Grace Burrowes - [Lonely Lords 05]

by Gabriel

  “Gone off together?”

  “Yes.” Allie reached forward to pet Soldier’s sturdy neck. “We all looked after one another, don’t you remember? You and Mama and Aunt and me? But you had to leave, and Mama fell in love with Mr. Haddonfield, and he’s nice, but he’s not my papa. Aunt and I should be looking after each other.”

  And was Beckman also more problem than solution for the child? “Why do you call him Papa?”

  “I don’t want to hurt his feelings and he calls me Princess and he’s very nice. But he’s not my papa, though he’s married to Mama.”

  “Who is not your mama,” Gabriel added, seeing the child’s dilemma more clearly than he wanted to.

  “I know what a bastard is,” Allie said, her tone waxing forlorn. “I am a bastard. My real papa was not married to Aunt when he made me with her. I cannot join the best gentlemen’s clubs.”

  “Were you planning on White’s or Brooks’s?”

  “I was planning on running away,” Allie informed him. “To you. But I didn’t know where you were.”

  Sweet, holy, bellowing infant Jesus in His celestial nappies. “What would running away solve, Allemande?”

  He’d run away any number of times as a child and made it off Hesketh land exactly twice, and only in his later attempts, because the weather had been fair and the groom trailing him particularly indulgent.

  “If I ran away, I could be myself,” Allie said. “I wouldn’t have to pretend I’m happy about a baby cousin, I wouldn’t be at Three Springs so Aunt could come home, and I was going to try to find you, because Papa—Mr. Haddonfield—you know who I mean—said you would let us know where you landed.”

  “You thought about leaving Three Springs with your aunt,” Gabriel reminded her. “You’ve discarded that plan?”

  “I thought we’d go…” Allie’s voice became small and hurt. “Mr. Haddonfield is looking after Mama and giving her a baby, and looking after all the animals, except Heifer, who is mine.”

  “And always will be.” As a part of Gabriel’s heart would be.

  “But Aunt left me there, and now Uncle Tremaine looks after her, and I’m supposed to just… lie.”

  What did one say to a brokenhearted child? What did one say that was honest?

  “You miss your aunt. That’s to be expected, and she misses you.”

  “She said she missed me.” Allie twiddled a lock of Soldier’s coarse, dark mane. “She called me her dear, dear child, right in front of everybody, but then last night when we were brushing each other’s hair, she asked me what I was going to paint when I got home. She’s not coming home, I know it.”

  The child fell silent, a miserable stretch of heartache during which Gabriel knew not what to say. While he mentally fumbled for something comforting and honest, both, Allie resumed her lament.

  “When I was very little, my real mama and my mama took me for a lemon ice and explained that I must always call my mama Aunt when we reached England. They explained that bastard business, and they said we would always be together, me, my real mama, and my mama. We would love one another, and that was what mattered.”

  “So you’re angry at her? At your real mama?” The very mama who was sacrificing her own chances at happiness so her daughter could resent her endlessly.

  “I am furious. I can’t be angry out loud, though, or she’ll never come back even to visit when that baby shows up.”

  The baby, who would be lucky to survive infancy, based on Allemande’s tone. “How would you like your life to be, child?”

  “Heifer and I would live here with you and Aunt. I’d call her Mama, and you Papa. I’d have a pony and paint and write letters to Hildy. I wouldn’t have to lie. I wouldn’t be a lie.”

  Her unhesitating answer said she’d thought at length about this question and her dreams were… absolutely reasonable, also contrary to her entire family’s vision of how her life should unfold.

  And she wanted to call him, Gabriel Wendover, papa.

  “May I think about this for a few minutes?”

  “You want to talk to Hildy about it.” Allie fell silent while she afforded him the courtesy of time to think up an answer for what had no answer, not as far as a lonely child was concerned. Gabriel was still thinking when they got to the stable yard and he lifted her from the saddle.

  He was about to hand off the reins to a groom when he changed his mind.

  “Let’s put Soldier up,” he suggested. “Unless you’re too cold?”

  “The stables are always cozy.” Allie skipped into the barn ahead of him, leaving Gabriel to cast one glance at the cold, pewter sky and follow her in. He waved off the grooms, because certain discussions demanded privacy. Allie assembled brushes and fell into a routine they’d perfected over two years of caring for the horse.

  And each other.

  He passed her the bridle. She dipped the bit in water, rinsed it off, and tied up the bridle for hanging on a peg.

  “I want you to know something,” Gabriel said as he attached the cross ties to the halter. “Something you will never, ever have to lie about. Not to anyone. Nor would I lie about it.”

  “I’m listening.” She was too small to heft the saddle onto a rack, but she could dip and wipe off the girth, and did so as Gabriel stowed the saddle, then crouched down to her eye level.

  “I am your friend,” he said. “You were my first real friend, and I will always be your friend. No matter who your mama or papa or aunt or artist friends are, no matter that you love your idiot cat best in the whole world, no matter that you will love your pony as much as that cat. I am your friend, and you must never run away, because then I would not know where you were. I always want to know where you are, Allemande, and that you’re safe, even if you’re not precisely happy.”

  She looked confused, then her lip quivered, and Gabriel felt something twang in his chest, hard, painfully hard. He scooped her into his lap and settled with her on a bench, while Soldier eyed them placidly and cocked a hip a few feet away.

  “It’s like this.” He kept his arms around her while she leaked tears onto his chest. “When you love somebody, you don’t care what the labels are. You don’t care who is their mama or their aunt. I’m Hesketh, right?”

  She nodded emphatically, damn near knocking his chin with her crown.

  “You don’t care about that title. You never even knew I had a title. Your steppapa could end up with a title, and you don’t care about that either, do you?”

  Head wag this time.

  “The words don’t matter, Allemande, not as much as the feelings.”

  “Then w-why don’t I feel like anybody w-wants me?”

  She howled the question, all the hurt and confusion in her finally finding a voice. She bawled at length, loudly, soaking his lapels and clutching wrinkles in his cravat.

  “They have me, but they want that stupid b-baby more, and think up names for it all the time,” Allie went on. “Aunt wants to paint, and Uncle brags that he can keep her busy for years and years, and then I might n-never see her again. And you wouldn’t say where you’d gone, and I hate it all… I just, I hate it to death.”

  He let her cry until he wanted to cry himself, because she was so lost and despairing, so far from home.

  From an adult perspective, Allemande Hunt had been afforded legitimacy by her mother’s and her aunt’s sacrifices, and legitimacy should have been a treasured gift.

  From an adult perspective, she’d acquired a wealthy, respected, loving stepfather, one whose connections in the greater world assured her security and likely her pick of husband as well.

  From an adult perspective, her wealthy uncle had taken an interest in her future too, and what doors her stepfather couldn’t open, her uncle could, and not just in England.

  She was a very fortunate and very heartbroken little girl, and she could turn to nobody except Gabriel to put right what was wrong.

  Fourteen

  Polly watched her daughter sleep, something she’d taken
for granted when they lived at Three Springs. Allie’s appearance hadn’t changed noticeably since Polly had left weeks ago, but on the inside, where only a mother might see, the child was changing.

  Guilt tore at Polly, not that Allie had given her anything to feel guilty about. Allie was polite, pleasant, and entirely without the mischievous spirit Polly had always treasured. Something was afoot, but perhaps it was only suppressed anger at a mother who’d abdicated from the job God assigned her.

  And tomorrow, Tremaine would mount up and ride away, taking Allie with him. The thought was unbearable, as unbearable as if he were riding to war with Allie or departing across wide oceans, perhaps never to be seen again.

  And the worst, worst part was that Gabriel would think he understood the ache in Polly’s heart and would offer her comfort, support, and understanding, though in truth, he wouldn’t understand anything at all.

  She dreaded the lie she’d allowed to grow between them, dreaded more that Allie was expected to support the lie and live it. In two years of eating at the same table, tending to the same animals, and living under the same roof, Gabriel had never questioned who was Mother, and who was Aunt to the child. He’d worked, hard and incessantly; he’d been kind to Allie, and often more tolerant of her than her own family was.

  But he’d not been taken into their confidence, and it was too late now.

  Polly brushed a hand over Allie’s forehead and pressed a kiss to the child’s brow. She recited a mother’s prayers for her child’s safety and happiness, and never thought to add a word or two regarding her own.

  ***

  Gabriel’s back wasn’t hurting, so much, but it was threatening to hurt and had him up and about well before dawn. He’d lost the habit of leaving the kitchen to the help and had thought nothing of repairing there to start his day with a cup of tea rather than wait about in his rooms for the breakfast buffet to be set up.

  “What are you doing, prowling about down here?” Polly punched a wad of bread dough hard, folded it, and punched again in a familiar rhythm.

  “I might ask you the same thing. Guests are not usually expected to make their own meals here at Hesketh.” Though he’d given orders this guest was to enjoy free rein in the kitchens at any hour. He pinched off a bit of dough and swung the pot over the open hearth. “One gathers you’ve had trouble sleeping.”

  “Does one?”

  Punch, fold, punch, fold.

  Gabriel made a strategic retreat into the pantry and assembled the tea fixings on a tray, which he brought to the worktable. A sketch pad lay open, images of Allie covering the page.

  “How have you found Allemande?”

  “She’s… coping,” Polly replied as she pounded the dough within an inch of its floury life. “She says she’s looking forward to having a younger sibling, because she knows all about being a big sister, courtesy of Hildy and Hermione.”

  “I suppose the basics are the same across species,” Gabriel offered, studying a sketch of Allie drawing her cat. “At least, at first. You keep one end fed, the other clean, and try to figure out which end is in distress when the creatures cries.”

  “There’s a great deal more to it than that.” She left off punishing the dough and shaped it into two loaves. “I was going to make sweet rolls.”

  “Don’t let me interfere with your culinary creativity.” He took the boiling pot off the hearth and poured the water into the teapot.

  “I don’t feel like sweet rolls anymore.” Polly swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Must you drink that here?”

  “Yes.” Gabriel got down two mugs. “The fires aren’t built up elsewhere in the house, and you’re here.”

  “I don’t want to be here.” She leaned her back against the counter, wrapping her arms around her middle. Gabriel studied the line of her spine, the determination and misery in it, and set the mugs on the tray.

  “Come.” He grasped her wrist, because her hands were floury, and pulled her to the back hallway. “Look at the ground, Polonaise.”

  Polly shot him a scowl, but did as he bid, which meant he could show her a thick blanket of white covering everything—trees, lawns, benches, buildings.

  “It started about three in the morning,” Gabriel said. “My back was warning me, and it further warns me that this won’t let up for a while. You won’t have to say good-bye to the child today.”

  She pressed her forehead to the glass, and her shoulders slumped, in relief, he hoped, then he heard her breath hitch.

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s cold back here, and there’s a pot of tea waiting for you.” She went without protesting, which suggested more about how upset she was than even her posture had. He passed her his handkerchief and sat her at the table.

  “I have to wash my hands.”

  “Later,” he admonished as he poured her tea, added cream and sugar, and pushed the mug into her hands. “You sit and drink, and I will make sweet rolls.”

  He knew how only because she’d showed him the first winter they’d been at Three Springs. He and Allie had learned on the same magically snowy day, and had occasionally exercised the skill when Polly allowed them the privilege.

  “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” Gabriel asked as he assembled spices and sugar. “That you’d be down here reverting to old habits?”

  “That I was fretting over Allie’s leave-taking?”

  “I know you, Polonaise,” he said, and he nearly added: What mother wouldn’t be fretting? Instead, he busied himself with melting butter on the stove. “You might fix a fellow a cup of tea, you know.”

  “I might, except I have to wash my hands or I’ll get flour all over your mug.”

  “Heaven forfend.” Gabriel mixed dark sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg—no cloves—into the melted butter. “Where are the confounded nuts in this kitchen?”

  “Over the sink. Walnuts would do.”

  “Nicely,” Gabriel agreed, for walnuts had been all they could afford at Three Springs. “I’ve asked St. Michael to stay on a bit, which you would know, were you not holed up with that child like a fox with a fall cub.”

  “You could have told me, though I could have asked, you’re right. I’m just too…”

  “Upset.” Gabriel rolled one of the loaves of dough out into a rectangle and poured half the sweet, buttery syrup over it, then sprinkled nuts over the lot. “If you are upset, Polonaise, you have only to apply to me, and I will deal with it.”

  “You can’t fix everything with a wave of your hand, Gabriel. That’s a lot of nuts.”

  “I like nuts. Allemande likes nuts.”

  “She does.” This was said so miserably that Gabriel dusted his hands and sat beside Polly on her bench at the table. He took time to fix himself a cup of tea but then didn’t take a sip.

  “You love that child. Why must you take yourself from her?”

  “It’s time I did,” Polly said, resting against him. “There will never be a good time, but Beck and Sara deserve privacy, and I wasn’t needed there any longer.”

  “Have you asked Allemande what she needs of you?”

  “Children aren’t to be burdened with adult decisions. Hold me.”

  “I can do better than that.” He rose and led her by the wrist to the pantry, closing the door behind them.

  “Gabriel, it’s pitch dark, and the servants—”

  “Know you are to have absolute dominion over the kitchen when you choose,” he finished. “And yes, it’s dark, so you’ll have to go by touch, won’t you?”

  “Go?”

  He hiked her up onto a counter that seemed about the right height. “You’ve been avoiding me, Polonaise. This is cruel to us both, also pointless.” He rucked her skirts up around her waist, and it took a little searching in the dark, but Gabriel soon had her hands planted on his chest.

  “Where are your clothes, Gabriel Wendover?”

  “I’m naked from the waist up.” He assured her of this by moving her hands ove
r his chest. “You will not get flour on anything that matters. Kiss me.”

  He didn’t give her time to protest, but found her mouth with his by virtue of framing her face with his hands and settling his lips over hers.

  “Gabriel… we can’t.” But she didn’t pull away; in fact, she hooked one leg around his waist and cinched him closer.

  “You’re in need of comfort, and pleasure can be a comfort.”

  “But it can also—”

  He kissed her again, and he’d not only removed his shirt in the pitch darkness, he’d also unbuttoned his falls. He let her feel that too.

  “God, Gabriel.” She hooked the second leg around him and arched closer. “I want—”

  “You want my hand on your breast, and my paws are not covered with flour, so you may have what you want.” He palmed one breast and applied gentle pressure.

  “More,” she murmured against his mouth. “And I want you. Inside me.”

  “Here?” He nudged at her and formed an actual thought as she went still: of all the ways they’d coupled, fast hadn’t been among them; nor had he taken her standing up. She was wonderfully open to him, and her hands roamed his back with such possession he couldn’t form another thought for all the need clawing at him.

  “Gabriel.” She tried to lunge her hips at him, but he maneuvered away.

  “Promise me, Polonaise.” He teased her again with the tip of his cock and a glancing caress to her breast.

  She yanked him closer with her legs. “Promise you what?”

  “You’ll tell me when something troubles you,” he growled, nipping at her earlobe. “Give me your word, Polonaise.”

  “You want too much.” She slid her hands around his buttocks, then gave a frustrated growl of her own and slipped her fingers beneath his breeches, whereupon she got her claws into his arse. “Come here.”

  “Promise.” He gave her two slow inches. “Or there won’t be any coming, here or otherwise.”

  “Damn you.”

  “Please, Polonaise.” He went still, except for the hand he smoothed over her hair. “I need you to promise.”