Page 22 of Sinful Persuasion of a Lady in the Making
“Well, as I said—”
“Yes,” she said, interrupting him, a halting hand held up. “I know what you said. You don’t care for it. But please, Sebastian. Think of me just once in your actions. I danced with averyeligible bachelor and—”
“Yes, Lord Denninson himself. I spotted you taking a turn with him. Your dance had just begun when I found myself in the gardens, I believe.”
“We seemed to get along very well indeed,” Diana said, her anger changing into something more like sadness, or perhaps self-pity. “He is… sweet and interesting.”
“Good,” Sebastian said, and he meant it.
Despite what she thought, he wanted his sister to be happy, and seeing the sweet smile that so rarely crossed her face made him feel that Lord Denninson had done her some good. “As I said, I had taken myself off into the gardens to be away from all this, and give you some space. I really did not mean to embarrass you, Diana.”
“Then why did you?” she asked, the harshness in her tone briefly returned.
“She is—”
“Miss Jones, I presume?”
“Yes,” he said. “I am drawn to her. She is unlike the other ladies.”
“Of course she is unlike them,” Diana snapped. “She is the daughter of afille de joieand she has been a maid for most of her life. What do you expect?”
“Perhaps that is why I like her company so much then,” he admitted. “She has none of the airs and graces that seem so rigid and unfriendly.”
“Or perhaps you have, once again, fallen in with the wrong crowd!”
“Diana,” he said, leaning back on the wall and letting his head loll in her direction. “You are always so pessimistic.”
“No,” Diana said, “that’s not it at all.” He could hear the anger rising in her once more, each word a little more pronounced.
“Then what is it?” he asked with a deep and weary sigh.
“Lord Denninson and I, well, I really thought we were getting somewhere. But your little show this evening has ruined that for me, just as you have ruined all my other prospects in life!”
“If he truly likes you, Diana, then my actions—which were innocent, by the way—will have no bearing on it whatsoever.”
She stood, swiping her skirt from the seat, and glared down at him once more.
“Do you really believe that, Sebastian? Are you really that naïve? After all you have done to me—”
“I have done nothing to you,” he said, standing and returning her stare.
“Yes,” she spat, “had you not killed Mother and Father, I would have debuted at eight-and-ten. Instead, I had to wait until I was almost thirty, and you know as well as I that is too late. You have destroyed my life as you destroyed theirs. I sometimes wonder if it would not have been better for me to die that night, too.”
The words hit him like a dagger, and he gasped for breath, wanting to double over with the pain but refusing to allow himself that mercy. He glared at her, his nostrils flaring.
“You have crossed the line, Diana,” he said in a low, controlled voice, and then he brushed past her, his shoulder hitting hers as he stormed away.
He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let her see how badly her words had affected him but in truth, he wanted to curl in a ball and wish the world away. She was right. He had destroyed her prospects, just as she had claimed. It was thanks to him that she was not married by now, with a brood of her own. Had he not behaved as he had after their parents’ death, she would not have developed a name for being an old spinster.
As he made his way to the door, thinking to take a little air but not in the garden, which would only remind him of her, he saw them. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and his beloved Miss Jones, scuttling quickly through the front entrance, having spent time making their polite excuses for leaving early. And as they rushed through the door, Sebastian saw the delicately embroidered ivory silk flutter slowly to the floor.
Her shawl.
Sebastian pushed his way through the crowd, eager to get to the shawl before anyone else did. He swiped it from the floor and, with great effort, he resisted the urge to press it to his face, to smell her one last time.
He ran the perfectly soft and no doubt expensive fabric through his fingers. She would miss it; he was certain of it.
I shall pay her a visit tomorrow, first thing, to return it to her.
