"You were certainly far from unwilling to take risks back then." Gently he contoured the planes of her cheeks with his thumbs before kissing her again. "Oh Venetia, you cannot know how much I've thought of those times we spent together."
"I can!”
"Were we wrong? Please tell me that I did nothing to harm your reputation?" He regarded her with concern. "What happened, Venetia? Why are you working for that old termagant? Why did you not get snapped up by the next gentleman who would forgo a dowry for a pretty face?” He stopped. “Do you resent me? Is that why you are so reserved?”
"I never resented you. I persuaded you this was best. And as for why I’ve never married, it’s because I’ve never felt for another the way I felt for you." She didn’t mind being honest. It’s what they always had been with one another.
"Feel. Please don't relegate this to the past. But you haven't answered my question." He touched her forehead. "And why bury your loveliness beneath such a hideous bonnet? You turned more heads than just mine. I searched for you, relentlessly, the moment Dorothea had been laid to rest. Finally, I had to assume you'd been whisked down the aisle or to the Continent and to persuade myself that I'd never discover your whereabouts. Do you know how much torment that caused me? No one seemed to know where you were. And now I find you here, looking remarkably nunnish."
"After Papa died, I found it was easier."
"I hadn't got to that. I'm sorry. I must be stupid not to have taken into account the fact you no longer had your father's protection. Or anyone's, for that matter."
"There were others willing to give me their protection though only one prepared to do so honorably." Venetia sighed. "But I cared for none of them. In the end, it was easier to simply try and look as plain as possible and take the position Lady Indigo offered after her nephew died. She’s a distant relative, so I traded my independence for a roof over my head and no more unwelcome advances."
“I’m sorry.” His regret was replaced by a smile. "But now you can leave the old witch's employ and let your hair loose and be mine. Forever." When she didn’t immediately reply, he frowned. "There's nothing else to stop you, surely? It's an honorable offer; I swear. You know the kind of man I am."
"I think I do, Sebastian, but..." She bit her lip. "Lady Indigo has promised to leave me her fortune if I stay and nurse her through what she believes are her last days—"
"Good heavens, how can that compare with my offer? Lady Indigo might give you her fortune? Why, I'll give you whatever you want!"
"It's too soon, Sebastian. I...I think I love you...like I did before. But you told me you’d explain how you came to be involved with Lady Banks and Mrs Compton so soon after Dorothea died."
“Yes, I did.” He glanced across at the lake as if he were reluctant to go into details. Then, turning back to face her, he said, “Lord Banks lost heavily to me at cards one night. He resented having to pay up. But my association with his wife was purely by accident.” He shifted, clearly uncomfortable.
“Her offer was not an innocent game of cards?”
“She wanted me to sell her jewelry.” He sounded hurt at the implied accusation. “Of course, the gossips painted a different picture. And her husband jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion when he found me in her bedchamber. I swear it was innocent, but he was consumed by rage and jealousy, and he challenged me to a duel, there and then.”
“And Lady Banks did nothing to...explain? Or try to stop it?”
Sebastian raised his palms in a gesture of wonder. “No, she did not.”
“And Mrs Compton?”
“Ah, Mrs Compton,” he repeated softly. “Now there was a scheming seductress, if ever I met one.” He looked into her eyes, and asked, “What have you heard about Mrs Compton?”
“I was not exactly fishing for details,” Venetia told him. “Suffice to say that I heard that your…affair was not well tolerated by her husband who wished to divorce her as a result.”
“But now he’s forgiven her.” Sebastian squeezed her hands again, an edge of desperation in his voice as he went on, “Please, Venetia, it’s true that I have no excuses for my behavior with Mrs Compton other than that she invited me to her evening party, whereupon I discovered I was the only guest.” He swallowed. “Do you want me to go on.”
“No, Sebastian!” Venetia shook her head. “It’s…painful.”
“And painful for me, too,” he murmured. I just thought you would want you to hear it from me. But, my darling, I'd searched for you until I believed you were gone forever. Dorothea had been with child for the previous nine months before her death. She left me with a beautiful son and an ache for what she might have yet enjoyed in her life. But she did not feel for me as...as you did. She did not care for the marriage bed. She was fond of me, but she never loved me.” He slipped his fingers beneath her cap and raked his fingers through her hair, as he added, “Knowing how you'd loved me, Venetia, and how glorious it was between us as a result, I tried to find it with Dorothea—and failed. But now I've found you again. Please, I beg you, if you won't say you'll marry me, then please say you'll let me try and win back your heart. Let me at least try and make you feel about me the way you once did? Please let me kiss you.“
It was no hardship to say yes.
After all these years of longing and loss and disappointment, their reunion seemed…
Too wonderful to be true.
His confession hadn’t sounded nearly as terrible as she’d thought it would. So he really had looked for her. Hope made her feel lighter than air.
Could she really believe that she’d finally found her happy ever after so easily?
Sebastian seemed as sincere and as ardent as he had ever been. He’d explained the anomalies of his past. And he’d asked her to marry him.
She allowed herself to smile.
And to believe they had a future.
Chapter 5
Sebastian watched Venetia return to her mistress with a sense of disquiet. He did not feel as confident as he’d expected he would after their arranged exchange, but he was determined he was fully capable of sweeping away any vestige of her reluctance.
He was well aware of Venetia’s determined nature. That had become clear when she’d been a child whom Sebastian had dismissed as wilful and overly confident. He’d been an adolescent at the time, with no reason to think more about Venetia than that the daughter of his father’s bailiff was wondrously clever at wrapping her father—and Sebastian’s—around her little finger the way they indulged her whims. He’d decried it as a nonsensical notion when Sebastian’s father had agreed, extraordinarily, that Venetia could be educated—in a rudimentary manner, of course—with his sister Libby.
With a dismissive shrug of his shoulders at the time, Sebastian had said he supposed it was a kindness to let the girl learn to sew a sampler, play the pianoforte, and do a little drawing and arithmetic if it would equip her with the skills to earn her way in the world as a governess.