“We should talk this over together in private,” he said. “Neither of us is in our right minds at the moment.”
“I actually believe I might be experiencing the most clarity that I have ever felt in my entire life.” A terrible, destructive impulse overtook her, and she felt the deepest urge to set her whole life ablaze if it meant that for a moment, the man in front of her might burn as well.
“Since we are uncovering secrets,” she added, “Lord Bancroft is correct. I have been acting as an alienist alongside Dr. Pinkton at the University of London, though I suppose that that shall be ended now.” Just saying it aloud made tears prick at her eyes. “For all your schemes, it seems Lord Greeling was right; you could not keep control of your wife.”
Placid though her voice was as she spoke, her words won her theintended outcome. Sebastian looked outraged by the time she finished.
“I never wanted to control you,” he said through gritted teeth.
“No,” Augusta said with a humorless laugh, “You never wantedmeat all, did you?”
His face fell, and she knew that she was right.
“I want you now,” he said weakly.
She would keep it in and hold back her tears. She could still hear the laughter of the young boys whenever she’d cried as a child in Derbyshire. Now, she was a woman in London, and she would not let them see her break.
“I do not believe I could possibly want you less,” she said.
The look of despair on Sebastian’s face gave her the strength she needed to finish this whole charade. With it, she turned on Lord Bancroft for the final time.
“You may be one of the worst people I have ever met,” she said, holding her head high. “But…thank you. For telling me the truth. It would seem you are the only one who would have done as much.”
Lord Bancroft, to his credit, appeared somewhat contrite as he looked down at the floor. Evidently, he was only now realizing what he had just done.
She felt something at her elbow. Looking down, she found Sebastian’s hand resting there, as if to stay her next words.
But there would be no staying them now. Looking from her husband to Bancroft, the two men blurred together with the rest of the room, everything flat and colorless.
“I cannot believe that I have given it all up,” she said with quiet resignation. “For someone like you.”
She turned and walked out, and when her husband tried to call out her name to bring her back, she ignored the strange clench in her empty, unbeating heart.
She made it to the hallway before her face crumpled in agony. She made it to the carriage before the first sob tore from her, loud and ugly as she shouted a strangled “Home!” at the driver. She managed to shut the curtains before she fell to the carriage floor, hugging herself tight because there was no one else in the world who could.
Chapter Twenty-One
Once, when Sebastian was a young boy, he saw a barn cat catch a wild rabbit. The rabbit had made horrid, tortured sounds in its slow death as the cat tightened its grip and ate away at its throat, bite by bite, with no regard for the immense suffering of the creature in its clutches. The rabbit, with no one to save it, had simply leaked its life out onto the ground while the cat gnawed away.
Standing in the library, watching Augusta storm out, he knew precisely how that rabbit felt.
It took several long seconds for his feet to start moving. They carried him out into the front hall, then the stoop, at which point he looked around and saw that his carriage was gone. She’d left him completely.
It was about then that the rage set in. He returned to the study, where Bancroft still stood dumbly.
His hand was around his friend’s throat in an instant.
“You fucking bastard.” Shoving his friend against the wall, he swung his arm back. When his fist collided with Bancroft’s face, he only felt that it was not enough. Even the crunch of bone breaking did not appease his sudden bloodlust.
Bancroft’s head snapped back against the wall. Blood flowedfrom his nose and down his chin, sullying his cravat.
“Fuck,” he spat, droplets of blood and spit flying. “You broke my nose.”
You’ve broken everything.
“I ought to have killed you. Count yourself lucky.”
Sebastian dropped his grip on Bancroft, choosing to step away before the urge to do anything worse than throw a punch overtook him.
