“What are you thinking?”
“How much time we wasted. Where we went wrong. How I wish I had been less of a prig.”
Gideon had been utterly, hopelessly inexperienced when they started. He’d never acted on his longings before, and those long, cold years of repression had marked him. It had been difficult for him to acknowledge his own wants, to touch freely, to voice his pleasures, or indeed to do anything at all without checking half a dozen times that he wasn’t getting it wrong. Zeb had done his best, but a lifetime’s denial and control couldn’t be discarded in a few weeks or even months.
Gideon had talked more in this one encounter than Zeb thought he might have done in any five fucks when they weretogether. Maybe he’d found someone who’d taught him to voice his pleasures in a way Zeb hadn’t managed, and if he had, that was excellent, and very much not something Zeb had a right to be wistful about.
“It was hard for you,” he said. “And you weren’t a prig.”
“I was, and we both know it. I wish—never mind.” Gideon shifted his head slightly. He might have been brushing a kiss over Zeb’s hair, or he might have been scratching his nose. “And you? What are you thinking?”
“I was reflecting that I should have made you tie me up and fuck me a long time ago. And then you should havekeptme bound and gagged, so I couldn’t have said and done the things that ruined us.”
“Don’t.” Gideon’s sigh heaved both their bodies. “Please. It wasn’t just your fault.”
“Gideon—”
“There’s no point talking about it. You’re going home tomorrow; I’m staying here; that’s all there is to it.”
“I know. But may I write to you? You didn’t say.”
Gideon exhaled long and hard. “Do you recall the story of Pandora’s box? She opened it and let out all the ills of the world, and the last thing to come out was hope?”
“Yes?”
“People always tell that story as though hope was a consolation, the one good thing, instead of the last evil in the box. I truly don’t know why, because hope is unbearable. My life was perfectly acceptable before I met you—not exciting, perhaps notentirely satisfactory, but functional. And then you came along, and I started hoping for a lot of things I’d never imagined before, and which of course I couldn’t have—”
“Gideon—”
“I don’t want to hope any more,” Gideon said. “I want to rebuild the wreckage of my career and my finances and my life, and not bet everything on a dream, or spend every waking hour wanting the unattainable. I’ve spent so much time in limbo over the past year, without you and because of you, and I can’t do it any more. If that makes me a coward, I’m sorry. But I’m begging you, don’t ask me for this. Ican’t.”
“I see,” Zeb said, his heart aching. “I’m sorry too. I wish you didn’t feel like that, but—well, I understand, I suppose. Of course I do. I hope—I hope, if you can be happy, you will be. And…well, you know where I live. If you should want to find me, ever.”
Gideon’s chin came forward, resting on his shoulder. Zeb tipped his head sideways to meet Gideon’s, and they sat in silence as the house cooled around them.
Twelve
The next morning was, as predicted, thick with mist. Zeb, rousing himself at seven having lain awake, alone, and miserable until four, could see nothing from his window but vague shapes where trees once were. It was very cold. He dressed quickly and shoved his abused dinner clothes into his suitcase.
His shoes were outside his door, dried rather badly in front of a fire so they felt baked on his feet, and he went downstairs to breakfast with a sense of discomfort that wasn’t improved when he saw Bram was there.
He gave Zeb a look of loathing. Fine. Zeb ignored him right back and went to pile his plate from the chafing dishes, trying to disregard the lump in his gut. His brother had unquestionably wronged him, whereas he hadn’t actually wronged Bram, therefore he wasn’t the one who should be feeling bad. Anyway, Zeb had to break a promise, get out of the house before Hawley woke, and leave Gideon again. He didn’t have the energy forBram.
He forced down his food in stubborn silence and went to find Wynn, who was sitting in the drawing room with a book.
“Good morning,” Zeb said. “I hope you’re well? You looked rather rough last night.”
“Very well, thank you. Last night—well, the less said the better. I hope we can put all that unpleasantness behind us. What can I do for you, Zeb?” Wynn beamed like a Dickens character, all jolly benevolence. “I trust you have changed your mind as to your rash statement last night?”
“No, I haven’t. I will be going home today.”
Wynn’s face was transformed by heavy disappointment. “I hesitate to remind you, but you made me a promise.”
“I did promise to stay, yes. Andyousaid you weren’t going to push me to marry Jessamine, and then you all but ordered me to propose to her.”
“You exaggerate a little, I think.”
His cousin had an immensely reasonable manner that gave Zeb a constant nagging feeling he was overreacting. “You put me in a position where I had to tell her I didn’t want to marry her,” he insisted. “That wasn’t fair to anyone. And—no, please let me finish—and I also don’t think this is in any way the family reconciliation you described. I appreciate your intentions, but the effect has been to set us all at one another’s throats.”
