Page 35 of The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance

“Whether you wrote them or not—”

“You don’t believe me?” She was aghast.

“Sylvia, listen to me—”

“Why on earth would I lie about something so mortifying?” Her blue eyes blazed with hurt that was—he realized to his chagrin—swiftly turning to anger.

He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. The conversation was rapidly getting away from him. “I don’t know,” he blurted out. “Because I am the earl now. Because I have inherited my father’s fortune.”

Her lips parted on a wordless exclamation. “Is that what you think?”

“No,” he said at once. “I mean to say…It was what I thought when you first arrived here, but I—” He broke off with a curse. “Bloody hell, Sylvia. A man cannot think straight in these circumstances. If you will but give me five seconds to—”

“Miss Stafford, if you please.”

“What?”

“I would prefer if you ceased calling me by my given name. I’d rather not be familiar with a man who thinks I’m a liar.”

Sebastian scowled. “It’s a little late to worry about overfamiliarity.”

She looked away from him, her cheeks flooding with color.

“And I never said you were a liar.”

She drew her dressing gown more firmly about her. “It’s all right,” she said. “I am glad, really. Indeed, it is somewhat of a relief to know what you really think of me. I only wish I had known before I left London.”

He stared at her. “You make it sound as if you regret ever having come here.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “I should never have accepted your sister’s invitation. One cannot revisit the past.”

He felt the truth of her statement like a blow to the stomach. “And tonight? What happened between us just now?”

“Why should I regret that?”

“Forgive me,” he said stiffly, “did you not just intimate that I was the sort of gentleman who debauches his servants?”

“Debauches? No. But you must admit there is a vast difference between the kisses we shared when I was Miss Stafford of Newell Park and the kisses we shared now I am a governess in Cheapside.”

“Three years have passed. We are both older. And we are not in a garden during a crowded London ball. Naturally the intensity of our embrace—” He broke off with a grimace, embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken. “It has nothing to do with your being a governess.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No, damn it all!”

“You needn’t lose your temper.”

“I am not losing my temper. I am trying to tell you that I meant no disrespect to you. If you regret what has happened between us—”

“I do not regret it. I kissed you, if you will recall. I did not plan to, but now I think on it…It provides a certain symmetry to our acquaintance. A suitable ending, I feel.”

A dash of ice water could not have been more effective. “An ending,” he repeated. “After what we have just shared? I think not, Miss Stafford.”

She fixed him with a level stare. “It is not up to you, is it, sir?”

“The hell it isn’t,” he growled. “If you think I am letting you go after this—”

Sylvia was on her feet in an instant. “It is my decision and mine alone,” she shot back. “I am a woman of five and twenty now. An independent woman. I do exactly as I please.”