Page 135 of The Lyon Returns
The weary smile she sent him did not reach her eyes. “Goodbye, Gideon.”
Everything in him railed at the finality of her words. “Iwillsee you tonight,” he repeated, then he left, telling himself when he returned, bringing word that he’d secured her business for her, once and for all, everything would be fine. They could go on as normal, just as if this God-forsaken conversation had never taken place.
Gwen stared atthe closed door for, she didn’t know how long.
Gideon did not love her. She had hoped beyond hope he would admit to having at least some tender feelings for her. She’d even dared to share her heart with him. He’d only scoffed.
At once, her path forward became clear—thanks to her past. She’d loved a man, and had friendship without passion. The arrangement had satisfied neither of them. Now a future loomed with passion—temporary, if Gideon’s claim was anything to go by—and one-sided love. She could not stomach it. She had settled once. Never again.
She would do what had never come naturally to her: Let go—ofGideon and her dreams of love, and her publishing house. She would travel. Maybe, afterward, she would buy a cottage by the sea. In Brighton, perhaps, and her friends could come and visit.
She would heal, just like, apparently, all of Gideon’s other cast-offs had. Did he even realize what nonsense he spouted?
A burst of anger surged through her. She would leave, but not without speaking her mind in the clearest of terms.
She marched to the door, flung it open, moved determinedly to the staircase and down to the first floor. She made for his office, opening the door and locking it behind her. She went to his desk, readied the quill then closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts. She would leave him in no doubt as to why she had left.
She opened her eyes and pulled out the top drawer to withdraw the foolscap she knew he kept there. When she spotted the leather-bound book that lay atop the stack of blank parchment, she paused. One of his journals. She recognized the style.
She stared at it, wrestling her conscience. He’d told her not to pilfer his private journals again, and she hadn’t since he made his preference clear.
Nevertheless, faced with this book, this journal, one that he’d likely written in recently, she wanted to open it, badly, to read what he’d penned since his return to England, since living with Gwen as his wife. It was silly, of course, to think he’d have recorded anything about her. He never wrote of love, lust, or any other manifestation of romance he might have experienced over the years.
And he had explicitly told her not to avail herself of his journals again. She closed the drawer.
Hand yet on the knob, she reflected that he had ventured into her private space, pilfered through her correspondence, and read a letter addressed to her to learn about something she had clearly not wanted to share with him. He’d then gone on to discover the identity of the publishing house stakeholders, and even now met with one of themthough she had not once asked him to do so.
She reopened the drawer.
It was nightby the time Gideon reached number 38 Grosvenor Square. He clipped along the graveled drive to the forecourt at a steady pace, his mind vacillating between bitter rage, and Gwen. How she’d looked when he left, standing in the center of heratelier. How he’d left things.
He’d handled her all wrong. All wrong. But surely his gift of her publishing house would smooth matters.
“I love you, Gideon. I love you.”
His insides twisted. He’d told her the truth—that she could not possibly love him—a plaything, someone adept at giving a woman pleasure until she tired of him, or he had his fill of her and the shallow, meaninglessness of the relationship.
Not that he would ever tire of Gwen. What he felt for her was anything but shallow. She was all lightness and warmth and he needed her like air. He would do whatever he must to keep her.
Even if it meant tearing his own brother limb from limb.
Mr. Holt, the stakeholder he’d visited, had been very forthcoming once he learned Gideon’s identity and understood he would brook neither evasion nor deception. Of course, it helped that Gideon’s own family was behind Holt’s shenanigans.
Gideon’s own family.
He leapt from the saddle, and marched up the broad steps. He did not bother to knock, but opened the heavy front door.
A footman spotted him, eyes widening in response to whatever he saw in Gideon’s expression, and took off at a trot in search of, Gideon guessed, Mr. Lyle.
Sure enough, as Gideon strode down the marble corridor, Lyle came bustling forward. “Master Devereux, is aught amiss?”
“Where is my brother?” Gideon asked, his voice devoid of emotion. It was the best he could do.
“I…er…believe he is in the library.”
“Alone?” Gideon asked.
“I believe so, sir,” the butler replied.
