He took himself to the point where his physical want was big enough, harsh enough, to overwhelm almost everything else he felt. Until he was gasping harshly, spilling on the leaves beneath his feet, letting his orgasm sweep his desires from him.
When it passed, he slumped against the wall.
That was when he heard the crackle of leaves.
He turned, but he already knew what—who—it was. There were only two people who had access to this place.
It was dark, but not that dark. Sebastian shut his eyes and did up his trousers.
Violet—and it was Violet standing there, not ten feet distant—didn’t say anything at all. Not for a long minute.
He wasn’t going to apologize to her. He didn’t feel ashamed. He just wished…wished… He wished for something he could not express in words. He wished for it with all his body, and he knew he was never going to have it.
“I do want to know,” she finally said, her voice low, “about the other women.”
He leaned back against the brick and looked up into the moonlight. “What do you want to know?”
She didn’t say anything for a while. “Do you have one now?”
“No. It’s been months.”
She took this in, considering for a few moments before speaking again. “How many have you had?”
“How many lovers?” He could have given her a straight answer. Dozens. Or, more specifically: Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven, if you counted mutual versions of the conduct he’d just engaged in, and Sebastian did.
But what he finally said was, “Too many. And not enough.”
Her face was in shadow. He couldn’t tell if she was disgusted by him, or if this was just a matter of idle curiosity for her.
She exhaled. “How many would be enough?”
He smiled sadly. “One more, Violet.” He looked over at her—at her arms folded around herself, at her head, turned from his, as if that would be enough to distract him from the ferocity of his want. “I’ve only ever wanted one more.”
She lifted her head. The moonlight caught her face, sending shadows across it. She shook her head; her arms squeezed around herself.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t hold her close. And especially not now.
“There’s no need to apologize. You’re happy with our friendship as it is.”
He expected her to agree. To say that she had all she wanted—that their friendship was enough, that more would not please her.
But she turned away again. “No.”
She had said no.
There were ten feet between them, ten feet that he felt instinctively had to be there or she’d flee.
He could have asked for an explanation. He could have advanced on her and found out if the more she wanted was what he yearned for.
But she needed that distance. If she’d wanted to explain, she’d have done so. She stood in the gap between the walls, impossibly far away, her hands wringing together in an unexplained misery.
After a long pause, he shook his head. “Then I’m sorry, too, sweetheart,” he said huskily. “I’m sorry, too.”
BY UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT, the next time Sebastian saw Violet, they didn’t talk of his feelings. They didn’t mention what she might or might not have seen in the dark gap between the walls that night. They didn’t talk about that night at all.
They talked about shipping. They talked of the Society for the Betterment of Respectable Trade, of their nieces and nephews, of their mutual friends. They talked of everything except themselves.
He didn’t ask her why she was unhappy, and she didn’t volunteer the information. Their lives went on as if nothing had changed: Sebastian gave a presentation to the London members of the Society that was well-received; Oliver and Jane returned from their wedding trip and hosted a dinner. Days dribbled by, and truths remained unspoken.
But perhaps Violet also felt the lack of conversation, because one night, after they’d exhausted all the usual subjects, she gave Sebastian a wary look.
“Do you remember the first paper I wrote?” she asked.
It was an evening in June. Crickets were calling in the darkening twilight, and the two of them were ensconced in the gardener’s quarters at the back of Sebastian’s property, which he’d converted into an office years ago so that they might have a comfortable place to talk away from the prying eyes of servants. The room was just big enough to fit a desk and a sofa, cozy for one and snug for two.
Violet was curled on the embroidered sofa; Sebastian sat at his desk, trying not to drink in the sight of her, and mostly succeeding.
“How could I ever forget the snapdragons?”
She turned and rested one elbow against the arm of the sofa. “Did I ever tell you how I came to write about snapdragons?”
He’d always assumed it was because she liked snapdragons. She’d been a gardener even before she had started writing scientific papers. She’d approached her flowerbeds with a dogged determination unmatched by most amateurs. But she was looking out the window at the shadowed forms of his back garden, watching twilight cast lengthening shadows.
“No,” he said simply.