The Last Time We Met - By Lily Lang Page 0,40

asked finally, after a long, uncounted interval, his tone carefully measured.

She ought to leave it at that. She ought to make him believe once and for all that she did not love him, had never loved him. But the lie seemed a furtive, shameful thing, too ugly to utter, and Tessa knew she owed him, at long last, the truth—the truth of why, six years before, she had destroyed her own life, and now, she was finally beginning to realize, his as well.

“Will you listen to me?” she asked. “Will you permit me to speak, without interruptions? I know I do not deserve it, but it will make it easier for me.”

“If it will make it easier for you,” said Sebastian.

Tessa nodded, rising to her feet to stand by the window and gaze out into the dark night so she would not need to look at him.

“It was Lord Wellington,” she said at last. “He was the one who came to me, and asked me not to meet you in the chapel at the Escorial.” She swallowed. “He was the one who asked me to release you from our engagement, and your promise to marry me.”

A movement sounded faintly behind her, as though Sebastian had sat up abruptly in his bed, but he must have remembered his promise not to interrupt, for he made no other sound.

“Somehow—I do not know how—your grandfather had learned of our attachment. Apparently he was not enamored of the notion of an alliance with a little nobody like me, the daughter of an insignificant soldier. He wrote to the duke and asked him to prevent the marriage.” She sighed. “You know how ambitious Wellington is. He wouldn’t have dreamed of offending a lord as powerful and wealthy as your grandfather. He went to my father. Told him that if he wanted to get anywhere in his career, he’d best persuade me to break off with you.

“My father would not agree to it. He said that if I loved you, I was to marry you. He said his career was not worth my happiness. But I was nineteen, and I believed Wellington when he said I was going to destroy your future.” How could she explain, so that he understood? “Father didn’t want me to do it, but I was insistent. Because I believed there would be more for you in this world than me. Because I did not trust that, after the war, you could still love me.”

Behind her, she heard Sebastian raising himself once again to a sitting position on the bed. She did not turn to look at him. She did not think she could continue speaking if she looked at him.

“I loved you,” said Tessa. “I loved you, and I knew you couldn’t marry me. You’re Sebastian Montague. You’re the Earl Grenville.”

He made a sound, but she rushed on, not letting him interrupt.

“But I knew you wouldn’t agree to it,” she said. “You were so absolutely convinced I was worth it, leaving it all behind. As your parents had done. We would go to Italy, you told me. We would be happy.”

Her voice broke.

“But I couldn’t do it, Sebastian,” she said. “I couldn’t take away your future. So I thought—if my father took your memories away, if we had never known each other, if I never existed for you—then you would be free.” She gave a soft, mirthless laugh. “I was young enough to find it romantic to be a martyr to love.”

She looked out into the night. Here and there, she could see kernels of gaslight, blurred in the fog.

“I begged my father to help me. To bury your memories of me so deeply that you could never access them again. When it was—when it was over”—her eyes shut briefly at the memory—”Wellington had you sent to Paris. So there was no chance we should ever meet again. That was all. You left. Father received his promotion.”

She clasped her hands together, drawing a deep, unsteady breath. Unshed tears swelled beneath her lids, but she did not let them fall.

And then he spoke for the first time that night.

“You took away my memories,” he said. “My memories of you. My memories of us. All of them.”

“Yes,” she said. She should turn her head and look at him, she thought. But she could not. How could she have the strength, once she started looking at him, to ever stop again?

“How could you?” he asked, and to her astonishment, she heard his voice tremble