Page 69 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“Oh, Sebastian, you can’t begrudge the possibility of Victoria finding happiness, can you?” Lady Helena said, raising her eyebrows.
The thought of such a possibility had not occurred to Sebastian, but its suggestion was not one he favored. If his uncle was to marry his stepmother, and if he intended to continue in his crusade against Sebastian, a power struggle would ensure. Sebastian was the Earl of Southbourne, but a madman could not hold such a position, and if Sebastian could be proved as such.
“I’m sure I can’t, no, Lady Helena,” Sebastian replied.
Lady Helena looked at him with a forced expression of sympathy.
“You poor thing, Sebastian. It must be so very confusing for you, this…madness,” she said, and she placed her hand on his arm.
Sebastian drew it away.
“I’m not mad,” he replied, and she nodded.
“No… I know you’re not,” she said, her tone patronizing, as though merely agreeing with him as a matter of appeasement, his denial being all the proof she needed.
Sebastian looked back to the throng, and at the sight of Rosalind and the Duke of Northridge dancing with one another. Rosalind’s face was still set in a look of resignation, and Sebastian shook his head, turning away, as tears welled up in his eyes. She was everything to him the most delightful of creatures and yet, in that moment, Sebastian could not have felt more distant from her, more desirous of her, or more despairing.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Sebastian said, and Lady Helena nodded.
“You should rest,” Lady Helena said, smiling at Sebastian, who grimaced, nodding to her, before slipping away.
He wanted to be alone and stepping out onto the steps leading down into the garden. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He breathed deeply, clenching his fists, and cursing under his breath. It was growing dark now, and gazing up into the sky, he could see the constellation Corona its seven stars, glinting in the darkness. He thought of Rosalind, and the diamond necklace she was wearing Ariadne’s jewels.
“If only I could do the same as Dionysus,” Sebastian said to himself, brushing a tear from his eye.
Chapter 29
“You were somewhat stiff during the dance,” Richard said, as he and Rosalind stepped back from the throng.
“I’m feeling somewhat lightheaded,” Rosalind replied.
Her mother was waiting for them, and she looked questioningly at Rosalind, who now sat down on a chair against the wall.
“Are you all right, Rosalind? You look pale,” her mother said.
“She was dancing very stiffly,” Richard said.
This was Rosalind’s hope, that her mother, and the duke, would think she was unwell. She was desperate to get away from them. Since Richard’s arrival to collect her, Rosalind had been kept at either his or her mother’s side. They had escorted her into Southbourne House, and before the introduction, her mother had threatened her to have nothing to do with Sebastian.
“It’s bad enough we must pretend there’s no scandal involved. But if you put a foot out of line, Rosalind…” her mother had said, allowing the possibility of her threat to linger in the air.
The encounter with Sebastian had been heartbreaking. They might as well have been strangers, introduced in the formality of a first meeting. But behind Sebastian’s rigid expression, Rosalind had seen a longing passion, and she had known he was thinking back to the same events as she was to the kiss they had shared, to the intimacies of the portraits, to the truth of their feelings for one another. Nothing had changed. If anything, her feelings for him had only grown stronger with every passing moment.
“You can sit out for the next dance, Rosalind. I’ll fetch you some warm milk with nutmeg. I’m sure one of the servants can bring it,” Rosalind’s mother said, but Rosalind shook her head.
“I really don’t feel well. I need to go to the powder room,” she said, and her mother sighed.
“Very well, Rosalind. But don’t dally. Young ladies are always dally in powder rooms these days. It’s not befitting,” she said.
Rosalind rose to her feet, not wishing to appear as relieved as she was to at last be escaping the company of her mother and the duke. Richard tutted, but he made no attempt to stop her, and Rosalind pushed her way through the throng, making in the direction of the powder room, even as she had no intention of going there.
She wanted a few moments to herself, and now she glanced around her for a way out into the garden, taking a passage from the main room, and following it past large aspidistra plants perched on pedestals, beneath portraits of those whom she assumed to be Sebastian’s ancestors. None of them looked mad, but there was no telling, of course, and that was the point.
“But he isn’t mad. I know that, even if no one else does,” Rosalind said to herself.
She had almost reached the end of the corridor now. It was dark outside, the passage lit by candles in sconces, but from up ahead, she could feel a cool breeze, as though a window or door was open, and following the line of aspidistra plants, she came to the end of the corridor, where an open door led out into the garden.
To her surprise, a figure was standing there, and at the sound of her footfall, they turned. It was Sebastian, and for a moment, the two of them looked at one another in surprise.
