Grace Burrowes - [Lonely Lords 05]

by Gabriel

  Tremaine St. Michael’s notions of mature behavior left much to be desired. “Have you told your mother yet how you feel about all these changes in your life?”

  “When am I supposed to do that?” Allie shot back. “She’s always painting Lord Aaron, or there are footmen standing around looking like they can’t hear when they hear every word.”

  “So perhaps tonight would be a good time,” Gabriel suggested, pouring Allie a cup of weak tea and adding cream and sugar. “You ladies repair to your tower and have all the privacy in the world.”

  “She talks, about that baby and the animals. She doesn’t listen.”

  “You have to make her listen.” Gabriel let his tea steep a while longer. “If you can’t make her listen, then it isn’t humanly possible, because my own efforts have been unavailing.”

  “What’s unveiling?”

  “I failed,” he translated, the words sounding all too final.

  “You should kiss her,” Allie advised, swilling her tea noisily. “Have we any cakes to go with our tea?”

  “You’ve spent too much time with Hildy’s offspring.” Gabriel rose and passed a hand over Allie’s head. “I’m sure we can find some crumpets or scones.” He disappeared into the memorable gloom of the pantry, emerging with a selection of sweets as George came thumping and stomping into the back hallway.

  “Shut the blessed door, George.” Gabriel set the tray down beside Allie and helped the older man remove his coat. “I do believe it’s getting colder out.”

  “Going to damned snow again,” George said, unwinding a scarf from his neck. “And our accursed neighbor has not cleared the bracken from her infernal ha-ha.”

  “And this troubles you?”

  “Her ha-ha—when free of debris—keeps drifts off the lane to the west pastures,” George reminded him. “We’ve stock there needing some fodder, and now we’ll have to clear the entire bedamned lane… Oh. Pardon my language, young lady.”

  Mid-rant, he’d apparently caught sight of Allie munching on a scone.

  “You can use bad language in front of me. It means you owe me a favor.”

  “How about I fetch some butter for that scone? Will that do?”

  “I like mine plain.”

  “I’ll fetch the benighted butter,” Gabriel volunteered. “Pour yourself some tea, why don’t you?”

  “Do you kiss ladies?” Allie asked.

  “Not often enough,” George replied. “I do kiss my horse, though. Might I have some tea, little miss?”

  “I’m Allemande Hunt.” Allie hopped off the table and flopped a curtsy.

  “George Wendover.” He bowed, poured himself a steaming mug, then drew a flask out of his vest pocket and tipped a dollop into his tea. “Purely to ward off the chill.” He winked at Allie then added some to Gabriel’s tea as well.

  Allie reached out to take a sip of Gabriel’s tea, just as Gabriel moved the cup away.

  “George? What did you put in my tea while I was in the pantry?” And while an innocent child watched?

  “A medicinal tot.” George took a swallow of his tea. “You forgot the butter.”

  Gabriel held out a hand. “The flask, George. What’s in it?”

  “The flask?” George withdrew the flask from his pocket and passed it over to Gabriel, then went to fetch the butter from the counter. “It’s peach brandy. I get it from a fellow up in Surrey. Peaches haven’t quite caught on here yet. Too delicate. They need a winter, but not too much winter. Have we a knife for this butter?”

  Gabriel opened the flask and sniffed. “In the first drawer.”

  “May I smell?” Allie tilted his hand to catch a whiff. “It’s fruity, but not like the brandy at Three Springs.”

  “You’re young to be a connoisseur,” George said. “So was I, once upon a time. Are you going to finish your tea, Gabriel? One doesn’t want to let the goods go to waste.”

  “You spiked my tea when I was ill,” Gabriel said, putting the cap back on the flask and returning it to its owner.

  “And you recovered handily.” George slapped butter onto a scone. “Try it, it grows on you.”

  “Not my cup of tea, as it were.” Gabriel passed over the spiked cup. “Do you suppose you might have told me what you were about, George?”

  George paused, butter knife poised over the crock. “You can’t tell when your tea is spiked?”

  Gabriel took a bite of Allie’s scone and munched thoughtfully. “I can’t always tell why my tea is spiked.”

  “You make no sense.” George bit into a hunk of butter with some scone hidden beneath. “Damn, this is good.”

  “That’s two favors,” Allie said, retrieving her scone from Gabriel.

  “I have a favor to ask of you, George.” Gabriel started on a fresh scone.

  “You owe me a bite.” From Allie.

  “What favor?”

  “Tomorrow, will you please bring Lady Hartle to tea?”

  “Harry? Here? For tea?”

  Gabriel nodded as he passed his scone to Allie, who took a prodigiously large bite.

  And while Allie’s mouth was occupied with scone, Gabriel went on. “We’ve more to discuss with her ladyship than bracken in her ha-ha.”

  “Bracken in the ditches, wasted time, and that rapscallion Pillington stealing her blind,” George muttered around a mouthful of sustenance. “The girl isn’t thinking straight.”

  “She’s hardly a girl.”

  “She’s hardly an old woman,” George countered. “Yes, I can dragoon her to tea tomorrow, and it will be my pleasure.”

  “I’ll send an invitation, and we’ll have high tea, so dress accordingly.”

  “I’ll bring my flask accordingly. High tea, indeed. Are you sure those brigands didn’t use a cudgel on your head in addition to a saber on your back?”

  Gabriel took a slow, slow sip of Allie’s tea. “Perhaps they did both.”

  “You owe me a sip of tea.”

  “I owe you a visit to my pigs,” Gabriel said to the girl. “Will now suit?”

  “Yes. I’m still mad at Uncle and Aunt. You have to fix it.”

  Gabriel rose and hefted Allie to her feet. “Cases such as these require the wisest counsel we can find.”

  “Aaron said your solicitor will be joining the household directly.” George started on a second scone. “Can’t get any wiser than a Town-bred man of the law.”

  “Yes, we can,” Allie replied. “We’re going to talk to the pigs.”

  Sixteen

  Gabriel and Allie dubbed the Hesketh boar hog Bellefonte, because like Beck’s older brother Nicholas, he was a splendidly grand, handsome fellow who passionately adored his ladies. Allie wondered if himself might be trained to pull a cart, and Gabriel allowed as how the Earl of Bellefonte was now enjoying double harness, and stranger things might happen.

  They headed back to the house amid a shower of snow flurries, stopping by the stables to offer Soldier a carrot.

  When they emerged, Worth Kettering was handing a groom the reins of a big, black gelding.

  “The errant solicitor.” Gabriel greeted the man with an outstretched hand. “Just in time to bring us more snow. How typically considerate.”

  “Considerate is summoning a man away from home and hearth in the beastly dead of winter merely to listen to you fret and carp about your brother’s marital mishaps. But we are remiss, Hesketh. Who is your charming companion?”

  “Beg pardon.” Gabriel swept Allie onto his hip. “Miss Allemande Hunt, may I make known to you the nominally honorable Mr. Worth Kettering, late of London. Watch him closely, my dear, for he’s of a legal bent.”

  “One doesn’t use the honorable,” Kettering muttered, bowing over Allie’s mitten. “Enchanted and charmed. Have I the pleasure of knowing your aunt, Miss Polonaise Hunt?”

  Allie shot Gabriel a look, one he interpreted to mean: See? One must lie and lie and lie.

  “You do,” Gabriel answered for her before she blurted out her sentiments. “And
Miss Hunt the elder awaits us at the house, as does, for you at least, a hot bath and some victuals.”

  “Both would be welcome. I trust Lord Aaron received my dispatch?”

  “He did.” Gabriel gave Kettering an adult glance over Allie’s head. “Most appreciated, your dispatch. Lady Marjorie in particular expressed her thanks. Once you’ve seen to your comfort, can you spare me your attention in the library?”

  “Of course.”

  Gabriel left him in Marjorie’s gracious care and tucked Allie up in the studio with Polly, who was finishing the details of Aaron’s portrait. She didn’t hear them come in, and so they stood, Allie’s hand in Gabriel’s, and watched the artist at work.

  I want to remember her this way. Absorbed in her work, distracted from all that pains her.

  Because that thought assumed she would leave, he pushed it aside and slipped away to give mother and child some privacy. He found his solicitor in the library an hour later, bathed, fed, and sipping cognac by the blazing fire.

  Kettering regarded him lazily over his drink. “Why the dramatic summons, and what do you mean by bringing the child here?”

  “I didn’t bring her.” Gabriel took the chair nearest the fire. “Tremaine St. Michael did, and because he must have been the one to share Polonaise’s confidences with you, he can answer for his actions. I honestly believe he was well intended, and Sara and Beckman Haddonfield were complicit in his decisions, if not driving them. But that, my dear man, is none of your affair.”

  Kettering’s eyes, which some might describe as an icy blue, narrowed. “If it starts defamatory talk about my client, it damned well will be my affair.”

  “Take it up with St. Michael. You and I and the entire world can see that Polonaise and Allemande are as alike as two peas in a pod. Allemande knows it, too, but Polonaise is not seeing so clearly as an artist might be expected to.”

  “She looks with her heart, perhaps.”

  “A sentimental solicitor.” Gabriel rose and went to the sideboard. “How novel, but then, I forget you have a niece close to Allemande in age. May I refresh your drink?”

  “You may.” Kettering held out his glass, and Gabriel knew the man was maintaining a diplomatic silence. It was Kettering, after all, who’d drafted the codicil tacked onto Gabriel’s will before the debacle in Spain.

  Gabriel resumed his chair, and like every other seat in the house, it was not quite comfortable enough. “Turn your attention, please, to the matter of Aaron’s marriage, and listen closely, because I do not want to repeat myself. I’ve been reading the betrothal contracts and have questions requiring your expert legal opinion.”

  “Closely is the only way I do listen, and my every legal opinion is expert.”

  Gabriel allowed him to flourish his verbal saber, because the man had spoken only the unvarnished truth, and for a solicitor, that was remarkable enough.

  ***

  “I come in peace.” Gabriel nudged the door closed behind him with his hip because, as seemed to be his frequent fate of late, he had a tea tray in his hands. “You ladies dodged dinner, leaving Marjorie to contend with the lot of us. Not very sporting.”

  He directed the last at Polly, who couldn’t decide if she was glad to see him once again in her bedroom or miserable.

  Or both.

  “Is that chocolate?” Allie rose from a rug before the hearth, her hair in fresh braids, her nightgown billowing around her.

  “I’ve brought chamomile tea and a scone or two. Where shall I set it?”

  Chamomile tea. He hated it, as Polly well knew from trying to get him to drink it when he was threatening to come down with a cold.

  “Polonaise, will you pour?”

  “Of course.” She joined them on the hearth rug and tucked Allie’s braids back. “This was considerate of you. We were about to douse our candles.”

  “I missed you at dinner,” Gabriel said, glancing from one lady to the other. “Kettering was hoping to have your company as well.”

  “He was hoping to join forces with Tremaine regarding my commissions.” Polly poured three cups and saw Gabriel grimace.

  “Why would they join forces against you, Aunt?” Allie reached for a scone, then withdrew her hand at Polly’s chiding glance.

  “Because they think that passes for being protective.”

  “Who do you need to be protected from?”

  “From whom.”

  “Sometimes,” Gabriel said, “we need to be protected from ourselves.”

  Polly passed him his tea, purposely neglecting to add honey. “Like when we’re very young and don’t know any better.”

  “I used to be very young.” Allie handed Gabriel the honey pot. “I’m almost grown-up now.”

  Gabriel used the whisk to liberally dose his tea with honey. “I can say the same thing. So what do you ladies find to do when you’re closeted up here of an evening?”

  “Aunt talks.” Allie’s temper flared briefly in her eyes, a rare spark of spirit, however ill-timed. “She tells me I must paint, but I can’t just now.”

  “Won’t,” Polly murmured as she appropriated the honey pot. “Scone, anybody?”

  Allie snatched one from the basket.

  Gabriel met Polly’s eyes over the rim of his teacup. “A little butter on mine, if you please?”

  Polly wasn’t sure what the request really meant, and spread butter on his, then passed it to him, hand to hand. His fingers brushed hers and captured them, taking her hand to his mouth as he took a bite of pastry.

  “My thanks,” he said, letting her hand go. “It’s perfect. Will you have one?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Aunt has been sketching,” Allie interjected around a mouthful of scone. “And she wrote to Mama at Three Springs. They write a lot.”

  “And have you written to Mama at Three Springs?”

  “I have not,” Allie replied with a hint of truculence. “We’re going home soon, Uncle and I.”

  “Yes, you are.” And somehow, Polly would bear that. “You should still write, because your mama worries about you, as does your papa.”

  A small silence ensued, during which Polly prayed Allie would not choose now to reveal family matters that should not be aired before a marquess, even when he came bearing scones and tea.

  Allie put the uneaten half of her scone down on the tray. “I’m tired now, and I will go to bed.”

  Gabriel spoke up. “You should rest if you are fatigued, but say your prayers first, young lady.”

  This bit of paternalistic nonsense had Polly smiling, because Allie’s prayers involved a lengthy recitation of animals who must be remembered to their Creator, and at the end of the list, Lord Bellefonte the Boar Hog received honorable mention.

  While Allie prattled on to God, Gabriel appeared to be listening to the child as he dutifully swilled the detested chamomile tea. When Allie was finished, she hopped under her covers and ordered the room at large, “Tuck me in.”

  Gabriel rose from the hearth, tucked the covers in snugly all around, and pressed a kiss to Allie’s forehead.

  “Now go to sleep and dream of ponies and piglets. Tomorrow will be here soon enough.”

  “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

  Wretched, dear child.

  “Of course.” Gabriel smoothed a hand over her brow, then leaned closer to whisper something Polly could not quite make out. Allie frowned at him, then nodded and curled over on her side while Gabriel took up a rocker by the hearth.

  Polly couldn’t help it. She scooted across the rug and laid her cheek on Gabriel’s knee. Of all his tactics—kissing, making love, lecturing, and stern silence—this one cut the deepest. They might have been a family, a real family, ending the day in companionable comfort.

  “I heard your every word,” Polly said, keeping her voice low.

  “My words matter little,” Gabriel replied, stroking her cheek with a finger. “It’s Allemande who should have your attention now.”

  P
olly said nothing and closed her eyes. When she awoke, she was tucked into her bed, the fire banked, the room in darkness, and she was without the man she loved.

  ***

  “The sleigh is coming up the lane,” Aaron said. “Shall we assemble in the library?”

  “The green formal parlor,” Gabriel replied. “I’ve had the fires built up, and tea will be served in there.”

  Aaron let the drapes fall back before the library window. “Marjorie’s nervous, while you seem calm.”

  Gabriel rose from his desk, the betrothal contracts in his hand. “Is this seeming calm not a skill you found handy when sporting the title?”

  Aaron grinned. “Handy? No. It was downright necessary. Shall we?” He gestured for Gabriel to precede him, and they were soon met in the formal parlor by Kettering and Lady Marjorie.

  “I wanted Polly here too,” Marjorie said as she went to Aaron’s side. “She said she had to pack up her studio.”

  “She’s done with both portraits then?” Seeming calm abruptly became a difficult farce to support.

  “They’re… beyond excellent,” Aaron replied. “More of a piece than if we’d been in the same frame.”

  “Like a good marriage.” Kettering observed from the window. “Is the gentleman with Lady Hartle your cousin George?”

  “Third or fourth cousin,” Gabriel said. “The countess does not look happy to have his escort.”

  “Mama seldom looks happy these days,” Marjorie volunteered. “Dantry is most vocal about it, as are the younger children.”

  George ushered Lady Hartle in a few minutes later, and Marjorie got her guests settled by the hearth. Tea was passed around, and sandwiches, cakes, fruit, and cheese. All the while, the ladies made small talk, with Kettering providing a surprisingly charming counterpoint, though Aaron, George, and Gabriel said little.

  Lady Hartle set her empty teacup down during an opportune lull in the conversation. “I assume you did not drag me out on this one’s elbow”—she cast a glare at George—“to share tea and crumpets.”

  “We did not,” Gabriel replied. “I asked you here to save you substantial expense and embarrassment.”