Georgiana remained by the window, rigid with disbelief—her pretty smile quite gone, leaving only the stark, wounded fury beneath.
***
“That was unwise.”
They were walking through the garden, following a gravel path that wound between hedgerows still dripping from the afternoon’s rain. Cecilia’s voice was steady, but Sebastian could see the tension in her shoulders, the careful way she held herself.
“Probably,” he agreed.
“More than probably. Certainly. Everyone saw. Everyone will talk.”
“Let them talk.”
“You may afford to say so. You are a duke.” She stopped, compelling him to stop as well. “I am not. I have nothing to shield me but obscurity, and you shattered it in front of half the house.”
“Would you have preferred that I let your cousin continue?”
The question stalled her. Pain, anger—and something like reluctant gratitude—crossed her face before she mastered it.
“What Georgiana said—”
“Was cruel. And false.”
“Was it?” She met his gaze, steady despite the tremor beneath. “I know what I am. A dependent. An encumbrance taken in from duty. A woman whose circumstances render her… easily overlooked. Georgiana merely stated what everyone else thinks.”
“She stated what she believes everyone thinks. That is not the same thing.”
“Is it not?”
He moved closer—close enough to see the fine drops of rain in her hair, the quick pulse at her throat—and forced himself to stop there.
“What she said of courtesy, that I speak to you only because good breeding forbids me to turn away…” He searched for words that would neither presume nor frighten. “That is not the truth of it. And I think—I hope—you know as much.”
“I know what you have said,” she replied softly. “I know what I have felt.” A breath. “But I also know that house parties end. Guests go back to their lives. Whatever has existed in that library will not survive beyond its walls.”
“Why must that be so?”
“Because the world is as Georgiana described it. A world in which dukes do not marry poor relations—and poor relations do not invite notice without paying for it.” She stepped back. “I ought never to have come walking with you.”
“Cecilia.”
Her name arrested her. The struggle in her eyes—hope against caution, longing against sense—cut him to the quick.
“I am not exercising politeness,” he said quietly. “Nor idly passing the time. I have come to that room day after day because it has become impossible to do otherwise. Because you are…” He faltered, then chose restraint. “Because your company has reminded me that I am still a person beneath the part I play.”
“Sebastian—”
“I know the obstacles. I know what would be said—by my mother, by your family, by society entire. Every argument points one way: speak pleasantly, withdraw, forget.”
“Then why do you not?”
He hesitated—not from doubt, but because the truth felt too naked for speech.
“Because I find,” he said at last, “that I cannot.”
The stillness between them deepened—not empty, but perilous.
“What is it you want?” she asked. “From this, from me? What do you truly want?”
