"Multiple times. Usually after we'd had a particularly vicious argument at some social function." Harriet smiled at the memory. "He was convinced you were in love with me years before you knew it yourself."
"I knew it." Sebastian leaned against the bookshelf, watching her. "I just didn't think anything would come of it."
"And now?"
"Now I think Richard was right about most things. Including us."
Harriet reached behind her and pulled out a slim volume that had been tucked into the corner of the window seat. "This was my hiding spot for the things I didn't want Mama to find. Poetry, mostly. And this."
She handed him the book. It was a novel, one of the sensational Gothic ones that had been popular a decade ago, full of mysterious castles and romantic excess. The cover was worn from repeated reading, the spine cracked, and the pages soft with use.
"Richard gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday," Harriet said. "Mama would have had an apoplexy if she'd known. The hero is a reformed rake who falls desperately in love with a woman who initially despises him. Very scandalous."
Sebastian opened the cover and found an inscription in Richard's familiar handwriting:For Harry, who deserves her own epic romance. Don't tell Mother. E
"Harry?" Sebastian asked, smiling.
"His nickname for me. I pretended to hate it." Harriet's expression suggested she had not, in fact, hated it at all. "He was the only one allowed to use it."
"I'll remember that."
"See that you do." She took the book back, handling it with the careful reverence of a treasured memory. "I used to read this and think it was all nonsense. Reformed rakes, desperate love, grand gestures. Real life wasn't like that, I told myself. Real life was practical and disappointing and nothing like novels."
"And now?"
"Now I'm wedded to a man who waited seven years for me and spent that time annotating my terrible poetry." Harriet looked up at him with an expression that made his breath catch. "It turns out real life can be exactly like novels. You just have to find the right person to write the story with."
Sebastian crossed to the window seat and crouched down so their eyes were level. "Harriet Vane, that is the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
"Don't become accustomed to it."
"Too late."
He kissed her, soft and slow, and she melted into him the way she always did now as though the barriers between them had finally, fully dissolved. When they broke apart, she was smiling.
"We should probably go be responsible," she said. "Mr. Thornton will be here soon."
"Must we?"
"Unfortunately." She stood, tucking the novel back into its hiding place. "But afterward, I have more of the house to show you. Including the attic where Richard and I used to play pirates."
"You played pirates?"
"We were fearsome. I was always the captain." Harriet took his hand and led him toward the door. "Richard was my first mate. He complained constantly about the hierarchy, but he never actually mutinied."
"A loyal man."
"The best." She squeezed his fingers. "Until you."
Sebastian didn't trust himself to speak. He simply held her hand and followed her out of the library, his heart so full it ached.
***
Mr. Thornton arrived at precisely eleven on the hour.
"Lady Fordshire. Lady Vane. Lord Vane." He inclined his head to each of them in turn as he entered the study. "Thank you for making time for this review."
“We thank you for coming all this way for us,” Lady Fordshire said, gesturing for him to take a seat at the large desk that dominated the room.
