Julia found them in the picture gallery only a short time later. She was in extraordinarily high spirits, which she claimed were a result of having had an “excellent rest,” but which Sebastian knew were really a consequence of having discovered him alone with Miss Stafford. His sister was never so cheerful as when she thought one of her interfering schemes was successfully coming to fruition.
She tried to persuade him to join them downstairs for tea. He scarcely heard her. His mind was in turmoil. He made his excuses and, with a level of civility that plainly astonished his sister, he took his leave of them. Minutes later, he was safely ensconced in his private sitting room, seated in front of the hearth with a very large glass of brandy in his hand. He stared unseeing into the fire.
Miss Stafford had sent him letters.
Perfumed letters sealed with a thousand kisses.
Could it be true? A clever woman might make up such a tale to convince him that she had cared for him all along. A convenient story now that he was the Earl of Radcliffe.
But Miss Stafford had not been lying. He had seen that plainly enough. She had been deeply mortified. Confound it, she had been hurt. But she had not been dishonest. She had, apparently, never been dishonest.
The realization was staggering.
It still did not explain the rest of it, however. The mysterious something that she had written in her first letter—the something for which she believed that he had ended their romance. What the devil? He could not even begin to fathom what that something might have been.
He had received no letters from Sylvia Stafford. Not a single, solitary one.
It had taken a year for him to accept that no letter was ever going to come. That she had never intended to write to him. That everything between them had, very likely, existed solely in his own fevered, romantic brain. Even then he had still held fast to her blasted lock of hair, the one emblem of warmth and hope in that wretched hellhole.
But there had been letters.
And she had come here believing that he was the one who had abandoned her. “She said that I was mistaken,” Julia had told him. “That you did not care for her.”
Bloody hell.
He took a large swallow of brandy, remembering the look on her face when she had turned to him and asked for her letters back. She had seemed to have no notion of the devastating effect of her words. Her attention had been fully consumed with apologizing for having ever written in the first place.
Apologizing. To him.
Sebastian did not know whether to laugh or to weep. He settled instead for muttering a long, and particularly eloquent, oath.
Milsom whistled appreciatively as he entered the sitting room. “What’s roused your temper, sir?”
“Nothing.” Sebastian finished his glass of brandy and began to pour another.
“Nothing, my lord?” Milsom gave a huff of disbelief. “Don’t think I’ve heard you use language like that since that drunken doctor was stitching up your face outside of Jhansi.”
Sebastian leaned his head against the back of his chair with a low groan. “Not now, Milsom.”
Milsom was not deterred. “You stormed out of here in a right temper,” he said. “The second footman says you were looking for Miss Stafford.”
“The second footman can go straight to the devil—and you along with him. This has nothing to do with either of you.”
“Ah,” Milsom said knowingly. “A lovers’ quarrel, was it?”
Sebastian did not deny it. He took another drink. “If you must know,” he said, “she claims to have sent me letters.”
Milsom stopped where he stood. “So, she wrote to you after all, did she?”
Sebastian stared meditatively down at his half-filled glass. “It would seem so.”
Milsom’s foxlike face broke into a broad grin. “And didn’t I tell you she must have done? What with the post gone astray and us marching up and down the—”
“The post did not go astray.”
“Beg pardon, my lord? Then why—” Milsom’s words were interrupted by a light rap sounding on the door.
This time when Sebastian cursed, he did not mutter. “That will be my sister.”
Sure enough, when Milsom answered the door, it was Julia who popped her head in. “May I come in for a moment?” she asked.
Sebastian doubted whether anything could stop her. He motioned to the chair opposite his with a peremptory wave of his hand.
Her face brightened considerably. She hurried into the room to join him, settling herself on the edge of the chair he had indicated. “Well?” she demanded.
Milsom quietly withdrew back into the bedroom, closing the doors behind him.
Sebastian pressed his handkerchief to the scarred side of his mouth as he raised his glass for another drink. “I thought you were having tea.”
“That was over an hour ago!” She cast a disapproving glance at the half-empty bottle of brandy on the table beside him. “It is no wonder you have lost track of the time. You should not drink so much. Papa never did.”
“Our father drank exactly enough to get him through the day.” He took another swallow of brandy. “As do I.”
“Well, I daresay Papa’s days were not as trying as yours.”
“No doubt.”
“But I cannot like it, Sebastian. Especially when you are making so much progress with Miss Stafford. You must not ruin your chances with her by becoming intoxicated.”
Two glasses of brandy was a fair way from being intoxicated, but Sebastian did not argue the point. “Where is Miss Stafford?”
“She is waiting for me downstairs in the drawing room. I am supposed to be fetching my paints and canvas. We are going to walk down to the bridge. Will you come with us?”
“No.”
“Not even to see Miss Stafford? I promise I will not chaperone you too closely. Indeed, you will scarcely know I am there.”
Sebastian frowned into the fire. The truth was he would have liked nothing better than to see Miss Stafford again. Unfortunately, if he were to go out of doors on such a sunny day as this, she would also have to see him. It was bad enough that he had already exposed himself in the light of the picture gallery window. God only knew what Miss Stafford was thinking of him now that she had got a proper look at his face. “Another time, perhaps,” he said vaguely.
He waited for his sister to leave, but she remained where she was, regarding him with the same bright, hopeful expression. “Did you really sit with her in the picture gallery, Sebastian?”
“As you observed.”
“And you were civil to her the whole time?”
His chest rose and fell on a ragged breath. Damn it all, he had not been civil to her. He had been a brute. A beast. He had thought he had cause, but now, after what Miss Stafford had told him, he was no longer sure of anything. He drained his glass and set it down on the table beside him. “What was Thomas Rotherham doing with you this morning?” he asked abruptly.
Julia’s smile dimmed. “Doing with us? Why…nothing. He only accompanied us on our ride.”
“And how did he know that you were going riding?”
For the barest instant his sister appeared to be on the verge of an elaborate falsehood. Then her shoulders slumped. “I sent a note round to Moreton Grange,” she confessed. “I invited him to come with us.”
Sebastian ran a hand over his face. His head was beginning to pound. “Dare I ask why?”
“I thought…if you saw him with her…” She gave him a rueful look. “I hoped you might be jealous.”
The fire crackled ominously in the grate.
“And it worked, did it not? You and Miss Stafford have reunited and—” Julia broke off uncertainly. “You have, haven’t you? Miss Stafford has not confided in me, but surely you must have reconciled with her, else you would not have been sitting so close together in the picture gallery. And without a chaperone, too!”
Sebastian fixed his sister with an implacable glare. “I have half a mind to write to Harker and tell him what you’ve been up to.”
She shrugged. “I would not care if you did. Harker does not mind my matchmaking. Especially when I have done it to help my very own brother.”
“Does he not?” Sebastian’s deep voice lowered to a menacing rumble. “If you were my wife I would thrash you within an inch of your life.”
Julia’s mouth fell open, her expression transforming into one of almost comical dismay. “You would never thrash your own wife!”
“And lock her in her room, too,” he added for good measure.
“I do not believe you,” she said. “You would never hurt a woman.”
Sebastian recalled the devastated look in Miss Stafford’s eyes when he had told her that he had had a fortunate escape three years ago. “You think not?”
“No,” Julia said. “And I don’t see why you should be so cross with me! Everything I have done has been for your benefit. Why, only last week, Miss Stafford was ready to return to Cheapside. She would have done so, too, if I had not tricked you out of your rooms today.”
“She’s decided to stay, I take it.”
“She has not said so,” Julia admitted. “But I hope she has. Perhaps if you were to tell her that you wished her to stay?”
He dug his fingers into the folds of his cravat and began to tug it loose. “I have already told her so.”
“You have?” Julia clasped her hands to her bosom. “Oh, Sebastian! I knew you would wish to see her. And I knew that I must convince her to come here, whatever I must say to do so. Even if I must tell the tiniest little lie or two.”
Sebastian stilled, suddenly alert. “What lies?”
“Oh…you know.”
He dropped his hand from his cravat. “No, I do not know,” he said. “Pray enlighten me.”
Julia affected to be wholly occupied with smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in the skirts of her blossom pink muslin gown. “It was nothing of note. Only the veriest commonplace.”
“What lies, Julia?” he asked again.
“Well…” She hesitated. “I told her that I was in an interesting condition.”
He scowled. “Why in blazes would you tell her that?”
“Because if I were indeed expecting, then Harker would fuss over me like an old mother hen.” She raised her eyes to his face, offering a sheepish smile. “I said that he worried about my being upset by the situation here at Pershing. Because of how it would affect the baby.”
“The situation,” Sebastian repeated.
“She understood at once, of course. And that was when she agreed to accompany me back to Hertfordshire.”
“What situation?”
Julia shook her head. “I do not wish to say. You will not like it.”
“What did you tell her?” he thundered.
“You needn’t shout at me, Sebastian! I know I should not have done it. But she would not have come otherwise. So you must see why—”
“I shall count to five and if you have not answered me, then I am going to pitch you out of that window.”
Julia leapt up, scurrying strategically behind her chair as Sebastian began to count. “I told her that I feared you would do something stupid!” she blurted out.
He was on his feet in an instant, looming over her. “What?”
“I said that you kept a pistol beside your bed this whole last year and that—” Julia gave a loud yelp as her brother lunged at her. She sprinted out of his reach, darting toward the door. “I had to!” she cried. “And I am not sorry!” And then she bolted from the sitting room as fast as her legs would carry her.