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Drives half thy loveliness away;

Turns thy warm heart as cold as clay.

The New Ladies’ Valentine Writer (1821)

* * *

The carriage rattled over the cobbled streets of Mayfair, its interior warm and quiet, yet Harriet could not summon any sense of comfort. She sat with her hands folded primly in her lap, her gloved fingers passing over the silk of her skirts, but her mind raced like a horse bolting toward a precipice.

Sebastian sat opposite, speaking with Evaline, and Harriet did her best to focus on their conversation, but her thoughts would not settle. Every time she dared glance at him, at the strong lines of his face, the way his cravat sat slightly loosened, as if he had already tugged at it in exasperation, the memory of his kiss burned through her like a brand.

A kiss like that should not have happened.

Not after everything. Not after she had deceived him.

Her fingers tightened into her skirts, and she turned to look out the carriage window, the passing townhouses blurring together. How had she let it come to this? She had told herself that she had only meant to indulge in nostalgia, to recapture a fragment of the past, and yet her heart beat like a drummer marching into battle.

Foolish. It was all so foolish.

She had spent the last few months trying to be someone else, trying to be stronger, wiser, and better than the witless girl who had let him go. And yet, the moment he had reached for her, she had felt undone, unmoored, as though no time had passed at all.

And the worst of it? Her fresh falsehood stood between them.

If it had only been the past to contend with, she might have dared to hope. But she had done something so inexcusable that there could never be anything real between them. Not now.

The painting.

Her throat constricted. He trusted her, even now. Despite everything, he trusted her enough to enter this strange courtship with her. And she—wretched fool that she was—had looked him in the eyes and told him a lie. An untruth she could not undo.

She forced herself to listen to the conversation between Sebastian and Evaline, desperate for a distraction.

“Your husband passed away?” Sebastian was asking.

“He did,” Evaline answered, her voice even as she looped another stitch into her needlework. “Shot in a drunken brawl with his own pistol.”

“My condolences, Lady Wood. Your husband was …” Sebastian stopped as if he were struggling to find something pleasant to say about the brutish Lord Wood, notorious for solving his arguments with his very large fists. “Excellent at pugilism.”

Evaline let out a small breath, her lips curving. “A diplomatic phrasing.”

Harriet finally turned her head, grateful for something else to focus on. Presumably, he had heard something of the matter, considering his family connections, but he had been in Florence at the time. Perhaps he did not know the full story. That Evaline mentioned the scandal at all meant that she had decided to extend the proprieties to Harriet’s tall suitor, a high compliment from such a proper woman.

“Sebastian has only heard whispers, I imagine. He does not know the full tale.”

Evaline hesitated, then set aside her embroidery and met Sebastian’s gaze with something wry. “Well, my husband, rest his soul, was a proud man, but not a wise one. He had a rather spectacular gift for making enemies.”

Sebastian arched a brow. “I gathered as much.”

“One evening, he found himself in a dispute over a game of cards,” Evaline continued. “A dispute which, in his drunkenness, he decided to settle with a pistol.”

Sebastian’s expression did not change, but Harriet saw the flicker of something in his eyes as if he recalled whatever story had reached him on the Continent. “Ah.”

“Yes. He marched into the home of another lord, pistol in hand, and demanded retribution for his supposed slight.”

“I assume the other lord was not particularly receptive to such demands?”

Evaline let out a dry chuckle. “No, he was not. They struggled over the pistol, and it went off.”

Harriet sighed, shaking her head. “The gossip was tremendous.”