Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, all my bags were packed and ready to go before the sun was even up. I knocked on Jamie’s door, hoping he’d be awake and we could make our apologies and leave before breakfast. I’d make my excuses to Gideon later, but for now, it was better to get as far away from Perry as possible. I knocked a few times, but Jamie didn’t answer. I tiptoed into the room. Jamie was strewn across the bed, wearing nothing but boxer briefs. I tapped his shoulder. He grunted, rolled over, and burrowed deeper into the bed.
“Jamie,” I whispered.
“Go away,” he muffled through a pillow.
“I think we should get going back to London,” I said.
He lifted his head and looked at the clock on the fireplace mantle. “It’s six fifteen. Go away.”
“We’ll beat all the city traffic if we leave now.”
He reached over to the nightstand and tossed a set of keys at me. “Drive yourself then. I’ll take the train or catch a ride with someone later,” he said.
I tossed them back at him. “You know I don’t drive.”
He grudgingly sat up and rubbed his eyes. “You can drive, you just don’t like to. There’s a difference. What’s wrong?”
I sat down on the end of the bed. “Gideon has a full day of activities planned for everyone. Everyone.”
“Everyone? So, Perry and Annabelle are sticking around?”
“I was too afraid to ask Gideon. I didn’t want him to think I care.”
“But obviously you do care.”
“Only because Annabelle doesn’t know anything about our past. The more time we all spend together the more likely it is the truth is going to come out and then what?”
“Exactly and then what?” Jamie repeated back to me. “Christ, Gi, if you say something now it’s going to look like you and Perry conspired to keep it a secret. You have to find a time and way to talk to Victoria about all this. I can’t even imagine the shitstorm if the press gets wind of this before you’ve had a chance to come clean.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“You better. For both our sakes.”
Jamie laid back down and rolled onto his side. I crawled into bed beside him. He handed me a pillow and I propped it underneath my head.
“Gideon asked me to be his girlfriend. I told him I needed some time to think about it.”
“He’s a good-looking, well-mannered member of the British aristocracy and he really likes you. What’s to think about?
“I don’t mean his pedigree. If he didn’t have a title. If we weren’t waking up in his…” I looked around before I finished my sentence. “Castle.”
Jamie smirked and rolled back over to face me. “If you want to go back to London, I’ll take you to the station later, but I think you should stay. Get to know Gideon better. Figure out how to answer his question.”
I kissed Jamie on his forehead. “You’re an incredible friend. You’re going to be a wonderful father.”
“I appreciate that. Now get out of my bed and my room. I need my beauty rest.”
I left Jamie and went back to my room for my sketchbook before making my way outside to the gardens. The morning fog had just lifted, revealing meandering stone paths, bright pockets of flowers, and deep green lawns. I sat down on a wrought iron bench to take in the breathtaking scenery. There was so much to be inspired by—the grand house, the exquisite gardens, the rolling countryside—yet when I put pencil to paper, nothing.
I closed my eyes and couldn’t help but imagine Victoria Ellicott standing at the back of Westminster Abbey, waiting to meet Prince Alexander at the altar. Seated along the aisles were foreign royals, celebrities, politicians, diplomats, family, and friends, all of them anxiously anticipating the bride in her show-stopping gown. The whole world gathered outside the church, clamoring to get a photograph of the iconic dress as Victoria emerged from the church an actual princess.
How could any design possibly measure up to the significance of that moment?
I tucked the pencil back into the sketchbook and leaned back to await a stroke of brilliance. Anything to pull me out of my block.
“Let’s have a look,” said a voice from above me.
Perry walked around the bench and sat down beside me. He was holding a composition notebook and pencil.
“What are you doing up this early?”
“I have some rewrites to do for when the show moves to Broadway. Apparently, the producers think I need to fill in more of the blanks for American audiences.”
His dark, curly hair was held back with a blue bandanna, and he was wearing a beat-up T-shirt with the Elizabeth logo. He looked just like he had when I met him that first day at Chinooka, even down to the army-green cargo shorts. My breath caught in my throat. It was one thing to keep running into him in formal settings, both of us dressed to the nines, pretending to fit into our posh surroundings. It was quite another to see him like this, stripped of all formality. He was the Perry I fell in love with in the middle of the Poconos woods.
I laid my sketchbook on the ground. “Maybe you’ll have better luck. I’m in a bit of designer’s block. I thought coming out here might help.”
He motioned to the house and hedge maze. “Something about this view has to be inspiring.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I connect with it. Who lives like this?”
“Your boyfriend,” he said flatly.
“You forget, I’ve been to your girlfriend’s house. The views from there aren’t half bad. Anyway, he isn’t my boyfriend.”
“No?”
My jaw clenched. “Even if he was, we’re long past you having the right to care.”
I bent to pick the sketch pad off the ground. I hugged it close to my body and turned from Perry.
He stood up, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Of course, I care.”
That was rich coming from the man who’d unloaded our relationship woes in the New York Times. I spun on my heels and looked him straight in the eye.
“‘Some romances are intense and wonderful but simply doomed from the start.’ I’m paraphrasing a bit, but I think that was the quote you gave the Times about us, right?”
“Christ, Gigi, you read that?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s the New York Times, Perry. Everyone read it. I especially appreciated having my mother quote it back to me verbatim.”
“When I spoke to the reporter, I wasn’t thinking about you or your mother. I wasn’t thinking at all.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s how you feel. I only wish you’d have shared it with me before the rest of the world—would’ve saved us both a lot of heartache.”
“Elizabeth got so big so fast. I know I haven’t handled all of it well.” He rubbed the soft stubble on his face. “You know what I wish sometimes? That I could disappear back to Chinooka for the summer. That’s crazy, right? I have everything I ever wanted…” His voice trailed off.
Almost immediately, he realized the callousness of his words and reached out to comfort me. I took two steps away from where he stood.
“That summer at Chinooka feels like a dream to me now,” I said softly. “One of those amazing, once-every-so-often dreams where everything goes right and you wake up a new person. A few hours later, you can’t even recall most of the dream anymore. But you hold onto that feeling as long as you can, savoring the little bits you do remember until eventually those fade away too and you’re happy just to have had the dream at all. Perry, why haven’t you told Annabelle about us? Really?”
“I should’ve. When we met, I told her I’d just come out of a long-term relationship, but I didn’t tell her much beyond that and Annabelle never asked.” Perry took two steps toward me and took hold of my hands. “That night in the club I panicked. I knew you were in the running to design Victoria’s gown and I didn’t want our past to mess it up for you.”
I didn’t know who to believe. The Perry who’d been by my side for four years cheering me on through each professional accomplishment. My unofficial collaborator, so sure of my talent and future success, he left no room for doubt. Or, the Perry who’d walked away from our partnership, convinced he’d be better off on his own.
I searched Perry’s deep brown eyes for answers to the dozens of questions that had tortured me since we broke off our engagement. He closed his eyes and then as if forgetting where we were and the implications should we be spotted, Perry grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me against his broad chest. I struggled against his hold, afraid of feeling too at ease in it. He whispered my name and I all but crumpled in his arms. He ran his fingers through my hair and kissed me hard. His beard grated against my skin, prickly and soft all at once—like Perry. I gripped his T-shirt in my hands as he drew me even closer.
I looked up into his eyes again but this time found myself staring at a reflection of my former self. The girl who, four years ago, almost extinguished everything good in her life by letting desire and lust overwhelm all reason. I was a guest in Gideon’s home. Annabelle was sleeping a few yards away. This wasn’t just reckless, it was selfish and I wouldn’t be that person again. I pulled away from Perry’s grasp.
Perry reached for my arm. “Gigi, please.”
“Let me go!”
I ripped myself from his grip and hurried as far from Perry as I could. He called my name over and over again, but I refused to look back. Moments later, I was in the thick of the yew hedge maze, no clue where I’d come in and even less of an idea of how to get out. I walked down the pathways and passageways, moving deeper and deeper into the enclosure. I sprang up on my tiptoes, trying to locate any landmarks that might help me find my way, but the hedges extended well over my head. After several more wrong turns and dead ends, I was at the midpoint of the maze, staring up at a large fountain where water spewed from a statue of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and time.
When the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its Greek and Roman wing a few years ago, I became a regular visitor of the galleries. Their gold bust of the god Janus was a favorite of mine. Depicted as having two faces looking in opposite ways, the sculpture was in the exact center of the gallery as if welcoming every sightseer—its younger face looking toward the past and its older face looking toward the future. I made a habit of greeting him on each and every visit.
Here in the Badgley Hall maze, Janus was gazing in each possible direction that might lead out from it. I peered left and right, trying to work out the correct route, but the passages looked nearly identical. I sat down on the edge of the fountain and thought back to what the docent had said about how these mazes were at one time used for secret romantic rendezvous between the British aristocracy and their less-than-suitable lovers. I wondered how many had lost their way in these walls before realizing they preferred what they had on the other side?
I stood up and glanced in each direction again. Unless I wanted to camp for the night, I’d have to make a decision about which way to go. I started to walk toward one of the passageways and thought I heard Gideon’s voice way off in the distance. Or was it Perry’s?
I looked up at Janus, hoping for a sign, and then heard the voice again, louder and clearer this time. It was Gideon, crying out to me from somewhere inside the maze.
“I’m here, I’m here,” I called back to him.
“Just follow my voice. I’ll get you out,” he yelled back. “Can you give me a landmark to help me figure out where you are?”
“I think I’m in the center. I’m standing next to the fountain and statue of Janus.”
“Oh, easy then,” Gideon shouted. “Go past the older face and down the passageway. Make two rights, a left, and then another right. I’ll be standing there.”
I followed his directions and emerged out of the last corridor. Gideon was waiting for me.
I threw my arms around him, and he yanked his cap off his head.
“My hero. How’d you know I was here?”
“The Gamekeeper saw you wander into the maze on his way down to the stream with the fishing equipment for later. He was worried you might be lost in there.”
“I was stupid. I didn’t have my phone or anything with me but my sketchbook. Left to my own devices, I’d have drifted around that thing for hours.”
“I have a feeling you’re more resourceful than that.” He gestured to my sketchbook. “Get any work done?”
I turned the book to him and flipped through the empty pages. “At this rate, Victoria Ellicott may walk down the aisle naked.”
“Well, that would certainly make a statement,” he said with a wink.
I closed the book and tucked it under my arm. “So, fishing’s on the day’s itinerary?”
“Hunting, shooting, fly fishing. All part of life on these country estates. I arranged for the houseguests to get lessons this morning.”
I glanced down at my feet. “I didn’t bring my galoshes. Maybe I’ll just hang at the house.”
His expression softened. “I ran into Perry on my way out to find you. He and Annabelle are headed back to London this morning. You don’t have to worry about anymore awkward encounters.” He put his arm around me and pulled me close.
Without even thinking, I pulled away.
“What’s wrong, Gigi?”
I squeezed my eyes closed and blurted out, “Perry kissed me. We were talking—actually fighting—and it just happened.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I see.”
“There’s a lot of history, and I think he got swept up in the moment, that’s all. But I wanted to be honest with you. I owe you that.”
He turned from me. “You should go back inside and join the others for breakfast. I have to check on a few things.”
I walked over to him. “Don’t you want to talk about this?” I asked.
Gideon closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “No.”
I instantly recognized his reaction, the same one I’d seen so many times from Perry. Suppressing feelings, wanting to keep interactions brief and polite rather than causing a stir or making a scene.
I reached for his arm. “Gideon, please.”
He put his flat cap back on and headed down the walkway toward the stream without another word.
The rest of the day, I wandered back and forth to the different activities Gideon had organized on the property, hoping to see him again. I fumbled my way through archery, skeet shooting, and fishing. I felt like I was back at Camp Chinooka, being forced to participate in sports I was completely hopeless at.
Jamie, however, was having the time of his life and, of course, was fully outfitted for the occasion in an elbow-patched Ralph Lauren tweed jacket, gingham-checked shirt, dark jeans, and a cap similar to the flat cap Gideon always wore.
I went down to the stream where Jamie and some of the other guests were getting a lesson in trout fly fishing. He was knee-high in the water, the instructor beside him showing him how to cast a line. I took out my phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Thom. He’d never believe Jamie was fly fishing without the accompanying visual.
Jamie spotted me on the banks of the water and waded over. “Grab some coveralls and a pair of wellies and come join me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “I already flunked archery and skeet shooting.”
“This is different. There’s nothing to it. Stand here and enjoy the sounds of nature with me.”
I eyed the muddy bank and the brackish water lapping upon the shore. “Umm…I’ll enjoy them from right here, thank you.”
“Gigi, stop being a princess and get in the stream with me.”
I rolled my eyes and walked over to the equipment shed. I pulled on the waterproof overalls and yellow rubber wellies. I carefully trod down to a shallow part of the stream and eased my way in and over to Jamie. The instructor spotted me and brought over a pole. After giving me a quick lesson on how to cast, he moved over to check on some of the other guests.
Jamie and I stood in silence, waiting for something, anything to bite at our lines.
“How long are we supposed to stand here?” I whispered.
“I have no idea. Try to relax.”
I tugged on my line. “Should we be moving around or something?”
Jamie glanced down at me. “Perry and Annabelle went back to London, right? Why so antsy?”
I didn’t want to burden Jamie any more with my troubles, so I told him I was going to try to find a quiet spot to work on my sketches before heading back to the house to clean up for lunch.
I pushed my way through the current and back to the embankment where Gideon was lecturing some of the other houseguests about the type of stream we were fishing in.
He led the group down to the water. “This is a chalk stream. They get their name because they flow through chalk hills toward the sea. They’re typically fairly shallow, although the ones here at Badgley Hall are a bit deeper due to our topography. There are two hundred and ten chalk streams in the world, and one hundred sixty of those are right here in England. Most importantly, they’re wonderful for fishing.”
I turned around and locked eyes with Gideon, who was finishing up his thought. “Chalk streams are known for their stable currents that vary only slightly over time. The temperature is steady and rarely deviates from ten degrees Celsius. Most unique is their transparent water, which is due to a lack of sand and sediment particles.”
Stable, steady, and transparent. Gideon in a nutshell. In the short time I’d known him, he’d proven to be all of those things, and yet, I pushed him away with both hands. Was I crazy? Or worse, was I fooling myself to think I could ever really be over Perry Gillman?