Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
She met his gaze. Instead of the anger he would’ve preferred, he read hopelessness. “Nothing says we must continue living under the same roof. If I’ve lost my publishing house, I may as well travel. My father always wanted me to travel. I have the money. I can do a world tour.”
“As I’ve already stated,” he began, annunciating each word, “you will not lose your bloody publishing house.” He turned and gripped the cold brass door lever.
He could not resist one last glance at her over his shoulder.
She looked so beautiful, standing stock still in the center of the room, hair hanging slightly askew, wearing one of her new gowns that fit her to perfection—gowns which he had purchased for her.
He would purchase a hundred more. He would acquire every publishing house in London.
He would give her whatever she wished to make certain she never regretted her decision to marry him. “I will see you tonight.”
The weary smile she sent him did not reach her eyes. “Goodbye, Gideon.”
Everything in him railed at the finality of her words.
“I will see you tonight,” he repeated, then he left, telling himself when he returned, bringing word that he’d secured her business for her, once and for all, everything would be fine.
They could go on as normal, just as if this God-forsaken conversation had never taken place.
Gwen stared at the closed door for, she didn’t know how long.
Gideon did not love her. She had hoped beyond hope he would admit to having at least some tender feelings for her. She’d even dared to share her heart with him. He’d only scoffed.
At once, her path forward became clear—thanks to her past. She’d loved a man, and had friendship without passion.
The arrangement had satisfied neither of them.
Now a future loomed with passion—temporary, if Gideon’s claim was anything to go by—and one-sided love.
She could not stomach it. She had settled once. Never again.
She would do what had never come naturally to her: Let go—of Gideon and her dreams of love, and her publishing house. She would travel. Maybe, afterward, she would buy a cottage by the sea. In Brighton, perhaps, and her friends could come and visit.
She would heal, just like, apparently, all of Gideon’s other cast-offs had. Did he even realize what nonsense he spouted?
A burst of anger surged through her. She would leave, but not without speaking her mind in the clearest of terms.
She marched to the door, flung it open, moved determinedly to the staircase and down to the first floor.
She made for his office, opening the door and locking it behind her.
She went to his desk, readied the quill then closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts.
She would leave him in no doubt as to why she had left.
She opened her eyes and pulled out the top drawer to withdraw the foolscap she knew he kept there. When she spotted the leather-bound book that lay atop the stack of blank parchment, she paused. One of his journals. She recognized the style.
She stared at it, wrestling her conscience. He’d told her not to pilfer his private journals again, and she hadn’t since he made his preference clear.
Nevertheless, faced with this book, this journal, one that he’d likely written in recently, she wanted to open it, badly, to read what he’d penned since his return to England, since living with Gwen as his wife.
It was silly, of course, to think he’d have recorded anything about her.
He never wrote of love, lust, or any other manifestation of romance he might have experienced over the years.
And he had explicitly told her not to avail herself of his journals again. She closed the drawer.
Hand yet on the knob, she reflected that he had ventured into her private space, pilfered through her correspondence, and read a letter addressed to her to learn about something she had clearly not wanted to share with him.
He’d then gone on to discover the identity of the publishing house stakeholders, and even now met with one of them though she had not once asked him to do so.
She reopened the drawer.
It was night by the time Gideon reached number 38 Grosvenor Square. He clipped along the graveled drive to the forecourt at a steady pace, his mind vacillating between bitter rage, and Gwen. How she’d looked when he left, standing in the center of her atelier. How he’d left things.
He’d handled her all wrong. All wrong. But surely his gift of her publishing house would smooth matters.
“I love you, Gideon. I love you.”
His insides twisted. He’d told her the truth—that she could not possibly love him—a plaything, someone adept at giving a woman pleasure until she tired of him, or he had his fill of her and the shallow, meaninglessness of the relationship.
Not that he would ever tire of Gwen. What he felt for her was anything but shallow. She was all lightness and warmth and he needed her like air. He would do whatever he must to keep her.
Even if it meant tearing his own brother limb from limb.
Mr. Holt, the stakeholder he’d visited, had been very forthcoming once he learned Gideon’s identity and understood he would brook neither evasion nor deception. Of course, it helped that Gideon’s own family was behind Holt’s shenanigans.
Gideon’s own family.
He leapt from the saddle, and marched up the broad steps. He did not bother to knock, but opened the heavy front door.
A footman spotted him, eyes widening in response to whatever he saw in Gideon’s expression, and took off at a trot in search of, Gideon guessed, Mr. Lyle.
Sure enough, as Gideon strode down the marble corridor, Lyle came bustling forward. “Master Devereux, is aught amiss?”
“Where is my brother?” Gideon asked, his voice devoid of emotion. It was the best he could do.
“I…er…believe he is in the library.”
“Alone?” Gideon asked.
“I believe so, sir,” the butler replied.
“Thank you. Kindly see to my horse.” He paused and glanced back at the butler. “Is the duke in residence?”
“No. He’s taking supper at his club tonight.”
“Good.”
When he reached the library, he stood for a moment in the open doorway.
At a glance, he spotted his brother, seated at a desk, slouching on one elbow while pouring over some sort of ledger.
Open terrace doors leading to a small family courtyard at his back had been left open and flickering golden lantern light spilled in, creating a cozy atmosphere.
With a flick of his wrist, Gideon slammed the door.
Grayson started, jerking upright at the sharp bang, then glared at Gideon. “I say, Gid, you might have knocked. I was deeply immersed in the Hardwick estate books.” At that, he flashed Gideon a smile, all charm and innocence.
Ah, yes. Grayson, ever benevolent, with nary an objectionable thought. His own brother, one of three persons—before Gwen—he would happily die for. Again he’d orchestrated a plot against Gideon. Why?
“Were you, indeed?” Gideon drawled, menace in every syllable. He stalked forward.
Grayson’s expression altered, as if he comprehended something was very wrong here. Studying Gideon, he unfolded from his chair. He kept the desk squarely between them.
“Rather an odd hour to call, isn’t it, Gideon?”
“What? Are you not pleased to see me, brother?”
Grayson blinked several times before responding. “What’s going on? I thought we’d moved past all this, whatever this is. Or was.”
For a moment, Gideon was struck dumb. Then, he snapped. “Whatever this was? As if you don’t know. And to think, I forgave you, though Lord knows you did not deserve it. You never even acknowledged what I did for you, nor the despicable joke you orchestrated with me as the punch line.
“And now this.” He pulled Gwen’s folded letter from his waistcoat and shook it in the air. “How dare you. How dare you.”
Reaching across the desk, Grayson made several bids to grasp the letter, finally managing to snatch it. “How dare I what?” he demanded, unfolding the foolscap. He scanned, then sent Gideon a baffled look. “What is this?”
He would not be baited into losing all control, he vowed silently. He would have his answers before exacting vengeance. “It’s a letter from the stakeholders of Gwen’s publishing house, as you very well know.”
Grayson continued to stare, his expression nonplussed.
Gideon spoke through clenched teeth, rather than shout. “The stakeholders you have pressured into thwarting my wife’s efforts at every turn.”
Slowly, his brother’s expression took on an angry cast. “Are you mad? Why in God’s name would I do that?”
“Why, indeed,” Gideon echoed. Some of the heat went out of him, leaving in its stead a deep sense of betrayal and pain. “Because you hate me. Because you’ve always hated me.”
Grayson’s own anger seemed to disappear as swiftly as it had come.
Now he gazed at Gideon with sage, compassion-filled eyes.
Rounding the desk, he leaned a hip onto it and crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I can promise you that, Gideon. You vex me, at times, Father’s favoritism toward you has wounded me, certainly.
I’ll even admit I harbor a not-inconsequential amount of jealousy over that and your uncanny ability to best me at virtually everything you set your mind to do.
“But I will not have it said, by you or anyone else, that I hate you. Not when you are the one man, other than our father, I most admire in the world. The one I can—could—always count on to take up my cause as his own. Did you think I did not notice when you tried to dim your own accomplishments when we were boys so that father would notice mine? Or that you took the blame for things I did so that father would not fault me?”
Gideon shifted on his feet, uncertainty clouding his previous judgment. “You were a mere boy—”