Gwen Hayes Read online

  I swallowed. Gideon wasn't the Colonel's son. "It's not my business, John. Every family has secrets."

  "His whole life, Violet. The Colonel has treated him like an interloper his entire life. He was a young boy, an innocent. I'm glad my father stood by my mother despite her condition, but where was the compassion for her son? Gideon grew up thinking he wasn't worthy of attention or love or even respect. My mother tried her best, but a boy needs his father. He claimed Gideon as his own in public, but never in private. When our mother died in childbirth with Phillip, Gideon was lost."

  The cold seeped into my bones, but I didn't want to leave. The story broke my heart. But Gideon was a man now, and responsible for his own fate. I rested my hand over John's. "You feel much responsibility for both your brothers, but you were a young boy, too. Gideon will have to find his way on his own. We all have things to overcome. He needs to find the strength to do so. If our childhood dictates our entire life, then I may as well give up now."

  John met my gaze. "You're very strong, Violet. Like our mother. You would have liked her, and I know she would have loved you." He squeezed my hand. "I should get you out of the cold. I'm sorry for putting my family secrets at your feet this way. I suppose I simply needed someone to talk to." John stood and helped me from my seat. "Gideon blames me for being the 'good' one. I've tried to bridge the gap, but I'm not sure I ever will."

  "You're a good man, John. But you can't change Gideon any more than you could change your father when you were a boy. The best you can do is what you're already doing."

  The wind picked up then. Snow began falling in a swirl around us. As John escorted me back to the house, I wondered if things would ever be right between the brothers.

  The scowl on Gideon's face when he saw us together at the door made me doubt it.

  Three days later, the storm had not let up. We were snowbound, but there are worse things than being trapped in a sturdy, if imposing, manor such as Thornfield.

  John brought laughter to our lessons. Phillip would often sit on his lap as they tightened screws and turned gewgaws, both wearing magnifying eyepieces strapped to their heads. While they worked, I would read-sometimes advanced math volumes to better teach Phillip, but often novels of dubious value. I quite enjoyed those, probably more than I should.

  On such a day, the wind howled outside the windows but the liquideous aether flames in the fireplace warmed the chill. I sank deeply into the cushions, holding my new brass eNovelizer closely so that no one could see the daring book I'd chosen that afternoon.

  The eNovelizer was benefit enough of my job-had the Colonel elected not to feed me I'd still be happy to work there for the electromagnetic reader alone. It felt like it was made for my hands. The readers at the academy were cumbersome, sharp, and had to be shared-this one had a buttery soft leather cover and the copper casing was smooth and rounded.

  And it had my name etched into it. I'd never owned anything outright before. I traced my finger over the lettering and sighed happily.

  "Such domesticity," Gideon declared from the doorway, interrupting our afternoon.

  I stirred from my lounging position on the davenport, but he quickly moved in, picking up my feet and placing them in his lap in a most indecorous fashion. I struggled to pull my feet from his iron grasp from beneath the afghan covering my legs, but he held firm.

  "Let go," I murmured, trying not to draw attention.

  Instead he slid one hand around my ankle.

  As much as I wanted to protest, the stroking of his thumb on the inside of my ankle, though too intimate and wrong, felt heavenly. Little impulses zipped up my legs.

  "You're being indecent," I said lowly from the corner of my mouth so as not to attract the other Winstons.

  "Am I? I thought I was being friendly."

  "Too friendly."

  He laughed and released my feet, which I promptly curled under me. Unladylike, mayhap, but much safer nonetheless.

  "I don't mean to take liberties, Violet. It's just that you seem like such a part of our family now that I forget my manners. Wouldn't you agree, John?"

  John and Phillip raised their heads simultaneously, both looking ridiculous with their huge eyes behind their lenses. "Gideon, I didn't hear you come in. What am I to agree to?"

  "I was just telling Violet how brotherly we both feel towards her."

  John blushed. "Yes, of course." And he bent back over the whatzit he and Phillip were working on.

  I didn't like being a pawn in Gideon's chess game with his older brother.

  He watched John and Phillip wistfully. I wish I could hold tighter to my declaration that he was in charge of his own fate, but at that moment, the sad, young boy that still lived inside Gideon was evident on his face.

  He caught me looking at him and scowled at the compassion he must have read in my eyes. "Don't," he intoned lowly.

  "Don't what?" I whispered in return.

  "Don't look for ways to make me worthwhile, sprite. You won't find them, and then you'll blame me for wasting your time." He leered, but it was missing its usual punch.

  All the same, I needed distance. I pulled my legs to the floor and walked away, making excuses about resting before tea, clutching my eNovelizer tightly to my chest to buffer the mad beat of my heart.

  I couldn't fix what was wrong with Gideon, but like John, I felt myself wishing to.

  It was later that night that I woke up nearly screaming, my heart pounding, and a cold sweat covering every inch of my skin. The wind howled outside my window, but something else woke me.

  There again. A thump. A muffled voice. Another thump. I stared at the ceiling above my bed. There were no rooms above mine. I grasped the covers to my chest as if they offered protection. Protection from what? Phantom noise?

  There was, perhaps, an attic space above me. It was on odd time to be moving things about, but it was possible. I listened intently, but heard nothing save the wind still moaning outside my window as if it were desperate to come in.

  There would be no falling back to sleep easily, I knew, so I pushed off the bedclothes, shivering immediately, and pulled on my wrap. "My kingdom for a cup of tea," I said aloud.

  My slippers were warmed from the aether fireplace. Instant comfort, blissful really. I felt richer than sin the moment they enveloped my feet.

  Though I had no reason to hide, I tiptoed down the hall. The shadows made me nervous, and every creak and groan of the floorboards sounded like warnings. I had to get a hold of myself. The noises that woke me could have been the wind carrying tree limbs and whatnot over the roof. Still, I padded softly and listened intently.

  The kitchen was a friendly place, despite the mood of the rest of Thornfield. I pulled what I needed from the larder, and what I needed included some of Cook's fabulous biscuits. I set my armful on a sideboard and turned to get a tea kettle.

  A hand covered my mouth and braced me against a strong wall of man. "Don't scream."

  My midnight intruder was almost gentle, but a primal scream ripped through me, muffled by his hand. And then I bit him.

  "Christ, Violet." Gideon let go, and I turned immediately to him as he shook his hand. "You bit me." He examined his hand in the dim nightlight of glowing aether. "I think you broke the skin."

  A blanket of red stole over my vision and I felt strangely out of my own body, unable to control its reactions. I began hitting Gideon in the chest, backing him into the stovetop. "You scared me. Why on earth did you sneak up on me like that? I thought you were an intruder."

  "I'm sorry, Vi. I just didn't want you to scream and wake the house." He allowed me to hit him several more times before he asked, "Are you…are you crying?"

  I wiped my eyes. "Of course not."

  "Oh, hell. You are. I'm really sorry I frightened you." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. When I wouldn't accept it, he put it into my hand and forced my fingers closed around it.

  I stared at the offending cloth and tried to force the percussion of my hea
rt to slow. I hated being so out of control, being harkened back to the small animal I'd been when first brought to the academy. I wiped the tears on my sleeve, perversely refusing to use his handkerchief. "What are you doing here, Gideon?"

  "I'm here for the same reason you are, sprite. Tea. Though, next time you find yourself unable to sleep, you could just knock on my door. I have other cures for insomnia you might be interested in." He moved around me and began making the tea, taking preparations away from me and giving me too much time to think about how scared I'd been and then how angry.

  I began to shake, but tried to hide it from Gideon. My instincts told me never to show weakness in front of him. Still, I felt his heavy stare pressing on me.

  "Stop looking at me," I whispered. "Please."

  I couldn't find the will to pull myself together. I hadn't felt that kind of primitive fear since arriving in New Geneva. Certainly, I'd been scared at times, but not the kind of fear that locks away all other thought but that of survival. The terror that runs blood cold. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be a victim.

  "Jesus, Vi." He pulled me into an embrace. I didn't fight it. I'm ashamed to admit that I needed to be touched. Maybe more than anyone in history, at that moment, I needed to be held. I shook in his arms, hating myself and hating him for understanding what I would never put words to.

  I didn't want him to be nice to me. That made him complicated, and I couldn't afford for my feelings about Gideon to be complicated.

  The kettle whistled, and I pulled out of his hold, stepping back and putting distance between us. He went to work with the tea, and I gathered my wits. I thought about skipping the tea altogether and retiring back to my room. It was the prudent thing to do. But, oh, how I longed for a steaming cup of comfort.

  Gideon gestured me to the small table in front of the window, so I took a seat and stared at the darkness. There were no moons tonight, only a barren void past what the outside lanterns illuminated.

  He set the tray between us and folded himself into his chair. I was used to dining with him at the massive table-this small nook made him seem impossibly large. He overtook everything.

  As he poured with uncanny grace, he watched me closely, likely looking for evidence that I would crack into emotional turmoil again. While he seemed to enjoy provoking me most of the time, I could tell that he really did feel bad about frightening me.

  An awkward silence stretched between us. What did we have to say to each other, really? I wasn't up for his goading, and I'm sure he didn't want to know about my disapproval of his wasteful lifestyle.

  "Will you be spending the holidays with family?" he asked finally.

  I closed my eyes, suddenly hating the small talk I'd trained so diligently for. "No. I have no family."

  When I reopened my eyes, his gazed was fixed on me. His dark eyes searching for something, but what?

  "So, you're stuck here just like I am then?" His voice was rich with his usual sardonic tone, but his eyes didn't match his words. "I guess we'll both have to make the best of it."

  A few days ago, I might have told him he should be grateful to have a family to spend the holiday with. Now that I understood the dynamics better, the platitude would have been more than shallow, and I kept it to myself.

  I sipped my tea, waiting for my bones to warm, waiting to feel like myself again.

  "Do you like being a governess?" he asked.

  "Very much."

  "If you had your wish to be anything at all in the world, would you still be a governess?"

  I sensed a trap, so I toed very carefully ahead. "Whoever is granted such a wish?"

  "You're evading the question. I suppose that's what you've been taught, though, yes? Our society doesn't allow for wishing or dreaming. Luckily, if I were granted such a wish, I would find that I am already doing exactly what I would dream of."

  "That must make you the happiest man alive, Gideon," I said dryly. We both knew it wasn't so.

  Gideon wasn't happy, despite having no responsibilities or expectations. He may pretend to enjoy his life of debauchery and drunkenness, but here he was, drinking tea in the kitchen with the governess in the middle of a stormy night.

  "You judge me very harshly, Miss Merriweather, and yet you have no idea what I even do away from the walls of this fine, respectable home." He sat back in his chair. "It's not very charitable of you."

  "I have every idea, Gideon. You gamble, drink, womanize, and mock everyone who isn't doing the same."

  He chuckled. "So, you do know. Still, until you've walked a mile in my shoes, do you think it's fair to judge me? Perhaps my road leads to the happiness you can't find here."

  "But I am happy here."

  "There is a whole world out there that you know nothing of, Violet. As an educator, don't you think you should have some experience with it? This society is stifling."

  I stood, no longer interested in the tea. "There is a whole world out there that you know nothing of, Gideon. And if you think this is stifling, you should try breathing on…"

  "Earth?" he finished for me.

  "I don't wish to speak of it. Just know that whatever you have in your head about the ills of this society are nothing compared to what some must bear."

  "I thought you had no memories of Earth."

  "I don't need to remember to understand how awful it must be."

  I turned to leave, but Gideon grabbed my hand, pulling me back into the vortex of his dark, shadowed gaze. "We're all children of Earth, Violet. Why is it that you must live your life as a servant? New Geneva is as much yours as it is mine." He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my skin, and I shivered. "Come with me some night. See my depravity first hand. I think you'd like it more than you think. There's a fire in your heart, Violet."

  "No, thank you. I think I'd prefer to just imagine your depravity." It was the wrong thing to say, I knew immediately by the look in his eyes.

  "Do you often imagine me doing depraved things, sprite?" I looked away rather than answer. He let it go. "Come with me."

  I shook my head.

  "You're not afraid, are you?"

  Goodness but his presence was so large. He ate up all the air around me. But I wasn't afraid of him. "No. I just have no desire to accompany you."

  "Oh you have the desire, all right. Maybe you're afraid you will like it too much. That once you are free for one night, you will not be satisfied to come back and be a governess to pay some debt you feel you owe for being allowed to live."

  Oh, my proud chin didn't like that. Not at all. I thrust it high. "Are you daring me, Gideon?"

  "Perhaps I am. I'll sweeten the pot. You come out with me and let me be your host to the underbelly of New Geneva, and I will stay home one night and play the part of the gentleman you think I should be."

  I thought of Phillip, and of John, and how very much they would enjoy an evening with Gideon. This was blackmail, but how could I deprive his brothers of the opportunity? "You must be on your best behavior. You promise you'll try to enjoy your evening at home? You'll be pleasant and attentive to your family?"

  "Do you promise to open your mind? That you won't look down on everyone and that you'll try to enjoy an evening with the people I associate with?"

  What was I getting myself into? "Fine. But you must make sure I am not found out by the Colonel. I need this job, Gideon."

  "Deal."

  He kissed my hand, instead of shaking it, and my heart fluttered with a wickedness I'd not known I possessed.

  IT WAS FOUR nights later that the wall in my bedroom opened up.

  The movement caught the corner of my eye first. What I was seeing couldn't possibly be real, but Gideon stepped through the gap holding a body wrapped in cloth.

  "Knock, knock," he said.

  I gaped but could form no words. A sick chill overtook me and I thought of the missing servants from the news. What had he done?

  "I'm here to collect on your promise." He took a step towards me, and I backed up, searching
for anything I could use as a weapon against this intimate villain. "Relax, Violet, I brought your costume."

  "My costume?"

  As always, Gideon managed to unnerve me completely.

  He set his armload on the back of the chair and began unfurling this costume he'd spoken of. "Well, I can hardly bring you out dressed as you are, though you look fetching in your nightclothes." He held up a satiny concoction of peacock purple. "Hurry, put this on."

  "You came through my wall." My senses, addled as they were, began returning. I looked down, astonished to realize I was standing in my nightgown in my bedroom with a man. Not just any man, but Gideon. "Yes, there are several passageways in the walls of this house. I don't use them often, but you requested that I not put your job in danger, and so I shan't. No one will know you've left your room." He thrust the garment into my hands. "Now, get dressed."

  "I can't wear this. It's-"

  "Not gray. Or sturdy. Yes, I know. But you can't wear a serviceable gown where I'm taking you. You'll wear this."

  "I couldn't possibly-"

  "Violet," he warned.

  I sighed, taking my armful behind the changing screen. Removing my nightgown in the same room as Gideon felt illicit, even though he couldn't see me. Probably because I knew he was imagining he could see me. My entire body flushed hot as I quickly put on my underthings and leaned against the automated corset lacer. I stepped into the gown but couldn't pull it up all the way. It was then I realized it was up-just cut very low across the bosom.