Page 30 of The Mistress (Foxgloves #1)
GIDEON
“ G ideon, what are you doing here?” Genevieve looked up from the book she was reading in the library of Birmingham Estate. “I wasn’t expecting you home for some weeks yet. You didn’t mention anything in your letter.”
Mrs. Potters quietly stood and excused herself from beside Genevieve with a small curtsy to Gideon. He strode further into the comforting room with its three walls covered fully in floor to high-ceilinged bookshelves and rolling ladders. The only break in the rows of books were the two large windows on one wall and the door on the wall opposite. The fourth wall near where Genevieve sat held a fireplace with a crackling fire and an array of beautiful paintings.
Gideon approached his sister and took Mrs. Potters’s vacated seat next to her.
“I’m just here for a day or two,” he told her, leaning back and trying to appear nonchalant. “I came to see how you were faring.”
“I think a letter would have sufficed to that end,” Genevieve eyed him suspiciously. He withstood her scrutiny, not particularly enjoying how her silent, critical observations felt like she could see through the lies he layered on thickly – mostly for his own sake.
“Are you alright, Gideon?” she finally asked, closing her book and leaning forward to place it on the table while still keeping her eyes on him.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
She paused before answering matter-of-factly, “Because you’re not. What’s wrong?”
A maid interrupted them at that moment, bringing in tea for the returned duke without either of them having called for it. His household was pleased to see him. He, too, was relieved to be home, but he couldn’t deny how ill at ease he also felt. As if he shouldn’t be here. He was too far. From Amelia.
Gideon couldn’t go near her, though. He needed to push through and get used to this feeling until it left him entirely.
Once they were alone, Genevieve poured two cups of tea, handing him one before leaning back with her own. She took a sip before pushing again. “Tell me, Gideon. You came back all this way because something is wrong.”
“It’s not anything you need to concern yourself with, Genevieve,” he sipped from his own cup, avoiding her eye.
She was right, of course, though he wouldn’t admit it. He came back here to see her. For himself. It was the only thing he could think of that would help him feel better, even remotely.
“I am your sister, Gideon,” her voice took on a fraught quality at the edges, forcing him to look at her. “Please let me be here for you.”
He assessed her and understood what she was asking. With his absence and their parents’ interference, they were never given the opportunity to rely on each other as siblings might. As Amelia and her sister did. As Amelia and Thomas did. Because he finally recognized that relationship for what it actually was instead of what was convenient for him.
He swallowed. He missed Amelia. And envied her relationships with her family.
But maybe he and Genevieve could still have that. Or their own version of it. It was just them now. No one else clouding it with their hatred and neglect. Rejecting their love because it wasn’t enough. They could be their own people. Figure out who they were. Figure out what their family looked and felt like from now on.
“You’re so young, though,” he voiced his argument with himself out loud.
Genevieve scoffed in a particularly unladylike manner. “Well, while I may not meet the age requirement one needs to function as a sister, let’s give it a try, shall we? See if I can somehow manage it at my tender, tender age.”
He rolled his eyes, and it felt good. He enjoyed seeing her sarcastic side, giving him a hard time. It had taken significant time after he’d returned from his travels for her to let out that part of her personality, and she still only did so sparingly.
Gideon had done the right thing, coming to see her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he’d feel even better if he talked to her.
Sighing, he set down his tea and said, “I made a right mess of things.”
Genevieve didn’t say anything when he paused, just looked at him expectantly. Encouragingly. So, he continued while she sipped from her cup.
“There is a woman,” he pushed past the blockage in his throat. “I hurt her. Very deeply. I tried….” He adjusted his seat to distract himself from the shame. He didn’t want to share that shame with Genevieve. His sister, who had been failed time and again. He didn’t want her to know she had a failure for a brother, too.
Still, she kept silent when he didn’t continue. She just waited, which prompted him to finish his thought.
He rubbed one hand over his face, not meeting her eyes as he confessed, “I tried to be with her in only the way that suited me. I vowed I would take care of her, and then I disregarded her completely for my own stubborn beliefs and selfish desires.” He shook his head, remembering, before he leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and hold his head in his hands. He continued, speaking to the floor, “I made her less. I disrespected her. I insulted her. I took what the gossips said about her and believed it, even with all the evidence to the contrary that was before me.”
He paused, forcing his head out of his hands and clasping them under his chin. “All because it was convenient. It served my needs. I….” Taking a deep breath, he said the difficult thing that no one else would understand except his sister. “I became like our father.”
Gideon dropped his clasped hands from his face, letting them fall between his knees as he hung his head. He waited for Genevieve’s judgement. Her hatred.
“And now?” was all she asked.
He paused, shaking his head. Taking a deep breath, he sat up and fell back against the dark green, cushioned seat.
“Now, nothing,” he admitted, staring at the bookshelves opposite him and still avoiding his sister’s gaze. The disappointment and loathing he’d find there. He could see her watching him out of the corner of his eye, her tea forgotten in her lap. He continued, “I’m doing everything I can to fix her reputation, which has worked easily enough. A few well-placed and well-circulated conversations, the help of the staff, the use of my own influence. It all put everything straight quickly enough. Her guardian is also doing his part, which should put the last of the rumors safely to bed for good.”
“What about you and her , Gideon?” Genevieve clarified, her voice somewhat sharper.
“There is no me and her,” he ground out.
“You love her.” It was a statement.
He shook his head. “I don’t believe in love.”
“It’s not that you don’t believe in love. You’ve just never seen it before,” Genevieve corrected him. “That’s also why you can’t identify it in yourself.”
“That’s not —.”
“Do you love me?” she cut him off.
“What?” His head turned to her automatically. “Of course, I do,” he answered.
He couldn’t find the disgust he was expecting anywhere in her gaze. No, she only raised her eyebrow and pushed, “But you don’t believe in love. How can you love me if you don’t believe in it?”
“That’s different. You are my sister.”
She gave a pensive nod, finally leaning forward to discard her cup on the small table. “You know, our father didn’t believe in love,” she spoke thoughtfully, hands clasped in her lap. “He didn’t love our mother, you, or me. We were his family. His children. And all of us withered under that disbelief. Mother died. You left. I retreated into myself. And yet, with him and his disregard gone, you and I have been…” she gave a delicate shrug. “Well, maybe not thriving yet, but we’ve been rebuilding. And somehow, you love me. Having never seen it before or ‘believed’ in it, as you say, you still somehow feel it for me. And I for you. And things are getting better for us because of it.
“If you truly didn’t believe in love, sister or not, I don’t think you would love me. Our father didn’t, and I was his daughter. You were his son. I do not think you disbelieve in love. I think you’re scared of it. Of it not being enough. Because it wasn’t enough for father to love you back. Or for mother to care for you or live. We both know what it looks and feels like to be near someone who doesn’t believe or have an ounce of love in them. That’s not you, brother. I think you love deeply. Deeper than you can manage. And I think you’re terrified it still won’t be enough. But it is. It is for me. And I am sure it is for her.”
His chest hollowed out as he looked away unseeingly into the library. He was still that little boy, unsure and confused, pulling out pieces of himself over and over and over, hoping for a smile from his heartbroken mother. Maybe one more piece, maybe the right piece, maybe just a little more, and she would be happy. She would smile. She would light up his whole world. He just had to give her some more. More of his love. His energy. Himself.
Amelia had seen that little boy. He’d shown him to her. All the broken, rotten, scarred pieces of who he still was. And she had embraced him. Of course, Genevieve was right. Amelia had already shown him his affections were enough. He was enough, exactly how he was.
Genevieve, his sixteen-year-old sister, wasn’t done destroying him with a wisdom she shouldn’t have been forced to possess at such a young age.
“You haven’t become our father, Gideon. Not yet. You are allowed to make mistakes. Terrible, heartbreaking mistakes. You are allowed to be imperfect. But it’s the choice you make next that matters. Will you make it right? And I don’t mean her reputation. Will you bring my sister-in-law home and love her? Allow her to love you? Allow us to be the family we never had? Or will you let her heart stay broken until you both wither under the disbelief you’re forcing upon yourself?”
Gideon said nothing. He couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know.
“It’s your choice , Gideon,” her voice was comforting and strong. “You can choose to be him. Or you can choose not to. Choose to be different. The way you chose to love me.”