by Gabriel
Allowed was a grand term for having barely hung on to his scruples.
“I understood your conditions, and you apparently understood mine.” She fell silent, but she was prostrate upon him, his arms around her, and Gabriel could feel her gathering her courage. “I can’t have children, Gabriel, or so I’ve been told.”
His hand went still, but then he said the first thing that popped into his tired brain.
“I am so sorry.” He gathered her closer, and again, she resisted at first but then capitulated with a weary sigh.
“I haven’t had much occasion to test the diagnosis,” she said. “You would have been the first in a long, long time.”
“For me as well,” he said, the need to protect her from this hurt so great, he would have taken her into his very body had there been a way. “I couldn’t risk leaving a child to fend without a father, and you won’t agree to marry on any terms, so there we were.”
“And now we’re here.”
Fatigue, brandy, and Polly’s latest revelations made it easier to hold sexual arousal at bay. Gabriel let longing simmer in his vitals, while Polly fell asleep on his chest. To hold her thus was a privilege he’d been granted on only a few occasions, and they burned in his memory as moments of profound ambiguity.
Polly had trusted him, and all the while, he’d been lying to her. He’d savored the forbidden pleasure of limited intimacy with her, even as he’d been tormented by his dishonesty toward her and toward every member of the Three Springs household.
He hadn’t been lying, though, when he’d told her he’d marry her. If she’d conceived his child, he’d have had a special license in hand before sundown the same day, and no argument in the world would have stayed him.
No argument from her, no argument from anybody.
Which meant Aaron had best fall in love with his damned wife and put period to Lady Hartle’s damned maneuvering. But what on earth could the man have been thinking, to leave his lovely young wife untouched after two years?
And why had Polly chosen now to confide that she couldn’t have children?
***
“So, lad.” Old Mr. Danner settled into his padded rocker. “What was you doing, being dead these two years past?”
Gabriel eyed his tenant, a man who’d always been ancient to him. What he noticed now was that Danner also appeared enviably contented. “I was farming, and growing up.”
Danner grinned around his pipe stem. “Done a bit of both myself. Of necessity only.”
“Your fields and stock suggest otherwise, but was it necessary to stand up with every last one of the pretty girls, sir?”
“Somebody has to give George Wendover a run for his money.” Danner’s smile faded. “That one thinks he knows everything, and thinks the ladies should be grateful for his attentions.”
“And you don’t think the same thing about your own attentions?”
Danner wheezed merrily at this reply then sobered. “It’s well you’re back. Young master Aaron was giving it a good try, but he’s distracted by that little wife of his.”
“She tops you by several inches, and that’s before she puts on her riding boots.”
Danner waved his pipe. “She’s just a girl. How that she-beast Lady Hartle raised up such a one is beyond me. But her pa doted on Lady Margie, and that will tell.”
“Margie?”
Danner jammed his pipe back into his mouth. “Her husband calls her Margie.”
“How can you know these things?”
“You ever take to napping, lad, you’ll overhear plenty, and when the women think you’re harmless, you’ll overhear plenty more.”
As if old men invented eavesdropping? And Gabriel had taken to napping, and not so he could eavesdrop in the library of an evening. “I’ve given your daughter a recipe for a salve that I’ve found helpful when my back troubles me.”
“And isn’t it a grand thing a man can’t put salve on his own back? You were smart to take that knife in your backside.”
Oh, yes, brilliant of him. “It was in my back, not my backside.”
“More fool you. When you getting married?”
“Not anytime soon.” Gabriel scowled at him, but either the old man didn’t see well enough to know he trod on thin ice, or he didn’t care—and why should he?
Danner sat forward, a deliberate scoot that involved using his hands on the rocker arms to pull himself about. “Have you taken marriage into dislike at your tender age? Your pa had both you bull calves on the ground only late in life, and you and your brother are past your quarter century. Lady Hartle makes poor Lady Marjorie’s life a hell, ranting about the heir and the title and all. Best get your own wife, my lord, and find an easy breeder while you’re at it.”
“And one can tell this by looking at their teeth?”
Danner smirked. “It’s a place to start. Mostly, you look at their willingness for the task.”
“You have the one daughter,” Gabriel pointed out bluntly. “Aren’t you out of your depth on this issue?”
“I had the one daughter,” Danner said softly, “because I was willing to have only the one wife. Joan’s mama was the love of me life, and there was no other for me when she passed.”
“How long have you been alone?” The question wasn’t one Gabriel would have asked had they any company, but Joan was bustling in the kitchen, the grandchildren were off at their chores, and a great-grandbaby slept soundly in a basket by the hearth.
“I have been a widower for nigh fifty years, but I am never alone. We had eight good years together, and they’ve lasted me the entire eighty. It’s like that, you see, when you can marry where your heart lies. But you lot wouldn’t know anything about such, which, if you ask me, is why your womenfolk are so peaked and wan.”
“Fifty years?”
“Fifty-one this spring. Losing her was hard, but I’d not choose else, not for a moment.” His expression turned mischievous. “And the ladies do dote on a young widower, offering him all manner of comfort.”
“Bother you.” Gabriel rose and peered at the baby in her cradle as a means of avoiding the old man’s gaze.
Danner gestured at the infant, who’d begun to make wakeful-baby noises. “You can bring that one here. We’re of a mind to rock for a bit, aren’t we, lambkin?”
Two years ago, Gabriel would have summoned Joan to pick up the child. Hell, two years ago, he wouldn’t have been here, offering the recipe for Sara’s salve to a mere tenant, and two years ago, he wouldn’t have admitted to needing the damned salve himself.
But he’d spent that two years tending the land and bringing forth every kind of young the farmyard boasted, so it was no great feat of courage to pick up the baby and cradle her against his shoulder.
Only a little feat of courage. “What’s her name?”
“Edith, best I can recall. They’re all of a piece at that age.”
Gabriel took the other rocker and settled with the child, an odd feeling starting up in his chest. “How many do you have?”
“Seven grands, living, and eight great-grands,” Danner replied. “That child looks mighty comfortable on your shoulder, lad. I’m thinking you were telling the truth about those two years of farming.”
“I was down by Portsmouth,” Gabriel said, which was vague enough.
“Didn’t know Hesketh held land down that way, though God knows you own every parish for fifty miles.”
“Hardly.” Gabriel began to rock the baby, who stirred quietly against his shoulder. “I ended up working for a man who’d traveled extensively. He’d seen agriculture on at least four continents and had learned some neat tricks.”
“Good luck showing your neat tricks to old George.”
“George Wendover is old? What does that make you?”
“I’m merely eightyish. That boy is old, in here.” He tapped his bald skull. “He hasn’t had a new idea since he were thirty, and when an old idea will do, that’s fine; but times change, and the land needs our best ideas,
new or old, as strange as they may seem.”
“There’s a place for tradition,” Gabriel temporized, because any steward would have his detractors, and any old man would find things to criticize.
“Tradition is fine for Yuletide,” Danner spat. “You think my acres prosper? They do, and not only because they’re well situated. I do as I damned please here, and so does Joan’s Tom and their boys, because George learned long ago that my yields will outperform his.”
“Give me an example.” Gabriel wasn’t really interested in hearing Danner’s rantings about a steward who’d served loyally and without complaint for two decades, but neither was he in a hurry to leave the fireside and the company he’d found there.
Joan sang softly in the kitchen, Danner’s rocker creaked gently, and the scent of fresh bread stirred precious memories few titled lords could claim.
“George understands that land must fallow, and he understands you run the stock over the land after harvest, to give them a little start on winter,” Danner said. “But he lets the sheep have first go, half the time, and then you spend the fallow year recovering from the sheep.”
“The sheep are as hungry as the cattle or horses.” Gabriel shifted, because the baby was raising her head to peer around the room. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“Damned flirt, that one. Takes after me handsome self.”
“The sheep?”
“The sheep eat right down to the roots,” Danner said. “The cows not so much, and it’s the cows that need the fodder more than the sheep.”
“Why do you say that?” Gabriel knew these arguments as well as he knew the particular ache a man suffered when breaking sod with a tired team, but he’d never before held a baby to his shoulder.
“Sheep is growing only wool, lad,” Danner said patiently. “Cows is growing hair too, but also putting milk in the bucket, and half the time growing a calf while they’re about it. But it’s still the sheep are harder on the land.”
“But penning the sheep on the fallow ground over winter fertilizes it.” Gabriel got up to make an inspection of the room with the baby on his shoulder.
“Horses do the best job of fertilizing.” Danner sat back, no doubt ready to start in on a rousing difference of opinion over the merits of various types of manure. “Anybody knows horse shite works a treat compared to the others.”
The baby grabbed Gabriel’s ear. “You believe this?”
“I know it. I’ve the yields to prove it.”
“If I sent Aaron here to discuss this with you, could you make the time?”
Danner cracked another smile. “You don’t be sending that one anywhere. You be asking him to look in on me, and that’ll do. There isn’t a man standing can resist Joan’s sweet rolls.”
“Get her to make you up some of that salve.” Gabriel bent to hand off his burden. “And you’ll be dancing with Edith when her turn comes.”
“I plan to.” Danner took the baby and cradled her in his arms. “You’ve a way with a babe, my lord. You should be finding yourself a bride.”
“What has one to do with the other?”
“Ah, now,” Danner chided, “you’ve been farming and growing up, you say. A man who can handle a wee child is ready to handle a wife as well.” He shouted for Joan, which caused the baby to giggle. “Send his lordship along with some sweet rolls, and make up another batch. Looks like we might be having more company.”
Gabriel waited for Joan to wrap up the rolls, though as a younger man, he would have made his excuses rather than been seen stealing off with treats like a schoolboy.
A younger, stupider man. The thought made him smile as he thanked Joan for the rolls, complimented her on her grandchild, and urged her to give the salve a try. The first bun was gone before he’d gotten within a mile of the manor; then he spied Marjorie out with her groom and changed direction to intercept her.
Marjorie offered him a tentative smile. “Good morning, my lord. You called on the Danners?”
Gabriel returned her smile, though this seemed to alarm her. “I did, including the fair Miss Edith. Is that the half Turk you mentioned at dinner last night?”
She petted her horse, her whole demeanor relaxing as she went into a rhapsody about the horse’s stamina and sense.
“Could I trouble you to sit with me for a few minutes?” Gabriel asked when she was done with her panegyric, and immediately her guard went back up. “I’ve sweet rolls, you see, and wouldn’t want to eat them all myself. Or I would, but you will preserve me from such gluttony.”
“It’s clouding up, my lord.” The clouds were lowering, true enough, but clouds lowered over most locations in England several times a day.
“It’s been clouding up all morning.” Gabriel dismounted and handed Soldier’s reins to the groom. “My horse asks you to spare him from the additional weight of all these sweets, on me or my person.” He reached up to lift her out of the saddle and saw something like panic flare in her eyes. But she got to the ground in a lithe movement, and he found she was not quite as insubstantial as her appearance suggested.
“I don’t bite, my lady,” he murmured quietly so the groom wouldn’t overhear. “Not without an invitation anyway. Shall we stroll?”
“Let’s sit, if we’re to see to your sweets.”
“Come.” He winged an elbow, and she wrapped a hand around his forearm, though he could feel the tension in her and wondered if she’d always been so high-strung. “Will that bench do?” The very same bench upon which he’d first spoken with his brother.
“Of course.”
When they were seated, Gabriel passed along a sweet roll and laid his handkerchief between them. “Danner claims they’re irresistible. I have to agree. But, Marjorie?” She risked a glance at him when he paused. “I’m going to gobble up my treat, not my sister-in-law.”
***
Marjorie set the roll down untouched, and Gabriel couldn’t read her reaction. He munched in silence, wondering how one broached the topic he had in mind. The groom was patiently walking the horses a good distance away, and there were only so many rolls to stall with.
A yellow leaf came twirling down and landed beside his handkerchief.
“You don’t want to be married to me, do you?” Gabriel figured that was a fine place to start, while Marjorie found it worthy of a blush. “You won’t hurt my feelings, Marjorie, if you tell me you’ve developed an attachment to my brother. I rather like him myself.”
“It’s difficult, my lord.” Her voice was low, and she hunched forward as if to hide her face.
Gabriel munched on his roll, though all he could taste was guilt that Marjorie was to be subjected to awkwardness. More awkwardness. “Eat your sweet, my dear. It isn’t difficult. I was more than willing to marry you previously. You’re pretty, intelligent, pleasant company, and familiar with the Hesketh seat and holdings. The match would have been appropriate.” Which was an awful word for an intimate, lifelong relationship.
She stripped off her gloves and dutifully picked up a roll. “But now?”
“Now I think your affections have been engaged elsewhere, and I do not give one good goddamn—pardon my language—for what your mother wants. Neither should you.”
“She isn’t your mother, my lord.”
Gabriel dusted off his fingers on the handkerchief. “I think we might address each other informally, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to call you.” Marjorie tore a bite off her roll but did not eat it. “And you don’t know my mother when she’s determined on something. Ask Aaron, for he’s borne the brunt of her maneuvering.”
Twenty yards away, the groom walked the horses, their hooves sloshing through the carpet of fallen leaves with a sussurating rhythm that put Gabriel in mind of the springs at his former post.
“I do ask Aaron. My brother tells me I’m to get the truth out of you, and he’ll abide by whatever your wishes are regarding the disposition of your marriage. But it isn’t that simple, you see.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t see.” Marjorie hunched farther forward, looking young and put upon, which she was. “Mama claims there are legalities upon legalities, and good solicitors could make a great batch of scandal broth out of the lot.”
“And why would she do this to her only daughter? You and Aaron seem not exactly content, but suited.”
“He doesn’t think so,” Marjorie muttered around a mouthful of pastry. “He’s merely dutiful, my lord, and so am I. So here we are.”
Here we are, on a pretty fall day threatening to turn damp and miserable.
“So where are my heirs, Marjorie?” Gabriel put the question quietly, his conversation with Polly ringing in his ears. “I know my brother, and in two years, he hasn’t become a monk.”
She was silent, brushing the dead leaf off their bench, which told him Polly had likely been right.
Gabriel scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck and longed for the days when a simple steward might have a pleasant chat with his friend and confidante, the fair Hildegard. “A man doesn’t threaten to call out his own brother over a woman he regards as a mere duty.”
“Aaron threatened to meet you?”
“Which could leave him with the title anyway, something he says he does not want,” Gabriel pointed out. “This suggests he’s not thinking rationally. He cares for you.”
“He’s a gentleman,” Marjorie said, staring at her half-eaten roll. “He hates the business, though. All that correspondence, hours in the library with a pen in his hand, when what he wants is to be out, seeing to the land.”
“So he criticizes George at every turn and finds many excuses to leave his desk and get into the fresh air.”
“George finds many excuses to bother him,” Marjorie countered. “The man is afraid to make a decision, or so Aaron has said.”
“My father did not suffer fools,” Gabriel rejoined, though Papa had had a sweet tooth. “He took the management of the land most seriously. George learned diplomacy and deference as a result. But we stray from my topic, Marjorie: Will you fight for your marriage, or must I do it for you?”
“You?” She shot him such an incredulous look that Gabriel was assailed by… not simply guilt, but shame.
