Lord Sebastian's Wife

“Liar,” she said softly. Her mouth trembled as though she might start crying, but her eyes were cold, colder than he had ever seen them. Their chill bit through him.

“I do not hate you,” he said again. He was angry with her, angrier than he had yet been, and he did not know why. “I despise you.”

The words hung in the air; he could not snatch them back. She caught her breath and then nodded. “So.” She opened her hand and rose petals fell to the ground like snow. “We are good company, after all. You cannot despise me as much as I despise myself.”

Without curtsying, without asking for leave, she turned and walked away.

“Beatrice.” He had not meant to say he despised her; that was too simple a name for what he felt.

He did not know what had driven her attempted apology—did she try to cozen him, or had she simply wanted to have done with her past?—but in spurning it he had also refused the chance to alter their demeanor toward one another. And he had spurned it in the harshest manner he knew how.

If he had simply accepted her apology, could he have put an end to their endless quarreling? He did not know, but perhaps it was not too late.

There was only one way to find out. “Beatrice!”

Chapter Six

H urrying down the path toward the river’s edge, Beatrice clenched her fists, trying by force of will to stop trembling. She did not know if she shook with anger, fear or hurt; it was all the same to her. Emotion caught her up and carried her away, a flood smashing through the barriers she had built to protect her heart.

“Oh, God, what shall I do?” she whispered. Her hard-won control was gone.

She had tried to make peace between them, but Sebastian had wanted none of it, throwing her effort to ease his fury back in her face. If he would not make peace with her, she could see no help for them. They would live and die at odds.

When Thomas had died, she had felt as if the walls of her prison had fallen down, releasing her from darkness into the light of day. She had not cared how she would live the rest of her life, only glad she would never again wait with one ear cocked for the sound of his curses, one eye open for his oncoming fist. Then, just as she was ready to begin considering the rest of her life, John had come home and this new disaster had overtaken her.

“Beatrice!” Sebastian shouted.

She knew she ought to turn—no doubt he would be angry if she did not—but she could not make herself stop and face him. Not while she fought to calm her turbulent soul.

“Beatrice!”

A few of the men working in the beds along the riverbank straightened and stared. Behind her, she heard swift footsteps on the path. A hand grabbed her arm and swung her around.

“Beatrice, did—”

She flinched, head jerking back, muscles tensing as she braced herself, arm flying up to protect her face. It happened so quickly, she did not have time to stop herself.

Sebastian’s fingers on her arm loosened but did not let go. “Beatrice!”

She lowered her arm, her cheeks hot. Why had she reacted so? She knew Thomas was dead, his senseless blows in the grave with him. She had nothing to fear while in her father’s house, so why had she revealed so much to Sebastian?

“Did you think I would strike you?”

Her heart slammed against her ribs, her breath shallow. She could not speak of this, not to Sebastian. I will master myself.

“No, I did not,” she gasped, unable to catch her breath. All the air in England, sweet and foul alike, would not be enough to fill her.

“I do not believe you,” he said, drawing his brows together.

Her head spun.

“You flinched. I saw it,” he said gently.

Darkness swirled before her eyes. In the dimness she saw Sebastian’s lips move and heard his voice, but she understood nothing. I am going to swoon, she thought, and grabbed Sebastian’s sleeve to slow her fall.

Serpent-quick, his free arm shot around her waist, dragging her against him to support her weight. “Breathe slowly,” he said.

She rested against his strength, aware of his forearm pressing against the small of her back, his legs and hips pushing her skirt and underskirt against her. The feel of him ought to dismay her. Instead her breath calmed, the whirling blackness in her head cleared; her heart quieted. And all her tumult settled into something warm and dark.

For a moment she rested against him.

“Beatrice.” Sebastian’s voice was low, soft against her ears like the touch of velvet.

She looked up and met his eyes. The garden around her, the murmuring river at its edge, the chatter of the workmen, her father’s booming laugh all faded, obscured by the darkened blue of Sebastian’s eyes. His arm shifted, pulling her more tightly against him. Surely he could feel her tremble. Curiously she did not mind.

“Why did you flinch?”

“I—” Her voice deserted her and she could not catch her breath. How could she have forgotten how long and curly his eyelashes were or how gold their ends? “I did—” She could not tell him she had not heard him. Through her stiff skirts the strength in his long legs was unmistakable. This moment had to end; she wanted it to last forever. Longing stirred, strangely welcome. “I did not see you clearly.”

He looked at her for a long moment as if waiting for her to say more, to offer further explanation. She thought, I shall tell him everything, everything about Thomas. But her lips would not part, the words clogged somewhere in her throat. Sebastian despised her; how could she leave her soul naked to his scorn?

“I see,” he said, and released her. When he stepped away, it was like being thrust out of a warm, well-lit room into the dark, cold night. She clasped her hands at her waist. Worse, it was like stepping into the night because she feared what would befall her in the room. If she had not lied, he would still hold her. What a fool she was.

“I misspoke when I told you I despise you,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

She looked away. “Why should you not despise me, Sebastian? I did not lie to you when I said I despise myself.” If she could not tell him about Thomas, she could confess this much.

Silence answered her. She looked up to find Sebastian staring down at her through narrowed eyes. She waited for him to speak or to look away. He did neither, watching her as if trying to value what he saw.

Goaded by his silence and the pressure of his stare, she cried, “Do you not believe me?”

He looked at her for a moment longer and shook his head. “No. I believe you. But I do not know why.”

“How should I not scorn myself?” she cried. “I have done things that shame me.”

“You said yourself you have done penance for your sins,” he said irritably, unfolding his arms and planting fists on hips. He was tall and strong, his shoulders broad against the sunny summer sky.

Longing stirred again, making her aware of her body, her skin suddenly alive to the brush of sleeves and skirts, the constraint of her pair-of-bodies, the breeze lifting the lappets of her hood to tickle the back of her neck. And her distress, the moil of emotion churning in her heart, only heightened her awareness, made its tooth sharper. If he had not held her, would she feel this now? It did not matter.

“I am still ashamed,” she said. The more shamed now because she had not let George Conyers handle and caress and kiss her out of desire for him. No, wearying of Thomas’s accusations of infidelity, she had finally given in to the impulse to be as black as her husband painted her, to taste the pleasure of sin since she got no pleasure from goodness. In the end, she had not found pleasure anywhere.

“I cannot help you,” Sebastian said.

“I do not ask it of you.”

“My lady Manners!” An usher trotted along the path toward her, a square of white in his hand. Joining them, he bowed and offered her the square. “This arrived for you.”

Beatrice took it and turned it over, revealing the crest pressed into the wax sealing it closed. The Manners arms. The last time she had seen the ring that made this mark, it had been on Thomas’s hand. She shivered. Oh, for the day when she would be shut of the whole house of Manners.