The words went through Sylvia like an electric current. “Something stupid? What do you mean?”
“Oh, but you must know what I mean, Miss Stafford. You must know.”
Sylvia shook her head in disbelief. Her own father’s suicide was a wound that would never fully heal. The very idea that Sebastian would be considering a similar course was too horrible to contemplate. She had cared for him so deeply once. Only the passage of time had numbed the pain and hurt left after he had gone away and forgotten her. “Has he threatened to do himself harm?” she asked.
“No,” Lady Harker admitted slowly. “Though he does keep his pistol out in his room. I have seen it lying near his bedside. He has kept it there this whole year. It is awfully upsetting. And my husband says I should not be upset at the moment. I am in an interesting condition, you see, and if something were to happen to my brother…”
The last of Sylvia’s defenses crumbled. No matter how cruelly Sebastian had treated her in the past, he did not deserve to be suffering in such a dreadful manner. No one did. If her presence could alleviate even a fraction of his pain, she must go to him. It would be hardhearted to continue refusing. Far worse, it would be cowardly. “Very well,” she said.
Lady Harker’s mouth curved into a wobbly smile. “Do you mean you will come?”
“Yes. I will come away with you. If…If you truly believe it will help him.”
Lady Harker flung her arms around Sylvia in an impulsive embrace. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. You will not be sorry. I promise you.”
Sylvia heard Lady Harker’s tearful exclamations as if she were standing somewhere far outside of her body. She heard herself agreeing to go with Lady Harker that very day. Agreeing to pack her things so they might leave immediately. Lady Harker summoned Mrs. Dinwiddy and the two of them briefly conversed as well.
“A little holiday with some of your old friends,” Mrs. Dinwiddy said to Sylvia, smiling. “You must take the month, Miss Stafford. I insist upon it.”
Before she knew it, Sylvia was in her small upstairs bedroom, carefully packing her things into a well-worn carpetbag.
Only then did she come to her senses, a swell of panic building in her chest, threatening to suffocate her.
She was not a coward. She had handled everything these last two years with grace and dignity. All the slights, the cruel remarks, and even the cut direct from Penelope Mainwaring, a girl whom she had once considered to be her best friend in the whole world. But now, the very idea of seeing Sebastian Conrad again frightened her to the marrow of her bones.
She had loved him. She could admit that to herself without rancor. She had loved him and she had thought, for a very little while, that he had loved her. He had never said so, of course. Neither had he made her any promises. But he had sought her out at every ball, managed to cross her path whenever she was out walking or riding, and even, on two occasions, miraculously appeared at Hatchard’s book shop when she needed to reach a book from a shelf that was too high.
Then, after that last night in the garden, he had gone. Suddenly. Ordered back to India to assist in suppressing the rebellion of 1857. He had never responded to her letters. And he had never written to her in return. Not even a brief note of condolence a year later when her father died. She had simply never heard from him again. For a time, she had even feared that he was dead, but his name was not listed in any of the newspaper reports that she read so obsessively.
Eventually, she had come to grips with the fact that he had forgotten her. It had taken a long while, but she was content again. Happy in her position. Happy in her life. She had remade herself into someone stronger. Someone who could not be hurt again. Or so she hoped. She had never had to put it to the test—until now.
Was he truly so badly scarred? And in so much pain? She hated to imagine it. And she hated herself for wanting so badly to go to him, to comfort him and lend him aid.
So he had kept that ridiculous lock of her hair. What did that signify? It did not mean that he wanted her. That he missed her. They had hardly known each other, after all. It had been a few months during the season. A few whispered conversations. A few lingering looks. A few kisses.
She changed into a modest travelling costume, assessing herself in the small mirror above her washstand as she buttoned her mantle at her neck. Did she look the same as she had then? It was little more than three years. Not much about her could have changed, surely. She still had the same thick, glossy chestnut hair. The same wide blue eyes and dimpled cheeks. And her figure was much the same, too. Still shapely in a subdued sort of way, with long legs and a slender waist.
Yet somehow she did not look the same at all. Had being a governess turned her into a drab? She would not go that far. But there was definitely a somberness to her now. A lack of that subtle sparkle which had once made her stand out from the other young ladies.
Well, she may have lost her sparkle, but it sounded as if Sebastian Conrad had very nearly lost his mind. He would be in no position to judge her for her looks. And if he said a single word in criticism of her for being a governess or made a single unkind remark about her father, she would tell him exactly what she thought of faithless gentlemen who compromised young ladies in gardens and then abandoned them.
Hertfordshire, England
Spring, 1860
Sebastian Conrad, Earl of Radcliffe, raised his head from his book at the unmistakable sound of a carriage arriving. Despite his injuries, his hearing was as acute as it had ever been. He could easily make out the crunch of wheels on gravel, the sound of doors opening and closing, and following it all, the high-pitched laughter of his younger sister, Julia.
He scowled deeply.
Pershing Hall was a huge, architectural nightmare of a house, filled with meandering corridors, rooms of varying sizes, and passageways that led to nowhere. But when his sister, Julia, Viscountess Harker, was present, the house seemed to shrink to a fraction of its size. There was no peace and quiet. No privacy. Sebastian already lived in almost complete seclusion in the earl’s apartments. When Julia was in residence, however, he felt as if he were a prisoner there.
She had last visited only a month ago. Why was she back so soon? To devil and torment him, no doubt.
“Milsom!” he shouted.
His throat had been partially damaged by a saber cut, rendering his voice a particularly harsh, rasping growl. At the sound of it, his former batman materialized at the door of the dressing room. A rangy fellow with a sharp, foxlike face, he was two and thirty, the same age as Sebastian, but somehow managed to look as if he were decades older.
“My lord?” he queried.
“Lady Harker is here. Again.”
Milsom knew better than to question his master’s superior hearing. “Shall I lay out a fresh suit of clothes, my lord?”
Sebastian’s shoulder and arm ached. The last thing he wanted to do was truss them up in a blasted coat. Nor why should he have to? He was under no obligation to play lord of the manor. He had not invited his sister here. If she insisted upon forcing her presence upon him, she could bloody well bear to look at him in his shirtsleeves. “Unnecessary,” he said.
Milsom surveyed him with a critical eye. “Shall I shave you, my lord?”
Sebastian’s beard grew erratically on the side of his face that was scarred, but on the left side he had a good two-day growth of black stubble. He looked monstrous enough when clean-shaven, he knew. With facial hair, he looked a veritable beast. “No,” he said coldly.
There was no need. He likely would not even see his sister.
He returned his attention to his book, but could not settle back into reading. The presence of other people in the house always made him uneasy. And, much as he loved her, he could scarcely tolerate the visits of his younger sister. She was too loud. Too emotional. Too cursed intent on interfering in his life.
She meant well, but she had
no real notion of what he had been through in India. Nor could he ever confide in her. Like so many young ladies of her class, she was a coddled innocent who swanned through life clutching a vinaigrette lest she swoon away at the first sign of something unpleasant.
She had swooned when she had first beheld him, hadn’t she? Screamed, swooned, and then burst into tears—in that order. As if he had not felt hideous enough.
He tightened his fingers around the lock of hair in his hand. Even after all of these years it was still as soft as silk. He caressed it absently with his thumb, the familiar action calming him enough that he was able to resume reading. He heard Milsom milling about behind him, tidying up the sitting room.
“You’ll give yourself a headache, my lord,” he remarked.
Sebastian made no reply. Reading was one of his only pleasures now and even that was marred by frequent headaches. The strain of reading with one eye, the doctor had said. Confound him.
Before being injured, Sebastian’s leisure hours had been taken up with riding and sport and scholarship. He had even penned several articles for The Aristotelian Review—a somewhat obscure scholarly journal focused on classicalism and antiquity. His primary occupation, however, had been as a soldier. It was the career path chosen for all the second sons of the Earls of Radcliffe, and it was a life that suited Sebastian particularly well. He had always been an ordered and disciplined individual with a serious turn of mind. Rather too serious, he had been told on occasion.
But he had not lacked for courage. And though he did not relish fighting and bloodshed, he had found himself to be extraordinarily adept at it.
He had expected to eventually come home from India to the modest property that his father had given him for his twenty-first birthday. Instead he had had his face nearly cleaved in two and returned to England to find his father and his elder brother dead. In place of a modest property, he now had a substantial estate. And instead of a second son, he was now the Earl of Radcliffe.
Fortunately, his younger sister had been married off to the Viscount Harker two years prior and was no longer Sebastian’s concern. And Pershing Hall itself was in the very capable hands of his father’s steward, a man who had managed the estate for over thirty years.
Sebastian was content to leave it to him.
He could muster no interest in poring over ledgers and even less in riding out to meet with any of the tenants. It was too easy to imagine their horrified reaction to the sight of his scarred face. Granted, he had known most of his father’s tenants since his youth, but mere familiarity was no guarantee that they would not respond to him with pity and disgust. He need only look to his sister’s reaction for proof of that.
“That’ll be Lady Harker now,” Milsom said.
Sebastian stiffened at the sound of muffled footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall. The housekeeper, Julia, and one other. Lord Harker, perhaps? Good God, he hoped not. The last time that pompous ass had come to visit him in his rooms it was to read him an officious lecture on why a gentleman must never threaten to throttle his sister. But no, it was clearly the housekeeper and two women. Julia and her maid. Or Julia and a friend. Heaven help him. How long did his sister plan to stay?
“I am not receiving, Milsom,” he informed his hovering valet.
“Naturally, my lord,” Milsom replied. And when a gentle tap—the sort of anemic knock one might give at an invalid’s door—announced the presence of his irritating younger sibling, Sebastian heard Milsom open the door a crack and say, quite firmly, “His lordship’s not receiving today, my lady.”
“Not receiving! Look here Milsom…” Julia’s voice sunk to a poor apology of a whisper. “We discussed this and you promised that you would be of some assistance! If you care at all for my brother you will let me pass!”
Sebastian heard a rustle of expensive fabric as Julia shouldered past his valet and stormed into the room. With a sigh of resignation, he rose from his chair and turned to face her.
And then he froze.
The door to his room stood open. Julia was striding toward him, Milsom standing by the door with a helpless look on his face. And in the hall, her wide, blue eyes meeting his from across the distance, was Sylvia Stafford.
Sebastian felt, all at once, as if all the breath had been knocked out of his body.
He would know her face anywhere. It had been emblazoned on his brain through every icy cold night, every sweltering march, and every bloody skirmish. It was the last thing he had seen before he lost consciousness in the dirt outside the gates of Jhansi. The one image he had clung to when he was certain that he was about to die.
And now here it was before him. That lovely, long treasured face. A perfect oval, sculpted by fine cheekbones, a straight, elegant nose, and a soft, voluptuous mouth. He had kissed that mouth once. A lifetime ago. And those slender hands that were now clutching white-knuckled to her bonnet had once caressed his face.
“May I have a lock of your hair, Miss Stafford?” he had asked her the last night they were together. He remembered it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. It had been at a ball given by Lord and Lady Mainwaring. He had taken her out for a walk in the garden. There had been a full moon.
“You may,” she had said, blushing. “But I’m afraid you must cut it yourself.”
Her thick, chestnut hair had been swept up in a spray of sapphires. He had touched it for the first time with an unsteady hand, working loose a single glossy curl with his finger. “Is this all right?”
“It feels like rather a lot. Perhaps you might take a bit less?”
“I shall take so much,” he had said, neatly severing the lock with a small pocketknife, “that there will be nothing left for you to give to your other admirers.”
She had looked up at him with a quizzical smile. “Do you imagine I oblige every gentleman who requests a lock of my hair?”
“Have other gentlemen made such a request?”
“Yes.”
“And have you…?”
“No,” she had said. “You are the first.” And then she had carefully removed one of the pale blue silk ribbons from her gown and given it to him to bind up the freshly cut tresses. “What will you do with it?” she had asked him afterward.
“Keep it close to my heart,” he had replied gravely. “And whenever I despair of coming home again, I shall take it out and look at it. And I shall think of you.”
Sebastian felt a tremor go through him. But it was not merely an effect of the deeply unhappy memory. It was part rage. Part horror. He had been standing, staring at her, showing her his full face. For how long? One second? Two seconds? Enough time for her to have a clear view of his sightless eye and of every wretched scar. He turned away, his hand raising instinctively to cover the right side of his face.
And then Milsom shut the door.
“You mustn’t be angry, Sebastian!” Julia approached with hands clasped beseechingly to her bosom. “If you will let me explain—”
“By God, I should ring your neck,” he rasped. “And you.” He turned on his traitorous valet. “Curse and confound you—”
“Pray don’t blame Milsom! I forced him to tell me about her. He had no choice.”
Sebastian could hear the housekeeper in the hall offering to show the young lady to her room. Footsteps sounded as the two walked away. He listened intently for Miss Stafford’s distinctive voice, deeply ashamed of himself for needing so desperately to hear it, but there was only silence.
“And you cannot blame me,” Julia continued. “For once I learned about the lock of hair that you keep I could not rest until I knew the entire story.”
Sebastian’s scarred face went white with fury. He looked from Milsom to Julia and back again. What the devil had his valet told his meddling sister? More importantly, what in hell had his sister told to Miss Stafford? “Get out,” he snarled, advancing on her.
>
Julia retreated behind a chair. “I’ve persuaded her to stay the month,” she said. “It was the best I could manage. She cannot stay any longer than that because of the children, you see, and—”
“What?”
Julia offered him a tentative smile. “Two little girls.”
Sebastian went still. Once again he had the sense of all the breath leaving his body. “Their father?” he managed to ask.
“Mr. Claude Dinwiddy. A merchant. Can you imagine?”
He sank blindly back into his chair, managing to find it beneath him by only the purest chance. He leaned his head back against the leather upholstery, breathing raggedly as his fingers closed tightly around the lock of hair hidden in his hand.
Why had he never thought…? Never considered…? Of course she was married! Of course she had children! And why in God’s name should it matter anymore? It had been three years since he had known her. If he had ever known her.
She was nothing to him now.
“My lady, if you’ll give us a moment,” Milsom murmured to Julia.
Ignoring the valet, Julia came to perch on the chair opposite from her brother. “Is it the pain, Sebastian? Does it hurt very terribly? Oh, do something Milsom!”
Milsom already had the matter well in hand. “Here you are, sir,” he said. “Just as you like it.”
Sebastian opened his eyes, to find the familiar face of his batman looming over him. He was holding out a glass of brandy and a folded handkerchief. Sebastian took both, using the handkerchief to press against the injured side of his mouth as he drank. The nerves had deadened there and he had learned early on that, unless he made some effort to prevent it, liquid would leak out of his mouth and run straight down his chin.
The Lost Letter Page 2
