Page 33 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“It’s very different to a painting,” Rosalind said, as Sebastian raised her hand to his lips and smiled.
“A painting only shows a moment in time. It can’t show movement. The skilled artist can communicate the passion of two people and their love for one another. But they have to choose one single moment to depict. Real life isn’t like that. We aren’t a moment, we’re continual,” he said, and Rosalind smiled.
He was right. A painting could only capture a moment, but what they had shared was far more than a moment. But what would happen now? Had their kiss meant something? Dionysus had cast Ariadne’s jewels into the sky to make the constellation Corona as an everlasting symbol of their love.
But there could be no enduring of this unexpected pleasure, and it made her sad to think so. She would return to the ballroom, to her mother’s chastisement and the anger of the Duke of Northridge. She would step out of the painting, and that would be that.
“And how do we continue?” she asked, but before he could answer, footsteps along the path caused them to startle, and a familiar voice called out through the darkness.
Chapter 14
“Rosalind? Are you out here? It’s Elizabeth? I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” her friend called out, and Rosalind glanced at Sebastian anxiously, fearing they would be discovered.
With a smile, he kissed Rosalind’s hand a final time, before slipping off into the shadows, leaving her under the watchful eye of the cherubim, next to the fountain.
“I’m here.” Rosalind replied, hoping she did not look too disheveled after her unexpected dalliance with Sebastian.
Her heart was beating fast, her thoughts filled with all that had occurred, as Elizabeth now came hurrying over.
“Oh, there you are. I was beginning to worry. Your mother’s looking everywhere for you. She even accused me of hiding you,” Elizabeth said, seating herself next to Rosalind, where just a few moments previously, she and Sebastian had shared their kiss.
“I just needed some air. It gets so stifling in a ballroom towards the end of an evening, don’t you think?” Rosalind replied.
“It does, but I’ve had the most wonderful night, Rosalind. John…he’s so very different from the others. I’ve never felt so…well, he understands me,” Elizabeth said, and Rosalind smiled.
She was pleased for Elizabeth. Her friend had had her share of disasters when it came to men. She was a year older and had made her debut the previous season. But her parents were far more reasonable in matters of matrimony, and Elizabeth had always been given free rein when it came to making a match.
“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy, Elizabeth,” Rosalind replied, slipping her hand into her friend’s.
“We both do. John and I were just saying the way Richard treats you…it isn’t right. He’s a wicked man. You’re far too good for him. You’re far too good for any of these men,” Elizabeth exclaimed, expressing the frustration Rosalind herself was feeling.
“Let’s not dwell on it,” Rosalind replied.
She was thinking about Sebastian, feeling sad at the thought their moment had ended. The kiss they had shared was a lingering memory. Like a painting, it was immortalized, but it could not be repeated. The moment had passed, the brush strokes made, and Rosalind’s future was no different. There had been no hint of madness in his actions, only the tender touch of a man with whom she was rapidly falling in love with.
“We should go back inside, Rosalind. It’s getting chilly out here. They’ll be wondering where we are. Listen, I think I can hear the final waltz. I’d like to find John. He wants to say goodbye,” Elizabeth said.
Rosalind rose to her feet, glancing into the shrubbery and wondering where Sebastian had gone. Would she see him again before the night was ended? The giggles and whispers of courting couples could still be heard all around them, and Elizabeth tutted as they walked arm in arm across the lawn towards the terrace.
“What are you tutting about?” Rosalind asked, and her friend laughed.
“Well, you and I are always so prim and proper, aren’t we? We don’t have a choice. But some of these women behave disgracefully, and the men encourage it. I just wonder sometimes what it would be like to defy convention. I’d like to run away with John tonight if I could. And you don’t want to marry that horrible man. What about the earl? Did you see him again?” Elizabeth asked.
They had reached the steps leading up onto the terrace, and Rosalind glanced behind her, trying to catch a glimpse of Sebastian, whom she felt certain was nearby.
“No. I didn’t see him again. Though I’d like to,” she said, hoping the earl would hear her, and hoping the possibility of seeing him again would come true.
Sebastian had followed Rosalind and Elizabeth at a distance, listening to their conversation. He was hiding in the shrubbery, having disturbed the pleasures of two couples as he made his progress parallel to the path. At these final words of Rosalind, he sighed, watching as she and Elizabeth made their way up the steps onto the terrace.
How dearly he would like to see her again, even as his fears held him back. He had not meant to kiss her as he had. There had been no ulterior motive to his walking with her across the lawn, but in the moment, in the moonlight, in sorrow for her fate, he had wanted to show something of the feelings she had roused in him.
“You crossed a line,” he told himself, for he had not meant to kiss her.
A kiss meant something to Sebastian, at least. It meant the expression of feelings he had tried to keep hidden. Other men kissed women without thought of the consequences. A kiss could mean nothing, or it could mean everything. To Sebastian, it meant the sharing of a possibility, one he had not meant to reveal.
“There can’t be anything more to it. I can’t…oh, but why? Why shouldn’t I fall in love?” he demanded of himself, torn between heart and mind.
His feelings for Rosalind were confused. She was everything he had ever imagined a woman to be, and yet he himself was surely not what any woman would imagine a man to be. The possibility of madness, the certainty of it, gripped him, and though he was becoming enamored with Rosalind, he knew it was just an empty dream.
