Her Every Pleasure (14 page)

“Gabriel!”

“Why, who is this bearded stranger come to call?” his brother boomed with a grin, rising to his feet. “Lord, man, don’t you have a mirror in your house?”

“Is this my greeting after coming all this way?” he answered mildly, drawing off his riding gauntlets as he sauntered toward the pair.

“Don’t listen to him,” Lily interjected, sending her husband a scolding smile. “You always look handsome, Gabriel. It runs in the family.”

“Well, I think you look like one of the Pindari bandits. To what do we owe this honor, brother? Did you get tired of having conversations with your horse?”

“My horse happens to be excellent company,” he replied with a sardonic smile.

Derek grinned as he shook his hand with a clap on the shoulder, and then pulled him in for a manly hug. Every time Derek looked at him, he seemed to be remembering the moment Gabriel had stepped in front of him to shield him from the arrow. “Welcome, brother,” he said, releasing him with a meaningful look. “It’s awfully good to see you out again among the living.”

“Good to see you, too. Lily, you look radiant, as ever.” Gabriel bent and kissed her cheek in brotherly affection. “The married life agrees with you.”

“It does.” She beamed at him and gestured toward the little table they had set up. “Sit, please! Have some tea with us. I am so glad you’ve come.”

“It really is uncanny how you do that,” Derek remarked as they all sat down.

“Do what?”

“Show up just when I’m thinking about you. You did it again just now.”

“Did I?” he drawled.

“I was honestly going to saddle my horse after these refreshments and ride out to see you this very day.”

Gabriel frowned at him. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“No, no—”

“Is everyone all right? Father? Georgie?”

“Yes, of course. Everyone’s fine! I had a message for you, that’s all.”

“What sort of message?”

“From Griff. But it can wait. How have you been?”

“Ah, much better,” he replied with a vague touch to his middle where he had been wounded, though he knew perfectly well that was not what his brother was asking.

Derek raised a brow at him, then sent Lily a tenderly communicative glance.

“Think I’ll go inside and make us all another pot of tea,” she spoke up in a delicate tone. “This one’s gone cold.” She smiled at Gabriel. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen?”

Gabriel winced to think he was that transparent, but he did not intend to mention Sophia in front of Lily. He doubted Derek would have told her about his prank of hiring a fetching Gypsy harlot for his reclusive brother. Gabriel didn’t want to get the rogue in trouble with his very proper young bride. Both men rose and bowed to her as the lady of the house took leave of them. They sat down again after she had gone.

“What’s going on?” Derek murmured, studying him. He leaned back in his chair.

“I need to find Sophia.”

“Who?”

Gabriel scoffed. “Sophia, the Gypsy girl you sent me.”

“Come again?”

“I’m in no mood for more of your roguery, Derek. Just tell me where she is. I need to find her,” he said tersely. “She must have been here recently to collect her payment from you. We’re going to have a little chat, she and I.”

“Er, my dear brother, what the devil are you talking about?”

“The wench you hired to warm my bed! Remember? Raven hair, big brown eyes like melted chocolate. Gorgeous legs.”

“Sorry, but I didn’t send you anything, let alone a person.”

“Derek, could you please refrain from making sport of your elder brother for once? I don’t have time for this. She told me that you hired her, just the way you threatened to. I need to know where you first found the girl. Tell me where she is!”

Derek stared at him with a frown of pure perplexity. “Gabriel, I fear there’s been some sort of mistake—”

“You’re right about that!” he agreed. “You sent me a damned virgin. Did you know that?”

Derek’s eyes widened. “You don’t understand! I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“What?”

“I never hired a girl for you. I know I threatened to, but after your reaction, I didn’t dare. Gabriel, I was only joking!”

Gabriel stared at his brother uncomprehendingly.

Derek shrugged. “You told me you wanted solitude and I’ve respected that.”

Gabriel leaned closer and lowered his voice, not wanting Lily to hear. “You did not hire a girl to come out and seduce me?”

“No!”

“Are you
sure
?”

“I think I’d remember something like that,” he said dryly.

Gabriel folded his arms across his chest and frowned in utter puzzlement.

Derek looked at him matter-of-factly, then a sly grin spread across his face. “What the hell have you been up to on that farm of yours out there?”

“You don’t want to know,” Gabriel mumbled.

“Oh, but I do. Did you meet a lady?”

“Not a lady. No. A little thief,” he muttered. But if Derek had not hired her and did not know where to find her—then it seemed Sophia was truly gone from his life.

The disappointment nearly stole his breath.

“What did she take?” his brother asked.

He avoided Derek’s gaze. “Nothing of any consequence.” His thoughts returned to the morning he had found Sophia asleep in the barn.

Now he saw that she had played him for an even greater fool than he had suspected. She must have simply answered yes to all his questions; letting him supply his own conclusions, she had merely played along.

But why?
And who the devil was she?

Was Sophia even her real name?

“Are you all right?” Derek murmured, watching him with a worried look.

Gabriel sent him a guarded glance. “Never mind,” he said with a vague shrug. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” He shook his head, trying to clear the little hellion from his mind. “What was the message you wanted to give me?”

He could sense his brother’s concern for him, but thankfully Derek did not press the issue nor pester him with prying questions.

He knew him too well to do that.

“This came for you this morning.” Derek reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a letter from Lord Griffith, their marquess brother-in-law. “Griff didn’t know where to find you, so he sent it to me and asked that I forward it to you as quickly as possible.”

Gabriel accepted the letter, perplexed. “Our sister has my address at the farm.”

“Apparently, he’s writing to you from elsewhere. See that return address? Lily said that’s one of the castles controlled by the Crown.”

“As long as it’s nothing to do with their child,” Gabriel answered under his breath. Their sister’s first baby was not due for a few more months, but the whole family had been frantically protective over her.

“No, no,” Derek reassured him, “Georgiana’s been in splendid health. I believe Griff’s writing to you in his official capacity as diplomat.”

“I wonder what he wants,” Gabriel mused aloud as he cracked the wax seal on the letter.

“Probably to lure you into some plum post with the Foreign Office. He tried to sign me up, as well, and only let up on me once I got married.”

“No doubt our sister’s behind it.”

Derek nodded. Georgie didn’t want either of her brothers moving back to India. She was determined to keep the whole family together in England, and if that meant cajoling her powerful diplomat husband to find excellent posts for her brothers, she was not above such machinations.

Unfolding the letter, Gabriel discovered three pages of documents attached. “You were right,” he murmured as he skimmed the letter. “He says they’ve got a mission for me.”

“Any details?”

“No. I’m summoned to this castle—he drew me a map,” he added sardonically, showing it to him. “I am to burn it and this letter once I’ve memorized the route.”

“How mysterious,” Derek replied in amusement. “What’s that other page?”

“Identification papers to get me into the castle.”

“Lord!” Derek let out a low whistle. “Must have some heavy security in place, whatever’s afoot.”

“Griff says he’ll fill me in when I get there.”

“Are you going to go?”

“I am intrigued,” he admitted. Indeed, his heart had begun pounding with anticipation. This could be a harbinger of the task he had been sent back from the brink of death to fulfill. If nothing else, it would at least distract him from the strange ache of knowing Sophia was gone from his life. “Do you recognize this coat of arms?” Leaning toward his brother, he showed Derek the stamped seal in the center of the official-looking document granting him passage into the castle.

Derek studied it, then shook his head. “The House of Kavros?” he read aloud, eyeing the heraldic banner above the seal. “Never heard of it.”

“Neither have I.”

“What are those, Cyrillic letters? Russian? Greek?”

“I have no idea.” Gabriel shrugged and folded the identification paper back up to keep it safe. He turned his attention to studying the little map that Griff had drawn.

“So, are you going to go, then?” Derek prodded with a look that expressed his long-standing opinion that a new post would do Gabriel a world of good.

“I don’t think I have much choice, he said. “Griff’s polite to a fault, but these sound more like orders than a social invitation. Yes,” Gabriel said at length with a decisive nod. “I can at least go and see what they want.”

“Not looking like that!” Derek laughed, glancing at Gabriel’s civilian clothes and scruffy jaw. “You can start by borrowing my razor. Papers or no, they’re not going to let you into that castle looking like some sort of highwayman. Thank goodness you stored your dress kit with me before running away to the farm; it saves us a trip.”

“Really, I appreciate your candor,” he said dryly.

Derek flashed a cheeky grin. “What are brothers for?”

Secluded amid a thousand acres of meadows and woodlands, the ancient castle hulked atop a round hill near the south coast of England. No neo-Gothic showplace but a true medieval fortress, its stark gray stone, smoothed by centuries of wind, had been hewn in defensive lines of rugged simplicity.

After showing the papers Griff had sent him, Gabriel was admitted through the fortified iron gates.

He rode his white stallion at an alert, rocking canter up the long drive that meandered through the property. The castle loomed nearer; he swept over a low bridge.

Again, he had to stop and hand over the papers of entry when he reached the second line of fortifications.

Whatever was going on here, clearly, the government meant business, he mused as he waited for the soldiers at the inner gates to check his papers.

“Will you dismount, please, Major? I’ll show you in. We’ll see to your horse. They are expecting you.”

Glad that they were satisfied with his documents, he swung down off his horse and followed the brisk young officer toward the keep.

Marching under the portcullis, they crossed an inner courtyard with a massive sundial in the center and then were ushered into a vast reception hall. The young officer sent a page running to fetch Lord Griffith, and a few minutes later, his tall, patrician brother-in-law came striding into the room.

“Gabriel,” he greeted him with a debonair smile, lifting up his hands by his sides. Ian Prescott, the Marquess of Griffith, had grayish-green eyes and neat, wavy brown hair.

“Griff.” He accepted his kinsman’s handshake heartily. “How are you?”

“Never better.” The expectant father was positively beaming. “And yourself? You’re looking well. How’s the, er?” Griff touched his own stomach at about the same level where Gabriel had been skewered.

“Oh—better. Healed over, on the whole. Thanks.”

“Excellent news.” Griff shook his head. “We thought we’d nearly lost you there.”

“No, you’re not rid of me yet.”

“Good. I want my new son or daughter to know
all
his or her uncles.” Griff cast an elegant gesture toward the walkway. “Shall we?”

Gabriel nodded and fell into step beside him. “So, what’s all this about?”

“How’d you like to winter in the Greek islands?”

Gabriel snorted. “Right. What’s the catch?”

“We have a royal personage of considerable strategic importance to us under threat of assassination.”

“Ah, lovely.” Diplomatic security, then, just as his brother had surmised.

“We need a crack man in charge of these royal bodyguards. After all, if the killers were to succeed on English soil, it would be a great embarrassment to Buckingham Palace, and a major setback to our interests in the Mediterranean.”

“Plus, someone would be dead and that would be rather a pity, no?” he drawled.

“Naturally,” Griff agreed with a wry look. “This way. I don’t mean to sound heartless, it’s just that I am married to your sister, and I would not want you getting the wrong impression.”

“Wrong impression?”

“Thinking I’ve gone as mad for our royal idol as every other male in this place. Rest assured, I have not. Somebody’s got to keep a clear head around here, after all. You’re perfect for that.”

“Royal idol?” Gabriel echoed.

“Mm.” Passing under a high arched doorway, they came to a wing of the medieval castle that had been refurbished in the rococo style. The sudden clash of stark Norman architecture and frothy, gilded pastels had a mildly disorienting effect, as did Griff’s words.

“I have heard her called a beauty on a par with Madame de Récamier,” the marquess murmured as they marched across the shiny parquet floors of a mirrored ballroom. “To tell the truth, I cannot disagree.”

“Madame de who?”

“Oh, right, you’ve been in India. Never mind. Just some dainty, dark-haired Frenchwoman who had half of Europe at her feet a few years ago.” Griff paused, halting him with a brisk tap on the shoulder. He glanced right and left, then lowered his voice. “Listen to this, there’s even a rumor going around that the Regent is trying to speed up his divorce proceedings so he can pursue this blue-blooded chit for himself. If you want my advice, Major, you’d better brace yourself. Our princess is a real royal handful.”

“My God, man, what have you got me into?” he exclaimed.