With an ample supply of evidence and testimonies, Minister Saquille was tried and convicted of conspiring to incite a rebellion against the crown prince and interfere with the line of succession. He was sentenced to yield his title to his son and confined to house arrest on his land. His title was also lowered from earl to baron, and part of his lands were taken away. Because the abdication plot had proved rather ineffectual, the king’s younger brother never aspired for the throne, and House Saquille’s national service had been lauded for generations, he was spared a harsher punishment.
Of course, in the minister’s view, his punishment was likely worse than death. His only son and heir was mediocre at best—not the sort of vassal who would wave the banner of the king’s younger brother. Saquille clearly saw a future in which his son’s hands were full simply managing the meager plot of land they had been allowed to keep. One by one, the connections he had built with other noblemen over the years dissolved, until the king’s brother’s supporters, who had been one of the two pillars of parliament, now fractured into several little groups. They had, in effect, been annihilated.
Nobody in his right mind wanted to associate with a tried and convicted rebel. House Saquille was doomed to live hand to mouth as a noble family on the fringes of high society. Someday, they might regain their privileges, but that day was far in the future.
While Giles agreed with the minister’s sentence, when it came to Gordon’s treatment, he was riddled with concerns. Just as he had so shamelessly implied, Gordon was fantastically cooperative with the investigators. He had not destroyed a single incriminating piece of correspondence between himself and the minister; on the contrary, he presented them obediently and did not hesitate to give a testimony. Because of that, the trial proceeded almost too quickly.
“Come on, don’t be so angry,” Richard called out to Giles. Giles said nothing, sulking down the hallway in silence. With a loud laugh, Richard ran to catch up to him. “Oh, don’t glare at me with that pretty face of yours; you’re scaring me. Come on, the king and the crown prince both thanked you personally! Oh, and the king’s brother.”
Everyone kept a careful distance from Giles, whose anger was obvious even from a considerable distance. To his old friend Richard, however, this was a perfect excuse to tease his friend, who had become quite emotionally expressive of late.
“Your hands were tied,” Richard insisted. “Gordon is shifty as hell, but nothing more.”
“I know that,” Giles said at length.
“I’m just as dissatisfied as you, my friend. I can’t believe that guy doesn’t even have priors.” Richard offered him a sympathetic smile, but Giles looked away in a huff.
Gordon had sold counterfeit paintings—he had admitted as much himself. His argument, however, was that he couldn’t turn down an order from a nobleman. This defense worked for him, as did the fact that he had no prior convictions—not even a minor offense.
He claimed that the counterfeit paintings were only made to promote his gallery opening and that he did not intend to use them to defraud people. They had, he argued, only been sold at his gallery recently because of miscommunication between himself and his staff. These were the sorts of lies he told. When he said he had no objections to buying them back from the people he sold them to, the authorities could pursue the matter no further.
As for his disgraceful treatment of Rudolph, well, who could deny that he took in an orphan child and paid him, albeit meagerly? The court did not view that as problematic either. In the end, with his assertive cooperation with the investigation, Gordon was let off with a fine and his sentence suspended with probation.
On the subject of the letter Giles found at his hideout, Gordon admitted that he sought to make friends in high places, but he kept mum about the author of the letter. It mentioned an “antechamber where the black lily painting hangs,” a clear reference to Saquille’s exclusive-use guestroom in the house of a baron with whom he was friendly. According to Gordon, he had used this information to approach Saquille, but the minister had not heard a thing about Gordon. Whenever the baron held a soirée at his home, the minister stayed the night in the guestroom with the black lily painting. All the letter conveyed was a fact that was common knowledge in their circle. Therefore, the investigation team determined that whoever sent that letter had no direct connection to the case at hand.
The investigation accepted Gordon’s plea—that Saquille had forced him to sell counterfeit paintings as a means of quickly eliminating the political enemies that had bothered Saquille for years—and took it into consideration. It was also true that Gordon’s testimony and the evidence he provided had led to Saquille’s swift conviction. Giles could understand the utility of such a plea deal, but that only made him angrier.
“But Gordon will be on probation for a while, won’t he?” Richard offered.
“There’s only going to be a guard watching his house. That’s not at all binding.”
“Just take heart in knowing he can’t move about freely. I sympathize with you, Gil, but you’re taking this way too hard.”
“Rick.”
Richard smirked, amused by the long-anticipated return of the Icy Scion. The Icy Scion in question frowned back at him.
They left parliament and stepped outside to find the sun in a much higher position in the sky than they had seen in a very long time. It was so bright they both had to squint. “Well, you just go see her and calm yourself down,” Richard said. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Make sure your face goes back to normal before you get there.”
“This is my normal face.”
Richard poked his stern cheek. “If you stay like that, you’ll terrify Miss Clayburn,” he said, then pushed Giles into the waiting carriage. “Tell me what choice Rudolph makes, all right?”
“I will.”
With a satisfied wave at Giles’s lackluster response, Richard shut the carriage door. From the carriage window, Giles watched Richard quickly prepare for his own trip home, sighing quietly to himself and leaning back in the seat.
The days following the arrests were chaotic and full. He hadn’t even been home in days. He still occasionally found time to go to the Heyward mansion, but every time, Fiona was either out with Miranda or busy with a tailor doing a fitting—the timing was never right. Night visits…were something he had to refrain from doing. As a result, he hadn’t seen her for days.
All that happened is my life returned to how it was before we met. So why…?
Historically, Giles liked to keep people at as great a distance as possible. After he began his fake courtship with Fiona, though, he saw her nearly every day. He had exchanged more words with her than with his family, including his parents, and even after suddenly cutting contact with her, he did not sense a change in the distance he felt between himself and others.
He never felt lonely when he was alone. It still felt so freeing, not being bothered by others. Sometimes, though, he would catch himself seeking out Fiona’s golden hair or her slender shoulders. Every time that happened, he felt a sense of wrongness when she wasn’t there beside him.
It was silly; even he knew that. The servants kept him up to date. He knew Fiona was doing well at the Heyward mansion. She sent him letters regularly too, so there was nothing to concern himself over. But he could not hear her voice from the words on the page.
Fiona was not good at smoothing things over. If something were wrong, he would know immediately, if only he could see her—but he couldn’t. And more than anything, what ate away at him was knowing that she was not free to move about and do as she pleased…and that he was the main reason why.
Giles had sent word that he was on his way, so as soon as he arrived at the Heyward mansion, Fiona descended from the second floor to greet him. Her muted yet elegant dress was nothing like the clothes she wore when they first met; Giles’s sister and godmother likely chose it for her. He did not care about outward appearances, but he did believe what she was wearing now suited her better.
He exhaled in relief to see her looking well, but there was an undeniable strain in her smile as she descended the stairs. It was clearly forced.
“Good afternoon, Lord Giles. Long time no see.”
“Is something wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your smile is stiff.”
Giles touched Fiona’s cheek, and her shoulders flinched in surprise. For all that she insisted she was used to acting like a couple, Fiona had forgotten Giles’s touch during their time apart. For some reason, this only made Giles gloomier.
Fiona, catching the foul mood on Giles’s face, looked away uncomfortably. Then she yanked on Giles’s arm until his ear was at her level and whispered, “I must confess…my corset is too tight.”
“…Huh?”
“This dress is so beautiful, but its construction is really challenging my patience and… Lord Giles?”
The solemn look in her eyes as she confessed her plight as if it was an unbearable crisis had caught Giles flatfooted. He knew it was cruel of him, but the euphoria of the sudden lightness in his chest made him burst out laughing.
“Y-you don’t have to laugh…”
“Sorry—ha ha!—it’s only that I didn’t realize it was such a grave crisis.” He looked away, still laughing.
“Oh, really!” Fiona blushed. Unlike the other ladies of Giles’s acquaintance, however, it wasn’t because she was with Giles; she blushed for her own wounded ego.
Her response, snappy yet obtuse, was familiar and soothing to Giles. Even if her hair and clothing changed, inside, she remained Fiona.
“My, my, my. What lovebirds you are.”