Sebastian dead.
And Gideon, drunk with spirits for the first time since that night by the cliffs… pretending he knew how to protect anyone.
HARROW’S LIQUOR CABINET
By morning, Gideon stood at the study window, regretting several things at once.
The brandy most immediately.
A dull ache pressed behind his eyes, his mouth tasted foul, and his stomach had taken a firm stance against the previous evening’s decisions.
And because Gideon hadn’t slept at all really, he’d had far too much time to think.
About Beatrice. About this friendship. About Harrowgate.
And Dash marrying Lady Hannah.
Behind him, Dash shifted on the sofa. Then came a low, wretched groan—less the sound of a duke waking than of a man being exhumed.
Gideon did not turn around.
“Still alive, then,” he said. “I must admit, I was beginning to worry.”
Dash cursed in French and buried his face in his hands.
Gideon’s grip tightened around his cup.
“You did not kill Sebastian,” he said.
Dash went still.
“You’ve made more than one decision based on this assumption. I want to set that record straight, once and for all.”
“My knuckles were bloody, Hawk.”
“You sparred with him. Yes. You were drunk. We were all drunk.” Gideon set down his tea. “But Sebastian walked away afterward. You were insensible by then.”
Dash lifted his head, pale and furious. “You cannot know that.”
“I can and I do.”
Dash’s mouth twisted. “If not me, who?”
Gideon looked away.
“We’ll never know.” How he managed to fall to his death. Whether it was an accident or he was pushed or whether he flung himself into the sea. Gideon himself could only vaguely recall Sebastian leaving the glow of the fire, stumbling about, vanishing into the dark… and then nothing until the next morning. After he was already gone.
But there was one part of that night Gideon could never put behind him.
“I was the one who raided Harrow’s liquor cabinet.”
He had broken into the headmaster’s office. Broken the lock on the cabinet himself.
And carried the means of Sebastian’s death back to the others with his own hands.
For a moment, only the ticking of the clock marked the silence.
Then Dash gave a rough, humorless laugh. “God, Hawk.”
