Chapter 36
GIDEON
James’s carriage was already at the front of the house, his trunk loaded, his coachman waiting.
They had been at it since breakfast.
“Come with me,” James said, pulling on his gloves.
“We have been over this time and again.”
“And we will keep going over it. I will bug you about it when I am back in London. She is not settled, Gideon. Frances’s letters make that plain. She is miserable in London, and at least some of that misery is on your account. That is worth acting on.”
“She asked for space. I am giving her space.”
“Three weeks of it. At some point space sends a message of its own, and not the one you intend.”
“And turning up uninvited sends a different message entirely. That I cannot respect what she asked for.” Gideon shook his head. “If I go to London she will think I followed her. She will feel crowded. Whatever ground might still exist between us, I will have trampled it.”
“Or she will see a man who cares enough to come after her, and that will be what shifts it.”
“You do not know that.”
“Neither do you. That is rather my point.” James picked up his hat. “You cannot stay here indefinitely. This has to resolve itself one way or another.”
“I know that. But the resolution has to come from her. She left. She has to decide whether she is coming back.” Gideon looked at him. “I am not going to chase a woman who has not indicated she wants to be chased.”
James was quiet for a moment. “And if she is waiting for exactly that? If she needs to see that you will fight for this?”
“Then she can say so. I have told her plainly that I love her. I have told her I am not giving up. What I will not do is show up in London and confirm every fear she has about men who do not listen to what a woman tells them she needs.”
James let out a sigh. “You are stubborn and you are wrong,” he said. “I say that as your closest friend.”
“Noted.”
“When she comes back, I intend to say I told you so at considerable length.”
“I look forward to it.”
James clapped him on the shoulder, went down the front steps, and climbed into his carriage. He leaned out of the window. “Write to her at least.”
“I will think about it.”
The carriage pulled away.
Gideon stood on the steps until it had gone around the bend. Then he went around to the stable yard.
Ruby was in her pen. She looked up at the sound of his boots and made the short enquiring sound that by now meant she had identified him and was prepared to be civil about it.
He reached in and lifted her out, clipping the small lead to her collar.
She walked beside him with the air of an animal who has made her peace with human peculiarities up to a reasonable point.
He sat on the low wall and let her investigate the ground around his boots.
The house behind him was very quiet.
He had thought James’s visit would produce either a plan or some clarity. Instead they had covered the same ground every evening for four days and arrived back where they started every time, and nothing had been settled at all.
The trouble was that neither of them was entirely wrong, and both of them knew it.
He let Ruby walk the length of her lead and back. She was good at it now. He had imagined Lavinia’s face when she saw it. He had been looking forward to a great many things that had not happened.
What he kept coming back to was this: Helena had never said she did not love him. She had talked about the agreement, the arrangement, the practical nature of it. But she had not looked him in the eye and said she felt nothing. He had played every conversation back and she had not said it.
He was not imagining that.
He thought about Cassandra, and how she had kept him in uncertainty. The endless waiting for her to return, for her to wake up and realize Gideon was what she needed, what she’d wanted – not the Italian. The hoping for something that was never coming. He had sworn he would never allow it again.
He picked up Ruby and carried her back to her crate. Latched the door.
He was not going to sit here.
He went inside, called for his horse, and rode out at a pace that surprised even himself.
* * *
He caught the carriage at the edge of the village, parked in front of Mrs. Baker’s bakery.
“I knew it,” James said. He hadn’t yet entered the bakery and was standing outside the door.
“You knew nothing. I changed my mind independently.”
“I see. Well, it is fortunate then that I have a sweet tooth and had a desire to stop, then. I wanted some pie for the road. Come in with me and tell me how you so independently changed your mind while I select a pie.”
Mrs. Baker was behind the counter. She looked up, and her expression moved through surprise into something more complicated.
“Your Grace. I had heard there was some difficulty between yourself and Her Grace. I hope things are not as bad as they are saying.”
“Things are not entirely straightforward,” Gideon said. “But I am on my way to London to speak to her.”
Mrs. Baker pressed both hands flat on the counter.
“I am very glad to hear it. I truly am. I thought the two of you were the finest pair I had seen in a long while, standing here arguing about my pies.” She shook her head.
“Mr. Baker and I have been at it thirty-one years. I will tell you what I tell every young person who comes in here looking miserable about their marriage. It is never easy. Not once has it been easy. But you do not stop trying. That is all it is.”
“That is what I intend to do,” Gideon said.
“Good.” She turned and lifted a box from the shelf behind her.
“Then take this. I baked it this morning and I think it was meant for you.” She set it on the counter and opened the lid.
“I had a thought after the vote. The rhubarb did not do well on its own and the apple won as it always will. But I wondered what if the two together made something better than either one alone.” She looked at him.
“Rhubarb apple. It is the best thing I have made in some years, if I do say so.”
Gideon looked at the pie. Then at James, who was already reaching for his wallet.
They left with ten pies loaded into the footwell of the carriage with more care than most cargo received.
“Ten,” Gideon said, as the carriage pulled away.
“Mrs. Baker was very persuasive,” James said. “And I have been eating your cook’s food for four days.” He looked out the window as Haslington receded behind them. “Besides. If the reunion does not go well, at least we will have something to eat.”
Gideon looked at the top box. Rhubarb apple.
He settled back as the carriage turned onto the London road, and felt, for the first time in three weeks, something other than the hollow quiet of Blackthorne behind him.