Chapter 20 #2
“We did,” she whispered in response, snaking her wrist out of his hold gently, biting her lower lip as she turned to leave. “But it is not friends I need, at the present, Your Grace. As much as I may want them... very much.”
“By the look on your face and your choice of sanctuary this evening... Indeed, you have finally done it.” James said later that day, dropping into the chair opposite Gabriel’s at the club.
Gabriel looked up from his half-empty glass, fingers hovering around the sides as he contemplated the events of the day and more. “What is it I have done?”
“Visited Miss Winthrop.” James signaled for a drink of his own as the porter walked past. “I had dinner at the Warwick house. Tiffany said you were seen calling on the Winthrops with your aunt and a sizable package. What came of the call?”
Leaning back in his seat, Gabriel glanced around the room. They were in one of the gaming rooms at a table in the corner. At the other end of the hall, a group of lords was loudly playing Faro at a baize table under the light of a chandelier.
Gabriel supposed his delayed answer was an answer enough, because James’s expression sharpened, all levity draining out of it.
“You know, I have suspected for some time,” James said, “that whatever was between the two of you was not entirely what it appeared to be to the rest of London. I thought, and then I thought myself mad for thinking it, that it began as some manner of arrangement, rather than a courtship in earnest.”
“A wild tale, to my ear.”
“Is it so wild, so unbelievable? I know you well enough to know you would not entangle yourself with a young, unmarried woman for the jest of it, let alone publicly. And yet your acquaintance did not come out of nowhere, did it? There was that connection, through Lady Chipping, and the incident at the Peachey. My theory was this: you saw an opportunity, and you took it. But I cannot fathom why.” James leaned forward.
“Tell me plainly. Was it real or was it not?”
There was a long silence, in which Gabriel weighed how much of the truth he could afford to hand over. He settled on the version that would not burden Rosalie any more than he already had.
The sight of her with Mr. Sinclair had burned into his eyes.
He closed them, and they were there, like an impression from staring at the sun too long.
He could see what would happen next: the engagement, the announcement, the marriage, their departure from London on some bridal tour that would take Rosalie further away from him than ever before, indelibly marking their separation.
He downed the rest of his drink and set it down, the claret coating his mouth pleasantly but no less bitterly. What was the point in maintaining their charade any longer, when James had figured it out, when Gabriel needed to make his peace with its end?
“It was never real,” he said, the word ‘real’ catching in his throat.
He sensed James stiffen across the table. “But... why?”
“Why did we do it?” A chill ran over Gabriel.
“I did it to provide my aunt some comfort in these years, her last years, and to remove myself from the pool of eligible bachelors this Season. It worked well enough. Elisabeth has been happy, and I have been happy, alone... Miss Winthrop had no part in devising it. She has no idea what I have done.”
The lies came easily. The porter returned with James’s drink, cutting off whatever he had planned to say. Gabriel asked for another glass and pushed himself up from the table to excuse himself to the smoking room in the meantime. James stopped him, rising as well.
“You were playing with her all this time?” James stared at him for a long moment, genuine horror moving across his face.
“You are telling me... that you toyed with that woman’s affections for the better part of two months?
For what? For sport? Your reasons are not sufficient. I have seen you together—”
“And I am telling you what happened.”
James shook his head. “It must be a lie. You would rather I think poorly of you than to think that you could feel genuine affection for her. I cannot believe anything else. It would kill me, for I have known you since we were boys, Gabriel. And if Marcus were here, he would say—”
Gabriel’s blood ran cold in his veins. “This has nothing to do with Marcus,” he said, moving to leave.
“I quite disagree about Marcus, and I am tired of pretending otherwise.” James rose from his chair and stopped him, barring the way out and dropping his voice low.
“You have spent so many years building your life around the idea that wanting things gets them taken from you. Marcus never got the chance to live his life. I know this. It pains me more than...” His eyes shone with tears as he cut himself off.
“That is the tragedy I will spend my life grieving. But you are alive. And you have spent every year behaving as though being alive is some betrayal of Marcus.”
“You have no idea what you are saying,” Gabriel argued, his voice rising. “My brother’s death has nothing to do with my life. I am this way by blood. You know it, and I know it.”
“Living, to be happy, to fall in love, would not be spitting on his memory simply because he never had the chance to grow old.” James’s voice had gone rough.
“You have changed these last two months. Do you know why? Because some part of you has already chosen her, despite this game you tell me you have played. The rest of you is too much of a coward to admit it before you lose her entirely to a better man.”
The blood drained out of Gabriel’s face. If he had not loved James like a brother, he would have struck him and enjoyed it. “At least you are saying the truth now. You think Sinclair is the better man.”
James almost laughed. “That is what you have chosen to hear? Stop this, Gabriel, before it is too late. Have you not considered what it would do to me, to watch you die as a bachelor, and have history repeating itself? You could offer for her tomorrow and settle all of this, but you won’t, and it drives me mad to watch. ”
“Then might I suggest...” Gabriel drew in a shaky breath. “That you stop watching? I have never claimed to want a wife. Why should you believe that has changed?”
“I have told you why, but you are not listening.” James sighed and began buttoning his jacket.
“And if you won’t listen to reason, then listen to this: Cut her loose properly and be as you want to be, then.
God help me, I have chosen how I want to be.
And I intend to enjoy my life without your permission, even while you ruin yours. ”