by Gabriel
“He does. My thanks. I’ve kept an eye on her as best I could, but that hardly served.”
“Thought you’d want to know.”
Gabriel let him go, knowing Aaron hadn’t owed him that last exchange and hadn’t owed the child anything. And this was the brother Gabriel had been convinced was intent on fratricide. Increasingly, that notion seemed ludicrous.
But this business with Marjorie… A visit to Kettering was definitely in order, and soon, because even now Aaron could be getting the Hesketh heir with Marjorie, and then where would they be?
Three
Taking dinner on a tray was not an act of cowardice. Polly assured herself of this as she studied yet another botched sketch of a certain breeding sow who had been dear to the land steward at Three Springs—the former steward. To allow the Wendover family to dine in privacy the first time they sat down together since North’s return was courtesy.
Not North. He was Hesketh, the marquess himself. Had been, the whole time he’d been feeding slops to Hildegard and wrestling sheep from the pond muck at Three Springs.
Polly tore off the sketch of Hildy—the pig’s expression had been uncharacteristically downcast—and instead drew a careful, aquiline curve near the middle of the page. The curve grew into Gabriel’s nose, then his mouth, and his beautiful, serious eyes.
Not Gabriel, not North. Hesketh. Lord Hesketh.
The entire time he’d been permitting Polly the occasional liberty—a kiss, an embrace, a cuddle—he’d been Hesketh.
With a huff of self-disgust, Polly set her sketchbook aside. The Wendover family Bible would be in the library. Knowing Gabriel’s antecedents would appease the curiosity she had about him—had always had about him.
From the first time he’d showed up at her kitchen door—tall, gaunt, and bearing a letter from Lady Warne—Polly had been interested in Gabriel North.
Gabriel Wendover, she corrected herself, finding a flannel wrapper and belting it tightly. The corridors were lit by only the occasional sconce, but it was enough, because the moon was full and Polly knew her way.
Someday I am going to have my own house. Nothing so grand as this, but something as light and elegant and comfortable. I’ll have a library and a studio, and my family will be welcome.
My daughter will be welcome.
She opened the library door, a comforting warmth enveloping her as she stepped into the room.
And stopped.
Somebody had pushed the long sofa right up close to the hearth, using it as a sort of fire screen, though the spark catcher was still in place as well. Moving silently, Polly stepped closer, peering over the back of the sofa.
Gabriel was stretched out on his stomach, a fat ledger open for his perusal.
“Brandy is on the sideboard, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
He didn’t glance up, but Polly knew he could identify her scent—he’d confessed as much once on a dark, lovely night.
“Would you like some?”
“I’ve already indulged, but help yourself.” He stirred, setting the book aside and shifting to sit.
“Your back is hurting?”
“Of course. You’re having trouble sleeping?”
“Of course.”
“Come sit, then, Polonaise, and you can tell me how our dear Allemande fares.”
He would ask that, damn him.
She helped herself to brandy and poured him a glass despite his demurral. By the time she’d brought both to the sofa, he’d pushed the furniture back to a more usual distance from the fire.
“Should you be shoving furniture around if your back hurts?”
“Should you be offering brandy to me when you’re in such fetching dishabille?”
“Don’t be churlish.” She handed him his drink and sat a small distance from him. He rose and tossed a log on the fire, while Polly watched his movements. She’d seen him move much more slowly, and manage in surrounds far less commodious than these.
“Allie is well enough,” Polly said. “She’s angry at me for leaving Three Springs, but Beck and Sara are patient with her, and her Uncle Tremaine is a nice distraction.”
“The Sheep Count. His nom de guerre among the merchants. Every girl can use a wealthy uncle.”
“He doesn’t use the title.” They fell silent, but when he resumed his seat, Gabriel settled right beside her, hip to hip, as he often had at Three Springs. When he’d first developed the habit, she had thought he’d done it as a simple, animal way to garner some human warmth for himself, but when he’d taken no more advantage than that over weeks and weeks of opportunity, she’d realized he was doing it for her, to alleviate her loneliness in the small ways that wouldn’t cause talk or stir feelings.
And she’d been grateful.
She was still grateful, which would not do.
“So tell me why you did it, Polonaise.” His voice was the same rasping baritone she’d heard many times before, but here before the fire, it carried a kind of fatigue she’d not sensed previously.
He wanted to send her away, and they might not cross paths again. The thought inspired honesty, of a sort, and sadness.
“Why I did what?”
“Why did you leave your family at Three Springs to make wealthy, spoiled people look pretty for all eternity?”
“Why did you leave?” Polly had never been intimidated by him, not by his size, his intellect, his brooding silences, or his irascible demeanor. “You told Allie your family was in trouble, but this”—she waved a hand—“looks as untroubled as can be.”
“I lied.”
“You don’t lie.” She took a sip of very smooth spirits, such as a true lady would not admit she drank. “Well, perhaps you do.”
“Not willingly or often,” he countered. “I don’t care for it.”
She glanced at the saturnine planes of his face as the firelight cast them in flickering shadows. He did not care for himself when he dissembled.
“Which was the truth, then? That you desired me, or you were only humoring my… attraction to you?”
He helped himself to a sip of her drink though she’d brought him one of his own. “Polonaise, will you never learn a little indirection? The day has been long and fraught, and either answer leaves me looking like a bounder.”
“So which bounder will you be?” She sipped her drink from the exact same place on the glass he had, and let the brandy burn down to her center before going on. “Will you be the man who didn’t want to tell me my importuning was pathetic to one of his stature, or the man who took small liberties for the sheer hell of it, without thought to the consequences?”
“Not pathetic,” he ground out. “You’ve gotten your nightcap. Hadn’t you best be off to bed?”
She tidied her skirts as if to rise, but rather than heed him, she scooted her feet up under herself on the sofa.
“I’d like an answer,” she said. “Any answer, Gabriel, because you owe me that much. I don’t have to like it, but if it’s the truth, I’ll live with it. You mean to send me away, after all, so grant me this boon: What were you doing with me, Gabriel? Why mess about with the lowly cook when you could have entertained yourself in any style you chose in Town?”
“You’re not asking what I was doing at Three Springs in the general case, I note.”
“That is your business. I’m not going up those stairs until you tell me what you were doing with me, in the specific case.” She had no way of enforcing her threat. Sore back or not, he could easily toss her over his shoulder and eject her from the room bodily.
And she would like to see him try, because it would give her an excuse to be in some form of his embrace.
“I’m not sending you off immediately,” he replied, and they both knew he was dodging her question yet again. “Aaron wants Marjorie’s portrait done now, and I will respect his wishes, but there are rules.”
Polly took another sip. “With you as the Marquess of Hesketh, one expects rules regarding a great deal.”
&nb
sp; “You will pose her indoors, and there will be footmen in attendance,” Gabriel said. “You will keep me or Aaron informed of your whereabouts at all times, and when Marjorie’s portrait is done, you depart without a word of the goings-on here.”
She gave him a peevish look for the insult implied at that last condition.
“Whatever is going on here, the news has already reached every estate within a five-mile radius, Gabriel.”
“You don’t need to add fuel to the flames of gossip. For your own safety, you do not.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Jesus save me.” He hunched forward and scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’d call me out were it intended as such.”
“And my weapon of choice would be the muffin pan,” Polly replied. This provoked a tired smile from the man beside her, and she let herself smile back. “Gabriel, I really would like to hear that you weren’t trifling with me. A woman feels foolish when the first man she’s taken an interest in for years turns out to be so far above her touch.”
His expression was genuinely—reassuringly—baffled. “What did you ever see in me, Polonaise? I am no more above your touch than Soldier is fit for the Derby.”
“You are telling me the truth, now.” She wished she had her sketch pad, so she might catch that bemusement on his features. “I treasured that, you know? When our entire household was at sixes and sevens, you always told us women the truth. Allie noticed it first, that you never prevaricated with her, even when Sara and I were trying to spare her.”
“You like that I have no tact?”
“I like that you have courage,” she said softly, “and you are more affectionate than you want people to know.”
“Affectionate?”
With her finger, she traced on her thigh the curve of his upper lip. “Don’t say it like it’s an insult. You carried Allie around on that bad back of yours, you were always scratching and petting the beasts, and I know about those nights you spent arguing over cards with Beck. You left your brandy glasses about like the lordly fellows you truly are.”
“Until you scolded us for our sloth,” he replied, his slight smile flashing in the dim light. “And one can’t help Beckman’s nature. His whole family is that way, like wolves that spend the night in the same cave, all draped over each other with no dignity at all.”
“You held me.”
“Is that an accusation?”
“It’s a blessed fact.” Polly drew the curve of his smile next. He was self-conscious about this topic but not bolting from the discussion entirely. “I was the irascible, cranky cook, and you were the irascible, cranky steward, and you spiked my guns simply by putting your arms around me one night and telling me to hush.”
She lapsed into silence, letting the memory have a space of respect in their dialogue. She’d been so wroth when the lazy twins bearing the title of footmen had helped themselves to the dessert intended for the next night’s meal. Allie had been a brat, Sara was upset with Allie, and Polly’s courses had been tormenting her for two straight days. She’d picked up a tin cup, intent on hurling it at the fire, when Gabriel had come in too late for supper and asked what a man might find for sustenance.
And midway through her harangue about a grown man being able to tell time, he’d simply slipped his arms around her, gently pushed her head to his shoulder, and told her to hush. She’d made a token protest, more surprise than indignation, and then let him soothe her with the simple comfort of his body next to hers. Then he’d sat her down, fixed her a cup of tea, and set out bread, cheese, apples, and butter, and made her eat with him.
That encounter had marked a turning point in their dealings, one punctuated with shared looks, shared cups of tea, and occasional embraces.
“You weren’t afraid of me,” Polly said.
“Nor you of me,” he replied, and he might have leaned toward her a hair or two on those words. “I wasn’t trifling, Polonaise. If I were trifling, you’d hate me now.”
“How do you know I don’t?”
“You have a temper, but you don’t hate me. You only needed someone to be with you. You deserved a great deal more than I had to offer.”
“That was for me to judge.” Polly had a terrible urge to ask him for another of those embraces, so comforting and dear. She had missed him, missed him until her guts had ached with it, until she had no more tears to mark the sentiment.
“You think everything is for you to judge,” Gabriel rejoined, affection in his voice. “When I say it’s time for you to leave here, Polonaise, you’ll go. That is for me to judge.”
She gave him another glare, though his infernal conditions suggested he might genuinely be worried for her safety. He’d do that and let her think it was his concern over her ability to hold his confidences troubling him.
Idiot man.
“You’re going to have to tell your brother what you were about for the past two years, Gabriel. He loves you, and you do owe him.”
“Him and Marjorie both, though he tells me their marriage may be invalid as a result of my resurrection.”
The logical consequences of such a notion had Polly tracing a vintage Gabriel North scowl. “Is that why you were so careful with our dealings? You knew you had a fiancée?”
“She was married to my brother. It never occurred to me their union might not be valid, but Aaron has warned me Lady Hartle threatened breach of promise did he not marry Marjorie. In my case, the scandal would revolve around fraud in the inducement.”
Polly had never heard such a term in spoken English, suggesting Gabriel’s acquaintance with law far exceeded hers. “She’d do that to her own daughter?”
“She’d do it for her daughter. So you see, Polonaise, this place will soon be rife with unpleasantness and intrigue. You must not remain here too much longer, lest it taint you by association.”
He was concerned for her, at least some. “Bother that. I’m associated with the Gypsy Princess, who played her violin for coin, and I’ve been to most of the courts of Europe, some of which were little better than orgies in progress.”
Gabriel touched her cheek. “I would not see you burdened by my difficulties.”
“So you’ll really send me away?”
“I will.”
She believed him, because he slipped an arm around her shoulders, tugged her against him, and held her just as he had that night in the Three Springs kitchen more than a year ago. She went into his embrace and cuddled up without a whimper of protest, because there was such strength and comfort to be had in his arms.
For her. As she breathed in the scent of soap, cedar, and tired adult male, Polly hoped their embrace held comfort for him too.
***
Gabriel waited until the lady had fallen asleep, a warm, soft feminine bundle of heat, temper, and talent, and then let his lips cruise her temple. She smelled good—of spices, rose water, lavender, and Polonaise Hunt.
Even her name gave him pleasure—artistic, unique, and bold like her.
He should have told her the truth. When he’d gotten to Three Springs, he should have told her who he was and why he dissembled, but the idea that he could trust two women and a little girl to protect his interests had seemed laughable at the time.
He was the man; he did the protecting.
He’d learned differently.
As a steward, it hadn’t been lost on him that the mamas among the beasts did the protecting. The mares, ewes, nannies, heifers, and she-cats all defended their young, while the stallions, rams, billy goats, bulls, and toms enjoyed reckless liberty until the mating urge struck yet again.
Sara and Polly had done what needed to be done to protect Allie and each other, and gradually, their care had extended to Gabriel as well. He had been awed and grateful, particularly when he’d suspected even his own brother of trying to kill him.
Those women, and looking after an old woman’s estate with them, had changed Gabriel in ways he was only now coming to understand. He looked at Hesketh with new
eyes, at the whole business of the marquessate differently.
And Polonaise Hunt appeared in the middle of this awkward adjustment as if Gabriel’s chronic longing for her conjured the lady at his side.
He should have shooed her up to her room, but he couldn’t stand to have her thinking their affections for each other had meant so little. She’d been a lifeline for him, pragmatic but kind, forcing food and rest and dry clothing on him when he’d been more inclined to work and work, and go back out in the rain, wind, cold, and mud, and work some more. She’d made him appreciate the small comforts—a cup of tea, a touch, a fresh, hot muffin slathered with butter, a smile—and made him realize that somewhere along the path to becoming the marquess, he’d missed the need to become Gabriel.
To her, he was simply Gabriel, and that had been precious. He feared it still was.
He carefully extricated himself from her warmth, secured the fire screen, and blew out the candles. By the light of the hearth, he scooped her up and carried her to her room. His back protested, but the warmth of the fire, and quite possibly Polly’s company, had eased some of the grinding ache.
When he laid her down on her bed, he tugged off her slippers, drew the covers up over her, and permitted himself to kiss her cheek.
“Sleep well, my love.”
She stirred but didn’t waken, so he forced himself to leave her and take himself to the cold comfort of his solitary bed. Why it should be harder this time than any other, he really couldn’t say.
***
Gabriel rose before dawn, as had become his habit when at Three Springs. He was surprised to find Aaron in the breakfast parlor, a mountain of eggs, bacon, and toast on his plate.
“You’re up early.” Gabriel looked over the selections and wondered if there’d be cheese in the scrambled eggs, a dash of salt, a pinch of oregano.
“Habit from the cavalry,” Aaron remarked between bites. “I’ve helped myself to most of the chocolate.”
“Tea will do for me.” Gabriel passed on the bacon, which wasn’t as crisp as he preferred, but took ham, eggs, and toast. “Where in the hell is the butter?”