Guilt struck him next. It came heavy and unrelenting, forcing him to his knees on the stairs as if it might bury him.
This is all my fault. Everything. From forcing Helena to marry me, to falling for her, to lying to her, to dealing with Mr. Ramsay without telling her. If anything happens to her, it is on me.
So wretched and pitiful did Sebastian feel that he very nearly stayed where he was, on his knees, feeling like his soul was being ripped from his body. He pictured his wife, scared and alone, helpless and afraid, wondering why this had happened and why he wasn’t there with her.
He imagined what would happen if he failed. Not caring about himself, but Helena, her death on his hands. And why? Because he was too scared to tell her the truth? Because he was too stupid to see what he had done?
She was innocent in all of this, and he had put her in harm’s way.
He thought of the orphanage. Mr. Ramsay had not mentioned it, but he knew it would be a part of his scheme. Whatever the terms Mr. Ramsay would ask for, the orphanage would be involved, and the children’s lives would be ruined.
How could I let this happen? How could I be so stupid! They trusted me, Helena trusted me, and I failed them.
Crying about it would solve nothing. And it was that resolve that forced Sebastian to stand. He grabbed the banister and pulled himself to his feet, teeth gritted, jaw clenched, breathing fire because he needed it right now.
He had not lost yet, and for the sake of his wife and the children, he could not lose.
That was what he told himself, and that was how he forced himself to go on. If he met with Mr. Ramsay, it would be as good as admitting defeat.
Mr. Ramsay did not want to find a middle ground. He did not want to barter. He wanted to break Sebastian, and to submit to his demands would be to lose everything.
Again, Sebastian considered reaching out to Giles and the Bow Street Runners. Again, he dissuaded himself of that notion. If he wanted to save his wife, he needed to do so on his own. And he would do it.
Even if Helena hated him. Even if he lost everything. He would not rest until she was safe. It was all he could do.
So it was that Sebastian forced himself up the stairs one step at a time. Down the hall and to his study, where he pushed the doorclosed and fell into his seat. He took a few deep breaths, found a sense of calm, and then got to devising a new plan.
He was going to find his wife. He was going to save her. And most of all, he was going to make sure that Mr. Ramsay paid. Of that, he had no doubt.
Sebastian’s knees were starting to hurt. His thighs, too. And his back, the more he thought of it.
There was a branch poking him in the face. Leaves tussling his hair. And what he hoped to also be a branch poking him in the back. But he stayed perfectly still, refusing to allow himself to so much as breathe too heavily, in case he was heard.
It was just midnight, and Sebastian waited patiently for Mr. Ramsay to arrive. A careful glance toward the sky to check where the moon sat, slowly done because he could not afford to make a noise, and it was back to watching the road.
He arrived an hour ago. He did so to give himself plenty of time, and there was no chance that Mr. Ramsay would arrive before him.
The location of this meeting was a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but empty plains of land stretching in the darkness, not a soul in sight, nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Although that wasn’t entirely true, seeing as hiding was exactly what Sebastian was doing.
His horse was tethered behind a tree some distance back, out of sight and hidden by a copse of large trees that stood out on the flat plains. But Sebastian crouched nearer the crossroads, hiding himself among the hedges that lined the street so that he, too, was invisible to all who might pass by.
Even with the moon shining upon him, Sebastian knew that the only way he could be seen was if someone peered directly into the bushes.
Waiting was the hardest part. It gave Sebastian’s mind time to race and produce images of his wife and what she was going through. And when he tried to push those images away, he instead thought about everything he had done and how this was his fault.
No. You can’t allow yourself to go down that road. Not yet. Hopefully never, assuming this works.
He tried instead to think of what he would say when he rescued Helena. She was sure to be furious with him. She was sure to be distrustful. And if she never wanted to see him again, he would understand.
What mattered was her safety, and everything after that… Well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
As silent as the night was, as dead, Sebastian heard the approaching carriage long before he saw it. The rattle of the wheels on the dirt road. The creak of the wooden frame. And the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.
His heart thudded loudly, and he tried to still it as he watched the carriage appear in the distance. A hulking mass of darkness, slowly moving to the crossroads. It stopped short of the intersection, and a second later, Mr. Ramsay climbed out.
It was too dark to see the man clearly, but it could only be him. And the effort it took Sebastian not to spring from the bushes and tackle him… It might have been the most difficult thing he had ever had to do.
