The instant he was gone, the fight seemed to go out of Caroline all at once, as if she were a marionette whose strings had been severed. She sagged, hugging her arms around her slender frame as if to shield herself from a bitter wind.
“Sebastian…” Her voice was hollow, ragged with the weight of wounded spirits and shattered illusions. “I swear, on everything I hold sacred, I did not betray you. Not for an instant. What you saw... It was nothing, a twisted misunderstanding orchestrated by that vile, depraved–”
“Not here,” he said coldly, avoiding her desperate gaze. “Let’s go home.”
Caroline simply nodded, allowing him to help her into the carriage. This time, though, the brush of her thighs against his did not fill him with heat or nervous anticipation. Instead, it broke his heart all over again—especially when he noticed the tears in her dress, flashing him a glimpse of her porcelain thigh.
How had it happened?
Though he wanted nothing more than to know, Sebastian was far too afraid to ask and so he chose to avert his eyes.
The ride to their manor was quiet—uncomfortably so, with both Sebastian and Caroline avoiding each other’s eyes. Her soft sniffles and whimpers had stopped, giving way for silence.
They had barely stepped through the doors of their home when the simmering tension between them finally reached its boiling point. Sebastian stalked ahead, his shoulders rigid with barely contained fury, and Caroline had to hurry to keep pace with his long strides.
“Sebastian, please, won't you listen?” she implored, catching his arm in a desperate attempt to make him pause. “It was a misunderstanding, that is all. That contemptible scene back there was all Edward's doing. You have to believe me.”
He whirled on her so suddenly that she stumbled back a step, her eyes widening at the thunderous mask of his expression. “You seem to have a habit of misunderstandings with men,” he shot out angrily then closed his eyes and sighed. “I am sorry. I did not mean that. I do not believe that you would sully our vows in that manner…”
Caroline flinched as if he had struck her, tears springing to her eyes at his harsh rebuke. “Then why are you so angry?” she whispered brokenly. "If you trust in my faithfulness, in thesanctity of our vows, why do you look at me as if I've personally laid your heart to burn?”
Sebastian's jaw clenched convulsively, his nostrils flaring as he struggled to master the storm of emotion roiling within him. When at last he spoke, his voice was taut and controlled, but Caroline could hear the molten fury simmering beneath.
“Because even if you are blameless in deed, you are not so in invitation,” he ground out. “You allowed that viper to slither too close, gave him far too much liberty with your presence. And now his vile insinuations have taken wing amongst those sharks who call themselves our peers.”
Caroline recoiled as if struck, her hand flying to her mouth in dismayed shock. “Are you truly suggesting I brought this on myself?” she cried, anguish and indignation warring in her breast. “That I am somehow culpable for Edwards' depraved obsession, for his twisted machinations?”
“I'm saying you were naive!” Sebastian's control finally shattered like a clay jug dropped from a height, his bellow of anguished accusation echoing through the foyer. “Naive and reckless with the reputation I have sacrificed so much to safeguard!”
The instant the words left his lips, Sebastian knew he had gone too far. Caroline flinched as if he had raised a hand against her, anguish and anger writ large across her tear-stained features.
“How dare you?” she breathed, hands trembling with the force of her emotion. “After everything I've endured, all the pain and humiliation I have suffered to become your wife, you have the audacity to make it seem as if I have brought disgrace upon us both!”
Shame washed over Sebastian in a cloying wave, the bitter tang of self-recrimination burning his throat. He opened his mouth, a stammered apology half-formed on his lips, but Caroline had already turned away.
“No, don't bother,” she spat, wrapping her arms around her torso in a self-defensive posture. “I don't have the stomach for more of your petty jealousies disguised as noble indignation right now.”
Sebastian let out a deep sigh and folded his arms. “I think,” he said tersely, watching his wife’s stiff figure where she stood frozen, “it is better if I return to Nathaniel’s.”
She turned back quickly, her eyes wide and for a second Sebastian wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and make her forget that a man like Edward Pembroke existed.
Angry pride kept him from doing so, though he looked at her with a sliver of tenderness. “The party should be drawing to a close soon,” he muttered, avoiding her gaze. “I have things to discuss with Nathaniel.”
She did not believe his blatant lie, he knew when he found the courage to face her. Still, in an effort to maintain his rage from exploding once more, he turned away and made his way back to the carriage–leaving his wife behind.
Chapter 26
Caroline watched helplessly as Sebastian stormed out of the house, her heart sinking with every step he took. The sound of the front door slamming echoed through the foyer, making her flinch as if struck. Tears burned in her eyes, but she blinked them back furiously, refusing to let them fall.
With leaden steps, she made her way through the house, her mind whirling with the disastrous events of the evening. How had it all gone so wrong? One moment she was attempting to mend fences with Beatrice, the next she was embroiled in yet another scandal, her reputation hanging by a thread.
She paused in the drawing room, sinking onto the sofa with a shuddering sigh. The silence of the house pressed in on her, oppressive and suffocating. She longed for Sebastian's presence. Tonight, she mused, was supposed to be so different. She wanted to tell him that—for her at least—this was no longer a marriage of pure convenience, that she had fallen irrevocably in love with him.
But he had left, driven away by anger and doubt. The memory of his anger, the accusation in his eyes, made her heart clench painfully in her chest.
“What if he believes them?” she whispered to herself, her voice small and broken in the empty room. “What if he thinks I'vebetrayed him, that I've been carrying on with Edward behind his back?”
The thought was like a knife to the gut, twisting cruelly. She had worked so hard to build a true partnership with Sebastian, to forge a bond of love and trust between them. But now, with a few vicious rumors and spiteful machinations, it all threatened to crumble to dust.
