Page 87 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

“They will not be made a part of your life, Mother,” he said. “I give you my word.”

She searched his face. “And Miss Whitley? You will end whatever exists between you?” Her voice faltered. “Sebastian, I could not bear to see you with her.”

“Mother—”

“No!” Her composure fractured, naked hurt entering her eyes. “Knowing you claim her as a friend is unbearable enough. I cannot also live with the fear that your affection for her might become something more.” She pressed a trembling hand to her chest. “Please, Sebastian. End all association with her, for the sake of our family. I will not endure that humiliation a second time. I could not bear it.”

Her gaze clung to his. “Promise me, Sebastian.”

For one suspended moment, pain tightened Sebastian’s chest. Darcy rose before him in a rush of memory: her laughter and defiance, the wonder upon her face at the sea, the quiet hours they had spent talking until conversation gave way to teasing and laughter, and the nights when they had tumbled together into a passion unlike anything he had ever known. He remembered her beneath the moonlight, offering him every unguarded part of herself, trusting him with desires and vulnerabilities she concealed from the rest of the world.

The vow his mother demanded did not feel like ending an arrangement. It felt like severing something living from within him.

He forced every memory aside. “Upon my honor,” he said, his voice steady and implacable, “whatever existed between Miss Whitley and me is ended.”

His mother held his gaze as though weighing the truth of his vow. At last, some measure of tension eased from her expression, even as something within Sebastian went cold and hollow.

CHAPTER 28

Darcy bent low over her mare’s neck as she and Jane raced across the eastern lawn, their laughter flung behind them upon the wind. They rode astride, skirts divided for freedom of movement, their loosened hair streaming in dark ribbons at their backs. Only a couple of weeks earlier, Jane had approached a saddle with equal measures of yearning and apprehension. Now she rode with confidence and delight, urging her chestnut mare onward as though she had been born to the exhilaration of speed.

“You shall not overtake me!” Jane called, glancing over her shoulder with a grin.

“Then you had best ride faster,” Darcy returned, laughing as she drew alongside her.

They thundered toward the long avenue leading to Raine Manor, the horses’ hooves striking a swift rhythm against the earth. Darcy had just begun to edge ahead when the flash of polished lacquer caught her eye. A grand traveling carriage had turned through the distant gates and was making its stately progress up the lane.

Her heart gave one violent leap.

Sebastian.

Relief rushed through her. He had departed with scarcely an hour’s warning a little more than a week ago, and since then, Darcy had filled her days with her sisters, long rides, and countless hours before her easel. Yet nothing had quieted how dreadfully she missed him. Perhaps he had returned at last. Perhaps his silence had meant nothing more than duty and haste, and whatever had called him so urgently to London was finally resolved.

Darcy drew sharply upon the reins. “Jane, we must return to the house.”

Jane followed her gaze and brightened. “Is it Sebastian?”

“I do not know.” Darcy’s voice emerged far less steadily than she intended. “Come. We cannot receive whoever it is with our hair flying about us like a pair of highwaymen.”

“I think we look magnificent,” Jane declared, though she wheeled her mare toward the stables at once.

They reached the forecourt only moments before the carriage. Darcy dismounted quickly, her riding boots striking the gravel, and a stable lad hastened forward to take both sets of reins. She scarcely paused to thank him before gathering her skirts and urging Jane toward the house.

“Inside,” Darcy murmured. “Quickly.”

They had only just crossed the entrance hall when the carriage rolled to a halt outside. The front doors opened again, admitting a gust of wind and an elegantly dressed lady who was assisted up the steps by a footman. She entered the manor with measured dignity, one gloved hand resting upon a slender walking stick. Darcy looked beyond her toward the carriage, searching for the tall, familiar figure she had imagined descending behind her. No one followed.

Darcy stared in mute astonishment at the elegantly dressed lady standing before her. There was something achingly familiar in the line of the woman’s features and in the quiet composure with which she carried herself, despite the slender walking stick supporting one hand. The resemblance struck with unsettling force. She looked remarkably like Jane. There could be no doubt that she was a relation. Beside Darcy, Jane had gone very still. The hope that had carried Darcy breathlessly inside faded as she looked once more toward the open doors. Sebastian had not returned.

More than a week of silence had followed his abrupt departure. Concern had taken root in Darcy and deepened with each passing day until she finally set aside pride and wrote to him. That letter, too, had gone unanswered. Several times she had considered sending another letter to London, only to stay her hand and suppress the worry that had grown with each passing day of silence. And now a stranger had arrived bearing all the consequences of an answer.

“Miss Whitley?”

Darcy blinked, drawing her attention back to the present as the lady extended a letter toward her. Her heart began to pound.

“Lord Raine requested that I place this directly into your hands,” the lady said, her tone measured and composed. “There was little sense entrusting it to the post when I was certain to arrive first.”

Darcy forced her fingers to steady as she accepted the letter. “Thank you.”