The Woman Of My Dreams ✔

Chapter 26

As Hugh walked Joan home, he wondered about her family. And then decided to ask her.

"I am quite curious regarding your family" Hugh said.

"Do you suspect that we all manifest in enigma?" Joan asked, amused.

Hugh laughed, "no. But we never talked over the topic."

"No we didn't. But we just met yesterday" Joan answered, with a shrug.

"Ah. Yes."

"I love my family. My elder brother George, my younger sister Juliana, mother, father. All of them" Joan admitted.

"Oh. Ah, Sir George. I know him. We are acquainted. He was my senior at the Eton college" Hugh said.

Joan smiled "do you like him?"

"I presume, we aren't acquainted well enough, for me to decide that" Hugh replied.

"I like people who are honest" Joan said and looked up at him.

Hugh looked at her, and something in her face sparked true.

"Well, thank you" Hugh said.

"Do you know, George of all of us, is the enigmatic one. Really mysterious. He just wants to stay away from all of us, but he never acts rudely. He loves all of us, but...but...just prefers to be alone, in his bachelor lodgings. I think, he is hiding something from all of us, but he never admits."

"Is he the man with dark secrets? The brooding type?" Hugh asked, curiosity bubbling through him.

Suddenly, in the rapid heat of a moment, Joan's eyes darkened.

"Yes. A few years back something sad had happened to him" Joan admitted.

Hugh could feel his eyes widen as he asked "what?"

"George had fallen in love with my maid. Her name was Stephanie. And she was really pretty. Stephanie too had fallen in love with him. The two of them were quite nauseatingly in love for two years. Until my father came to know. He was put out and exceedingly angry at George for falling in love with a girl belonging to the lower standards of London society. He ordered George to halt his relationship with her. But George refused. My father refused to let George marry her, and he forced George in such a way that George accepted. But with a broken heart" Joan told.

"What happened, then?"

"The other day, George told Stephanie that he didn't love her anymore. And then he removed her from the job of my maid. From that day onwards none of us really saw her anymore. We didn't hear from her too. Probably, George had halted all her resources to contact our family.

But in this exchange, George had changed. He talked less often, ate less frequently, and would sit alone at most times, drinking excessively in Stephanie's memory.

I'd once read in his diary that, his heart was writhing with inevitable affliction at the loss of his love.

And yes, that was the day, when he left the house and moved into the bachelor lodgings."

Hugh never knew, that so much lay within the surface of Sir George.

And then Hugh asked the most obvious question "does he hold a grudge against your father?"