“I will never love another as I love you,” she sobbed, shaking her head in denial.
“You will and you must. Now go, before you are discovered.”
Diana tore herself away from his touch and the pain of it was as if one of her very own limbs was being cast asunder. She ran from the room, tears streaming down her cheeks, until she reached Frances’ comforting embrace at the bottom of the stairs.
“I knew that this was ill-advised, My Lady. I am so very sorry.”
“No, it needed to be done. When my parents arrive, we will not stand alone. If anything should happen to us, he will carry on in our stead to make certain that the truth is made known.”
“I may not care for his impertinent ways with you, but he is a brave man, I will give him that.”
“Well, you need not fear for me on his account, as he has refused my offer to run away with him, not once but twice now.”
“Then he has more honor than I credited to him. I am pleased that he is not so foolish, but I am truly sorry for your pain, My Lady. It breaks my heart to see you so distressed.”
“No matter what anyone says, I will never love again.”
“Never is a very long time, My Lady, a very long time indeed.”
“Never,” Diana swore, then turned and walked away into the woods to weep in private.
Chapter 37
Days passed before David returned with Diana’s parents. Diana felt as if her mind was fraying at the edges, much as an old blanket, by the time the butler announced their arrival and showed them into the drawing room. Diana was pretending to listen to the Dowager Marchioness teach her about the proper etiquette of engagements. Unable to bear the strain a moment longer, Diana raced from her chair and into her parent’s waiting arms.
Georgette, being older and more dignified, arose more slowly and greeted their parents with less ardor.
“Father, Mother,” she bowed her head in acknowledgement. It was clear that there was still a strain between them in spite of not having been under the same roof for a time.
“Georgette, Diana,” their father replied as he attempted to extricate himself from Diana’s exuberant embrace.
“Diana,” the Dowager Marchioness spoke sharply in reprimand of her unladylike behavior.
Reluctantly, Diana pulled away and went to sit back down. They were soon joined by the Marquess and the Earl of Appley, who had been forced to abandon his search for the brigands who had attacked him and Gabriel. It was as if they had simply disappeared, leaving no trace of where they had gone, and he had eventually grown tired of chasing shadows.
“Did you run into any trouble along the way?” Appley asked, telling Lord and Lady Kilgrave of his near brush with death.
“No, we did not, but we did encounter two of Westwallow’s servants making a pilgrimage to see their son, who had been wounded in just such an attack,” the Earl of Kilgrave answered, taking a seat beside his wife.
“The lad saved my life,” Appley nodded in gratitude at the memory. “Yes, I sent word to Gabriel’s parents that he had been wounded and was ill with fever. Did they arrive with you?”
“They did,” Kilgrave nodded. “They went directly to the stables with your groom to see the boy.”
“That is good,” the Marquess nodded. “He has much improved in the days since I sent that missive. The last I saw, he was attempting to walk about.”
Diana’s heart jumped at such news and she wished that she could run out to the stables to see him. Frances had told her that he was trying and that he had every intention of keeping his word to be present when she confronted the Dowager Marchioness’ family. They had made a plan for Gabriel to bring David and Sarah along with him when Frances came running to tell him it was time. Diana gave Frances the nod and the maid slipped out of the room unnoticed. Diana could just make out the sound of her footsteps on the wooden hallway floor as she raced away.
Gabriel stood panting at the bottom of the stairs, exhausted and in pain from his efforts, when his mother and father came bursting through the stable doors, along with David.
“Gabriel,” his mother cried out, running to embrace him. “You look terrible, my darling.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Gabriel chuckled in amusement at her fussing.
“Oh, you know what I meant,” she clucked her tongue at him, but did not release her embrace.
“I do.” Gabriel gave her an affectionate squeeze with his good arm and looked up to greet his father with a smile.
“Gabriel,” his father laid a gentle hand on Gabriel’s unwounded shoulder. “How are you, son?”
“Healing,” he gave his father a reassuring smile.
“It was brave, what you did for the Earl.”
“It was what any other man would have done.”
“No, my son, it is not. It takes a truly noble man to put another man’s life before his own.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“He is a good man, your son,” David agreed, coming to stand next them. “I have enjoyed spending time with him again. It is always the highlight of my year when you all come to Wales with the family. I was surprised when you all did not come this time.”
“There were extenuating circumstances that kept us at Westwallow,” Gabriel answered as nonchalantly as he could manage, given the circumstances. “I would not have been here now had the Earl of Appley not needed my services.”
“I am sorry for your misfortune in being wounded, but I am glad to have you all here once more,” David admitted, smiling warmly at his friend. “Do you ever miss it here?”
“I do,” Gabriel admitted, nodding, “but one goes where one is duty bound.” He studied the planes of David’s face, looking for any sign of the late Marquess, but he found no resemblance. He was not certain that Diana and Frances’ theories about David were correct, but the truth would be revealed soon enough.
“That we do,” David agreed nodding. “Shall we go to the kitchen and see what the cook has prepared for tea?”
Just as Gabriel opened his mouth to answer, Frances came flying through the stable doors.
“It is time,” she gasped, breathing heavily from her exertions.
Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm his racing heart, then nodded. “So be it. Go and get Sarah.”
Frances nodded and was off again, racing back toward the manor house.
“Drawing room,” she called over her shoulder as she went.
“What was that all about?” James Rowan frowned after the girl as if she had lost her mind.
“Father, I am about to put our family in a very difficult situation, and I pray that you can find it in your heart to forgive me for it.”
“What is it, son? What is this pertaining to?”
“It is pertaining to the late Marquess’ son.”
“The current Marquess?” David asked, befuddled by Frances’ behavior and what his sister would have to do with it.
“No,” Gabriel shook his head. “His second son.”
Lilly Rowan gasped and clung to the front of Gabriel’s shirt more fiercely. “How do you know about that?”
“How does he know about what? The late marquess only had but the one son,” David reminded them all, as if they had gone daft and should know better.
“No, he had a second son with a maid named Caroline.”
David stared at him in disbelief. “Surely not. Who is it?”
“It is quite possible, David, that it is you.”
With another small gasp, Lilly fainted into her husband’s arms.
Diana waited until Frances entered with all of the servants who were needed to make their confrontation work.
“What is the meaning of this?” the Dowager Marchioness demanded to know as they entered the room. “You belong in the stables! How dare you come here unsummoned!”
“They have come at my request,” Diana cut the Dowager’s accusatory rant short.
“To what end?” the Dowager demanded to know.
“To this end,” Diana answered and pulled the letters and wax-sealed document from beneath her skirts. The Marquess tensed and his face drained of color at the sight of them in her hands.
He does know.
“Diana?” her mother inquired softly, her face uncertain.
“My apologies, Mother, but I have called you here under false pretenses.”
“Diana,” her father barked warningly. He had come expecting an engagement and was displeased to learn that it would not be so.
“I promise, Father, that you will understand once I have explained everything to you.”
“I, for one, would like to hear this explanation,” the Earl of Appley eyed her questioningly. Clearly, he had also been expecting an engagement.
“I am sorry, Tobias, but contrary to what the Dowager Marchioness has told you, I cannot wed you. I cannot wed anyone that I do not love, for any reason, regardless of blackmail. I hold great affection for you as a friend but nothing more.”
“Blackmail? What has blackmail to do with this?” Appley was truly confused.
“The Dowager Marchioness said that if I did not wed you, she would ruin the lives of Gabriel and his family.”
“Preposterous! Why would she do such a thing?” The Earl of Kilgrave blustered at his daughter’s accusation.
“Because I am in love with him.”
A collective gasp went around the room from those who did not already know the truth of her affections for him.
“The Gabriel that lies wounded in the stables?” her father asked in disbelief.
Diana turned her gaze toward Gabriel, giving him the chance to walk away, but he only nodded his head in acceptance. “Yes, Father.”
The Earl of Kilgrave followed Diana’s gaze and flushed a deep crimson color that did not look at all healthy.
“My daughter in love with a stable hand?!”
The Earl of Appley met Gabriel’s eyes, then Diana’s. The disapproval that he had once felt for the man’s inferior social status was gone.
“A stable hand he may be, Kilgrave, but a nobler man I have yet to meet. I cannot fault your daughter her choice, for I owe him my very life. A doomed love it may be, but it is not an unwarranted one. Quite Shakespearean, if you think about it.”
“What?!” the Earl of Kilgrave roared, barely holding on to his rage at such a revelation.
“That is not all,” Diana forged on, unwilling to let her confession distract from her true purpose.
“Is it not enough?” her fatherly was utterly at a loss as to what to do with his daughter’s behavior. He looked to the Dowager Marchioness, who was sitting as still and pale as the dead, the shock of such a scene having clearly rendered her speechless.
“Unfortunately, it is not.” Diana held up the letters once more.
She then began to tell them the story of the Marquess’ doomed love for the maid Caroline and the child that their love produced. She spared no detail, causing her own mother to need smelling salts at one point during the ordeal. Her sister Georgette sat in silence beside her, listening thoughtfully to every word. She had already known about Gabriel being Diana’s love, but everything else was new to her. The Marquess stood in silence, having removed himself to the far wall to stare out of the bank of windows at something well beyond the actual scenery.
Diana’s heart went out to the servants who stood huddled together uncertainly by the door, but Gabriel gave her a reassuring nod and she continued on, her heart racing until she came to the very end, having read all three letters as proof of her words. “And this is the document that reveals the name of the child,” Diana lifted the wax-sealed paper.
“And do you know who it is?” Georgette asked, her curiosity quite piqued by this point.
Their mother nearly dissolved from a fit of the vapors at the scandalous nature of it all and the fact that she had exposed her daughters to such a thing by sending them away.
“I believe that I do,” Diana answered her, “but I cannot be certain.”
“Who do you think it is?”
Diana proceeded to tell them all the story of how David the groom had come to be in Wales.
“But the only way to know for certain is to unseal the document and for that we needed enough witnesses for it to hold up in a court of law should it be challenged.”
“What do you know of this, Ernest?” the Earl of Kilgrave demanded to know, but the Marquess refused to turn around and answer them.
“Theodora?” he demanded of the Dowager Marchioness, but she too ignored him, unable or unwilling to speak.
“Father, Tobias, would you both please act as noble witnesses to what lies within this document and its authenticity, as you are both familiar with the late Marquess’ seal and hand.”
The Earl of Appley nodded and stood, taking the document from her hand.
“It is indeed from the late Marquess. He always did have a unique hand.”
“It was from a childhood injury,” the Earl of Kilgrave murmured in memory of his long dead friend. “Charles fell out of a tree when we were children and broke his finger. It never healed properly.”
The Earl of Appley handed the document to Diana’s father for inspection.
“This is indeed his hand and seal.”
Taking a deep breath, Diana nodded for her father to proceed. He met her eyes, grief in his eyes for all that he had learned, then broke the wax seal. The room fell suddenly silent, the crisp sound of the break echoing off of the drawing room walls as if it were a death knell.
The room held its breath, then Lilly Rowan broke down into gasping sobs as the Earl of Kilgrave’s eyes fell not upon David as expected, but upon Gabriel.
Chapter 38
“I, Charles Augustus Jenson, Marquess of Westwallow, acknowledge that Charles Gabriel Rowan Jenson is my son and as such is to be afforded the same rights of inheritance and title as a legitimate second son.”
The Earl of Kilgrave looked up from reading the document aloud and stared in stunned silence at Gabriel.
“That cannot be,” Gabriel protested, shaking his head. “I was born here in Wales to James and Lilly Rowan. Tell them, Mother,” he turned his eyes to her tear-stained face. “Tell them.”
“I cannot,” she shook her head, unable to keep from sobbing.
“Father?”
“I am sorry, son, but it is true. You are the second son of the late Marquess of Westwallow. You were entrusted to our care when you were but a babe and we were sworn to silence until the Marquess himself determined that it was safe for you to be known, but then he died and the current Marquess took on the responsibility of protecting your father’s secret.”
Gabriel looked to the Marquess. His back was ramrod straight as he stared out of the window. “My Lord?”
The Marquess turned and met his eyes with a solid steady gaze that surprised him, the way the nobleman had been acting, so distant and removed since the entire ordeal had begun.
“Ernest,” he corrected, his eyes kind but firm. “Brothers call each other by their Christian names, do they not, My Lord,” he bowed his head in a gesture of familial respect.
“You knew? All of this time, you knew and you did not tell me?”
“I had to protect you. If my mother was capable of murdering a wee babe, then she was more than capable of having you killed at any age.”
“Did you ever plan to tell me? Did any of you ever plan to tell me the truth?”
“I had every intention of telling you once my mother died and there was no longer any threat to you.”
“That could have been many years from now,” Diana pointed out in disbelief. “What if something had happened to him and he had died without ever knowing the truth? Could you have honestly forgiven yourself such a cowardly act? I find it difficult to believe that you were not just as concerned about protecting your own mother from the consequences of her own actions.”
Hearing Diana’s voice jarred Gabriel out of the haze that he was in and he suddenly realized what t
he truth of his birth meant for them.
“It does not matter,” he murmured, shaking his head and moving further into the room.
“What do you mean that it does not matter? They have lied to you your entire life. The Marchioness attempted to kill you when you were but a helpless babe. Of course, it matters!” Diana’s eyes were flashing with fury on his behalf and it made her look all the more beautiful to him for how much she cared.
The Enigmatic Lady in the Ivory Tower Page 25