Page 22 of The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance

“I believe I shall sit here awhile,” she said, sinking down onto the window ledge. “If you would but give me a moment alone to collect my thoughts.”

But he did not give her a moment alone. Instead, he sat down beside her, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was subjecting himself to the full force of the midday sun. It shone a harsh light on his face, revealing every wretched scar.

“Do you still have them?” she asked. “My letters?”

“No.”

She thought of the painstaking hours she had spent writing them. Of all the hope and affection she had poured into every line. “Yes well…” She felt suddenly as if she might cry. “I daresay there was nothing in them worth saving.”

Sebastian made no reply.

Sylvia was beginning to feel that she was having a conversation with herself. Why had he sat down beside her if he did not mean to talk? Was he simply going to stare at her until she burst into tears?

But perhaps he had already said too much? Perhaps it hurt him to speak? The scar from the saber cut that had damaged half his face travelled down to the top of his black cravat. She had never properly seen its full horror until now, had never truly comprehended just how severe it really was. Had it damaged his throat as well? Was that why he always sounded so raspy and hoarse?

“Why could you not have been more careful?” she asked.

Sebastian’s color heightened almost imperceptibly.

“It was one of the last things I said to you, do you remember? Promise me that you will be careful,” she echoed her long ago words. “Of course you don’t remember. It is all nothing more than ancient history to you. Unimportant and long forgotten. But I wish…Oh, I wish you had not been hurt.”

“As does everyone who must look upon me now,” he said. “My face is not a pleasant sight.”

“That is not what I meant. I meant…I wish you had not been hurt. No matter what has passed between us…I cannot bear to think of you in pain.”

Sebastian fell silent again, but she could see a muscle working in his jaw. The subject of his injuries was upsetting to him. Perhaps she should not have mentioned it. Perhaps she should have simply pretended that he looked the same as he always had. That nothing had changed.

“And as for your injuries being unpleasant,” she said before she could stop herself. “When I first saw you this way …When I was standing in the hall outside your rooms…To own the truth, I was more alarmed by your state of undress than anything else.” She turned to look out the window, feeling the weight of his stare on her face as she did so. “Have you really kept that lock of hair I gave you?”

He did not answer.

She watched a servant walking across the lawn far down below. The gardener, she thought absently. Pershing Hall was a large estate. No doubt there were hundreds of servants.

“Your sister misunderstood everything. She thought you had kept it because you cared for me. I tried to explain to her that many soldiers keep a token of that sort, but she would not credit it. ‘If your hair has given him comfort,’ she said, ‘only think how much it will help him if you are there in person.’” She cast another fleeting glance at Sebastian. “She cares for you very much.”

“She is an infernal nuisance.”

Silvia’s mouth lifted in a sudden half smile. “She was going to hire a private enquiry agent to find me.”

“Good God.”

“Luckily, there are many who still remember my unhappy fate after the scandal. Lady Harker was able to locate me, at last. In Cheapside. The horror!”

“Where you are a governess to two little girls.”

“Clara and Cora. The dearest children you would ever care to meet.” Her smile broadened, revealing the rare sight of her two dimples. Sebastian’s gaze dropped briefly down to her mouth, an arrested look on his face. “I have taught them to perform for company,” she said. “Clara, the eldest, plays a ballad on the piano and Cora, her little sister, sings. It is more endearing than accomplished, I admit. But they have learned so much and make me very proud of them.”

“You were ever fond of children,” he observed gruffly.

Her smile slowly faded. She had once thought to have children of her own. With him. “A trait that has served me well in my new life,” she said.

“Your father left no provision for you at all?”

“No. Nothing. I found out afterward that he was deeply in debt. He had borrowed from friends and even the moneylenders. He wagered everything in that last game. I daresay he would have wagered me, too, if he had thought of it in time.”

“And your relations?”

“I wrote to them…afterward. Only one of them replied. Papa’s sister, a woman whom I have never met. She has twelve children, if you can credit it. Seven of them still in the nursery. She invited me to come and stay at her home in Northumberland. I believe she hoped to make an unpaid servant of me. A drudge. I decided then and there that if I must be in service, I may as well earn a wage.”