The Unexpected Marriage Of Gabriel Stone

His fingers were circling her wrist, gentle and firm and all-enveloping. With the other hand he pushed back her sleeve to expose her forearm. There was silence as she went still in his grasp, watching the bent head as he studied the pattern of fading bruises that still encircled her arm. The sprain where her father had jerked her towards him, held her as she fell, was still a little sore.

‘Who did that?’ Petrus still did not look up and the lilting voice was steady, but she could feel the shock and the anger coursing through him even though she could not see his face.

‘It was an accident. I fell and my...someone caught my arm to steady me.’

‘No, they did not.’ He rebutted her lie quite calmly. ‘These are not the marks of someone catching you, but of someone holding you forcibly, as though they intended to hurt you. Who was it? Your brother or your father?’

‘Lucas would never—I mean no one wants to hurt me.’

‘So it was your father.’ He stood and held out his hand so she could take it with her uninjured right.

There did not seem to be any point in arguing with him. Caroline allowed him to pull her to her feet. ‘It is none of your business,’ she said as she found herself standing with her nose virtually pressed against the rough cloth of his robe.

‘And I am merely an employee,’ the hermit observed. ‘Of course, a husband is permitted by law to beat his wife with a rod no thicker than his thumb and a father may chastise his children. But you are not a child.’ His voice became harder, angry.

‘No. I am not.’ We are both adults.

The fingers wrapped around hers were strong and still slightly cool from the lake water. Standing so close, she could smell damp wool from his robe and the sharp tannin scent of crushed bracken and leaf mould and something indefinable that must be the scent of his skin. A little shiver of recognition, as elusive as a breath of wind, stirred her and he let go of her hand and stepped back.

‘I am sorry, my lady. It is not my business, as you say. But is there no one to take your side, for you to confide in? Who looks after you?’

‘Why, no one! I am twenty-three, Petrus the Hermit, and I have people to look after, not the other way around. Or do you think all women are feeble little things who need keeping in cotton wool?’

‘No, I do not. Nor do I think they are fair game for any man who feels he has a right to bully and abuse those who cannot fight back, for whatever reason.’ He walked away from her towards the chapel, then stopped and half-turned in the doorway. ‘You should go, my lady. You should not be here alone with me.’

The sense of recognition was almost déjà vu now. Something about the way he stood there, one hand on the door, the way the broad shoulders filled the frame, the utterly relaxed pose that hinted at an ability to move instantly if the need arose... Caroline gave herself a brisk mental shake. She had never met a bearded Welshman before, her mind was playing tricks on her. The only tall, black-haired, broad-shouldered man she knew was miles away in London, probably nursing a hangover or totting up his gambling winnings. Or just getting up from the bed of some sophisticated and beautiful woman.

Petrus lifted his head, no longer relaxed. ‘Someone is coming. Two horses.’

Without a word Caroline turned and plunged down the narrow path that led through the bushes to the lake. It must be her father and Lucas, but she would be safe down here, the path was too steep and narrow for riders to follow.

She reached the shelter of an ancient oak tree and moved behind the massive trunk, round to where honeysuckle had created a tangled screen. Looking up, she could see the area in front of the chapel door where Petrus stood waiting.

The horses moved into the space, large hunters, ridden with no thought that they might be intimidating to a man on foot. Petrus stood his ground, then bowed, his hands inside the wide sleeves of his habit, the gesture somehow utterly lacking in servility and with a hint of the exotic about it.

‘You have made yourself at home, I see.’ Her father’s voice carried clearly. ‘What are you up to?’

‘Eating my breakfast, bathing in the lake, contemplating a rhyme for bruise, my lord.’ Petrus’s voice was respectful and yet lilting through it was a thread of laughter, of mockery that had a dangerous edge to it.

Bruise. He had been angry when he saw her arm, angry when he realised who had inflicted the fading brownish-purple fingermarks that circled it like a malevolent bracelet. She should have been wary, on her guard approaching a complete stranger like that, and yet she had felt safe, even when he had touched her, even when the savage note had marred the liquid music of his accent.

Her father appeared to have noticed nothing amiss with the hermit’s tone, but then he would never believe that an employee would dare to mock him, let alone threaten him. What was the status of a professional hermit anyway? Was he a servant or did he have a professional standing akin to an artist or architect called in to provide a service? she wondered, smiling a little at her own whimsy.

‘Very good, carry on as you are.’ No, her father had heard nothing amiss and his self-centred imagination had not picked up on the oddity of Petrus’s remark about bruises. ‘I have house guests arriving in three days’ time. I will send word of when I want you to be here, but the first evening I think you should be seen at a distance, wandering across the hillside. It will intrigue the company before dinner, make a topic for conversation. You will receive detailed instructions.’

House guests? Who? And why hasn’t Father told me? Now she had to get back to the house without being seen and wait until he deigned to inform her. She could hardly ask straight out or she would betray where she had been. When she looked back her father and Lucas had ridden on and the little clearing was empty.

It would be quickest to return to the chapel, cut down through the slope above the kitchen gardens and enter the house from there. She would then appear to have been inspecting the vegetable and flower crops if anyone noticed her slightly muddied boots.

Caroline crossed the clearing silently. The chapel door was still open and she could hear the hermit moving about inside. As she tiptoed past he spoke, one loud, angry swear word that made her gasp. Then something hit the door and fell to the ground. For an appalled moment she thought the brown huddle was an animal, then a fold flopped over and she saw it was his robe.

Which meant the chapel contained one angry, damp, naked hermit. She picked up her skirts and fled.

Chapter Five (#ulink_7e3c4704-fa20-513a-83ba-16bec0971f36)

‘Woodruffe will be visiting in three days,’ her father announced at dinner. ‘Thought I would make a house party of it so Calderbeck’s coming and Turnbull—they are sound on landscape design—and Lucas has invited some friends.’

‘Yes, Father.’ Caroline’s heart sank. She had always thought it an exaggerated phrase, but it perfectly described the unpleasant lurch in her chest at the thought of her unwelcome suitor’s presence in the house. ‘Who have you invited, Lucas?’

‘Frampton, the Willings brothers and Perry Ratcliff.’ Lucas hardly looked up from his attempts to carve a tough chicken.

‘Seven, then. An all-male party?’ She tried to sound interested and positive.

‘Yes.’ Her father helped himself from the dish of buttered peas.

‘I had best ask Aunt Gertrude to stay.’ Caroline chased a sliver of beef around her plate. For once the idea of her aunt’s fierce chaperonage was welcome.

‘I don’t want my sister’s Friday face around the place for a week. What do you need a chaperon for when you’re in your own home with your father and brother? I’ve no time for this missish nonsense.’

I need it for protection with Edgar Parfit prowling the corridors at night and a houseful of men I hardly know, she thought, but held her tongue.

‘You complain that you don’t know Woodruffe well enough to wed him, so this will give you plenty of opportunity. I’ll have old Humbersleigh over to draw up the settlements while he’s here and tell that useless parson to sort out the licence.’

‘But, Father, what about my bride clothes?’ Best to pretend that she had given in.

That brought his head up and his attention full on her. Caroline put up her chin and fought the instinct to cringe back in her chair.

‘You’ve spent weeks in London doing nothing but shop. If you don’t have enough gowns now you can buy them when you’re wed and Woodruffe can pay for them. Hah!’ Obviously pleased with the thought of fobbing off expense on his prospective son-in-law, her father returned to his roast.

Protesting to him was not going to work, not with two hundred acres of Woodruffe’s land almost within his grasp. Caroline reached for the potatoes and bit into one with sudden determination. She would have to give Woodruffe a distaste for her, make him realise she would not stand to be dominated by him. Being missish and meek had not helped his first wife, he had simply bullied and beaten poor Miranda into submission. No, she would have to be bold and brassy, stand up to him, then he would think her too much trouble to wed. And if that failed, then her desperate plan to flee was the only alternative.

She bit down on her sore tooth without thinking and winced, reminded of what her father’s temper could do if he discovered her scheming. But first she had to worry about preparing for a house party of seven with only two days to do it in.

* * *

‘That’s a fine prospect, Knighton, I must say.’ Lord Calderbeck shaded his eyes as he looked out from the terrace across the garden to the slopes of Trinity Hill. ‘I like what you’ve done with that tower—it has an air of age and mystery about it, makes a man want to take a walk across the park and explore.’

‘That’s my latest project.’ The earl pulled his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and peered at the time. The shadows were lengthening as the summer evening drew in, but the sun still illuminated the far hillside. Caroline scanned the treeline, realising what her father was waiting for. She had been so busy over the past two days that she had hardly spared the hermit a thought. Certainly, all that afternoon, preoccupied as she had been with greeting the guests and avoiding Lord Woodruffe, she had quite forgotten him.

‘Who the devil is that?’ young Marcus Frampton demanded, pointing.

‘It looks like a monk!’ Mr Turnbull, an author of lurid Gothic tales, clapped his hands in delight. ‘That’s wonderful, Knighton, you have found yourself a monk.’

‘A hermit, actually. The building you can glimpse is a chapel and there he lives in solitude.’ Her father was beaming now, more than satisfied with the effect of his creation on his friends.

Caroline picked up the telescope that was lying on the bench and trained it on the distant figure. Petrus was walking slowly, using a long staff to good effect, for it showed the fall of his full sleeves. As she sharpened the focus he turned to face the house and flung his arms wide in a gesture that might have been a blessing. Or perhaps a curse.

‘Do let me help you, Lady Caroline. That is too heavy for dainty female hands.’ A large body pressed against her and one hand came around her waist as the other clasped her fingers on to the telescope, pressing hard so the metal ridges bit into her skin.