Page 23 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
It was her grace and kindness that Corin most admired, though.
She walked by his side with the afternoon sun glinting off of her parasol, one hand perched delicately in the crook of his elbow as they went.
“Romeo has always been rash,” Corin stated bluntly, trailing off as he tried to imagine where he might go from there that wouldn’t be terribly obvious as to his intention.
Sybille smiled softly, her violet eyes softening as she took him in.
“You are too good a man to continue this for much longer,” she informed him gently. “I know your aim here. I did let him come home, as you suggested when we last spoke.”
Corin flinched.
He did know. He had also listened to Romeo despair multiple times over since then about the fact that Sybille was always conveniently busy when he went to spend time with her or staying with some far-off cousin or relative whenever he contrived to try and patch things up with her. The last time, the evening before, Romeo had been practically crying over it.
“I know I ask too much of you,” Corin muttered. Because he did know that. He knew that Sybille had put up with Romeo’s wandering eye and philandering ways for far longer than any other woman might have. She had forgiven him again and again, even after Alice…but it was clear her patience had nearly, if not already completely, run out.
“Romeo isn’t going to change, Corin.” Sybille’s smile slipped, the grief in her eyes real as she looked quickly away from him. “I thought, at first, with us having married so young…And then with Alice.” She cut off, glancing at Corin apologetically before heaving a heartfelt sigh. “But it has only continued to happen. Clearly, this is the life he intends to lead.”
Corin didn’t miss that she didn’t include herself in it. He wanted to come up with something else to say, some way to reassure her, but the words felt false before he even tried to speak them.
“He does love you,” Corin offered weakly.
Sybille’s smile that time was almost a pale imitation of what the emotion was supposed to be. “I know.”
For a long moment, neither of them said anything, the gentle birdsong and far-off murmurs of other park-goers talking all that filled the air around them. Corin had always considered himself lucky to live so close, less than walking distance really, of this park. Walking with Sybille then, Romeo hanging between them, it felt…sullied somehow.
“You should really consider abandoning your pursuit of keeping him above water,” Sybille finally said, her words very carefully chosen. “You can only keep him afloat for so long…eventually the tide grows strong enough to drag anyone under with it.”
It was very similar to what Charlotte and his Aunt Lydia had been saying.
Corin couldn’t find the words to argue with her there either.
He couldn’t abandon Romeo. Not in the way she spoke or any other. Romeo, to him, was still that small boy who had cried for so many hours at the loss of their mother. He was still the same small boy who had wandered from room to room looking for her for almost a year after her passing, and the one who had taken to heart so hard their father’s disconnection as well.
“Ohhhh, how quaint!” A squeal carried over the background noise around them, intentional and just high-pitched enough for it to catch Corin’s attention.
Lady Belle Mansel.
There was no mistaking her artful laughter.
Corin had avoided her like the plague since his return to London, doing anything and everything to escape her notice. Even so far as declining invitations he might well have otherwise accepted. He’d run from her once before…Two years prior. She was half the reason he’d gone to Florence in the first place.
It was only his betrothal to Alice that had saved him then, though.
Now he flinched just at the sight of her, surrounded by her friends like she was and looking across the way to try and make eye contact with him.
“Damn it all to hell,” Corin muttered.
Sybille patted his arm apologetically, altering their course and pulling him along with her toward the exit of the park.
“If we hurry, she can’t follow,” Sybille whispered conspiratorially, her lips twitching at Corin’s overly grateful look. “And you can tell Romeo that you did your best, you know. And don’t fret over anything further with it.”
Corin sighed as they walked in the direction of his home, placing his hand over hers gently to squeeze.
It was only when they came abreast of his house that he noticed a carriage other than Sybille’s in front of it, his breath catching oddly as he saw Imelda and her brother standing just next to it, Imelda’s eyes bright as they stared straight at him from across the short distance between them.
Well, no…not quite directly at him.
Her eyes were on his and Sybille’s hands where they still rested on his arm, her gaze narrowed as she took it in.
