The Eternal Shadow

Chapter 5

V

"How about we go and pay our good friend Winchester a visit eh?" Vaisey suggested, his fingers crooking into air commas as he purred the words 'good friend' sarcastically.

Guy, who was relieved not to see any of the gossiping idiots at court for a while, was pleased with this suggestion. He wished above all to avoid Natalia Cavendish, fearing his temper would get the better of him in her presence. He had tossed and turned all night thinking of her and what she'd done. Part of him had tried to play it down, consider the matter a lapse of judgement or a bit of harmless mischief but if he was honest, it cut him deep. It was bad enough that she'd already made it clear she considered him unworthy of her but that she would play with him... as a cat does with a mouse...

Is that how she thinks of me? A dull mouse not worthy of her attention... just like...

It hit him like a slap in the face: the realisation that the way he saw Francesca was exactly how Natalia saw him. He felt a surge of indignant anger forming low in his belly and running hot and fast through his veins making him shake with it's force. It did not occur to him that he had been just as bad, that he himself had been guilty of such indifference towards another and that his uncharitable thoughts about the younger sister had not bothered him in the slightest... No, his anger now was because the indifference was being directed at him and he couldn't bear it. It stung his ego, which he had taken such pains to build up, forgetting that at the end of the day there are always two people involved in courtship and one is not entitled to the good opinion of the other just because one desires it.

To Guy, rejection was probably one of the worst sins one could commit against him, right up there with betrayal. Vaisey had made him do all manner of terrible things and had done all manner of terrible things to him but he had never rejected him. Guy could remember each and every rejection in his life starting with the one that had hurt him the most: the banishment of himself and his sister from their rightful lands. He had sworn that day that he would never let anyone reject him again only for his mother's relatives in France do the very same not long after. Then Vaisey came along and made sure that nobody would ever send him away again.

On the road to Winchester, as the distance between himself and his troubles grew, he hoped that the muddy waters of his emotions would begin to settle...

instead things only got worse...

and all because of a ribbon.

Dark blue, the colour of a stormy sea, braided loosely through a lock of his horse's mane.

He instantly knew who had done it.

In that first moment, he found himself frowning in puzzlement: why had she? This was followed by anger: how dare she? Then came amusement: calm down now Gisborne, it is just a ribbon..., which soon turned to unease:

Yes but is it?

Was it just a ribbon for a horse? Was it a thank you for showing her the horse? Was it another way to apologise as she had done the previous evening? Was it a way to capture his attention? Did she want something from him? What did she want from him? Was she hoping for his friendship? Was she hoping for... no... she could not possibly...? Could she? Could she be hoping for something more? Was she trying for something more? Was she trying to ensnare him?

With the time and space the journey to Winchester allowed him, his mind inflated the matter out of all proportion. Not in a good way. He was also completely blind to the fact that he was being hypocritical in his reaction: he'd spent most of the night cursing Natalia for her sense of superiority over him but when it came to Francesca, he was no better. He was seemingly incapable of realising that just because he had no interest in the girl that did not mean he was her superior or that she had no right to do what she had done for whatever reason.