Violet’s attention followed his. Half hidden by the mat on the stone step, was a folded piece of paper. It couldn’t be?
Sebastian bent to pick up the sealed note and read its direction. “For you I believe, Miss Hambleton.” He held the missive at shoulder level and beyond her reach. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
Fire invaded Violet’s cheeks. If he realized it was a billet-doux...that would be more mortifying than sitting through a whole ball without one dance partner. As had happened at Lady Mollison’s end-of-season event all those years ago.
Then, she had wanted to gain the power of invisibility to disappear from view forever. Even dear Aunt Theodosia had agreed that Violet devoting herself to assisting her father in his parish was probably the best life course for her, under the circumstances. Violet had departed London the very next day, never to return. Did that count as invisibility?
The same desire to disappear overwhelmed her. She resisted grabbing the note from between Sebastian’s gloved fingers. “Oh, that must have been left while I was in the village. Thank you.” It was just a white lie.
Sebastian relinquished the missive to her.
Scrawled across the folded white sheet was her name in her secret admirer’s bold handwriting. Violet’s heart sped up.
At this late stage in her life, it was ridiculous that she should have a secret admirer, let alone be swept away with the daydreams it evoked. A gentleman who loved her, who might even want to marry her, with whom she could finally have a family and live happily-ever-after.
She tucked the note into her sleeve.
She had lived for many years with the embarrassment, disappointment and heartbreak of spinsterhood, while she created a full and purposeful life assisting her father with his parish work and scientific endeavors. However, hopes of the fairy tale still lived within her.
How would she face the ignominy if Sebastian guessed she had an admirer? She would never live it down with him, as he loved to tease her. She adjusted her glasses.
What was more ludicrous was that in the middle of the night she now dreamed that Sebastian was her secret admirer, and that one day he would ride up to her doorstep, declare his love for her and carry her away to his family estate, Whitton Grange, on his white charger.
A glance over Sebastian’s shoulder showed that his very ordinary bay horse stood tied to the gatepost, eyes closed and resting one of his legs, too bored or sleepy to even nibble the parsley growing near the gate. No, her dream had no likely outcome in reality at all.
She was too old, too reserved, too plain, too poor. But still Violet remembered the day she had realized that Sebastian was no longer a youth who fitted into their family like a younger brother, but a fully grown man, barely recognizable—seasoned, grown, and worldly. And very attractive to boot.
He had come home during the Oxford long vacation to mark his twenty-first birthday with his family, at their insistence. And of course, they had invited eligible young ladies and their families to the celebration. Consequently, Sebastian had spent most of his visit at the parsonage.
One day, he had appeared at their front door and proposed a field trip to survey the wildflowers of the upper lands of Whitton Grange and perhaps later write a paper about the species native to the area.
It was the kind of perfect summer’s day one remembered forever. The sky had stretched wide and richly blue above them, with just a scatter of white clouds that bore no hint of rain. At their feet an expanse of wildflowers had extended across the undulating ground. A slight breeze rippled across the colorful field.
Violet had already liked Sebastian’s open, engaging personality and his scientific mind, but that day something irreversibly changed. They had collected specimens and in the process grown hot in the August sun. Sebastian and her father had removed their coats and neck cloths. Her gaze savored Sebastian’s wide shoulders, his broad chest and slim waist. How manly he had become... and desirable.
They had continued to collect flowers to record later and for Violet to paint, but all the while she was conscious of the man that Sebastian had become and her body’s response to him. For the first time she felt shy with him and lost for words. She berated herself for being no longer able to act in an easy-going manner with him, as though he was a younger member of her family. The strength of her attraction mortified her.
That night she had dreamed that her secret admirer was Sebastian and imagined them together in bed. Her face had flamed with embarrassment at the recollection when she met him again next morning. And those wildly erotic fantasies of him had persisted for the next two years and grown more frequent and heated.
If her admirer wasn’t Sebastian, and she could not believe he was, who could possibly be in love with her? She knew one thing—he would have to be a remarkable gentleman to banish her fantasies of Sebastian.
Sebastian’s deep voice rumbled forth again. “I would like to speak with your father before the ball, so I shall return this afternoon in the hope of talking with him.”
Violet cleared her throat. “I’m afraid he may be gone for most of the day.”
He grimaced. “That’s unfortunate.”
She itched to dismiss him from her doorstep so she could read the latest missive from her secret admirer. “Thank you for calling. I’ll let my father know you wish to speak with him.” She stepped back into the hall, ready to close the door.
Sebastian dipped his head. “Until this evening, Violet.”
She watched his lithe form stride through the stark winter garden to the open gate and mount his horse. With a farewell touch to the brim of his hat, he urged his mount into motion, and was gone.
Violet closed the heavy door and leaned against it. Blood pounded in her temples. She couldn’t wait another second to read what her mystery admirer had written this time.
Violet broke the plain wax seal on the note.
Her breathing became shallow as she forced the stiff paper open and read her admirer’s latest lines of doggerel.
