by Louise Allen
But how? If she marched in and explained and then announced she loved him Gabriel might very well be feeling guilty enough to pretend he loved her, too, and that would be...awful. She would have to think and hope her instincts would guide her, because just at the moment her brain was not helping in the slightest.
The front door slammed and she jumped to her feet and went to the window. Gabriel, hatless, gloveless, was striding across the grassy expanse of the Steine towards the sea, anger in every uncoordinated, jerky step. She had never seen him move like this, without elegant, careless grace. He was hurting.
Well, so am I, Gabriel Stone. So am I.
* * *
The wind had got up and the clouds, a ragged grey threat of rain, scudded across the sky. The sea was already showing white horses in a vicious chop of small waves and the last bathers were being towed up the beach towards warmth, dry clothes and their luncheons.
A few brave souls were promenading along Marine Parade, but the ladies were furling their pretty parasols and clutching the arms of their escorts who were hurrying towards their lodgings before the rain fell, free hands clamped to the top of their hats.
Gabriel went down the steps on to the beach, his feet sinking into the shingle, walked almost to the water’s edge and then began to follow it. The tide was on the ebb and he was walking in sodden pebbles, his boots already wet. He hunched his shoulders, thrust cold hands into his pockets, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes, stinging with the salt-laden air.
He walked on, the loose footing, making each step as much effort as ten on hard sand, walked until he lost track of time and found himself beyond even the newest developments that were spreading Brighton along the coast. There were dinghies pulled up clear of the high-water mark, like so many turtles, and he sat down on one with his back to the town and tried not to think.
Not that his mind would clear, that was the problem. His brothers, his parents, Caroline, his friends. A baby. Everything was churned up and nothing made sense.
The threatened rain came in a sudden, spiteful shower that whipped against him like handfuls of thrown grit. It was gone in moments, leaving him damp and cold, but at least it had shocked him into vaguely rational thought.
It must have been that very first time, that night at Springbourne when all that had seemed to matter had been persuading her to marry him and finally losing himself in her. The time before he realised he loved her, the time when he had complacently thought of children as some theoretical, abstract outcome of their marriage. But they were not an abstract. They were real, important, and he had thrown the miraculous news that he was to be a father back in her face along with his anger and ingratitude at being saved from the gallows.
He got to his feet, raked the wet hair off his forehead and turned to walk back. Apologise. Thank her. Try to understand his own feelings about his past, about their future. Hope against hope that somehow he could understand hers, because Caroline was his wife and he loved her. Somehow, with no model of how to do it right, he was going to have a family to look after. For the first time in his adult life he felt fear, gut-clenching, knee-weakening fear. What if I can’t do it? Can’t be a decent father and husband? What if...? The doubts raged in his head like the wind that was battering the coast now.
It seemed like a hundred miles back along the shore, the shifting pebbles dragging at his feet until his legs began to feel like lead. He should cut up towards the coast road. Gabriel stopped and assessed the ways up the low, crumbling cliffs and saw, in the distance, a figure coming towards him, laboriously battling wildly blowing skirts and hampering shingle. As he watched her bonnet whipped off her head and out to sea and her hair broke loose as she clutched for the ribbons, the blonde streamers in the wind like a flag. Caroline.
Gabriel began to run, heedless of the strain on his tired legs. It was like a nightmare where every step seems to be mired in mud. She was carrying a child, she shouldn’t be struggling along this damned beach. She was coming to him.
He realised the moment she saw him and recognised who it was, because she stopped walking and bent over, hands on her knees, out of breath. When he reached her, breathless himself, she had straightened up and only the high colour in her cheeks and the rise and fall of her bosom revealed the speed she must have been walking at.
‘Caroline. You shouldn’t be out here, not exerting yourself like this.’
‘I am pregnant, not sick.’
‘Why did you follow me?’ He took her arm and steered her, unresisting, up the beach to where a fisherman had constructed a rough shelter out of driftwood and old planks. ‘Sit down, it is going to rain again in a moment.’
‘I saw you leave, so angry you could hardly walk straight. And I saw where you were heading and I thought...’
‘That I was going to throw myself in the sea?’
‘No.’ She smiled faintly. ‘But I thought you might need me.’
‘If I did, why should you care? This is the man who is so damned thoughtless and insensitive that a shock is enough to make him cruel and ungrateful.’
‘You are my husband.’
‘And you take your vows very seriously,’ he said, feeling the weight of despair on his shoulders. He was a duty to her and she was going to do her duty if it killed her.
‘So do you. To whom did you make a promise to always look after your brothers? Your mother, I suppose.’
He nodded, unable to find the words. When she did not press him he managed to say it. ‘She killed herself. Took poison. I’ll never know whether my father beat her or whether it was the unkindness of words or neglect. I was fourteen, too young to really understand. Such a good little boy.’
‘Were you?’ That little smile had deepened, made soft dimples in her cheeks. He wanted to kiss them.
‘I was the heir. It was my duty to be good,’ he said, mocking the earnest child he had once been.
‘And then you turned into a miniature hellion to deflect your father’s anger on to you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Clever, as well as brave. Your mother would have been very proud of you.’ When he shrugged, embarrassed by the praise, appalled to find it mattered so much, she asked, ‘But why did you become so remote from them that they were unable to come to you and tell you what they had seen?’
‘If I had shown I was fond of them then he would have suspected.’
‘So you made yourself be alone with no one to love you.’ To his horror Caroline burst into tears, just as another squall hit, lashing them with icy rain. Gabriel curled himself around her, sheltering her, and let her sob on his shoulder until the squall and the tears ceased together. ‘Oh, I am sorry. I feel so weepy at the moment. Harriet says it is because of the baby and her sister was a complete watering pot for months.’
He found a handkerchief and mopped her eyes, but she took it from him and blew her nose briskly. ‘I am too stunned to add up.’
‘I have only just missed my courses, but I am always so regular and I am absolutely convinced that something has changed.’ Caroline took a deep breath. ‘It is far too early to have said anything. Many pregnancies don’t go beyond the first month or two. But somehow...’
‘Somehow you are sure.’ He stood up and held out his hand to help her to her feet. ‘Shall we start out before the next rain squall comes?’ When she nodded and slipped her hand into his he felt a shock of fierce protectiveness. ‘I’ll do my level best to be a good father, Caroline. At least I’ve plenty of experience of what makes a bad one.’ She said nothing, but tightened her grip for a moment. ‘I’ll do my best to be a good husband, too. I’m not good at emotion, Caroline.’
‘I noticed.’ She was teasing him, he thought. Hoped. ‘I understand. It has never been very safe for you to feel, has it?’
He thought that was all she was going to say. They walked back slowly in silence,
then, as they reached their own front door, she said, ‘Promise me something?’
‘Anything.’
‘Rash!’ She was serious again in a moment. ‘Promise never to lie to me. I won’t probe your secrets, I won’t expect you to open your heart to me. But do not lie to me, Gabriel. Not about how you feel. You told me you do not obey vows, but you do, don’t you?’
‘I do when they are to you. Yes, I promise.’ It felt very serious, very heavy, that promise, but her smile was suddenly light and gay.
He insisted on walking her upstairs. ‘Call Harriet, lie down and rest.’
‘I will.’ Caroline stood in the bedchamber, her hand on the edge of the half-open door. ‘I love you, Gabriel.’ Then, softly, she closed it, leaving him on the far side. Alone.
* * *
Half an hour later Gabriel was sitting in the drawing room nursing a glass of brandy he was not drinking and trying to remember what his life had been like on the first day of June at eleven in the morning. He had been single, heart-free and with no responsibilities in the world other than three brothers who were either independent of him or on the verge of being so. He owned estates that were run efficiently by excellent employees, a house full of memories that he could close the door on and walk away from and three close friends whose own lives had recently been turned upside down in a way that he had been certain would change their relationship with him for ever.
He’d been comfortable, self-indulgent, vaguely uneasy and...bored.
Now those locked doors had been flung wide open and it had been his brothers who had come to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. His friends had rallied to guard his back just as they always had. He had a wife, a child on the way and a secret lifted off his neck.
He had a wife who loved him. That promise she had extracted from him made sense now. She was afraid that he would take pity on her and mouth the words in response, pretend a depth of emotion he did not truly feel. Clever Caroline. She knew he would lie for her, but now, not to her.
There was a bang on the door and Gabriel put down the untouched brandy, cursing under his breath and got to his feet. What now? His brothers came in, filling the room with their energy and their excitement.
‘It is all over town.’ Louis, grinning like an idiot, threw his arms around Gabriel and hugged him fiercely. Startled, he found himself hugging back, then both Ben and George piled in to.
When they finally broke apart Ben picked up the brandy glass and knocked it back in one gulp. ‘The gossip mill is in full swing and your father-in-law’s name is mud. The ladies are swooning with the romantic delights of the elopement and you rescuing Caroline from what was some sort of Gothic house of horrors and the gentlemen are assuring each other that they always knew Knighton was queer in the attic and that you are as good a man as our grandfather.’
‘And they got all this from the statement that witnesses had been examined and the fact of an accident has been confirmed?’ Gabriel asked, suspicious.
‘We have been elucidating the situation,’ George pronounced, looking pious. ‘Naturally we did not want anyone to retain the wrong impression.’
‘And we’ve done a damn good job,’ Louis said, straightening his spectacles. ‘Ben stuck his chest out, rattled his sabre and looked manful while commending your honourable reluctance to call out your father-in-law. George has been murmuring about the chivalrous rescue of a lady in terms which, frankly, were fairly sickening when he got round to comparing you to Lancelot, although it did make Lady Hesslethwaite weep. And I’ve been muttering about having my advice about suing for slander turned down. In fact, Brother, you are probably not safe to go out alone or you’ll be mobbed by the ladies and have your hand shaken off by the men.’
Gabriel stared round at them. Ben was smirking, George was smug and Louis was grinning and suddenly they were all laughing and he was, too, and they were just his brothers. Not responsibilities to sacrifice himself for, not a constant aching worry. Simply his brothers whom he loved and, startlingly, appeared to love him. Not that a gentleman talked about such things, so, still gasping with laughter, Gabriel filled four glasses and raised his own in a toast.
‘The Brothers Stone.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
The bed dipped and warm lips began to kiss their way down the back of her neck. It was a dream...but did dream lovers rasp their stubbled chins on your more delicate areas of skin and did they smell of brandy?
‘Gabriel?’ Carolyn wriggled back and there was a moment of tugging and flapping before there was a male body under the covers for her to snuggle into. Definitely not a dream. Dream lovers did not have to fight the bedding.
‘No, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Who were you expecting?’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Surprisingly not.’ He wrapped an arm firmly around her waist and Caroline realised that he was as naked as she was. ‘Did we sound as though we were carousing downstairs? I’m sorry if we disturbed you.’
‘You sounded happy. That was good to go to sleep hearing.’ She twisted round until she could burrow her head under his chin and pressed her lips to his collarbone.
‘I sincerely hope I usually sound happy when we finally do go to sleep,’ Gabriel grumbled into her hair.
‘You don’t laugh then. I have never heard you laugh before.’
‘Never?’ He bent back and pushed up her chin so he could frown at her, their noses almost touching.
‘Never. Not a proper, letting-everything-go laugh because you are happy rather than because something amuses you.’
Gabriel tucked her head down against his shoulder again. ‘I must be a misery to live with.’
‘No, merely rather intense sometimes.’
There was silence and she was content to lie there against his warmth, feeling his heart beating close to hers, his breath stirring her hair.
‘I have no idea how to be a father,’ Gabriel said abruptly.
‘And I have no idea how to be a mother, so we will just have to work it out as we go along. You know what makes a bad father.’
‘That’s true.’ By some miracle he sounded amused. ‘And you already know how to be a wife.’
‘I do? I suspect I am rather a disobedient one.’
‘Dreadfully so,’ he agreed. Caroline felt him take a deep breath and the long body cradling hers became tense. ‘Not letting yourself feel emotion is like taking laudanum when you’ve got a broken leg. You know there is a vast amount of pain out there somewhere, but it is behind shutters, quite safe unless you are foolish enough to let it out by stopping the dose. But you have to stop the dose because otherwise you become addicted to the medicine.’
‘You have to want to stop,’ Caroline suggested.
‘Yes. You caught me at just the right moment.’
‘I caught you? That makes me sound like a designing hussy.’
‘You are a hussy.’ She could hear the laughter in his voice. ‘You proposition notorious rakes, you drug unwanted suitors, you hide up chimneys, you order marquesses about and invade the homes of respectable magistrates. No wonder I love you. Such a rakehell as I am needs a wicked wife to love.’
‘You...’ Her heart seemed to have stilled to a slow, almost painful, thud. ‘Gabriel, I know you desire me—’ Just at the moment there was absolutely no ignoring the physical evidence of that.
‘Have you such little faith in my promises?’ Gabriel rolled over on to his back as though to stop himself clouding her thoughts with his touch. ‘I had no idea that was what I was feeling and I didn’t want to dig and find out, coward that I am. I have always controlled risk. People think gamblers are reckless, but successful ones are the exact opposite. We calculate risk, we know just what we can afford to lose. Loving gives a hostage to fortune, doesn’t it? I did not dare to hazard my heart on you. How have you so much more
courage than I do?’
Caroline turned to rest on her elbow and smiled at him. ‘I have been practising loving all my life. My mother, my brothers. I even worked hard at loving my father. And I suspect women find it natural to take the risk, because if we have children then every moment we could be in fear for them and if we couldn’t face that, then the human race would die out.’
She loved Gabriel’s face when he was thinking hard. Every ounce of intelligence, every scrap of ferocious concentration showed in those dark eyes, in the set of the sensual lips, in the line that formed between his brows. He was so good at putting on the mask that hid his feelings that she knew it was only absolute trust that let him relax so in front of her.
‘I can’t promise I’ll always get it right.’
‘Nor me. How dull if we did,’ Caroline teased. ‘No arguments, no drama, no lovely making it up afterwards.’
‘Hmm.’ Gabriel’s eyes had lost their brooding intensity. ‘Are you tired still?
‘No,’ Caroline said demurely. ‘I am wide awake. Oh!’
Gabriel tossed back the covers and began to smooth his hands down over her body. ‘Nothing shows yet.’ He sounded ridiculously disappointed.
‘Of course not! It will soon enough and then I’ll be lumbering about like a whale.’
‘More lovely curves.’ Gabriel’s tongue drew a lingering trail of liquid fire down over the swell of one breast, into the valley between them and up over the other. He explored her body as though it were new to him, murmuring with appreciation over the curve of her hip, the dimple beside her knee, the elegance of the curl of her ear until he almost had her believing herself that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Perhaps I am to him, Caroline thought in wonder. I think he is the most handsome man. And the kindest and the...
‘Wickedest!’ she gasped as Gabriel slid down the bed and began to do outrageous things with his tongue.
‘You called?’ He lifted his head and looked at her with such an innocent expression that she laughed and was still laughing, joyously, as he came up the bed and abandoned gentle teasing for a passionate possession that sent her spinning from laughter into blind ecstasy in moments.
