Thirty one

Istayed there until it was dark and then walked home. Luke was making dinner, steak I remember, and the scent of burning meat turned my stomach.

I’d gone to the bathroom to throw up again and then fell into bed and slept until the following morning. When I woke up, it was that same sensation I used to have in the months after my parents died, where for a few moments, I forgot. Where my mind’s short-term memory was still rousing, and the horror hadn’t yet made itself known.

I lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, wondering if he’d left Deveraux yet. I thought of calling the police and telling them everything I knew about Xavier Blackwell and his relationship with Caspien Deveraux. Cas was sixteen now, but he’d been a child when this began. That, I knew, would ruin a man like Xavier.

But I also knew it wouldn’t make Cas come back to me. It wouldn’t give me back what I’d lost – and that was something which hadn’t even been mine to begin with. I wasn’t sure what I’d been to Cas, a distraction, a game, but he’d been real to me.

There was a knock on my door around 10 a.m. Luke’s head popped in.

“Hey buddy, you okay? You must be starving?” His eyes were kind and warm, and they made me want to cry again.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“You seeing Cas tonight? Heard he was home.”

I could only shake my head. But whatever Luke saw on my face was enough to worry him.

“Well, how’s about we stick on a film and watch something fun?”

I didn’t know what Luke’s idea of fun entailed, but I was certain I didn’t want to do it.

“I’m not feeling too great, actually, thought I’d just hang around here. Maybe sleep some more honestly.”

He looked disappointed but I couldn’t find it in me to care.

“No probs. Give me a shout if you want me to bring you up anything to eat, yeah?”

“Sure.”

I was grateful when he left. When I could be alone again to think over every word Caspien had said yesterday, paying particular attention to the ones that hurt the most. Then I thought about what I’d said. The ache that came from remembering how I’d pleaded, how I’d begged him, was strangely satisfying. I deserved the shame and the embarrassment. I was so fucking stupid. So blind. So guileless.

Nausea haunted me all day. Around 4 p.m., my room started to stink, and so I got out of bed and told Luke and Beth I was going for a walk to clear my head.

They shot concerned glances at me from where they were on the couch, but otherwise said nothing.

There were no strange cars parked in the courtyard, only Gideon’s Jaguar. Had they left before he returned? The kitchen was dark and cold too. No sight or sound of Elspeth bustling around.

Gideon was in the red sitting room. He stood by the large window gazing out over the estate, a glass of red wine in one hand and a few sheets of paper in the other. A letter, I could see. I watched him drink for a moment before announcing myself.

“Did you know?” I asked. My voice was rough from the crying and lack of use. “About him and Blackwell, did you know?”

He turned around slowly, his gaze tracking over me hungrily. I knew how I must appear to him. I hadn’t showered. I’d left the house in what I’d gone to sleep in. I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. I had managed a glass of water in the bathroom as I brushed my teeth.

Still, he didn’t look surprised or even concerned.

“Jude, come in. Do you want something to drink?”

“Did you know?”

“Not until this.” He held up the letter. “He’s been quite clever about it. About everything, really. They both have.” He took a sip of his wine.

“He should be in prison,” I said though without any of the fire with which I’d said it in the past. I was tired. “He used to come here when you weren’t around, you know. I caught them once.”

“I’m sorry, Jude. But I did warn you,” Gideon said, not sounding sorry at all.

I stared at him.

He moved to sit down, taking a large sip of his wine as he did. “I warned you that he would break your heart, and he did.”

I didn’t want to hear it, not from him. Because he had. He had warned me. I’m sure it was too late by the time his warning came, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

“He said I’d hate him. That one day I’d hate him so much I wouldn’t be able to bear it,” I told Gideon in a strange, unfamiliar voice.

“The way I have always seen it,” Gideon said as he sipped his wine, “is that we have only two choices when the heart is broken. The first is to allow it to heal. It is quite astounding what the human heart is able to overcome. Though it shall never be quite as strong as it was – its foundations will be forever weakened – it can heal. The second...”

Here, his eyes danced to me. For the first time, I saw something in them that made my blood run cold.

“…is to turn it into so impenetrable a thing, such a fortress, that it will never be breached again.”

I knew what choice Gideon had made. It was more evident to me then than it had ever been. His was a fortress. It was how Cas’s had been hardened, too. But I had already made the promise under the moon to love him, unconditionally. Was I to turn back on that so soon? He’d hurt me, but I wasn’t broken beyond repair. I was young and strong, and I could recover.

I could make myself into something Caspien wanted. Someone who could offer him the life he wanted.

In that very same instant, a new goal emerged within me: I wanted to achieve something, something that would impress him and him alone. He would be my singular critic. I’d never have the riches, status, or even looks that Xavier Blackwell had come to him with. But I could strive for something else.

His respect.

I think even then I understood that I could never possibly mean anything to him without it. I wanted to be his equal. And if that would earn me his love and affection and desire, then all the better.

I’d brought the paperwork with me knowing that I would need a witness, knowing that Lord Gideon Deveraux would be able to fill that duty.

“Would I be able to use your phone?” I asked. Because I hadn’t brought mine, it lay dead under my pillow where I’d spent the night drafting a letter to Caspien that I’d never send.

“Of course.” He gestured across the room.

I could feel his eyes on me as I lifted the receiver and dialled.

Moreland answered on the third ring. He sounded pleasantly surprised to hear from me, as though he’d given up all hope he ever would.

“Eh, so I was wondering – hoping – that the offer was still open. For the trust thing. They haven’t changed their mind, have they?” I stared at Gideon and watched as the very corner of his mouth turned up. As though I’d just accepted a challenge.

“Of course not; everything is still very much on offer, Mr. Alcott.”

I nodded until I realised he couldn’t see me.

“Great. Well, then I’d like to accept it, please. Thank you.”