“Faithful servants are rare,” his mother used to say. Well, it turned out, faithful spies were even more uncommon. He’d have a word with the housekeeper about who had access to the kitchen funds.
He took a sip of his drink and accidentally caught the eye of a matron. He looked away from the older woman who had fixed a smile on him, just waiting for the slightest opening to spring herself on him. He knew the type. She’d sniff out any hint of gossip or scandal like a fortune hunter sought out heiresses.
Speaking of fortune hunters…
He eyed the crowd, seeking out the cad who’d approached Miss Hale. He’d lost sight of them both thanks to his rapid retreat.
Lord and Lady Tidewaters’ ball was the usual crush. Three hundred guests pressed into a space designed for two hundred, the air thick with candle smoke and competing perfumes.
He'd been here for nearly an hour before she'd arrived. He'd watched her come through the door on her father's arm and had felt the impact of it like a blow.
Two years of preparation, and he still hadn't been ready. He’d seen her over the years, of course, but only from a distance. He’d never been close enough to talk.
Never close enough to touch, either.
She'd walked into the ballroom with her chin up and her shoulders set, a smile firmly in place. Then he'd watched her father abandon her for the card room. Twelve minutes. He'd timed it.
He was long past anger with the man. Anger implied the expectation of change, and Sebastian held no such illusions. The viscount had been deteriorating since Andrew's death. The gambling, the debts, the slow retreat from every responsibility he owed his daughters…
Sebastian could hardly look at him without choking on a wave of disgust. If the old man had been looking after Estella properly, Sebastian wouldn't have to.
The chaperone he’d arranged, a distant cousin of her mother's, elderly but respectable, was currently dozing in a chair near the refreshment table. Sebastian made a mental note to find someone more alert. Someone who would actually notice if Estella was left standing alone in a ballroom with no one to speak to. For twenty minutes.
Twenty. Minutes. He'd watched her study the wall sconce with an expression of determined pleasantness that was so brave it made his chest ache. He'd watched her smile at the woman in primrose, and he'd watched her take a hopeful step forward, and he'd watched the smile collapse when she realized the greeting wasn't meant for her.
He'd very nearly crossed the room then. That would have been a catastrophe of the first order, but his feet had moved before his brain could intervene, and it had taken a physical act of will to stop himself.
She didn't know he was here. She couldn't know. The plan depended on her never knowing—never suspecting that the paid debts and redirected suitors and anonymous financial arrangements were anything other than coincidence or providence.
The plan.
He could have laughed if the sound wouldn't have alarmed the nearest guests.
The plan was simple. It had been simple for two years. Manage her circumstances from the shadows, ensure she was safe and provided for, and maintain clear distance between himself and Estella Hale.
And then, when the time came, he would ensure she found a suitable match. A good man. Steady, solvent, kind. The sort of man who would look after her and Charlotte and the hopeless viscount without requiring instruction or oversight.
The sort of man who would give her everything Sebastian could not.
He ignored the sensation in his chest. A tightening. A heat.
He'd dealt with her county suitors efficiently enough. The squire's son had required only a brief, pointed conversation. Mr. Ashby had been more stubborn, necessitating the creative deployment of a fictional inheritance. And Mr. Phelps?—
Mr. Phelps had been the worst, because Mr. Phelps had been genuinely decent. A dull, kind man who would have made Estella a perfectly adequate husband.
Adequate, but not good. And Estella deserved better.
None of them had been good enough. That was what he told himself. None of them had the resources to manage the Langley debts, or the social standing to give Charlotte a proper future, or the temperament to handle a wife who was more clever than all of them combined.
No, she needed someone better. Someone worthy of her.
The fact that no man alive could possibly meet Sebastian's criteria for worthiness was a contradiction he chose not to examine.
He just hadn’t seen all the candidates yet, that was all.
Surely in London, he’d find the right match for her. Someone with title and fortune and no alarming deficiencies of character. He would find the man, arrange the introduction, ensure the courtship proceeded smoothly, and then he would leave London for the northern estate he'd been preparing for exactly this purpose.
He would leave, and he would not come back. And he would not think about the way she tilted her chin up when she was afraid, or the way her voice sounded when she laughed, and he would certainly not think about the way she'd felt in his hands when he'd caught her.
