by Mary Balogh
“If he is dead,” Gabriel said, “he must have died young. Of what? one wonders. And why should he fear if he was an innocent man? Perhaps he had nothing to do with whatever happened to his neighbor’s daughter or with the death of her brother. Or perhaps he was guilty in both instances and was the blackest-hearted of villains. Perhaps he simply died of his sins. Perhaps we will never know the answers. Would that be so very bad?”
“Indeed it would,” she said. “Curiosity demands satisfaction.”
“But as Papa remarked last evening on our way home, Stell,” her brother said, “it was not at all the thing for Rochford to tell such a story concerning his own family. And with ladies present. I can only applaud Alexander and Elizabeth for pointedly changing the subject, though I know you wish they had not.”
“But it was such a fascinating story,” she protested. “A wronged woman. Her irate brother. Imagine if it were you and me, Bertrand. A killing—a shot in the back. And his supposed killer fleeing for his life and disappearing off the face of the earth only to become in future years a missing earl. An earl about to be declared dead and replaced by another, more virtuous candidate. A new earl with a handsome son who is pursuing Jessica with all the charm he can muster. I have not been so well entertained in years. And that is nonsense, what you implied about a woman’s sensibilities being so delicate that she cannot hear about death and mayhem without swooning. It is no wonder our lives are often so dull. Leave it to men to decide what is good for us.”
They were met at the riverbank by other guests, who were either waiting for a boat to be free or watching those who were already out or simply enjoying the scenery and the sunshine. Viscountess Dirkson and Mrs. Westcott, the Earl of Riverdale’s mother, engaged them in conversation. The former looked thoughtfully from Gabriel to Lady Estelle as they talked, while the latter beamed at them rather complacently as though she were solely responsible for their being together. A Mr. and Miss Keithley, also brother and sister, came to talk with Lamarr and Lady Estelle and were introduced to Gabriel.
“Ah, the American,” Keithley said as he shook hands. “I have been hearing a lot about you. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Thorne.”
His sister blushed.
Over to one side, under the broad shade of a giant oak, Lady Vickers sat with four other ladies. She smiled and waved to Gabriel, and he raised a hand in return.
“Mr. Thorne,” the viscountess said, drawing him a little apart. “Charles and I are planning a soiree of our own this year, as we did last year. It gave us so much pleasure. It was a bit of a concert too, though nothing very formal. We had a tenor soloist, one of Charles’s friends, who always insists quite wrongly that he has no particular talent, and a harpist who played and sang some traditional Welsh tunes and reduced me to tears though she sang in Welsh and I did not understand a word. There was also a chamber group—pianoforte, violin, and cello. Charles and I spoke about you after Elizabeth and Colin’s party, and we were both agreed. Mr. Thorne, will you come this year, and will you play for us? The Bach piece you played the other evening and maybe two or three more?”
Oh good God.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I am honored. But I do not normally play in public, you know. And I have no formal training. I do not even read music.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, beaming at him. “That is part of your appeal. You have a . . . How did Charles phrase it? Ah yes. You have a raw and rare talent. Do please share it at our soiree. You will make me very happy.”
She was a Westcott, Lady Jessica Archer’s aunt, if he remembered correctly, her mother’s sister. She lacked the inherent haughtiness of demeanor of the rest of the family. There seemed even an anxious sort of humility about her. She also had a smile that went deeper than mere sociability. He instinctively liked Lady Dirkson. But at the present moment he wished like the devil he did not.
Play at a soiree? As a featured artist in an impromptu concert that would not be impromptu at all? He would not get a wink of sleep between now and then. And how would he practice? Was there a pianoforte at the hotel? If there was, he had not seen it. But when had he ever practiced? Would not practice invite disaster, since he would be preparing with his head? His music did not come from his head.
The viscountess was looking at him with what he could describe to himself only as naked hope.
“It would be my honor, ma’am,” he said. “But do not expect great things. I might ruin your whole evening. You must have heard how my duet with Lady Jessica Archer ended. You were there.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, clasping her hands to her bosom. “You have no idea . . . I composed four separate letters to you this morning, and I tore all four to shreds. Charles laughed at me, but he would not try writing one himself. I shall find him immediately and tell him of my triumph. I shall even gloat. But he will be as delighted as I.” She turned to summon Mrs. Westcott but spoke to Gabriel again before she moved away. “And you and Jessica were doing very well with your duet until you decided to challenge each other by playing faster and faster. You had me laughing, the two of you.”
A couple of the boats had come in. One of them had already been taken, and Lamarr was persuading Miss Keithley to go out in the other with him. The viscountess and Mrs. Westcott were moving off in the direction of the house, presumably to find Charles, who Gabriel assumed was Viscount Dirkson. Lady Estelle, in conversation with Keithley, broke off what she was saying to hail Lady Jessica Archer and Rochford.
“You must tell me, Mr. Rochford,” she said, “what it feels like to be out on such a broad expanse of water in such a frail craft.”
“But it is not frail at all,” he told her. “And I have some skill at the oars. Lady Jessica was perfectly safe with me, I assure you. If this gentleman is planning to take you out—”
“Lady Jessica,” Gabriel said, turning to her. “I have been told on no account to miss the hothouses while I am here. Have you been inside them yet?”
“I have not,” she said, twirling her primrose parasol like an extra little sun behind her straw bonnet. “Am I about to?”
“Yes,” he said, offering his arm. “We will see you all later on the terrace for tea,” he told the others.
For a moment it looked as though Rochford was going to come with them, but Lady Estelle had not finished with him. Her feet firmly planted on the riverbank, she asked him a further question about the boats. At the same time, she threw Gabriel a blatantly mischievous glance and waggled her fingers at him in farewell.
That was one very interesting young lady, he thought.
He could feel the heat of Lady Jessica’s hand through his sleeve. He could smell her perfume, or was it soap? It was a warm, pleasant scent, whatever it was. He had noticed it last evening too when he had sat beside her on the pianoforte bench.
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
She looked at him in apparent surprise. “Well enough to keep myself afloat if a boat I am in should capsize within sight of land,” she said. “If that was what you were asking.”
“It was,” he told her. “All too many people think it wondrously picturesque and romantic to be rowed about on a lake or river without even considering the very real danger of drowning.”
“Is this your roundabout way of saying I looked both romantic and picturesque out on the water just now?” she asked. She was playing the haughty grand lady again. Or perhaps there was no playacting involved. This outer demeanor seemed to come naturally to her.
“No,” he said. “It is my way of saying I am glad you are able to swim.”
“My safety matters to you, then, does it?” she asked him.
“Since I intend to marry you,” he told her, “of course. I can hardly marry a dead bride.”
“Ah. That is still your intention, then, is it?” she said. “But are you not afraid Mr. Rochford will snatch me from under your very nose?”
&n
bsp; “No,” he said.
“He is very attentive,” she said, “and very charming. Not to mention handsome.”
“I have a higher opinion of your intelligence,” he said.
“But he will be an earl one day,” she said.
“Perhaps.”
There was a brief silence before she spoke again. “And you, Mr. Gabriel Thorne,” she said. “What do you have to offer the daughter and sister of a duke? Will you be an earl one day?”
Was he mistaken or had she put a slight emphasis upon his first name?
They met Boris Wayne, one of Lord Molenor’s sons, and Adrian Sawyer, Viscount Dirkson’s son, at that moment. Each had a young lady on his arm—the very two with whom Gabriel had tried and failed to make conversation earlier. There was a merry exchange of greetings. The four of them were on their way down to the river to see if there were any boats free.
“We are going to see the hothouses,” Lady Jessica told them.
“I would not bother if I were you, Jess,” Boris Wayne advised. “We were just there and they are very hot inside and very full of people. Who wants to be jostled by the multitudes just for the pleasure of cooking as one gazes at row upon row of orange trees? We stayed for three minutes total.”
“Two,” the young lady on his arm said. And giggled.
“And a half,” her sister added—and giggled.
“There is a floral clock through there,” Adrian Sawyer told them, pointing to a high privet hedge to his right, “and an impressive fountain. And there is the rose arbor up beside the house. Someone told me there are a thousand blooms there, but I did not stop to count.”
The sisters thought that deserved another burst of glee.
“The air is cooler out on the river,” Lady Jessica said. “Enjoy the boats.”
The four of them went on their way, chatting and laughing.
“They were mute when I met them earlier with their mother and eldest sister,” Gabriel said. “Giggling, but otherwise mute.”
“Doubtless they were intimidated by your solemn grandeur,” Lady Jessica said. “And your advanced age.”
“Do you think?” he asked.
“I think,” she said.
“I suppose,” he said, “I ought to have realized that if the hothouses were recommended to me, they would be recommended to multitudes of others too. Shall we forget about them? Go to the rose arbor instead?”
“To see a thousand roses?” she said. “By all means. It will make a change from gazing upon a single one.”
“Are you offended by those?” he asked her.
She turned her head to look at him again. Her parasol made a lacy pattern of sunshine and shade across her face beneath the brim of her bonnet. She was very beautiful. It was not an original observation, but her good looks were a constant source of wonder to him.
“No.” She hesitated. “Quite the contrary.”
Crowds seemed to be gathering on the terrace and the reason became obvious as they drew closer. Tea was being set out on long tables covered with white cloths, and it did indeed look like the veritable feast Lady Vickers had predicted. Servants were setting up small tables and chairs on what was left of the terrace and on the lawn below.
“Are you hungry?” Gabriel asked.
“I would rather go to the rose arbor,” she said.
Interesting. She might have lost him easily enough among the crowds gathering about the food tables—if she wished to do so, that was. Apparently she did not.
He expected that the rose arbor would be crowded too, and probably it had been until a short while ago. Now there was only one group of people on the lower tier, deep in animated conversation. The second and top tiers appeared to be deserted. Tea had been deemed of more interest than roses.
It was an impressive part of the garden, running along the whole width of the house as it did. There were trellises, archways, hedges, flower beds, low walls, the wall of the house itself, all of them loaded with roses at various stages of blooming. A high hedge, cut with geometric precision, extended all the way down the side of the arbor farthest from the house, giving the impression of deep seclusion and the reality of breathtaking beauty. Even the sounds of voices and laughter seemed muted here.
“I think,” Lady Jessica said, “this is what heaven must smell like.” She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly.
“We will have to be very virtuous for the rest of our lives, then,” he said, “so that we may enjoy it together for eternity.”
“Which might be an embarrassment,” she said, opening her eyes, “if I should end up with a different husband and you with a different wife.”
“Impossible,” he said.
“Do you always get your own way, Mr. Thorne?” she asked, cupping a yellow rose in both hands, though she was not quite touching it, he noticed.
“Only in the important things,” he said.
“And I am important?”
“Yes.”
She looked around until she saw a wrought iron seat close to the wall of the house, with its climbing rose plants, and went to sit on it. She left room for him beside her. The floor of this top tier was paved with pinkish brick. There was a small fountain in the middle, its granite basin shaped like a fully opened rose.
“Is Thorne your real name?” she asked him.
Ah.
“Yes,” he said.
“Not Rochford?” she asked.
“No.”
She closed her parasol and set it down on the seat beside her. “I believe you are lying,” she said.
“You think I am the long-lost earl, then?” he asked her. “Just because I share a first name with him?”
She looked up at him as he stood by the fountain, his hands clasped at his back, and her eyes roamed over him. “Are you?” she asked, her voice so soft it was hardly audible.
He gazed back. Secrecy had not been his original plan when he decided to come to London rather than go direct to Brierley. He had merely wanted to be better prepared to go there. He had wanted to look like an English gentleman for starters. He had wanted to hire a good lawyer and agent and acquire an experienced, reliable steward. He had wanted to find out what he needed to do to verify his identity and establish his claim. He had wanted, perhaps, to find out if there might be any trouble awaiting him—legal trouble, that was—though he did not believe there would be anything he could not handle. He was no longer the frightened boy who had fled England thirteen years ago. Too many details were circumstantial at best, and he had a decent though not infallible alibi. But there might be some sort of trouble facing him anyway, in the form of resentment, even outright hostility, from the people living in the vicinity of Brierley. He had always had a decent relationship with almost everyone, but things might have changed at the end and been perpetuated by his absence. He had felt it wise to find out what he could before he went there so that he would know exactly what he was facing. Mary could not be expected to know everything. She lived the life of a near hermit.
He had not intended any great secrecy, then. If he had, he would surely have changed his first name, which, though not unique, was not common either. He wondered if Lady Jessica was the only one who had guessed the truth. Several other people, including Anthony Rochford himself, had heard him own to the name Gabriel last evening.
But he had been asked a question. And a lie was pointless. Lies usually were.
“Thorne was my mother’s name,” he told her, “and that of her cousin in Boston. He officially adopted me as his son after I had lived there and worked for him for six years. His wife was dead and he had no children of his own. My name was legally changed, with my full consent. I had used it when I took passage to America, and I had used it there. I would rather be a Thorne than a Rochford, though I do regret any disrespect that shows to my father, who was a decent man.”
“You
are the Earl of Lyndale,” she said. She appeared to be speaking more to herself than to him.
“Regrettably,” he said.
“Why do you regret it?” She frowned.
“I was happy in America,” he said. “I was never happy at Brierley.”
“Why have you returned, then?” she asked him. “Why have you not just let everyone continue to assume you are dead? Or perhaps you still intend to do so. Perhaps you have come here to amuse yourself before returning to the life that makes you happy. But no, that cannot be your intention. Why would you hope to marry me if you intended to resume your life as Mr. Thorne, wealthy businessman from Boston? Your wishing to marry me makes sense only if you intend to be the Earl of Lyndale.”
He moved closer to her and stood looking down at her for a while before setting one booted foot against the edge of the seat beside her and resting one forearm across his thigh. “Why have I returned?” he said. “And why have I decided to stay? Call it duty, if you will, to those who work—or worked—at the house and on the estate.”
“Have you known all this time that your uncle and cousin were dead?” she asked him.
“For most of the time, yes,” he said. “Letters are slow in crossing the Atlantic, especially in winter.”
“So why now?” she asked him. “Just for the sheer satanic pleasure of raising hope in the man who believes he is about to become the earl and owner of Brierley and any fortune that goes with it? And in his son? And then of dashing those hopes at the last possible moment?”
“There is one person at Brierley,” he said, “who is and always has been very dear to me. She lives in a small cottage in the park that surrounds the house. She has been threatened with eviction when the new earl comes into his inheritance. He plans to have a lake created out of the land around her cottage. He plans to use the house itself as a picturesque sort of folly on an island in the middle of it. She has nothing beyond the cottage itself and the small allowance my uncle made her. That has already been stopped, though there is no one at Brierley with any legal right to have made that decision. She is about to be destitute, with no way of providing for herself. It is for Mary I returned, Lady Jessica.”