Sylvia’s hand fell from the globe. She turned sharply to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”
Sebastian’s face was grim. “The letters you wrote to me. I never received a single one. Indeed, until this morning, when you mentioned your letters in the picture gallery, I believed that you had not written at all. It is why I was…uncivil…to you when you first arrived at Pershing.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “That cannot be true,” she said. “You knew about my letters. We discussed them.”
“You discussed them. I merely encouraged you. Selfish of me, I know. I should have told you the truth the moment I understood it for myself, but I—” He broke off with a low sound of frustration. “I wanted to know what you had written. I did not think you would admit to anything if you realized your letters had never come.”
She frantically thought back to the conversation they had had as they sat together in the window embrasure. What in heaven had she told him?
“None of them came?” she asked faintly. “Not a single one?”
“None,” he said. “And all of my own letters were returned unopened.”
“Your letters?” Sylvia’s knees weakened.
Sebastian was instantly at her side. His strong arm encircled her waist, enfolding her in the scent of spiced bergamot, starched linen, and clean male skin. “Come,” he said. “We had better sit.”
She allowed him to steer her to the large, velvet-cushioned settee near the fireplace. He kept his hand at her back as she sat down, watching with uncommon alertness as she drew the folds of her dressing gown more firmly around her. It was unconsciously done. Modesty was the last thing on her mind. When Sebastian sank down beside her, she hardly registered the impropriety of how close they were to each other. “What do you mean, your letters?” she asked.
“The letters I wrote to you from India,” he said. “They were returned to me unopened. Every last one of them.”
Her heart twisted. “You wrote to me,” she whispered.
“Frequently.” His somber expression briefly reflected a glimmer of the anguish in her own. “And you wrote to me, apparently.”
“Often.”
“And sealed your letters with a thousand kisses.”
Oh God! She looked away from him. “D-did I tell you that?” Her eyes closed briefly against a flood of embarrassment. “I’m sorry. My head is spinning.”
“It is a lot to take in.”
“Yes. I still cannot…” She tried to put her feelings into words, but it was all a jumble. “When you never answered, I thought…I thought…”
“I know what you thought,” he said. “It was what I thought as well. I expect it is what he wanted us to think.”
“That we hated each other.”
“Worse. That we had forgotten each other.”
She pressed a hand to her face, struggling desperately to make sense of it all. “Wait…” Her disordered thoughts caught on one phrase and held. “Who are you talking about? Who is he?”
“Your father, obviously.”
Sylvia’s breath stopped. “No,” she said. It was not true. It couldn’t be. If Sebastian had known her father better, he would never have suggested such a thing. “Papa would not have interfered.”
“You think not?”
“He had no reason,” she said. “It was he who gave me permission to write to you.”
For the barest instant, Sebastian could not hide his astonishment. And then his expression shuttered. “Did he, indeed,” he said. There was an underlying current of anger in his voice.
“Yes.” Her words tumbled out more quickly as she rose to Papa’s defense. “He saw how distressed I was when you returned to India. He told me not to worry. That you would return in no time at all. He even gave me his morning papers each day at breakfast so that I could search for news of you to put my mind at ease.”
Sebastian stilled. “You looked for news of me in the papers?”
A self-conscious blush rose in her cheeks. “Of course, I did. I checked for your name every day. I was terrified that you would be hurt or killed. And then, when I heard nothing from you, I thought you must have been. It did not even occur to me until much later that you simply had no wish to write to me.” She exhaled slowly. “Or so I believed.”
He looked at her for a long time, a bewildering series of emotions crossing his face. “I still cannot believe that your father permitted you to write to me.”
“Why not? He knew that we were friends. And he was not unsympathetic to a soldier’s need for letters from home.” She paused, adding, “Surely you must realize by now that Papa was not a high stickler.”
“In my experience,” Sebastian said dryly, “even the most ramshackle fellow can transform into a high stickler when it comes to his own daughter.”
Sylvia’s brows knit in an apprehensive frown. She looked down at her lap, trying to think of a way to explain to Sebastian that Papa could have had nothing to do with any of it. It must have been an error with the post, she thought, or something to do with the unreliability of mail delivery in India. But the more she puzzled over it, the less certain she became.
Her father made a rather obvious villain. He was in debt. Serious enough debt that he would take his own life a year later. He had a strong motive for her to marry well. Specifically, to marry one of her wealthier admirers—Lord Goddard, perhaps. If he had thought she was in danger of marrying a comparatively poor soldier, he could easily have taken steps to prevent her from forming what he believed to be an undesirable attachment.
But if he had objected to her burgeoning romance with Sebastian, why on earth had Papa given her permission to correspond with him? Unless…
Unless he had known that to forbid her outright was the surest way to guarantee that she would take the bit between her teeth and do exactly as she pleased.
No. It would have been a much better strategy to make her believe that her gentleman of choice had cruelly abandoned her. That he had, perhaps, merely been amusing himself at her expense during the London season.
She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Papa had been selfish. Reckless. But a deception such as this passed all bounds. “He wouldn’t have done such a thing,” she insisted, as much to herself as to Sebastian. “Not to me.”
Sebastian looked wholly unconvinced. “Did he ever give you any indication that he objected to my suit?”
Sylvia lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “He did question me, naturally, but he was not unreasonable and, in the end, he said that he trusted me and I may do as I liked.”
“How very obliging of him,” he said. “Did it never occur to you that he might have read your letters?”
“No. Why should it? He had no opportunity to do so.”
Sebastian’s gaze narrowed. “Not even when he posted them?”
Sylvia had the oddest sensation that his question was not what it seemed. She answered it anyway, telling him the truth—for better or for worse. “My father did not post my letters,” she said. “I did.”
Sebastian drew back in blank dismay. “You?”
Miss Stafford gave him a puzzled look. “Yes.” She paused. “Well, at least, my maid did.”
Her maid. He felt a palpable wave of relief. Without conscious thought, he rubbed the scarred side of his face.
She watched him with swift concern. “Does it hurt very much?”
He immediately dropped his hand. They were sitting perilously close. Close enough that she could see his scars, even in the candlelight. He felt a rush of intense embarrassment. “Not significantly.”
“Lady Harker said that you have been prescribed laudanum, but that you refuse to take it.”
“Did she? I am not surprised. My sister has informed me that she told you a great many things in order to lure you here. Most of which are patently untrue.”
“Oh?”
“For one, it may interest you to know that my sister is not in an interesting condition, as she puts it. For another, I do not keep a pistol at my bedside. Nor do I entertain thoughts of blowing my brains out.”
For an instant, Miss Stafford looked stunned. “My goodness,” she said. And then, very slowly, her mouth curved into a smile. A genuine smile, dimples and all. “And to think I thought her a bit silly to begin with.”
“Only a bit?”
“Yet she knew precisely what to say to get me to come here. Worried that you might do something stupid, indeed. And to say that she had found you weeping while clutching a lock of my hair! How gullible I am.”
Sebastian turned a dull red. Curse and confound his sister! Had she really told Sylvia Stafford that? Not that it wasn’t true. He had been weeping and holding a lock of her hair. But the tears had come after waking from a particularly terrible nightmare about the uprising. And he had been holding her lock of hair in his hand because it always calmed him during times of great stress.
“Julia should not have lied to you,” he said. “Not about something like that.”
“I think your sister would say or do anything to help you. You are quite lucky in that regard.”
“Lucky, am I?” One corner of his mouth hitched up as he recollected Julia sprinting from his rooms earlier that afternoon. “When she told me what she had done, I nearly throttled her.”
“I am glad she told you,” Miss Stafford said. “And I am glad things are not as dire as she described them.”
“Is that the only reason you agreed to come? To prevent me from putting a period to my existence?”
“In large part, yes. Though I am not sure what I could have done to prevent it. Especially when you have spent most of my visit avoiding me.” Her fingertips traced absently along the lines of the embroidered seat cushion at her side. “Why did you not join us for dinner this evening?”
Sebastian’s shattered senses sounded a dull warning. He dismissed it as a false alarm. “Because I had a paper to finish for the philosophical society.” It was not entirely a lie. He had spent most of the evening toiling over that blasted paper. “Why? What sinister motive did you assign to me?”
“I thought you did not wish to be in company with me.”
“A foolish assumption.”
“Is it? After how you’ve sneered at me since the day I arrived?”
Sebastian winced. “Have I sneered?”
“You know that you have.”
“Then I must beg your pardon.” What else could he say? That he had sought to punish her for rejecting him? That he had wished to humble her? To show her how little she had meant to him then and how much less she meant to him now?
In the process, he had been more than insulting. He had been purposefully cruel. It had been childish of him and damnably uncivil.
He was heartily ashamed of himself.
“Miss Stafford…I know you have ample reason to think otherwise,” he said, “but I don’t want you to leave Pershing Hall. Not yet. I meant what I said when I told you that I hoped we might be friends again.”
She considered this for a moment. “I suppose, then, that if I stay the rest of the month—”
“If you stay?” He was at once both incredulous and outraged. “What do you mean if?”
“There is no point in remaining the rest of the month if you continue to avoid me. If I stay, you must join us downstairs on occasion.”
“Haven’t I been doing so?”
“Darkened libraries and shadowy portrait galleries are not enough, I’m afraid.”
Sebastian did not need her to spell it out for him. She wanted the daylight. She wanted to see him, laid bare, in all his beastly glory. The prospect sunk his spirits. Is this what it would take to keep her here? To once again win her heart? His voice deepened with bitterness at the unfairness of it all. “The very thing you ask of me is the thing that will drive you away.”
Miss Stafford’s eyes softened with compassion. “You do me an injustice.”
“Do I? When I returned from India, my own sister screamed and fainted.”
“I am not your sister, my lord.”
“Of that, madam, I am well aware.”
Her color heightened. “Yes, well…It seems to me that you worry about your appearance a great deal too much.”
Sebastian stiffened. It was the truth, of course. He had never been a vain man, but he despised the sight of himself now. The scars on the right side of his face were thick, wide, and deep. His sightless eye fixed and white. His ear half gone. His mouth ever so slightly drooping. A monster, he had thought bleakly the first time he had seen himself in the hospital. His sister’s reaction to the sight of him had been the confirmation of all his worst fears.
“Wouldn’t you?” he asked.
She looked at him fully then, her blue gaze drifting over his face, taking in each sign of disfigurement with an unflinching steadiness that left him feeling shaken and exposed. “Perhaps,” she said. “But it is different for a woman.”
“Ah.”
“It is,” she insisted. “A woman’s value is almost always determined by her beauty. While a gentleman…A gentleman is valued for other things. His intelligence. His bravery. His skill at pistols or even at cards. I daresay that most who see your scars would recognize them as a badge of courage. It is how I view them. And I am generally thought to be a sensible person—despite recent evidence to the contrary.”
A badge of courage. He would have scoffed at such drivel were it said by anyone else. But the words, when uttered by Sylvia Stafford, sent a startling frisson of warmth through him. He cleared his throat. “You refer, I take it, to your attempt to climb my bookshelves.”
“Amongst other things.”
He was in his shirtsleeves. She was in her dressing gown. It was scandalous for them to be conversing together this way. Alone. Both in a state of undress at past two in the morning. A gentleman would advise her to retire. He would inform her that their present interaction may well harm her reputation. Alas, he was not feeling very gentlemanly at the moment. “Very well, Miss Stafford,” he said. “If you stay the remainder of the month, it shall be as you wish.”
“You will accompany us out of doors?” she asked. “In the daylight?”
His heart pumped in a sudden rapid, panicked rhythm. What the devil was he promising? “Yes,” he said. “In the daylight.”
“And for dinner, too. Like a proper host.”
“Dinner,” he repeated flatly. Bloody blasted hell. He ran his hand over the side of his face again, cursing the necessity of having this conversation. “Have your meals been so bleak without me?”
“Not at all. I only—”
“Yes. Yes, I know. You think I should make an effort. And I will, but…Regrettably…” He struggled with the painful admission even as he uttered it. “I do not dine in company.”
“That can’t be true. You took tea with us on the day of my arrival.”
“A foolish pantomime,” he said dismissively. “I allowed my sister to pour out a cup for me, but I did not drink it.”
Miss Stafford searched his face. “Why ever not?”
He might easily have made an excuse, indeed, he very much wanted to, but something about the lateness of the hour and the intimacy of their conversation compelled him to be honest. “This scar, here—” He drew his finger along the scar that ran from his eye down past the side of his mouth. “It has deadened the feeling on much of this half of my face. Not all of it, mind, but enough that eating and drinking in company is…unpleasant.”
Her dark brows drew together. He saw understanding registering slowly in the depths of her blue eyes. “Oh, Sebastian.”
It was the first time he had ever heard her use his given name. It was startlingly intimate. His chest tightened on a rush of pleasure that was almost pain.
Was she aware that she had done it? He did not think so. And he had no intention of drawing her attention to it. “You needn’t pity me,” he said.
“It is not pity.” She brushed her hand against her cheek.
Only then did he realize that several tears had fallen from her eyes. He groaned. “Please don’t.”
“I cannot help it.”
“You can,” he assured her. At least, he hoped she could. Her silent, dignified tears had a far different effect on him than the emotional dramatics of his younger sister. If she did not compose herself soon, he very much feared he would do something fatally ridiculous. Something foolish and sentimental like taking her in his arms and pouring his heart out to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I am not a watering pot. It is all just so overwhelming.” She dried the last of her tears on the sleeve of her dressing gown. “I suppose you do not think I have a right to cry over you.”
“As opposed to who? Julia?”
“Is there no one else?”
At one time he might have laughed at such a ridiculous notion. Now, however, he found nothing particularly humorous about her false assumption. “A woman, do you mean?”
She gave him a short nod. The candlelight shimmered against her hair, turning the chestnut strands to red and gold.
“There is no woman in my life,” he said. “I have been alone here the whole of this last year with only the servants for company. And Milsom, of course.”
“He was your batman while you were in India, was he not?”
“He was.”
“And—after you were injured—he was the one who cared for you?”
“If by cared for you mean badgered and bedeviled, then yes. He cared for me. He cared for me so much that, at times, I was hard pressed not to murder him.”
She looked at him, smiling faintly for a moment before her expression once again grew serious. “May I touch your face?” she half-whispered.
Sebastian froze. Had he heard her correctly? Surely not! “I beg your pardon?”
“I would like to touch your face, if I may.” She blushed. “If…If you do not mind it.”
His heart was pounding. “I do not mind,” he said quietly. “But why…?”
“Does it matter why?”
His chest rose and fell on an unsteady breath. “No,” he said. And it was the truth. A part of him had been longing for her touch since the moment he saw her outside the doors of his apartments. Longing for it in the same way that he had longed to hear the velvet sound of her voice. “No, it does not matter.”
She edged toward him, so close now that her legs brushed his, the voluminous folds of her dressing gown pooling over his booted feet. She raised one slender hand to his face only to stop a half second before touching him. “Will I hurt you?”
“No.” His voice was a raspy whisper.
And then she set her fingertips very gently on the scar at the side of his right eye. Her touch was warm and soft and heartbreakingly tender. He tried to concentrate on his breathing. An impossible task as she began to trace the path of his scar down his cheek.
Her face was mere inches from his own, illuminated in the flickering light from the candles. He could see every subtle shift in her expression. The slight movement of her dark brows, the tremor in her parted lips, the rosy flush rising in her cheeks. She smelled of violets. She had always smelled of violets. It was subtle, clinging to her skin and her hair, mingling with her own unique scent to create a fragrance that was at once both sweet and disturbingly elemental. The scent tugged at something deep inside of his chest.
Was this how her letters had smelled?
He felt a stab of white-hot anger. Damn Roderick Stafford! Had he been the author of these last three years of misery? If so, Sebastian fervently hoped the blackguard was roasting in hell.
“Does this hurt?” she asked, her fingers hesitating near his ear.
“No.”
“You were scowling.”
“Was I? Forgive me.” He made an effort not to sound as if her gentle ministrations were rattling him to his core. “You may proceed.”
She leaned closer, trailing her fingers along the ridge of his ear. “It was more than one saber cut,” she observed with a furrowed brow. “This one.” She traced slowly from his ear to the edge of his jaw, her fingers stopping at his shirt collar to rest against his throat. “And then this one.” She brought her hand back to his eye and followed the thick scar all the way down to the side of his mouth. “Which was first?”
“The one on my face. The one that took my ear and nearly cut my throat came afterward.”
“Who did it? Was it the same soldier?”
“A renegade sepoy. Yes. I believe so. Mercifully, I was stunned after the first blow and scarcely felt the second.”
“You were on your horse?”
No longer content to trace his scars with her fingertips, Miss Stafford brought her whole hand to lay alongside his cheek. It reminded him, rather painfully, of the way she had caressed his face that last night in the Mainwaring’s garden. It was a memory he had lived on for three long years. A memory which paled in comparison to reality.
“I was.”
“Where did it happen?
“At the Siege of Jhansi in ‘58.”
She moved the pad of her thumb against the right corner of his mouth. “Can you feel this?” she asked softly.
He swallowed hard. “Yes.”
She stroked her thumb over the edge of his top lip. “And this?”
“Sylvia…”
“How dear you were to me,” she murmured.
A deep tremor went through Sebastian’s body. He bowed his head, eyes closing as he drank in her words like a man too long deprived of water.
“I am going to kiss you now,” she told him. There was a distinct quaver in her voice. “Just here.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to the scar on his cheekbone.
Sebastian exhaled a shuddering breath.
“And here,” she whispered, kissing the corner of his blind eye. “And here, too, I think.” Her lips brushed the ragged edge of his ear.
He had been as still as a statue while she touched him, but as she feathered kisses back down the scar on his cheek, guiding him closer with a gentle pressure of her hand, the last thread of Sebastian’s control snapped. With a low groan, he brought his arm around her waist, sunk the fingers of his free hand into her hair, and turned his mouth to capture hers.
It was a fierce, demanding kiss, filled with three years of bitter longing. Sylvia’s lips gave way to it, parting beneath his. And then she melted into him, one hand still pressed to his cheek, the other coming to rest on his bare neck, her fingers twining in the dark hair at his nape.
He kissed her and kissed her. Exploring the voluptuous curve of her lips and tasting the soft, inner recesses of her mouth. The scarred edge of his own mouth was not entirely cooperative. He knew she must feel the awkwardness of it as his lips moved over hers. But if she did, she gave no indication. Instead, she was open and warm and pliant, offering him all of her sweetness. And God help him, he took it. All of it. Kissing her until he could not think a single coherent thought. Until he could scarcely breathe for wanting her.
She made no attempts to discourage his ardor, but she soothed him with her touch, meeting the searching heat of his mouth with soft, caressing kisses of her own. Kisses that told him that there was no need to rush. That she was his. That she had always been his.
“Sylvia,” he said hoarsely when they at last paused for breath. “Forgive me. I never intended…”
She smoothed her hand along the hard line of his jaw. “It’s all right.”
He turned his face into her touch. “My God, I fear I must be dreaming.”
“Have you dreamed of me?” she wondered.
“More times than I can count,” he said. “It was the only way I could have you.”
“I was certain you’d forgotten me.”
“Never.”
“Nor I you,” she whispered.
He felt her arms curve around his neck. Only then did he tighten his hold on her, hauling her up against the broad expanse of his chest. “How I’ve wanted you,” he said huskily. And then he bent his head and took her mouth again.
He had clearly run mad, he thought vaguely. But if he had, then so had she. She was returning his embrace with a full measure of passion. It was nothing like the careful kisses they had shared in the Mainwaring’s garden. No. These kisses were fevered and intimate. The sort of kisses a man might give his mistress as a prelude to a thorough bedding.
Sylvia pulled back, breathless. “Sebastian…”
He gave a low, frustrated growl of acknowledgment. “I know. Much more of this and we won’t be able to stop.”
She slid her hand from his neck to cradle his cheek in the soft, feminine curve of her palm. Sebastian’s eyes closed briefly at the feel of her fingertips scratching through his late evening stubble. “You do care for me, don’t you?”
He made a choked sound of acquiescence, half laugh and half groan. “My God, yes,” he said. “So much.”
She drew back just enough to look at him. Her blue eyes searched his face. “Do you mean it?”
A flicker of regret stung at Sebastian’s conscience. He had treated her abominably since her arrival at Pershing. It was no wonder that she doubted him now. “I mean it.” He caught her hand and pressed it against his lips. “I am going to take care of you,” he vowed.
And he would, by God. He was going to make it his life’s work to take care of Sylvia Stafford. She would never want for anything again for as long as she lived.
“Take care of me,” she repeated.
“I am going to give you everything. Gowns. Jewels. A carriage and four. Whatever your heart desires.”
She stared up at him, her brows drawn in confusion. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You must know I could never accept such things from you.”
“You can,” he assured her. “And much more besides. I intend to spoil you shamelessly.”
She shook her head. “Sebastian…”
His gaze fell to her half-parted lips. She looked as if she were about to say something more. To give voice to another objection, no doubt. He captured her mouth before she could speak, kissing her deeply, almost savagely.
For one endless moment, she yielded herself to the tender onslaught. Her lips softened beneath his, welcoming and sweet. And then she turned her face away from him, her bosom heaving against the hard wall of his chest. “It was not like this before.”
He pressed a kiss to the side of her mouth. “No” he said, nuzzling her. There was faint amusement in his voice. “Three years ago I would not have dared be so bold.”
“Because I was a gently bred young lady.”
His mouth stilled on her cheek.
“But now I am only a governess. A manner of superior servant, as you said.”
Sebastian raised his head to look at her. Good God, could she really believe that? Could she really think, even for an instant, that he had kissed her so passionately merely because she was some sort of inferior person? “Sylvia…” He moved to reassure her.
She drew back from him, setting both of her hands on his chest to hold him at a distance. “You did not call me Sylvia then.”
He had a sinking feeling that something had changed. A subtle shift between them that he could not quite identify. “Nor did you call me Sebastian,” he pointed out.
“But I did,” she said. “In all of my letters.”
Devil take it! Those infernal letters again. With a muttered oath, he released her from his embrace. She immediately withdrew to the opposite end of the settee. Her dressing gown was rumpled and her hair spilled all about her in a glorious chestnut tangle. She looked thoroughly tumbled. “I’ve already told you that I did not receive any of your letters.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that I wrote them.”
“Whether you wrote them or not—”
“You don’t believe me?” She was aghast.
“Sylvia, listen to me—”
“Why on earth would I lie about something so mortifying?” Her blue eyes blazed with hurt that was—he realized to his chagrin—swiftly turning to anger.
He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. The conversation was rapidly getting away from him. “I don’t know,” he blurted out. “Because I am the earl now. Because I have inherited my father’s fortune.”
Her lips parted on a wordless exclamation. “Is that what you think?”
“No,” he said at once. “I mean to say…It was what I thought when you first arrived here, but I—” He broke off with a curse. “Bloody hell, Sylvia. A man cannot think straight in these circumstances. If you will but give me five seconds to—”
“Miss Stafford, if you please.”
“What?”
“I would prefer if you ceased calling me by my given name. I’d rather not be familiar with a man who thinks I’m a liar.”
Sebastian scowled. “It’s a little late to worry about overfamiliarity.”
She looked away from him, her cheeks flooding with color.
“And I never said you were a liar.”
She drew her dressing gown more firmly about her. “It’s all right,” she said. “I am glad, really. Indeed, it is somewhat of a relief to know what you really think of me. I only wish I had known before I left London.”
He stared at her. “You make it sound as if you regret ever having come here.”
“Of course I do,” she said. “I should never have accepted your sister’s invitation. One cannot revisit the past.”
He felt the truth of her statement like a blow to the stomach. “And tonight? What happened between us just now?”
“Why should I regret that?”
“Forgive me,” he said stiffly, “did you not just intimate that I was the sort of gentleman who debauches his servants?”
“Debauches? No. But you must admit there is a vast difference between the kisses we shared when I was Miss Stafford of Newell Park and the kisses we shared now I am a governess in Cheapside.”
“Three years have passed. We are both older. And we are not in a garden during a crowded London ball. Naturally the intensity of our embrace—” He broke off with a grimace, embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken. “It has nothing to do with your being a governess.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No, damn it all!”
“You needn’t lose your temper.”
“I am not losing my temper. I am trying to tell you that I meant no disrespect to you. If you regret what has happened between us—”
“I do not regret it. I kissed you, if you will recall. I did not plan to, but now I think on it…It provides a certain symmetry to our acquaintance. A suitable ending, I feel.”
A dash of ice water could not have been more effective. “An ending,” he repeated. “After what we have just shared? I think not, Miss Stafford.”
She fixed him with a level stare. “It is not up to you, is it, sir?”
“The hell it isn’t,” he growled. “If you think I am letting you go after this—”
Sylvia was on her feet in an instant. “It is my decision and mine alone,” she shot back. “I am a woman of five and twenty now. An independent woman. I do exactly as I please.”
He stood, looming over her. “Do you, by God? And I suppose it pleases you to kiss gentlemen who are not your husband? Who are not even your betrothed?”
A fiery blush stole into her face. “If it does, it is no concern of yours!”
Sebastian’s expression was thunderous. Had there been others? How could there not have been? She had always had admirers. And he had been gone from her life for three long years. It would be foolish to assume that there had been no one else. “You have made it my concern by your actions this evening,” he said coldly. “My honor as a gentleman—”
“What of my honor?”
His jaw hardened. He had no idea why he was losing his temper. Jealousy? Frustration? From the moment of Sylvia Stafford’s arrival his mind had been in turmoil. Her presence alone was overwhelming, but touching her and kissing her had devastated his senses. Muddled his brain. Damn it all to hell! Had there been other men? He could not get the thought out of his head.
“But I suppose,” she said, “you believe a governess has no need of honor or…or dignity…or to be treated with r-respect—” She broke off abruptly, turning away from him. When she spoke again, there were tears in her voice. “How can you think I would kiss just anyone? Simply because I kissed you that night in the garden? And again tonight? I suppose you believe me to be some sort of conscienceless flirt.”
Sebastian muttered a low curse. In one stride, he was behind her. He closed his hand around her upper arm. “You begin to be as infuriating as my sister,” he growled. His harsh tone was tempered by the gentle, reassuring squeeze of his fingers. “Of course I do not believe that. What do you take me for?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anymore. I cannot think.”
“You’re tired, that is all. We both are.” He turned her to face him. The sight of her tear-filled eyes tore at his heart. He moved his hand up and down her arm, attempting to soothe her disordered nerves. “We needn’t discuss anything more this evening,” he said. “But in the morning, you and I are going to talk about a great many things. We are going to come to an arrangement.”
She looked away from him. Her small, slender body was stiff and unyielding.
“For now, I recommend bed. And perhaps a glass of sherry, if you will take one.”
She shot him a fleeting glance. “Why must you be so dreadfully reasonable? Your sister said you were a brute and bully. Pray bully me, my lord. Threaten me. Throw a porcelain vase at my head. Anything so that I might hate you.”
“You would prefer to hate me?” He was incredulous.
“Yes. It would be easier. Less confusing than” —she made a vague gesture with her hand that seemed to encompass the whole of Pershing Hall— “this.”
“You are talking nonsense.” He squeezed her arm again. “Come. I shall light a fresh candle for you and then you may go back upstairs to your room. You will feel better in the morning.”
She gave a small, reluctant nod. “Very well.”
He dropped his hand from her arm and went to find a box of friction matches. The branch of candles he had brought in with him was still flickering valiantly, despite having guttered. It cast a dim glow around it, leaving the rest of the library sunk into darkness. Sylvia’s own candle had long since gone out. He replaced it with a fresh one, lit the wick, and turned to give it to her.
“The servants should all be in bed,” he said as she took it from his hand. “Even so, it would be better if we left separately.”
“Yes.”
“You go first. I will remain here awhile.”
She inclined her head to him. “Goodnight, my lord.”
My lord. So they were back to that, were they? He sighed. “Sleep well, Miss Stafford. I look forward to resuming this conversation at a more reasonable hour.”