Page 46 of His Mad Duchess
“I thought it proper,” she said, almost defensively.
“Proper, perhaps,” he allowed. “But hardly necessary when we are alone. You may call me Sebastian.”
She hesitated, tasting the name in her mind before letting it pass her lips. “Sebastian.”
He gave a small, approving nod. “Better. And far less exhausting.”
Between them, the black cat pounced again, ribbon caught at last, triumphant and content in the grass at their feet.
They found a weathered bench tucked beneath a low stone wall where the rose branches leaned close, catching Margaret’s sleeve now and then with soft insistence. She sank to the seat first, gathering her skirts with deliberate care. Miss Fortune prowled about their feet, tail flicking at drifting petals.
Sebastian settled beside her, not quite touching but close enough that the brushed edge of his coat sleeve seemed to carry its ownwarmth. For a moment, they both watched the cat curl up into a small patch of sun, content as a queen.
At last, it was Margaret who spoke, her gaze trained upon the buds beyond the wall. “I kept a cat once,” she said, her voice quiet but clear as a hymn. “When I was a girl. She would sleep curled behind my knees, under my pillow, or in my apron pocket if I’d let her. I used to think I heard her purr long after she had gone.”
Sebastian turned, studying the curve of her cheek, the way the sunlight caught a thread of hair that had slipped its pin. “Gone?”
“She vanished during the fire,” Margaret said simply, pressing her palms together until the knuckles whitened. “It was the night our house burned, the night I lost my parents. No one saw her again. I refuse to believe the worst; instead, I used to imagine she escaped, and that she grew wild and clever and terribly free.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. He was never certain how to speak such words, but this felt true enough.
Margaret gave a small, lopsided smile. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”
Silence stretched. Not heavy, exactly, but thick enough that he felt his own heartbeat behind his ribs.
Sebastian studied her slender and pale hands against the pale silk of her dress. He wanted to say something that might ease the ache in her voice, but found nothing useful.
A breath passed between them before he replied. “I should have liked one myself,” he said, as though the words were being coaxed from a long-locked cabinet.
Margaret’s eyes found his, wide with gentle surprise. “You? With a kitten under your coat? I cannot quite picture it.”
He half-laughed, the sound low. “Aye. A boy should have a creature of his own, don’t you think? Something that doesn’t care if he wears the right coat or speaks the right Latin.”
Her mouth curved into a wondering tilt at the corner. “So why not?”
“My mother would have wept at the thought. She despised fur in the house.”
Margaret’s smile faded a fraction. Her hand drifted as if to settle on his, but she stopped short, thumbs stroking one another in a nervous rhythm. He did not move. He only watched her fingers.
He let out a soft huff of laughter, low and rueful. “Neither could my father, I daresay. He would have had the creature tossed out before it shed a single hair upon his immaculate floors.”
“He died when I was sixteen, though by then I had long ceased trying to win what he would not give. My mother carried on much the same—colder, perhaps, once there was no husband to keep her in check.”
She searched his face, the hard lines softened for a fleeting instant by old memory. “Your father was particular?”
A corner of his mouth twisted, though the jest felt thin on his tongue. “Particular is one word for it. He believed affection was a needless indulgence. A boy ought to be forged, not coddled.”
He chuckled bitterly. “There was no affection between him and my mother, either. Their union was a transaction, polished enough for the world, barren within our walls. I grew up in a house of duty and silence.” He paused, and he made a fist, flexing his hand once against his knee. “Nothing I did was ever quite… sufficient.”
Margaret lowered her gaze, then placed her small hand over his, where it rested, palm warm through the leather. The contact startled him more than he let show, but he did not withdraw.
“Never once proud?” she asked softly.
His laugh was quiet, bitter at the edges. “Proud? He once commended me for reciting Cicero before some dreary dinner party and in the same breath, reminded me my accent was wanting. That was praise enough to last a lifetime, so he thought.”
Margaret’s thumb brushed a slow, brave arc over his knuckles. “A cruel man,” she murmured.
Sebastian’s reply was a mere whisper of breath. “He called it discipline. Duty. But never warmth.”
