Page 59 of The Courtship Trap
Harriet stiffened beside him. “Your woman?” she repeated, her voice quiet but vibrating with undefined emotion.
Sebastian turned on her, his fingers finally unclenching from Richard’s coat. “You demand trust,” he bit out. “And yet all I ever seem to find are secrets. Lies. Clandestine meetings.”
Harriet’s mouth tightened. “Perhaps,” she shot back, “if you had a bit more trust, I would not have to keep so many secrets.”
Sebastian flinched as if struck. Something sharp and cold slid through his gut at her words. Had he prevented her from telling him the truth? Had he failed her in some way—now and … then?
Harriet stared at him, her breath unsteady, her eyes burning with a mix of hurt and defiance. For a moment, it was just the two of them, locked in battle, standing at the edge of something neither of them knew how to navigate. Then, with a swift pivot, she turned on her heel and strode toward her carriage. Sebastian was frozen, caught between wanting to call her back and wanting to walk away from her forever.
Richard exhaled heavily, rubbing at his throat as if still feeling the imprint of Sebastian’s grip. “That was not necessary.”
Sebastian gave a humorless laugh. “No? Then explain.”
Richard hesitated. “I cannot. Lady Slight’s confidences are not mine to repeat.”
Sebastian let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Of course you cannot.” He cast him a scathing look. “A rake does not change, Richard. Perhaps you have reformed enough to wed, but that does not mean you have changed. You are no better than your depraved father, after all—the Earl of Satan lives on!”
Richard’s jaw tightened, but he did not respond.
Sebastian clenched his fists, his rage still simmering, but what use was it? Harriet was gone. The truth—whatever it was—remained out of reach.
Sebastian walked away, his boots crunching against the frozen ground, the cold air biting at his face. He should have felt victorious—he had finally pried himself free of the spider’s web Harriet had spun around him. No more half-truths. No more watching her dance around his questions with coy evasions. No more wondering if she had ever truly cared for him.
He should have felt relief. Instead, all he felt was bone-deep exhaustion.
The carriage ride back to the Scott townhouse passed in a blur of gray skies and damp streets, of fog curling around lampposts and pedestrians bundled against the frigid air. The city felt hollow, as if it reflected the emptiness yawning inside of him.
England had always felt like a place of constraints. Duty. Expectations. A cage built of propriety and familial obligations. It had taken him years to break free, to carve out a life in Italy that was his and his alone. And yet, here he was, once again shackled to the past, to a woman who had owned his heart since they were barely more than children.
Damn her.
Damn himself for loving her still.
Because despite the morning’s revelations—despite the lies, the manipulations, the endless string of secrets—he knew the truth with startling, painful clarity. He would always love Harriet. And that meant he had to leave.
If he stayed in England, he would never walk away from her. He would never be free of her smile, of her maddening ability to make him feel both utterly alive and utterly destroyed in the same breath. He would never stop looking at her and thinking,What if?
He had spent years living with the fact she had betrayed him once before. And now, she had done it again.
His carriage pulled to a stop before the townhouse, the iron-wrought lanterns casting weak halos of light against the deepening gloom of afternoon. His decision settled over him, heavy and suffocating.
It was time to go home.
To Florence. To the life he had built for himself. To a place where Harriet did not exist in every shadowed memory and stolen dream.
He stepped down from the carriage, his movements stiff, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. Inside, he would inform Lorenzo of his decision, who would have to visit Harriet and ask to view the painting himself. Sebastian would arrange for his own passage out of England as soon as possible.
And he would never look back.
CHAPTER 13
And, in truth, if aught could banish,
From my heart thy form divine,
Then all love for worth must vanish?—
Farewell every Valentine!
