Violet gave a mirthless chuckle. “Perhaps.”
“Tell me.” Her father’s kind eyes were pleading. His care for her welfare, as always, foremost.
She couldn’t be more embarrassed than she already was, could she? She briefly told him of her secret admirer’s notes. “I believe it was part of an on-going prank with his university friends,” she forced out from between stiff lips.
Her father growled. “Young gentlemen sometimes deserve to be horsewhipped.”
“Oh my,” she gasped. There were two more gentlemen, Sebastian’s other friends, out in Society who knew of the cruel prank to laugh at plain spinsters with no prospect of ever having a real admirer—who could also have spread the joke. Her blood froze in her veins. What if they realized one was sent to her? She would never survive the humiliation.
And who else would learn of her further humiliation tonight with Sebastian’s very public kiss? There was nothing to stop either Lord Dunridge or Sebastian telling more of their cronies. Her body curved inward as she hugged her aching midriff. Blood pounded in her temples. Everyone would know eventually. She would never be able to show her face outside the parsonage again.
“I’ll have words with him,” her father said decisively.
“Please don’t, Father. I just want to forget the whole incident.” That and the preceding vacillation between hope and disbelief that she really had a secret admirer. What a fool she had been.
Her father patted her knee. “No matter, my dear. Sebastian and his friend will soon be gone again and you will be able to return to your usual state of calm.”
At the parsonage her father stopped their vehicle beside the garden gate so she could enter through the lamp-lit front door. She inserted her key in the lock and pushed open the heavy door with a shoulder against its timbers.
Violet gritted her teeth. Refusing to see Sebastian was the only way to protect her heart. If he called at the parsonage, she would not receive him. If she avoided social outings until he left, it would give her time to get over the hurt and humiliation. Then she would emerge, focus on her botanical art and not be fool enough to believe in love ever again.
Chapter Seven
Sebastian avoided the breakfast room next morning. His head pounded like a steam-powered pile driver. There was no way he could be polite to anyone, especially not his mother if she began promoting her latest marriage candidate to him.
Instead, he took the servants’ staircase to the kitchen. Cook opened her mouth to greet him, but he forestalled her with a finger to his lips and poured himself a cup of black tea from the steaming pot beside the hob. He downed it in a few gulps and slipped out the rear door.
Last night, Sebastian had retreated to the safety of the sitting room attached to his bedchamber with a full decanter of his father’s best port. With a little help from Dunridge, before he took to snoring in his armchair, he had emptied it. Sebastian hadn’t done anything so stupid since his second year at Oxford. If he developed early-onset gout he wouldn’t be surprised.
His heart still ached as though it had been cleaved in two. But he wasn’t emotionally ready or physically able to address that problem yet. He needed a ride in the brisk December air to clear the cobwebs from his head. That would set him to rights—he hoped.
Inside the stables, he beckoned a young stable hand to him.
“Will you be wanting Satan’s Spawn to ride this morning, my lord?” the lad chirped in his unbroken voice.
Sebastian winced and gingerly shook his head. “Old Hector, today,” he rasped.
The boy extinguished a look of disappointment at Sebastian’s choice, knuckled his cap, and hurried to do the young master’s bidding. Sebastian slumped onto a mound of fresh straw.
The hollow clop of hooves on cobbles woke him a few minutes later. He tried to rise, sending his head spinning. He reached out to the stable hand. “Help me up, lad.”
The boy tied Hector to a hitching ring, grasped Sebastian’s outstretched arm and tugged him to his feet.
Returned upright, Sebastian took a few moments to settle his stomach. He checked Hector’s girth strap and set the stirrup irons lower, while the animal assumed his usual air of bored indifference. Sebastian unhitched him and climbed aboard using a mounting block.
They ambled off in the direction of Whitton village. The morning air bit Sebastian’s cheeks. All but the workers of the village would still be abed after last night’s ball. The Christmas service, which would bring everyone forth, was still a few hours away.
Or so he thought until he came within sight of Mrs Sperling’s cottage. That lady was bundled up in deference to the frosty morning and busy in her garden. Of course, she hadn’t attended the ball last night. He tipped his hat to her and kept moving.
Within minutes he was gazing up at the window of Violet’s bedroom at the parsonage. He had to set things right with her. But how?
There was a movement in her room. The curtains at her window fluttered. Was she up there watching him?
He must talk with her. Within seconds he was lifting the knocker on the parsonage door, hat in hand, and his heart lodged in his mouth.
The Hambleton’s maid opened the door to him and bobbed a curtsy.
“Please tell Miss Hambleton that Lord Stanworth is here to see her.”
