Page 16 of The Governess’s Absolutely Impossible Wish (The Notorious Briarwoods #8)

D espite the fact that Zephyr and Sylvia were at her side, Giselle could not stop the waves of panic that were coming up. She was resolved. She knew what she needed to do. She even knew that she was not in the wrong, and yet it was hard to stop the feeling of fear cascading down her spine.

She swallowed back that fear and squared her shoulders. Her hands were still hot, her body still felt icy, and if she was honest, her legs were shaking ever so slightly as she crossed into the room.

Miss Abelard was awaiting her.

Miss Abelard had requested they speak as soon as possible. And though that sent another dose of discomfort through her—why would the teacher request a meeting alone if she did not wish to castigate her?—she preferred this.

She did not want to see her teacher, the woman who had trusted her, the woman who had all but raised her, in a crush of people with ill feeling between them. No, she wished to be able to tell Miss Abelard all her truths without being surrounded by people staring.

Miss Abelard stood stiffly, staring at the fire, her own shoulders back.

No doubt, Miss Abelard was planning on telling her off for all the ways that she had let her down. The fire illuminated her teacher, unable to warm her hard stance as she clutched something in her gloved hands.

No doubt it was some sort of list of recriminations.

“Miss Abelard,” she forced herself to call.

Her former teacher turned to her, her face pale. “Giselle,” she called softly. “It is good to see you.”

This was not the response that Giselle was expecting and her lips parted. She looked to Zephyr, who gave her a nod, and then she looked to Sylvia, who gave her a smile so warm, so encouraging, so motherly that she felt tears threaten to spring to her eyes. But instead she turned back to Miss Abelard, determined to find her courage, determined to be brave enough to face this moment where she had disappointed a woman who had taken such good care of her.

“It is good to see you too, Miss Abelard. I have missed you these many weeks.”

Miss Abelard nodded. “You have found where you belong, haven’t you?”

Giselle gasped. “I beg your pardon?”

Miss Abelard looked from the dowager duchess to Zephyr and back to her, and a tentative smile pulled at her lips. “I shall say it again if I need to. You have found where you belong, haven’t you, Giselle?”

It was so far from what she had expected Miss Abelard to say, her knees began to give out, but then she rallied herself. She was strong, she always had been, and now suddenly, for some strange reason, she felt even stronger with Zephyr’s love in her heart, and she wanted to laugh at herself.

All the terror that had been collecting inside her, all the stories she had told herself about what Miss Abelard was going to say and the castigations that were coming, faded away.

“You are not angry with me?” Giselle rasped, placing a hand on her middle.

“Angry with you?” Miss Abelard said, her voice lifting with shock. “No my dear, I am not. I’m so very grateful that you have found people to love you. I wonder now if somehow I knew this would happen. I thought if I sent you here that you would find people who would understand you, but it never occurred to me that you would find love here. You did not seem to want to love at all, and I supported that.” A rueful look touched her teacher’s face. “I shouldn’t have done that, but perhaps I should have known love would find you. I was afraid for you, you know. I’m always afraid for all my girls that they will find pain, that people will hurt them, and that I will not be able to protect them when they leave my care, but I still must let each one of you go to decide what you will for yourself.”

“But I saw your face in the crowd,” Giselle protested, her mind whirling as she tried to understand. “I saw your dismay. Surely, you are disappointed by my betrayal of your wishes, the promise that I made.”

Miss Abelard blinked. “Is that what you thought when you saw my face? I’m so sorry to cause you such distress, and in the middle of such a wonderful production.” Now it was time for tears to fill Miss Abelard’s eyes. “Your mother would be so very proud of you. You have such gifts,” Miss Abelard declared, sniffling.

Then tears filled Giselle’s eyes too. “I do not understand. I thought you didn’t wish me to be like my mother.”

“Your mother was my dear friend,” Miss Abelard explained, a tear slipping down her cheek. “But you did not seem to have any wish to be like her as a child, to be put on display to perform. You seemed to wish to be kept alone and quiet.”

Was that what she wished? Yes, it had been.

“Was I mistaken?” Miss Abelard asked. “Should I have made certain that you could—”

“No. No, I was done with that life and even now it’s not the life for me,” Giselle assured. “I only did this play because the Briarwoods asked me to. I think they knew I needed to see that I had this in me, that I did not belong in the background anymore, that I could have my own dreams.”

“And will you seize your dreams?” Miss Abelard asked gently.

Giselle drew herself up, relief washing over her as she understood that she had not alienated the woman who had been there for her when no one else had been. “Oh, yes, I will, because Zephyr and the dowager duchess and all of the Briarwood family are with me. I know that I am so capable now, but I never would’ve had any of that without you, Miss Abelard.”

Miss Abelard beamed. “Thank you, my dear. I have loved you in my way, though I know it was not in the way you needed. How I wish I could give you…” Her voice softened.

“What is it?” Giselle asked.

“The look upon my face that you saw?” Miss Abelard began, looking down to the sheet in her hands. “It is because I do have something to tell you.”

That icy feeling swirled through Giselle again, and unpleasant stories began to make their way into her head, but she stopped them. What good were they if she could not actually predict the future? There was no point in telling herself all sorts of things that would make her sick.

“What is it?” she asked.

Zephyr’s hand swallowed hers up, holding tightly to it.

Miss Abelard nodded, then cleared her throat. “I received a letter from your father.”

“My what?” she blurted, her body contracting with shock. Zephyr pulled her to him.

“I have not heard from him in years, and I never thought that I would hear from him again,” said Miss Abelard, her face a mask of pain. “I let him know that you were with us years ago, but he never reached out. He never tried to see you or do anything to show that he wished to be your father, but he has written.”

Giselle’s mouth dried, her insides swirled, and she felt the room swing about her. She was grateful for Zephyr’s strong embrace. But before she could say another word, she felt the dowager duchess’s hand at her shoulder, even as Zephyr held her upright, and she realized that she was being loved and supported by her family.

She had never had this before, and for a moment, it was all she could feel. All that mattered.

“I am well,” she said to both of them. “I assure you.”

“Even if you are,” the dowager duchess said, “we will not leave you to face this alone.”

Her heart swelled at the dowager’s declaration, and then she dared to face Miss Abelard and the news of her father again. “What does he say?”

“He is dying.”

She grimaced. “Of course he’s dying. Of course that’s why he sends word,” she whispered, her body shaking with confusing emotions. “He wishes to die with an eased heart.”

“I do not think that is it,” Miss Abelard said, frowning. “But he is determined to see you. He has written a letter to me almost every day these last weeks, begging for you to come. Of course, I came to the play, and of course, I am eager to see you wed on the morrow. But I wanted to speak to you personally, my dear, and urge you to go and see him. I do not think he’s looking for forgiveness. He says he has something that he must tell you. That you need to know.”

“That I need to know?” she whispered. Once again, a dozen stories began to spin in her head, but she shoved them aside. “What if I do not wish to see him? What if I do not wish because…”

She could still remember him when she was a child, how kind he had seemed, how handsome. She could almost feel the toys that he had brought her, the love that he had showed her mother, the joy that the two had seemed to have together, and then one day he’d simply stopped. After that, the pain had been so intense, so terrible that her mother had never recovered.

They had spent years trying to recover, and that’s when things had grown so dismal, and her mother had shrunk and shrunk.

“No, I don’t wish to see him,” she declared through gritted teeth.

“I understand,” Miss Abelard said, “and you certainly do not have to.”

The dowager nodded her agreement. “There is absolutely no compulsion to go and see him, my dear. He made terrible mistakes, and he will suffer for them, as he clearly is, but you owe him nothing.”

Zephyr held her tightly, and he pressed his forehead to hers for a moment before saying, “Exactly, we will stand up for you. We always will, and we support your freedom to stay away from him.”

“But I will say one thing,” the dowager duchess said softly.

Giselle whipped her gaze to the dowager duchess, surprised.

“Be careful if you choose not to see him, my dear,” the dowager ventured in a tone that was rich and knowing and kind…yet full of warning. “Because you will always wonder what he had to say. Even if what he says is not pleasant, at least you will know what it is. You will not be questioning yourself for years to come about whether you had done the right thing in not going.”

She grimaced, closing her eyes, unable to deny the power of the dowager’s words.

“You do not have to forgive him,” the dowager added, her voice powerful and full of support. “You do not have to ease any of his sufferings. You do not have to tell him that it was all right that he did what he did. But if you do see him, you will never have to look back and wonder.”

She let out a groan of dismay. Oh, how she longed to run away from this. The pain that was welling up in her, the pain of her mother, of her mother’s death, of being left to face the world, all of it.

And then she felt Zephyr’s hand gently stroke her cheek, felt the loving look of her soon-to-be mother-in-law, and she realized that the dowager was right.

Right in so many ways.

She had found Zephyr for a reason, not because he was some sort of prince who would rescue her from her life.

No, she had met him because he had stared deep into the darkness, and he had not yielded to it. And he never would. He would not allow her to either. Whether her darkness was fear, or pain, or sorrow, he would be there to walk by her side through it until the sun came out again.

She nodded and looked to the man she loved. “Then I will go,” she breathed, “as long as you come with me.”

“Every moment of the way,” he replied.

She knew that he did not mean just for this. No, the man she loved meant for all time.