“Yes. No! I-I don’t know.” Aurelia paced the small space. “For the longest time, I thought he resented me and my presence in the house. He resisted every change I wanted to make, and it was as though he wished I were gone. But little by little, I contrived to make him like me. Or so I thought.”
Mary Ann gaped at her. “How do you not see it?”
“Seewhat?”
“Of course he likes you—the man adores you! EvenIcan see that. The way he looks at you. No man can feign that, dearest.”
“So you say, but he fully intended to send me away once I was with child.” And Aurelia explained the rest of Sebastian’s plans. How, no matter how they might have changed now, he had fully intended to live separately from her for the rest of their lives.
“Taking lovers, no doubt,” she finished, a little tearfully. The thought of Sebastian with any other lady made her feel sick to the stomach, even if she never went back to him. “And living happily without me. But I doubt he would like it if I did the same.”
“Well…” Mary Ann said slowly, “I don’t think it would come to that. But if it did, he could have no say over the way you lived.”
“I expect he thinks he has every right to.”
“He can think what he likes; that doesn’t change the facts.” Mary Ann came to join her by the window, where clouds were gathering ominously on the horizon. A wall of black that reminded her of the terrible storm that had washed away so much of the village.
“If he is the one to cast you aside, and if he lives as he pleases, surely then you can too.” She turned back to Aurelia, looking at her with a seriousness that ate away at her. “Consider it. You could take lovers, if you so chose. I know that is a thing some widows do, and some married ladies. If he does the same, then who is saying you cannot?”
“The standards of theton, no doubt.” Aurelia sighed. “Although if I am to be cast aside, it’s not as though I would ever bewelcome there. I am not welcome in thetonas it is. So who would care what I did?”
Except—shewould care.
And she had no desire to take on another man as a lover. Sebastian may have played fast and loose with their wedding vows, but she had no intention of doing so.
Would he if she left now? She didn’t know if he would have done so at the beginning, when he didn’t know her and still intended to send her away. But surely, since then, something had to have changed?
“He cares about you,” Mary Ann emphasized softly. “You have every right to be angry—but consider how much he has changed for you. He re-entered the village, and perhaps that wasn’tforyou, but I think it was because of you.”
“In what manner?”
“After our little excursions in the village, I befriended some of the commonfolk down in Swanstone. There is hardly anything else to do in such an isolated place. I spoke to people who have known him for some time, and he has always spent his time alone in his home. But since marrying you, he has ventured out more than ever. When I first met him, we were walking by the sea! And you said he had cared for you when you had fallen sick.”
Heavens, that felt like a long time ago now. She had almost been a different person then, and so had Sebastian. Yet when he cared for her, when heinsistedon caring for her even though servants were already looking after her, that was the moment things truly began to change for them.
“I don’t know what to feel,” she admitted.
“Stay here for now,” Mary Ann coaxed, taking her hands swiftly. “Lord knows I could do with the company. Then, when you’ve had some time to think, you can make a decision.”
The sky crackled darker than ever.
The problem was, she was rapidly concluding, she loved Sebastian, despite all his faults. He had hurt her,yes, and she had needed space to think. Some part of her had also wanted to punish him—if he had originally planned to send her away, then away she would go, and see how he liked that!
But life without him held no appeal. It would merely serve as a penance on the only man she knew wouldfeelpenance over her absence.
Yes, she was deathly afraid he would toss her aside if he ever tired of her, but would leaving serve—
In the far distance, lightning flashed. Both Aurelia and Mary Ann jolted.
It felt like her own raw feelings had ascended from her body and now frolicked in the sky.
“Another storm.” Mary Ann shuddered as she too watched the darkening horizon. “I do hope this one doesn’t cause too much damage and no one is caught out in it—”
Aurelia’s blood suddenly turned to ice.
Sebastian.
Hours ago, before she had fled here with her wounded pride and her carpetbag, he had been heading straight for the lighthouse. And she had watched until he was nothing but a dark shape against the cliffhead. She had been so full of hurt and rage that she’d even hoped he would feel every miserable second of the chill.
