The Innocent and the Outlaw (Outlaws of the Wild West)

by Harper St. George

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  The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone

  by Louise Allen

  Chapter One

  London—June 1st, 1820

  ‘There is a young lady to see you, my lord.’

  Gabriel Stone, Earl of Edenbridge, swung his feet down from the fender and sat up in his saggingly comfortable armchair to fix his butler with a quizzical look.

  ‘Losing your touch, Hampshire? Young ladies do not come calling on me, not even with a bodyguard of chaperons.’

  ‘Quite so, my lord. However, this is indubitably an unaccompanied lady and a young one at that.’

  ‘Does this mythical creature have a name?’

  ‘Lady Caroline Holm, my lord.’

  ‘Holm?’ That rang a bell. A very faint and slightly muzzy chime, given that Gabriel had been playing cards and drinking brandy into the small hours at a cosy hell in St Christopher’s Place. He glanced at the clock and found it was now eleven o’clock in the morning. He really must summon up the energy to go to bed.

  It had been a profitable night and the crackle of promissory notes in his pocket told him so as he lounged to his feet and stretched all six foot two inches of weary body. Profitable to the tune of several hundred pounds, a very nice signet ring and the deeds to a small estate in Hertfordshire.

  The estate... ‘Ah, I have it, Hampshire. I presume Lady Caroline is the daughter of Lord Knighton.’

  ‘The eccentric earl, my lord?’

  ‘A euphemistic description, Hampshire, but it will serve. The man appears to suffer from occasional bouts of gambling fever and is notoriously obsessional about improving his estate in the intervals between his binges. Of his other peculiarities I have no personal experience, I am thankful to say.’

  Gabriel turned to look in the over-mantel mirror and was confronted by a vision of unshaven, rumpled dissipation, guaranteed to send any gently born lady fleeing screaming from the house into Mount Street. That would be an excellent outcome, although possibly without the screaming. He had some consideration for his neighbours. ‘Where have you put her?’

  ‘The drawing room, my lord. Should I bring refreshments?’

  ‘I doubt she’ll stay long enough. Have my bathwater sent up, will you?’

  Gabriel sauntered out of his study towards the drawing room, the details of the night before gradually becoming clearer. Knighton was the man who had lost the Hertfordshire deeds to him as a result of one ill-judged hand after another. He hadn’t appeared particularly concerned at the time, certainly not to the extent of sending his innocent and respectable daughter to the home of one of London’s most notorious rakes and gamesters to buy back the stake.

  The innocent lady in question was standing before the unlit grate and turned at the sound of the door opening. Gabriel had time to admire a slim, unfashionably tall figure in a blue walking dress before she threw back her veil. The move revealed a chip-straw bonnet over neatly dressed blonde hair, a pair of admirable blue eyes a shade darker than her gown, a severely straight nose and, to balance it, a mouth erring on the side of lush.

  Not a beauty, not with that determined set to the chin, but striking. Tempting. ‘Lady Caroline? I am Edenbridge. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

  She dropped a hint of a curtsy, nicely judged to reflect both his rank and his dishevelled state. ‘You played cards with my father last night.’ Her voice was normally warm and mellow, Gabriel suspected. She sounded anything but, just at the moment.

  ‘I did. To save time, yes, I won the deeds to an estate in Hertfordshire from him in the process.’

  ‘I know. I overheard Papa telling my elder brother about it this morning.’

  ‘You have not come to tell me that it is your dowry, I hope?’

  ‘It is not.’ She took a few steps away from him, turned and marched back, chin up, apparently using the few seconds to marshal her words. ‘It belongs to my younger brother, Anthony.’

  ‘I regret to disagree, it now belongs to me. It is an unentailed estate, I gather, one that may be legally disposed of.’

  ‘Legally, yes, morally, no.’

  ‘Lady Caroline, I have very little time for morals.’

  ‘So I understand, my lord.’ A sensitive man would have flinched at her tone. ‘My father is...’

  ‘Eccentric.’

  She seemed to weigh the word for a moment. ‘Yes. And obsessed with both his title and Knighton Park, our home. That is entailed of course and my brother Lucas, Viscount Whiston, will inherit it. Anthony is only sixteen. Papa has decided that he will become a clergyman, installed in one of the livings at his disposal, and therefore he has no need of lands of his own. He doesn’t understand Anthony like I do. I virtually brought him up and—’ She must have realised she was losing his attention and her tone became brisk again. ‘Springbourne is ten miles from Knighton Park, too far for it ever to be integrated into the main estate, so Papa thinks little of it.’

  ‘The church is a common career for a younger son,’ Gabriel observed. His own brothers seemed happy enough with their respective roles, but they hadn’t been born first and saddled with the responsibility of title, tenants and lands. Let alone brothers. Promise me, Gabriel...

  With the ruthlessness of long practice he pushed away memories of childhood and thought of his brothers now. Ben, the elder, a blood-and-thunder cavalry major, George, newly ordained as a vicar, a mild soul who tended to flinch when he encountered Gabriel, and Louis, painfully studious and conscientious and both sensitive and pugnacious, a difficult combination to handle. He was a student in his final year at Cambridge where he was reading law before taking over the family’s business affairs, an outcome Gabriel was looking forward to immensely.

  Now they were adults Gabriel gave them money when they asked for it, had introduced each to a good clean brothel when he judged them mature enough, warned them about predatory young ladies and their even more predatory mothers and beyond that managed to avoid them for months at a time. It was better for all of them that way.

  ‘It may be usual,’ Lady Caroline said in a voice that made him think of lemons inadequately sprinkled with sugar, ‘but it is quite unsuitable for Anthony.’ She glanced at him, then looked away hastily. It might have been the morning light shining directly into her eyes, it might have been the sight of him. The blue gaze flickered back, she bit that full lower lip and the hunting cat in him stirred, twitched its tail and began to purr. ‘Anthony lo
ves Springbourne. He isn’t studious or intellectual. He is a natural farmer and countryman and it will break his heart to discover it has gone.’

  ‘And you expect me to hand it back to you, just like that? Sit down, Lady Caroline. I have had a long, hard night and I cannot sit until you do.’ Besides anything else, he wanted to watch her move.

  With a small sound he assumed was exasperation, she sat on the nearest chair and studied her clasped hands as he subsided into the seat opposite. ‘No, I do not expect you to do anything so altruistic as to save my little brother’s dreams and future for no return.’

  ‘Perceptive of you,’ he drawled and was rewarded by a hiss of anger before she was back to being the perfect lady again. ‘Do you intend to buy it back then?’ He pulled the mass of vowels out of his pocket and sorted through the IOUs until he found the one scrawled in Knighton’s hand. He held it up for her to see. ‘That is the value your father put on it.’

  Lady Caroline winced. ‘No, of course I cannot buy it back. You must know that as an unmarried woman I have no control over my own money.’

  ‘Then what do you propose?’

  ‘You have a certain reputation, Lord Edenbridge.’ Those gloves must be fascinating to require such close scrutiny.

  ‘As a gambler?’

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them and sent him a defiant stare before her gaze skidded away to settle on the fire irons. ‘As a man of amorous inclinations.’

  Gabriel tried not to laugh, but it escaped in a snort of amusement. ‘That is one way of putting it.’

  ‘I am a virgin.’

  And one who blushed delightfully. ‘So I should hope,’ he said piously. The lush mouth compressed into a hard line and he had a sudden urge to capture it beneath his, tease it into softness and acceptance. Into pleasure.

  ‘I propose an exchange, my lord.’ She addressed the fire irons. ‘My virginity for those deeds.’

  Gabriel had always thought himself sophisticated in his dealings with women. After perhaps half a minute, during which time Lady Caroline’s cheeks turned from light rose to peony and he revised his opinion of his own unshockability, he said, ‘I am not in the habit of deflowering virgins, respectable or not.’ But in your case...

  ‘Perhaps you would consider making an exception? I understand men are almost obsessed with virginity, which seems strange, but then I know very few men.’ And, by the sound of it, wished to keep it that way.

  He flicked the IOU with one finger, making her start at the sharp sound and glance at him again. ‘This debt is not your problem, Lady Caroline.’

  She bit her lip and Gabriel drew in a steadying breath. Even talking about making love to her was having an uncomfortable effect on him. He could understand that men wanted a virgin bride because they needed to be certain their heirs were from their own seed. But maidens held no attraction for him. Forcing women was revolting and a willing virgin was doubtless a great deal more trouble than she was worth—tiresomely inexperienced with a price to pay in the form of a maddened father with a shotgun. Besides, he expected expertise and sophistication from his lovers.

  And yet, this one... It has nothing at all to do with her virginity. Those blue eyes and that mouth and the stubborn, innocent courage of her... Damn, she is not safe out when she has no idea the effect she has on a man.

  ‘Oh, but it is my problem.’ Lady Caroline was becoming animated now, her blush disappearing as she leaned forward earnestly, trying to convince him, or, perhaps his disordered neckcloth, which is what she was now fixed upon. ‘Mama died ten years ago. Anthony is my little brother and I promised her I would look after him. I love Papa, of course, but he is...difficult. He would regard paying you to buy back the deeds as a waste of money that should go into Lucas’s inheritance, or towards improving Knighton Park.’ When Gabriel did not respond she said fiercely, ‘Anthony is the only one of my family who truly loves me and I love him as though he was my own child, not just my brother.

  ‘You have brothers, I know you have because I looked you up in the Peerage.’ For some reason that brought the colour up again in her cheeks. ‘This morning, I mean. I know, as a man, you can’t feel about them as I feel about Anthony, but you would do anything you could to help them, wouldn’t you?’ It was more a statement than a question.

  Yes. ‘No.’ He was not going to encourage her in this, allow her to see that her promise to her mother meant something to him. What his duty was as a man, as the eldest son, was quite different from hers as a daughter, a woman. ‘Listen to me, Anthony is a boy. He’ll find his own way in the world eventually. He isn’t a child, your responsibility, any more. Your older brother will look after him.’

  She was finally staring at him, although her expression suggested that it was because he had grown two heads. ‘I do not understand you. I love him for himself, but Anthony is also all I have left of Mama. I know from the Peerage that your mother is dead too. Have you no affection for your own family? Don’t you see your parents when you look at your brothers? Surely they are the most important thing in the world to you, even if sometimes you fall out with one of them?’

  All I have left of Mama, she had said. He understood that too well. The blackness swirled down, the memories clamouring. Promise me...the still white hand, limp beside the bottle...

  Gabriel shrugged the images away, unable to acknowledge what lay at the heart of them. He would kill...he would protect his brothers, of course he would. He had. They were his responsibility, his trust. He shrugged again. ‘It is my duty. But I am a man and head of the family.’

  ‘I am so sorry you feel like that, you must miss so much,’ Lady Caroline murmured.

  For an appalled moment Gabriel thought she was going to cry, she looked so upset. ‘You are not going to sell yourself to me in exchange for those deeds. What will your husband say?’ The heavens only knew where this impulse to decency was coming from.

  ‘I do not have one. Yet.’ Lady Caroline’s expression changed from sad to rigid.

  ‘You will, soon enough.’ She must be in her early twenties, he guessed. Twenty-three, perhaps. ‘And a husband means a wedding night.’

  ‘Papa has a number of men in mind for me, but he hasn’t made up his mind yet which would be the most advantageous match. Frankly I would be delighted to give any one of them a shock on the night.’ She seemed to have recovered her spirit, but her gaze had slid away to the fire irons again.

  ‘You do not have to obey him.’

  ‘He is my father, of course I have to obey him. I have no choice.’

  ‘Your duty, I suppose.’

  She nodded, one sharp jerk of her averted head. ‘Duty and lack of other options. My father tends to discourage suitors who do not match his wishes for me.’

  ‘You don’t really want to have sex with me, do you?’ Gabriel smiled as she looked back, startled at the deliberate crudity of his words. He made the expression more wolfish than reassuring and ran one hand over his morning beard, drawing her eyes to his mouth. She stared and then swallowed and his arousal kicked up another notch. Damn it.

  ‘To be frank, rather you, my lord, than Sir William Claypole or Mr Walberton. Or Lord Woodruffe.’

  ‘Hell’s teeth! Has your father made a list of every middle-aged bachelor in society?’ If he had sisters he would not have been willing to match one of them to any of those men, least of all Woodruffe.

  ‘Only of those with lands close to ours who would be willing to exchange them for me.’ When he did not respond she said urgently, ‘Please, Lord Edenbridge. I know you are supposed to be hard and cynical and to care for nothing and nobody, but deep down you must have family feeling. You must, surely, understand how desperate I am.’

  The first part of that description was more or less accurate. ‘You have managed to do a remarkable amount of research on me, considering that it is not
yet noon.’

  Lady Caroline blushed again. ‘I have seen you about at balls and so forth. People talk.’

  And you have been interested enough to ask about me? Gabriel laughed inwardly at himself. Coxcomb. Flattered because some attractive girl has noticed you? Women tended to look at him, just as he looked at them. But not well-bred virgins. He had a highly developed sense of self-preservation.

  ‘I will take you up on your offer,’ he said. She gasped as though she had not expected it and the colour fled from her cheeks. ‘I will send the deeds to you when I receive them from your father and you will give me an IOU for your maidenhead, to be surrendered when your marriage is definitely arranged.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘I may be a gamester and a rake with a shocking reputation, Lady Caroline. But I am a gentleman. Of sorts.’ Just enough of one not to barter your innocence. On the other hand, if she thought they had an agreement it would prevent her doing anything else reckless in order to raise money to pay him. He could simply hand her the deeds and he should do just that without any conditions. But the hunter in him enjoyed having her between his paws. Not to hurt, just to play with a little. He was so damnably bored these days. ‘On my honour I will speak of this to no one. What is your decision?’

  * * *

  She had expected to be sent packing with Lord Edenbridge’s derisive laughter ringing in her ears, or to find herself flat on her back in his bedchamber, and had not been able to work out which of those was the worst of two evils. What she had not expected was this reprieve. Which was not a reprieve after all, merely a postponement, she realised as his words sank in.

  ‘I accept.’ Caroline wondered if she was about to faint. She was not given to swooning, but the room seemed unexpectedly smaller and there was a strange roaring in her ears that must be the sound of her blood.

  ‘Please send the deeds to this address.’ She found her piano teacher’s card in her reticule and handed it to him without meeting his gaze. She had tried not to look at him, partly because the whole situation was so mortifying, but also because she knew she blushed every time she saw that rangy, carelessly elegant figure. Looking at his face, so close, would be too disconcerting. ‘Miss Fanshawe understands the situation at home.’