Page 38 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“That’s very kind of you, thank you. I’ve lost my cigar case. I could’ve sworn I left it in here on the desk. But I can’t find it anywhere,” Sebastian said, glancing around the room, as though hoping the box might appear by chance.
He did not want to admit he himself might have mislaid it. It could be anywhere in the house, and perhaps he had simply forgotten where it was.
“Oh, dear. I wonder where it could be. I’ll speak to Langton. He can ask the servants to look out for it. Unless…do you suspect theft?” she asked.
Sebastian did not wish to accuse anyone of theft. He may well have mislaid the cigarette box, forgetting where he had put it, and the missing case may turn up. But in his mind, he was certain he had smoked the day before. It had been before going to the dinner ball. He left the box on his desk where it would be ready for when he wished to indulge.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter,” Sebastian said.
But it did matter. It mattered a great deal. If the box had been stolen, the matter needed to be dealt with, and if Sebastian had mislaid it, the fact of his forgetting was also a cause for concern. Either way, he was worried, and as his stepmother went to fetch his coffee, Sebastian sighed, wondering what else he might have forgotten or mislaid.
“Am I really going mad?” he asked himself, even as he did not know what going mad was meant to feel like.
Above the mantelpiece was a portrait of his father. They shared the same disheveled black hair and piercing green eyes. Sebastian looked up at the portrait, studying his father’s face. It had been painted around the time when his father was the same age as Sebastian was now, and looking into his father’s eyes, Sebastian could see no hint of madness staring back.
“But what does it look like? Madness, I mean,” he asked himself, reminded of Rosalind’s words about a picture capturing a single moment in time.
His father looked every bit the aristocratic earl, yet in a few years, that same man was reduced to a madness such as that of the king himself. There had been no hint or promise of it, and if there had been, his father had hidden it well. But Sebastian did not want to hide it. He wanted to know for certain, even as the best doctors in the country had been unable to fathom the cause and possibility of what was to come.
“You may have many years ahead of you, my Lord,” one of them had said, which was really no comfort at all.
Sebastian was forced to live with the possibility of insanity gripping him without warning. It could come at any time, like a thief in the night, though no guard or protection could prevent it.
“I might just wake up mad, or worse, I might not know,” he thought to himself, imagining himself to already be mad, and for those around him to be acting their part accordingly.
When his stepmother returned, bearing a sweet-smelling cup of coffee, along with slithers of toast and jam on a plate, he fixed her with a determined expression.
“Am I mad?” he asked, as she set the tray down on his desk.
Lady Southbourne looked at him and smiled.
“Mislaying a cigar case isn’t madness, Sebastian. Your mind’s full of more important things. It’s no wonder,” she said. Sebastian interrupted her.
“Yes, but I could’ve sworn it was there. I knew it was there, oh…damn my head,” he exclaimed, clutching at his brow, for he was suddenly seized by a terrible pain in his temple.
His stepmother took him by the arm, leading him to a chair by the hearth.
“You mustn’t overdo it, Sebastian. Sit down, drink your coffee, and have something to eat. I’ll speak to Langton and see if the cigar case can be found. You’ve probably left it somewhere in the house. Your studio, perhaps? It’ll turn up. Let’s not accuse the servants just yet,” she said, patting Sebastian’s arm, before retreating from the room.
The pain had been sudden, but it eased somewhat as Sebastian took the first few sips of coffee, and he sighed, leaning back in the chair, and looking up at the ceiling.
“Perhaps I’m not mad, or perhaps I am. Perhaps it’s all a dream,” he thought to himself, taking one of the slithers of toast and eating it hungrily.
The sudden pain in his temple had concerned him, and he considered calling for a doctor, even as he felt a fool for contemplating it. No doctor so far had been able to offer a satisfactory diagnosis. They had prodded and poked him, asked endless questions about his diet and habits, and even taken a strange interest in his waters, but to no avail.
But of these tests and examinations, no definite conclusions had been drawn. Not one of the doctors had declared him mad, but not one of them had declared him sane, either, and without knowing the truth, Sebastian could only feel himself trapped in limbo.
“I just wish I knew,” he thought to himself, trying to distract his thoughts by summoning the image of Rosalind’s smiling face.
He wondered what she was thinking, what she was doing, what she was hoping for. Had the happy course of their meeting meant anything to her? They had shared so much: art, poetry, a kiss. It had meant something to Sebastian, and now he wondered what it had meant to Rosalind?
“Ariadne and Dionysus,” he said to himself, smiling at the comparison Rosalind had offered.
It was an image he lingered over, picturing the scene when Dionysus flung Ariadne’s jewels into the heavens. Rosalind had been wearing sapphires, and they had made her look even more beautiful than she already was. She, too, was a shining star, and if Sebastian could have plucked her from the heavens, he would have done so.
“But not before the Duke of Northridge extinguishes her light forever,” he told himself, feeling suddenly angry at the thought of Rosalind’s fate.
At that moment, a knock came at the door, and the butler entered, looking apologetic.
