The Wedding Season by Deborah Hale

first met, you told me you would never wed or sire a family. You also said you had saved your brother from past romantic entanglements. Even if you manage to part him from Hermione, I fear he might never find a wife who would meet with your approval. In the end, he might come to resent your interference as much as you resent Lydia.”
    That sounded like a threat—one with a terrifying ring of truth. Was it possible he might alienate his brother and end up a bitter old man, entirely alone?
    His fear provoked Sebastian to lash out. “What gives you the right to lecture me on this subject? I am not one of your pupils, learning proper deportment or whatever it is youteach them. What do you know about suffering and bitterness? Shut away from life, training young girls in all the arts and graces they need to snare well-to-do husbands.”
    Rebecca let go of his arm and shrank from his outburst. In her wide, changeable eyes, he glimpsed the sharp sting his words had inflicted. It made him thoroughly despise himself. She was the last person who deserved his censure and the very last he wanted to hurt.
    He reached for her. “Rebecca, I didn’t mean…Please, forgi—”
    How did he dare ask her forgiveness when he had spent the last quarter hour railing against it?
    She stumbled back as if she feared he might strike her if she let him get within reach.
    Suddenly Sebastian realized they had reached Rose Grange.
    He opened his mouth once more to apologize. But before he could force any words out, he heard the distinctive rattle of the gig behind him.
    “Sebastian! Miss Beaton!” cried Claude. “Wish us joy! After you left, we spoke to the vicar and set the date for our wedding. The first reading of the banns will take place next Sunday!”
    Sebastian’s first reaction was alarm that he had less than a month to rescue his brother. Then Rebecca’s warning echoed through his mind, and he found himself questioning whether that would be the right thing to do after all.

Chapter Eight
    “I sn’t it the loveliest ring, Miss Beaton?” Hermione dropped the pillowcase she’d been embroidering and fluttered her fingers in front of Rebecca, showing off the engagement token Mr. Stanhope had brought her from London. “He said being away from me for even a few days made him all the more determined to marry me, no matter how much his brother objects.”
    In the middle of writing a letter, Rebecca nodded absently. She found it difficult to concentrate on either her letter or Hermione’s conversation as Sebastian’s accusations gnawed at her. All the previous night, she’d tossed and turned, wrestling with them. Hard as she tried to persuade herself he was wrong, deep in her soul she knew the truth when she heard it. She had no right to lecture him or anyone else about forgiveness. Not because, as he believed, she had never been wronged or mistreated but because she had.
    To this day, she still held a grudge against her mother’s family. Never once, since she’d gone away to school, had she made any effort to contact them. Never once in her prayers had she mentioned them. Like Sebastian with his late wife, she tried to think of them as little as possible. When thatcould not be avoided, she’d dwelt on the wrongs they’d done her. Never had she tried to do what she’d so glibly advised Sebastian—considered the events of the past from their perspective, honestly seeking to understand why they might have acted as they had.
    Hermione heaved a sigh. “Dearest Claude says his brother will give us no peace until we are either parted or united irrevocably. Since we cannot bear to be parted, we must be married as soon as possible. He assured me that once we are man and wife, Lord Benedict will accept the situation.”
    Raising her hand to her lips, she bit her thumbnail, a nervous habit of which Rebecca had spent several years trying to break her. “I only wish I could be certain Claude is right about his brother. The viscount is so