“What did you say?”
“I said it is not enough.” Cecilia’s hands trembled; years of restraint frayed at last. “I am not a servant, Georgiana. I am your cousin. I was brought up as a lady, educated for a life that vanished because of a quirk of law—and I have spent five years making myself grateful for scraps where I once might have expected bread.”
“You are ungrateful—”
“I amtired,” Cecilia said—low, steady. “Tired of invisibility; tired of service disguised as benevolence; tired of performing gratitude for circumstances barely tolerable. I did not pursue the Duke. I did not invite his regard. But I did not shrink from it either—because, for the first time in years, someone looked at me as though I were still worth seeing. Can you truly not comprehend what that was to me?”
Georgiana was silent, her expression unreadable.
“Go back to the picnic,” Cecilia said at last. “Play your part, secure your future. I will not interfere. But do not ask me topretend that I feel nothing. Do not ask me to be grateful for being unseen.”
She turned and walked away, deeper into the ruins where no one would seek her. She required solitude—time to rebuild the defences that had guarded her for so long.
To accept that the brief, impossible dream must end—whatever she might wish.
Yet even as she retreated, she knew something had altered beyond repair. The careful balance of the past five years was shattered—and she could not tell whether it might ever be restored.
Sebastian had seen to that.
And now she must face what followed.
***
The remainder of the picnic passed in a blur.
Cecilia remained hidden among the ruins until the sounds of departure reached her—carriages being loaded, voices calling, servants gathering baskets and shawls. She emerged only when she was certain she might slip unnoticed to the servants’ wagon.
She did not look for Sebastian. She did not allow herself to search the crowd for his tall figure, his dark hair, his grey eyes that saw too much. Looking would only make the parting harder.
The ride back to Fairholme was silent. Cecilia sat among the hampers and folded rugs, her grey gown dusted from stone and ivy, her mind deliberately stilled. Thinking would come later. For the present, she needed only to endure.
At the house, she went directly to her small room on the upper floor. She did not wait for Georgiana, did not present herself for duty, did not perform any of the tasks that had shaped her existence these five years.Let them find another pair of hands. Let them discover how much of the household has rested upon my unobtrusive labour.
She sat upon the narrow bed and fixed her gaze upon the wall, willing herself to feel nothing.
It was a futile effort.
The tears came at last—quiet tears, disciplined even in grief. She wept for the life she had lost, for the fragile hope she had permitted herself, for the man she could not have and the future that could never be hers.
When the tears were spent and no more would come, she sat dry-eyed, emptied—and began to think.
To plan.
***
Lady Ashwood summoned her the following morning.
Cecilia had expected it—if not sooner. She had spent the night steeling herself for whatever judgment her aunt intended to pronounce. She dressed in her neatest grey gown, arranged her hair with careful precision, and presented herself at the door with all the composure she could command.
“Come in.”
Lady Ashwood sat at the writing desk, back very straight, expression severe. Georgiana occupied a nearby chair, her face schooled into neutrality; Uncle Horace stood by the window, profoundly ill-at-ease.
“Cecilia.” Lady Ashwood did not invite her to sit. “I trust you know why you are here.”
“I believe so, Aunt.”
“The Duke of Ashworth.” The name emerged like a charge laid before a court. “You have contrived to meet him privately. You have encouraged his attentions.”
