Page 41 of The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance

Were to change by tomorrow and fleet in my arms,

Like fairy gifts fading away.

Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art,

Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart,

Would entwine itself verdantly still.

She had a low, velvety voice. As merry as it was seductive. It had set a hook deep in his chest and commenced a slow, inexorable tugging. He had leaned forward in his seat, his eyes fixed on her. Her own blue gaze had drifted round the room, focusing on no one, as she sang:

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,

And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,

That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,

To which time will but make thee more dear.

No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,

But as truly loves on to the close,

As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets,

The same look which she turn’d when he rose.

At the close of the song, he had approached Lady Denholm and asked for an introduction. And then, for the next two months, he had contrived to be everywhere that Sylvia Stafford was. Balls and supper parties, Cremorne Gardens and the theatre, picnics in the park, and even the damned circulating library.

Not that it had taken two months for him to realize his own intentions.

He had known that he loved her within the first two weeks. The remainder of his time in London was spent trying, by various measures, to determine exactly how she felt about him.

It had only been that last night in the Mainwaring’s garden that he had dared press her. First by asking for a lock of her hair. Then by kissing her. Afterward, she had brought her small hands up to frame his face, rendering him almost speechless when she kissed him in return.

“How many young ladies have you kissed in moonlit gardens, I wonder?” she had asked.

“None but you, Miss Stafford,” he had answered her truthfully. “None but you.”

He had reentered the ballroom with her shortly after in a state of euphoria only to be instantly overtaken by the Viscount Goddard with whom Sylvia had, apparently, promised to dance the next waltz. Sebastian had leaned against the wall in the corner of the ballroom and watched them, resisting an almost overpowering urge to grab Goddard by his scruff and shake him like the impudent puppy that he was.

The next morning, he had left England for Marseilles, embarking on the overland route that would take him to India.

Once there, his duties had kept him busy from dawn until dusk—and frequently beyond. Skirmishes, both major and minor, had left him fatigued and often injured. The horrors of the rebellion had depressed his spirits. But Sylvia Stafford was never far from his mind. Of an evening, when they were bivouacked outside of a town or cramped together in some vermin infested cantonment, he had written to her. At first respectfully. And then, with increasing desperation.

It had been Goddard who had won her—or so he had thought when her letters never arrived. Sebastian had tormented himself with images of the two of them together, reflecting on the times he had observed them dancing or driving in the park. Realizing that she had never had any interest in a hulking cavalry officer at all. That, very likely, he had forced his company on her and she had been too polite to give him his marching orders.

But that had not been the case.

She had been writing to him. She had even been checking the papers, worried that he had been hurt or killed. And all the while, she had believed that he had been the one who was faithless. That he had ignored her letters. Or worse, been so offended by them that he had turned away from her in disgust.

Though what she might have written to offend him, he had no idea. There was nothing she could have said or done to drive him away. He had been half-mad for her. Yet, when they spoke in the picture gallery, Sylvia had seemed to be convinced that their relationship had ended because of something she said in her first letter. What in blazes could it have been? And why in hell would she think it would have been enough to put him off? Unless…

Unless she had written of some indiscretion with another man.

A sickening jolt of unease shot through him. Good God. Is that what it had been? Some confession about Goddard or another admirer? Had one of them stolen a kiss? Or more?