not part ways.”

“We must. We have always had a gulf between us. I had hoped that by moving up in the world I might narrow it, might one day come close enough that… that it no longer mattered. I planned to become a barrister, to become very wealthy, and then, when I was close enough, to ask you to marry me. I can’t do that now. Without my father’s support, I cannot continue at Cambridge. I must find work, paying work. I suppose that means doing what my father did, or finding a position as a clerk somewhere. The gulf between us will only widen.”

She shook her head. “No, Sebastian, no. It doesn’t have to. All of that matters nothing to me.”

His face lit up with a joy that made her heart soar. “Then marry me anyway. Cece, marry me, be my wife, and nothing will ever be able to part us.” He took her hand in his but did not kiss it. “Will you be my wife? We must run to Scotland, we must run today for they will never let us marry, but if you will run with me, then I will take you as my wife.”

It was not the first time that Cecelia had thought about marrying Sebastian. She had never thought of elopement though. In her childish dreams, they had married in a cathedral with every pew filled by her family and clapping and cheering not quite drowning out the sound of their vows. But now that dream paled in comparison to the vision of Sebastian and she alone with a priest in a tiny Scottish church with sunlight streaming in through coloured glass a thousand years old. He was right, she saw: her parents would never allow them to marry, perhaps not even if he became the greatest barrister that ever lived. And she loved him too, and there was only one answer to two people who loved each other.

Her heart stammered so violently she was unable to speak. She nodded her consent instead. He kissed her hand, and then her lips, and then her lips some more, and then halted his kissing to pluck her a posy of bluebells for a wedding bouquet, but by the time they reached the Scottish border, the flowers were already dead.

Perhaps that should have been a warning.

────

“I’m sorry about my parents,” Cecelia said in the carriage. “About the dinner. It was unpleasant.”

“It could not be avoided.”

Despite that, Cecelia thought Sebastian seemed more coldly polite than ever. Should she have spoken up at dinner? But it did no good. Her parents never listened to her anyway.

“My father, my mother, they are not fair to you,” she said quietly.

Sebastian shot her a glance then turned away. Cecelia thought she had displeased him somehow. They travelled on in silence until the lights of London burned orange in the distance.

“I understand their anger,” Sebastian said. “Your parents have a right to be angry. They had plans for you, and I ruined them, and they cannot even have the satisfaction of revenge upon me. They must support me in my career and pretend to support our marriage for your sake. Theirs is not an easy position.”

Cecelia had never thought of it that way. But even if Sebastian understood it, he must still be hurt by it. It was impossible not to be hurt by what Lady Hatherington had said. But even when they had been closest, he had found it difficult to share his hurts with her. Only when his father had died had he made his whole self vulnerable.

His hand rested on the seat of the coach, not an inch from her own. If she moved hers closer, she could touch him. That was the sort of thing married couples did, wasn’t it? It was the sort of thing they had once done themselves. But just the thought of it felt like trespass now. What if he recoiled at her touch? She tried to recall when they had last touched, even by accident. Not recently. Not this week. Not since six years ago. No. It would be trespass. He had closed his hurt up inside him, and closed her out.

She clasped her hands firmly in her lap, offended by his unspoken thoughts. He ought to speak up. He ought to tell her parents exactly what he had told her. But no. He told nobody anything.

“How were you injured?” she asked. “It was not falling from a horse. You would not tell Mama. You can tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sebastian said. “I’m well now. Let me forget it.”

V.

Major Godfrey avoided Cecelia for all of a fortnight. He did not come by her box at the opera, he did not call at her house, he did not drive in the Park at their usual hour, and, when they met unexpectedly at a dinner party, he gave her only a polite bow and a smile before devoting his attention to his host’s spinster aunt for the rest of the night. When Cecelia was just starting to think he had gone off her for good, he turned up again, calling on her not five minutes after Sebastian had gone for a walk. Cecelia wondered if the major had been waiting to see Sebastian leave.

“I thought it might be time for the daffodils,” Major Godfrey said as he eased himself into a chair. “If we don’t go soon, they’ll wilt away, Lady Cecelia.”

“As I told you, it’s not daffodils I like.”

“But you won’t tell me what you do like. If you did, you know, I’d go to the ends of the earth to get it for you.” He leaned forward, not touching her hand but close enough to do so if he so pleased. He often did that. So far, he had never pleased. “Is it azaleas?”

“It is nothing you could get me.”

“Ah. The flower of heaven then. Fitting, for a lady such as yourself.”

“Don’t be frivolous,” Cecelia said sharply.

“I’m being poetic, not frivolous. Oh, perhaps it was both. There’s something dreadfully earthly about you, Cecelia. You’re no creature of heaven, merely a human woman, and grateful I am for it. A sprite would never suit me. I prefer you of blood and flesh.”

He lingered uncomfortably on the last word, drifting closer through the eddy. Had it been Sebastian’s return which altered the current between them? Cecelia drew back.

“Major Godfrey, I think we ought to stop this… this whatever it is that we’ve been doing, the past year.”

His eyes widened with surprise. “What is it that we’ve been doing, Lady Cecelia? We’ve been very good friends, have we not?”

“I’m not sure we have. I’ve always had the impression one of us is a cat and the other a mouse, and I’m not sure who is which. Cats and mice do not good friends make.”

A one-sided smile stretched across the major’s face. “I had the impression we were taking it in turns. Right now, my dear, you’re the mouse.”

“And where does this end? Does one of us get caught?”

“Do you wish me to catch you?” For the first time, Major Godfrey took her hand in his, playing with her fingers. “It’s the chase I like. I’d let you go after I caught you so we could play the game again.”

Cecelia shook his hand off. “I’m married.”

“And you were married before your husband returned. A little gentle flirtation never hurt anyone, my lady. I doubt Mr Price’s flirtations in Paris have hurt you. And they may not have been so gentle.”

It had never occurred to Cecelia to wonder if Sebastian had met any women in Paris. Her shock must have shown in her face. Major Godfrey took up her hand again and this time kissed it.

“Sir William took a wife last year, little slip of a thing, pretty, English, twenty years younger than himself. The same age as Mr Price, in fact. And they must be thrown together so often. She must want for English company, over there in Paris.”

“My husband isn’t like that.” Cecelia wrenched her hand from Major Godfrey’s. “I’m sorry if I encouraged you. If! We both know I did. I was wrong to do so. But now I’m asking you to be a gentleman and withdraw before… before any more damage is done.”

“Then the game is over. And the mouse has escaped.” Major Godfrey stood and went to the door. There, he paused. “If your husband is not like that, Lady Cecelia, then for what reason did the ambassador send him home?”

“He was ill — injured.”

“Ah. Injured.” Major Godfrey smiled. “And how? I have heard tales of gunshots sounding at dawn near the ambassador’s residence in Paris. Is it true?”

A duel? Between Sebastian and Sir William? It was impossible — surely it was impossible. Cecelia stared wide-eyed at the major, hoping he would say more, wishing he had said nothing at all.

“I see,” Major Godfrey said softly. “He hasn’t told you.”

He left on that note, leaving Cecelia stricken behind him.

Cecelia had never before considered what Sebastian might be doing in Paris alone without her. At least, she had sometimes envisioned him working late in a garret at night, bending over books by the light of a single candle, or scurrying about cobblestoned Paris streets carrying coded messages for dark-haired French men with long moustaches. She knew very little of Paris, and even less of the work of an ambassador’s secretary.

She had never imagined him with another woman. It occupied her mind — poisoned it, in fact — in the hours until he came home. And when he did, she could not help herself wondering where he had been. He did not tell her. He merely nodded to acknowledge her presence and went upstairs to change for dinner. When he came back down, she asked, with the affectation of utmost casualness, “Where did you go today?”

“Bond Street,” Sebastian said shortly. “Looking for letter paper.”

“I’ve got letter paper.”

“Yes, and it’s English. It’s the damnedest thing — when I got to France, I walked half of Paris looking for English-made paper — ours is thinner than theirs. I couldn’t bear to write on it. And today I turned Bond Street upside down looking for French-made paper. I didn’t find it either.”

That could not be a lie. Cecelia felt stupid. They went into dinner together — a silent dinner, and not the silence of companionship. She wanted to ask him how he had been injured. She wanted to know if the ambassador had done it. If it had been because of the ambassador’s wife. If it had been a duel. It was very odd that he hadn’t told her, almost secretive. If she asked now, he would wonder what had brought it on. He might suspect. On the other hand, he would only suspect if her own suspicions were true. She would know, even if he lied.

When the servants brought dessert, he excused himself — a letter he needed to write.

“Wait a moment, Seb.”

He stopped and looked at her inquiringly.

“On Friday night my parents are holding a ball at their house in Richmond,” she said — not what she had intended to say. “Will you attend it with me?”

“Your parents won’t object?”

“My mother suggested it. She said it would look good if we came together. And there will be too many people there for you to have to talk to her or my father alone.”

“Oh. Your mother asked.” He sounded irritated. “I’ll go, of course. I’ll even dance with any woman who sets her cap at me, if it pleases Lady Hatherington.”

It did not please Cecelia, but he was gone before she could say so.

────

Sebastian had first kissed her the day before he left for Cambridge. They walked the garden that summer evening talking about Cambridge, about his future, about his plans, all but the one involving herself. Of late their meetings had mostly been in the garden where they could be alone, though they did nothing — yet — that warranted being alone.

“And after Cambridge it’s to London then?” Cecelia asked, thinking that London was not so far away and one day she would probably live there, at least for the spring months of the year.

“Yes, the Inns of Court. I’ll miss the country though. London air tastes like soot by comparison.”

“Will you miss nothing but the air here?”

“And what else would I miss?”

“Oh, the grounds, I suppose. The house.”

“The meals,” Sebastian conceded. “I am very well fed here.”

“But it must be more than that. Your father, you will surely miss him.”

“He has promised to visit me once a season,” Sebastian said. “I don’t think three months is long enough for a boy — a man — to miss his father very much. But you are right,” he added softly. “There is someone here I will miss.”

“It must be my brother Paul,” Cecelia said breathlessly. “I never thought you really enjoyed all that cricket.”

“I loathe cricket. I will do my best to forget all the cricket and those who play it the moment I pass through the gates tomorrow.”

Cecelia could not help but laugh. “I always wondered…”

“Wondered what?”

“…Sometimes, you see, when you do hit the ball it travels an awfully long way. So I have been wondering just a little if all those times you missed… were not by mistake.”

“Ah.” Sebastian looked away, but his cheek muscles were twitching. “But a gentleman must naturally be better in all arts and sports than a commoner. Paul is the superior athlete, my lady.”

“Didn’t I ask you not to call me that? You’re laughing! I knew it. Paul will be furious when—”

Sebastian took her wrist in his hand and she was silenced as abruptly as if it had been her tongue. Neither wore gloves, and his bare touch made the blood quicken all the way up her arm.

“You mustn’t tell Paul,” Sebastian said. “My father has to teach him another four years yet.”

“I won’t tell him. Of course I won’t.”

Sebastian let her wrist drop. She thought his cheeks were a little pink. They turned into a narrow passage between two yew hedges and walked its length. They were hidden from the house here, and by unspoken accord when they reached the end of the passage, rather than emerge into the more open shrubbery, they turned back and retraced their steps.

“It will be Edmund you miss,” Cecelia said. “If it is not Paul, it must be Edmund. And I know Edmund is very fond of you. He has no higher ambition, he tells me, than to one day make you laugh at one of his jokes.”

Sebastian shook his head. “I am afraid he has picked an ambition beyond his talent. I have no sense of humour, I am sure I must not, because I never laugh at his jokes.”

He was suppressing a smile now. Sometimes Cecelia tried to push those suppressed smiles into one of Sebastian’s rare, joyous laughs, but it didn’t seem the right time for laughter.

“Is it Westhart you will miss?” she asked lightly.

“As he has given me no permission to do so, I do not think I will dare,” Sebastian said. “No, no, I will miss none of your brothers, Cecelia. It someone else altogether.”

Their conversation faltered and with it their footsteps. Sebastian turned to face her, the amusement in his eyes fading to a hopeful sadness.

“It’s you.”

“I know.” Cecelia’s voice trembled. “I, too… I’m going to miss you too.”

He touched her wrist again, then linked his fingers with hers. “Just once,” he said. “To remember you by.”

It was once, soft and chaste on her closed lips. Afterwards, Cecelia hid her blushing cheeks by looking down and Sebastian kept his fingers linked with hers.

“Twice,” she said. “I need to remember you too.”

The second was not quite so chaste, but Sebastian’s fingers were still linked with hers at the end of it. Their fingers remained linked until they emerged into view of the house.

The next day he left for Cambridge. They had not written; Cecelia knew that if her parents discovered any correspondence between them it would mean a scolding for her and a great deal worse for Sebastian. There was perhaps even something thrilling in being unable to exchange letters or see him. She was in love, in love with the boundless passion of a fifteen-year-old who knew nothing more of love than two kisses, in love with a man she could never have for her own. It was tragedy and joy all in one, and the tragedy only made the joy all the deeper.

Once, shortly before he fell ill, Mr Price mentioned Sebastian at dinner and made Cecelia’s heart come alive: Sebastian had sent a letter, he was doing well, he was working very hard. Lord Hatherington replied that there was nothing preventing the boy from being someone one day. Lady Hatherington gloated that she had no reason to regret bringing Sebastian into the classroom with her boys. Westhart sniggered and quietly suggested that Sebastian must be enjoying the petticoat lane. Edmund laughed. Paul asked what that meant, and Lord Hatherington heard, lost his temper, and sent all the boys from the table. As they left, Cecelia traced her lips with her finger and felt the bittersweet pain of imagined jealousy. She could not seriously believe Sebastian to be capable of base lust; he loved her, even if they were parted.

VI.

Fear of Sebastian’s infidelity tormented Cecelia. There was nothing sweet in the bitterness of her jealousy this time. She was afraid, she was humiliated, she was doubting, she was certain, then doubting again. She dared say nothing of it to Sebastian; he might admit it. If he did not, she might not believe him.

They went to her parents’ ball. The Hatheringtons gave a ball every spring to which a great many important people came. Cecelia had an idea that she might be required to nurse Sebastian, to introduce him to people, to instruct him on what to say. It would be rather a bother and prevent her from talking to her usual friends. Yet she was somehow disappointed when, as soon as they were announced, Sebastian made a very correct bow to a man with important sidechops and began to address him in fluent French. Cecelia stood by a wall sullenly drinking champagne while Sebastian wandered the room talking for a very socially correct number of minutes with a very socially correct number of people. He saw Major Godfrey and the Astleys in the crowd and bowed to them and they fell into conversation. Cecelia felt a hum of anxiety; Miss Astley was no threat, not with a man like Major Godfrey, but— was that a smile from Sebastian? Did he mean it?

She drained her champagne and circumnavigated the ballroom to reach them. The musicians were tuning their instruments and soon it would be time for the first dance. Cecelia was to open the ball, her mother had said. It would be proper to open it with Sebastian, to show the world who her husband was. But when she reached the Astleys, Miss Astley smiled cruelly and said, “Do excuse us, Lady Cecelia, we will have to talk later. The dance is about to begin,” and sauntered off on Sebastian’s arm.

Major Godfrey caught Cecelia’s gaze. “She is not afraid to put herself forward, that one.”

“She asked him?”

“Oh, no,” Major Godfrey said. “She is not that gauche. But there was not a heartbeat between his asking and her accepting. May I put myself forward? I understand you are to open the ball?”

His manner seemed nothing more than friendly, but after their last conversation, Cecelia did not trust him. She shook her head. “I have my own partner.”

She did not, but she found Edmund by the champagne table. Edmund was too lazy to dance, so she knew he would not have a partner. Cecelia grabbed his arm. “You’re dancing with me.”

“I hate dancing,” he protested.

“I need to open the ball. Put up with it.”

“You couldn’t find a partner?” He laughed. “Very well then, let me be your chevalier.”

As they lined up to start the dance, he observed, “Price is dancing with that yellow-haired flit.”

“I see.”

A few minutes later, Edmund added, “He dances rather well.”

“I see.”

“Everyone must think it pathetic that your husband dances with another woman and you dance with your brother.”

Cecelia took advantage of the steps of the dance to turn away and not reply. When they were brought together again, she took pleasure in stepping on his foot.

“That was your fault,” she said.

“You’ve gotten heavier,” he retorted. “No wonder Price would rather dance with her.”

Cecelia could not suppress darting an angry, anxious glance in Sebastian’s direction. Edmund did not miss it.

“You look jealous,” he said. “I don’t blame you. Must be miserable, to have one’s husband more interested in other women than— ouch!” —Cecelia had stepped on his foot again— “No, I mean it, dear sister, I feel for you. I am full of compassion. Yours is a very pitiable position. I think the entire ballroom must pity you.”

Cecelia was too humiliated and angry to reply. She could not look away from Sebastian. He was smiling, even laughing, as he danced with Miss Astley. Had he smiled like that for another woman?

“If looks could kill,” Edmund murmured. “Do be careful with that gaze. Others will notice.”

Cecelia dragged her eyes back to Edmund’s shirt-front. “He’s impossible!”

“Or beyond your feminine abilities,” Edmund said cheerfully. “But you never had much of them anyway.”

There was more of the same for the rest of the dance. Edmund never could pass up the chance to tease. Thankfully, it came to an end, and Cecelia found herself able to tear away from Edmund into the crowd, but she was unable to reach Sebastian. There was barely room to breathe, and every time she elbowed someone or stepped on someone’s toe it would be an old acquaintance to whom she had to apologise and say hello and how-do-you-do. A friend of her father’s asked her to dance, and she could not politely refuse. Sebastian too had a partner, a very pretty young woman who spoke excited French punctuated with loud, shrieking laughs as though she wished the whole ball to notice how amusing she found Sebastian.

Sebastian was not short of partners the entire night. He was always busy, talking, smiling, dancing, with someone else. Cecelia could not manage to catch his eye, let alone speak to him. When at last the orchestra took a break and the dancers dispersed for champagne and light snacks, Cecelia went to hunt for him.

She found him on the portico with her mother, saying farewell to the French woman and the man with the important sidechops, who were leaving already. Cecelia was too frustrated and weary to be soothed by the realization that the French pair were married. She gave them a proper curtsy but was too upset to pretend to smile.

“What do you want, dear?” Lady Hatherington said to Cecelia as their carriage rumbled away.

Sebastian smiled politely and moved indoors to give them space. Cecelia shook her head. “Wait, Seb. Mother—” there was no point asking for privacy; Lady Hatherington would not understand such a request “—Lady Peyton was looking for you. In the card room.”

Lady Hatherington swept away. Sebastian turned his cool gaze to Cecelia. “What’s the matter?”

“I’d like to know,” Cecelia said. “That’s the first word you’ve said to me all night.”

Sebastian blinked. “Is it? But if I’ve got to talk small with you as well as everyone else then… well, I don’t, do I?”

“It would be nice for you to talk to me at all.” It was easier to be angry than sad, and out here at the front of the house no one could hear them. “You were meant to open the dance with me. I had to dance with my brother.”

Sebastian looked surprised. “I— Cecelia, I didn’t know that. You didn’t tell me.”

“Why else do you think mother invited you? We’re supposed to be here together and look like a proper married couple. You haven’t danced with me. You haven’t talked to me. You’ve been talking with everyone but me.”

“I’ve been trying to be polite.”

“And very polite you are. Six years ago you had palpitations at the thought of talking to the postmaster when you sent a letter. Now you’re a — a flit.”

“It happens to be my job to talk to people.” By the hard look in his eyes he was getting angry too. “Sometimes it still gives me palpitations. I’ve learned to overcome them.”

“I’m sure you have. But you won’t talk to me. You have spent all night talking. Talking with other women.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m flirting with them.”

“I don’t think. You are.”

Sebastian, who never did such things, rolled his eyes. “Cece—”

“—How did you get injured?” she demanded. “How did you get injured in France? Was it a duel? Was it the ambassador? Was it his wife? They say it’s his wife.”

“They say what?” Sebastian’s voice dropped to an urgent whisper though no one was close enough to hear. “They say I had an affair with Lady Shipman?”

“Did you?”

“For the love of— No!” He shook his head. “Of all the trumped-up— how could you even think such a thing? How could you think I’d have an affair with the wife of the man who’s been almost a father to me?”

“Then how did you get injured?”

“I—”

“—Or was it someone else? Was it another man’s wife? Other affairs — it’s alright. We’ve been parted six years. But I’d like to know.”

Except it wasn’t alright. And Sebastian’s face was blank and his eyes cold.

“There wasn’t any affair,” he said. “I don’t know why you would suspect such a thing, Cecelia. At least, I can imagine. I fear myself that I have been betrayed. But a betrayal of body has very little weight when the betrayal of heart happened years ago. So perhaps it is you who deserves all pity here, my lady.”

That was what Cecelia had forgotten about Sebastian. When he wanted to be cruel, he could be very cruel indeed, with cold words and unheated accents. It cast fuel on the fire already burning in her heart.

“Me? Betray you?” she said. “You ran off and abandoned me not two weeks after we married! Why shouldn’t you—”

“—Me? Abandon you!?” Two high spots of colour rose on his white cheeks. “It was you who abandoned me!”

“You’re the one who went off to Paris—”

“—Because I had no choice! Because your parents sent me there and the only person who could have stopped them was you. And you didn’t. You didn’t even try.”

He had started out shouting but ended in a low, fatigued whisper. Cecelia opened her mouth to argue, but he brushed past her and stepped down onto the drive.

“I’m going home,” he said, his voice still low, closing over, shutting her out. “I’ll walk.”

She reached out for him, she thought she told him to stop, to wait, but he was already lost in shadows.

────

It had been different last time. It had been the same portico, the same steps, but it had all been very different. A coach waited to take Sebastian to Lady Peyton’s house in London and from there with Sir William to Dover. It was early morning, and the sunlight on Sebastian’s hair burned like a halo. He bowed to Lord Hatherington first and promised him that he would work hard. Lord Hatherington grunted and said Sebastian very well ought to. Sebastian’s closed face had given no indication of what he thought.

Then Sebastian turned to her mother, and Lady Hatherington reluctantly held out a hand for him to kiss. He kissed it and wished her farewell. He managed to make it sound as though he meant it.

Last, he turned to Cecelia. She was hovering two steps down from the portico. He came up halfway to meet her and said her name. He held out his arms towards her and she looked at them and at her mother, behind him, grimacing. Sebastian said her name again. Begged it, really. She met his eyes and said — what had she said?

Cecelia sank down on the cold stone paving trying to remember. Whatever it had been, it had made him drop his hands to his side. And the blank expression on his face had broken — shattered — for a heartbeat. Then it was back, and he was turning away, going down the steps, and reaching for the carriage door. She had turned away also. She had not watched him leave. She had gone back indoors and occupied herself in throwing all her clothes out of her wardrobes and then putting them back in very, very neatly. It had seemed an urgent task at the time. She folded them precisely on her bed, using a book to make sure everything was exactly so, and played with the arrangements of dresses and cloaks on hooks in her armoire.

She hadn’t shed a tear. She was certain of that, because she remembered thinking how odd it was that she wasn’t crying. Now, she swallowed the lump in her throat. Tears would do no good. She had a ball to attend.

She stood up and went back into the house. As she opened the door she remembered: don’t touch me. He had moved to hug her goodbye and she had told him not to touch her. And he had frozen and then left without saying another word.

VII.

Cecelia did not feel like dancing so she went to the refreshment room, ate a piece of cake without tasting it, then took a glass of wine and went to sit down on a couch next to her mother. Lady Hatherington was talking to Mrs Astley and Major Godfrey. The topic was French lace. Lady Hatherington was trying to persuade Mrs Astley to write to her son who was in Paris and have him smuggle some French lace back for her. Mrs Astley was applying to Major Godfrey for the best advice on how to sneak it past customs. Major Godfrey was trying to persuade them to declare it. Major Godfrey lost, but it didn’t matter anyway. Mrs Astley did not think it right to apply to Mr Astley for Lady Hatherington’s sake.

“A shame it is that your son-in-law did not bring any back for you,” Mrs Astley said. “That would have been almost proper.”

Lady Hatherington never spoke poorly of Sebastian in company, so she merely smiled. “He’s a lovely boy, but a little forgetful,” she said.

“But is he lovely?” Mrs Astley opened her eyes wide. “My daughter danced with him and I was a little nervous of that, for we know so little about Mr Price. He is very mysterious, really, being away in Paris all this time.”

“Oh he’s very sweet,” Lady Hatherington said vaguely. “But a little shy.”

Shyness explained any number of sins, but Seb wasn’t, not really. Cecelia stood up and walked listlessly back and forth behind the couches. Seb, shy. No. He was very sure of himself. He knew his place, he knew what people thought of him, and he didn’t take it to heart. He just shut them out. Put them where they couldn’t hurt him.

Behind her, the conversation continued.

“A well-spoken boy,” Major Godfrey conceded. “And I did notice, as handsome as they say.”

“Well, yes,” Mrs Astley agreed. “Not that I don’t prefer dark men myself—” her eyelashes fluttered in the major’s direction “—but often one hears these rumours, you know, and then the man turns out to be nothing more than an overdressed skinny toad!” She laughed shrilly. “But anyway, young Mr Price is not so bad, not so very bad at all. I think, on balance, that it is true.”

Lady Hatherington frowned. “That what is true?”

“Oh.” Mrs Astley covered her mouth with her fan. “I forgot he was your son-in-law.”

“That what is true?” Lady Hatherington repeated.

“You have not heard?” Mrs Astley looked nervous now. “I— I don’t know that it’s my place to say…”

No one seemed to be looking at Cecelia at all, and she had suddenly the idea that no one ought to be. She stood very still in a dark corner by the fireplace, her heart racing.

“Major Godfrey, do you know?”

“I have heard some rumours about Mr Price,” Major Godfrey said carefully. “That he is handsome, yes. There were rumours he was very good looking.”

“That the women were after him,” Mrs Astley burst. “That was it.”

That was very obviously not it. Lady Hatherington was not stupid either. She narrowed her eyes.

“Whose wife was it then?”

Only silence answered her.

“Well go on, tell me. It’s not true, you know. The boy didn’t do it. I’ll promise you that. He’s honourable.”

She spoke with anger, not conviction. Cecelia hoped the others in the room did not know the difference. Major Godfrey leaned forward and spoke a name low in Lady Hatherington’s ear. She went white.

“He did not,” she repeated. “He absolutely did not.”

“Then why was he shot?” Mrs Astley asked. “Why else would the ambassador shoot him?”

Cecelia’s fingers trembled on her untouched wine.

“Don’t be stupid!” Lady Hatherington was all contempt. “Sir William would never shoot anybody. Never Mr Price. He is very fond of the boy. He writes and tells Lord Hatherington such wonderful things of him that we can hardly believe them.”

Cecelia had not known that. Her parents had never said.

“That may be so,” Major Godfrey said. “It does seem strange, you know. But people were wondering why the ambassador’s secretary came back so suddenly, and then it got about that he was shot—”

“—He was ill,” Lady Hatherington corrected.

“Because he was shot,” Mrs Astley said. “Well, if you say it is a lie, I am sure you must know. But it is what’s getting about, you know, that Mr Price and Sir William duelled over Sir William’s wife, and Sir William got the best of Mr Price and expelled him!”

“Nonsense!” A curt, angry voice spoke from the doorway. “What on earth is this, Anne? My brother shoot Sebastian!? It never happened!”

Cecelia peered out from her corner to see Lady Peyton standing in the doorway, looking furious.

“I can’t imagine why you’d let people say such things about your son-in-law in your presence!”

“I wasn’t letting,” Lady Hatherington said. “I was listening. I had never heard these rumours — they must stop.

“But it is what everybody is saying,” Mrs Astley said.

“Everybody is wrong,” Lady Peyton said firmly. She wasn’t lying. Lady Peyton didn’t lie.

“There,” Lady Hatherington said. “There can be no truth in it.”

“But it true, you know, that a doctor treated an Englishman for a gunshot wound at the ambassador’s residence,” Major Godfrey said. “I know it’s true, for Colonel Rashbourne told me. He was in Paris until a week ago. The doctor’s assistant showed the bullet in a tavern and boasted about how he’d helped remove it from an Englishman that morning. It might have been mere boasting, but Colonel Rashbourne asked Sir William about it and Sir William would say nothing. If it weren’t true, he would have denied it.”

Lady Peyton was flicking her fan open and shut with impatient anger. Lady Hatherington frowned.

“It’s very unfortunate about Mr Price,” the major added, “but it’s what everyone is saying.”

“Everybody is wrong,” Lady Hatherington said. “It could not be Mr Price who was shot—”

“It was,” Lady Peyton said. “But not by my brother!”

Cecelia, who had been expecting denial, felt a sudden wave of unreality sink over her. Fear followed it, chill and black.

“Who shot him?” she asked, but her voice was too thin and no one heard.

“He was a brave, brave boy,” Lady Peyton said. “And it’s a damn shame they had to keep it quiet, what he did. But it would have been a nightmare if it got out — we didn’t know, then, if the poor boy would live or die—” the room spun around Cecelia, and Lady Peyton’s voice seemed to come from a great distance “—and if he died we might have had another crisis on our hands. It definitely would have been, if the assassin had shot the ambassador, but Sebastian, you see, he got between the two of them—” Lady Peyton’s voice was tinny now “—got shot instead. Saved my brother’s life. Almost died.”

Then the ground was rushing up to meet Cecelia and something shattered — her wine glass, on the floor — and the last thing she heard was Lady Peyton saying, “My god, the poor girl’s fainted.”

────

The day after they married, Cecelia woke to the sight of the bluebells wilted in a jar on the chair by the bed and Sebastian’s arm around her. For a moment, it was perfect, then she became aware of the coarseness of the fabric beneath her bare flesh and a deep itch on her ankle. She shifted slowly, trying not to wake him, but he stirred and gave her a sleepy smile.

She smiled back and scratched her ankle. As she scratched it, she became aware of another itch on her back, and another on her bottom, and then she saw a small black flea leap from pillow to sheet and screamed.

She scrambled from the bed, and in her scrambling became aware of aches and pains — aches between her legs from what they had done last night, and pain in her back from the lumpy mattress. By daylight the bedding was stained brown and grey and pink in patches. Cecelia trembled and snatched on her shift. Sebastian crawled out of bed, pulled his shirt on, and hugged her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“There’s fleas. It’s dirty.” She trembled, suddenly terrified and very much missing home and cleanness. Her mattress was not lumpy. There were no fleas in it. She scratched at a bite on the back of her neck and broke into sobs. Sebastian pulled her into his arms and kissed her hair.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. “I promise you, darling, I’ve stayed in worse.”

That only made Cecelia sob harder. She could not imagine what worse was like. “I don’t like it here.”

“We won’t be here long. We can leave today.” Sebastian rocked her against him. “We’ll go back to England, to London. I’ll get a job and keep you in comfort.”

“A j-job.”

“As a clerk, or an usher in a school.”

Sebastian’s father had been paid eighty pounds a year. It was less than Cecelia’s pin money. She could not imagine what a clerk earned. Less. It would be less. She shivered. She hadn’t thought about money until now. She had only thought about Sebastian, that he loved her, that she loved him.

“Sebastian…” she said. “Sebastian… I want to go home.”

His arms stiffened around her. “Cece, sweet, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not yet. Why don’t we write your parents a letter? We’ll let them know you’re safe and that we are married. But I think we should wait until they ask for us to come back. They’re going to be very unhappy with us.”

“No. I want to go home.” She clung to him, pressed her face into the crook of his bony neck. “I don’t like it here. I’m scared.”

“I’ll keep you safe. I promise, I’ll keep you safe.”

“But I want to go home.” She kissed his collar bone pleadingly. “Please, Seb, take me home. Please. I don’t want to go to London. I want to go home.”

He put up a fight. He really did, but he didn’t shout. He just kept telling her it wasn’t a good idea and asking her to go with him to London. And she kept asking him to take her home, and in the end, that was what he did.

────

Cecelia came to with her mother sitting over her and the acrid smell of vinegar in her nose. Her head hurt. When she shifted, it throbbed.

“You hit the floor hard,” Lady Hatherington explained when Cecelia touched her face. “How do you feel?”

Cecelia could not bring herself to speak.

“Cecelia?”

“Where’s Sebastian?” she said. Then she realized that was stupid. He was halfway home by now, no doubt. She had sent him away.

And he had been shot. And not told her. That was worse than any of the rest of it. She began to cry, silently, pathetically, the room blurring around her. Someone took her pulse — Lady Peyton.

“Best carry her to bed,” she advised. “If she’s not better by morning, send for the doctor. That was quite the knock she got.”

“I can walk,” Cecelia said. “I can walk.”

When she tried to stand, she found she could not. Major Godfrey stepped forward and very gently scooped her into his arms. That was the moment Cecelia realized that he really had given up on her. If they had still been flirting, he would have had plenty to say about it first. As he carried her out the door, Lady Peyton called, “And someone find Mr Price.”

Lady Hatherington directed the major to Cecelia’s old bedroom and then he discreetly absented himself. Cecelia lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was spinning, but very slowly. Her mother busied herself lighting candles and giving orders to a maid then sat down on the bed and patted Cecelia’s hand.

They sat in silence until the maid returned with a steaming tisane and told Lady Hatherington that Mr Price could not be found.

“He went home,” Cecelia said weakly, managing to sit up so she could drink. “He walked.”

Lady Hatherington frowned. “Why on earth did he do that?”

Cecelia shrugged.

“I’ll send him a message — you will have to stay the night.”

She wanted to be anywhere but here, but it seemed too much effort to protest. Besides, her mother would not listen anyway. The maid disappeared, then a more ponderous step sounded in the hall and Lord Hatherington walked in.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She’s getting better. A bit of a knock to the head. Do you know, Hath, have you heard? Young Mr Price saved Sir William’s life.”

Lord Hatherington blinked. “Did he?”

“Well I suppose he did.” Lady Hatherington turned to Cecelia. “Is it true?”

“I suppose it is,” Cecelia said wearily.

Lord Hatherington pursed his lips. “Humph. The boy may make something of himself after all.”

“So it seems,” Lady Hatherington said. “Lady Peyton always seemed very impressed by him, but I didn’t put much stock in it. Now if he makes a name for himself, it might not be so bad. He has no money of course, but Sir William is something in the way of a connection. You were very clever, my lord, in putting him up with Sir William. It seems to have turned out very well indeed.”

Lord Hatherington smiled thinly. “We shall see, my dear. We shall see.”

“He almost died,” Cecelia snapped. “What is good about that!? He could have died!”

“He did not.” Lady Hatherington. “And everyone will know soon exactly what he did.”

“And you sent him away. You sent him away from me. He doesn’t love me anymore because you sent him away.”

“What else could we do?” Lord Hatherington said impatiently. “We were protecting you, Cecelia. From your own folly. Keeping him around — no position, no family, no name, and a marriage over the anvil in Scotland! You would have been a laughing stock! You threw so much away on him. We’ve managed to take some of it back.”

There hadn’t been anyone to protect Sebastian. His mother and father were dead. And Cecelia, his wife—

She remembered suddenly the morning they had returned. Climbing up the steps, Sebastian holding her hand. Lord Hatherington answering the door with black fury on his face. “What did you do?” he had demanded. “What did you do, boy?”

Sebastian, white-faced but untrembling, answered, “I married your daughter.”

From beyond, Lady Hatherington screamed. “The thief!” she shrieked. “The seducer!”

Sebastian had not denied it. He had not denied anything her parents had said, nor protested their accusations and temper. But nor had he ever apologized. He had not been sorry. He had been afraid of them, but never sorry that he had married her. And she had sat silent through all of it, scratching the flea bites fading on her flesh. She had said nothing in his defence. She had let her parents believe every word they said of him.

She was the only one who could have protected him. And she hadn’t. She had let her parents send him away.

She brought her knees to her chest and pressed her face into them. “Go away!” she shouted. “Oh, go away and leave me alone! I want to be alone!”

VIII.

Cecelia woke at dawn with her head still throbbing, but when she got up to pour herself a glass of water she found she was steady on her feet, if unfathomably heart weary. She felt trapped in her parents’ house and, besides, it came to her suddenly that it was time — it was the last week of April. They were sure to be there.

She dressed and let herself out the back door, then crossed the dew-covered grass that led to the gate to the park which was silent and foggy in the early morning, and empty but for herself. The noisy hurt inside her quietened at the stillness of it all until she felt quite calm — aching, but calm. She took the path towards the woods and wended through the trees until she came to the glade, and there they were: bluebells everywhere, dancing underfoot, silver-purple in the bright slants of early morning light through the trees, blanketing the ground where Sebastian had proposed.

And there, too, was Sebastian, sitting on a fallen log in his shabby greatcoat, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, so lost in thought that he apparently had not heard her approach. She froze under an oak tree. Had he been here all night? Impossible! He had changed his clothes. He wore a plain brown suit and muddy hessians under his greatcoat, not the black stockings and slippers of last night. He had gone and, for whatever reason, come back at almost dawn.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

He jumped, startled, then got to his feet and halfway closed the distance between them.

“I received word last night that you were taken ill. I was waiting until the house would be awake to ask for you.” He looked uncertainly at her. “Are you alright?”

“I only fainted. I feel much better now.” She took a step towards him and then stopped. “Sebastian. Last night. I’m sorry.”

He kept her gaze, as though deciding if she meant it. “I’ve not had an affair,” he said. “Especially not with Lady Shipman.”

“I know that now. I knew that last night, by your reaction. But when I heard the gossip, I didn’t know. And I was afraid. So when I saw you dancing with everyone else and ignoring me, I… I was jealous. Angry.”

Sebastian nodded slowly. “I’m not clairvoyant, Cecelia. If you don’t tell me how you feel, I might not understand.”

“I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t even speak to you.”

“Not just last night. These past three weeks. At any time you could have told me how you felt.”

“It goes both ways, Seb. You don’t tell me how you feel either. You don’t tell me anything.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest then sighed instead. “What do you want to know? Anything you ask, I will answer.”

Cecelia had not expected such a concession. She faltered, then steeled herself.

“I heard you were shot protecting the ambassador. I heard you almost died. Is it true?”

He winced. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His face closed over. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Seb.” She took another step closer. She could have reached out and touched him now, but she did not dare. “Seb, that’s a lie.”

The closed-over expression wobbled about the corners of his eyes and mouth. “Sir William wanted to send for you,” he said reluctantly. “I told him not to. I didn’t want you at my sickbed. Nor my deathbed, if it came to that.”

She took a deep breath of chill morning air. She could understand, very well, really. She was no comfort to him. It would have been a wonder if after six years’ absence she could have been. “And when you were better, why did you not say?”

“I’m not quite sure. Somehow, I just couldn’t bear the idea of it.”

She shook her head helplessly. “Seb, I need to know things like this. I want you to tell me. You can write.” Her voice broke. “Please, write to me, once you return to Paris.”

“Will you write back?”

“Yes. If you want me to.”

He nodded, not looking at her. “I do.”

It was something. If they wrote to each other, they might — eventually — be able to talk again, properly, without shutting each other out. She might be able to tell him that she understood now, that she was sorry that she had abandoned him. And he might be able to forgive her. Maybe. Eventually.

“I’ve a question too,” Sebastian said quietly.

“I will answer it.”

“What are you doing here at this time of morning?”

“I came to see the bluebells.”

It was almost a smile on his face. “I wanted to see them too.”

Her heart quickened. There had to be something, some little bit of fondness still remaining for her. He was here after all. He had come for her, and come to see the bluebells too. And she had to let him know that she, too, was still fond of him. Perhaps more than a little bit.

“I come every year,” she said, uncertainty making her voice tremble. “Always in April, when they bloom.”

“…You do?”

She could see he was trying to keep his expression closed. He was not — quite — succeeding.

“Every year since we married.”

She had been very happy here that morning. She had known herself to be loved. And she had loved. It had not been a lie. She knew that now. No matter what her mother had said, what she had allowed herself to believe, Sebastian had loved her.

And because she suddenly wanted to hear him say it, just one more time, she asked, “Did you really love me, Seb?”

“I did.”

She took in a sharp breath.

“I still do.”

A rush of lightness swept over her and she took another step towards him. And, because he was Sebastian, of course he was saying nothing more. He was simply looking at her with a little, perplexed frown between his eyebrows. But it was not a cold frown and his face was not closed over. There was a hint of warmth in his eyes. He seemed to be making up his mind about something.

“I noticed you don’t wear a ring,” he said at last.

Cecelia looked down at her hands, white, and blue-nailed in the early morning chill. “You didn’t have the money to buy me one.”

“But you have your own rings, surely?”

It was frustratingly inconsequential. Cecelia had a dozen rings in a jewellery box in London, things she had inherited, mostly, all far too ostentatious and heavy for a young woman, even a married one, to wear without looking gaudy. She shrugged.

“If I bought you a ring—”

“—You don’t have to, Seb. I don’t need rings.”

“But I did buy you a ring.” He touched her hand lightly. “It took me nine months to save up for it. I’ve had it waiting for you for over five years now. Will you wear it?”

“Yes.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yes I will. Where is it?”

He hesitated. “Actually, it’s still in Paris. In a drawer of my dresser. I was thinking that… that I wouldn’t get the chance to give it to you.”

That she would not want it, she could tell by his face. She had made him think she did not love him at all. Guilt tore at her.

“I’ll wait until next time you come back.” She felt a weight come over her with the words. “You… you will come back? Soon?”

“Sir William won’t be the ambassador forever. He has perhaps another two years. Perhaps a little more. He’s thinking of taking a position in Court, and he wants to take me with him.”

Two years, perhaps more. Cecelia’s heart sunk. She looked at the ground, at the bluebells trampled and bruised underfoot. “But you’re not leaving yet.”

“I’ll be in London for three more weeks.”

Three more weeks and then two — maybe more — years of absence. It wasn’t enough. They might forget to love each other in that time. She had forgotten, before he returned. That was why Major Godfrey had been able to have any hold on her at all.

“I can visit once or twice a year,” Seb said flatly. “Do you want me to visit?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I want more than that, Seb.”

“I… I have to go back to Paris, Cece. I can’t stay here. I will be someone one day, and I wasn’t born someone, so the only way I can become someone is by working for it.” There was a glint of determination in his eyes and voice. “Sir William is good to me.”

She opened her mouth to try to convince him otherwise — she had wealth enough for both of them. He could take over the managing of it. That was purpose, occupation at least. But then she bit her lip. She wouldn’t be giving him anything in that arrangement. She would be suffocating him. He had been forced to give up his ambitions once before. She would not ask him to sacrifice himself again, not even if he loved her. Not especially.

“What if I go too?” she blurted. “Can I come with you?”

Seb looked startled. “You want to go to Paris?”

“I don’t care about Paris. I want to be with you.” She clenched her fists. “I should never have let them send you away. I’m sorry. You were right: I abandoned you. I was cowardly, so I let you go. But… But, Seb, I still love you too.”

His expression closed over entirely and Cecelia thought she had ruined everything again.

“Will you give me a chance to make amends for all I have done?” she asked plaintively. “Will you take me with you?”

A rupture appeared in the blankness, a twitching of the upper lip. Then another, at the corners of his eyes, and more, at the corners of his mouth, and then he was smiling, smiling properly the way he used to, the way he had when he asked her to marry him and she said yes.

“You can come,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I want you with me too.”

She moved closer until she could rest her forehead against the lapels of his coat. His hands moved slowly up her arms and then around her, pulling her in. He held her gently at first, as though he was afraid of breaking her, then very tightly, as though he could not bear to let her go.

“Seb,” she said muffled into his collar.

“Yes?”

“Will you kiss me?”

He laughed then, his body shaking against hers. “I will. Don’t worry. I will.”

IX.

—Three Weeks Later—

Cecelia waited with bated breath as Sebastian unlocked the cream and gilt double doors to his rooms in Sir William’s house in Paris. The ambassador’s house was very grand — a palace, really — but Sebastian had warned her that his own quarters would not be as comfortable as she was accustomed to. She was a little frightened it would be like the inn in Scotland where they had spent their wedding night. Just a little.

The latch clicked and Sebastian swung the door open. She stepped through and looked around and immediately was relieved by what she saw: a good-sized room with very high ceilings and very tall windows all along one wall letting the light stream in. Going to the windows, she saw they looked down upon the garden — a very French garden, with dwarf hedges in symmetrical swirls and paths of white gravel and a mossy fountain in the middle.

It was true the room had a definite masculine presence. The bookcases were overstuffed, the furniture was square and heavy and all the upholstery wearing thin. No cushions anywhere. Few decorations. The only pictures on the walls of naval battles. Instantly Cecelia decided she wanted Sebastian’s portrait done. Just a miniature. One she could carry with her.

“Will you be happy here?” Sebastian asked.

“It’s big and clean and only a little too full of books.” She bit back her smile. “I’m going to have no luck with the books, am I?”

“I need them,” he said apologetically.

“But I’ll bring some cushions. And I think I want the walls papered. I don’t really like that pink paint.”

“Lady Shipman chose it,” Sebastian explained. “I’m afraid I bowed to her feminine opinion. But I do believe it was uglier before. Sort of dun coloured.”

Cecelia shuddered. “Flowers?”

“No flowers,” Sebastian said firmly, crossing the room to an inner door. “I won’t have flowers, not papered on the wall, anyway. The real ones are alright.”

“Then perhaps a vertical print in cream and gold? It would look well with the moulding.”

“I like that.” Sebastian opened the door and beckoned to her. “Here. Come here.”

She followed him to the next room and stopped in the doorway. It was a bedroom — the bedroom. As masculine as the other room, with a double-bed — only one — set against the furthest wall. Sebastian was rummaging through a chest of drawers. Cecelia tiptoed past him and tried a further door, but beyond that was nothing more than a bare-floored and cluttered dressing room. Then they were to share the bedroom, and the bed. In London, they had continued to stay in their separate rooms at night. After all that had happened between them, they had not dared attempt to close the distance of six years in one night.

A touch at her waist made her jump. “Something wrong?”

“No, no, it all appears very comfortable and clean.”

“Talk to me, Cece,” Sebastian reminded her gently.

“I just… didn’t realize we will be sharing the bed.”

“We can wait for… for that.” His cheeks darkened to an adorable shade of pink in embarrassment, or perhaps anticipation, she could not tell. “If it would make you more comfortable, I’ll have a bed made up on the couch. As long as need be.”

“That would make you very uncomfortable,” Cecelia said. “It’s a lumpy couch.”

“But I don’t want to rush you. And it’s my fault for not thinking ahead.”

She shook her head. “We’ll share.”

“And do we wait too?”

It was her turn to blush. “I don’t know.”

He nodded slowly. “I see. Here. Give me your hand.”

She held out her hand, but, distracted and flustered, the wrong one. He shook his head with a half-smile and took her left hand instead. Something glinted in his palm, a slender ring of gold set with a purple-red stone about the size of a raindrop.

“Now if it doesn’t fit…” Sebastian said.

It did fit; it slid onto her finger like she had worn it all her life.

“Seb, it’s perfect. Thank you.”

He lifted her chin to kiss her and, when she wrapped her arms around him, kissed her again and deeper. They had started out — or restarted really — quite slowly in that regard, cautious, halting. Things were getting very warm between them now.

Quite burning.

Sebastian broke away, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright. “Is this waiting or the opposite?”

“Probably the opposite.”

“Then do we wait?” he repeated, tracing the line of her cheek. “I hurried you six years ago, Cece. I won’t hurry you now. Just say the word.”

It was that which decided her. “Six years,” she said. “I think, Seb dear, we’ve waited long enough.”

A/N: Thank you for reading this one. Something sweet and short to bridge the gap between novels.