The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  “I pray to God he admits to it,” Alex said on a sigh. “He deserves some happiness. Do you think Gabby planned all this to bring Zach to his senses?”

  Beth’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know, but if her betrothal to another man doesn’t make him face his own feelings and put the past behind him, I can’t imagine anything else that would do the trick. You do think she’s quite safe, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I’ve met the Murrays on more than one occasion—George is a member of White’s and is frequently there when I visit—and I don’t think your mother’s trust in them is misplaced. Besides, Zach will be there in a couple of days to see that all is well.”

  Beth sighed and nestled closer to Alex. “You’re right, you know. Zach deserves to be happy. Gabby, too.”

  “Yes. But we must all make our own happiness in the world. Zach and Gabrielle have to work this out for themselves, and I firmly believe they will.” Alex turned Beth around in his arms and smiled down into her face. “You’ve made my happiness, Beth.”

  “And you mine, Alex,” she whispered, returning his smile radiantly.

  They kissed.

  Journey of the Heart

  Danice Allen

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1994 by Danice Allen

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition August 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-406-6

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  To Lorena Belle Phillips Ford

  A sassy, smart, loving, understanding, exasperating, and unique lady—my mother

  Love you, Mom

  Prologue

  Edinburgh

  Christmas Eve, 1831

  From the craggy, volcanic heights of majestic Castle Rock to the bustling, shop-lined thoroughfare of Princes Street below, from the smallest, darkest garret of smoke-begrimed Old Town to the bright candle-lit warmth of New Town’s most elegant drawing room, Christmas Day trembled on the edge of a snowy night before.

  No discriminator of persons, the holiday spirit had sprinkled its merrymaking dust on rich and poor, old and young alike. The city teemed with jovial, desperate humanity. One gentleman was desperate to find just the right silver salts bottle for his Aunt Lizzy before the shops closed, while another less prosperous fellow was desperate simply to haggle a good price from the poulterer for an adequately fleshed goose to satisfy the rumbling stomachs and gladden the hopeful hearts of his several offspring. Still others—the most wretched and ragged of Edinburgh’s bursting population—had only the modest wish of finding themselves no more hungry and cold by morning light than they presently were.

  Unaware that so much suffering existed in the shadowy wynds that were the narrow off-lanes of High Street in Old Town, Gabrielle Tavistock strolled along Princes Street in the snug safety of two other females as blissfully ignorant as herself. Exactly five paces behind them walked an abigail and a groom, both of them encumbered with packages and whiling away the time they had to spend toting for the Quality by flirting outrageously with each other.

  Gabrielle felt herself in a world of enchantment. The persistent wind from the Firth of Forth had obligingly calmed, seemingly for the convenience of the last-minute shoppers who streamed up and down the street in their myriad colorful redingotes and cloaks like schools of tropical fish. A lacy, powder-soft snow fell and piled in delicate mounds everywhere and on everyone.

  Like Gabrielle’s heart, the air was filled with a delicious ambience of anticipation. That morning she’d received a reply to the letter she’d written to Zachary Wickham about her betrothal to Rory Cameron, Marquess of Lome, and in it he’d indicated that he would be paying her a congratulatory visit in a matter of days, cutting short his usual month-long holiday stay with Alex, her sister, Beth, and the children in Surrey.

  Over ten years ago, Zachary and his older brother, Alex, had become reunited after a separation that was forced upon them by their father. They had been extremely close ever since, even though Alex had ended up married to Zach’s betrothed. Beth, Gabrielle’s sister, had been engaged to Zach before Alex made his dramatic appearance in Cornwall on the eve of their grandfather’s funeral. The Tavistocks’ estate in Cornwall marched with the Wickhams’, and, as neighbors, friends, and lovers, their lives had become fatally intertwined.

  As far as Gabrielle was concerned, however, all that was ancient history. The details of said ancient history served in the present only as corroboration that Zach had indeed made some personal sacrifices to hie himself up to Scotland so hastily to meet Gabrielle’s husband-to-be. These facts gave Gabrielle a much-needed dose of renewed hope. Just the prospect of seeing Zach again after a three-month absence made her feel as though she were walking on air.

  Beneath her parasol, which exactly matched her emerald green, ermine-lined mantle, and with her feet encased in velvet, leather-soled boots, Gabrielle was protected from the cold and dampness and was in “high gig,” as Zach used to say. With her honey-blond curls framing her face beneath the wide brim of a fur-trimmed bonnet and with such a radiant smile on her face, it was no wonder that many gentlemen stared as they passed by. Aunt Clarissa, who as Gabrielle’s paid companion and chaperon was supposed to repress the odious ogles of strange men by glaring them down, was raptly window-gazing and as inattentive as usual.

  “Gabrielle! Oh, look at that precious doll!” exclaimed Regina Murray, Gabrielle’s other companion. She grasped Gabrielle’s arm and turned her to face a shop window filled with toys. Archery sets, sailboats, stuffed dogs and monkeys, miniature cribs, scarlet-coated soldiers, and several dolls cluttered the display table that had been pushed up to the window.

  A sign above the door declared the shopkeeper to be the happy recipient of a very recent shipment of sheepskin-covered drums from Germany. There amongst the toy drums, as if given a special spot away from the other dolls in order to showcase her superior attributes, stood the doll Regina referred to. It had auburn hair similar to Regina’s and a porcelain face of fragile beauty. Her sapphire blue evening gown was in the current mode, with gigot sleeves and a gathered fichu draped from one ivory shoulder to the other. The doll was beautiful.

  Gabrielle sighed and brushed back with one white-mittened hand a damp curl that had loosened and fallen into her eyes. “Regina,” she said in a playfully chiding tone, “I wish you wouldn’t bring to my attention every doll that happens to strike your fancy! I’ve already bought two dolls apiece for both my nieces, and one for—” She lowered her voice. “Aunt Clarissa.” Then, in a louder voice, she said, “You’re supposed to be helping me choose a Christmas present for Rory. Isn’t that right, Aunt Clarissa?”

  By now Aunt Clarissa was several steps ahead of them, her nose, a mere bump of a feature that barely held up her spectacles, practically pressed a
gainst the glass in front of a millinery shop. In addition to Aunt Clarissa’s constant distracted state, she was shortsighted. This happenstance made Gabrielle’s mother’s choice of Clarissa for chaperon even more incomprehensible. Gabrielle could only suppose that her mother was too harried and sick to be put to the trouble of finding a more qualified chaperon at short notice. Mrs. Tavistock, widowed and ailing from a recent bout of rheumatism, was only too happy to send her daughter to Scotland to spend the winter with Regina and her family, all of whom she’d met during Gabrielle’s debut London Season last spring.

  The fact was, Mrs. Tavistock was miffed with Gabrielle for neglecting to accept any of the several offers of marriage she’d received from very suitable, and sometimes titled, gentlemen. Though Gabrielle came from a good family in Cornwall and was well dowered—her mother told her woefully and often—at the age of nineteen she was no longer a young girl and had no business turning up her nose at such offers simply because she wasn’t in love with the fellows who begged her to wed them. But all that was a moot point now, Gabrielle reflected happily. She was officially engaged and would no longer be plagued by her mother’s fretful remonstrances.

  “What, my love? Did you say something?” Aunt Clarissa’s attention was caught at last. She turned in Gabrielle’s direction, then shuffled carefully back along the walkway, which had been made rather slick by the street-sweeper’s hasty scraping, to stand before her niece. With her gray hair topped by an unadorned gray bonnet, her thin shoulders snugly fit into a plain gray mantle, and her tiny, narrow feet shod in very functional, sturdy black boots, Aunt Clarissa’s collective appearance gave the impression of a dormouse. She had a habit, too, of waggling her fingers nervously in front of her whenever she was trying to pay attention or frame a difficult sentence.

  “I only wanted you to help me resist that beautiful doll in the window, Auntie,” said Gabrielle teasingly, indicating the porcelain temptress with a tilt of her head. “It will not suit for Rory, and I don’t need any more to send to Surrey for the little girls, therefore I had ought to pass it by with nary another glance.”

  Aunt Clarissa moved to the window and leaned close, supporting her light weight by placing the fingertips of both splayed hands against the glass. “And well you should, my dear, for what’s to do with so many dolls? You’ve already purchased all you need! I can understand your wishing me to help you resist this one, since I haven’t any use for the frippery things myself,” she said, speaking in her odd way, forcing each syllable through pursed lips, “and since Regina is so addicted to collecting them and lends you little resolution against spending your money so freely—” She squinted hard, then exclaimed, “Good heavens, my dear! She’s quite ravishing, isn’t she? Are you sure Victoria or Cecily don’t need another one? Perhaps they don’t have one with precisely that color of hair!”

  “There, you see!” Regina interrupted, poking Gabrielle’s shoulder with the end of her muff. “Your aunt agrees with me! This doll shouldn’t be passed up. If you don’t want to give her to your nieces because of some silly notion that you might spoil them, keep it yourself! I’d buy it, but I’ve spent all my allowance and don’t dare ask Papa for another farthing.”

  Gabrielle shook her head and smiled. She was in such a halcyon mood she could have given in to Regina’s urging or flatly refused to indulge in a rather pointless expenditure and been happy with either decision. Then, as Regina joined Aunt Clarissa at the window in her close inspection of the doll, Gabrielle’s attention was caught by the sound of children caroling. This was not an unusual sound, of course. They’d listened to and given pennies to several little knots of singers already that evening. But there was something different about this group of carolers, something rather poignant in their tinny, off-key rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

  The carolers were about three shops ahead. While Regina and Aunt Clarissa sighed and cooed over the doll and discussed between themselves why Gabrielle ought to buy it, Gabrielle walked up the street unnoticed by the other two women to catch a glimpse of the urchins who were singing her favorite Christmas hymn. It was a small group of only four, and since they weren’t exactly melodic, no one had stopped to listen to them.

  They weren’t very handsome, either, she realized when she finally stood close to them. By the light of the hissing gas lamp just above them, she could plainly see their sharp-featured little faces poking out of the ragged scarves that had been wound about their heads for warmth. The tattered ends of their oversized, hand-me-down coats dragged in the street. There were three boys, ranging in sizes that suggested the eldest to be no more than ten, and the two others each probably a year younger than the one before. Judging by their facial similarities, Gabrielle realized they must be a family.

  The youngest was a girl. She was a tiny creature holding a low-burning, tallow work candle. Her mittens had long since worn down to the knuckles and served as poor protection for her wee hands against the cold. She was engulfed in a shapeless garment of heavy brown wool, the wet hem of her skirt hanging to the ground. Her wrap almost looked as though it had once been a man’s redingote which had been somehow shortened and taken in to fit the little girl. With the proper clothes and enough food to plump up her sweet face, she might be quite pretty, Gabrielle thought, pity twisting painfully in her chest. She had never seen such ragged children on Princes Street before. None of the other carolers had looked half so pathetic. When the children realized she wasn’t going to pass them by, their thin faces brightened and their song increased in volume if not, perhaps, in precision of tune.

  “Och, miss, dinna mind these little beggars!” said a dark, bearded man in a bright apron, who appeared on the front stoop of the liquor shop they stood by. He thrust his head round the corner of the half-opened door. “They ought not t’ be beggin’ down here in New Town, but had ought to keep t’ 01’ Town and t’ others like ’em.” He turned to the children, who bravely though faintly continued their carol despite his sudden intimidating appearance, and waved a huge fist at them in a very menacing way. “Off with ye! Go on now! Ye’re not good fer me business, standing there like that! Go back t’ Auld Reekie where ye belong!”

  Gabrielle was too astounded at first to respond to the shopkeeper’s callous dismissal of the children, but when they ceased singing and started to scoot quickly away, Gabrielle did not stop to exchange words with him, but hastily followed the children. The boys hadn’t even flinched when the shopkeeper ordered them away, only looked disappointed, as if they were used to such treatment. But the poor little girl had trembled and hid behind one of her brothers when the shopkeeper shook his fist in the air, so frightened she snuffed out her candle by dropping it in the snow. During this process, the scarf she wore round her head fell back to reveal her hair.

  Gabrielle’s heart leaped to her throat. The little girl’s hair was that rare shade of blond which, despite its pale color, was so bright and shiny it could rival the brilliance of the King’s golden guineas. There was only one other person in the world that Gabrielle had ever seen whose thatch of yellow hair was so closely akin to sunbeams.

  Zachary. His image loomed before her, snatching away her breath, filling all her senses with the remembered sight and sound of him. Tall, leanly muscular, nonchalantly aristocratic, and golden-eyed—like an African jungle cat. She could almost hear his voice and the nuance of comfortable familiarity and affectionate teasing which was part of his speech whenever he spoke to her. She could almost smell the heathery fragrance, mixed with soap and leather, that clung to him and tickled her nose whenever he used to pull her up on his dapple gray to share a gallop across Bodmin Moor.

  That glimpse of gold had made Gabrielle long for Zachary with the same urgency she’d felt nearly a year ago when she’d been trundled off to London in Papa’s stately traveling chaise, there to coyly and simperingly play her part in the age-old ritual of husband-catching … and leaving behind the love of her life. Maybe to everyone else, maybe even to Zach, she was j
ust a child, a pest of the little sister ilk, but she was determined to prove them absolutely wrong. Gabrielle suppressed the painful memories, the aching present, and found her voice. “Wait! Don’t go! I’ve something for you!”

  The children did not stop, but they looked back curiously. To convince them that she was quite earnest, Gabrielle took out her coin purse and waved it back and forth like a tolling bell. Too keenly hungry, too worldly-wise to ignore such a summons, the children stopped. They pressed and curled together like a four-fingered fist, almost intertwined in their close proximity to one another. As she approached, they stared at her, speechless, their enormous eyes as wary as they were hopeful.

  “I enjoyed your singing very much,” Gabrielle said, smiling kindly. “And I’m very sorry that ill-tempered man interrupted your performance. But you mustn’t mind him! I daresay he doesn’t feel the Christmas spirit like we do!” This bracing speech brought hesitant smiles to the children’s lips, and the cautious looks in their eyes softened a little; but still they said nothing.

  Gabrielle set down her parasol, leaning it against the wall of a confectioner’s shop. She undid the ribbons that held together the closure of her embroidered and beaded purse and shook out several coins into the palm of her free hand. All four pair of eyes riveted to that glittery pile. Gabrielle extended her handful of money to the tallest boy, saying, “Here. I know you’ll make good use of this.” If possible, the boy’s eyes widened still further. Gabrielle felt sure he did not trust good fortune that fell so easily within his grasp. He probably expected her to play a cruel trick on him by snatching back her hand if he dared to reach forth his own.