Grace Burrowes - [Lonely Lords 05]

by Gabriel

  “Hope, only hope, and the silly notion I’d feel it if something happened to you, when all I felt was bewildered and resentful.”

  Gabriel’s back felt better than it had in ages, but his knees had abruptly turned unreliable. “Two years is a long time to hope.”

  “It is.”

  Gabriel shifted away, toward the bed—the patient should not be seen malingering at the window—while Aaron resumed speaking.

  “Then I got word last year there was an estate over on the Downs sporting a new steward. A big, quiet, dark-haired man who moved slowly but never stopped working. He was in a house full of women, though there was no hint of impropriety about him, and his horse was a nice specimen, if a little worn at the heels. I began to hope a little harder.”

  “You knew I was at Three Springs?”

  “I knew the steward there answered to your description, kept to himself, and was named Gabriel North. The coincidence was too great to ignore.”

  “So you’ve been keeping secrets too, eh, little Brother?”

  Aaron nodded, then his breath hitched. “I wanted you to be alive, but I knew what you had to be thinking, because there I was, sporting about with your title, your wealth, your woman. The implications were obvious, and I’d never done anything or been any sort of brother to make you think better of me than those implications suggested.”

  “You must have done something and been some sort of brother,” Gabriel said, “because here I am, alive and well, and thinking better of you.”

  Aaron stared off into the empty gardens as if his life—or at least his dignity—depended upon what he saw.

  “Aaron?” Gabriel touched his arm. “I didn’t want to be alone either. Couldn’t stand it. All this”—Gabriel waved a hand at the fields spreading to the horizon beyond the window—“it’s too much to bear alone. Yet you did it for two years. I am in your debt.”

  “If you hadn’t come to fetch me home from Spain, you wouldn’t be flat on your back every time you take a bad step! You wouldn’t have been denied your birthright for two years, much less your fiancée’s affections. You would have been at Papa’s funeral, for God’s sake, not holed up in some sweltering infirmary, the flies so thick… I can’t… I have nightmares about leaving you there.”

  He wept silently, tears coursing down his cheeks, leaving his brother without one helpful thing to say. Gabriel pulled Aaron into his arms, and held him, stroking his hair while Aaron grappled with two years of guilt, secrecy, and overwhelming uncertainty about how to keep his only brother safe.

  Aaron rested his forehead on Gabriel’s shoulder. “This is unbecoming.”

  Gabriel blinked hard while he still had the privacy to do so. “This is what brothers are for. Nobody cried at my funeral, you know, and I was too bloody furious to cry myself.”

  “I cried,” Aaron said. “When Papa died, I cried for you both, mostly because you couldn’t be there, and it was…”

  “Yes.” Gabriel turned him and walked him to the couch. “It was your fault. Because you so carelessly got yourself injured while at war with the utterly blameless Corsican, and then were subject to the inept treatment of the blameless surgeons, and we mustn’t forget our blameless Papa, who dispatched me to the same region to retrieve his spare, or the blameless individuals whose blades found their way to my back.”

  Aaron sat, apparently felled by an onslaught of reason, though Gabriel wasn’t finished.

  “And we can’t forget my blameless self, who was stupid enough to travel alone after dark in a town full of Spanish refugees and cutthroats, and then even more unthinkably stupid to conclude his brother, out of his mind with fever and pain, somehow concocted a plan to kill me so he could have all the jolly fun of keeping Hesketh from the crown’s greedy paws with a woman he’d never thought to marry.”

  “You’re babbling, Gabriel.”

  “It’s contagious,” Gabriel said, crossing to the sideboard. “But curable by decent brandy. Here.” He poured two fingers for them each then sat beside his brother. “Are we done with this topic?”

  “You’re saying I’ve been an ass.”

  “I’m saying perhaps the Deity created in you an unfair propensity for guilt, but you don’t have to let it ruin your happiness, any more than your love of horses dooms you to mucking stalls for the rest of your life.”

  “Profound.” Aaron lifted his glass in salute. “Also probably true.” He took a thoughtful sip. “So, brotherly affection aside, how long will you be sick?”

  Gabriel eyed his liquor, when he wanted to toss it all back at one go. “I understand the question, and you want to be about swiving your wife. What’s amiss, Aaron? Are you so far beyond the newlywed stage you can’t swive her in the saddle room or on the balcony in the library? That was ever a favorite hiding place when we were boys. You must enjoy each other in silence under cover of darkness only?”

  “I liked you better when you were blamelessly babbling. Conceiving a child is serious business.”

  Gabriel took a sip that drained half the contents of his glass. “One should hope it’s enjoyable business, wherever one conducts it. But to answer your question, I’ve been sitting on my arse for four nights and four days, and there hasn’t been a single footman suspiciously straightening pillows in the sitting room, or a maid wielding an enthusiastic poker. I don’t think this is going to draw out my detractor.”

  “No laudanum or rat poison has gone missing, either,” Aaron said. “So how much longer?”

  “I’ll take a turn for the better this afternoon,” Gabriel decided. “Then I’ll make slow progress back to my former glory.”

  “You’re not going crazy with the inactivity?”

  He was, when Polonaise abandoned him to his paperwork. “A little, but I’m also napping, Aaron. Grown men aren’t supposed to nap.” Not alone, anyway.

  “I do recall that from my reading of the law.” Aaron peered into the bottom of his glass. “Nor cry.”

  “Cut line.” Gabriel shoved his shoulder, but not hard enough to even slosh his drink. “Grown men aren’t supposed to nap, but I left Spain far sooner than I should have attempted any travel, then found the position at Three Springs, and the work there was endless.”

  “You’re short of rest. Marjorie said you looked like you’d been to war. I had to agree. There’s a kind of weariness the infantry get when they’ve been on too many forced marches in bad weather on foul rations. They become indifferent to their own suffering, and one wonders where they find the strength to fight.”

  Was that what the marquessate had felt like to him? Was that how his marriage to Marjorie felt?

  “I’m not indifferent to my own suffering, but I’d forgotten what it feels likes to have more energy than the immediate task demands. I’m enjoying the first real rest I’ve had in years.”

  Particularly when Polonaise was on hand to enforce his inactivity.

  “So nap a few more days, sleep in, and enjoy the company.”

  “Yes, well.” Gabriel took a slow sip of his remaining drink and wondered how long two women could fuss over a choice of horsewhip.

  “What are you going to do with her, Gabriel?”

  “She thinks I’m going to tumble her witless while she’s here at Hesketh, then stuff her into our newest traveling coach and wish her all the best when she goes on to her next commission.”

  “And the flaw in that plan?”

  “She’s tumbling me witless, for starters.” Gabriel rose to set his empty glass on the sideboard. “And there will be none of this getting into traveling coaches, not unless I’m in there with her.”

  “Tumbling about.”

  “Precisely.”

  Aaron fetched the bottle and returned Gabriel’s glass to him. “This should be entertaining. I’m going to try to woo my wife, and you’re going to convince your artist to become your wife, or am I mistaken?”

  “You are not.”

  “That’s the second thing I wanted to bring up with you.”

&
nbsp; “Hmm?” Gabriel held up his glass for a refill, the spirits and the company both being fine, though the topic was daunting.

  “Marjorie has asked that I sit for the second portrait, and I’ve told her I’ll leave it up to you.”

  Bless Lady Marjorie, for many reasons. “Do you want to do this for your wife?”

  “I find I do.”

  “Well, then I have only two requests, if you’re determined to have the painting done.”

  “I’m not posing out-of-doors as winter comes upon us. Not even for my long-lost, blameless brother.” Whom Aaron silently toasted with a bumper of brandy.

  “Him,” Gabriel snorted. “No, you are doing this for Mr. North, who spent two years worshipping the object of his affection—”

  “Lust.”

  “That too, from afar, only to have to nobly part from the ungrateful little baggage so she could pursue wealth and fame while avoiding her true fate as my beloved marchioness.”

  “Perilously close to babbling, Brother.”

  “Two requests,” Gabriel said. “First, choose a brilliantly sunlit pose, because winter’s gloom will soon descend in earnest, and second, fidget ceaselessly.”

  Ten

  “My husband is acting most peculiarly.” As Marjorie spoke, she appeared to study the assortment of sidesaddle whips hung in order from longest to shortest on the saddle-room wall.

  “One hardly knows what constitutes peculiar behavior in a husband,” Polly replied.

  Marjorie paused before a particularly sturdy whip. “You don’t have a very good opinion of men, do you?”

  “Not of some men. My sister’s husband is a prince.” Gabriel Wendover was something beyond even that.

  “He treats her well?”

  “He adores her, enough not to show his affections in any way uncomfortable for her,” Polly said, selecting a long, delicate whip. “He also adores her daughter, and that, more than anything, probably won Sara’s affection.”

  It had certainly won Polly’s. And her respect.

  “I like this one.” Marjorie held out an elegant black leather whip. “I use it a lot.”

  “I’m not keen on the hue of the leather,” Polly said, flexing it then smacking it against her skirt. “Can we find a brown one with some brass on the handle?”

  “Here.” Marjorie passed her another. “It’s short for the horses I ride.”

  Polly tried the shorter one and held it up to the light. “How is Lord Aaron behaving?”

  “The perfect gentleman, as always.” Marjorie fingered a short, stout jumping bat. “Except he did kiss me.”

  “Kisses can be nice.” Kisses could be so much more than nice, too. Polly tried smacking the second whip, which was stiffer than the previous candidate. “This one isn’t used as much, but I like the handle better.”

  Marjorie tried the whip then examined the handle. “This wasn’t a nice kiss. It was a naughty kiss.”

  Well done, Lord Aaron. “He’s your husband. From him, the naughty kisses can be the best. Let’s take this outside to see how daylight strikes the fittings on the handle.”

  Marjorie put the longer whip back on the rack and followed Polly down the shed row. “So a husband’s kiss can be naughty, and it doesn’t… imply anything?”

  Polly considered the question and considered how young the marchioness was and how few people the lady had to confide in. Her mother certainly wasn’t an option, which left… Polly.

  “Such a kiss implies he desires his wife,” Polly said as they emerged from the shadows of the barn. “That is a wonderful thing, to be honestly desired by one’s mate. I think, with a good polishing, this whip will do nicely.”

  “What color gloves should I wear, then?”

  Polly passed her the whip. “Let’s see what some of the choices are. Hasn’t Lord Aaron made lusty overtures in the past?”

  Marjorie’s stride put a particular swish to her skirts. “He has not. He was trying to imply I…” She stopped walking, glared at the house, then glanced behind them at the two brawny footmen Gabriel insisted they take everywhere.

  The footmen fell back a good dozen yards.

  “What did Lord Aaron imply?”

  “That I’d given my heart and perhaps a bit more to Gabriel.”

  “A bit more wouldn’t be unusual if a couple had a long-standing engagement. Particularly when the gentleman is handsome and… capable.” And the lady’s mother was shoving her into his arms. Polly shot a longing glance at Marjorie’s whip.

  “Handsome, maybe,” Marjorie said, resuming a more dignified pace. “But Gabriel was so… forbidding, I suppose. He’s different now, though I was little more than a pesky future obligation to him, Polly. He’d no more dishonor me by anticipating the vows than I’d run naked through the village on May Day.”

  “Maybe Aaron thinks otherwise. Men get odd notions.” Particularly where their dignity was concerned.

  “They do.” Marjorie’s expression became thoughtful. “Then they’re stubborn about them. Aaron suggested we have a child, for example.”

  “A child?” Polly sensed they’d come to the heart of the discussion, and took Marjorie’s arm. “Shall we admire the winter gardens?”

  Marjorie fell in step, though the winter gardens were nothing more than bracken and bare plots.

  “Tell me about this sudden desire for a child,” Polly said. “One notices the absence of an heir.” And somebody ought to be producing children here, after the past two years’ doings.

  “I suppose that could be part of it. As Aaron explained it, if I’m carrying, Mama might desist in her attempts to set our marriage aside. Should she succeed, any child I bore could be illegitimate.” She used the whip to whack at a dangling maple leaf, and missed.

  “And should your mother’s suit fail, you’re on your way to producing the Hesketh heir, which might be some consolation to your mother.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Nonetheless, I don’t want Aaron coming to my bed as some convoluted legal maneuver to confound my mother.”

  Polly drew her down onto a cold stone bench. Of the fall flowers, only some damp, droopy pansies remained near the bench, though they were the exact blue of Gabriel’s eyes.

  “Except once Lord Aaron’s in your bed, the marriage is harder to attack. He’s not stupid, Marjorie.”

  “Far from it.”

  They were quiet for a moment, each likely considering the ramifications of Aaron’s keen intelligence. Pansies symbolized thoughts, after all.

  “You’re suggesting,” Marjorie said, “he might truly want to consummate our union, not only to get a child, but also to… keep me.”

  “That would be the logical result, even if a child isn’t conceived. But, Marjorie? A child changes things. A child changes you, and can strengthen your marriage as well.”

  Marjorie used the lash of the whip to stir the dead leaves at their feet. “Changes things how?”

  “I’m not speaking from firsthand experience of marriage,” Polly said, “but consider my sister, Sara, and her husband. Beckman loves Sara, but he loves Allie as well, both of them, fiercely, and loving the child is what makes their bond not simply marital, but familial.”

  And far too painful for Polly to behold with any regularity.

  “A child makes a larger circle of love,” Marjorie said, the whip going still. “My father loved each of us, and even when my mother was being her most exasperating, he loved her for giving him children.”

  “When two people both love the same child, they can love each other a little more too.” Polly thought not of Sara and Beckman, but of herself and Sara. She’d been not yet sixteen when she’d conceived, and as cursed with temper and moodiness as a human can be, but she and Sara had put aside their terrible differences to protect Allie.

  Sitting on that cold, hard bench, Polly saw those tense, exhausted months of early motherhood not as a forced march but—for the first time—as a healing time for her and her sister.

  More than anythi
ng, Sara’s silences had comforted. She’d tossed aside one recrimination after another, and instead showered Polly with kindness.

  “Let me hold that baby so you can get some sleep.”

  “You’re so patient with her, Polly, and she has your eyes.”

  “You’re doing so well, and she’s growing like a weed.”

  “She has your spirit, and that will serve her well in this life. Never doubt it.”

  Tears rose, and Polly held the backs of her gloves against her eyes. How could she not have seen all the ways Sara had tried to support her as a mother?

  “Miss Hunt? Polly? Have I upset you?”

  “Of course not.” She was far beyond merely upset and had been for years. “You have the chance to have a child with a man you regard highly, a man who will find a way to stay at your side, Marjorie.”

  Marjorie stood the whip straight up against her palm, catching it before it toppled. “He said he’d remarry me if he had to. I didn’t find that very romantic.”

  “Loyalty is romantic. Try finding romance with its opposite, and you’ll agree.”

  “And Aaron will be a wonderful father,” Marjorie said earnestly. “He’s already like an older brother to my younger siblings. It comes naturally to him.”

  “He’s kind,” Polly said, her gaze on the tearstains of the backs of her gloves. “That’s the main thing. Kind, sensible, and honorable. Moreover, he can provide well.”

  Marjorie sighted down the handle of the whip, a rare, chilly shaft of sunlight glinting on the brass fittings. “So why am I hesitating?”

  Excellent question. “Because you want to be sure he cares for you as well.”

  “Very sure.”

  “So ask him. He might give you some blather about duty and respect, but if he’s giving you naughty kisses, Marjorie, he might give you his heart as well.”

  Marjorie gently patted her lips with the handle of the whip, once, twice, in a gesture her husband would probably find provocative. “I thought men were happy to kiss nigh anybody like that. Mama says base instincts plague men far worse than they do ladies.”