Page 18

That heart appealing word, “Obey,”

Drives half thy loveliness away;

Turns thy warm heart as cold as clay.

T he carriage rattled over the cobbled streets of Mayfair, its interior warm and quiet, yet Harriet could not summon any sense of comfort. She sat with her hands folded primly in her lap, but her mind raced like a horse bolting toward a precipice.

Sebastian sat opposite, speaking with Evaline, and Harriet did her best to focus on their conversation, but her thoughts would not still.

Every time she dared glance at him, at the strong lines of his face, the way his cravat was slightly loosened as if he had already run a hand over his throat in exasperation, the memory of his kiss burned through her like a brand.

A kiss like that should not have happened.

Not after everything. Not after she had deceived him.

Her fingers curled into her skirts, and she turned to look out the carriage window, the passing townhouses blurring together.

How had she let it come to this? She had told herself that she had only meant to indulge in a sliver of nostalgia, to recapture a fragment of the past, and yet her heart beat like a drummer marching into battle.

Foolish. It was all so foolish.

She had spent the last few months trying to be someone else, trying to be stronger, wiser, and better than the idiotic girl who had let him go. And yet, the moment he had touched her, she had felt undone, unmoored, as though no time had passed at all.

And the worst of it? Her fresh falsehood stood between them.

If it had only been the past to contend with, she might have dared to hope. But she had committed an act so inexcusable that there could never be anything real between them. Not now.

The painting.

Her throat tightened. He trusted her, even now. Despite everything, he trusted her enough to enter this strange courtship with her. And she—wretched fool that she was—had looked him in the eyes and told him a lie. An untruth she could not undo.

She forced herself to listen to the conversation between Sebastian and Evaline, desperate for a distraction.

“… your husband died?” Sebastian was asking.

“He did,” Evaline answered, her voice light despite the morbid subject. “Shot in a drunken brawl with his own pistol.”

“My condolences, Lady Wood. Your husband was …” Sebastian stopped as if he were struggling to find pleasant sentiments about the brutish Lord Wood, infamous for solving his arguments with his very large fists. “Excellent at pugilism.”

Evaline let out a small breath, her lips quirking. “A diplomatic phrasing.”

Harriet finally turned her head, grateful for something else to focus on.

Presumably, he had heard something of the matter, considering his family connections, but he had been in Florence at the time so perhaps did not know the full story.

That Evaline mentioned the scandal at all meant that she had decided to relax the proprieties with Harriet’s lofty suitor—a high compliment from such a proper woman.

“Sebastian has only heard whispers, I imagine. He does not know the full tale.”

Evaline hesitated, then set aside her embroidery and met Sebastian’s gaze with a wry quirk of her lips. “Well, my husband—rest his soul—was a proud man, but not a wise one. He had a rather spectacular gift for making enemies.”

Sebastian arched a brow. “I gathered as much.”

“One evening, he found himself in a dispute over a game of cards,” Evaline continued. “A dispute which, in his drunkenness, he decided to settle with a pistol.”

Sebastian’s expression did not change, but Harriet saw a knowing air settle as if he recalled whatever story had made it to him on the Continent. “Ah.”

“Yes. He stormed into the home of another lord, pistol in hand, and demanded retribution for his supposed slight.”

“I assume the other lord was not particularly receptive to such demands?”

Evaline let out a dry chuckle. “No, he was not. They struggled over the pistol, and it went off.”

Harriet sighed, shaking her head. “The gossip was tremendous.”

Evaline gave a small shrug, as though it were nothing more than an amusing anecdote rather than the defining moment that had left her reliant on the charity of others.

“It was a relief, in some ways. I was finally free of him. He was not a pleasant man, nor his family with whom I had to stay after his death.”

When Evaline then explained how much worse it might have been if not for the mercy of his death, Harriet reached for her hand in sympathy. And her heart squeezed at Evaline’s subsequent words of gratitude for Harriet’s generosity.

Sebastian looked between them both before murmuring, “So you came to live with Harriet.”

Evaline inclined her head. “A few months ago, she was kind enough to offer me refuge, and I was wise enough to accept.”

Harriet smiled at her friend, some of the guilt that had been clawing at her chest receding. At least she had done some good things to atone for her ugly past. At least she had provided Evaline with a safe haven when she needed it most.

Sebastian’s gaze flicked to Harriet, as if assessing her. “And you? Did you find it easy to take in a houseguest?”

She met his eyes, summoning a semblance of lightness.

“Would you believe it was rather an easy transition? Evaline has excellent taste and took charge of my household in a way that I never had patience for.”

Sebastian hummed, clearly unconvinced, but before he could say more, the carriage rolled to a stop.

Harriet exhaled, relieved. The coachman opened the door, and Sebastian descended first, offering his hand to help Evaline and Harriet down.

The moment her feet touched the ground, she squared her shoulders.

Home. Safe ground.

She stepped forward, only for the door to swing open before she reached it. Mrs. Finch stood at the threshold, her usual look of stern competence fixed firmly in place.

“Tea, if you please, Finch,” Harriet said as she removed her gloves. “I could use a warm cup after all that shopping.”

Finch did not move. “Ye’ve got a visitor, m’lady.”

Harriet’s fingers stilled. Something about the way Finch said it, the clipped tone, the lack of elaboration, sent a prickle of unease down her spine. She swallowed. “Who?”

Finch did not answer. She merely stepped aside with a grim expression that told Harriet all she needed to know. Harriet turned to Sebastian and Evaline. “Well, come in, then. No use lingering in the cold.”

She swept past Finch into the painted room, her heart thudding, and the moment she entered, she saw him.

Bertram Hargreaves stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, his stiff posture signaling his bristling displeasure.

Harriet stopped just inside the doorway. How? How had he found out so soon?

She barely kept her expression schooled as Sebastian and Evaline entered behind her. Sebastian’s presence gave her strength. She lifted her chin, ignored her father entirely, and turned to her guests.

“Please, sit,” she said, gesturing toward the elegant chairs near the hearth.

Sebastian hesitated only a fraction of a second before he moved to take his place, his gray gaze flicking between Harriet and her father as he lowered himself into the chair opposite her. Evaline, less affected by the tension, followed suit.

Harriet turned to Finch. “You may bring the tea now.”

Finch hesitated, as if she, too, expected some sort of explosion to occur at any moment, but when Harriet arched a brow in silent command, the housekeeper gave a short nod and disappeared down the hall.

Harriet finally turned to her father. “You need not loom like a specter, Father,” she said smoothly. “Do take a seat.”

Lord Hargreaves did not move. He merely turned his head, his sharp gaze piercing her like a blade.

“I am comfortable where I am,” he said, his voice deceptively mild.

Harriet tilted her head, meeting his stare without flinching. “Suit yourself.”

She crossed the room and lowered herself onto the settee, arranging her skirts with deliberate elegance. Sebastian’s attention never left her. Her father had come here in anger, that much was clear. But Harriet had learned long ago that anger was a tool—one men wielded to make others flinch.

She would not flinch.

And besides, she had Sebastian sitting just across from her, watching everything, weighing everything. A part of her—the girl she had been, the one who had once believed Sebastian could be her escape—wanted to turn to him and say, See? See what she had endured. See what she had been raised beneath.

But she said nothing. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap, fixed a pleasant smile upon her face, and waited. Her father wanted something. She would find out what it was soon enough.

The ride back to Harriet’s townhouse had been suitably agreeable, though Sebastian remained keenly aware of the way she carefully sidestepped any mention of her evening the night before.

He had asked again, rather casually, whether she had spent a quiet night at home, and she had responded with an easy smile and a vague confirmation that she had.

But he did not believe her.

Not for a moment.

It was the manner in which she said it—too smooth, too well-practiced. And it gnawed at him, because if Harriet had learned to lie so well, what else had she mastered hiding over the years?

Yet, despite the lingering irritation, he could not deny the satisfaction that came from spending the morning in her company.

The familiar lilt of her voice, the quick wit that had once enthralled him so effortlessly—it was all too easy to forget the years that lay between them.

Too easy to remember what it had been like when he had thought she would be his.