"My cousin Marcus is a perfectly adequate man. A bit dull, perhaps, but competent enough. He can have the title."
"Sebastian…"
"I mean it, Harriet." He turned to face her fully, needing her to see the truth in his eyes. "I entered into matrimony with you because I love you. Not because I needed you to produce children. Not because I wanted a broodmare. I wantedyou…your wit and your fire and your stubborn refusal to let anyone tell you what to do. If we never have children, I will still have exactly the life I wanted. I will still consider myself the luckiest man in England."
Harriet's face crumpled. For a moment, Sebastian thought he had said something wrong, had hurt her instead of helped. But then she was in his arms, crying against his chest, her tears soaking through his shirt.
"I was so afraid," she managed, between sobs.
"So afraid that eventually you would resent me. That you would look at me and see failure. That you would wish you had married someone else."
"Never." The word came out fierce, almost angry.
"I could never wish that. You are everything I ever wanted, Harriet. Everything."
"Even without children?"
"Even without children. Even without a title or an estate or anything else. You are enough. You have always been enough."
She cried for a long time, great heaving sobs that shook her whole body. Sebastian held her through all of it, stroking her hair, whispering reassurances, wishing he could take her pain and carry it himself.
When the tears finally subsided, she pulled back to look at him. Her eyes were red, her face blotchy, and her nose was running. She looked positively dreadful.
She had never been more beautiful.
"I love you," she said. "Have I mentioned that recently?"
"Not in the last hour."
"Well, I do. More than I know how to say." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I think I needed to hear that. What you said. I think I've needed to hear it for a long time."
"Then I should have said it sooner."
"You've said it before. I just wasn't ready to believe it." She leaned against him again, her weight warm and solid against his side. "I think I'm ready now."
They sat by the fire for a long time after that, not speaking, just being together. Sebastian felt something shift in Harriet, some tension that had been coiled tight for months finally beginning to ease.
It wasn't fixed. He knew that. Some wounds took longer than others to heal. But it was a start.
It was enough.
***
They visited Dove Cottage on a grey afternoon, clouds hanging low over the mountains.
It was smaller than Harriet had imagined a modest stone building with a slate roof and a garden that had been carefully restored to something approximating its historical state. This was where Wordsworth had lived and written, where he had composed the poems that had shaped English literature.
She stood in the tiny rooms, touching the walls, imagining the words that had been born here. It felt sacred, somehow. Like standing on holy ground.
"What are you thinking?" Sebastian asked.
"That he was brave. To write the way he did. To put his heart onto paper and send it out into the world." Harriet turned to look at him. "I don't know if I'm that brave."
"You're the bravest person I know."
"That's not true."
"It's absolutely true. You've faced more adversity in the past two years than most people face in a lifetime. And you're still standing. You're still fighting." He took her hand. "That takes courage, Harriet."
