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

Z ephyr looked terribly sad. A large part of Giselle told her to turn on her heel—her very practical heel—and head back down the hall and ignore him entirely.

But another part of her—the human part, the compassionate part—compelled her to step into the room. She shouldn’t be here, not in the music room. She came every now and then to look at the harpsichord and think of what she would teach the children, for she was teaching Octavian and Maximus their scales.

She would slip into the room when it was empty to trace her fingers over the warm honeyed wood. And she’d feel achingly at one with her mother, a feeling she did not always welcome but sometimes needed.

This night, she’d felt the need to be close to her mother, who had been driven into heartbreak and death too soon. To try to remember why she had made the sort of vows she had. To remember her fellow student, Henrietta, who had lost her reputation because of a man.

Giselle had not expected to find Zephyr in here looking out the windows.

His face… Dear heaven, his beautiful face. She had never seen Lord Zephyr look so, well, tragic. She couldn’t explain it. There was a sorrow to him that was palpable. It filled the chamber. And the dire look to his visage? It melted her stern heart.

She longed to take that feeling of his away, to see the brightness which usually lit his expression. The playful, mischievous look that always seemed about to show itself to cheer those around him.

It was completely irrational, her need to help him. Though…perhaps it made perfect sense. Hadn’t she longed to save her mother?

She’d failed, of course.

Perhaps she could succeed with him. It was a very dangerous thought.

And she knew if she was to stick to her vow, she should go. And yet, she could not leave him thus. Not just because of her past, but because he was a person who looked in need of help.

She slipped silently into the room. “What is amiss?” she asked.

He whipped towards her and blinked, apparently stunned that someone had stumbled upon his sorrowful reverie. “Nothing,” he said.

“That is a lie,” she returned, adjusting her notebook in her hands. “I did not know you told lies, Lord Zephyr. How scandalous of you.”

He drew in a long breath, which caused his magnificent shoulders to stretch his linen shirt and waistcoat. “It is a polite turn of phrase, is it not,” he countered, as a muscle tightened in his jaw, “to not burden people with one’s feelings? I don’t think you actually want to be burdened with my feelings, do you?”

And she felt a wave of guilt at that.

She had been so clear on the distance that needed to be maintained between them. Of course he would not wish to unburden himself to her. But she could not leave him. She felt pulled towards him in that moment. His sorrow was like a cord that demanded she go forth, hand over hand, and drag him from the mire.

She knew that look.

It had been on her face as she sat in windowsills, looking out at the dark night, desperately watching the stars, her hand pressed against the cold panes, wishing beyond hope that the melancholy in her heart would cease, as would the longing for her mother who had left her in an unfriendly world.

He looked like how she had felt.

It made no sense. After all, he was Lord Zephyr Briarwood. She tilted her head to the side. “I understand that I have not made it easy, what is between us. But I think you should tell me what is amiss. Or I can send for your mother. You could tell—”

“Don’t do that, or my brothers either, any of my family,” he rushed, his eyes flaring.

“Why not?” she queried. “I thought you were so certain about love. And your loving family surely counts in that too—”

“I am,” he bit out before he drove a hand through his already wild hair. “And one of the parts of love is understanding that you must not always make your family worry about you.”

She swallowed, studying him carefully. “That doesn’t sound right. Surely they are there to worry about you. I don’t have family, so I can’t know. But if my mother was still alive, I would want to take care of her if she was so very sad.”

He shook his head. “It’s not like that. It can’t be like that. I will pull them all down, you see. There’s no real reason for my sorrow. It’s absolutely absurd. I shouldn’t feel this way at all.”

“Is there a way we are supposed to feel?”

He let out a hollow laugh. “When you’re a Briarwood? Of course.”

“And how is that?”

He frowned. “Grateful. Damned grateful. For we are the luckiest in the land.”

There wasn’t a trace of irony in his comment. He meant it.

“I thought the play would help,” he ventured. “Help me know you and help me…not feel this thing that claws at my insides so intensely.”

She blinked at his words. He was so sincere and so clearly disappointed in what he felt that he saw it as a personal failing.

He snorted. “It makes no rhyme or reason. I haven’t justification to feel as I do. I am privileged beyond measure. And yet, when this time of year comes…” He stopped and dragged his gaze back to the window as if the winter had a hold over him that he could not shake. He winced and returned his gaze to her. “Look, you should turn about and leave me.”

“Leave you,” she echoed. “How could I leave you when you are in pain?”

“Because the pain will not stop just because you are here,” he said honestly.

She shook her head and took a step towards him. “All the more reason for me not to go,” she replied.

“I don’t follow,” he said.

She tilted her head to the side, determined to help him see. “Well, you are trying to protect me from your suffering, which I think is rather silly. I’m not going to experience your suffering. I might be sad for you, but it’s not contagious.”

“It might be,” he growled, arching a brow.

She fidgeted with her notebook, trying to know what to do or what to say to him. She had been walking the halls, contemplating her lessons while the children were having their late evening meal with their nursemaids.

And she’d been thinking of how best to excite them about science. She wanted to explore seashells with them, hoping to spark interest in the ocean and its cycle. But this somehow seemed far more important, in the moment.

She shoved all logic aside, something that she would usually never do, but the feeling inside her was so powerful. Again that powerful longing that she’d been able to help her mother more filled her heart. Perhaps she could not help her mother. But perhaps she could do something for someone now, when she could not have done it when she was small.

“Tell me,” she said, “why are you staring out the windows?”

He scowled, but it was not anger on his face. It was dismay. “Because I don’t know what to do when I feel like this. I don’t want to bring others down, so it really would be best if you—”

“No, it wouldn’t be best,” she countered. “Perhaps it would be best for you—”

“What?” he blurted, indignant.

“You’re clearly uncomfortable with me witnessing your pain.”

He frowned at her. “That is likely correct. I don’t want to cause you suffering.”

“It is too late for me to unknow your circumstances. I know that you are feeling unwell, and I will not feel better until you feel better.”

“That sounds terribly unhealthy,” he replied with narrowed eyes.

She laughed. “Perhaps it is. And if I cannot make you feel better, you can at least accept my company, since you don’t wish for your mother or your family—”

“I don’t wish for your company,” he said tightly.

She gave him a wan smile. “Oh, dear. This is the first time I’ve offered it to you and now you’re turning me away. That is so strange, don’t you think?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and lifted his fingers to his temples. “I suppose so, but I don’t like the fact that you wish to be with me to pull me out of my misery. I wish you would want to be with me to…”

“To what?” she asked, her cheeks beginning to burn.

“To feel my love.”

“Love,” she whispered before licking her lips. “I know that you’re insistent upon its existence. Your Aunt Estella is insistent upon its existence. I think this entire house is insistent upon its existence. But if you will not allow me to help you, how can you believe that love exists? Or that you could feel any love for me, or I for you, for that matter?”

He swallowed. “You have a dreadfully interesting intellect.”

“Well, if you wish to spend time with me, you should be aware of that, shouldn’t you?”

He gave her a reluctant inclination of his head, which caused his thick locks to dance boyishly against his forehead. “I suppose so.”

“Tell me more about this,” she said, entering the room farther and gesturing towards him. “Tell me about why this happens to you.”

His face twisted into a perplexed mask that still managed to be ridiculously handsome. “I don’t know, quite honestly. Probably the weather,” he laughed. “It is England after all.”

She laughed again, something she seemed more likely to do with him. “I had similar thoughts the other day, but it doesn’t do to me what it seems to do to you. I always try to make the best of it.”

He frowned, his shoulders sinking. “Yes, so do I. I’ve tried many things. Long walks out in the cold. I’ve even tried ice baths. Leander swears by cold water for his ill health.”

“Is your brother, the duke, in ill health?” she inquired. She’d noticed the duke could be quite odd and very intense, but he seemed in robust health.

“Not exactly,” he said. “He has turns that are rather difficult. And the family all understands and appreciates him exactly the way he is.”

“As they appreciate you,” she ventured. “So, you shouldn’t hide yourself from them.”

“There’s that intellect again,” he said, his brows drawing together. But then he shook his head. “Leander can’t help it when he becomes the way he does sometimes. Surely I should be able to help it,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Can you hear yourself?” she asked, astonished. “If your brother cannot help it, why should you?”

He threw up his hands and looked about as if the answer was somewhere to hand. “Because I don’t…”

“What?” she asked, unwilling to yield easily to his determination to blame himself.

“You’re making me make a muddle of all of this,” Zephyr said.

“No, I don’t think so,” she mused. “I think I’m pointing out that you’re not very kind to yourself.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Dear God, have you taken a leaf from my mother’s book?”

“I don’t know. Is that something your mother would say?”

“It is,” he said tightly.

She drew her chin back, an idea hitting her. “Is that why you don’t want her company when you’re like this? Because she’ll tell you the truth and it’s unpleasant for you?”

“Perhaps,” he allowed, even though it appeared painful to him.

“I would imagine,” she said, “that love, if it is really love at all, is not all pleasant. One must tell the other the truth from time to time.”

“Be careful,” he warned softly.

“Why?” she queried.

He was quiet for a moment, then, in a voice that was deep and full of wisdom, he replied, “If you believe that truth is love, I might tell you some things that you won’t like to hear.”

“Ah, misdirection,” she said, ignoring the insinuation about love and the two of them. She wouldn’t touch that if her life depended on it. “I applaud you for it. You are trying to distract me from you. It won’t work, you know. I’m only in this room because of you.”

He laughed again, but it was a low half groan. “Oh, Miss Abbot…”

“Giselle,” she corrected before she could stop herself. “In this moment, you may call me Giselle.”

“In this moment,” he replied, his gaze darkening with an emotion that was not just sorrow. “Does that mean when we leave the music room, you should be Miss Abbot again?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“For what?”

“Coming in when you saw that I was melancholy.”

“Of course,” she said. “We should all help each other when we are melancholy.”

“Did no one help you?” he asked carefully.

It was her turn to feel uncomfortable, and she winced inwardly. “Well, Miss Abelard tried,” she said honestly, “but it was difficult because no one really understood me. I lived such a strange life in Europe. A school mistress could not truly understand it. I think your Aunt Estella understands, which was a revelation. I’ve never had that experience before of being able to share my odd upbringing with anyone, and I’m deeply grateful for it.”

“I’m glad,” he said, clearly sincere.

“And it’s really all because of you,” she said, with a sudden touch of annoyance.

“Is it?” he asked, the edge of his mouth curling into a pleased grin, despite his melancholy.

“Yes,” she rushed. “Because of the silly thing you have about me, this insistence that you care about me, and that we should…”

“What?” he prompted, taking a step towards her.

She cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t know what entirely.”

“Fall in love?” he suggested, his voice a delicious rumble.

She laughed to cover the sudden shock racing inside her. “Ridiculous.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible?” he asked, seemingly undeterred.

“Oh, anything, I suppose, is possible if you but believe hard enough,” she replied. And then, dear heaven, her resistance began to crumble. “If you but wish hard enough,” she finished.

“Then believe,” he said softly. “And it will be more than a wish.”

“I’m scared to believe,” she confessed, half of her yearning to escape this deeply dangerous conversation, the other half longing to launch herself across the room.

But she was not here for her comfort right now. She was here for his. So, she held out her hand to him, determined to help him since he helped so many others in this house.

He crossed to her and took her hand gently.

And at his touch, her entire body seemed to startle, and her notebook fluttered open as it fell to the floor.

A piece of paper tumbled out, coming to rest beside the leather volume. She let out a gasp. “Oh, no,” she cried out.

And before she could say more or move, he had bent down and picked it up.

He stared at it carefully. “What is this?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“It is not nothing,” he said. “It is music.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, her heart now skipping beats. “Now please give it back.”

“I shall,” he replied, “if you play it for me.”

She narrowed her gaze. “That is blackmail.”

He waggled his brows at her, even though he looked melancholic still. “That is a tactic,” he said, “to get what one wants.”

“And what is it exactly that you want?”

“To know you,” he said simply. “All of you, even the parts you hide away.”

She stared at him. Her heart… Oh, her heart jumped in her chest, doing the most confusing of things. It wanted to be free, her dratted heart.

She could feel it then. How she wanted to let it…

“I will only play it for you,” she returned, “if it will make you feel better. Will it?”

“No,” he replied evenly. “But I ask you to play it anyway.”

She laughed then, unable to be angry with him. “You are impossible.”

“Yes,” he replied, his eyes still dark with shadows, but they did not look quite so sad as before. “Yet you are still here.”

What could she say? She had come here to help him. And if playing her music would help, well, how could she say no?

“That I am,” she agreed. And she knew that she had already broken her vow. She was entwined with him, for good or ill, and there was no going back.