"You're not eating," he observed.
"Neither are you."
"I'm pacing myself. The wine is better than expected, and I should hate to squander it by filling up on bread."
"How very aristocratic of you."
"I do try." He poured himself another glass, then, after a moment's hesitation, topped up hers as well. "You might as well drink. It will help you sleep."
"I never have trouble sleeping."
"No?" Something flickered across his face, that same unreadable expression she had noticed earlier. "You are fortunate, then. I find sleep rather elusive, most nights."
It was more personal information than he had offered in years of acquaintance, and Harriet found herself momentarily wrong-footed. The Sebastian Vane she knew,or thought she knew did not admit to weaknesses. He did not confess to sleepless nights. He maintained his wall of sardonic indifference and let nothing through.
"Why?" The question emerged before she could consider whether she actually wanted the answer.
Sebastian shrugged, a gesture of studied carelessness that didn't quite reach his eyes. "The usual demons. Regrets. Mistakes. The endless catalogue of things one should have done differently." He took a long sip of wine. "I imagine you're familiar with the phenomenon."
"I try not to dwell on the past."
"Do you? I confess I find that difficult to believe, given…" He stopped abruptly.
"Given what?"
"Nothing. Forgive me. The wine is making me imprudent."
"You've had precisely one and a half glasses. I hardly think that qualifies as imprudent."
"You don't know my tolerance for wine."
"I know you once consumed an entire bottle of champagne at Lady Whitmore's ball and showed no effects whatsoever. Richard told me about it afterward. He seemed rather impressed."
Sebastian went very still. "You remember that?"
"I remember most things your brother told me. He was…" Harriet's voice caught unexpectedly. "He was very good at telling stories."
"Yes. He was."
The silence that followed was different from the awkward pauses that had preceded it. This was grief, raw and shared, hovering in the space between them like a ghost neither wanted to acknowledge.
"I miss him," Harriet said quietly. It felt like a confession.
"So do I." Sebastian's voice was rough. "Every day."
They sat with that for a moment, the fire crackling, with the storm raging outside, the weight of loss pressing down on them both. It occurred to Harriet, not for the first time, that Sebastian had lost Richard too. That he had lost his closest friend, his confidant, his brother in all but blood. She had been so consumed by her own grief that she had never stopped to consider his.
"He spoke of you often," she found herself saying. "In his letters. He was always telling me about your adventures together. The time you got lost in the Scottish Highlands and had to shelter in a shepherd's hut. The wager you made about who could learn to waltz faster…"
"He won that wager, as I recall, by cheating."
"He said you were the one who cheated."
"He would." But Sebastian was almost smiling now, a real smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look, for just a moment, like someone Harriet didn't recognise. "Your brother was constitutionally incapable of losing gracefully. I once beat him at chess, and he refused to speak to me for three days."
"That sounds like Richard."
"It does, doesn't it?" Sebastian's smile faded slowly, replaced by something more complicated. "I keep expecting to see him.Isn't that strange? Three years gone, and I still turn sometimes, thinking I've heard his voice."
