Fallen Angel (21 page)

She pulled the cloak he had given her more tightly around herself, but it availed little against the cold. The air outside was warmer than usual, but the chill she was feeling came from her heart.

On the afternoon of his eighth day in Suffolk, Gabriel explored the west wing of Sherington Close, which had been shut off and unused for many years. Starting in the cellars, which held nothing except cobwebs and beetles, he worked his way upward, giving the musty rooms only the most cursory inspection.

After an hour or so, he was rather grubby himself and quite ready to return to the main section of the house, until, that is, he opened the door of a tiny room in the attic and stepped through into his past.

The moment Gabriel entered the low-ceilinged chamber, his heart began to pound.

He remembered this room.

He had thought his unfamiliarity with the house and the grounds was because he had been too young for memories when he left
...
but he remembered this room in every detail.

Once this room had been his world. He had lived here, played here, slept here, eaten here. He had a vague recollection of assorted servants who had come and gone, tending to his physical needs, but they were shadowy figures, too indistinct for him to call back after all the intervening years.

Walking across the floor, he wiped the grime from the window and looked out. He knew this view. As a child he had memorized every tree, every distant cottage roof, every pathway below.

Too many memories came flooding back, and he realized that his life had been even more circumscribed here than on board ship, where he had lived and worked crowded shoulder to shoulder with other men and boys.

“You failed,” he whispered to the dead man who had carelessly and callously littered the countryside with his bastards, yet who had adamantly refused to accept his wife’s love child. “You could have destroyed me so easily. All you would have had to have done was keep me here, but instead you chose to send me away to sea, and in so doing, you gave me the entire world.”

Turning back to the room, Gabriel looked around at the meager furnishings—the cot he had slept on, the few toys he had played with, the desk where he had done his lessons, and the fireplace
...

Slowly he walked over to the fireplace and inspected it more closely. Without knowing why he was doing it, he knelt down and began to count. Four bricks over from the right, then three bricks up from the floor.

Still kneeling, he took hold of the brick, which looked no different from its neighbors, and began to wiggle it back and forth. Although his fingers were too large now for him to get a good grip on it at first, he was soon able to work the brick loose. Then he reached inside the hole and felt around.

With growing anticipation he pulled out a small tin box. Lifting the lid, he looked down at his childhood. Three glass marbles, a blue feather, and a miniature of his mother.

As soon as he saw her likeness, he heard again in his mind the soft whispery sound of her approaching footsteps.

She had come to him only during the dark hours of the night, when no servants were about, and he wondered now if her husband had known of her nocturnal visits.

He remembered also the many nights he had listened in vain—straining his ears, but hearing nothing but the wind rattling the panes of his single window.

Every time she had come, she had held him in her arms and cried, but now, looking back through the long corridors of time, Gabriel had no idea who her tears had been for. Had she shed them for her son ... or had she only been filled with pity for herself, that she had been caught out in an adulterous liaison, for which she had been imprisoned—and the truth of that allegation he had not yet determined—by a vengeful husband.

Had she come creeping through the darkness because she wished to see her son ... or because she was hoping that somehow the physical evidence of her moral weakness might simply have vanished in the darkness? He was, after all, the blot on the family escutcheon.

He remembered the feel of her arms around him. He remembered the scent of roses that had come into the room with her. He remembered how soft her cheek had been when it was pressed against his. He remembered his own desperate longing to keep her there with him forever.

Beyond that, he could not remember, and the painted likeness of his mother that he held in his hand could not tell him what he needed to know.

12

When he moon rose, G
abriel was still standing in the little room, which had grown quite cold. He rather suspected his servants were wondering what had become of him, and the cook was undoubtedly fretting that the dinner would be ruined. But still he made no move to leave the attic chamber.

Tomorrow would be time enough to go back to the light and the warmth and the people.

Tomorrow he would finish the most urgent business on the estate. The vicar, Gabriel had discovered, was a tireless taskmaster, but even Stephen must learn that Rome was not built in a day, nor a lifetime of mismanagement corrected in one week. And the day after tomorrow, Gabriel would leave for London
...
and Miss Jolliffe.

As difficult as it was for him to admit it even to himself, he missed her damnably.

All his life he had known himself to be a solitary person, but this week he had discovered there was a vast difference between being alone and being lonely.

Now that Stephen had put their fears to rest, the household servants were friendly and helpful. The tenants were enthusiastic about the new improvements he had agreed to. The squire had indicated his willingness to allow Gabriel to hunt with his pack.

But in the midst of all these people who wished him well, Gabriel still felt a loneliness that chilled him to the marrow.

What he had learned here in Suffolk had turned his world upside down, leaving him with the feeling that he had built his life on sand rather than rock. Stephen would undoubtedly enjoy that Biblical allusion, but there were limits to what Gabriel was willing to discuss with his new friend.

He needed Miss Jolliffe with her cool gray-green eyes and frank way of speaking. He needed to tell her everything he had learned. He could discuss drainage and thatching and the latest drill planters with a dozen men, but there was no one else but Miss Jolliffe that he could bear to talk with about his mother.

Perhaps if he shared his past with Miss Jolliffe, he would be able to figure out who he really was. Too much of what he had believed about his background—about his family, his childhood, his home—had proved to be merely illusion.

He wanted to have Miss Jolliffe beside him in his carriage where she belonged—he wanted to feel the light touch of her hand resting on his arm—he wanted to be sure she was dressed warmly enough.

He missed scolding her and lecturing her and arguing with her, and he knew he was not going to be at all patient with her when he returned to London.

But that would not be until the day after tomorrow, which left tomorrow
...
and tonight.

The dark hours were a time for dealing with the ghosts that haunted this room. A time for remembering
...
and if he was lucky, forgetting ... but not forgiving.

“It is not at all odd that he has dropped them. What is passing strange is that he took up with them in the first place.”

Verity did not recognize the voice behind her, but she could not doubt for a moment that the words were intended for her own ears—nor could she doubt that Lord Sherington and her own family were the subject under discussion.

“He is clearly deranged,” a second person said. “I have heard from a reputable source that he fired all his servants with only an hour’s notice, and then he hired some riffraff off the streets to replace them.”

They had chosen the wrong person to try to wound with their spiteful words, Verity thought with an inward smile. If only they knew that she cared not one whit about their opinions of her and Lord Sherington.

Now, if they had expressed themselves within the hearing of Petronella
...
but no, that would have likewise been ineffectual. Verity’s sister would not have even recognized that she was being talked about, much less insulted.

The Wasteneys’ social standing had begun to slip the second evening Lord Sherington had failed to put in an appearance. As one day followed another without any sign of him, the slip had turned into a slide, and Verity rather thought that this evening, after more than a week of his absence, the slide was about to become a plummet.

The flood of invitations pouring into the Wasteney residence had, as Verity had expected it to, dried up almost immediately. But for the unfortunate few hostesses whose invitations had been sent out
before
Lord Sherington had abandoned the social scene, and whose events had been scheduled for
after
that fateful day, there was little that could be done short of barring the door when the Wasteneys arrived with Verity in tow.

Verity would have vastly preferred staying home these last several evenings, but how could she explain to her sister that they were no longer welcome? Petronella was so thick-skinned, she could be given the cut direct and not even notice.

That had actually happened once yesterday and twice this evening, and even as obtuse as Petronella was, sooner or later someone would make it so clear that the Wasteneys had fallen from grace, that even she would recognize that the very people who had welcomed her last week were now rejecting her.

Verity could, of course, have claimed a headache and thus had an excuse to stay home alone. But since she was the reason Lord Sherington had entered her sister’s life, it would hardly be fair to abandon Petronella when the hour of her humiliation was approaching so quickly and so inevitably.

Family solidarity was rapidly losing its appeal, however, and Verity could not help but be thankful that this was the last evening they would have to go out. Tomorrow night Lady Thurmuncy was having a card party, but her guest list, for obvious reasons, did not include the name of Wasteney or Jolliffe.

By eleven o’clock, Verity’s headache was real, and after much sotto voce pleading, she finally persuaded her sister to leave the party early, although Ralph decided to stay a little longer to discuss the political situation with a slightly inebriated member of Parliament.

“If you are sickening with something, Verity, I would prefer that you stay in your room tomorrow evening,” Petronella said crossly when they arrived in Curzon Street, “for I have no intention of coming home early.

“Tomorrow? But we have nothing scheduled for tomorrow,” Verity said, tiredly climbing the steps and waiting for the butler to admit them.

“Do not be silly,” Petronella said with a trill of laughter. “Surely you know that Lady Thurmuncy is having a card party tomorrow? This evening I dropped her a little hint that our invitation must have gone astray, and I am confident she will send along another one in time, for she would not wish to exclude us, of that I am sure. We are quite the best of friends now.”

Grateful that she had known nothing of this while they were still at the party, Verity followed her sister into the house. Otterwall relieved her of her cloak, and then to her surprise, he slipped a note into her hand, and all thoughts of her sister’s foolis
hnes
s were pushed out of Verity’s mind.

Mounting the stairs to her room, Petronella chattered on, but Verity understood not a word that was said. The note in her hand had to be from Lord Sherington.

What would it say? Dare she hope? It was an impossible dream, and yet
...

Once she was safely alone in her room, Verity was almost afraid to read the note for fear it held bad news, but in the end curiosity compelled her to unfold the piece of vellum.

“Nine o’clock,” was all it said, with the oh so familiar scrawl below.

After she had been so sure her life was over—that her only joy would be in remembering Lord Sherington—it was such an unexpected reprieve, Verity scarcely knew whether she should laugh or cry. In the end she did both, holding her hands over her mouth lest someone hear.

That night she lay dreaming in bed for hours, but she slept hardly at all. Every time she dozed off, she awoke with a start, terrified that she had overslept and missed the rendezvous with Lord Sherington.

Even knowing she was being remarkably silly did nothing to slow the beating of her heart to a more normal rate.

All the way along South Audley Street Gabriel’s anticipation rose, and by the time he finally turned the
corner
onto Curzon Street, his impatience to see Miss Jolliffe was so great, he was not in the mood to tolerate the slightest tardiness on her part. Fortunately for his temper, when he was a few houses away, the door of the Wasteney residence opened, and a figure emerged, enveloped in a familiar green cloak.

The face Miss Jolliffe turned up to him was positively radiant, and before she was even seated properly beside him, she blurted out, “Oh, how I have missed you! I am so glad you are back.”

Gabriel had an abrupt urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her and tell her he had missed her also, but the words stuck in his throat, and he remained mute, acting as if all his attention was needed to handle his horses.

Miss Jolliffe did not seem upset by his silence. On the contrary, she tucked her arm through his, laid her head on his shoulders and he could not be sure, but he thought he heard her sigh.

Ever since he had seen his mother’s picture, he had felt a deep restlessness that had made him irritable when he was awake and had kept him from sleeping well at night, and today he had felt a powerful need to drive along the Thames.

But somehow being near a large body of water no longer seemed as important as having an opportunity to talk with Miss Jolliffe as soon as possible. Consequently, he set his horses going at as brisk a pace as feasible toward Green Park.