"Sebastian…"
"I'm not asking you to love me." The words came out flat, almost clinical. "I'm not asking for anything except thechance to help your family in the only way that seems to be left. We could maintain separate lives, if you prefer. Separate households, even, once the initial scandal dies down. You would have complete freedom to do as you please."
"You're describing a business arrangement."
"I'm describing a practical solution to an impossible problem." Sebastian's jaw tightened. "I know it's not romantic. I know it's not what you dreamed of as a girl. But your mother is ill, your family is facing ruin, and I have the means to prevent both. That has to count for something."
Harriet opened her mouth to refuse…the word was right there, ready to be spoken, as it had been when Davies proposed. But something stopped her. Maybe it was the memory of her mother's pale face, her trembling hands, and the physicians' grim warnings. Maybe it was the exhaustion of fighting a battle she could never win. Maybe it was something else entirely, something she wasn't ready to examine.
"Why?" she asked instead. "Why would you do this?"
A brief emotion played upon his face, but it was extinguished in an instant, leaving no trace for the curious eye.
"I told you. Your family has been more of a home to me than my own ever was."
"That's not enough. That's not a reason to shackle yourself to a woman who…" Harriet stopped, unsure how to finish the sentence.
"Who doesn't love me?" Sebastian's smile was crooked, bitter. "I'm aware. But as I said, I'm not asking for love. I'm asking for the chance to help."
"And what do you get out of it? A reluctant wife? A matrimony of convenience with a woman who's made no secret of her distaste for the arrangement?"
Something shifted in Sebastian's eyes. "I get the satisfaction of knowing your family is safe. That your mother will recover.That you won't have to sell yourself to a man like Davies." His voice dropped. "Is that not enough?"
Harriet wanted to say no. She wanted to refuse, as she had refused Davies, and walk away with her pride intact. But her pride was a luxury she could no longer afford. Not when her mother's life hung in the balance. Not when the alternative was watching everything she loved crumble to dust.
"I need time to think," she said.
"Of course." Sebastian stepped back, giving her space. "Take whatever time you need. The offer stands."
He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. Harriet watched him go, her heart a tangled mess of emotions she couldn't begin to sort out.
Sebastian Vane had just proposed to her. Not out of love, he had made that painfully clear, but out of duty, obligation, some misguided sense of responsibility to Richard's memory.
It should have been easy to refuse. It should have been the simplest thing in the world.
So why did she feel as though she was standing at the edge of a cliff, about to step off into the unknown?
***
Harriet spent the rest of the day at her mother's bedside.
Lady Fordshire slept fitfully, rousing occasionally to ask questions that Harriet answered with carefully edited versions of the truth. Yes, they had returned from Davies Hall. No, there was nothing to worry about. Everything was being handled.
Lies, all of it. But necessary lies, the kind that protected the people you loved from truths they couldn't bear.
As evening fell and the candles were lit, Harriet found herself studying her mother's face in the flickering light. When had she become so frail? When had the vibrant, commandingwoman who had run this household for thirty years been replaced by this pale shadow?
It had happened gradually, Harriet realised. So gradually that she hadn't noticed until it was nearly too late. The stress of the debts, the grief of losing Richard, the endless worry about the future, it had all taken its toll, day by day, until there was almost nothing left.
She cannot survive another crisis.
The physician's words echoed in Harriet's mind, relentless and inescapable. Her mother needed peace. Security. The certainty that everything would be all right.
Harriet could give her that. All she had to do was say yes.
The thought circled in her mind like a hawk, never quite landing. Marry Sebastian. Become Lady Vane. Trade her freedom for her family's salvation.
Was it really so different from what she had refused with Davies?
