The following day was agony.
Harriet was avoiding him. This was not speculation; it was observable fact. She did not come down to breakfast. She did not appear for their usual walk. When he knocked on the door of the sitting room where she had sequestered herself, she called out that she was "indisposed" and would "see him at dinner, perhaps."
Perhaps. As though there were any possibility of Sebastian not seeing her at dinner. As though he could survive an entire day without even a glimpse of her face.
He was being pathetic. He knew he was being pathetic. But he couldn't seem to stop.
He retreated to his study and attempted to review estate accounts. The numbers swam before his eyes, meaningless. He tried to read. The words refused to form coherent sentences. He considered going for a ride, but the thought of being out of the house and away from even the possibility of seeing her was intolerable.
You're courting your own wife, he told himself savagely.You're mooning about like a lovesick boy because she kissed you and then ran away. This is what you've been reduced to.
But he couldn't help it. He had spent seven years loving her from a distance, convinced that distance was all he would ever have. Now she washere, in his house, wearing his ring, and she had kissed him…twice and he didn't know what to do with any of it.
In the end, he did what he always did when he couldn't handle his feelings: he sublimated them into action.
He went to the kitchens and spoke to Mrs. Crawford, the cook who had ruled the household since before he was born. He requested that a selection of biscuits be prepared ,the lemonones, specifically, because he had noticed Harriet eating three of them at tea last week. He asked for fresh flowers to be placed in her sitting room. He searched the library until he found a novel she had mentioned wanting to read, and had it wrapped in paper and left outside her door.
Small things. Pathetic things. The gestures of a man who didn't know how else to sayI love you, please don't run from me.
He didn't know if she noticed. He didn't know if she cared.
But he kept doing it anyway, because doing something was better than doing nothing, and because he was, as he had long since accepted, utterly hopeless where Harriet Fordshire was concerned.
***
By evening, his patience had worn thin.
She could not avoid him forever. They were wedded; they lived in the same house; they had kissed twice and something had clearly shifted between them. If she thought she could simply pretend none of it had happened, she was mistaken.
He found her in the library, curled in her chair…herchair, the one she had claimed and refused to relinquish, with a book open in her lap. She looked up at his entrance, her expression wary.
"You're being ridiculous," he said, without preamble.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You kissed me and then ran away like a frightened rabbit. You've been hiding from me all day. It's ridiculous."
"I have not beenhiding. I've been…"
"Avoiding. Hiding. The distinction is academic." Sebastian moved to stand before her chair, looking down at her. "Harriet, we need to talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"You kissed me."
"A momentary lapse in judgment."
"You grabbed my lapels and kissed me in the middle of an argument about alphabetisation. That's not a lapse; that's a choice."
Harriet's cheeks flushed. "I did notgrabyour lapels."
"You absolutely grabbed my lapels. I was there. I remember it vividly." Sebastian crouched down so they were at eye level. "Harriet, I'm not upset. I'm the opposite of upset. But I need to understand what's happening, because I cannot keep…" He stopped, struggling for words.
"Cannot keep what?"
"Cannot keep hoping and then having the rug pulled out from under me." His voice came out rougher than he intended.
"I've been doing this for seven years. Wanting you. Watching you. Telling myself it didn't matter that you'd never feel the same. And now you're kissing me and running away and avoiding me and I don't…" He broke off, shaking his head.
