Page 31

Thin as a lobster I am grown,

Till scarce I by my friends am known;

I fix upon St. Valentine

To reveal this flame of mine.

The New Ladies’ Valentine Writer (1821)

R ichard took a seat, his fingers twitching toward his cravat as he loosened it slightly, an old nervous habit Sebastian recognized well. He cleared his throat, casting a sidelong glance at Sophia before exhaling heavily.

“Some months ago …” he began, but Sophia lifted a hand, her serene features sharpening with quiet command.

“Lady Slight’s mistakes are her own to reveal,” she said, her voice cool but firm. “We will not discuss the specifics of what prompted her to seek you out.”

Richard pressed his lips together, giving his wife a wry look. “Yes, well. Quite right.” He turned back to Sebastian, squaring his shoulders. “What I can tell you is that Lady Slight approached me, asking for my help. She wished to”—he paused, searching for the right words—“become a better person.”

Sebastian arched a brow, arms still crossed over his broad chest, unconvinced.

Richard sighed, running a hand through his hair. “She wanted guidance. To make amends, she said. To change her course.”

The manner in which Richard said it—equal parts disbelief and rueful acknowledgment—had Sebastian narrowing his gaze.

“Go on,” he said.

Richard huffed a short laugh. “At the time, I thought it absurd. Me? Mentoring someone on the path of virtue? You cannot tell me you do not see the irony.” He gestured broadly to himself, a man who had spent his youth as one of the most notorious rakes in London.

“I was hardly the model of good behavior.”

Sebastian did not disagree.

Richard pulled a face, as if still baffled by the notion, and waved a hand. “I told her no, of course. Who was I to lead anyone toward redemption when I was still figuring it out for myself?”

“But then he told me,” Sophia interjected smoothly, her voice mild but unwavering.

She folded her hands in her lap, her blue eyes steady on Sebastian’s.

“And I reminded him that if he had chosen a different path for himself, he was in no position to turn someone away when they wished to follow his example.”

Richard huffed, shaking his head. “Yes, well. She was annoyingly correct, as usual.”

Sophia smiled faintly, but said nothing.

“So,” Richard continued, leveling Sebastian with a look, “I wrote to Lady Slight. And I agreed to help.”

Sebastian’s jaw clenched. His mind whirled with this new revelation, trying to make sense of it against everything he had believed about Harriet. Had she truly wanted to change? Had the woman who had deceived him so thoroughly also spent months seeking salvation?

It did not erase what she had done.

But it complicated everything.

Richard exhaled, rubbing a hand over his jaw before meeting Sebastian’s gaze.

“Her situation was … more troublesome than my own,” he admitted.

“The things she wished to atone for were not straightforward. In my case, if I wronged a woman and it resulted in worsened circumstances, I simply made arrangements to improve those circumstances. It just took some ingenuity and some blunt.”

Sebastian’s brow furrowed. “And for Harriet?”

Richard spread his hands. “She is a woman,” he said simply.

“She cannot merely send a man some money to repair a situation. She cannot use her title, position, or influence in the same way a man might. And, besides that, the men involved in her past did not need anything from her. Each had profitable, successful lives.”

Sebastian flinched at the implication, his mind immediately going to who those seven or eight men had been that Harriet had confessed to. He clenched his jaw, saying nothing.

“So eventually,” Richard went on, “we settled on another approach. If she could not make direct amends, she could at least use what resources she did possess to help others, to ease her conscience. Not necessarily those she had wronged, but perhaps the more vulnerable who had been wronged by others. The forgotten.” His voice dropped slightly.

“Perhaps women, considering she learned her glib ways from her father. And women were the ones he had wronged most.”

Harriet inhaled sharply, trying to steady her voice. “I just need some time to myself,” she said, forcing the words out past the lump rising in her throat.

But to her dismay, the tears began to fall again. She pressed a trembling hand to her lips, ashamed of her own weakness. What a fool she was—foolish to have thought she could change her fate, foolish to have hoped for a future that had never been hers to claim.

If she had not lied about the painting, perhaps she would be on her way to Italy with Sebastian at her side.

Perhaps she would have joined him in his home, walked through the grand halls where he worked, seen the great Masters for herself.

She had dreamt of Florence once, long ago—imagined the golden light over its ancient streets, the rolling hills of Tuscany, the warmth of a land so different from England.

But it was all gone now. Lost because of her own lack of wisdom.

Harriet pressed her lips together, struggling against the loss that compressed her chest. She could see it so clearly—the sun-drenched streets of Florence, the ochre rooftops glowing beneath a sky so blue it would put the finest sapphires to shame.

She had imagined herself walking arm in arm with Sebastian through the bustling piazzas, past merchants hawking their wares, and perhaps observing sculptors chipping away at blocks of marble that would one day become masterpieces.

She had imagined the museums, the frescoed ceilings, the smell of oil paint lingering in the air, the feel of his hand at the small of her back as they moved through galleries filled with the work of Botticelli and Caravaggio.

At night, she had pictured candlelit suppers on a terrace overlooking the Arno, the warm Italian air carrying the scent of lemons and jasmine as Sebastian spoke passionately about his latest work, his deep voice full of the same excitement he had once shared with her in their youth.

And then, at last, she had imagined what it would be like to stand beside him in his home, to see where he lived, where he created, where he had built a life without her. She had imagined being a part of it.

And now, it would never happen.

She let out a broken laugh, wiping at her damp cheeks as the other women watched her in quiet concern.

“I thought I might go to Italy with him,” she said softly, her voice raw.

“I …” She hesitated, then shook her head.

“I thought we could see Florence together. Walk through the Uffizi, explore the ruins of Rome, stand in the shadow of the Duomo.” She gave a bitter smile. “But I have ruined everything.”

Evaline shifted in her chair, her delicate fingers tightening around her teacup as though she longed to say something, but for once, she seemed at a loss.

Finch made a dismissive sound. “Bah. If a man really loves ye, he don’t go abandonin’ ye over just one mistake.”

Belinda studied her carefully. “Did he say it was over?”

Harriet swallowed, glancing away. “He did not have to.”

Silence settled over the room.

And yet, as she sat there, surrounded by the women who had become her own unconventional family, the grief did not feel as suffocating as it had before. The ache in her heart remained, but it was tempered by the reminder that she was not truly alone.

She would grieve for what she had lost.

But she would endure. What choice did she have?

A small shift on the settee drew her attention. Jem had moved beside her, her small frame barely making a dent in the cushion. Without hesitation, the girl reached out, her tiny fingers curling around Harriet’s hand in silent comfort.

Harriet’s heart turned over at the frailty of the gesture, at the simple kindness in the girl’s touch.

She squeezed Jem’s hand, finding solace in the realization that if she could not have Sebastian, at least she had helped these troubled women find a place in her home. At least she had done some good.

Richard sighed, rubbing the back of his neck before leaning forward, his elbows braced on his knees.

“It did not take long for Lady Slight to realize just how insidiously her father had embedded himself into her life,” he said, his voice grim.

“The moment she started making changes, dismissing certain callers, altering her household expenses, it became apparent that nearly half her servants and retainers were being paid to report back to Bertram Hargreaves.”

Sebastian frowned, his arms still crossed. “Her own father was spying on her?”

Richard nodded. “Not just spying—controlling her. She was his possession, a pawn to be maneuvered as he saw fit. Lady Slight believes he intended her to make a second match that would benefit him. The servants, those she had trusted, were feeding him details of her daily life, ensuring he always knew what she was doing, where she was going, and with whom. He had his fingers in everything—her finances, her household, even her very freedom.”

Sebastian felt a fresh surge of anger flare in his gut. Harriet was a woman grown, a widow, and yet her father had treated her as though she were still an unwed debutante under his thumb. “So she dismissed them,” he guessed.

“Nearly all of them,” Richard confirmed.

“It left her with a mostly empty household—no footmen, no maids save for a single scullery girl, no butler. Mostly just the men in the mews who do not access the house. But she did keep one person—her cook. An old woman who had served her since childhood and who she was certain had no loyalty to Hargreaves.” He shook his head.

“But even with Cook, she still had problems. The woman could no longer go to market herself, so Harriet went in her stead when the scullery maid had her day off.”

Sebastian exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “A viscountess forced to buy her own fish and bread.”