by Louise Allen
‘I will settle property and investments on Lady Caroline in consultation with lawyers of her choice. It is, Knighton, no longer your affair.’
‘You’ll be sorry, Edenbridge. And as for you, my girl, you’ve made your bed, you may lie in it. Don’t expect to come crawling home when you discover what kind of man you’ve married. A Captain Sharp, a charlatan, that is what he is and I will make certain the whole world knows it.’ He snapped his fingers at his sons. ‘Come on, both of you.’
Anthony trailed behind, rather white around the mouth, but he turned at the last minute to wink at Caroline. She managed a quick smile for him, then turned all her focus on Gabriel as he stood at the window watching the carriage drive away.
‘They’ve gone,’ he said finally.
Caroline sat down with a bump in the nearest chair and said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Are you really the Archbishop of Canterbury’s cousin?’
‘Third, once removed. I won’t have any difficulty getting a licence, but I don’t think I will ask him to marry us.’ He turned and, for the first time in what seemed like a hundred years, smiled. ‘Unless you have set your heart on it?’
‘Don’t jest about this, Gabriel. You do not want to marry me, I know that perfectly well. And I will not marry you.’
‘You will not? I am deeply wounded, my lady.’ The smile had become thinner.
‘Of course I will not. What kind of marriage would it be? You have been put in a position where you have had to do the honourable thing, but I have no wish to take a martyr for a husband.’
Gabriel shrugged, that mocking smile stillin place. ‘I am an earl, I need a wife, as my so-sensible youngest brother informs me. You are the daughter of an earl and perfectly eligible. There may be a scandal, but I do not care about that.’
‘I do.’ As soon as the words were out she knew she meant them. The talk, the turned shoulders, the whispers, the cuts... She had seen it happen to other people, now she would be responsible for putting them both in that position. If they had a chance of making a happy marriage she would be very tempted to wed this man. But like this? Never.
‘Is this the woman who came and offered me her virginity? Who plotted to shock her husband on her wedding night? Is this the woman who broke into her father’s safe to purloin her own jewels and ran away from home with a man of dubious reputation? And now you quibble about scandal?’
‘It is not a quibble and everything has changed. I would have done whatever it took to get this estate back for Anthony—except something that put you in such an invidious position. And I was naive before to think I could escape that marriage by shocking my suitors.
‘This is my responsibility to resolve. I will ask Tessa and Tamsyn for references. Perhaps your friends in Northumberland know of someone who needs a housekeeper.’ I do not want to be married to you with a cauldron of anger seething just below that smile that isn’t a smile. I do not want to be responsible for you losing your good name because, rogue you may be, you are received everywhere. Now.
‘You would rather be a domestic servant than my countess? What did I do that made you dislike me so much?’
‘Nothing.’ She found she was wringing her hands and stilled them. I like you too well, that is the problem. ‘You have done nothing except treat me better than I deserve, be concerned about me, rescue me. You do not have to do this, Gabriel. Let me be and I will vanish.’
‘Leaving me with the reputation of a seducer, a man who abducts an earl’s daughter and then abandons her? Or worse. If you disappear I have no doubt your father will put it about that I’ve disposed of you. Once the story of my hermit imposture gets around this will all seem a very dubious plot indeed. Now that really would be a scandal.’
‘So I must marry you for the sake of your reputation?’ He was right, of course, her father’s spite would whip up a storm of vicious talk.
‘Ironic, isn’t it? I cannot force you, Caroline. I may be a scoundrel, but I do draw the line at that. I just want you to see that it is no help at all, you being noble and refusing me.’
‘But you hope my sense of honour is at least as well developed as yours.’ She rather feared it was.
Gabriel stopped prowling around the room, sat down on the other side of the table and rested his forearms on the cloth. It should have been better because he was no longer looming over her, but his focused, unsmiling gaze was no more comfortable. He looked weary, she thought, seeing the shadows under the dark eyes, the tightness of his mouth.
‘I hope that you will see that, unsatisfactory though this is, it is the only way for us both to deal with the situation,’ he said with the control of a man hanging on to his patience by a thread. When she did not reply he flung himself back in the chair. ‘Surely I have to be better than Woodruffe?’
‘Of course you are. But I do not want to be married to anyone. Not my father’s choice, not someone who has been trapped into it.’ It sounded mulish, but it was the truth. The thought of perhaps fifty years of marriage to a man who resented her, tolerated her, was repellent.
‘Waiting for hearts and flowers and a meeting of soulmates?’ Gabriel enquired perceptively. ‘You’ve more patience than I have and more romance in your soul than is good for you.’
Caroline gritted her teeth at the mockery. ‘Your three friends married for love, did they not? I heard how you tried to stop Tamsyn marrying the marquess because you thought she was unsuitable, but you have accepted it now, because they are made for each other and even you can see it. What are they going to say about you settling for this?’ She waved her hands to encompass the whole impossible situation.
‘You are neither the illegitimate offspring of a bigamous marriage, nor the mother of a child out of wedlock nor the widow of a man who was almost hanged as a smuggler, which between ourselves, describes the brides my friends have taken. You are an eminently suitable match, if one ignores your father, which I devoutly intend to do. My friends have no right to dictate my emotional life—’
‘Or lack of it,’ Caroline flung back. ‘What if we marry and then you fall in love with someone else? Or I do?’
‘We do what aristocrats down the ages have always done, we cope with it. An heir and spare is non-negotiable. After that, provided you don’t fall for a short redhead there is no problem.’
‘How can you be so cold-blooded? You wouldn’t be if the situation did arise—you would be shooting my lover at dawn.’
‘Why do you think my brother Louis is half a head shorter than his older brothers, has green eyes and sandy hair?’
‘No! Did your father know?’
‘Of course.’ Gabriel’s expression was bleak. Then he shrugged. ‘So does Louis. He took one look at Lord Belmond and announced it was a relief to finally know who his father was. No one in the family treats him any differently.’
‘Poor boy. As if I could do that to a child of mine. If I married you I would be faithful and I would expect you to be faithful, too.’
‘The rules require me to be discreet.’
‘The vows demand rather more,’ she snapped, more shaken by his cynicism than she would have thought possible.
Gabriel shrugged. ‘I am a sinner. You knew that from the very first.’ There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in, damn it!’
‘Mrs Crabtree, should we clear now, or bring tea, or what, ma’am?’ Jane hesitated on the threshold, the wooden tray clutched to her skinny chest like a shield.
‘Tea, in the drawing room please, Jane.’
Gabriel followed her through in silence that persisted while she poured and drank two cups of tea. That did something for the raging thirst that had suddenly gripped her, but not a great deal for the confused misery inside.
He left his own cup untouched, waiting with a controlled patience that frayed at her nerves more than ranting and temper would have done.
I suppose I am used to ranting, she thought miserably. No one is ever in any doubt about my father’s mood or desires. I cannot read Gabriel’s.
‘Is there no other way than marriage?’
‘No. Not to escape without a major scandal and ensure your future. It will be a nine-day wonder, but everyone knows how eccentric and difficult your father is, so there will be sympathy for your desire to flee his roof. And I may not be society’s darling, but there are not many who hold much of a brief for Woodruffe.’ He picked up the cup and drained the cold tea, then smiled at her. ‘Caroline, we get on well enough.’ He reached out, touched the back of his hand gently to her cheek. ‘We will be good in bed, I think, even if we have not had the best of beginnings in that respect. Now what are you blushing about?’
‘I am not used to such frankness.’
‘This from the woman who tried to barter her virginity for this estate? And I still have that IOU. Your marriage has been announced and I intend to call it in.’
Of course she expected that this would be a full marriage, a man in need of an heir did not propose a union in name only. But surely he did not mean... ‘You mean before we are married?’ I need time. ‘We have not fixed the date.’
‘Five days’ time should be perfect. We’ll go up to London tomorrow. Then there are three days for you, Tess and Tamsyn to shop for all the things you’ll need. I’ll sort out the licence and the legal details and find a clergyman. I’m hoping that Cris will let us use his house in St James’s Square. That will prevent any hint of the hole-and-corner about the marriage.’
‘It certainly will,’ Caroline said hollowly. The thought of Crispin de Feaux’s cool blue regard simply made her want to curl up into a ball and seek out every hole and corner she could find.
‘So, are we agreed?’
There was the sensation of holding her breath, as though she was about to jump into icy water or walk out along a narrow ledge. ‘Yes,’ Caroline said. There was a guilty relief in surrender that she tried not to analyse too closely.
‘Then I think we should summon the staff, who are probably all agog about this morning’s incidents and making up the most lurid tales. We will tell them who you are and that we are to be married. There’s no disguising the clandestine nature of all of this, so let us hope they are both loyal and idiotically romantic.’
Idiotically romantic, like me. And I am also idiotically loyal, Gabriel Stone. Vows mean something to me.
* * *
The staff had been embarrassingly excited to be part of what they obviously saw as a Great Romance. Caroline promised to send them a new housekeeper as soon as possible and spent the afternoon immersed in practical details, which at least had the advantage of keeping her mind distracted.
Gabriel appeared to have employed the time creating a stack of letters which he sent off with the groom to the nearest receiving office. Dinner was formal and polite with only an exchange of the most trivial chitchat. Caroline made her excuses and retired immediately afterwards, frankly retreating from the domestic intimacy of tea in the drawing room.
At least Harriet, the personal maid who had been recruited in London, was sufficiently down to earth to ask questions. ‘Will you still be requiring me when you go back to London, ma’am? My lady, I should say.’
Caroline sat at her dressing table as the young woman unpinned her hair before brushing it out. ‘I need a lady’s maid, Harriet, and you’ve done very well. But can you manage elaborate hair styles and the care of fine fabrics? I will be a countess and that will mean a considerable social life and the clothes and jewels to go with it.’ Provided we are not completely shunned by decent society. ‘I quite understand if you think it will be too much and I would give you an excellent reference.’
‘Oh, no, my lady. I can do it.’ Her face broke into a happy smile. ‘I might have to learn a few things, but if you tell me when I go wrong, I learn ever so fast, truly I do.’
This is really happening. I have my affianced husband in the house, I have a lady’s maid, I have a wedding date. And I very much fear that the man in question is going to come to my door tonight. And then... Will I open it?
Chapter Fifteen
The knock on the door came at midnight. It was nicely judged, Caroline thought as she got up from the chair where she had been curled up with an unread book. Not a demanding thump, not a wary tap, not a secretive scratch. Just a mannerly light knock.
She opened it, and stepped back so that Gabriel could enter. He came in far enough to close the door behind him, then studied her as she stood there in her sensible flannel wrapper, suitable for any night-time emergencies that might call a housekeeper from her lonely bed. It took an effort not to clutch the lapels closed or fold her arms defensively across her well-shrouded bosom.
‘I have been thinking. We need a very frank discussion.’ He gestured to the ottoman atthe foot of the bed and raised an interrogative eyebrow.
‘Yes?’ Caroline retreated to her chair, tossing Byron, who was less than helpful under the circumstances, to the floor. Gabriel sat down and regarded her from beneath heavy lids. She did not make the mistake of thinking him sleepy.
‘You raised any number of objections to this match, as I recall. I am also aware that I have two, shall we say, sticking points, which have become stickier the more I considered them. I am not prepared to make a marriage in name only, but on the other hand I am not prepared to force an unwilling woman. I was wrong to try to pressure you by referring to my own reputation suffering.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought it might work, but I can’t blackmail you, Caroline. Just because we cannot see a way out of this now does not mean there is not some other solution if we think hard enough. But answer me this. If I had asked you to marry me in June, what would you have said?’
The question took her completely off balance. ‘Yes,’ she said, surprised at herself. ‘I would have said yes, I think.’
‘Why?’
‘Because...’ Caroline swallowed and studied her bare toes. ‘Because I found—find—you physically attractive. You know that.’ She fixed her gaze on the point where Gabriel’s robe formed a vee exposing bare skin and a curl of dark hair and tried to stop gibbering. ‘I found you intelligent and interesting. And although you were shocking you were also kind to me. Much kinder than my impetuosity deserved. And you did the right thing for Anthony when it meant a significant financial loss and you had no reason to want to help him.’
‘So, a mixture of gratitude and sexual attraction.’ She could not tell without looking at his face whether he was amused or annoyed.
‘And you were much better than the alternatives,’ she added frankly and found herself looking at him. That curl. Would it feel silky if she twined her fingers around it?
Now his expression was definitely sardonic. ‘Have any of those opinions changed?’
Caroline shook her head.
‘So your objections are because you feel my hand has been forced, not because you object to marriage to me as such?’
‘I suppose so. Yes.’ Strangely she was beyond embarrassment, driven by an instinct that only the truth would serve them now.
‘You are very frank, Caroline. I would expect any sheltered young lady to faint dead away before admitting to physical attraction.’
‘I must be honest with you. With myself. Coyness and misunderstandings are not going to help us, are they? If I had not already seen you, found you attractive, then I would never have made the proposal that I did. Which puts my so-called sacrifice for my brother in a different light, I suppose. It would hardly have been a sacrifice. Young women have to pretend that we have no idea about physical matters when of course we do. We certainly do not keep our gaze fixed above a man’s waist level.’ Gabriel’s lips twitched. ‘I was attracted by the way you moved,’ she confessed. ‘So it would be hypocritical of me to pretend I am shocked at the pro
spect of sharing a bed with you. Nervous and shy, yes. Shocked, no. But it would be very wrong to expect you to marry me.’
‘I find I am becoming strangely reconciled to the prospect, my lady.’
Caroline realised it was her turn to be taken aback. Gabriel was smiling in a way that brought the blood to her cheeks, which must be why her heart was beating so erratically. ‘Are you certain?’ she demanded. ‘Why?’ And why do I know you are telling me the truth? Perhaps it was simply desperation or exhaustion and she was delusional, but she trusted Gabriel.
‘Possibly because I’ve never had to work so hard to get a woman into bed as I have today. If it had been anyone else I’d have given up hours ago.’ She frowned at his levity and he smiled. ‘I am teasing you. Marry me, Caroline. I admire your courage and your sense of honour. I think you’re beautiful. And I am driven to distraction by that garment.’
He admires me, thinks I’m beautiful? Can I believe him? ‘This?’ She plucked at the wrapper which was a discouraging shade of grey.
‘Any right-thinking man would want to burn it, which means taking it off first.’
I want him. He apparently wants me again. He is being scrupulous about this. And that put all the onus for a decision on her. Caroline took a deep breath. I ought to say no. But I am at least an eligible wife for him in rank and I know I will do my best to make the marriage work. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes, you will marry me knowing me as you do, having heard me warning you that I will not be the sort of husband you dreamed of?’ She nodded. ‘Yes to tonight?’
‘Yes to both.’ She got to her feet and walked past him, turned the key in the lock and then came to stand in front of the ottoman. It gave her the illusion, at least, of being in control.
‘You are nervous,’ Gabriel said, looking down to where the sagging hem was quivering just above her bare insteps.
‘I told you I was and I would wager so were you when you lost your virginity,’ she retorted. She had admitted that she desired him and he was probably far too experienced not to have realised it anyway, but instinct told her to hide how he made her feel, hide just how much she wanted him, not simply that rangy body. Somehow she had to retain some strength in this relationship.
