Page 28 of The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance

She drew back from him, sliding her arms from around his neck to rest her hands lightly on his chest. “You’re not laughing.”

“I’m laughing on the inside,” he said. At that, she gave him a dimpled smile. But he did not smile in return. He could not. His heart ached too much. And he was suddenly, horribly conscious of how monstrous he must look to her now that their faces were only inches apart.

Miss Stafford’s own smile faded slowly. She moved to extricate herself from his grasp and he immediately let her go. She stepped away from him, directing her attention to straightening her rumpled dressing gown. “I should not have ventured from my room.”

“Why not? You are a guest here, not a prisoner.”

“I’ll wager none of your other guests ever found themselves in the ridiculous predicament I was just in.”

“No,” Sebastian admitted. “Not that I am aware.” He watched as she re-tied the fabric belt of her dressing gown, her slim hands knotting it snugly at her waist.

“I did not think so,” Miss Stafford said. She smoothed her hand once more over the skirts of her dressing gown before wandering toward the old Vaugondy library globe that stood in a recess between two of the bookcases. “I suppose that this incident will tally nicely with that foolish letter I wrote you.”

He went still, taken off guard by her words.

“Indeed,” she said as she touched her finger to the globe and gave it a slow, deliberate half-spin in its stout wooden frame. “I seem to have a rare talent for making an idiot of myself where you are concerned.”

Sebastian clenched one hand at his side. Is that what she believed? That he held her in contempt? That he thought her a fool?

More than ever he wished that he knew what was in that blasted first letter. In the picture gallery, he had been sorely tempted to tell her that he had never received it. That he had never received any of her letters. But something had stopped him. It was not disbelief. He was almost certain now that she had written to him. However, if she had known—if she had even suspected—that he had never received a single solitary letter, would she have confessed to him as much as she already had about the contents of those long lost missives?

He doubted it.

And then he would never have known. The knowledge was painful, true. Indeed, reflecting on the year of heartsick torment he had spent in India, wondering why she had never written, wondering what he had said or done to lose her affections—or worse, whether he had ever had her affections in the first place—was what had kept him up most of the night. If only he had realized then that somewhere out there were letters written to him by Sylvia Stafford! Perfumed letters sealed with a thousand kisses! But where? What in blazes had happened to them?

He raked a hand through his already disheveled black hair. “So much for putting the unfortunate past behind us.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I should not have mentioned it, but I.…” Her voice quavered. “I cannot forget.”

“Nor can I,” he said.

She looked up from the globe and met his eyes. “Then I suppose there is nothing left to be said, is there?”

Sebastian’s expression hardened with resolve. There was something more to be said, by God, and he knew that he must be the one to say it. He took a decisive step toward her and stopped. His heart was thudding heavily in his chest. He had the sense that he was standing on the edge of a great precipice. What was at the bottom, he could not see. It would be a leap of faith. There was no choice but to take it. “Miss Stafford,” he said, “I never received any of your letters.”

Sylvia’s hand fell from the globe. She turned sharply to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”

Sebastian’s face was grim. “The letters you wrote to me. I never received a single one. Indeed, until this morning, when you mentioned your letters in the picture gallery, I believed that you had not written at all. It is why I was…uncivil…to you when you first arrived at Pershing.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “That cannot be true,” she said. “You knew about my letters. We discussed them.”

“You discussed them. I merely encouraged you. Selfish of me, I know. I should have told you the truth the moment I understood it for myself, but I—” He broke off with a low sound of frustration. “I wanted to know what you had written. I did not think you would admit to anything if you realized your letters had never come.”

She frantically thought back to the conversation they had had as they sat together in the window embrasure. What in heaven had she told him?

“None of them came?” she asked faintly. “Not a single one?”

“None,” he said. “And all of my own letters were returned unopened.”

“Your letters?” Sylvia’s knees weakened.

Sebastian was instantly at her side. His strong arm encircled her waist, enfolding her in the scent of spiced bergamot, starched linen, and clean male skin. “Come,” he said. “We had better sit.”

She allowed him to steer her to the large, velvet-cushioned settee near the fireplace. He kept his hand at her back as she sat down, watching with uncommon alertness as she drew the folds of her dressing gown more firmly around her. It was unconsciously done. Modesty was the last thing on her mind. When Sebastian sank down beside her, she hardly registered the impropriety of how close they were to each other. “What do you mean, your letters?” she asked.

“The letters I wrote to you from India,” he said. “They were returned to me unopened. Every last one of them.”

Her heart twisted. “You wrote to me,” she whispered.