Page 64 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“Don’t risk everything on this, Rosalind. You’re still so young. We both are. I don’t want you to make a terrible mistake,” Elizabeth said, but Rosalind shook her head.
“I’d be making a far greater mistake if I married Richard,” she said.
The two friends embraced one another, and Rosalind watched as Elizabeth walked off along the street, where she was due to meet Lord Cuthbert at a nearby coffeehouse. Sighing to herself, Rosalind again wished her own life could be as simple. She could not be jealous of Elizabeth for finding happiness, but she, too, desired that same happiness for herself.
But her own life was not so simple, and making her way home, she knew she would have to face her mother, and her endless questioning over the wedding, the wedding still to be formalized by a betrothal.
Letting herself into the house, she slipped upstairs by the back staircase, used by the servants, and shutting herself in her bedroom, she took out the portrait of Sebastian from beneath the bed. His expression was changeless. What else could it be? But the sight of him cheered her, and she raised the canvas to her lips, pressing them against his own with a sigh.
“I do love you,” she whispered, gazing down at the portrait, willing it to come to life.
But like her memory of the alcove, of the kiss they had shared, it was but a moment in time, and if Rosalind and Sebastian were to have any hope of a future together, they would have to step beyond the canvas, and imagine a bold and uncertain future together.
Chapter 27
Sebastian, too, had not slept well, his emotions swinging from passionate desire to passionate guilt. He had been glad of the kiss he had shared with Rosalind, even as he knew they had crossed a line, one neither of them could step back from. He knew his feelings for her, and now he knew her feelings for him, too.
There was absolute certainty in them, but what were they to do? Thought of elopement had crossed his mind. A dramatic escape to Gretna Green, marriage on the blacksmith’s anvil, but their problems would only be waiting for them in their return.
“My problems,” Sebastian told himself, for even if Rosalind could dismiss the Duke of Northridge’s advances, the question of possible madness remained, the clock ticking towards an inevitability, one Sebastian could not fight against, if fate was leading him to that same end as his father and grandfather.
“Good morning, my Lord,” Langton said, as Sebastian came down to breakfast that morning.
The butler was standing in the hallway, and Sebastian could not help but wonder if he, too, was part of the conspiracy against him. He was growing ever more paranoid, expecting any of the servants to be responsible for the tricks being played on him.
“Good morning, Langton,” Sebastian replied, picking up his correspondence from the silver tray the butler was holding.
There was nothing of interest, merely dull invitations to the remainder of the season, none of which Sebastian had any interest in responding to.
“The last of the claret has arrived, my Lord, but I hope the champagne will be here soon. We need to put it in the cellar to keep cool,” the butler said.
Sebastian looked at him in surprise.
“Claret? Champagne? Are we expecting guests?” he asked, and the butler raised his eyebrows.
“This evening, my Lord, the Southbourne soiree,” he said, with a questioning look on his face.
Sebastian drew a blank, but he had grown used to offering a pretense at understanding, and now he nodded.
“Ah, yes… the soiree. Well… go and see to it, Langton. We can’t be seen to not be doing things properly,” he said, and the butler nodded.
Sebastian could hear his stepmother and uncle talking in the dining room, and as he entered, they looked up at him and smiled.
“We were just talking about you, Sebastian. You do feel well enough for tonight, don’t you?” his stepmother asked, and Sebastian nodded.
“Very much so,” he replied, trying to appear at ease, even as he was trying desperately to remember what the soiree entailed.
He remembered nothing about it. There had been no mention of it, and neither John nor Rosalind nor Elizabeth had mentioned the prospect of being entertained at Southbourne House. Was this just another attempt at deception? Sebastian looked at his stepmother with what he hoped was an emotionless expression.
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. Your uncle was just saying how sad it would be if you weren’t able to attend. People are worried about you. Only yesterday, at Thornbury House, Lady Helena was expressing her fears to me. I told her there was nothing to worry about. That we’d do all we could for you. And it’s not as though it’s got you in its grip yet,” Lady Soutbourne said.
Sebastian nodded. To argue, to fly into a rage, to accuse, would only add fuel to the fire. They would claim an instability of the mind, and perhaps he would even be confined to the house under the orders of the doctor whose tonic Sebastian had poured down the drain.
“I’m sure it’ll be a splendid occasion. You really don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be quite all right,” Sebastian said.
“I’m sure you will,” his stepmother replied.
But despite his words to the contrary, Sebastian was again questioning himself. There may well have been a soiree organized some months earlier. It was certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, even as Sebastian had no actual recollection of it.
