Perhaps, but Sebastian was in no mood to explore what might have been. Instead he looked over at Rafe. “I assume you’re not madly in love with her.”
“Wouldn’t matter if I was. Marriage is not for me.”
He almost asked Rafe to explain, but the younger seemed intent on remaining a mystery. Sebastian shifted his attention to Tristan. “Would you give us a moment?”
“Without my feelings being hurt.”
Tristan was making a point. Sebastian suspected his twin was growing weary of Rafe’s moodiness.
“I’ll have a carriage readied for you,” Tristan continued as he strode from the room.
Now that Sebastian was alone with Rafe, he wasn’t sure what he wanted—needed—to say. “While I was fevered, I dreamed that you hovered over me and commanded me not to leave you.”
Rafe lifted his broad shoulders in a careless shrug. He was only twenty-two but his eyes made him appear older, perhaps even older than Sebastian. “Tristan thought you might die. So I came.”
“I would have taken you with me if I could, but if we remained together we had a better chance of discovery, and I feared that would lead to our deaths.”
“You could have put us all on one ship.”
“And if it sank in a storm, who would have been left to take back from Uncle what he stole? By separating there was a chance that at least one of us would survive to have retribution.”
“Who would have cared? Land. Title. They’re not flesh, they’re not blood.”
“They’re our heritage.”
“So is our blood.” He averted his gaze. “We’ll never agree on this. It’s in the past. It’s pointless to argue over what we cannot change.”
“I won’t ask for forgiveness because I don’t believe I did anything that requires forgiveness. I did what I thought was best at the time. Perhaps with age or experience I would have made different choices.”
Rafe shifted his gaze over, pinned Sebastian with it. “Will you be able to say the same about Mary?”
“No. From her, I do hope to one day earn forgiveness.”
A corner of Rafe’s mouth curled up. “I’m glad to hear that. I was beginning to think you considered yourself without fault.”
“Hardly. I have many and can only pray that Mary will not suffer overmuch because of them.”
And he could only hope that she would accept his offer of marriage. He’d spoken true. He didn’t think he owed Rafe an apology but that was not to say that guilt didn’t gnaw at him on a daily basis. Now he would add Mary’s ruination to his list of regrets. Mary.
A woman whose misfortune it was to serve as his savior.
“If Fitzwilliam truly loved you, he’d have stood up to his father. He’d have found a way to have you,” Alicia said.
She’d arrived an hour earlier to assist Mary with her packing, but all she’d done so far was sit on the bed and watch.
“He never claimed to love me,” Mary told her.
“But he asked for your hand in marriage.”
“I suspect he loved the idea of my dowry. Besides, you’re quite right. He should have stood up to his father. That bothers me more than his lack of love. To think that he would not have been his own man, that he would have been under his father’s thumb”—she shivered thinking how easily her father capitulated on matters—“marrying him would have been a dreadful mistake.”
She didn’t want to contemplate that she felt this way because of Sebastian. He was his own man, made his own decisions, stood his own ground. Of course, his father was dead, but she couldn’t imagine that he would have allowed his father to decide how he would live his life.
“I hate that you’re leaving. The Season is not yet over,” Alicia lamented.
“For me it is,” Mary assured her. “You should have my gowns. They will require a bit of adjustment in the length, but I’ll have no need of them.”
She could see her cousin struggling with being both joyous at the additions to her wardrobe and sad because of what gaining them signified.
