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Illustration by Dongkyu Lim
Chapter 29
MILO GONE, I stood looking out at the sea, the tears welling in my eyes. Once again, the burden of our relationship rested on my shoulders. I would be left at home to wait until one of us made some sort of decision. I had judged him harshly, wronged him with my mistrust. I couldn’t entirely blame him for being angry. Yet it had been the reputation he had earned for himself that had made me suspicious, his own actions that had made me wonder if I could trust him.
Perhaps both of us had behaved like fools.
“Amory.”
I turned to see Gil, standing, somewhat hesitantly, in the doorway. “Milo ... sent me out. He said he expected you’d be wanting to see me.”
So Milo’s final dig had been to send his competition in to claim me.
“He’s going back to the Continent,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“I wish I knew. It seems the Brightwell Hotel is not at all a lucky place for relationships.” I changed the subject, not wanting to talk about Milo any longer. “How is Emmeline?”
After the events of last night, Gil had sent her home to their mother in London on the first train this morning. It was best that she be removed from the situation, from the place that held so many haunting memories.
Gil walked out onto the terrace, his hands in his pockets. “She’ll mend, I expect. But it won’t be easy.”
“For what it’s worth, he did care for her, in his way.” It was a poor comfort, I knew. But perhaps it would mean something to Emmeline.
“If you could write to her, I think she would enjoy that. She will need something to distract her in the coming months.”
“Of course. I should be happy to.” I hesitated. “And what about Olive?”
His gaze became guarded. “She’s told you that she’s in love with me?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t sure she really meant it. I’m still not entirely sure.”
“She’s mad about you,” I said, using the words Olive had used of him.
“That business with cutting her wrists, it was a dreadfully stupid thing to do.” I felt that the anger that flickered in his gaze stemmed from deep concern. I knew he had been terribly worried about her. She had known it, too. It had been a foolish thing to do, but people did foolish things when they were desperate.
“I don’t think she meant to do any real harm to herself.”
“No,” he said. “But that doesn’t make it any less wretched. When did you know about Olive and me?”
“I only just realized last night. We were talking, and suddenly I realized. I was blind not to have seen it before this.”
Gil walked to where I stood, not quite meeting my gaze. That he was uncomfortable was very apparent. “Did she tell you everything?”
“She didn’t quite seem to know what had happened herself,” I said. I felt suddenly very sorry for her.
He looked back out at the sea. “It was my fault. I treated her badly. We met and got along famously. We saw each other for quite a while. I ... had entertained thoughts of marrying her, but then she met Rupert Howe. They seemed to take an instant liking to each other.”
So many things fell into place. Apparently, Rupert had reminded Gil of Milo as well. Perhaps he had thought that she, too, would fall prey to the charms of a handsome gentleman.
“It was unfair of me,” he went on, “but I thought it best to end things ... before they went any further. So I broke it off . She took it badly, but I assumed she would recover soon enough. I went away and tried to forget about the entire thing. I didn’t know she was going to be here at the Brightwell. It was devilishly awkward when I arrived with you to find her here.”
“I wish you had told me.”
“I thought about it, but I didn’t want to place the burden of that on you. However, I was terribly afraid it was all going to come out in some sort of dreadful scene. That was one reason I didn’t want you going about asking questions. Everyone knew about it, and I suspect they were all dying to say something. It was ridiculous to think I could keep it a secret.”
I thought of the conversation I had had with Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers in the lobby that day, the careful way she had warned him with a hand on his leg not to say too much when the conversation turned to the changing nature of love.
“Olive was in a state all week, and, to top it off, there were those rumors going around about her and Rupert. After the murder, I was a bit afraid they might think she’d been jealous enough to ...”
So we had all been trying to shield someone. While I’d been attempting to protect Gil, he had been hoping to protect Olive. What tangled webs we weave, indeed.
“I knew you were worried about something,” I said, “and I wondered why you wouldn’t confide in me.”
Gil let out a sort of strangled laugh. “Yes, it’s been a perfectly dreadful week, all told. First, trying to convince Rupert to leave Emmeline, and then his murder ... and your husband’s arrival. And all the time, Olive kept trying to convince me to change my mind about her ... about our relationship. She came to my room to talk, more than once. And on the night that I was arrested, I had just come from speaking with her. We’d been hashing it out all afternoon in her room. She said she was going to tell you, and I wanted to do it first ... but after I was released, it just didn’t seem the time.”
“Do you love her, Gil?” I asked.
He met my gaze. “I don’t know. I thought I did. But then ...”
But then he had come back into my life, and we had both been caught in the trap of wondering if our idealized versions of the past might be preferable to uncertain futures.
We looked into one another’s eyes, and I think we both knew in that instant that the past was behind us. We could never be to each other what we had been once.
“Today, Gil,” I said softly. “What do you feel for her right now, with everything in the open?”
“I ... I do still care for her,” he said, and it seemed to me that with the words there came a certain relief. He looked happy, lighter somehow.
“Then you should tell her.”
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