The Companion's Secret

by Susanna Craig

  Chapter 17

  Gabriel felt her eyes upon him and wondered precisely when, over the course of the last fortnight or so, he had lost the ability to look at the hand he’d been dealt without reacting—or at least, without revealing his reaction.

  The driver was meant to have turned north at Shrewsbury and taken them toward Holyhead. Gabriel thought he had been explicit in his instructions. Instead, they would be at Stoke in a matter of moments, almost as if the old coach had known its way home and driven them there of its own volition. The road here was too narrow to attempt to turn around; branches scraped the sides of the carriage as they passed. There was nothing for it, now, but to go on.

  Without meaning to, he sent another hard look across the coach at Camellia, and she too slid back in her seat, notching her slight frame into the corner farthest from him, eyeing him as she would a mad dog.

  Desperate for something to busy himself, he began to collect the scattered pages of her book, sorting and stacking them until they were neat, a ritual he had enacted countless times with a pack of cards. The paper fluttered in his shaking hands.

  Never hold your cards during the game.

  “I suppose the estate has been in your family for generations?” She was holding out the last few sheets in one hand and the silk ribbon in the other.

  The ribbon slipped through her fingers as he pulled it toward him, a bright thread of connection across the chasm of the coach. “Stoke Abbey was a gift to my ancestor more than two hundred years ago, following the dissolution of the monasteries.”

  “Ah, yes.” Her sigh was world weary. “Henry VIII. Ever so fond of claiming what wasn’t his.”

  “I suppose you would include Ireland on his list of improper acquisitions.” History had never been Gabriel’s favorite subject, but his memory was impeccable—a blessing at the card tables, if a curse at other times. “Though strictly speaking, his predecessors had already acquired the land. He simply—”

  “Named himself its king.” She accepted the bundle he had assembled and held it on her lap. “I’d say it still fits the pattern.”

  Gabriel forced himself to look out the coach window. He had visited just twice since moving away, once on the anniversary of his father’s death, at his guardian’s insistence, and once to take official charge of the property when he had achieved his majority, at which point he had promptly put the estate’s management into the very capable hands of his steward.

  Would this third return prove to be the final leave-taking? Or, with Camellia at his side, could it somehow be a homecoming?

  “In half a mile, the abbey should be visible to the west,” he said. Without asking her permission, he shifted to sit beside her so they could keep watch together, though it was less a matter of wanting her to see his birthplace than of his being unwilling—unable—to face it alone.

  The coach struggled to climb a rise, but when they reached its peak, the valley spread below them, undulating waves of green that would carry them to the splendid island at its center: Stoke Abbey. He heard Camellia draw in her breath before the carriage rattled on through a copse, along a stream. Seamlessly, the wilderness gave way to formal gardens and graveled drives. Generations of renovations and improvements had transformed a medieval monastery into a modern dwelling place, though it still retained much of its gothic character, with narrow leaded windows and flying buttresses supporting the long roof of the Great Hall.

  In short order, they were rolling beneath a massive, ivy-covered arch into the courtyard. Had he announced his arrival—had he known of it himself—no doubt uniformed servants would have been turned out in two neat rows to flank the master as he entered, even if they would have to have been hired from the village for the occasion. No need to keep a full staff on hand; after all, three-quarters of Stoke had been unoccupied for twenty years. Only the east wing had a regular tenant, the steward having taken up residence there some time ago.

  As if the thought had conjured the man into being, Gabriel spied John Hawthorne, a tanned, wiry, pewter-haired man of fifty, striding across the flagstones. With more eagerness than he had anticipated feeling, he reached past Camellia to open the carriage door.

  She cringed, but not at his touch. “What—good God, what is that thing?” Her voice was a harsh whisper; all her breath seemed to be held captive in her lungs.

  At Hawthorne’s heels plodded his mastiff. “A dog,” Gabriel said, hoping that, despite her fears, the answer might provide some reassurance, as the creature indeed looked like the sort of beast one’s imagination dredged up during a nightmare, with its loose jowls and massive build. “It’s a gentle breed. He wouldn’t harm a flea.”

  “It’s not really the fleas I’m worried about.”

  When the door swung open, he expected her to refuse to exit the coach, but she nodded once and stiffened her spine as if arming herself with his promise. Ducking through the door, he made certain to position himself between her and the dog as he helped her down, then extended a hand to the other man. “Hawthorne,” he exclaimed. “Well met! Miss Burke, may I introduce John Hawthorne, my steward?”

  “This is certainly unexpected,” Hawthorne said. Dark eyes darted in Camellia’s direction before returning to Gabriel’s face. “But no matter, no matter. Glad to have you back at last. Miss Burke?” Hawthorne bowed and the dog sat, or rather sagged beneath the weight of its frame and its years.

  “That cannot be Titan?” Gabriel marveled. At hearing his name, the dog tilted its enormous, graying head. The last time he had been at Stoke, Titan had been a pup. Not quite ten years had passed, but, like Finch men, mastiffs were not an especially long-lived breed.

  “It is, it is,” Hawthorne insisted. “He’s got more life left in him than he lets on. Why, he did his lad’s duty by Squire Talbot’s bitch just this winter. We’ve a fine litter of whelps in the stable.” He slapped Gabriel on one shoulder and sent Camellia another quick glance. “Just what the old place needs, eh? Young ones running about to liven things up.”

  The insinuation did not escape Gabriel’s notice. He mustered a smile and reached out to pat the dog’s head. “A rascal to the end, eh, old boy? That’s my motto.” Turning to Camellia, he offered his arm. “Miss Burke is on her way to Ireland; I was pleased to be able to offer her my escort this far.” He did not delude himself into imagining that the explanation would prevent further speculation about her otherwise unchaperoned presence.

  Together, the three of them approached the house, where the housekeeper now waited. She sank into a deep curtsy. “Welcome home, my lord,” she said. “I did not know if I’d live to see the day. And Miss Burke, is it? Welcome. I am Mrs. Neville. I’ve already sent Mary to see to your rooms.”

  He heard Camellia thank her, felt her arm slip from his as Mrs. Neville offered to show her up. As Hawthorne walked away, he called over his shoulder, saying he’d be ready to meet with Gabriel in an hour.

  Finding himself suddenly alone on the threshold, Gabriel hesitated. But the ghosts of the house whispered to him, reached out their icy fingers, and pulled him in.

  * * * *

  After she had bathed and changed her dress, Cami followed a maid to the dining room, marveling along the way at the abbey’s splendor. When the maid deposited her before a pair of tall, gilt-trimmed doors, a footman ushered her through into a regal drawing room.

  Mr. Hawthorne rose from a nearby chair and bowed. Thankfully, his giant dog was nowhere in sight. “Ah, Miss Burke, good evening. I was just on my way out,” he said with a glance toward Gabriel at the sideboard. An obvious untruth, since the two men had been deep in conversation when the door opened to admit her.

  “No, please,” she said. “I did not mean to interrupt.”

  “You did nothing of the kind, ma’am. Now that Ashborough has returned, we can talk farming at our leisure.”

  Farming? Perhaps that had been the subject of their discussion, t
hough she doubted it. She glanced at Gabriel, who looked as unruffled as ever. Even if he and his steward had been arguing about something, as she suspected, was it still a relief to him to be away from those who insisted on calling him Ash?

  Mr. Hawthorne excused himself, leaving the two of them alone in the cavernous room. At least, it seemed cavernous to her, until the footman opened a different set of doors to announce that supper was served and she caught a glimpse of the dining room. She gasped. It was a room fit for kings to dine in—and they probably had.

  “Bit much, isn’t it?” Gabriel spoke near her elbow, then stepped past her and said something in a low voice to the footman, who promptly went through into the dining room and closed the doors behind him. “Come.” With a light touch at the small of her back, he guided her to the chair Mr. Hawthorne had vacated. “Mrs. Neville is anxious to entertain me in state, I believe, but I never was accustomed to it. When I was a boy here, I mostly ate in the schoolroom, of course, and my father—well.” He sank into the chair opposite, leaving the sentence unfinished. “I’ve asked them to bring us our supper in here.”

  She looked about at the ornate furnishings, swags of cut velvet drapery, and more than a few Old Masters and supposed this was what passed for a cozy, comfortable room in such a house.

  While a pair of footmen moved a round, curved-leg table between their chairs, a maid brought in china, silver, and glasses. Over plates of leek soup and savory roast duck, she rolled a pair of questions around in her mind.

  “You’re quiet this evening, Camellia,” he said when they were nearly finished.

  She let herself study his face. How quickly those features had become familiar to her. Dear to her. “I’ve been trying to decide which of your behaviors is more confounding,” she said. “Staying away from Stoke, or deciding to return now.”

  His lips curved upward as he reached for his wine. “Ever the forthright Miss Burke. Come,” he said. After draining his glass, he pushed away from the table and held out one hand to help her rise. “May I show you a bit of the abbey?”

  Thinking he meant to ignore what she’d said, she nodded and laid her hand in his. But rather than releasing her hand once she stood, he threaded his fingers between hers, so their hands were clasped, palm to palm. His touch was a kiss, soft and warm. “The reasons for my behavior, like the questions themselves, are tangled together,” he said, raising their joined hands and pressing his lips to her knuckles. “As you were reading this afternoon, it became clear that you knew just enough of my story to craft an explanation for Granville’s villainy. I wonder if you will think the whole story an explanation for mine.”

  Still gripping her hand, he led her into the corridor, nodding at the impassive footman who held the door for them. Flickering sconces cast their light over bronze and marble statues and gave their features an eerie sort of life, but no warmth. Cami struggled to imagine growing up in such a place. She could sense Gabriel’s unease too, and wondered again what had called him home.

  When they came to a curving staircase, they climbed it. The next corridor that opened before them led to her bedchamber, she thought, but he turned and went the other way, into another wing of the house. “The portrait gallery,” he announced. Candles had been lit here too. Were they lit every night, although the house was empty? Or had Mrs. Neville anticipated where the master would wander after dark?

  He made no objection when she stopped from time to time to study a painting, picking out the features that had become his, a strong nose here, thin lips there, a Scottish ancestor with ginger hair that had likely lent Gabriel’s that hint of copper when the light touched it.

  He made no comment, either, until they came to a large portrait that looked, from the subjects’ clothing, to have been completed sometime near the middle of the current century. A man in a powdered wig, a woman with a powdered face, and two somber-eyed boys in short pants, who looked to be about five years old. “My father and my uncle were twins, as you see, born just a few minutes apart. Identical, though by the time they were grown men, even a brief acquaintance would have enabled you to tell them apart.”

  “I suspect it would have been more difficult when they were young,” Cami said, looking from one face to the other. Even the artist had struggled, falling back on the traditional symbolism—the heir standing beside his father, the other brother kneeling at his mother’s feet—to differentiate them.

  “Impossible,” Gabriel agreed. “At least, according to my uncle, who claims to this day that he was in fact the elder, stripped of what was rightfully his by a careless nursemaid.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Could he have been right?”

  “No one else ever thought it likely.” His fingers tightened around hers. “But he let it drive him mad.”

  She had met the man and knew it was not an idle remark. Now she searched for signs of that madness in the haunting eyes that bored through her from the canvas. “They both look…forgive me…rather unwell.”

  “They were not expected to survive their infancy. Born too soon, as sometimes happens with twins. Both of them suffered from chest complaints. My uncle still has weak lungs. And this,” he said, gazing down the shadowy gallery, “is not the sort of house that invites boys to run and play and outgrow their childhood ailments.”

  With a tug on her hand, he urged her away from the family portrait. “Now, as for your story. I do indeed have a cruel uncle, and had I been entrusted to his care—well, I would probably be dead.” A chill shuddered through her, and he released her long enough to shrug out of his coat and lay it over her shoulders before taking her hand again, almost as if he expected at some point to have to keep her from running away from what he had to tell. “When my father died, Uncle Finch was desperate to find some way of disinheriting me and restoring what he saw as his title and lands. Whether my father believed him capable of murder, I do not know, but he made explicit provision for my guardianship in his will. I was immediately sent to live with Sir William Hicks, my mother’s brother, a man of some property in Lancashire. Unlike your Granville, I was in fact raised by the soul of kindness and generosity. After my father’s funeral, I saw little of my Uncle Finch until I was a grown man, though his son and I were at school together. So I do not think a cruel uncle an adequate excuse for your villain’s scurrilous behavior. At least, my uncles bear no responsibility for what I am.”

  Cami was tempted to protest. Of course a child’s experiences shaped his character. So far as she could see, he had been influenced by both his uncles. He was kinder and more generous than he would admit, but he had also been affected by the threats from his father’s brother. How could he not?

  He paused now before a portrait of a young woman, whose dark blond hair and light eyes gave no hint at her relationship to Gabriel. Cami would have called it an ordinary picture, but for the dusty black crape draped around the frame, which made a haunting impression. Their movement had stirred the air, making the crape sway slightly, like something out of a horrid novel. The effect was complete when he spoke in his deep voice. “My first victim.”

  “Your mother?” Cami whispered, not daring to look at him.

  “She died in childbirth. My birth.”

  “A tragedy,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. “But not your fault.”

  He reached up with his free hand and tugged down the ancient black fabric, which disintegrated in his fingers. “Tell that to my father.”

  They left the gallery through the doors on the opposite end and descended another curved stair, two flights this time, and into what she thought must be the east wing of the abbey. She knew she would never find her way back to her room on her own, knew also that she must not hope he would accompany her there. Gabriel, however, strode down the corridor with the confidence of a man who walked these halls daily, rather than someone who had not set foot in them in years.

  At the midpoint, he stopped before a do
or on their left. “My father’s study,” he said, and opened the door to show her in. Gabriel lit a few candles, revealing a large room, but not overlarge, without either the dining room’s soaring ceilings or the drawing room’s ornate furniture. Comfortable. He knelt at the hearth to set fire to the kindling and logs that had already been laid.

  Perhaps someone had guessed he would come to this room, after all.

  The room bore no signs of disuse; no dust marred the tabletops and the air was not stale. During the day, it would probably be quite a cheery space, with tall windows overlooking the valley in which the abbey was nestled, just visible in the dusky twilight.

  “Sit,” he said, motioning her to a chair near the hearth while he seated himself in the center of a small sofa, facing the fireplace rather than her. For a time, the only sound was the popping and crackling of the fire. When he spoke again, she felt as if he had been telling a story in his head and only thought to speak it aloud halfway through. “People said it was a mercenary match, but he loved her more than life itself.” Another pause. “A curious phrase, is it not? ‘More than life itself.’ But true in his case, at least. When she died, he simply…stopped living. Of course, I had no way of knowing what he’d been like before, but people were always happy to oblige me with tales of the man he’d once been. Before I came along and blighted his happiness.”

  “I’m sure he—” Cami bit her lip to stop herself from offering the platitude. Perhaps his father had felt that way about his son, and perhaps he’d made his misery known, cut himself off from the child whose birth had changed his life so dramatically. She recalled a detail from earlier in the evening. “Before supper, when you said you used to eat in the schoolroom, you were going to say something about your father and stopped yourself. Did you never even dine together?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “He didn’t eat. Sometimes not for days at a time. He didn’t bathe, either. He slept, he moaned her name, and when his physician gave him laudanum to dull his senses, he slept some more. Once in a while, he would rouse himself, promise to shake off his doldrums. And he would, for a few days, a week or two at most.” The memory roused him to his feet, and he paced across the hearth rug as he spoke. “Then, he would dress, read, take an interest in Stoke. In me. I would fall asleep, letting myself dream of the next day, but inevitably when I woke, it would be as if a window had shut, or a light had gone out.” He threw himself once more onto the sofa, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I knew I had done this to him, and I could never be enough to make up for what I had taken from him.”