Page 25 of The Beginning (Covert Moon, #1)

Another match. The words should've set off warning bells in my head.

If her father had already chosen someone else, someone he considered more suitable, then Gavin was fighting an uphill battle.

But I'd been raised to believe in the power of honest intention, in the idea that a man's character mattered more than his connections.

"I am sorry, Gavin. I wish I had better advice for you, but you can’t go against the girl's father.

" I had friends that had more romantic notions, but I wasn't one of them.

Despite his dramatic telling, I would imagine the young lady's father was a decent man.

He might be misled in not recognizing Gavin's worth, but that didn't mean he wished anything but the best for his daughter.

I also knew there was no sense in relaying this to Gavin.

How wrong I'd been about that. How completely I'd misjudged the situation.

I'd thought it was simply a matter of a protective father wanting the best for his child.

I hadn't considered that "the best" might be measured in coin and influence rather than love and devotion.

I'd given Gavin advice based on my own simple understanding of the world, not the complex realities he was facing.

"What should I do, Eamonn? What am I going to do? I love her! I can’t live without her!" Gavin leaned back, running his hands through his hair. His misery spilled out of him.

The desperation in his voice should've terrified me.

A man saying he couldn't live without someone—that wasn't a romantic declaration.

That was a warning. That was a man on the edge, ready to do something drastic.

But I'd heard it as melodrama, as the exaggerated emotions of a lovesick fool rather than the genuine anguish of someone contemplating throwing his entire life away.

"You say she has spoken to her father, but why don't you? I know you feel it's hopeless now, but it's always better when a man owns his intentions. More honorable. You can't get a good sense of the man in a retelling from someone else, even if it is from his daughter."

Such practical advice. Such reasonable counsel.

And so completely inadequate for the situation at hand.

I'd been trying to solve a problem with logic and honor when what Gavin needed was understanding, or perhaps intervention.

Someone to grab him by the shoulders and shake sense into him, to make him see that no woman was worth destroying his career and his future over.

But I was worried about finishing my boots.

What an ass .

I watched a series of expressions cross over Gavin's face, one after another, so quickly that I didn't get a good chance to identify them.

Finally, he met my eyes, and he smiled. It wasn't his usual wide grin, but at least he didn't look as depressed as he had a moment before.

It also put me a little more at ease with all the expressions I'd just seen.

Now I wondered if what I'd taken for relief had actually been resolve. If at that moment, he'd decided on his course of action. Had my advice—my useless, inadequate advice—been the final push that sent him over the edge? Had I, in trying to help, actually sealed both our fates?

"I thank you, Eamonn. You're a good friend to me." He stood up. "I thank you for listening. My sincere thanks." He reached over and clapped me on my shoulder.

Those words haunted me now. The formality of his gratitude, the way he'd said it like a farewell. Because that's what it'd been, wasn't it? His way of saying goodbye before he did the unthinkable. Before he threw away everything we'd both worked for in pursuit of an impossible dream.

Leaving me with the mess of decisions that he’d made.

"Well, I'm not sure I did anything, but I am happy to have been of help. You know that," I'd said with a grin, nudging him with my elbow. "Now I must finish this, for we have display this evening."

Back to polishing those damned boots while my best friend walked away to plan his own destruction.

If I could go back, if I could have that conversation again, would I do anything differently?

Would I have set aside the boots, looked him in the eye, and demanded to know exactly what he was thinking?

Would I have tried harder to talk him out of whatever desperate plan was forming in his mind?

"Of course. Thank you." With a final, slight grin, and a nod, he'd left the quarters.

And that was the last normal conversation we'd ever have.

The last time I'd see him as my friend and fellow guardsman rather than the man who'd ruined my life.

If I'd known then what I knew now, I'd have done everything differently.

But hindsight was a cruel companion, always showing you exactly where you went wrong but never giving you the chance to fix it.

Now, three months on from that moment, two months since my life had completely changed, I leaned back in my chair in my Watcher's office, thinking over that conversation yet again.

He'd been talking about Lady Annaliese. He'd been wise and hadn't told me her name.

But he'd been talking to me about his despair.

Was that why he'd abandoned me in the way he did?

He had to have known what would happen. He had to know that I would bear the brunt of the blame for his actions.

The not knowing was the worst part. Had he planned it all along, or had it been a moment of impulse? Had he considered what it would mean for me, for the rest of the Guard? Or had his love—or obsession—with Lady Annaliese blinded him to everything else, including our friendship?

While part of me was intensely angry at him, another part of me felt great empathy for the man.

He'd been my best friend for years. We'd trained together, fought together, shared our hopes and fears.

I remembered the look on his face when he'd spoken of the lady.

He loved her or believed he did. While the thought was less than charitable, I felt that he might have given his affections to one who didn't really deserve them.

While it was his fault, it didn't lessen my empathy.

He had no other path now that he'd run away with her.

For good or ill, he and the lady were bound together.

Particularly as they hadn't been found yet.

Sometimes, late at night when the paperwork finally forced me to stop working, I'd wonder if they were happy. If whatever they'd found together was worth the price they'd paid for it. Worth the price I was still paying for it. But mostly, I tried not to think about it at all.

I thought of my current efforts regarding Gavin and the Lady Annaliese.

Discreetly, so that I drew no further attention to myself, I'd been keeping track of any mention of the two of them.

There was gossip, and many claimed to have seen Gavin, or Lady Annaliese, but nothing had come of any of the reports.

Every rumor felt like a knife twist. Sightings in taverns, glimpses on country roads, whispered stories of a couple matching their description.

I'd investigate each one, hoping and dreading in equal measure.

Hoping because finding them might somehow redeem me, might prove that I hadn't been completely negligent in my duties.

Dreading because seeing them happy together would confirm that their betrayal had been worth it, at least to them.

It wasn't for lack of searching. It wasn't as though I had anything to occupy me in my off time. But I was getting ahead of myself. I had to keep this in order, to consider things as they happened.

Perhaps some might find it obsessive, but it helped me to keep my sanity.

My change in position and location weren't the only changes in my life.

Everything had shifted, turned upside down.

The careful order I'd built around myself had crumbled, and now I was scrambling to create some new structure, some new sense of purpose.

Something that resembled the life I had before Lady Annaliese and Gavin had disappeared.