11. Maximillian
— ? —
Maximillian
The afternoon light slants through the morning room windows, and I’m standing at the sideboard with two cups in my hands before I realize what I’ve done.
I set the second cup back on the shelf. Elle isn’t here to complain that I’ve let the tea steep too long, then reach for my cup to prove it tastes better than hers. She hasn’t been here for three weeks, and I keep making these small mistakes, reaching for her in the spaces where she used to be.
I pour my own tea and carry it to the chair by the window, the one that faces the garden instead of the stables. I’ve been avoiding the view of the yard.
Too many mornings I walked past this room without stopping, already thinking about the arena, about Giselle’s lesson, about the training schedule that somehow never included my wife.
My phone buzzes on the side table.
A message from Marco: He is settled. Signora is here.
Sovrano arrived safely. Elle was there to receive him.
I stare at the words, trying to extract something more from them, some hint of how she looked or what she said when she saw her horse come off the trailer.
Marco wouldn’t know to tell me those things.
I didn’t ask him to watch my wife for me.
I just asked him to make sure the horse arrived safely and to let me know when it was done.
I set the phone down beside the correspondence about the divorce. Her lawyer’s name is still unfamiliar to me. Elle chose someone, made an appointment, started the process. She has done all of that while I’ve been telling myself that three weeks isn’t very long.
I pick up my tea and remember the day she told me she was going to the bookshop at two, whether I was free or not. The championship was still weeks away then. I liked hearing her make plans. I told myself it meant she was happier, and went on making my own.
How many times did that happen? How many afternoons did I choose the arena because it was easier than figuring out what Elle needed from me?
A knock at the door interrupts the thought.
Maria appears in the doorway, her hands folded at her waist.
“Signorina della Rovere is here, signor.” Maria remains on the threshold, waiting for my answer before bringing anyone into the room. “She says she’s come to collect her riding things.”
Giselle. The boots and helmet she left behind when I told her to go home the morning after Elle left. I’d forgotten they were still here.
“Show her in.” I set down my tea and move toward the window, putting the light behind me. “Stay close, please. This won’t take long.”
Maria nods and disappears. A moment later, I hear footsteps in the corridor, and Giselle appears in the doorway wearing a soft blue dress, her expression arranged into something between concern and hope.
“Max.” She stops just inside the room. “Thank you for seeing me. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Your things are in the tack room.” I keep my voice neutral, watching her face. “Maria can show you where.”
“I know where they are.” She takes a step closer, her hands clasped in front of her. “But I wanted to talk to you first. About everything that happened. About Georgie.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” I turn back toward the window, looking out at the garden where Elle used to walk in the evenings. “The lessons are finished. I told you that when you left.”
“You said you needed time.” Giselle rests her hand on the back of the chair opposite mine, the one I have left empty.
“You said the house needed to be quiet for a while. But it’s been three weeks, Max.
Georgie’s had time to calm down. I thought maybe we could talk about when things might go back to normal. ”
I face her again, something cold settling in my chest. “Normal?”
“The training.” She gestures toward the stables, a small, hopeful movement. “I’ve been practicing what you taught me. I don’t want to lose everything I learned. And I thought, once things settled, once Georgie realized she was being unfair…”
“Unfair?” I look from her hand on the chair to her face. She has said it so easily that I wonder how often I’ve let her say it before.
“She overreacted.” Giselle pulls the chair out a little, apparently taking my question as permission to explain.
“I know she was upset about the exhibition, but everything I did was to help her. I was keeping her traditions alive while she healed. She should have been proud that her family was still represented.”
I didn’t see Elle in the stands. Elena told me she’d come looking for me; Marco told me she’d found out about Sovrano from him. I keep thinking about her hearing that announcement, then looking at me through the car window.
She wasn’t asking whether Giselle’s performance deserved applause.
“Georgina didn’t ask you to represent her.” I keep my voice level, though my hands have tightened at my sides. “She didn’t ask to be replaced in an exhibition she loved, on a horse she trained. I made those choices without consulting her. You benefited from them, but I’m the one who failed her.”
“You didn’t fail anyone.” Giselle moves closer, and I can see something shift behind her eyes, a flicker of frustration beneath the gentle concern. “You were trying to keep your life going while your wife decided whether she wanted to be part of it anymore. That’s not a failure. That’s survival.”
“She wanted to be part of it.” For a moment I want to believe her, and that makes me angrier than anything she has said. “She asked me to include her. I knew she was unhappy about the exhibition, and I still arranged to use her horse without asking. I don’t get to say I didn’t know she was hurt.”
“Because she wasn’t being reasonable.” Giselle lets go of the chair, leaving it pulled halfway out. “She couldn’t ride, Max. She could barely look at the stables without falling apart. What were you supposed to do, cancel everything you love and sit in the house with her until she felt better?”
“She told me what she wanted.” I move away from the window, putting more distance between us. “Time together. Some say in what happened to her own horse. I kept telling myself I was helping her rest. She wasn’t asking me for rest.”
“But she couldn’t do it.” Giselle spreads her hands, looking at me as though I’m refusing to understand something obvious. “Was everyone supposed to stop until she could?”
“She came to the championship.” The fact still catches at me. She got dressed and came to find me while I was congratulating myself on sparing her the day. “She came looking for me. That doesn’t sound like someone who wanted nothing to do with it.”
“And now she’s gone again.” Giselle steps around the chair, putting herself directly in front of me. “You didn’t look miserable when it was just us in the arena. Why does she get to make you feel guilty for that?”
Just us. I look at the distance she has closed between us and understand what she is asking me to remember. She means those mornings to stand against my marriage, as though I should compare them and choose.
“I have never wanted you.” I say it plainly, watching her face. “I love Georgina. I have loved her since the morning she beat me on a borrowed mare and called me an amateur. Whatever you thought was happening between us, you were wrong.”
Giselle goes still. For a moment, I think she’s going to cry or apologize or try to explain herself. Then her expression hardens into something I’ve never seen before.
“You enjoyed teaching me.” She catches my sleeve before I can step away, her fingers closing over the fabric. “You said I was improving. You said I was a quick learner, that I had good instincts. Don’t pretend you weren’t happy to have someone in the arena who actually wanted to be there.”
“I did enjoy teaching you.” I draw my arm back, and her hand falls away. “I knew how to help you with a horse. It was easier than going upstairs and hearing that I’d hurt Elle again. I kept choosing that. But I have never thought of you as anything except her sister.”
“Because of her.” Giselle’s chin lifts, defiant. “Because Georgie got there first, so everyone else has to wait in line forever. That’s how it’s always been. She shows up, she smiles, and everything falls into her lap. The horses, the recognition, you. She didn’t even have to try.”
I stare at her, seeing something I should have recognized months ago. Every sympathetic glance, every gentle offer to help, every time she told me how patient I was being with my struggling wife. None of it was what I thought.
“You weren’t keeping anything for her.” I look at the chair she has pulled out, the place she wanted to sit while telling me my wife had been unfair. “You expected her to leave it to you.”
“I was here.” Giselle takes hold of the chair again, pushing it back so abruptly that its legs catch on the rug. “She wasn’t. I got up every morning and did the work, and somehow she still gets to decide whether it meant anything.”
For a moment I can only stare at her. Elle was injured saving this woman, and Giselle is talking about her absence as though it was a vacancy she earned by arriving on time.
“Get your things and leave.” I move toward the door. “Don’t come back to this house. Don’t contact the staff. Your access to my stables is finished.”
“Max…” Something flickers across her face, maybe surprise at how quickly this turned. “I’m just saying what everyone else is too polite to say. She’s not coming back. Not really. And you’re going to waste your whole life waiting for someone who’d rather be a victim than a wife.”
“I want my life with Georgina.” I reach for the door handle and hold it without turning it yet. “Even if she never rides again. Even if she won’t let me have another chance. There is no place waiting for you when she leaves.”
“She didn’t even want any of it.” Giselle looks past me toward the hall, but her hand stays clenched against her skirt. “She fought Mother about everything. The clothes, the riding, how she was supposed to behave. I did what I was told, and everyone still looked at her first. You did too.”
I pull the door open. “Maria will see you out.”
Giselle stares at me for a long moment, her chest rising and falling with quick, angry breaths. Then she walks past me into the corridor without another word, her heels sharp against the tile.
Maria appears at the end of the hall, her expression professionally blank.
“Make sure she collects only what belongs to her.” I wait until Maria meets my eyes, so there can be no misunderstanding. “Then see her off the property.”
Maria nods and follows Giselle toward the tack room.
I close the door and remain beside it until their footsteps fade. Giselle’s words keep returning, especially the matter-of-fact way she said she had done the work. All those mornings, while I thought I was giving her a lesson, she had been counting what she believed it should earn her.
I pull Elle’s ring from my pocket. I have carried it since the championship, unable to put it in a drawer with things I don’t expect to use again.
It rests in my palm while I try to remember how Giselle used to speak at dinner, the praise for my patience, the concern that always ended with another reason Elle couldn’t join us.
How much did I make easier for her by accepting that concern?
I don’t know which remarks Elle heard that I missed. I know what my wife said to me. She wanted to be part of my day, and I held her while I promised she would be.
Then I went downstairs the next morning and carried on.
I close my hand around the ring. Sending Giselle away hasn’t changed any of that. Elle is still in Le Marche, and the letter about our divorce is still beside my cooling tea.
She should never have needed to leave to make me listen.