The Unexpected Marriage Of Gabriel Stone

‘I have no idea,’ she confessed. ‘Only my own impressions and the fact that everyone says how shocking and ruthless you are, yet you are never accused of dishonourable behaviour.’

‘It is easy enough to be honourable if one is never tempted.’ His voice was dry and his smile held little amusement. ‘I confess that it is a novelty to be trusted quite so implicitly, Lady Caroline.’

The heat that had been ebbing and waning throughout this entire outrageous interview swept up her cheeks at the thought of what tempting this man might involve. She was innocent, certainly, but not ignorant. ‘Obviously I have not tempted you beyond reason, my lord, given the very businesslike way we have concluded our bargain.’

‘I did not say that I am not tempted, Lady Caroline.’ He took her hand, raised it to within a hair’s breadth of his mouth and held in there for a moment. His breath was warm, his fingers firm. She braced herself for the brush of his lips.

‘How did you come here?’ Lord Edenbridge asked, releasing her without the slightest attempt at a kiss. He walked to the fireside and tugged the bell pull.

‘In a—in a hackney.’ Damn him for making me all of a flutter, for making me stammer. For disappointing me. Behind her the door opened and she bit back any more stumbling words.

‘Hampshire, find the lady a hackney with a reliable-looking driver. Good day, Lady Caroline. I look forward greatly to the announcement of your nuptials.’

Her last glimpse of the earl was of him pulling his neckcloth free and beginning to unbutton his shirt. Caroline did not deceive herself, her brisk walk down the hallway was as much a flight as if she had run.

Chapter Two (#ulink_8345d890-783f-5093-af94-0b670baf6b28)

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.