As if a drive in the park in a closed carriage were not peculiar enough, Sebastian and Lady Harker had arranged themselves on the seat across from her, one saying absolutely nothing and the other at great pains to fill the void of silence with an endless stream of trivial remarks.
Sylvia could not imagine why they had both come to London, let alone why they had both called upon her. Sebastian did not come to town anymore, did he? Indeed, to her knowledge he did not even leave Pershing Hall. And yet here he was. First in Cheapside and now in…
But she did not know where they were now. They had been driving for some time, navigating the city streets and, as far as she could tell from her brief glances out the carriage window, were nowhere near anything that resembled a park.
“I do not understand,” she said when Lady Harker paused to draw breath. “What are you both doing here? Why have you come? I thought I explained…” She looked between them both helplessly. “Did you not find my note?”
“The one you left on your pillow when you disappeared without a word?” Sebastian asked.
It was the first thing that he had said to her since speaking her name in the Dinwiddy’s parlor. Sylvia’s heart thumped heavily in response to it. She had never thought she would see him again, nor ever again hear his voice.
“Yes,” he said. “We did find it, Miss Stafford, and read your explanation for leaving us, too. Inadequate as it was.”
Her lips parted. She would have liked to snap back at him, but found she could not. She had the sinking feeling that something was very wrong. That feeling was intensified when the carriage slowed to a halt. She peered out the window only to turn back to her two companions with an expression of mingled shock and outrage. “We are in Grosvenor Square!”
Lady Harker smiled brightly. “Yes, that’s right. We are going to have tea in front of a nice warm fire. Does that not sound a treat?”
A footman opened the door of the carriage before Sylvia could reply. Sebastian exited without a word. He handed down his sister and then extended his large, gloved hand for her. The servants were all watching. She could not make a scene. Neither could she bear to see any of her former society acquaintance. “To whom does this house belong?” she asked under her breath.
Sebastian’s face was rigid. “To the Earl of Radcliffe.”
She drew back instinctively. “Oh, but you know I cannot—”
“The proprieties have all been observed, Miss Stafford. My sister is here, as you see. She is a highly respected married lady. You will be quite safe. Now, if you will allow me.” Sebastian extended his hand again.
This time she took it, permitting him to assist her down from the carriage. Her heart was beating so rapidly she thought she might swoon. Tea? At Sebastian’s own house? Surely this was not a good idea!
“The fire is blazing in the library,” Lady Harker said as they proceeded into the marble entry hall. A sweeping staircase curved gracefully to the floors above and a magnificent gas chandelier hung from the center of the high ceiling. “It will be nice and warm.” She divested herself of her bonnet and gloves and handed them off to a supercilious-looking butler.
Sylvia did the same, smoothing her frayed hair with an unsteady hand as she followed Lady Harker down the hall. Sebastian walked behind them at a distance. She did not even see him again until they entered the library.
It was indeed a warm room, the rich furnishings and dark paneled walls making it feel even more so. At Lady Harker’s bidding, Sylvia seated herself on a sofa upholstered in striped silk damask. Lady Harker settled beside her. Sebastian sat down across from them in an oversized armchair, his large frame as taught as a coiled spring. She was not the only one who was nervous then, Sylvia thought. At least that was something.
“Oh dear!” Lady Harker leapt to her feet in a rustle of starched petticoats. “I have only just remembered about the preserves for our tea! I must have a word with cook. Pray excuse me a moment, Miss Stafford. I shall be back in an instant.”
Sylvia watched in wide-eyed astonishment as Lady Harker darted out of the library. The heavy door closed behind her with a soft, but significant click. Sylvia stared at it for a moment, too stunned to speak. “She’s not coming back, is she?”
“No,” Sebastian acknowledged. “Not until I summon her.”
Sylvia fixed him with an accusing glare. “And just what do you mean by this, my lord? You assured me that your sister would remain—”
“Never mind my sister,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “We need to talk.”
“We might have done so in the carriage. Or in the Dinwiddy’s front parlor. You needn’t have brought me here—”
“We must speak alone. Without any chance of disturbance. It is the sole reason I have come to London.”
Her hands were resting at her sides. At his words, her fingers tightened into the sofa cushion. “You came all the way to London to speak…with me?”
“You left me no choice, Miss Stafford. Had you remained at Pershing but a few hours longer we might have discussed this there. I confess I would have preferred it. I had not planned to ever set foot in London again. In truth, I had not intended to ever leave my estate. If you knew the pains I have gone through to see you again—”
“You should not have come,” she said.
“Miss Stafford—”
“It is all too much for me, can’t you see that? I am not part of your world anymore. To be here with you…in your own house and surrounded by all of these things. It makes me terribly unhappy. And I have worked so hard not to be unhappy. You cannot know—”
“I do not wish to make you unhappy.”
“Then I beg you, please, summon your sister. Pray send for your carriage to take me back to Cheapside.”
Sebastian’s jaw hardened. “If that is what you wish, I will certainly do so,” he said. “After you have listened to what I have to say.”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “There is nothing you could say.”
He looked at her a long time, his face grim. He was dressed just as he had been years ago whenever she saw him about town. Black, fine wool trousers and matching waistcoat, a crisp white linen shirt, and a fitted black frock coat that set off the magnificent breadth of his shoulders. Shoulders that were presently bunched with tension.
“I have discovered what happened to your letters, Miss Stafford,” he said.
She stared at him, stunned. She had been expecting a proposition—a formal offer to become his mistress. Isn’t that why he had come to London? “I beg your pardon?”
“You said that you had given them to your maid to post. Your maid who is now employed by Lady Ponsonby.”
“Button,” she said, hardly recognizing her own voice.
He nodded. “I sent Milsom to London to make enquiries. He returned yesterday after having talked to Miss Button. It seems that your father instructed your maid to burn all the letters that you wrote to me.”
His words struck Sylvia like a physical blow. She pressed a hand to her abdomen, her breath catching in her throat. “She burned my letters?”
“All but one,” Sebastian said, “which she kept back for future blackmail purposes, apparently. According to Milsom, your former maid is at great pains to secure a retirement cottage in Hampshire.”
Sylvia swallowed. “Which letter?” she asked
Sebastian met her anxious gaze. “The first letter,” he said.
She briefly closed her eyes as a fiery blush crept into her face. “The first letter,” she repeated. “Of course it would be.”
“Milsom bought it from her for fifty pounds. He brought it back to Pershing with him. I read it yesterday morning. And now I am here, Miss Stafford. I have come to tell you…that the overland journey was unremarkable. My new horse settled admirably, though I regret to say that I lost him at the siege of Jhansi. I love you. I have always loved you. And we may be married as soon as you please. I resigned my commission. You can no longer follow the drum, but I sincerely hope you will settle for being my countess. I did not propose to you that night in the garden because I was afraid of being rejected, damn me. You were not shameless and the kiss you gave me then sustained me through two years of hell.” He paused, plainly shaken. “Forgive me, I did not stay safe. And I have come back to you three years too late and not in the best of looks, but I—”
Sylvia did not realize that she was crying until she heard Sebastian break off his speech with a muttered oath. In seconds, he was at her side on the sofa, gathering her up in his strong arms just as the first sob shook her frame. She turned her face into his shoulder and wept.
“Ah, my dear,” he murmured.
The husky endearment caused her tears to fall that much more quickly. “H-how could he have done it?” she asked, choking back another sob. “All that t-time. When he knew that my heart was b-breaking.”
Sebastian’s large hand moved on her back. “Your father wanted better for you.”
And for himself. The unspoken words hung in the air between them. Papa had told her she might marry whomever she wished, but it had all been lies. He had never intended for her to wed a soldier—not even a soldier who was the second son of an earl. No. He had wanted a son-in-law who was wealthy enough to pay his gaming debts.
“He wagered everything in that last game,” she had told Sebastian that afternoon in the window embrasure. “I daresay he would have wagered me, too, if he had thought of it in time.”
But he had thought of it. It was what he had been doing all along. Gambling with her life, with her very future, just as surely as he gambled over a hand of cards. All so she could have someone better. But not better for her. Better for him.
“There was no one better,” she said through her tears. “There n-never has been.”
Sebastian tightened his arms around her. She could feel the heavy thundering of his heart against her chest. He was soothing her, but he was far from calm himself. “You do me too much honor.”
“It is the truth, merely. But Papa would not have seen it that way. If he was set on my marrying a fortune he would have been looking elsewhere. At Lord Goddard, I suppose.”
“Very probably.”
She pulled back from him with a sniffle, fumbling about her for a handkerchief. Before she could locate the one in her reticule, Sebastian pressed his own large handkerchief into her hand. She used it to dry her face and to blow her nose. It was all quite unromantic. “I have ruined your cravat,” she said.
“To hell with my cravat,” he replied.
Sylvia blinked up at him. How grave he appeared. As if he were waiting for something. “Lord Goddard proposed to me before Papa died,” she confessed.
His expression betrayed a flicker of surprise. “Did he?”
“I told him that I could not marry him. That I loved someone else. ‘Colonel Conrad, I gather,’ he said. And I said yes. That I was waiting for you to come home.” She blotted the fresh tears that welled in her eyes. “If I had accepted him…If I had not been waiting for you…Perhaps Papa would not have been forced to such drastic measures. Lord Goddard could have paid off his debts. He may still be alive today if I had only—”
“I doubt it would have made a difference. And in the end…if you had accepted his offer…Would you have been happy as Lady Goddard, do you think?”
“I would have been miserable.”
Sebastian reached out to smooth a stray lock of hair from her damp cheek. “And would you be happy as Lady Radcliffe?”
She exhaled a tremulous breath. “I am a governess now.”
“Much that I care.”
“You cared that night in the library.”
“That you are a governess? My God, Sylvia…You can’t still believe that what happened between us—”
“I didn’t want to believe it, but…If you had thought me worthy of marriage you would have proposed that night. Instead, you spoke of…of making me your m-mistress.”
Sebastian drew back, thunderstruck. “The hell I did!”
His reaction was so genuine that, for an instant, she felt a stirring of doubt. “But you did,” she said. “You mentioned an arrangement and gifts and—”
A look of dawning realization stole over his face. “Is this why you left Hertfordshire?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I-I did not know what else to do.”
“You might have come to me.”
She shook her head. “I did not trust myself. Not after what happened between us.”
His expression softened. He seemed to understand, to sympathize even. “You were overset,” he said. “Which is precisely why I did not broach the subject of marriage that night.” He brought his hand to her cheek. “Sylvia…I didn’t want you as my mistress. I wanted you as my wife. I have always wanted you as my wife. Had you stayed until the morning, you would have known that.”
She dropped her gaze from his, swallowing back another swell of tears. “You can’t marry me. Not with my job at the Dinwiddy’s and what happened to Papa. You are an earl now and I am—”
“You are the woman I love,” he said gruffly.
“People will talk.”
“Do you think I give a damn what anyone says? What anyone else thinks?”
“No, but—”
“Besides,” he continued, “I have a plan.”
Sylvia lifted her eyes back to his. “What sort of plan?”
“Sir Roderick may have been a complete rogue and his death may have been a scandal, but he was still a baronet and you are still his daughter.” He dropped his hand from her face. His jaw hardened with resolve. “I mean to restore you to the society for which you were born and bred. Lord Harker and my sister will assist us, but there are others who will be just as willing. Julia suggests visits to the theatre and a few small society parties to begin with and then, at the height of the season, a ball. A betrothal ball, if…if you will have me.”
“You would do all that for me?” she asked in an unsteady whisper.
“What? Go about in society do you mean?”
She nodded.
“If that is what it takes.”
“Is it what you want?”
“Good God, no. I do not care what society thinks of your having worked as a governess these past two years. And I do not care what they say about your father. You need no redemption in my eyes. If it were up to me and no one else, I would marry you tomorrow morning and spirit you straight back to Pershing Hall.”
Sylvia’s heart beat a delirious rhythm in her chest. “Tomorrow morning? My goodness.”
Sebastian looked at her intently. “Sylvia….” A faint flush crept up his neck, turning him red about the collar. He appeared suddenly, and quite remarkably, unsure of himself. “I know that I am not what I was—that the scars have made my face terrible to look upon—but you loved me once. You said that I was dear to you. If you will but give me a chance—if you will agree to be my wife—I promise to give you everything in the world you ever wanted. To do everything in my power to—”
She pressed her fingertips to his lips, silencing him. “You foolish man,” she said. “How little you know me.” Her hand slid up to cradle his cheek. “All I ever wanted in the whole world was you.”
A spasm of emotion crossed over his face. “Is that what you still want?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
For years, she had promised herself that if she was ever again in a situation like this, she would be restrained. Dignified. That she would never reveal her true feelings as she had in those letters. But as she leaned closer to Sebastian, breathing in the familiar scent of spiced bergamot and starched linen, such promises flew right out the window. Penelope Mainwaring had been wrong. Some gentlemen—even the strongest and the bravest—did require reassurance on occasion. She gave it now with all of her heart.
“Yes,” she said. “My darling, yes. You are as dear to me now as you were then. Dearer still because of your scars. Because I know all that you have suffered to come back to me. But, much as I want you, tomorrow morning is impossible. Mrs. Dinwiddy will need at least a week to find a new governess.”
Sebastian went still, his gaze sharpening. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying that yes…I will marry you. And I do love you, Sebastian. I have never stopped loving you, though I have tried very hard to do so. But if you truly love me…And if you truly do not mind—”
Her words were lost as he brought his mouth down on hers. She gave a muffled exclamation of surprise. And then she brought her arms to circle his neck and her lips softened under his. She knew she must look a fright, with eyes swollen and her face blotchy from crying. She knew she must taste of tears. But he did not seem to care. He kissed first her lips and then her cheek and then her temple, all the while holding her in an unyielding embrace.
A light tap sounded at the door.
Sebastian’s lips stopped on Sylvia’s cheek mid-kiss. “Julia,” he muttered. “Confound her.”
Sylvia drew back from him as she heard the sound of the doorknob turning. “I thought she would not come back until you summoned her?”
“That was the idea.”
The door opened a crack and Lady Harker poked her head in. She was beaming. “I could not help overhearing!” She entered the library, shutting the door behind her. “Is it true, Miss Stafford? Are you really going to marry my brother? Oh, but you’ve been crying!” She hurried to Sylvia’s side. “What have you done this time, Sebastian? Did I not tell you that you must be nice to her and say only sweet things?”
Sebastian looked as if he might throttle his sister at any moment. Sylvia impulsively caught his hand in hers. She felt his fingers close around her own. “If I have wept, it is because I am so happy,” she said. “Your brother wrote to me from India, did he tell you?”
“He has said so, but he will not tell me what he wrote. And he says that you wrote to him as well, though he will not confide in me about the contents of those letters either. I do not know how I am expected to be a help when I have been kept so much in the dark!”
“You may be of help right now,” Sebastian said. “Miss Stafford and I are going to marry a week from today. You may assist with making the arrangements.”
“In a week!” Lady Harker clasped her hands to her bosom. “So soon? But then I must get started right away, for you shall have to have a wedding breakfast. And Harker will want to stand up with you, Sebastian. And I will stand up with you, Miss Stafford.”
Sylvia smiled. “I would like that very much, Julia.”
Lady Harker’s face shone with pleasure. “How wonderfully it has all worked out!” she declared, moving briskly back to the door. “And to think if I had not come to London and found you, the two of you would have gone your whole lives without knowing about those silly letters! But that is of no account now, thank goodness.” She let herself out, still chattering as the door shut behind her.
Sylvia looked at Sebastian, her lips quivering with laughter.
“My sister,” Sebastian said disgustedly. And then he, too, began to smile.