Sebastian felt sick. “He was wrong,” Sebastian said. But the anger that welled up in him at that thought had no object save a dead man, no place in this conversation. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “He was so wrong.”
“I tried to think that. But when he died… It was a horrible accident. I listened to person after person offer their condolences. And I couldn’t make myself feel the least bit sorry. I was glad.” She gasped. “So, so selfishly glad that he died. He wasn’t wrong. My life didn’t mean anything to him, but his meant as little to me.”
“Shh,” he whispered to her.
“And look at what I’ve been doing to you. Lying to you, hurting you, because I can’t bear to think what it would mean to have to say no to you like that. It killed my marriage, Sebastian. It would kill us, too. I couldn’t bear that.” Her fingers clutched his arm. “My way, at least, there was no risk. I’m such a coward, Sebastian. I’m such a damned lying coward that I let you think I didn’t want you.”
Her breaths had begun to calm.
“And so you came to me,” he said softly.
She flinched. “Sometimes I want you so much I could scream. But I…I don’t dare. I don’t dare want.” Her voice shrank and she pulled in on herself.
No. After what she’d told him, he had no doubt why.
“I can’t be anyone but who I am,” she whispered. “I’m a cold, sharp blacksmith’s puzzle. If I let you in, I’ll cut us both to shreds.”
She’d come here and thrown herself at him. Thrown herself at him, told him she didn’t need sheaths. She’d come here thinking that he would take her, that he would do to her what her husband had.
God, how could she think he would do that?
She wasn’t looking in his eyes. “I owe you an apology, Sebastian.”
Her husband had told her that she was nothing. He’d done his best to erase her, taking her to bed, knowing what that would mean. He remembered Violet those last years of her marriage—ill half the time, scarcely able to move, and yet so determined to live, to do something, to have that paper on snapdragons published.
She’d thought it had been the end of her life.
“Of all the horrible things I’ve done to you,” she was saying, “I think this is the worst. I came here because I wanted to disappear. Because I was ashamed of myself and I thought if I told you how I felt—if I just let you know—you would help erase me, too.”
He thought of Violet fading as she had, and slowly, ever so slowly, he leaned his head against hers. “No, you didn’t think that.”
She huffed. “Yes, I did.”
“No.” Sebastian leaned down to her, until his lips were near her ear. “You came to me because I know you better than anyone else. Because you needed someone to tell you that you matter.”
She stopped breathing.
“Because even though you’ve been invisible to the entire world,” he said, “I have always seen you.”
She let out a long breath. He pulled her closer, gathering her up, wet as she was, running his hands down her shoulders. Her face tilted up.
He might kiss her. He’d dreamed about it long enough. His body was still alive with want, every part of him wishing for her. This would be a real kiss, not a scalded fury of an embrace like the one she’d hurled at him earlier. It would be sweet and tender and loving—as effortless as breathing.
It would be…not the right thing to do, not when she was still this close to tears.
Instead, he took off his cravat and used it to wipe the rain from her face. “Lovely Violet,” he said. “Clever Violet. Beautiful Violet.”
She sighed and leaned against him.
“You came to me,” he said, “because you know I would never hurt you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her hands were slowly unclenching, her breaths slowing to measured inhalations.
“And see?” He grinned at her. “I won’t.”
OF ALL THE WAYS THAT VIOLET had imagined she might start the morning after she admitted to Sebastian that she wanted him, waking up alone in bed was the possibility she’d never considered.
She sat up. Her head throbbed at the temples, as if she’d passed a night of wild abandon.
Instead, Sebastian had held her. He’d whispered to her. He’d told her jokes for forty-five minutes, until even she couldn’t keep from laughing, drunk on sorrow and confusion. And when the rain had faded to a patter, he’d rummaged through his things, given her his umbrella, and sent her home.
Alone.
Mystifying.
She’d undone his trousers. She’d told him in plain English that she fantasized about his touch. And he hadn’t even kissed her good night.
Perplexing.
It gave the morning a strange sense of normalcy, as if yesterday’s storm hadn’t really happened. As if she could relegate the memory of those messy, uncomfortable emotions to an outdoor shed where they might be stored indefinitely alongside all the other abandoned rubbish.