Page 24 of The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance

The realization was staggering.

It still did not explain the rest of it, however. The mysterious something that she had written in her first letter—the something for which she believed that he had ended their romance. What the devil? He could not even begin to fathom what that something might have been.

He had received no letters from Sylvia Stafford. Not a single, solitary one.

It had taken a year for him to accept that no letter was ever going to come. That she had never intended to write to him. That everything between them had, very likely, existed solely in his own fevered, romantic brain. Even then he had still held fast to her blasted lock of hair, the one emblem of warmth and hope in that wretched hellhole.

But there had been letters.

And she had come here believing that he was the one who had abandoned her. “She said that I was mistaken,” Julia had told him. “That you did not care for her.”

Bloody hell.

He took a large swallow of brandy, remembering the look on her face when she had turned to him and asked for her letters back. She had seemed to have no notion of the devastating effect of her words. Her attention had been fully consumed with apologizing for having ever written in the first place.

Apologizing. To him.

Sebastian did not know whether to laugh or to weep. He settled instead for muttering a long, and particularly eloquent, oath.

Milsom whistled appreciatively as he entered the sitting room. “What’s roused your temper, sir?”

“Nothing.” Sebastian finished his glass of brandy and began to pour another.

“Nothing, my lord?” Milsom gave a huff of disbelief. “Don’t think I’ve heard you use language like that since that drunken doctor was stitching up your face outside of Jhansi.”

Sebastian leaned his head against the back of his chair with a low groan. “Not now, Milsom.”

Milsom was not deterred. “You stormed out of here in a right temper,” he said. “The second footman says you were looking for Miss Stafford.”

“The second footman can go straight to the devil—and you along with him. This has nothing to do with either of you.”

“Ah,” Milsom said knowingly. “A lovers’ quarrel, was it?”

Sebastian did not deny it. He took another drink. “If you must know,” he said, “she claims to have sent me letters.”

Milsom stopped where he stood. “So, she wrote to you after all, did she?”

Sebastian stared meditatively down at his half-filled glass. “It would seem so.”

Milsom’s foxlike face broke into a broad grin. “And didn’t I tell you she must have done? What with the post gone astray and us marching up and down the—”

“The post did not go astray.”

“Beg pardon, my lord? Then why—” Milsom’s words were interrupted by a light rap sounding on the door.

This time when Sebastian cursed, he did not mutter. “That will be my sister.”

Sure enough, when Milsom answered the door, it was Julia who popped her head in. “May I come in for a moment?” she asked.

Sebastian doubted whether anything could stop her. He motioned to the chair opposite his with a peremptory wave of his hand.

Her face brightened considerably. She hurried into the room to join him, settling herself on the edge of the chair he had indicated. “Well?” she demanded.

Milsom quietly withdrew back into the bedroom, closing the doors behind him.

Sebastian pressed his handkerchief to the scarred side of his mouth as he raised his glass for another drink. “I thought you were having tea.”

“That was over an hour ago!” She cast a disapproving glance at the half-empty bottle of brandy on the table beside him. “It is no wonder you have lost track of the time. You should not drink so much. Papa never did.”