The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (Lords of Disgrace) (7 page)

‘Is he? Courting you, that is.’

‘No, not really. He is behaving as though he already owns me and has no need to exert himself to win my approval. He expects my father to deliver me at the altar steps as a neatly wrapped parcel complete with dowry, in return for his acres that adjoin our land. One daughter disposed of, Lucas’s inheritance expanded—all with minimal fuss and bother.’ Her aunt would warn her sharply about the bitter tone. So unladylike, so undutiful.

Gabriel was tracing the veins in her wrist with his fingertip. She should free herself, she was not
that
careless of proper behaviour
. But why should I? I want his hands on me, I like the strength and the gentleness and the anger on my behalf that is in this man.

‘What is the solution, then?’ he asked. ‘I could shave off this confounded beard, reappear as myself and challenge Woodruffe to a duel.’

Was he being whimsical? ‘You will do no such thing! On what pretext? What if you kill him? And think of the scandal in any case.’

His fingers still circled her wrist, they were close enough to kiss, close enough for her to breathe in the now familiar scent of him. Gabriel’s lips parted, she caught her breath. ‘You do not worry that he might kill me?’

She gave an unladylike snort of disbelief, shattering the fragile moment, and saw the laughter lines crease at the corners of his dark eyes.

‘I am flattered by your confidence, Caroline. But to be serious, I agree that duels are a last resort because of your reputation. Is there no one you would wish to marry? No suitor ready to carry you off across the border?’

He had released her wrist and she concentrated on not closing the fingers of the other hand around it to trap the sensations that still teased the skin. ‘No. There are suitors, yes. But anyone I would wish to marry? No. Certainly no one ready to carry me off at the risk of scandal and my father disowning me.’

‘Then we will have to think of another solution.’ Without leaving her side Gabriel let his fingers stray over the keyboard, a ripple of notes, the beginning of a tune she did not know. ‘I have only just arrived and begun to think around the problem. There is time yet, do not despair.’

‘I am not despairing,’ she said stoutly. ‘If the worst comes to the worst I will simply run away—once I have thought of a way to support myself respectably until Anthony comes of age and I can live with him.’

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, his expression dubious. ‘He is what? Sixteen? Five years to hide and support yourself is a long time.’

‘I know. But I will think of something.’ She shrugged. ‘I must. Other women support themselves.’

His quizzical look was plain to read.
Most of them do it on their backs.
‘I was considering blackmail.’ Gabriel completed his one-handed tune with a flourish. ‘Something that would suggest powerfully to Woodruffe that he would do better to leave you alone. Catching the man cheating at cards would be useful.’

‘It would. I cannot believe we are discussing blackmail, elopements and duels.’ She watched him as he stood so close, head bent, studying the black-and-white keys as though they were all that was important here.

Gabriel glanced up towards the door. ‘Someone is coming.’ He crossed the room to the rug in the centre. ‘I think it would be better if I recite rather than sing, my lady,’ he said clearly, the Welsh lilt back to colour his voice.

Blackstone looked round the door, then came in, nose almost twitching with curiosity. ‘May I bring your ladyship refreshments?’

‘Yes, please, Blackstone. Some lemonade and macaroons. Bring two glasses and plates.’

When he had gone, his face stiff with disapproval, Caroline stayed where she was. ‘Why not sing?’

‘Because I cannot remember sufficient songs,’ he confessed. ‘But I can recite Welsh poetry long enough to send an entire house party to sleep. It is a hot day and this evening will be warm. A stage set of sorts on the terrace will give maximum drama and keep your father happy.’

‘But why are you doing this? You hardly know me,’ she began. ‘Why are you helping me?’
It isn’t as though you desire me.

‘Hush, my lady.
Mawredd gyminedd, a weli di hyn? Yd lysg fy nghalon fel etewyn—
’ He broke off as a footman came in with a tray, placed it on a side table and left on well-trained, silent feet.

The man must have incredible hearing. ‘How did you—?’

Gabriel shook his head at her in silent warning. ‘That is from a warrior’s lament, my lady, many hundreds of years old.’

Blackstone entered, glanced at the lemonade jug as though checking on the footman and went out again.

‘“My heart is burning like a brand of flame”,’ Gabriel translated incongruously as she poured lemonade. ‘What time should I make my appearance this evening? “I praised their wealth...”’

‘Ten o’clock.’ Caroline made herself think of practicalities, not the rich, dark voice weaving ancient magic. ‘Have a biscuit.’ There were few things more prosaic than biscuits. ‘Tell me why.’

‘You know perfectly well I cannot just abandon you now I know you are being ill-treated and that your father is forcing Woodruffe on you,’ Gabriel said, waving away the macaroons. ‘And, if I am to help, this performance consolidates my position here and it gives me the opportunity to get something on Woodruffe that I can use to apply pressure.’

‘Blackmail?’ Gabriel spoke of it as though
putting pressure
on someone was a normal business practice.

‘You don’t handle men like him with kid gloves. Or at all, if you can help it,’ Gabriel added with a smile that made her think of sharp teeth and dangerous shadows. ‘You must set the scene. Flambeaux, a brazier, a pile of furs if you have them, a horseshoe of chairs with the open end to the steps to the terrace.’ Gabriel finally took a biscuit and bit into it. ‘We want drama and every possible cliché. You don’t have any mead on the premises, have you? Pity, it fits the whole Welsh mystical mood so well,’ he added softly as she shook her head, bemused. ‘Honeyed wine would do and some soporific if you have anything like that. I’d like to send Woodruffe to bed for a very sound sleep and be able to search his room. If we can solve this by simple pressure on his weak spots, then so much the better. A love letter from the wife of a senior cabinet minister, a handbook on cheating at whist with annotations in his hand or a diary entry on a wartime career as a French agent would be handy.’

‘There is laudanum,’ Caroline suggested, trying not to think of Lord Woodruffe in an illicit and amorous encounter. Or any amorous encounter, come to that. Of
course
it was normal to be discussing drugging guests with a Welsh bard over lemonade on a summer’s afternoon, contemplating blackmail. She was not going to give way to hysterics and the strong desire to run to her room and put her head under the pillow for the rest of the day.

‘I recall the exact dose Dr Latimor prescribed when my father had a broken ankle. He and Woodruffe are of a similar build, so it ought to knock him out safely, provided I can manage to serve it to him.’

‘Excellent.’ Gabriel put down his glass and took her hand in both of his, lifted it and this time just touched the back of her fingers with his lips. ‘Courage, my lady. We will get you out of this one way or another.’ Then he turned to the terrace door and was gone in a swirl of brown robes.

Chapter Seven

T
he servants, used to their master’s whims, responded well to Caroline’s requirements for the after-dinner entertainment. The gardeners produced braziers and flambeaux, set around a semicircle of the most throne-like chairs she had been able to glean from remote corners of the house. A large stool had been heaped with sheepskins with an ancient wolf pelt at the foot and set in the centre, where the steps from the terrace led down to the lawn. Footmen collected armfuls of cloaks against any evening chill and Blackstone was concocting the nearest mixture he could invent that resembled mead.

‘I regret we do not have sufficient drinking horns for all the guests,’ he apologised to Caroline, who assured him that goblets would do. Slipping laudanum into a drinking horn would be decidedly tricky, she thought, touching the carefully measured dose in the little phial in her pocket. Much as she disliked the man she wanted to do Woodruffe no harm and she had rechecked the doctor’s notes and her own measurements.

The guests, well fed and glowing with plentiful wine, came out as she was casting a final look over the stage set. They had forgone their port and she set Blackstone circulating with the honeyed wine as soon as they were all settled. The candles were extinguished in the house behind them, leaving them in the summer night beneath a clear sky with the afterglow of sunset to keep the stars at bay.

The men continued to talk, but gradually the atmosphere seemed to reach them and the volume dropped, conversation became sporadic. In the house the clocks chimed ten and Caroline, eyes straining, made out a flicker of movement approaching across the lawn. She nudged William, the footman with the most impressive bass voice.

‘The bard approaches!’

She thought she knew what to expect. This was all smoke and mirrors, a performance, and yet as the tall figure came up the steps and into the firelight she caught her breath, seized with an almost superstitious awe. Robed and hooded in black and holding a long staff, Gabriel had become a figure from the remote past, a mystical creature of magic and power, both spiritual and physical. This was not a grey-bearded Merlin, stooped and ancient, this was a virile man in his prime, as likely to draw a sword as a magic wand.

Around her there were sharp intakes of breath, the sounds of men straightening themselves in their chairs—or leaning away as though faced with a threat. Gabriel stood, head bowed for a moment, then threw back his hood and sat down on the heaped animal skins with the air of a tribal chieftain taking his place on a throne. He held up his hand as if for silence, although save for the crackle of the fires and the hooting of an owl in the Home Wood, there had been no sound.

‘Marwnad Cynddylan Dyhedd deon diechyr...’

The words dropped into the night air, soft as the owl’s wingbeat. Only one person there understood their meaning and yet, shivering, Caroline thought they all knew this was a lament, an ancient warrior’s song of glory, loss, death.

The rich, dark voice strengthened, deepened and Caroline lost herself in the sound, lost herself in the enchantment the enthroned figure was weaving. She had no idea how long Gabriel spoke for. When the liquid Welsh stopped it took them all a moment to realise it. Caroline released an unsteady breath and heard around her the others doing the same. One or two of the guests shook their heads as though rousing from a dream. No one applauded, but the very silence was filled with appreciation.

She rose, took the wine jug from the nearest footman and began to circulate, topping up the goblets in the men’s hands. They hardly seemed to notice her. Woodruffe certainly did not as she tipped the laudanum from the phial in the palm of her hand into his wine.

She resumed her seat and the spell was spun again.

‘Mawredd gyminedd, mawr ysgafael, Yrhag Caer Lwytgoed, neus dug Morfael...’

The sky was entirely black now, except for a dusting of early stars, and the braziers glowed sullen red.

‘“I shall mourn until I enter the fastness of the earth,”
’
Gabriel said in English.

She thought his right hand moved and then there was a burst of flame as the nearest fire blazed up, making those nearest it recoil, dazzling the dark-adjusted eyes of all of them. From the far end where the staff had gathered there was a scream of alarm. When, blinking, Caroline could see properly again the dais was empty and the robed figure had vanished.

‘My dear Knighton!’ The men clustered around her father, full of congratulations. ‘Magnificent! The atmosphere, the voice, the drama!’ That was Lord Calderbeck, uncharacteristically animated. The others echoed him, only Woodruffe hung back, his hand on the back of his chair.

Caroline kept an eye on him as she directed the servants to clear the terrace of its chairs and props, watched him follow listlessly as the other guests trooped back into the drawing room.

‘Damn good show, Knighton,’ he roused himself to say. ‘If you’ll forgive me, I’m for my bed. Don’t feel quite the thing, you know...’

The others barely spared him a glance. Caroline, assessing the heavy eyes and barely stifled yawns, hurried to his side in a display of feminine concern. ‘Are you unwell, Lord Woodruffe? Should we send for a doctor?’

‘No, no. Just a trifle weary for some reason. The night air, I have no doubt.’ He smiled at her, a knowing smirk that had her fighting the urge to step back. ‘You’re a good girl to make a fuss of me. Make a wonderful wife for some lucky man, eh?’ His chuckle was lost in another jaw-cracking yawn and he wandered off towards the door, leaving Caroline to struggle with the expression on her own face.

‘Send a footman to keep an eye on Lord Woodruffe,’ she said to Blackstone. ‘We wouldn’t want any accidents on the stairs.’

Now what? Is Gabriel watching from the darkness, waiting for us to go to bed, or is he already in the house, perhaps in Woodruffe’s room?
But her part was done. The men drifted towards the card tables and Caroline took herself to bed, still half-lost in the swirling mists of ancient legend.

* * *

Her maid was agog with the excitements of the evening. ‘Ooh, my lady, when there was that great flame and he vanished I almost fainted with the terror of it. Witchcraft it was.’

‘I’m sorry you were frightened, Jenny.’ Caroline unhooked her earrings and sat at the dressing table for the maid to unpin her hair. ‘It was only the kind of tricks they play on stage.’

‘I wasn’t really scared, my lady—it was lovely, like a novel. I’ve got shivers up and down my spine just thinking about it.’

‘Well, I have shivers, too. Go and close the doors on to the balcony, please, before the moths get in.’

It seemed to take for ever to get ready for bed and even longer to send Jenny, still bubbling with excitement, on her way. Caroline left the little oil lamp by her bed burning while she lay back, knowing she was not going to be able to sleep, not for a long while.

Part of her was braced for the shouts that would mark Gabriel’s discovery, but there was only the distant sound of men’s voices from the drawing room, the occasional burst of laughter and, out in the park, the sharp bark of a vixen.

* * *

The voices had stilled by the time the sound of fingernails on the glass of the balcony door brought her upright in bed, one hand clapped over her mouth to stifle the shriek of alarm. They carried on their light tapping as she scrambled up and pulled on her wrapper. When she warily pushed back the curtains she almost did shriek in earnest at the sight of a dark figure on the narrow space between door and balustrade.

‘Oh, it is you!’

Gabriel in breeches, boots and a dark coat slid into the room and jerked the curtains back again. ‘Who did you expect?’

‘Not you outside dressed like that,’ she said irrationally, then gasped. ‘How long have you been out there?’

‘Long enough to be almost sent over the edge by your maid closing the doors. And what did you expect me to be wearing? I can hardly climb the wisteria in a robe.’ Her agitation finally seemed to register. ‘Yes, I was out there all the time you were preparing for bed, and, yes, the curtains were tightly drawn and even if they had not been, I have no need to lurk outside maidens’ bedchambers like a Peeping Tom, hoping for a glimpse of bare ankle.’

‘Because you find it all too easy to be inside bedchambers, I suppose.’ Gabriel gave a low hum of agreement. ‘I do wish you were not constantly putting me to the blush,’ she snapped, cross with herself. ‘I was surprised, that was all. I thought you would have been inside the house long ago.’

‘When everyone was still up and about and I had no idea which room was Woodruffe’s?’

He spoke softly and she came close. To whisper back, she told herself. ‘It is in the other wing. You’ll need to cross the head of the stairs and go straight ahead, take the first right. His is the first door up the little flight of steps.’

‘Stairs, across, right, steps. First door. Got it. Did you manage to drug him?’

‘I gave him a light dose of laudanum, enough to make him sleepy. I didn’t dare use more,’ she confessed. ‘I suppose murder is a rather extreme solution to the problem,’ she added, then had to bite her lip to keep back the totally inappropriate giggles.
I am becoming hysterical with nerves
, she thought and then lost all desire to laugh when she saw the expression on Gabriel’s face.

‘It is,’ he said grimly.

Something in his expression
... ‘I didn’t mean it.’ Her voice quavered.

Gabriel pulled her into his arms, her face against his coat. ‘I know you did not.’

‘That beard looks ridiculous with those clothes,’ she muttered, saying the first thing that came into her head. ‘It is tickling my ear.’

‘It is driving me insane,’ he confessed, his voice a low rumble. ‘I wish I could shave it off.’

‘Why? Does it itch?’ Caroline leaned back a little to examine it at close quarters.

‘That, and I suspect that you will not like it when I do this.’

The kiss took her totally by surprise. It seemed to take Gabriel by surprise, too, judging from the sound he made as he gathered her in to the curve of his arm. The beard was soft, but wiry, she discovered, though not as soft as the dark springing hair on his head as she slid her fingers into it, curved them around his head.

My second kiss ever
. And it was very different from that first, brief meeting of lips.
It must be the beard
, she thought, trying to stay rational and controlled. Gabriel smelled of cold air and lake water and, she supposed, of man. His mouth on hers was decidedly more active than it had been that first time. More assertive. More...
Oh!
His tongue found hers, then explored the tender inside of her mouth, then his teeth were nipping lightly at her lower lip and she found she was pressed against him, very conscious of his body.

Gabriel stepped back until he held her by the shoulders at arm’s length. ‘Damn. I had no intention of doing that.’

Her lower lip quivered and she bit it. Gabriel’s gaze shifted to her mouth. ‘It wasn’t
that
bad.’

‘I never said it was.’ He smiled at her ruefully. ‘The
damn
was for me. I apologise for both my presumption and the scratchy whiskers.’

‘They are quite soft, actually.’ She controlled the urge to pet them and gave herself a little shake. This was merely the release of tension, nothing more. Gabriel certainly did not appear much stirred by the experience and he should know. ‘You’ll need a lamp, you can take the little oil one from beside my bed.’ She watched Gabriel check the wick. ‘I think I will come with you to keep watch outside the door.’

‘And if anyone comes? How are you going to explain what you are doing at this hour, flitting about a house full of men?’

‘Um... Overcome by desire for Woodruffe? My father would approve of that.’

‘Your father would have you married to him by special licence ten minutes after he manages to locate a bishop to provide one if he thought you had committed that sort of indiscretion in front of witnesses.’

‘I suppose you are right. I could say I heard a sound like breaking glass so I went to investigate?’

‘Without calling for help?’

‘I am just a poor air-headed female.’ She widened her eyes at Gabriel and the corner of his mouth kicked up. ‘It never occurred to me it might be anything other than the wind on an unlatched casement that I ought to close.’

‘You are not air-headed, Caroline. You are a positive menace. But come if you must.’

She followed him out the door, resisting the temptation to clutch at his coat tails. The house was as silent as it ever was, alive with the creaks and groans of its old timbers, the whistle of the wind in the chimneys, the tap of the branches of the elm on the east parlour side. Gabriel moved, soft-footed as a housebreaker, drifting down the corridors, across the stairhead with a glance down at the hooded chair by the front door where the footman on duty was asleep, a lamp turned down low beside him.

At Woodruffe’s door Gabriel put his ear to the panels. ‘He’s asleep,’ he murmured in Caroline’s ear as he eased the door open and slid through the gap. Then she was alone on the landing with only the shivery sensation of his warm breath on her cheek to tell her that this was not some fevered dream.

* * *

Woodruffe was sprawled snoring across the bed, still in his shirt. Gabriel averted his gaze from the white hairy legs, the slack-mouthed face, and scanned the rest of the bedchamber.

Imagining this man in bed with Caroline did nothing for his concentration. He had been fighting the urge to kiss her, to toss her on to the nearest flat surface—piano,
chaise
, bed, hearthrug—and plunder that innocence until they were both exhausted. So far at least he had managed to behave like the gentleman he was supposed to be and not the rake he actually was, and keep his hands off her body.

Knight-errantry was supposed to bring its own rewards, not acute frustration, he thought bitterly as he studied Woodruffe’s belongings. He should have thrown Caroline out the moment he found her in his drawing room, now he could not help himself trying to right her wrongs, not now he knew she had been hurt, not knowing what he did about Woodruffe. He was a man now, not a desperate child, and he had the power to thwart both men who threatened her. But once he had done something about this he was going to take himself off to Paris and plunge into mindless, hedonistic pleasure because virtue was, most certainly, overvalued.