“Even you cannot stop a cannonball.”
“I should have—”
“No. There was nothing else you could do, Gideon. Nothing. It just was.”
Gideon squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. He didn’t want to hear the words; he didn’t want to admit that they might be true.
It just was.
He knew that there was a basic human desire to have control, to understand, to know the reasons why. He knew that the drive to discover meaning in the events of one’s life—both large and small, beautiful and tragic—had led men to religion, philosophy, science. And greatness had come from those searches; comfort from the answers they provided.
But perhaps there were times when an explanation wasn’t to be had, and maybe it was less frightening to blame himself than acknowledge his helplessness, and easier to shoulder the guilt than to accept that no one would be held accountable. But anything, anything at all, was better than contemplating the idea of six young boys dying senselessly in a hold of a ship and no one being held responsible.
Someone had to be responsible.
He drew her hand from his cheek and let it go. “I’m sorry.”
She searched his face with her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“This.” He breathed past the knot of pain in his chest. “You and I. It cannot be.”
“But you care for me,” she whispered. “And I for you. Why—?”
“I cared for them too.”
“But surely—”
“No, Winnefred.”
She turned away and, for a long time, stared at the fireplace without speaking. He wanted to fill the silence, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was nothing left to explain.
Winnefred spoke at length, and without turning back to face him. “Is this . . . Is this your final say on the matter?”
“It is.”
She looked at the ground and put her hands on her hips the way a person did when they were trying to catch their breath. “There is nothing I can say to change your mind?”
He wished she would look at him. “No.”
She gave a nearly imperceptible nod of her head. “Very well.”
This time, when she moved to leave, he didn’t stop her.
Chapter 30
For a long time after Winnefred left the study, Gideon stood in the middle of the room and stared into the hallway.
He had told her. He had told her everything. He had shared with her the burden he had promised to carry alone. He wanted to berate himself for that, but there didn’t seem to be any point. It wasn’t possible for him to feel any worse.
This. You and I. It cannot be.
He’d always known that to be true, but he’d not spoken the words aloud until now. And he’d never intended to speak them to Winnefred. If he had been a little more careful, and a little less self-centered, he would never have had to. He’d known his interest was returned. He’d seen the light of desire in Winnefred’s eyes and felt the way she had melted against him when they’d kissed. But he had willfully ignored what he’d known to be true so he could indulge in his own selfish need to seek her out.
Well, no more. It was too late to undo what was done, but he could repair what damage he could and make damn well certain he didn’t cause more.
He would find a way to make things comfortable between them again, just comfortable enough for her to feel easy in his company . . . Which he intended to severely limit in the future.
There was no avoiding his duty of escorting the ladies to balls and parties, but his free time could be spent visiting friends or relaxing at his club. He could do that. He would do that.
To prove it, he grabbed his coat, shoved his arms through the sleeves, and left the study. He would spend a few hours at White’s, he decided. He would give Winnefred a bit of time and himself a bit of space. Then he would see about making things easy between them again. Distant, but easy.
He was reaching for his hat and gloves in the front hall when the front door flew open with a crash.
Lucien stumbled inside, looking nothing like the proud and aloof peer of the realm their father had hoped he would become. His hair was windblown, the traveling clothes on his tall, lean frame were wrinkled and dusty, and there was a set edge to his sharp features that spoke of blind determination and not enough sleep.
Lucien’s eyes snapped to his. “Gideon. Where is she?”
Suddenly, despite everything, Gideon felt the urge to smile. “Welcome home, Lucien. How was your trip?”
“Eventful. Where—?”
“I am quite well, thank you. You received my letter, I presume?”
“It reached me in Berlin. Is—?”
“Lady Engsly?”
“Dead,” Lucian replied impatiently. “She succumbed to opium poison two months ago.”
“Opium.” Gideon blew out a short breath. “I hadn’t realized she was an addict. But it would explain the madness, wouldn’t it. Where is Kincaid?”
“He stayed behind to handle a few remaining details. For pity’s sake, man, where is she?”
Gideon took pity on his brother. “Upstairs.”
As if to prove his point, Lilly suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. She put her hand on the banister, looked up, and froze.
Lucien went equally still. “Rose.”
Not wanting to intrude, and equally unwilling to miss what happened next, Gideon backed away to watch the scene unfold from the open doors of the dining room.
Lilly was the first to move. She resumed her walk down the stairs, coming to stop a few steps from the bottom.
“Lord Engsly. Welcome home.” Her voice was smooth and calm, and so painfully polite, Gideon felt a pang of sympathy for his brother. “I trust your journey was a safe one?”
“It was . . . productive.” Lucien took another step forward. “Are you well?”
“Quite, thank you. It was very kind of your family to allow—”
“You look just as I remember,” he blurted out.
“I . . . I am headed to . . . to the library.” She moved forward suddenly, down the last steps and past a stunned Lucien. “Excuse me.”
“Wait.” Lucien caught her arm. “Rose. Wait.”
Lilly looked down at his hand and then slowly up to him. “My name is Lilly,” she said coolly. “Miss Lilly Ilestone.”
Lucien visibly started. His hand dropped. “Yes . . . Yes, of course. My apologies.”
Lilly gave a regal nod of her head that Lady Gwen would have been proud to see and turned to resume her walk toward the library.
Lucien stepped forward, faltered, then growled something akin to “bugger this” and took off after her before she’d made it halfway across the hall. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the parlor.
“Stop.” Lilly tugged at her arm. “What do you think—?”
“I think I haven’t slept in days,” Lucien practically barked. “I think I chased a madwoman across four countries.” He threw open the doors to the front parlor. “I think I’ve waited twelve bloody years for this.”
He pushed Lilly into the room, stepped in behind her, and slammed the doors.
Winnefred didn’t like to think of herself as a selfish woman, but as she sat on her bed with Lilly and listened to the retelling of Lord Engsly’s arrival, she was forced to admit that she was secretly grateful to have a distraction from her own troubles.
After leaving Gideon in the study, she’d spent a full hour pacing the floor of her chambers, berating herself and Gideon, and alternating between wanting to cry and scream and take the first coach back to Scotland.
Dealing with Lilly’s woes was so much simpler.
Lilly plucked at the counterpane, her blue eyes filled with uncertainty. “Lucien . . . That is, Lord Engsly has agreed to stay at his own town house.”
Which meant Gideon would have to continue staying here, Winnefred realized. “Is that something you asked of him?”
“Yes. I also asked that he acknowledge that a great d
eal of time has passed since we last met, and he agreed it is significant and promised to limit his references to our shared past.”
“I see.”
“He has also made it clear he intends to begin a courtship.”
“Did he really?” Winnefred blew out a short breath when Lilly nodded. “Well. Is that what you want?”
“I didn’t. I refused at first, but . . . Well, he did make concessions. It was only fair I do the same.”
“What concessions did you make?”
“I agreed that it was, perhaps, unfair of me to criticize him for not seeking me out after hearing I had married. It would have been dishonorable for him to approach another man’s wife in that manner.” Lilly gave up plucking to tuck her knees up under her chest and wrap her arms around her legs. “I would never have thought so highly of him to start had he not been an honorable man.”
Winnefred had thought the same thing, but she was glad Lilly had worked through the logic of it on her own.
“I agreed not to spurn the courtship. Winnefred . . .” Lilly shook her head. “I’d no idea . . . Gideon said his brother had feelings still, but . . . He traveled from Spain without rest. Because of me. He says . . . He says he is still very much in love with me.”
“And you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t.” Lilly’s voice hitched, and her eyes filled with tears. “I made myself stop thinking of him so long ago. I had to. We were alone in Scotland with no funds and nowhere to turn. I was useless to you, heartbroken and grieving. You were thirteen years old, for pity’s sake. You weren’t supposed to be the strong one.”
“We were both strong.”
“I am glad you remember it that way,” Lilly replied on a small, watery laugh.
“You should as well.”
“Maybe. What I do remember . . . I remember that I loved him.” Lilly’s face crumpled. The tears streamed down her cheeks. “I loved him so much, Freddie.”
Hurting for both of them, Winnefred wrapped her arms around Lilly and held on.
A fine thing indeed, she thought, for the pair of them to have their hearts broken by a pair of Haverstons.
Chapter 31
The only joy Winnefred found in the week before Lady Gwen’s ball was in watching Lord Engsly dance attendance upon Lilly. True to his word, the marquess began a courtship, and to the considerable delight of the ton, he carried that courtship out with abandonment. He brought flowers and books and boxes of candy. He waltzed with Lilly at every ball, took her for drives in Hyde Park every sunny afternoon, and monopolized her attentions at every dinner party.
He made it clear to Lilly, to his family, and to anyone else who cared to listen that he intended to make Miss Lilly Ilestone his marchioness. In private, Lilly made it clear to Winnefred that while she didn’t care about the elevation in status the attentions of a marquess afforded, she was not wholly opposed to the idea of making it permanent. Which Winnefred translated to mean she was falling in love all over again.
Even though a marriage to Engsly would put an end to the question of whether or not Lilly would return to Murdoch House, Winnefred was happy for her friend. She was not, however, happy in any general sense of the word.
Her friendship with Gideon had become distant and cold. It was as if a great wall had been thrown up between them and they were forced to deliver a volley of polite greetings and painfully formal exchanges over the barrier like a pair of armies firing over a battlement.
She wanted to place the blame for that squarely on his shoulders, but she couldn’t. The distance was his doing—he had taken to isolating himself in his chambers once again and going to his club for most meals. He fulfilled his duty of escorting them about town, but he didn’t seek her out in the parlor at dinner parties or engage her in conversation at Lady Hillspeak’s ball.
He was avoiding her, plain and simple.
But the coldness was her doing. Initially, Gideon had tried to make the few minutes they spent together each day not friendly, exactly, but easier. He’d smiled at her and made little comments that were designed to entice a laugh. She had responded with an affected lack of interest.
She knew he cared for her. He’d made that perfectly clear. But her father had cared for her too, in his own way. That way had left her orphaned and abandoned in Scotland. She didn’t want that sort of caring—the kind that was just enough to hint at, but never deliver on, the promise of more. Sometimes, hope could wound deeper than a rejection and damage more than just the heart.
Maybe if she tried harder . . .
Maybe if she put more effort into becoming a lady . . .
Maybe if she made herself into someone else, anyone else . . .
No. She wasn’t going to make herself into someone else. And she wasn’t going to sit about, waiting and hoping for Gideon to see she was perfect for him, just as she was, or chase after him, hoping for a kind word or sign of affection. She was done fighting, and waiting, and risking. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be torn apart like some sort of foolish, spineless twit who . . .
Winnefred shifted in her seat in the far corner of Lady Gwen’s crowded ballroom. She was sitting about, tearing herself apart like a twit, and she had been for the last hour. Ever since she had seen Gideon push his way through the crowd into the card room.
She turned her head to glower at the card room doors only to discover she could no longer see them through the mass of people. The ballroom, which had been fairly well crowded when she’d taken her seat, had grown absolutely packed while she’d sat, staring at the floor, lost in her thoughts.
For the first time, she noticed how hot she was and how close the other people were all around her. She was pressed up tight against the wall and staring at the backside of someone in a bright white gown. An elderly gentleman reeking of spirits was asleep next to her and slowly sliding off his chair in her direction. She put a hand out to slow his descent, stood carefully so as not to elbow the woman in front of her, and gently eased the old man’s head onto her chair.
She needed air.
“Excuse me.” She nudged her way past the women in front of her and moved forward into the room, determined to reach the terrace doors and the fresh air beyond. But it was slow going. The guests were packed in like cattle at market. People pressed into her from behind, jostled her from the side, and seemed oblivious to her need to move forward. They were laughing and shouting, calling to one another over the din. The air around her grew thick with sweet perfume and overheated flesh. She felt her nostrils flare and her stomach roll.
She looked back in the direction she’d come, wondering if she could return to her seat, where she’d been allotted at least a few inches of space in which to breathe, but the meager trail she had forged had been swallowed up by the crowd. And her chair had, no doubt, been taken by someone else by now.
She pushed forward again, into the noise and smell and great wall of people. She’d never seen so many people. She felt as if she were on the verge of being trampled.
Panic began to slither along her skin and creep into her lungs.
Out, she needed out. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see. She tried to keep her eyes on the top of a door to the terrace, but the room kept moving, and there were so many people—too many stepping in front of her, pushing her off course. She wanted to yell at them, but she couldn’t find the air.
Out! Let me out!
The room and its occupants shimmered, tilted, and spun in a disorienting roll.
A large hand gripped her elbow. “Slow breaths, sweetheart. You’re nearly there.”
Gideon. She wanted to laugh, weep, throw her arms around him, and punch him solidly in the nose.
Slow breaths? Was he mad?
“Breathe through your mouth.”
She did, and the dense smells of the ballroom receded.
She followed him blindly through the path he created in the crowd, grateful for the steadying grip on her arm. Her stomach was no longer threatening to revolt, but the
dizzying panic remained. There were just too many people. There wasn’t enough air for all of them.
“Almost there,” Gideon said again. He pushed his way not through the terrace doors but into a small chamber off the ballroom where a handful of servants were milling about. He ushered her past them, delivering orders along the way.
“Fetch Miss Ilestone, a glass of brandy, and a cup of tea.”
He opened yet another door and pulled her into a sitting room. “You’re all right now. There’s no one else here.”
He led her to a chair and sat her down. But she still couldn’t catch her breath. She could hear herself struggling for air.
“Can’t breathe.”
“Yes, you can.”
Gideon knelt in front of her and took her hand. He placed the flat of it against his chest where she could feel his heart beating, steady and strong beneath her palm.
“There now, do you feel that? Match your breathing to mine, Winnefred. A deep breath in . . . now out. There’s a girl. Again . . . that’s it . . .”
He kept her hand in place and murmured reassurances. She concentrated on the sound of his voice and the steady rise and fall of his chest. And slowly, she felt the panic recede and the air return to her lungs.
“Better?” Gideon asked at length.
She managed a jerky nod and let her hand slide away from his. “I don’t know what happened. I only wanted to get to the terrace and then, suddenly, I couldn’t find my way out.” She gave a soft, unsteady laugh. “Perhaps I have a delicate constitution after all.”
“Or perhaps,” Gideon said darkly, rising from the floor, “my aunt invited too many people.”
“I’ve never seen so many,” she admitted. “I’ve never been so crowded.”
“A crush like that can be too much for even a seasoned member of the ton.” He spared a brief glance at the maid who arrived with the tea and brandy. The young woman set her burden on a side table and quietly slipped from the room again.
Gideon reached for the brandy and handed it to Winnefred. “A bit of this first.”
Nearly a Lady Page 26