Page 53 of The Courtship Trap
The fire had burned to embers, leaving only a faint glow in the grate. The air in the room was thick with the mingling scents of spent wax, lingering smoke, and something more intimate—the musk of their passion still clung to the sheets.
A thrill of memory coursed through her. She had brought him up to her rooms—heedless of consequence, heedless of everything but the aching need to be close to him. They had undressed each other again by candlelight, their fingers exploring, their movements slow and deliberate. Even now, the ghost of his touch lingered on her skin, as if his hands had left invisible brands upon her.
But the warmth of recollection faded the moment she spotted him. Sebastian stood near the fireplace, fully dressed save for his coat, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression carved from stone. His piercing gray eyes, always so full of depth and hidden emotion, were overtly ambivalent as they bored into her.
“You lied to me.”
The words landed like a slap, striking her deeper than she thought possible. Harriet’s lips parted, but no sound came. Her body, languid and content just moments ago, stiffened in alarm. His gaze shifted past her, toward the wall behind her head. A slow, dreadful realization curled in her gut.
No.
Whipping around, she followed his gaze.
And there it was. The painting.
Matteo di Bianchi’s lost work, the one she had sworn to him she no longer possessed, hung in plain sight above her bed. A cruel, damning revelation framed in gilt and shadow that in thelow glow of a single candle and the heat of passion might as well have been invisible last night.
Her breath caught. How could she have been so careless? When she had led him upstairs, her mind had been a whirlwind of desire, of yearning. She had thought of nothing but him—never once considering that her newest deception loomed over them as they tangled in the sheets.
“I … I could not let it go,” she whispered.
Sebastian let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head as if the sight of it was too much to bear.
“No,” he said, his voice quieter now, but no less cutting. “I suppose you could not.”
She sat up fully now, clutching the sheet to her chest, shame pooling in her stomach like lead. “Sebastian, please, let me explain?—”
“Explain?” He scoffed, pacing away only to whirl back to face her. “Do you think there is anything you could say that would undo this? That would make me believe you meant anything you have said these past couple of weeks?”
His anger, sharp as a blade, sliced through her, and Harriet flinched.
“It was never about the painting,” she said desperately. “Not truly.”
“Then why lie?” His voice was raw now, stripped of the patience he had once offered her so freely. “Why deceive me, Harriet? Have you no faith in me at all?”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
“I was afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid that if I told you the truth, you would take it from me. And I could not bear to lose it.”
“Not even for me?” His voice was quieter now, but there was no mistaking the bleakness beneath the question.
Harriet swallowed past the ache in her throat.
“I have lost everything before,” she whispered. “This was all I had left.”
Sebastian’s lips pressed into a hard line before he gave a single shake of his head. “You could have hadme.”
And then, without another word, he turned on his heel and strode toward the bedchamber door.
Panic seized her, the significance of her choices crashing down upon her like an unforgiving tide.
“Sebastian, wait— Once we made our arrangement, I planned to give it to you on Christmas Day.”
Sebastian stopped, his hand hovering over the door handle. His shoulders were rigid, the taut lines of his back betraying the effort it took to contain his temper.
Slowly, he turned, his expression unreadable. “Planned to?” he echoed.
Harriet nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes. That was always my intention. I only wanted—” She hesitated, her hands gripping the sheets as though they were the only thing keeping her from unraveling. “I only wanted a little more time.”
