Chapter Fifteen
Gigi hadn’t always preferred quiet evenings at home. In truth, she’d hated being left alone, especially when there was a party or ball or theater event going on somewhere in the city without her.
Much had changed in her life. She had changed.
She relished her solitude now. And took pride in her life of service, craving her evenings alone whenever Esmeralda and Sophie went out and the other servants were enjoying their own time off.
As she did most nights, Gigi took the opportunity to play the piano. Sheltered from the world that had once been so much a part of her, she could allow her emotions free rein. She could let her tumultuous feelings flow through her fingers.
Gigi had one goal this night. Forget her problems, if only for an hour. She tucked the invitation to luncheon at Elizabeth’s house in the pocket of her dress and went to the music room.
Battling unwanted sensations, she sank onto the piano bench. The Steinway was a new addition to the town house. It was smaller by a few feet than the concert grand Gigi had played in Harvest House but no less wonderfully crafted.
The instrument was perfection itself. Gigi ran her fingers across the gleaming ivory keys, sighed heavily, and played a few melodic notes, first with her right hand, then with her left, then with both. The rich sounds had the ideal balance of harmonics. Only the best for Esmeralda.
Gigi shut her eyes and played a piece from memory. She let her heart lead the way, choosing an adagio. The tempo marking suited her mood. Unfortunately, after the first bar, the slow, melancholy melody gave her mind a chance to wander.
She forced out all other thought and let the music fill her head. Images of Fitz came seconds later. He’d kissed her, twice. She’d wanted more. She’d nearly begged for more.
Have I not changed at all?
The first press of their lips had been sweet, tentative, two people meeting after a long time apart. The second kiss had been deeper, more emotional and urgent. Gigi had instinctively reached for Fitz, her hands clutching his shoulders, the movement as natural as breathing.
For those brief moments, Gigi and Fitz were closer than they’d been in years, at least physically.
Forgotten memories reared up, twining through the present, calling to mind that long-ago kiss that had come on the tail of a heated argument. That one had taken Gigi a full week to get out of her mind. She predicted an equal challenge forgetting Fitz’s recent kisses.
Even now, his lingering scent of sandalwood and shaving soap teased her senses, making her yearn to speak with him again, to heal their rift, to start anew, to—
Gigi opened her eyes.
Play a different song, she ordered herself, lifting her hands away from the keys.
Rolling her shoulders, Gigi repositioned her fingers on the keys and switched to a livelier piece composed by Chopin in C-sharp minor. The descending octaves soon gave way to a fiery allegro appassionato, and Gigi lost herself in the music.
She played the polonaise with her heart leading the way once again. Her fingers took over. The diversity in textures, dynamics, and varying moods made this her favorite piece by Chopin.
But then the music gave way to a tender melody, and Gigi’s mind filled with too many thoughts.
This time, it wasn’t Fitz that plagued her.
Gigi couldn’t help but think that Sophie was heading down the dangerous road she’d gone down herself. The young woman was not rebellious by nature, but neither had Gigi been prior to meeting Nathanial.
A lot had changed for Sophie since she’d stood in her father’s private theater and demanded he acknowledge her as his daughter. The scandal should have been tremendous. But matters hadn’t played out that way. With Mrs. Burrows setting the tone, most of her friends had rallied around Sophie. The younger woman had seemed eager to please her new allies. She’d practiced for weeks for the luncheon.
Something had happened to alter Sophie’s desire to earn her way into New York society. If only Gigi knew for certain the cause wasn’t a man.
She had to trust her.
She’s not alone in this world, Gigi reminded herself. She has her half siblings and their spouses supporting her. The thought didn’t soothe away her worry. A liaison with the wrong person—a man—could destroy Sophie’s chance at a secure future.
Still, Gigi could not be with the young woman every second of the day. At some point, her friend had to make her own decisions.
Gigi put Sophie out of her head, along with all the other distractions battling for her attention, and switched to another piece by Chopin. Grande valse brillante in E-flat major, Opus 18. The waltz had been specifically composed for a solo piano.
Gigi played the piece, banishing all thought and letting the music woo her. She pulled her focus in tight, filtered out all other sounds in the house. Gigi liked being alone. She liked having only herself to count on—and to blame when she made missteps.
Play, she ordered her nomadic mind.
And she did, absorbing the piece as if it were as fundamental as air. The opus was mathematically perfect in its timing, and she gave herself over to the meticulous tempo. This was when she felt most like herself, and why she preferred playing the piano alone, without an audience.
Or so she told herself.
But that wasn’t completely true. She missed playing for her family and close friends.
She missed playing for Fitz.
Every time she thought of her life in Boston, he was there in the memory. How had she forgotten that? When had she forgotten? Sometime after Nathanial had shown up, that much she knew.
Focus on the music, Gigi.
Eyes closed, she played from memory and let the song consume her.
For a long moment, Fitz stood in the doorway, caught up in the sensations coursing through him. He didn’t move, didn’t blink, hardly dared to breathe.
Gigi was hurting. He could hear it in her music. She’d always played with passion, but this was different. Fitz actually felt Gigi’s anguish in the haunting melody.
Each note dripped with unspeakable pain. Fitz hurt for her, yet also found himself admiring her. She’d suffered but hadn’t let the tragic events break her. She was strong and beautiful, and he couldn’t stop staring at her.
He swallowed a few times, wanting to ease her discomfort. He wanted to help her find healing and forgiveness. He wanted to stand by her side, always, no matter the challenges the world threw at them. In that moment, he understood his mother’s devotion to his father on a whole new level.
Maybe Fitz should tell Gigi how he felt. Maybe he should show her. The overwhelming urge to take her in his arms seemed to crash in on him from all sides.
He was across the room before he could talk himself out of the absurd notion.
“Gigi.”
Her fingers stilled over the piano keys, and the music stopped. She turned her head. Blinked. Blinked again. Her gaze fell over him, down to his toes, her eyes pausing on the way back up, lingering on the bow tie at his neck. “You were at a party.”
“A ball,” he corrected, his voice a shade too thick. “At the Waldorf-Astoria.”
She flinched at the name of the hotel where Dixon had abandoned her, but rallied quickly enough. “You hate balls.”
“This one was especially trying. Esmeralda made a grand entrance and then insisted I dance with her.”
Gigi laughed softly, the sound full of commiseration. “I can only imagine how uncomfortable that must have been. But . . . wait. If you saw Esmeralda at the ball, I presume you also crossed paths with Sophie?”
“I did.” He thought of the young woman and her mystery companion escaping onto the terrace. “In a manner of speaking,” he amended.
“So . . .” Gigi spun around on the bench, the move placing her back to the piano keys. “If you left Esmeralda and Sophie at the ball, that must mean you came to see—”
“You, Gigi. I came to see you. Irving let me in the house. The music drew me here.” He shouldn’t have come. With what he knew about the disease ravaging his father’s mind, Fitz couldn’t in good conscience pursue anything beyond friendship with Gigi. But he wanted more.
He wanted a lifetime.
Because he also wanted her in his arms, now, this instant, he kept his hands clenched by his sides and settled for drinking her in with his eyes. She wasn’t wearing that ridiculous mobcap he’d grown to hate. Her hair was disheveled and messy, falling in scattered waves around her pink cheeks. The glorious red competed with the bleached strands. The contrast should look ridiculous, but Gigi looked . . . breathtaking. Maybe in fifty years he’d grow used to her beauty.
Maybe in a hundred.
“You’re sad. Won’t you tell me why?”
She started to shake her head, but Fitz sat beside her on the piano bench. He did his best to keep his distance, but couldn’t stop himself from cupping her hand in his.
“I heard your obvious distress in the song. You always did put your emotions into your music.”
For several seconds, she stared at their joined hands. “I forget how well you know me.”
Not so well. Or he would know what to say to erase her melancholy. He couldn’t find the words to get her talking. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Probably not.”
He released her hand. “I should leave.”
“Probably.”
He didn’t budge from his position beside her on the bench. He couldn’t leave her in this state.
Emotions swirled in his gut. Deep and confusing, wrapping around him in a way that sent a bone-deep urgency to protect her, always—to take care of her, always.
He took a hard breath.
She rose from the bench with his name on her lips. “Why are you here, Fitz?”
How many times had she asked him that question in the past week? How many times had he skirted around the truth? No more. Perhaps it was seeing Sophie Cappelletti, dressed in all her finery, standing too close to a man in the shadows.
Torn between alerting Esmeralda to the budding romance and keeping out of a matter that didn’t concern him, Fitz had had a revelation. And so he’d come to Gigi. “I missed you.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You . . . what?”
“I have missed you for some time. I was a rotten friend and an even worse suitor. I let you down long before Dixon appeared in your life.”
She didn’t argue the point. “What changed, Fitz? What made you withdraw from me, from us?”
He badly wanted to give her the truth. But he’d made a promise to his mother and couldn’t—wouldn’t—break his word. Not even to keep Gigi from thinking ill of him. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not my secret to share.” He reached for her, thought better of it, and let his hand fall away. “I apologize for hurting you, Gigi. That was never my intention.”
“But you did hurt me. More than you know. More than even I knew at the time.”
She didn’t need to say more, didn’t need to remind him of his neglect. “I’m sorry.”
The silence that followed his words seemed to last a very long time. Moving to the window overlooking the street, she gave a little shudder.
“Gigi, if we had remained friends . . .” He drew in a harsh breath, hating the hot sensation of grief building in his chest. “Would you have run off with Dixon?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. There was something haunted in her eyes. “I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times.”
“You ran away with him because of me,” Fitz pressed, needing her to say the words, needing to hear the truth from her lips. “Admit it. I am to blame.”
“No. You’re not.” She shook her head. “I made my own choices. The consequences of my actions are mine alone to bear. But if it’s complete honesty you want from me—”
“It is.”
“Part of the reason I let Nathanial court me was to push you to react with something more than smug superiority. I wanted you to treat me as a woman, Fitz, not as one of your business deals.”
How had he missed that? Why had he been so obtuse? Because he’d been consumed with his father’s deteriorating health.
No excuse.
She showed her back to him again, pressed her head to the windowpane, then gripped the wood casing with trembling fingers. “Though I would never have admitted this at the time, and I’m not proud doing so now, I wanted you to regret losing me to another man.”
“You can’t know how true you hit your mark.”
His voice was low and fierce, and he was by her side in three long, furious strides. His anger was directed at himself, not Gigi. Never Gigi. Even when he’d confronted her about her growing attachment to Nathanial, Fitz had been frustrated with his own inability to make his feelings clear.
By then, he’d known he had lost her. He’d accepted that she could never be his. But he hadn’t been able to stand by and watch her destroy her future for a fortune hunter.
“Gigi.” He took her shoulders and gently turned her around to face him.
Tears swam into her eyes, shimmered beautifully against the deep blue of her irises. “I have to know the truth, Fitz. Did you abandon our friendship because you saw a flaw in my character, something that made you think less of me?”
“No.”
He opened his mouth to expand on that, but she was already talking again. “Then what was it? What is this secret you supposedly can’t tell me?”
“I’ve told you all I can.” He tugged her to him. With her pressed close, he felt each of her heartbeats with a raw intensity.
She said something low and unintelligible, the words muffled against his chest. He didn’t need to hear the words to know she was asking him to reveal the one thing he had to bear alone.
“If I could share my burden with anyone, it would be you.” He waited for her to look at him, then pressed his forehead to hers.
Sheltered in the moment, cocooned from the past and the impossibility of the future, Fitz did the one thing he knew he shouldn’t. He pressed his lips gently to hers.
This kiss was like none they’d shared before. It was tender and poignant, full of promises neither would be able to keep. Gigi’s heart didn’t belong to him, and he couldn’t give his to her.
His breath came short and thick. She was sweet, unbearably sweet, soft, and warm—and not for him.
A clock chimed from somewhere in the house, announcing the hour. Midnight. They were fully into the next day. A new day.
A new beginning, a new—
He tore his lips away and stepped back. Nothing but air stood between him and Gigi. And a whole lot of turbulent history.
The innocence that had called to him was still in her. Dixon had only stolen her dignity—and her good name. Fitz, too, had played his part in her disgrace. The least he could do was help her find her way home.
Setting his jaw, Fitz straightened his vest. “I will see you in the morning at nine o’clock.”
“What . . . what happens at nine?”
“I’m escorting you to church.” Realizing how that sounded, he amended, “If you’ll let me.”
“I don’t attend church anymore. I haven’t for a very long time.”
Fitz couldn’t have been more surprised had Gigi told him she was joining the circus. He struggled to reconcile the impossible with reality. “But you adore going to church. You find great joy in lifting up your voice in praise.”
It was the one thing they’d had in common. Even when they’d been at odds, hardly speaking to one another, they’d shared the pleasure that came from worshipping the Lord in song.
When he reminded her of this, she shook her head. “No matter what church, no matter where, I can’t seem to make myself walk up the front steps and enter the sanctuary.”
“How long has it been since you tried?”
Her gaze chased around the room, landing everywhere but on him. “Months.”
Fitz braced against the burning ache in his chest. Dixon had stolen so much from her, this probably the worst of all.
“I can’t help thinking my shame is too great to be forgiven.” Her bent posture made her look isolated and defenseless.
“No sin is too great to be forgiven.”
His words sounded as clichéd as he feared they would. But this was too important for Fitz to take the time to develop a proper argument. “Gigi, the Lord’s mercy is endless and always available, like waves breaking on the shore.”
“You think it’s easy for me? I hate being separated from the Father.” She wrapped her arms tightly around her. “I feel so unworthy and inadequate. I have no idea how to ask Him for forgiveness.”
She sounded defeated.
Fitz didn’t know how to convince her of the Truth. He was out of his element and didn’t read the Bible regularly enough to combat a crisis in faith this profound.
That didn’t mean he was willing to give up on Gigi. She would never be free of the past if she didn’t learn how to ask for God’s forgiveness.
“Come to church with me.” Fitz would get her inside the building and leave the rest to the Lord. “Please. If you feel uncomfortable, we’ll leave.”
The longing in her gaze gave him hope. “I will agree on one condition.”
“Name it, anything.”
“We have to attend a church in Brooklyn.”
“Why Brooklyn?”
“It’s the only place I’m sure no one will recognize me, or you, or know of our past connection.”
“Then Brooklyn it is.”
She smiled.
That smile, it reached inside his heart and squeezed. Fitz left the room with the image of Gigi branded in his memory.