Fallen Angel (4 page)

But in reality, December was not an auspicious time of the year for sailing on the North Sea, and Gabriel pushed such nostalgic thoughts out of his head and looked around for the landlord so he could pay his shot and be on his way across the Kyloe hills to his estate, which lay on the River Till near Crookham.

The landlord was only a few yards away, and standing beside him was a woman, who was staring intently back at Gabriel. He had never seen her before, but dressed as she was for traveling, with a serviceable bonnet and gray cloak, and given the disastrous state of the landlord’s stables, it was not hard for Gabriel to surmise where her interest in him lay.

Could he not escape importunate people even here in such a godforsaken village as this?

It was typical of his recent luck that the stranded traveler was a woman. In her efforts to persuade him to assist her on her journey, she would doubtless drag out her whole bag of feminine tricks. First the fluttering eyelashes and the bashful smile, then if that failed to turn him up sweet, she would try sighs, tears, and a piteously trembling chin.

He did not think he could stomach another such farce. He flipped the landlord a gold coin, which that
m
an caught with practiced dexterity. Then acting as if he had not noticed the stranger, Gabriel strode over to his carriage and climbed in, but the woman was not to be put off so easily.

“Excuse me, sir, but I understand you are traveling west. I am stranded here with no means of getting a message to my family, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could take me as far as Oakwood Manor, which is only a little more than a mile beyond Barmoor.”

Scowling in a way that reduced most supplicants for his favor to quivering wrecks, Gabriel looked down at the woman. She was neither young nor old, and quite plain.

He felt mild surprise that she was not smiling coyly up at him, nor was she flirting boldly. Instead she met his gaze squarely and said, “It is quite important to me that I get home for Christmas.”

“But I fear it matters little to me where you spend the holidays,” Gabriel said curtly, picking up his whip.

Undeterred by his deliberate rudeness, she tried again. “I am quite prepared to pay you the amount that I had intended to spend for the hire of Mr. Noke’s
gi
g.”

Gabriel was about to tell her how little he needed her money, but something about her straightforward manner stopped him. If she had batted her eyelashes at him once, or if a single tear had trickled down her cheek, he would have driven away without a qualm. Instead, he said tersely, “Climb in.”

He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late to alter anything, because the woman instantly did his bidding, and no sooner was she seated beside him, than the landlord tossed her baggage in behind her.

Had he taken leave of his senses? Apparently so, because now he would have to endure the vapid chattering of a female for an hour or two.

In this she also surprised him. After they had gone a mile along the road, he himself broke the silence by asking her name.

“Verity Jolliffe,” she replied without elaboration.

“Well, Miss Jolliffe,” he said, “allow me to tell you that you are a remarkably foolish woman.” His tone was sarcastic, and his words provocative, but apparently the lady was not easily miffed.

“In what way?” she replied calmly, tilting her head so she could see his face.

Her hair, he noted absently, was a mousy brown, and her eyes were gray. All in all, a most unprepossessing female. “Has your mother never warned you that it is unsafe to accept rides with strange men?”

With a smile tugging at the
corner
s of her mouth, she answered him. “But, my dear sir, I am six-and-twenty and so plain no man would look at me twice. I am quite past the age where I need to worry about being compromised.”

Her appalling naivety angered him. “Are you so ignorant of the world, then, that you do not realize there are dangerous men who will not hesitate to assault an unprotected woman whether she is young or old, beautiful or ugly?” He scowled down at her, but again she refused to act suitably chastised.

“Are you one of those dangerous men?” she inquired, her voice still calm.

“No, I am not!” he barked out. “But you had no way of knowing that when you climbed into my carriage.”

After a short silence, she said meekly, “Indeed, sir, you are right. I shall make it a point in the future not to accept invitations from strange men.”

“If you will recall,” he said, “I did not issue any invitations.” He regretted the words as soon as he uttered them. They sounded petty and vindictive even to his own ears.

“Then I shall endeavor not to accost strange men from now on,” she said meekly.

Unfortunately, her head was now tipped down and her bonnet concealed her face, so he could not tell if she planned to heed his admonitions or if she was merely being sarcastic.

They drove another mile up into the hills without speaking, then he asked, “So what are you doing traveling alone?”

“I am going to spend Christmas with my family,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“And who is your family?”

“My parents are Sir Sidney and Lady Jolliffe of Oakwood Manor. My brother Francis also lives with them. He is married and has three children.”

Gabriel waited, fully expecting her to elaborate in great detail just how she and her family were connected to all the most important families in Northumberland, but she remained silent. It would seem that she was not cut from the same cloth as the vast majority of women.

Or was she perhaps slow-witted, that she did not utilize the opportunity to brag about her connections?

“And is that your entire family?” he prompted, giving her a second chance to drag out her pedigree.

“I also have a sister, with whom I live in London. She is married to a baron, who is very active in politics. Have you perhaps heard of Lord Wasteney?”

“No, I have not. Do you know, Miss Jolliffe, I am becoming quite exasperated at the effort it is taking to drag information out of you. Do you suppose you might be a bit more forthcoming?”

Again those clear gray eyes looked up at him. “But what is it you wish to know?”

“Tell me the story of your life,” he snapped out.

“There is really little to tell,” she replied. “I have led quite a humdrum existence until now.”

“I shall be the judge of that.”

“Well, Francis was fifteen and my sister Petronella was seventeen when I was bo
rn
, and according to my governess, I was rather a surprise for my parents. My sister married before I was out of leading strings, so I did not really come to know her well until I had a Season in London. Do you wish to know about my years as a child? They were in no way remarkable.”

“I believe we can skip ahead to the Season you mentioned,” Gabriel said.

She hesitated, then said, “Do you know, I am not at all sure it will be any more interesting. My sister presented me at court, and my father paid for me to have a Season, but I did not take. Because I am so very plain with no vivacity to speak of, my father saw little point in wasting his blunt giving me a second Season, especially when my sister offered me a place in her household.”

With effort Gabriel resisted the impulse to tell her that her life was in truth every bit as boring as she had warned him it was.

“And now, sir, might I know a little about you? I am afraid I do not even know your name.”

“Sherington,” he said curtly. When he did not elaborate, she lapsed into silence.

The bracken-covered moors and fells around them became more bleak and bare, and the higher the road climbed, the more snow lay in the ditches and hollows, out of reach of the feeble rays of the winter sun.

But when they attained the crest of a particularly tall hill and Gabriel looked beyond to the distant horizon, he discovered in himself a surprising affinity for this desolate land, which had a stark beauty all its own.

“Tell me about Northumberland, Miss Jolliffe,” he ordered, not bothering to disguise his command with polite phrases.

“Well, to the south lies Hadrian’s Wall, which was built by the Romans, and here in the north there are any number of castles and castle ruins—”

“I have no interest in stones, no matter how ancient or how cleverly they have been piled on top of each other,” he said, putting an end to that topic of conversation.

After a moment’s thought, she tried again. “I have heard that the salmon fishing is quite good in the River Tweed, but”—she added quickly before he could interrupt again—“perhaps not in December.”

Tilting her head, she looked up at him inquiringly, but he merely waited silently, leaving the burden of the conversation with her.

“Do you hunt?” she asked finally.

“No,” he said flatly, then added, “it has always seemed a singularly pointless pursuit compared to managing an import and export business.”

“Then since you are in trade, I suppose I need not tell you that there is a strong coal mining industry along the coast?”

“Indeed, Miss Jolliffe, I am not such a lackwit that I do not understand what the expression ‘carrying coals to Newcastle’ means.”

There was an even longer pause, then Miss Jolliffe made another effort. “Have you ever had any particular interest in sheep?”

Any number of sarcastic replies popped into his head, but mindful of the tedium of the miles which still lay before them, Gabriel said merely, “I do not believe that I have actually, up until this time, spared a thought for sheep, either individually or collectively.”

With a sigh of relief, which brought a reluctant smile to Gabriel’s lips, his companion began to discourse knowledgeably on the subject of sheep raising and the wool industry. She was surprisingly well-informed and could answer every question he put to her, and by the time he turned his team down the lane leading to Oakwood Manor, he felt himself quite thoroughly prepared to discuss such matters with his bailiff.

Assuming, of course, that his estate, about which he as yet knew nothing except the yearly income, actually included a sheep or two.

Miss Jolliffe’s excitement grew more obvious with each turn of the wheels, and when her father’s house came into view in the distance, she leaned forward, as if her eagerness were so great she would have preferred to jump out of the carriage and run ahead of the horses.

What would it be like, he wondered, to spend Christmas in the bosom of a loving family? It was an experience he would never have, since his own relatives would never accept him. Not that he cared tuppence about them either.

But then a little voice in the back of his mind asked how much of Miss Jolliffe’s excitement was caused by eagerness to see her family, and how much was triumph that she was bringing home a peer of the realm to parade before them all.

But Miss Jolliffe, as was apparently normal for her, did not do the expected. No sooner did he pull his team to a halt beside the front door, than she said, “You will doubtless not wish to keep your horses standing, so I can manage from here.”

Something in her tone of voice and the way she turned her head made him suspect that she was deliberately trying to get rid of him, which made him equally determined not to vanish politely on cue. Without needing to rack his brain unduly, he surmised that she was having second thoughts about the wisdom of accepting rides from strange men, and did not wish her parents to know that she had behaved in such an unladylike manner.

Well, Miss Jolliffe, he thought with a smile, now it is time to pay the piper. “On the contrary,” he said, “my horses could well use an hour or two of rest if it would not be too much trouble.”

The dismay in her eyes made it quite clear that he had judged her correctly, but she was not brave enough to utter any objections.

3

Climbing out o
f the chaise, Gabriel tied the
reins
to a hitching post, by which time Miss Jolliffe had climbed down unassisted. Without a word to him, she rapped on the oaken door with the lion’s head knocker. When no one appeared, Gabriel banged it with considerably more force.

The butler, when he finally deigned to open the door, looked at the two of them disdainfully. “Oh, so it’s you. I’ll thank you not to pound on the door with such violence in the future.”

Sidling past him into the house, Miss Jolliffe said timidly, “If you please, Hagart, send word to the stables that Mr. Sherington’s horses need to be tended to.”

Hagart drew himself up stiffly and said, “Indeed, I’ll do no such thing. It is not my responsibility to go traipsing out to the stables on your behest. If you wish to speak to a groom, then go out there yourself.”

Gabriel was amused by Miss Jolliffe’s assumption that Sherington was his family name rather than his title,
but
he found nothing funny about the way the
butter
had responded to her request, which had been quite
reason
able. Were all the servants in England as insolent
as
his own? Gabriel would not have suspected such a thing
was
possible.