“Of course.” Cecilia hurried forward with the requested items, grateful for the interruption. This was her place. This was her role. Fetching gloves and holding lemonade and being useful.
Not catching the eye of dukes across crowded lawns. Not recalling conversations in libraries. Not wondering what he had meant by ‘I find you interesting.’
She helped Georgiana adjust her gloves, offered encouraging words about her performance, and retreated once more to the margins.
She did not look at him again.
But she felt his presence like a weight, like a warmth, like something she could not name and did not dare examine too closely.
***
That evening, Sebastian told himself—firmly—that he would not think of her.
He had come to dinner prepared to attend to Miss Ashwood’s cousin and the other eligible candidates assembled for his benefit. He had resolved to be charming. Attentive. Dutiful.
He lasted scarcely ten minutes.
His gaze drifted to the edges of the room, to the quiet spaces where servants moved and companions waited. To the place where she might have stood, had she been required.
She was not there.
He should have been relieved.
Instead, disappointment settled in his chest with uncomfortable familiarity.
You exchanged a few words with her,he reminded himself savagely.One brief encounter. She is a stranger.
But she did not feel like a stranger. She felt like someone he had been waiting to meet without knowing he was waiting.
“Your Grace?”
He turned to find Miss Hartley regarding him with patient curiosity. She had been seated beside him this evening—his mother’s arrangement, no doubt—and had been making a valiant effort at conversation while his attention strayed elsewhere.
“Forgive me.” He summoned a smile. “You were saying?”
“I was asking about your library at Ashworth Hall. Lady Marchmont tells me it is quite impressive.”
“It is… extensive.” He searched for a remark that might pass for charm and found only duty. “My grandfather was the true collector. He believed every great house must possess a library worthy of its dignity.”
“And do you continue his work? Adding to the collection?”
“When I find volumes of interest.” The reply felt mechanical, his thoughts already drifting. “Do you read, Miss Hartley?”
“Oh yes—novels, chiefly. I find them such a comfort. Mrs Radcliffe is my particular favourite; her heroines are always so delightfully imperilled.”
Sebastian nodded, offered an agreeable murmur—yet the mention ofreadingcaught at him like a hook.
Cecilia in the library, the quiet certainty with which she held her borrowed volume. The neat marginalia. The way she had spoken of Thornfield—of work, of necessity, of education become an odd relic no one wanted.
What if I am tired of performing?
He had said that to her. To a woman he barely knew. The truth had slipped from him unguarded—and she had looked at him with those thoughtful eyes and understood far more than he had meant to reveal.
People wanted things from him. They always had.
They did notseehim.
She had. Or he feared she had. Or he hoped she had.
