Chapter 26 Sebastian
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SEBASTIAN
Icouldn’t remember a worse Christmas.
The incident with Lily had already cast a pall over the holidays and I had this niggling sense of dread that wouldn’t abate.
It was like waiting for medical test results.
When I returned to Edinburgh, would I still have Lily, or would she choose to walk away?
What would I do if she did? Because at this point, it would be like losing a limb.
Then there were my bloody parents.
Mum was surprisingly taciturn. Not in an unpleasant way but in a distracted, preoccupied way.
She didn’t complain about Dad once. The royal estate wasn’t far from ours, so Mum left for church on Christmas morning to spend it with my grandmother, my great-aunt, and the entourage of princes and princesses who were my cousins.
I’d spoken to my grandmother that morning on the phone and she’d asked me to come to church and Christmas lunch with the family at the Hillingham House, the royal estate.
I’d told her I’d promised to spend Christmas morning with my father.
“A bad business that.” Granny had sighed heavily in response. “I do wish your parents would stop being so moronic.”
I’d snorted unhappily. “Me too, Granny. Me too.”
It was a relief to leave the house without Mum watching us go. To know that she was preoccupied with the family while we visited with Dad. Juno and I didn’t have to deal with watery eyes or pinched lips that made us feel guilty for loving our own father as we stepped out.
“I met someone,” Juno announced abruptly as we got into Mum’s SUV.
I raised an eyebrow. “Met someone, met someone? You?”
My sister’s eyes were comically wide with dazed panic. “I’m as surprised as you are. I think I’m still surprised.”
Confused, I asked, “When? When did you meet this person?”
“Two months ago. At a friend’s dinner party. I thought it was only friendship, but it’s turned into more.”
Hitting uncomfortably close to home with her words, I shifted in the driver’s seat. “I don’t understand. You were set on a life of singledom. Of freedom. Especially after witnessing this rubbish.” I gestured toward the house.
“I … I was.” There was a hesitant silence from my sister before she blurted, “Until I met Leona. That’s a woman’s name, by the way, because she’s a woman.”
I almost hit the brakes. “You’re gay? Since when?”
“I won’t insult you by suggesting that tone is judgmental.”
“It’s not!” I hurried to assure her. “I’m just taken aback. I mean, Juno, you’re not exactly a person who would be concerned with hiding your sexuality. I know more about your sex life than any brother should ever have to.”
Juno gave a bark of laughter. “True. To be honest … I’ve never fancied a girl before Leona. I fell in love with her. She just happens to be a woman.”
My pulse raced a bit. “You’re in love?”
“Weird, isn’t it? But yeah. I was trying to deny it, but I’m totally in love with her and kind of scared shitless but also, like, possibly the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”
Pulling up outside Dad’s cottage, I turned to my sister. She was uncharacteristically threading her fingers nervously together in her lap. “Why do you look so worried about it, then?”
She shrugged. “I’m kind of half expecting you to naysay the whole thing, and the truth is, little brother, your opinion matters to me whether I want it to or not.”
Affection cut through my surprise. I reached over to pull my sister into a tight embrace. “I’m happy for you, Junebug. I will always be happy when you’re happy.”
“Yeah?” Her question was muffled against my chest.
“Always.” I kissed the top of her head and released her. “I don’t ever want you to be afraid to tell me anything.”
She nodded, giving me a small smile. “Thanks. You’re kind of an all-right brother, you know that?”
I chuckled, pleased. “So … when do I get to meet Leona?”
“I really wanted to bring her home for Christmas, but with our parents acting like imbeciles, that was impossible. And she gets it. So … I was thinking I could bring her to your Hogmanay party?”
“Of course. I can’t wait to meet her.” I meant it.
However, I felt a little unsteady as I got out of the SUV. Like something set in stone had freed itself and left the ground beneath me unsettled.
“Don’t tell Mum and Dad yet. I don’t want their bullshit to ruin anything.”
“You know they won’t care you’re dating a woman.”
“Mum might. She has her heart set on you marrying Lady Whatshername and me Lord Whathisfuckingface so she can return to Aunty Anne’s inner fold. Still strange that Aunty Anne’s queen.” Juno wrinkled her nose. “Our relatives are really weird.”
I wrapped my arm around her as we walked to Dad’s door. “Yes, they are. But Mum will get over her ambitions when she sees how happy you are. She told me if I was gay, she’d support me.”
“Did she? When did she? Why did she? Never mind. It’s different with her and me. Do you remember that speech she gave two years ago about how I needed to give her grandchildren someday because sons notoriously allowed their wives to push the son’s parents out of the grandparental bubble?”
“Being gay doesn’t mean you’re suddenly unable to provide grandchildren.”
“Yes, but Leona doesn’t want children.”
“What age is Leona?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind.”
“This is a stupidly big conversation to be having. Let’s reconcile ourselves with the idea that your commitment-phobic sister is in love. Yes?”
Nodding on a still slightly stunned smile, I agreed.
Dad opened the door, ending the conversation. “Come in, come in.” He gestured us inside, already walking away. “Happy Christmas and all that blasted nonsense.”
Juno and I exchanged a grim look.
Happy Christmas, indeed.
“He’s drinking too much,” Juno observed as I drove us back to the house.
“I know,” I replied darkly.
It wasn’t yet one in the afternoon and Dad was drunk.
And bitter.
And sarcastic.
And generally unpleasant to be around.
Juno and I made our excuses to leave after brunch, which consisted of burnt toast and fried eggs.
“We need to do something.”
“I know that too.” The reality of my father’s drinking, however, was so big, so heavy, I didn’t even know where to start.
Mum returned home about an hour after we did, and I saw her note the grim atmosphere between us. But unlike the mother I’d grown up with who wouldn’t settle until she’d fixed every single one of our problems, I saw her silently question what had happened … then bury her head in the sand about it.
Instead, she enlisted us in making dinner and chatted away to us about Penelope Chiltworth, a nineteen-year-old home from St. Andrews University for Christmas.
“That’s not far from Edinburgh. And she was very pretty. Her mother is Lady Pillbroke. Daughter of the Earl of Kennilston.”
“I don’t care, Mother,” I’d muttered under my breath.
She either didn’t hear me or ignored me.
“And, Juno, Lord Thirsk was at the church service this morning. Did you know his eldest son is getting divorced? Very handsome man. And no children.”
“Isn’t he forty?”
“A very fit and handsome forty.”
I caught Juno’s eye. Tell her, my expression said. My sister shook her head frantically, nonverbally threatening me to keep my mouth shut.
Per her wishes, I let my mother torture us both with long-winded speeches about the wonderful attributes of aristocratic strangers she felt compelled to foist upon us.
It might have been a nice reprieve to have Dad show up out of the blue. If it wasn’t so bloody horrible. We were halfway through the turkey dinner when Dad burst into the house. Still drunk. And apparently ready to fight.
He strode into the dining room, angrily observing the beautifully laid table.
Mum shot out of her chair. “What are you doing here?”
Dad yanked off his coat and scarf. “Having Christmas bloody dinner in my house,” he announced belligerently as he swayed on his feet.
“Paul, are you drunk?” Mum glowered at him. “Again?”
“I’ve had a tipple. What are we eating?” He pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Get out!”
“Mumsy.” Juno threw her a pleading look. “Please let him stay.”
“No, I will not. Get out of this house, Paul.”
“This house is mine!” he yelled back, his face suddenly mottled with rage. “Just because you’ve allowed that bitch to twist your mind with her lies doesn’t mean I get to lose everything!”
I tensed at this sudden window into what was between them. “What’s he talking about?” I asked Mum.
Her face bleached of color. “Nothing.” She primly sat back down. “You can stay if you’ll shut up.”
“Shut up?” Dad laughed bitterly. “Why? Hmm?” He turned to us now. “Do you want to know why your mother upended all of our lives?”
“Paul—”
“Because Gemma—”
“Paul, don’t—”
“An old flame of mine, bumped into your mother last winter and said, I quote, ‘It’s awfully good of you to forgive Paul for our little affair when we were younger.’”
Betrayal and anger rushed through me. “You didn’t?”
Dad slapped a hand on the table, so hard cutlery bounced. “I didn’t! I dated that witch before I met your mother! Nothing happened after!”
“What about the letter? That letter you always told me meant nothing!” Mum cried.
“Because it did!” Dad pushed back from the table, veins popping in his head, spittle flying from his mouth as he roared, “I wrote that letter before I even met you! When I thought Gemma was a good person!”
“Dad, stop yelling,” I demanded quietly.
“Stop yelling?” he huffed. “Your mother chose to believe that woman’s lies over your father.
She threw me out of my own life without a discussion.
But yes, let’s mind ourselves not to yell about it.
” He pushed his chair hard against the table, making Juno and my mother flinch.
Then he glared at Mum. “I’m taking my house back.
If you want to leave, you know where the door is. ” With that, he stomped upstairs.
Stunned, I turned to Mum. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I pushed my chair back and rounded the table to pull my mother into my arms. “It’s okay,” I soothed as she clung to me.
“It’s not okay.” Juno’s chair scraped with a squeal against the floor as she stood.
She glowered at Mum.
“Juno—”
My sister ignored my warning tone as Mum pulled from my arms to look at her.
“Please do not tell me that you left Dad based on the word of a woman who clearly has ulterior motives?”
Mum tensed in my arms. “Don’t use that tone, Juno Thorne. You have no idea what you’re talking about. This goes way back.”
“Then explain it to me or I will never talk to you again.”
“Juno,” I growled her name in outrage.
“No. I’m done, Sebastian. If I don’t get answers right now, I’m walking out of here and never coming back.”
Mum straightened, pulling out of my embrace. “Very well.” Her tone was brittle. “Before your father and I married, we split up for a time. I found letters between him and Gemma, his ex-girlfriend.”
“Are we talking about Gemma Hartwright?” Juno gaped.
Mum nodded.
My sister and I exchanged a look. Suddenly, everything was a bit clearer.
Gemma Hartwright was married to a wealthy London financier.
She ran in our parents’ circle, but Mum had been very vocal about how much she didn’t like her.
Dad always seemed weirdly unfriendly around her too.
I remember being at a party when I was fifteen and Mrs. Hartwright telling me I was handsome and Mum pulling me away like the woman had tried to solicit me for sex.
“The letters between your father and Gemma were love letters. Then I caught him in a lie. He’d told me he couldn’t see me one evening because he was working.
So, I went out in the city with friends, and he was there with Gemma.
We split up. But then he told me that Gemma had manipulated him.
That she’d informed him her mother died and she needed someone to talk to.
It turned out to be a lie, a manipulation to try to get him to talk to her so she could win him back.
I was young and in love, so I believed him.
“Then last spring, I was in London and bumped into Gemma. She let it slip that they did have an affair. That your father was confused about whether he was ready to move on from her. He chose me, she said.”
Juno’s cheeks tinged with red, and her eyes blazed with anger. “And you believed that lying, pretentious hag? Everything about that woman is fake, Mother!”
“You don’t understand.” Mum sobbed. I reached for her again and she clung to me as she explained through her tears.
“You don’t understand what it’s like to have these doubts living in the back of your mind for years.
To love someone as much as I love your father and wonder if the person you trust most is capable of deceiving you so badly.
And why would she lie after all these years? No one would do that!”
“Yes, they would. And you’re a faithless idiot for believing her!” Juno yelled, almost a shriek, that shuddered through us both. Then she stormed out, her footsteps stomping through the house until the front door slammed hard behind her.
Mum collapsed against me, her hiccupping cries like a vise around my chest.