22. The Perfect Performance #2
Gina returned to the chair by the writing desk, sinking into it once more. The weight of the situation settled over her like a physical burden, pressing down on her shoulders, her chest, making it hard to breathe. “She won’t even see me, will she?”
“Not yet.” Mary followed her across the room but remained standing. “She’s avoiding the house, staying late at the offices, taking her meals at her desk. But she’s also not making any permanent decisions. She’s existing in a kind of suspended state, trying to process everything she’s learned.”
“While I’m trapped here, unable to do anything but wait for her to determine my fate.” Gina’s hands gripped the armrests of the chair.
Mary’s voice softened with sympathy. “I know it’s difficult. But rushing her, pressuring her for a decision, would likely push her toward the very choice you most fear. She needs to come to her own understanding of what this means for both of you.”
Gina nodded slowly, though the acceptance sat bitter in her throat. After years of taking action, of solving problems through planning and effort, this enforced passivity felt like torture. Like drowning slowly while being unable to reach for anything solid.
“Is there nothing I can do? No way to reach her then?”
Mary considered the question for a few seconds, her hand coming to rest on Gina’s shoulder.
“Perhaps… a letter? Not pleading or demanding, just… explaining what you couldn’t say that night in Yorkshire.
Let her read your words when she’s ready, without the pressure of having to respond immediately. ”
Gina’s hand moved instinctively to her chest, pressing against the inner pocket of her waistcoat where a folded paper had rested all the way from Yorkshire. Words written in the depths of that first terrible night, when the reality of losing Kate had felt too immense to contain.
She looked up at Mary, “You think she would read it?”
“I think she’s desperate to understand, even if she’s afraid of what that understanding might cost her. A letter would give her the chance to process your explanations privately, without having to manage her immediate emotional responses.”
Gina’s throat tightened. She closed her eyes, the thought of such complete vulnerability terrifying her.
But what choice did she have? Her hand went to her waistcoat again, fingers finding the edge of the folded paper.
She drew it out slowly—creased, softened from being carried against her heart—and held it for a moment before extending it toward Mary.
“Will you ensure it reaches her?”
Mary took the letter carefully. “You’ve already written it.”
“That night. After I told her the truth. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t… I just wrote.” Gina sighed.
“Then I’ll see that she receives it.” Mary studied Gina’s face for a long moment, seeing the real trace of her pain and exhaustion. “Will you eat something now? You need to keep your strength.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Gina—”
“I’ll eat later.” Gina’s voice sounded tired. “I simply wish to lay down now. I haven’t slept well these past days.”
Mary looked like she wanted to argue, but she simply nodded. She headed for the door but stopped before getting out.
“For what it’s worth, I believe she wants to forgive you. The love I saw in her eyes… that doesn’t disappear overnight. But she needs to find her own way to accepting this new truth. And you need to give her the space to do that, no matter how much it hurts.”
“I will,” Gina whispered. “I don’t have any other choice.”
Mary unlocked the door and walked out.
After she left, Gina stood up and locked the door again.
Then, she moved quickly and mechanically, removing the male attire and letting each piece fall wherever it landed. The binding came off in rough, impatient pulls, leaving angry red marks across her ribs that she didn’t acknowledge this time.
She crossed to the washbasin and poured water from the pitcher, scrubbing her face and private parts with rough, superficial movements. There was no care or tenderness in the way she washed. Only the need to finish cleaning the dust and the sweat from her body.
When she was done, she pulled on a nightshirt and moved to the bed. She didn’t bother with the covers, simply collapsed face-down onto the mattress, burying her face in the sheets.
And there, finally alone, for the fourth consecutive night, she let the full weight of her loss oppress her until she was so tired that she fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
The next morning brought the usual calm after a big storm. Jason stood at the study window, arms crossed, watching the back garden with what might have appeared to an observer as tranquil contemplation. He was dressed impeccably again. The gentleman restored, the mask firmly in place.
But beneath all of that, impatience thrummed through him like a taut wire.
His jaw was tight enough to ache, his shoulders held so rigid they burned.
The only sound in the room was the steady ticking of the mantel clock, each second marking time that felt simultaneously too slow and too fast, dragging through the present while hurtling toward some unpredictable conclusion.
Outside, the breeze stirred the leaves of the old oak tree, their rustling creating a soft, almost healing music. A robin hopped along the garden path. Peaceful. Ordinary. The kind of morning that should have brought comfort but instead felt like mockery.
A knock sounded at the door but he didn’t hear it, too lost in his vigil at the window, watching that robin as if it might carry an answer in its little beak.
The door opened anyway and Mary stepped inside, closing it quietly behind her. She took in his rigid posture, the way he stared out at nothing with the intensity of a man watching for ships that would never come to port, and her expression softened with concern.
“Sir,” she said gently.
He turned, the movement too quick, too eager. “Mary,” he said, somewhat startled. “Is there news?”
Mary crossed the room, her hands folded at her waist in that proper way she had. But her eyes carried too much sympathy.
“Mrs. Moore-Sullivan has sent a message,” she said quietly.
Jason’s face hardened instantly. “She’s read the letter?”
Mary shook her head subtly. “She didn’t mention the letter. But she has made… a request. About your schedules at the shipping offices.”
“What kind of request?” In his voice the fear coursing beneath the quite exterior was noticeable.
“She proposes that you alternate days at the offices. She would take Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You would take Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.” Mary paused, watching his face. “This way, the business operations can continue without…”
She let the sentence hang, but they both knew what went unsaid: without having to see each other. Without the risk of encountering you. Without having to face what you are.
“Without awkward encounters,” Mary finished at last, interrupting the escalation of his thoughts.
Jason stared at her for a moment. Kate wasn’t planning to expose him, if she were, she wouldn’t be concerned with maintaining business operations or scheduling arrangements.
But she also wasn’t ready for reconciliation.
She was systematically organizing their lives to ensure they could avoid each other indefinitely.
A lifetime of this. Passing like ghosts through the same house, working in the same offices but never at the same time, existing in parallel lives that would never touch again.
“Did she say anything else?” he asked.
Mary hesitated, pressing her lips together before answering, “she asked that you avoid her entirely. Both inside and outside the house. She said…”
She paused for a second, inhaling deeply.
“She said she needs more time to think, and that your presence makes clear thinking impossible.”
Kate hadn’t rejected him outright, but she couldn’t bear to be in the same room with him. The letter he had poured his heart into had changed nothing.
“I see,” he managed. “And you told her I would agree to these arrangements?”
“I told her I would deliver the message. The response is yours to give.”
Jason looked out the window again at the beautiful, peaceful garden, watching the leaves of the tree sway slowly against the morning breeze, as if they somehow had a magical solution to offer to this new life of his.
The performance they were creating was indeed flawless, too flawless, perhaps.
They could continue this way indefinitely, two people sharing a name and a house but never a moment of actual contact.
But was this what Kate wanted? A lifetime of avoidance? Or was she simply buying time to decide whether their marriage could survive the truth? And if it couldn’t—if she decided she couldn’t live with what he was—what then?
“Tell her I agree to her terms,” he said finally. “Whatever she needs.”
Mary nodded, but the sadness has already took hold of her. She turned to go.
“Mary?”
She stopped immediately and looked at him. “Yes, sir?”
Jason’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, but he blinked them away. He swallowed with difficulty, a gesture that contorted Mary’s face.
“Thank you… for everything. I don’t know what would become of my existence without you.”
The softness of the smile that showed on Mary’s face was answer enough. But then she did speak.
“You have given me more purpose than anything else in this life,” she said with too much emotion.
“Since you were born—and throughout these last ten years—helping you become the person you needed to be, watching you survive when the world would have destroyed you… there has been no greater privilege for me.”
She paused, stifling a sob that threatened to break free at all costs.
“No matter what happens next, no matter what Mrs. Moore-Sullivan decides, no matter who learns the truth—I’m still on your side. I would do it all again. Every risk, every lie, every moment of fear. I could not regret a single day with you, even if it cost me my life.”