Was this, perhaps, what Gordon wanted? Fiona wondered this, but she also vividly remembered the cynical scorn in his voice when he muttered, “It doesn’t matter what I do. It’ll all be hushed up regardless.” It was an unsatisfying end to the saga, but it seemed, somehow, to be an ending that Gordon had foreseen.
“As far as Gordon is concerned, I have nothing more to say. If we find anything new, I’ll tell you,” Giles said.
“I understand. So, um…”
I can ask him this, can’t I?
Fiona made eye contact with Giles where he sat in the chair beside her bed. She knew this was a touchy subject. “What will become of Lady Caroline?”
Giles’s face clouded over at the sound of her name.
“I’m sorry, I just have to know. The detectives won’t tell me anything.” Fiona did hear that there was a confrontation with Caroline while Giles and Richard were searching for her. She did not want to reopen a wound, but she wouldn’t feel right going about her life without knowing what had happened to her.
“She’s at the Burleigh mansion right now,” Giles said. “On house arrest.”
“I see…”
“They say it won’t be easy to indict her.”
Caroline had secret ties to Gordon, but there was no physical evidence linking them. It was a manifest fact that she had attacked Fiona, but she’d testified that she did not know Gordon’s true identity. She claimed that since he was at the royal ball, she assumed he belonged there and innocently arranged a meeting between him and Fiona. Without evidence, there was nothing to refute that testimony. The broken necklace was not seen as a big deal; the Burleigh household could cover that with financial compensation. The only thing she might be tried for and convicted of was bringing a concealed weapon to the White Palace. But—
“I hear you testified that you did not know to whom the knife belonged,” Giles remarked with a frown.
Fiona shrank in shame. “That’s right. I felt like I was about to lose my head.”
It was a special knife, adorned with precious gemstones. In theory, it could be used as evidence, but when the investigator asked Fiona whose knife it was, she said that she didn’t remember.
Caroline’s methods were immoral, but she did everything out of a fondness for Giles.
Fiona couldn’t help feeling some measure of responsibility for Caroline’s actions; if not for the charade with Giles, Caroline would never have resorted to such desperate measures. Perhaps it was egotistical of Fiona to feel that way, but even so…
Now Giles has severed ties with her, Fiona thought. That’s enough. Giles had even sent a formal document requesting that she have no communication or interactions with him, in high society or elsewhere. That was more than enough punishment for her.
“Are you sure you did the right thing?” Giles pressed her.
“Yes. I hear the Burleigh family paid my family compensation, so I’m more than satisfied.”
“Very true to form, Fiona.” Giles looked like he wanted to say more, but he held his tongue. Most noble houses would have taken this as an opportunity to chip away at the Burleigh family’s power and fortune for their own gain, but that would never feel right to Fiona. “She’s going to join a convent far away from here.”
“What?!”
“I’m not sure how long she’ll stay, but once she leaves, she will not reenter high society.”
“Oh…I see.”
“The Earl of Burleigh was very grateful for your generosity. He said he wanted to come here and thank you personally, but he was too ashamed to face you.”
Fiona had only once spoken to Caroline’s father, a brief conversation at a party, but he had seemed like a normal enough man. She couldn’t imagine how he could have foreseen his beloved, sheltered daughter’s rampage, nor its tragic consequences.
“I think she got off far too easy,” Giles said. “If the earl’s decision has caused you hardship in any way, we can put her on trial—”
“P-please, no! Not that,” Fiona gasped, white in the face.
Giles sighed quietly. “The head of the house makes the final decision. You were the victim, after all.”
“I know.” Fiona appreciated what Giles was trying to do, but in her view, there had been many victims—not just herself. She stared into her lap, overcome with emotion, and Giles gently pressed his hand atop her bandaged one.
“If anyone deserves to be punished, it’s me,” Giles added.
“Lord Gil?”
There was a painful-sounding coarseness to his voice. “I’m the reason you were put in harm’s way, a—”
“No, you aren’t,” Fiona cut in sharply. “We started this together. You aren’t allowed to take all the blame for yourself.”
“Fiona—”
“I think I told you this before, but my path would have crossed with Gordon’s eventually, one way or another, and the first time I met Lady Caroline was in that little garden at the prince’s party, before you and I even began our charade.”
“So you’re saying I’m not at all responsible?” Giles asked.
“No. You are responsible, and so am I. We carry the burden together. I feel lonely when you try to leave me out of it.”
Wait a minute, Fiona thought as she tried to gloss over her feelings with a joke. Why do I feel…so sleepy…?
Giles looked taken aback, though Fiona was finding it difficult to see his face, between the sun coming through the window to backlight him and the sudden assault of sleepiness. She pressed on, but her mind wasn’t working so well, and her vocal cords refused to cooperate. In the end, she just blurted out what was in her heart. “And yes, I was hurt, but it wasn’t very…serious… You got…hurt worse…than me…”
Giles did not chastise her for her impudence. Instead, he gently laid her on her side. “You’re tired. You should sleep.”
“But I’m not…finished…talking…” Fiona protested. You’re so kindhearted… I don’t want you blaming yourself for this.
Her consciousness slipped away from her faster and faster, and her thoughts refused to take coherent shape.
“Don’t worry,” Giles’s voice said. “We can talk later.”
A reassuring hand pressed over her eyes. She didn’t fight it and let her lids close.
I don’t even think…I’ll dream…
Floating on a warm cloud of comfort, Fiona sank into a sea of sleep.
✦ ✦ ✦
Giles sighed in relief when he heard Fiona’s peaceful, even breathing. “That stuff really works.”
The medicine Fiona had just taken was mixed with an effective sleep aid. She had sustained severe injuries, whether she would acknowledge it or not. Worried servants had approached Giles and told him that her nights had been restless. He consulted with a doctor, who told him that Fiona had no resistance to medicine, so he gave her a weak dose. It was surprising how quickly it worked.
Giles removed his hand from her eyes and brushed his own hair off his forehead. He looked down and saw the thin red scar on the back of her neck. She got that scar when Caroline ripped the necklace off her. Fiona had laughed it off, saying it did not hurt in the slightest. Giles ran his fingers along it. It should have been me who was hurt. Not you.
A lock of hair was falling into her collar. He lifted it up, and her soft, familiar, light-golden hair shone bright in the afternoon sunlight. Back at the White Palace—and even just now—the woman he loved and would protect with his life had protected him instead. The devastation he felt when Fiona slipped through his outstretched fingers and fell into the lake had gutted him. He had never hated a man as strongly as he hated the crown prince and his attendant when they stopped him from jumping out the window after her.
But most haunting of all was the peaceful smile on Fiona’s face as she fell into the lake without him.
“I feel so wretched,” Giles muttered to himself. He cursed his helplessness so much it took his breath away. A light shone around Fiona, so bright that he could barely look at her.
May you finally get some rest, he told her silently. And while she rested, he would deal with the fallout and pull every aristocratic string that needed to be pulled. That way, when Fiona opened her eyes again, there would be nothing left for her to despair over.
He leaned over and softly kissed a lock of her hair. Then he pulled the canopy shut and left Fiona’s bedchamber.