The Unexpected Marriage Of Gabriel Stone

Chapter Two

It had seemed such a good idea at the time. It had seemed the only idea at the time. Caroline took her place at the dinner table and wondered if the sinking feeling inside was guilt and shame or...anticipation. More likely, she thought as she made herself sip her soup, it was all three plus very sensible fear at what would happen if her father found out what she had been doing that morning.

‘Something wrong, Caro?’ Lucas, her elder brother, glanced across at her.

Her father, who was unlikely to notice anything amiss with anyone else, short of one of the party spontaneously combusting, ignored them. He had always been self-centred and selfish and she had given up years ago expecting any parental warmth and attention. She just prayed that Lucas would find a wife soon, someone who would stop him becoming just like his father.

‘This soup is a trifle salty. I must speak to Cook about it.’ Apparently her face did not convey the depth of her feelings, for Lucas merely nodded and went back to discussing with their father a planned visit to Coade’s Artificial Stone Manufactory in Lambeth in pursuit of statuary for their latest landscape project.

She had noticed before that once her father had sustained a major loss he would stop gambling abruptly. It was as if the bubble of gaming fever that had built up in him had been pricked and he was back to normal, until the next time. At least he did not continue throwing good money after bad for very long, but the irrationality of his behaviour, the wild swings of mood, were an increasing worry.

‘What new feature are you planning, Papa?’ she asked as the soup plates were cleared.

‘A hermitage. I will adapt the Gothic chapel that is already almost complete. The position where the path through the plantation has the view of the small lake is more suitable for a hermit’s cell than for a church.’

‘A hermitage there would be very dramatic and atmospheric,’ Caroline observed dutifully, not adding and damp. That location faced north and the trees dripped moisture on to the mossy bank. But years of experience had taught her what to say to keep her father happy.

‘Finding the hermit may take some time,’ he commented, gesturing impatiently for Lucas to add more of the capon he was carving to his plate.

For a moment, despite all her years of experience with him, Caroline thought her father was joking, but he sounded perfectly serious. ‘That might be challenging, I can see.’ Somehow she kept her voice steady. ‘I doubt the usual domestic agencies would be of any use. Perhaps an advertisement in the newspapers?’

‘What kind of hermit had you in mind, Father?’ Lucas was apparently fully behind the scheme. ‘As it is a Gothic chapel then a Druid would be unsuitable.’

‘I envisage a reclusive scholar,’ their father declared. ‘Once a monk, then expelled from the monastery by King Henry, now living alone in the ruins with the books and manuscripts he has saved from the Dissolution.’

‘You intend him to actually live there, Papa? That way of life might be too rigorous for a modern applicant to accept,’ Caroline ventured.

‘Of course I have considered that. The chapel exterior will disguise a one-roomed cottage, just as I built accommodation for the gamekeepers into the folly tower.’

‘And his duties?’ What did a hermit do anyway? Herm, perhaps. Somehow she managed not to give way to her feelings. It would be all too easy to collapse into hysterical laughter this evening.

‘I will want him simply to be there when anyone passes by. He must keep the hermitage in good order and maintain the area around it. I have no objection to him carrying on his own work—studying, writing and so forth—if he is a genuine scholar.’

‘Will we be returning to Knighton Park soon, Papa?’ Headlong flight down the hallway to the Earl of Edenbridge’s front door was not enough, it seemed. Headlong flight out of London was beginning to feel much safer. ‘The Season is drawing to its end in a few weeks.’

It had been the familiar round of socialising, of eligible young men who flirted and danced and then sheered off as soon as they encountered her father. Her looks were passable, her breeding acceptable, her dowry reasonable but her parent was the kind of father-in-law that bachelors were warned about. If she had ever met anyone who had wanted her for herself, loved her, then that would not have mattered, she supposed. But that had never happened and she was well aware of the whispers that Lady Caroline Holm was perilously close to being on the shelf. Such a pity, the old cats gossiped, such a charming girl. But... And then she had seen Gabriel Stone.

‘We will stay in London for June,’ her father said, jolting her out of her reverie. ‘That will give the builders time to finish the hermitage while Lucas and I select the ornamental details and find the hermit.’

No escape then. Unfortunately it was not Lord Edenbridge from whom she felt she needed to escape, it was her own absolutely irrational desire to see more of him. Playing with fire, Caroline thought. He is dangerously attractive and he is not for me. The man is downright wicked. As well as beautiful in that wild gypsy manner.

Her food was becoming cold. Caroline applied herself to it and told herself she was suffering from an attraction that was as ridiculous as any schoolgirl’s tendre for the music master. Only that was usually a hopeless passion, quickly forgotten. This was something that was going to lead her into the man’s bed and might, if she was not very careful, end in scandal.

* * *

‘The post, my lord.’ Hampshire proffered the salver with so much silent emphasis that Gabriel picked up the pile of letters immediately, intrigued to see what had interested the butler.

The letter on top, of course. Sealed with a plain wafer, posted in London and addressed in an elegant feminine hand. He lifted it to his nose. Unscented and good quality paper.

The note inside was to the point. The package has been received. I am most obliged for your prompt attention to the matter. There was not even an initial.

‘My prompt attention, indeed.’ Gabriel tapped the note on the table. Lady Caroline would have done better to have written begging him to reconsider their agreement. He was in half a mind to stop playing with her, tear up her IOU and send it back to her via her obliging pianoforte teacher. He would never act on it.

Would I?

As a gentleman he most certainly should not, but part of him admired her outrageous logic. It was certainly one sure way to hit back at her father’s schemes to marry her off advantageously whatever her own inclinations. Not that losing her virginity was going to save her from marriage, not unless she was prepared to inform her hopeful suitors in advance of the ceremony.

Yes, he should tear up the note and forget her and she would spend her entire married life giving thanks for a narrow escape. On the other hand he was bored, the situation was novel and a little internal devil prompted him to see just how this game played out a little longer.

He opened the next letter in the pile, noticing that it was from his old friend Crispin de Feaux and that the wax was impressed, not with the Marquess of Avenmore’s usual seal, but with the discreet abbreviated version. Cris was up to something.

Not only that, he discovered, but requiring Gabriel to get himself involved as well. ‘Collect information about Lord Chelford’s debts...obtain a sedan chair and bearers...send to Stibworthy, North Devon... North Devon?’ What the blazes was Cris up to now?

The study bookshelves returned no answer to his questions. This was too intriguing to deal with by post. Gabriel tugged the bell pull. ‘Hampshire, I am going into Devon by way of Bath. I will want my travelling coach.’ He glanced at Cris’s letter again and smiled. ‘Tell Corbridge to pack for action rather than amusement, I think.’

By the time he got back from whatever was brewing on the wilder western shores of England he would have located his better nature. He would do the right thing by the innocent Lady Caroline immediately and he would not yield to the temptation to discover just what the delicate skin at the base of her throat tasted like. Strawberries, perhaps...

* * *

June was drawing towards July, complete with sunshine, roses in bloom, a flurry of fashionable parasols—and no indication from her father that he would be leaving for the country for at least another week. Caroline could only be grateful because she had just realised the great flaw in her scheme, the gaping black hole in the centre.

She had the deeds, so Anthony’s future was assured, she had told herself. Then, when she was locking them away in the base of her jewellery box, she realised that in solving one problem she had created another—or two, if she counted the looming shadow of Lord Edenbridge and her promise to him.

Anthony’s estate was safe, but estates had to be managed. Plans must be made, orders must be given, wages paid, staff supervised, income banked and invested. Somehow Springbourne had to function for five years until her brother reached his majority and could take control. Meanwhile, she had no resources, no experience and no legal standing in the matter. Anthony was a minor, so neither did he. And if either of them tried to employ a solicitor or a land agent to act on their own behalf the first thing the man would do was consult their father.

Lord Edenbridge. Papa thought the earl was about to take over Springbourne and doubtless he had already notified all concerned. If Lord Edenbridge took nominal control it would solve everything. Would it be a huge imposition? Perhaps she could offer him a percentage of the income, or might he be offended by that? She needed to ask his advice.

It was the day she realised that she must speak to him that Lord Edenbridge disappeared from London. She looked for him in vain at balls and parties, she heard no gossip about him and, when she contrived to have the barouche drive along Mount Street, she saw the knocker was off his front door.

There was nothing for it, she would have to write to him. Caroline sat in the little room optimistically referred to as her boudoir, chewed the end of her pen and racked her brains for a tactful way of phrasing a request that a virtual stranger take on the supervision of an estate she had extracted from him in return for the dubious value of her own virtue.

The knock on the door was almost a relief.

‘Yes, Thomas?’

‘His lordship requests that you join him in his study, my lady.’ The footman had doubtless translated a grunted command to fetch my daughter into a courteous message, so she smiled at him, even though he had thrown what little she had managed to compose into disorder.

As she went downstairs she wondered what Papa wanted. Perhaps he had decided to go back to Knighton Park, in which case life would become immeasurably more complicated, for not only would all her correspondence with Lord Edenbridge have to go via Miss Fanshawe, but then be posted on to her in the country.

‘You sent for me, Papa?’

For once he was not buried in a pile of plans and estimates, sparing her only a glance. To be the focus of his attention was unnerving. ‘Sit down, Caroline. I have good news for you.’

That was definitely unnerving. ‘Yes, Papa?’

‘I have received an offer for your hand in marriage from Edgar Parfit, Lord Woodruffe. What do you say to that?’

‘Lord Woodruffe? But he’s...he’s...’

‘Wealthy, a good neighbour, in excellent health.’

‘Forty. Fat. He thinks of nothing but hunting. His first wife died only a year after they were married.’

‘It is hardly his fault the foolish chit fell off her horse.’

‘Miranda was frightened of horses and she hated hunting. He forced her to ride, to follow the hounds. He is a bully.’ And he frightens me. She managed not to say the words, for she had no justification for them, simply instinct.

‘He is a well set-up, mature man who expects loyalty from his wife.’

‘He can expect it of someone else, then.’ Caroline found she was on her feet. ‘I will not marry him.’

‘You do not tell me what you will and will not do, my girl! Your duty is to accept this most advantageous offer that has been made to you.’ Her father’s face was already darkening with building rage at her defiance.

The match was far worse than she had been dreading and advantageous only in what Lord Woodruffe would be offering in the way of land to increase the Knighton estate. But she could do nothing until she had spoken to Lord Edenbridge, secured Springbourne for Anthony.

If Mama was still alive she would not let you do this. The words were almost out before she could control them. Mention of his late wife always triggered her father’s worst rages. ‘Yes, Papa.’ She forced herself to meekness. ‘But I hardly know Lord Woodruffe.’

‘That didn’t stop you spouting nonsensical opinions a minute ago,’ he grunted. ‘There’s plenty of time to get to know him, no need to rush things. I’m too busy at the moment to worry about details like weddings and settlements.’

Reprieve...

‘Next month or so is soon enough. We’ll go down to Knighton in a week or two, Woodruffe can do his courting, wedding in September.’

September? She had been hoping for six months, not two. The thought of the baron’s courtship made her feel queasy. ‘Yes, Papa.’ It sounded weak, defeatist, but it calmed him. He was unused to defiance from her, she realised. Perhaps there had never been anything to make a stand about. Rebelling over being ignored and undervalued or complaining about her marriage prospects would have been pointless. But this was different and she had just won a little time to think.

First she had to locate Lord Edenbridge and settle Anthony’s estate safely, then, somehow, she had to find a way to escape from this marriage. Her brave words about losing her virginity and giving her husband a shock on their wedding night were wishful thinking, she realised now. Edgar Parfit’s response to finding that his bride was not what he expected was likely to be extreme: she had no illusions about the man, only fears that seemed worse because of their very vagueness.

‘Will Lord Woodruffe be at Lady Ancaster’s supper dance this evening, Papa?’ She infused as much interest into her voice as possible.

‘Doubt it.’ He did not glance up from his papers. ‘He’s still in the country as far as I know.’

A small mercy, she thought as she let herself out of the study. If only Lord Edenbridge was at the dance, too, then she had some hope of settling Anthony’s future and with that done, and her promise to Mama fulfilled, then perhaps she could find some way out of the mire for herself.

* * *

‘You look very well, Caroline.’ Aunt Gertrude, the Dowager Countess of Whitely, was normally sparing in her praise, but tonight, perhaps prompted by the news that Caroline was to receive an eligible offer, she was positively gracious.

‘Thank you, I was rather pleased with this gown, I must confess.’ It was an amber silk with an overskirt of a paler yellow and she was wearing it with brown kid slippers and her mother’s set of amber jewellery.

‘The neckline, however, is verging on the unacceptable.’ Her chaperon leaned forward in the carriage, the better to glare at Caroline’s bosom.

‘I believe it is well within the current mode, Aunt.’

‘Humph. And you are somewhat pale.’

It was a miracle that she was not white as a sheet with tension, Caroline thought as she set her lips in a social smile and prepared to follow her aunt out of the carriage and into the Ancasters’ Berkeley Square house. At least the necessity to act in a certain way prevented her from simply sitting down and having a fit of the vapours. She’d had to dress, have her hair styled, talk to her maid, choose her jewels, pay attention to Aunt Gertrude and now enter the Ancasters’ ballroom looking as though she had nothing on her mind except pleasure.

‘Good evening, Lady Farnsworth... Yes, Lord Hitchcombe, the floral decorations are charming... No, Aunt, I will be certain not to accept more than one dance from Mr Pitkin... Thank you, Mr Walsh, a glass of champagne would be delightful.’ She smiled and prattled on, just like every other young lady in the crowded, hot room, while all the time she expected to open her mouth and find herself announcing, ‘I have offered my virginity to Lord Edenbridge. I am deceiving my father. I am plotting to...’ To what? Ruin myself, most likely.

And there, strolling along on the other side of the room as the company began to take their places for the first dance of the evening, was a tall, black-haired figure. Edenbridge. He turned and went through a set of double doors that Caroline knew led to several sitting-out rooms and the ladies’ retiring room.

She murmured in her aunt’s ear.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, Caroline! Why on earth didn’t you visit the closet before we came out?’ Lady Whitely demanded in a penetrating whisper. ‘The first set is forming and you do not have a partner yet.’

‘I really must,’ Caroline whispered back. ‘The rhubarb posset...’ She escaped before her aunt could reply. With any luck she would attribute her niece’s haste to natural urgency, not the desire to go chasing after wicked bachelors.

She was moving so fast that she almost cannoned into Lord Edenbridge around the first corner of the corridor. He was standing with one evening shoe in his hand, prodding at the inside with a long finger and frowning.

‘Lord Edenbridge, I must speak with you. Where have you been? I have been looking for you for days...’

‘And good evening to you, Lady Caroline.’ He inclined his head in an ironical half-bow, shook the shoe and held up a small tack between finger and thumb. ‘I will have words with Hoby about this.’

‘Never mind your bootmaker, my lord, this is urgent.’ At any moment someone could come along the passageway and find them compromisingly tête-à-tête.

He winced. ‘You utter blasphemy.’ But he replaced his shoe and opened the door opposite them. ‘As I recall... Yes, excellent, and a key in the door. How accommodating of dear Hermione.’

He meant, she supposed, that this might be a refuge for lovers. There was certainly a chaise longue. Caroline pushed away speculation about how Lord Edenbridge knew this room was here and waited while he turned the key.

‘Now, Lady Caroline, how may I help you? I have been down in Devon,’ he added. For all his light tone and the smile, she detected a wariness about him. From her urgency he must think she was pursuing him, which was embarrassing, to put it mildly.

She sat down squarely in the middle of the chaise longue, spread her skirts out on either side in a way that made it quite clear she was not expecting him to join her and almost smiled at the rueful twist of his lips. ‘Perhaps you have misjudged the situation, my lord?’

‘Perhaps I have.’ He lounged across and propped a shoulder against the mantel-shelf looking for all the world like a Romany who had, for reasons of his own, donned an evening suit and strolled into a ton ball. She half-expected to see a glint of gold in his earlobes. His eyes, she realised, were brown. ‘I do wish you would stop addressing me so formally. Call me Gabriel, Caroline.’

‘And risk letting it slip out should we meet in company?’ Gabriel. She liked the sound of the name and she liked her own name on his lips even better. Perhaps not such a gypsy after all, she thought, watching him from beneath her lashes. His hair had recently been cut, although it was still on the long side, he had shaved to perfection and it was only the carelessness with which he wore his expensive clothes and the feline ease with which he lounged that spoiled the picture of the fashionable aristocrat.

‘Your chaperon would run me through with a hatpin before I got within conversational range of you, Caroline, so I think we are safe. Now, having established that you do not desire me to deflower you in a retiring room at HermioneAncaster’s dance, which I agree would be unwise, however informal she insists the occasion is—’

‘Oh, do not make me laugh! Not that there is anything to laugh about. I must be hysterical.’

‘Just very anxious, I think. Ask me what it is you want to know.’ He sounded not bored, precisely, but certainly reassuringly unexcited by being dragged off for an intimate chat. The coolness was bracing. Then she met his gaze and saw heat and a raw masculine awareness of her as a woman. No, he wasn’t cool at all, simply controlled and that very control was almost as arousing as the heat.

She could be controlled, too. She must be or he would read the utterly immodest carnal desire that was making it so hard to breathe. Inhale. ‘How burdened are you with the management of your own estates, Lord Edenbridge?’

He straightened up, hooked an upright chair away from the wall and sat down. ‘I am not easily surprised, Caroline, but I must admit that our meetings are presenting me with one novel situation after another. Would you care to explain why you wish to discuss estate management?’

‘I have realised that securing the deeds to Springbourne for Anthony is useless unless there is some way we can run the estate. I cannot do it. As an unmarried woman I will never be able to open a bank account without my father’s permission and Anthony is under age.’