Consequently, it was with undisguised coolness that he greeted her Friday evening when she arrived in time for dinner. He kissed her forehead fraternally and stepped aside, indicating that she should enter.
Abandon hope, he thought to himself.
Julia knew that something was wrong, and it wasn’t solely because she could hear the strains of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly wafting from the living room. Usually Gabriel greeted her with a hug and a few passionate kisses before removing her coat. Instead he stood there, not even making eye contact, waiting for her to speak.
“Gabriel?” She reached up to touch his face. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” he lied, turning his face away. “Can I get you a drink?”
Julia resisted the urge to nag him for information and instead requested a glass of wine. She hoped he would be more forthcoming over dinner.
He wasn’t. He served their dinner in silence, and when Julia tried to make polite small talk over the roast beef, he responded monosyllabically. She told him she’d completed all of her schoolwork for the semester and that Katherine Picton had agreed to turn her grades in before December eighth, but Gabriel only nodded in response, glaring into his soon to be empty wine glass.
Julia had never seen him drink so heavily. He was already drunk the night she rescued him at Lobby. But this night was different. He wasn’t flirtatious and happy, he was tormented. With each glass, she grew more and more worried, but every time she opened her mouth to say something, she would catch a glimpse of fleeting sadness on his face, which made her refrain. He grew progressively cooler and more detached with each drink, so much so that by the time he served one of his housekeeper’s homemade apple pies for dessert, Julia waved it aside and demanded that he silence Maria Callas so that they could talk.
That drew his attention, since the pie (and the Butterfly) was the culmination of his supper. His Last Supper.
“Nothing is wrong,” he huffed, as he strode over to the stereo to stop the operatic performance.
“Gabriel, don’t lie to me. It’s obvious you’re upset. Just tell me. Please.”
The sight of Julianne, innocent Julianne, with her big brown eyes and her now furrowed brow almost undid him.
Did she have to be so sweet? So giving? Did she have to be compassionate? With a beautiful soul?
His guilt compounded. Perhaps it was a mercy that he hadn’t seduced her. Her heart would mend more readily now, since they had not known each other sexually. They’d only been together for a few weeks. She would dry her tears quickly and maybe find a quiet, peaceful affection with someone good and constant, like Paul.
The thought made him violently ill.
Without a word, he walked over to the sideboard and grabbed one of the decanters and a crystal glass. He returned to his seat and poured two fingers’ worth of Scotch. He drank half of it in one swallow and thumped his glass down roughly. He waited for the burning sensation in his throat to abate. He waited for the liquid courage to adhere to his insides, fortifying him. But it would take much more Scotch to dull the ache in his heart.
He took a deep breath. “I have some—unpleasant things to tell you. And I know that when I’m finished, I’ll lose you.”
“Gabriel, please. I—”
“Please, just let me say it.” He tugged at his hair wildly. “Before I lose my courage.”
He closed his eyes and inhaled once again. And when he opened them, he peered over at her like a wounded dragon. “You are looking at a murderer.”
Sounds hit her ears but didn’t sink into her consciousness. She thought she’d heard wrong.
“Not only am I a murderer, I took innocent life.
“If you can stand to remain in the same room with me for a few minutes, I’ll explain how this came to be.” He waited for her to react, but she sat quietly, so he continued. “I went to Magdalen College, Oxford, for my master’s degree. You know this already. What you don’t know is that while I was there I met an American girl called Paulina.”
Julia inhaled sharply, and Gabriel paused. Every time she’d asked him about Paulina he’d always put her off. He’d tried to make her think that she was not a threat, but Julia hadn’t believed him. Of course Paulina was a threat to their creeping closeness. Paulina had pulled him away in the middle of dinner back in October. And before he’d run away Gabriel had stood, haggard, quoting Lady Macbeth. Julia trembled slightly in anticipation.
“Paulina was an undergraduate. She was attractive, tall and regal with blond hair. She liked to tell people that she was related to the Russian aristocracy, an Anastasia of sorts. We became friends and would spend time together on occasion, but it wasn’t physical. I was seeing other girls, and she was pining away for someone…”
He cleared his throat nervously.