Rotheworth chuckled, patting Lady Swift once more. “What you need, Cambridge, is a holiday from your expectations.”
Sebastian arched a brow. “Doctor Rotheworth,prescribing rebellion?”
“Worked wonders for me. Too high expectations make for too high disappointment.”
“I’d rather risk disappointment than settle.”
Rotheworth huffed a laugh. “You won’t heed it. I can see that.”
“Expect nothing, and you’ll get exactly that.”
“Some people find that comforting.”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’m not one of them.”
“Suit yourself. What works for one doesn’t always work for another.”
“I still don’t envy you,” Sebastian muttered. Though perhaps he did. Just a little.
“You sound like a man convincing himself,” Rotheworth said, giving him a knowing look.
Sebastian said nothing. Something had shifted in him—some quiet storm building since Thomas’s courtship, the engagement, the announcement. A restless discontent he couldn’t name.
Rotheworth clapped him on the shoulder. “Relax. Enjoy the countryside. Focus on your health, not your heart.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes, but Rotheworth was already walking off. Lady Swift tossed her head as if amused by the whole exchange.
“I hope you bite him later,” he told her.
The mare blinked, entirely unbothered.
He should head back to his room. Rest. Drink something scalding and restorative. But still, he lingered, breathing in the quiet snuffling of the horses.
Too peaceful.
With a huff, he pushed away from the post and wandered farther down the line of stalls, pausing beside an old dapple-gray gelding. Half-asleep, the horse twitched one ear in acknowledgment. Sebastian scratched him behind it, then leaned against the stall.
Everyone’s glowing,he thought.Everyone’s changing.
He didn’t want to change. Didn’t want to glow.
But he did want something.
Someone.
To love, perhaps.
Yes.
He exhaled a long breath, one that fogged the air in front of him. The warmth of the stables clung to his coat, a lingering comfort he already missed. The scent of hay and hops still threaded through his senses, grounding him in something simpler, something real.
But he turned toward the castle anyway.
Up there, dinner awaited along with the carefully folded expectations of good breeding and even better behavior. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and trudged up the path. Maybe it was time to loosen his grip on some of those expectations. Maybe not everything had to be done the way it always had been. Maybe there was still time for him to change his heart? Or for someone to do that for him.
The thought unsettled him. But oddly, it didn’t seem like dread. It felt… like hope.
So he entered the castle, almost ready to change and face the formal dinner.
