“Affection seldom enters into such arrangements.”
“No. It does not.” Georgiana looked toward the bright scatter of the picnic beyond the broken arch. “I thought—whenI met the Duke—that perhaps I might grow to care for him. In time. If we were thrown together, perhaps something might take root.”
Cecilia said nothing. There was no comfort she could offer that would not be a lie.
“But he does not seeme.” Her voice fractured on the words. “He sits beside me and speaks as propriety demands—and all the while, he is looking atyou. Even when you are nowhere near, even when he does not turn his head—he is looking at you.”
Cecilia could find no answer. The cousin she had believed shallow and self-absorbed revealed, in that moment, a depth she had never imagined.
“I am sorry,” she said again—and this time the words meant something different. “I never meant to take anything from you.”
“I know.” Georgiana sighed, and for an instant looked very young—and very tired. “But you have. Whether you meant to or not.”
She turned and walked away, leaving Cecilia alone in the ruined chapel, surrounded by ancient stones and impossible choices.
***
Sebastian found her there an hour later.
He should not have come. He should not have slipped away from the picnic, nor searched the ruins until he discovered the corner where she had concealed herself. Every promise he had made—to his mother, to himself, to the silent rules that governed their conduct—required that he stay away.
But he had watched her all morning: standing at the margins, bearing shawls, fetching lemonade, vanishing when she was not needed. He had seen Georgiana approach her and depart looking shaken. He had seen Cecilia disappear into the ruins and not return.
He could not stay away.
“You should not be here,” she said when she saw him. She sat upon a fallen stone, her grey gown scarcely distinct from the weathered wall behind her, her face pale and strained.
“I know.”
“If someone sees—”
“I know.” He moved nearer nevertheless, drawn by a force he neither named nor resisted. “What did she say to you? Georgiana?”
Cecilia was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was very calm—the sort of calm that came after feeling had gone to ground.
“She said my aunt means to send me home. Soon. And that she may dismiss me without a reference.”
The words struck like a blow.Without a reference.He understood precisely what that meant—the sentence it would pronounce upon her future.
“She cannot—”
“She can. And she will.” At last, Cecilia looked at him; her eyes were dry, but desolate. “I have nothing, Sebastian. No portion, no position, no family who would receive me. The Ashwoods are all that remains. If they turn me out—”
“I would not permit it.”
“And how would you prevent it? By marrying me?” A brittle sound escaped her—something too sharp to be laughter. “That would require a proposal; a proposal would require explanation; explanation would require—” She shook her head. “It would require a miracle. And I ceased to rely upon miracles a very long time ago.”
He wanted to protest—to swear that he would find a way, that obstacles might be overcome—but he did not trust the promise, and she would not trust it either.
“What is ityouwish to do?” he asked instead.
“What I wish is of no consequence.”
“It is of consequence to me.”
She looked at him then—truly looked—and he saw, as plainly as if she had spoken it, all that she could not say: the long-buried longing, the fragile hope, the feeling she dared not name.
“I wish to stay,” she whispered. “I wish to stay—to see you—to—” Her voice faltered. “I wish for things I cannot possess. And to wish for them will be my undoing.”
