by Louise Allen
I need it for protection with Edgar Parfit prowling the corridors at night and a houseful of men I hardly know, she thought, but held her tongue.
‘You complain that you don’t know Woodruffe well enough to wed him, so this will give you plenty of opportunity. I’ll have old Humbersleigh over to draw up the settlements while he’s here and tell that useless parson to sort out the licence.’
‘But, Father, what about my bride clothes?’ Best to pretend that she had given in.
That brought his head up and his attention full on her. Caroline put up her chin and fought the instinct to cringe back in her chair.
‘You’ve spent weeks in London doing nothing but shop. If you don’t have enough gowns now you can buy them when you’re wed and Woodruffe can pay for them. Hah!’ Obviously pleased with the thought of fobbing off expense on his prospective son-in-law, her father returned to his roast.
Protesting to him was not going to work, not with two hundred acres of Woodruffe’s land almost within his grasp. Caroline reached for the potatoes and bit into one with sudden determination. She would have to give Woodruffe a distaste for her, make him realise she would not stand to be dominated by him. Being missish and meek had not helped his first wife, he had simply bullied and beaten poor Miranda into submission. No, she would have to be bold and brassy, stand up to him, then he would think her too much trouble to wed. And if that failed, then her desperate plan to flee was the only alternative.
She bit down on her sore tooth without thinking and winced, reminded of what her father’s temper could do if he discovered her scheming. But first she had to worry about preparing for a house party of seven with only two days to do it in.
* * *
‘That’s a fine prospect, Knighton, I must say.’ Lord Calderbeck shaded his eyes as he looked out from the terrace across the garden to the slopes of Trinity Hill. ‘I like what you’ve done with that tower—it has an air of age and mystery about it, makes a man want to take a walk across the park and explore.’
‘That’s my latest project.’ The earl pulled his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and peered at the time. The shadows were lengthening as the summer evening drew in, but the sun still illuminated the far hillside. Caroline scanned the treeline, realising what her father was waiting for. She had been so busy over the past two days that she had hardly spared the hermit a thought. Certainly, all that afternoon, preoccupied as she had been with greeting the guests and avoiding Lord Woodruffe, she had quite forgotten him.
‘Who the devil is that?’ young Marcus Frampton demanded, pointing.
‘It looks like a monk!’ Mr Turnbull, an author of lurid Gothic tales, clapped his hands in delight. ‘That’s wonderful, Knighton, you have found yourself a monk.’
‘A hermit, actually. The building you can glimpse is a chapel and there he lives in solitude.’ Her father was beaming now, more than satisfied with the effect of his creation on his friends.
Caroline picked up the telescope that was lying on the bench and trained it on the distant figure. Petrus was walking slowly, using a long staff to good effect, for it showed the fall of his full sleeves. As she sharpened the focus he turned to face the house and flung his arms wide in a gesture that might have been a blessing. Or perhaps a curse.
‘Do let me help you, Lady Caroline. That is too heavy for dainty female hands.’ A large body pressed against her and one hand came around her waist as the other clasped her fingers on to the telescope, pressing hard so the metal ridges bit into her skin.
‘Oh!’ Caroline gave an exaggerated start of alarm and stepped back. It had the unfortunate effect of pressing her closer into Lord Woodruffe’s belly, but it also brought the narrow heel of her evening slipper down hard on his toes. He staggered, pulling her with him, and she lifted her other foot clear off the ground so her entire weight was on the one heel. When he let go of her hand she allowed her arm to fall so that the end of the telescope swung back in an arc to hit him squarely in the falls of his breeches.
The sound Woodruffe made was gratifyingly like a pig seeing the approach of the butcher. He bent double, his hands clutching his groin as the other men turned to see what all the noise was about.
‘Oh, Lord Woodruffe, I am so sorry, but you pulled me quite off balance. Are you badly hurt? Perhaps our housekeeper has a salve you could rub in.’
Seeing where Woodruffe was clutching himself the two Willings brothers snorted with laughter. Even Lucas was struggling to suppress a grin. Caroline fluttered about, full of innocent concern, and her father glowered at the interruption to his discussion about stone quarries with Lord Calderbeck. ‘What the devil?’
‘I trod on Lord Woodruffe’s toes, Father. I am so sorry.’
‘Then why in blazes is he clutching his...er...?’ The fact that he was addressing his daughter appeared to dawn on the earl and he stopped mid-sentence. ‘Brace up, man, and stop whimpering!’
Woodruffe straightened, shot Caroline a malevolent look that made her shudder and limped back into the house.
It was a good start. Now she had to balance her behaviour on the knife edge between giving Woodruffe a disgust of her and betraying what she was doing.
The telescope had rolled across the terrace and she went to pick it up. It was a good instrument and there was a dent in its brass casing now. Caroline raised it to her eye to check that the lenses were not damaged, scanning round as she fiddled with the focus screw. Yes, it was working perfectly, thank goodness.
The trees on the far hill came into sharp definition and there, strolling back to his chapel, was the hermit. He probably thinks no one is looking at him now he’s finished his performance, she thought with a smile as the tall figure turned and walked up towards the path into the trees. Again that sense of recognition swept over her and this time, without the beard and the accent to distract her, she placed him.
Lord Edenbridge. The image swooped and blurred as her hands shook. Gabriel Stone. Petrus, the Latin for stone or rock. How could I not have realised?
‘I say, do take care, Lady Caroline, you almost dropped the telescope again.’ Mr Turnbull took it from her lax grip.
‘Thank you, Mr Turnbull. So foolish of me, but staring through it made me suddenly light-headed.’
Somehow she chattered on, made conversation as the party drifted back into the drawing room. Gabriel Stone. Here. Why? It had to be something to do with her. He had no reason to be taking employment of any kind, let alone something as peculiar and uncomfortable as fulfilling an eccentric man’s expensive fantasies about landscape features. But what did he want?
‘Dinner is served, my lord,’ their butler announced, making her jump.
Caroline got a grip on herself. Dangerous peers of the realm might be lurking in the shrubbery—literally and mysteriously—but she had a dinner party to deal with. ‘We are a most unbalanced group, are we not?’ she said with an attempt at a gay laugh. ‘Lord Calderbeck, may I claim your arm? The rest of you gentlemen must escort yourselves in, I fear.’
She had set out the place cards with strict attention to precedence. Marcus Fawcett, Viscount Frampton, sat on her left hand as she occupied the hostess’s chair at the foot of the table with Lord Calderbeck on her other side. Woodruffe, a baron, was left watching her from his position midway down the table. She turned and began to flirt lightly with the viscount. The stare turned to a glare and young Lord Frampton sat up straighter, his expression faintly smug.
Just as long as I do not have to deal with him as well! Caroline accepted a slice of beef with a smile and asked the viscount about his horses. From experience, he could be relied upon to bore on for hours once started on that theme, which had the dual benefits of distracting his mind from flirtation and also allowing her time to think about a certain earl.
Why on earth hadn’t she recognised Gabriel immediately? That beard and the curling mane of h
air, she supposed. And the fact that when they had met before she had been too embarrassed to study his face closely. It was that rangy body with its easy movement that had always attracted her and that was what she had recognised through the telescope.
‘Spavined? How distressing,’ she responded automatically to Frampton’s ramblings about one of his matched bays, then closed her ears to an account of just what the farrier had advised doing about it and what his head groom had thought.
But what was Gabriel Stone doing here with his Welsh accent and his poetry? She would wager her entire allowance for a year that the man had never so much as rhymed a couplet in his life. Surely he hadn’t come with a view to collecting on her shocking IOU after all? No marriage had been announced, no betrothal announced, so the terms of the bargain were not met in any case.
They had parted with angry words, on her part at least, but if Gabriel had wanted to make his peace with her he was going to preposterous extremes to do so. Besides, he had not revealed his identity when they met at the hermitage and he had made no attempt to contact her since.
‘And what do you think of your father’s hermit, eh, Lady Caroline?’ Lord Calderbeck’s voice was loud enough to draw the attention of all the diners.
‘I...I haven’t...I mean I don’t...’ She was blushing, she knew she was. And stammering and generally behaving in a most suspicious manner. ‘I have not had the opportunity to view the man at close quarters,’ she managed. ‘I have been rather occupied. But I consider the impression he creates from a distance to be most picturesque. My father has such a good eye for a landscape effect.’
That at least earned her an approving look from the far end of the table. Perhaps her father’s violent anger with her had been forgotten for now, although she could not delude herself that the truce would hold once she defied him again over Lord Woodruffe. And she would defy him, she was even more certain of that now as she watched her suitor eating his way through the mound of food on his plate without the slightest sign of appreciation or discrimination. His eyes, when they met hers, held promises of retribution that banished the image of a portly, middle-aged buffoon, replacing them with threats of domination and pain.
* * *
Gabriel dumped the bucket he had carried down to the stream to deal with his after-dinner washing up and closed the door of his cell. It was cool now that the sun was down and the mossy grove seemed to stay damp however high the daytime temperature. He had performed his first charade for his employer, seen the glint as the sinking sun had caught the lens of at least one telescope, and there was small risk the house party guests would leave after dinner to inspect him. It was safe to relax.
The fire was still alight after his culinary efforts earlier and he tossed on some wood, more for the cheerful flicker of light than for the warmth. For a man who had never had to so much as make himself a cup of tea before he was quite pleased with his cookery, even if all he was doing was converting the food sent over from the big house kitchens. He had heated soup without scalding it, he had chopped up what he assumed were the leftovers from yesterday’s roast along with onions and a carrot, fried the result with beef dripping and consumed the savoury mess along with a hunk of bread that was only slightly stale, washed down with a mug of the thin ale that had been provided in a firkin.
Not what he was used to, he thought as he stretched out his legs in front of the fire, but he was getting accustomed to it and the constant fresh air was sharpening his appetite, even for his own cooking. It was certainly easier to adapt to the food than it was to the long skirts of his robe. How the devil did women cope with the encumbrance? To say nothing of the fact that it was decidedly draughty around the nether regions.
The chilling effect of cold air had probably been an advantage to monks fighting the temptations of the flesh in their quest for celibacy. Not that cold draughts had been necessary the other day when he had found himself with Lady Caroline in his arms. It had been anger that had heated his blood then, fury that anyone could manhandle a woman, let alone her own father.
He had expected to discover that she had been bullied, but not that she was suffering actual physical harm. Bullying he had expected to be able to deal with by giving her moral support and by finding something on Woodruffe that would persuade the man to drop his pretensions to Caroline’s hand. His dubious sexual proclivities were well enough known for that to be ineffectual as a pressure point—Gabriel must find something else. It might amount to blackmail, but he had no qualms about that in this case. And probably Woodruffe would prefer it to facing him down the barrel of one of Manton’s duelling pistols, which was Gabriel’s fall-back plan. It wouldn’t be difficult to work up some kind of quarrel with a man as objectionable as Edgar Parfit.
But if Caroline was being mistreated then the whole business became more serious, for if her father blamed her for Woodruffe’s withdrawal then she could suffer more than bruised wrists.
Gabriel lifted the bottle of brandy from behind the log pile, poured himself two fingers into a horn beaker and sipped while the heat of the spirits settled the faint nausea that came with some ruthless self-examination. He had shaken his head over Caroline’s lack of foresight beyond her aim of retrieving her brother’s estate, now he wondered if he had been equally thoughtless.
He had landed himself in this situation on a sudden impulse when Alex Tempest had reported overhearing Knighton at White’s talking about his advertisement in The Times. He had been brooding on what to do about his unease over Caroline’s welfare and Alex’s gossip seemed like the answer on a plate, so he’d snatched at it.
Pretend to be a hermit—there would hardly be competition for the post—combine an amusing small adventure with the opportunity to soothe his nagging conscience over Caroline, get himself out of his London rut for a while. It had all seemed like the perfect answer.
Perhaps if things had not fallen into place so easily he might have reconsidered the masquerade and found some other way of discovering how Caroline was faring. But the necessary delay while his ‘agent’, otherwise known as Corbridge his valet, had negotiated on his behalf, and he ostensibly travelled from Wales, had given him time to grow an impressive beard and for his untrimmed hair to develop an unfashionable shagginess. He had to shave twice a day to maintain an acceptable appearance for a gentleman and the resulting thicket of neglected growth was enough, he was confident, to hide his identity from a self-obsessed man who had only seen him closely in a poorly lit gaming hell.
The Welsh accent that he had learned to mimic when he had stayed with his Great-Aunt Gwendoline near Caernarvon as a boy had come back easily. Alex had been so amused and impressed by his disguise that they had even tried the imposture out on Alex’s wife, Tess, although with Gabriel in ordinary clothes and not his monkish robe. Lady Weybourn had carried on almost five minutes of polite social chit-chat in Green Park with Mr Petrus Owen, the gentleman from Wales, before her husband’s poorly suppressed laughter had made her suspicious.
It was a shock to find Caroline at the chapel when he’d returned from his morning dip in the lake and he’d been surprised, too, that she had failed to recognise him. With the painful discipline of self-examination that he had imposed on himself recently Gabriel pondered whether his reaction to that lack of recognition was hurt pride. They had, after all, discussed becoming lovers—one would expect a woman under the circumstances to have looked closely at the man she was proposing such a bargain with.
‘Coxcomb,’ he muttered to himself. Caroline had been in turn embarrassed, mortified, shy, angry and afraid during both of their encounters. It would have been a miracle if she had recognised him in the street, let alone hiding behind all those whiskers. Which cover all my best features, Gabriel thought with a grimace as he tugged at the offending growth.
He needed to talk to her again, reveal his true identity and discover the truth about her situation. That might be easier said th
an done, because catching her alone so that any startled reaction was not observed was not going to be easy. He found that it was not just the fire and the brandy that was warming him. The thought of Caroline Holm was...stimulating. In much the same way as a hair shirt, no doubt, Gabriel told himself as he reached for a book and moved the candles closer. She was likely to cause him nothing but trouble, anxiety and hard work, all things that he normally avoided like the plague.
He had become unused to worrying about anyone else’s welfare. His employees were easy enough—you paid them properly, made your expectations clear and dealt fairly—and mistresses were much the same. His brothers more or less looked after themselves now they were adults and, except for the occasional request for money, seemed quite happy with the state of affairs.
But Caroline was alone and courageous. She had been hurt, was probably still at risk, and he could no more stand by and see a woman injured than he could fly. And she had blue eyes like speedwell in sunlight and soft, soft skin under his fingers. That thought was almost worse for his peace of mind than fighting old nightmares, but he could not walk away and leave her, not if he wanted to live with his conscience afterwards. Gabriel removed a bookmark and applied himself to an analysis of the post-war European political situation.
Chapter Six
Gabriel, staying firmly in the role of Petrus Owen, poet and hermit, had bathed, broken his fast and tidied his humble residence. He was contemplating a visit to the kitchen door of Knighton Park in the hope of discovering if the mistress of the house came down to give her orders to Cook or sent for her, when the sound of approaching riders brought him to the threshold of the chapel.
He picked up the large book that he had selected, thinking it looked like an appropriate text for a hermit to be studying, shut the door on the domestic interior and took up a position looking out over the wooded dell down to the lake.