The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (Lords of Disgrace)

by Louise Allen

  Gabriel put the letters down unopened and ignored the brandy. ‘Are you not going to ask me if I did it?’ His eyes were dark and steady as he watched her face, but lines bracketed his mouth and his voice was harsh.

  ‘Of course you did not.’ But a tiny worm of doubt stirred. Something dreadful had happened at Edenvale, something that had made the place hateful to Gabriel and his father had whipped him unmercifully. Surely not...

  ‘It was brought in at the inquest as an accident. There were no witnesses. He fell down the stairs, smashed in his head on the marble, broke his neck, but no one could account for why,’ Gabriel said. He had his composure again and his voice was devoid of emotion. ‘Your father’s investigator has turned up the old case.’

  ‘Was he drunk?’ she managed.

  ‘At four in the afternoon? No. Stone-cold sober. None of the servants would admit to being in the hall or near the head of the stairs. By the sound of it there must have been someone after all and your father’s money has loosened their tongue.’

  She wanted to ask whether he meant that someone’s tongue had been loosened to tell lies, or the truth, but she could not bring herself to show such disloyalty. ‘But there was no one you know about?’

  ‘Louis,’ Gabriel said as though the name was being dragged out of him. ‘But he had fallen at the top of the stairs and knocked himself out. He could remember nothing, not then, not to this day. You saw those carved newel posts. It was a bad blow and it made his sight worse.’

  ‘There must have been some conclusions drawn, surely?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The jurors found that my father had tripped over the riding whip he was carrying, that Louis had seen him begin to fall, rushed forward to help, tripped himself and hit his head. When the butler came on the scene I was at the foot of the stairs standing in a pool of blood, the broken whip in my hands. The coroner was prepared to accept that I had heard the fall, rushed to the scene from the study on the ground floor and automatically picked up the whip in my shock.’

  ‘Then there is nothing to it but wicked fantasies created by my father. A good lawyer will sort this out, force him to retract under threat of legal action. The original coroner’s report can be republished. I will never forgive him for this, never.’

  ‘The slight problem is, my dear, that it did not happen as the coroner stated. I was not downstairs when my father fell, I was on the stairs. And there was a slash on his cheek from the whip that was never accounted for.’ Finally Gabriel picked up the glass. He drained it in one swallow and sat down. ‘The coroner concluded that somehow the whip had hit him as he fell.’ Caroline pushed her own untouched brandy glass towards him, but he shook his head. ‘It would only take one servant who did in fact see me going down those stairs with the whip in my hand and I will discover whether the old tale about silken nooses for peers is true.’

  The whip, Gabriel’s back. How many vicious thrashings did it take before a young man snapped, hit back? Killed his tormentor? No. But Gabriel had not denied it.

  ‘Stop trying to make light of this,’ Caroline said, amazed that her voice was steady. ‘There is more to it than you told me, certainly more than you told the coroner’s court. If they found it was an accident, then that was what it was and you cannot have been responsible.’

  ‘You believe that? I saw your expression when you heard what I said about the whip and his face. You were thinking about the scars on my back, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She would not lie to him. ‘I do not understand it all and I do not know what you are hiding, although I think you are protecting Louis in some way, but I do not believe you could kill in cold blood, nor hot blood either. Not and intend it. And unless my father withdraws this accusation and publically apologises, then I will stand up in court and swear that he is mentally incompetent.’

  ‘You will not get involved.’ Gabriel slapped one hand down on the table, making her jump, then stood up and began to pace, as though movement helped him think. ‘Murder is not treason, therefore the title and the estate are safe for Ben, whatever they find. I can make provision for you. The problem is the damage this will do to your reputation, but the lapse of time from the death is in our favour there. Everyone will assume you were taken in by me, that you are simply a victim in all this.’ He sounded perfectly calm, as though working through a problem that his steward had brought to him.

  ‘I will surrender myself to whoever is the chief magistrate here, not wait to be dragged out of the house. That will create a better impression and may allow me a little more freedom to manage my affairs. It will certainly make less of a scene here and may divert any sensation-seekers from the house and from you.’

  ‘Gabriel, stop it.’ Caroline found she was on her feet, too. ‘You are frightening me. You must fight this, prove your innocence.’

  ‘I cannot. I am very sorry, Caroline, but I cannot. I was a fool to believe that I actually had a chance of real happiness with you.’ He caught her by the shoulders and kissed her, taking her mouth with a savage desperation that stole her breath and filled her with fear. ‘Now, stay here. Order the servants not to answer the door to anyone. Write to Cris, tell him to come and fetch you, send you to Grant in Northumberland. You’ll be away from the public eye there.’ He released her as suddenly as he had seized her, leaving her to stagger back into a chair, her hand to her mouth. His smile as he turned back from the door was gentle. ‘Goodbye, my love.’

  ‘No. Gabriel, I must tell you, I am— No!’ But he was gone. A chance of real happiness with you. He called me my love.

  Caroline jumped to her feet and yanked the bell pull. When James entered, so quickly that he must have been lurking outside, she snapped, ‘Answer the door to no one but the Marquess of Avenmore or Lord Weybourn. Be ready to take letters to the receiving office in a minute and send Corbridge to me.’

  The valet came in as she was addressing the first letter to Cris. ‘Corbridge, I must write to his lordship’s brothers, most particularly Mr Louis. Have you their directions?’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘Were you with my husband when his father died?’ she asked as she scribbled the next note.

  ‘I was a footman at Edenvale, my lady.’ There was something in his tone that made her glance up sharply. The valet tightened his lips as if on some outburst, then said in his normal, quiet voice, ‘It was an accident, my lady. I have seen the newspapers, but nothing will make me believe otherwise.’

  ‘Could anyone have witnessed the fall who has not come forward before now?’ She wrote Louis’s name on the next letter and reached for a fresh sheet of paper.

  ‘I cannot think so. Let me address those, my lady.’ He gathered up the letters as she finished them. ‘They will catch the post to London and be with the marquess, and Major Stone, tomorrow morning. Mr Louis may receive his in the evening, I believe.’

  ‘Thank you, Corbridge. Then come back, please.’

  He was away perhaps two minutes, long enough for Caroline to take a small mouthful of brandy and to wipe all trace of tears from her eyes. She had suspicions, she also had, if not a plan, at least the outlines of a strategy and she would not give way to despair. Besides, there had been that smile, those words. He loves me, even if he does not quite believe it, even if there is some other loyalty that is stopping him from telling me the truth.

  ‘Corbridge, your master has gone to seek out the chief magistrate of the town and intends to surrender himself to him for the investigation of these accusations.’ Perhaps it was only shock that allowed her to sound so calm and collected, but if it was, then she would use whatever advantage it gave her. ‘I want you to find him. I have no idea what that will involve, but I need to know where my husband is and what he needs.’

  * * *

  Waiting was the worst thing. Or perhaps uncertainty, she could not decide which. Caroline moved into the back parlour when peopl
e began to walk slowly past the house, staring, and waited there as James answered the door time and again with the same message. ‘My lady is not at home. My lord is not at home.’

  She hated the wallpaper in that room. She hated the pattern of the carpet. She absolutely loathed all the novels she picked up and tossed aside in the two hours it took for Corbridge to return.

  ‘I have seen his lordship. The magistrate, Sir Humphrey Potter, feels it is best if he remains at his house for the moment because of the interest the matter is arousing, my lady. As his guest, Sir Humphrey asked me to assure you.’ Corbridge brushed at a smear of green on his sleeve. ‘Forgive my appearance, my lady, but it was necessary for me to climb over several garden walls and to enter through the back garden. James has already evicted one man who climbed in through the coal hole and was attempting to bribe the kitchen maid for information.’

  ‘Will the magistrate allow you to stay with his lordship, Corbridge? No? Then I trust he will accept it if we pack a valise for him. Come.’

  While Corbridge laid out a change of linen and Gabriel’s shaving gear, Caroline fetched her new travelling case and took one of the razors to its lining. Under the leather she slid thirty guinea coins, all she could find in the safe, and six hairpins, tied in a handkerchief. Corbridge set out a pair of evening shoes and she wrapped the little pistol from the safe in the stockings and tucked that into the toe of one of the shoes. It would all come right, she had to make herself believe it, but just in case...

  ‘Please tell his lordship that this is my newest valise and to be particularly careful of it. He can be so careless.’

  ‘As you say, my lady.’ Corbridge took the bag and Caroline was left with nothing to do but wait and try to find some comfort in the fact that Gabriel was not languishing in Brighton’s lock-up.

  * * *

  Cris and Tamsyn reached Brighton at ten the next night, bringing with them a second coach containing four burly men. ‘Some of my grooms,’ Cris said as he straightened up from kissing her cheek. ‘I guessed you might need the barricades manned.’

  ‘People are such vultures,’ Tamsyn said as she hugged Caroline. ‘Tess and Alex send their love and they are staying in London to do anything needed at that end. Where is Gabriel?’

  Caroline told them everything while they ate supper. ‘Do you know what happened?’ she asked Cris. ‘Gabriel is hiding something, but I cannot believe he would kill his own father.’

  ‘You have seen his back, of course,’ Cris said. ‘A court might well feel that evidence of such harsh treatment shows motive enough, especially as he was holding a whip when the body was discovered. But I do not know the truth. What he told me is what he told you. Like you I do not believe he did it and also that he is withholding something.’

  ‘I have sent for Louis,’ Caroline said and took a sip of the port she and Tamsyn were sharing with Cris.

  ‘Yes? Then you share my instincts about this. But I have always understood he remembered nothing of the accident.’

  ‘I cannot think of anyone other than his brothers whom Gabriel would shield at the hazard of his own life,’ Caroline said. ‘But we cannot expect to see Louis until late tomorrow at the earliest.’ The doorbell rang. ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Who is that at this hour? People have no decency.’

  ‘Major Stone, Mr George Stone, Mr Louis Stone, my lady.’ James opened the door wide and Gabriel’s three brothers walked in, heavy-eyed and travel-worn.

  ‘Where is Gabriel?’ Ben demanded the moment they were inside.

  ‘Residing with the magistrate,’ Caroline said. ‘How did you all get here? I am so glad to see you, but I only wrote to Louis yesterday. Come in, sit down. James, fetch food and wine.’

  ‘I never got your letter. I saw the papers and left Cambridge immediately.’ Louis was pale and behind the lenses of his spectacles his eyes were red with exhaustion. ‘I found the others in London at Lord Weybourn’s house.’

  The brothers ate while they listened to the news, but Caroline noticed that Louis soon put down his knife and fork. He looked as though he might be sick at any moment.

  ‘So, either someone saw something at the time that seems incriminating and have only just come forward in response to my father’s probing for scandal in Gabriel’s life, or he is making bricks without straw. But Gabriel is not telling me the entire truth, of that I am certain. If only someone we can trust actually saw what happened.’

  There was an aching silence, then Ben put down his cutlery with a clatter. ‘I saw and George, too. Gabriel doesn’t know.’ He looked across the table at his brother sitting beside Louis. George’s face as was white as his clerical bands. ‘He would be furious if he knew we had spoken.’

  ‘Gabriel can kick you from here to London for all I care,’ Caroline snapped. ‘I only want him alive to be able to do it.’

  Louis snatched up his glass, gulped the contents and banged it down again. ‘I did it. I killed Father.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘Lady Edenbridge has sent this valise by your valet, my lord.’ The magistrate’s man set the bag down on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. ‘He asked me to pass on her message to please be careful of the leather as it is her ladyship’s new case.’ He passed a professional hand over the surface and nodded approval of its quality. ‘Sir Humphrey is dining alone this evening and requests the pleasure of your company at dinner, my lord. I will come up to assist you at seven o’clock, if that is convenient.’

  Such a polite gaoler. ‘Thank you, yes. Please convey my thanks to Sir Humphrey.’ Gabriel waited until the valet had bowed himself out then opened the valise.

  It was not like Caroline to fuss over her possessions, let alone send chiding messages at a time like this, which meant she was up to something. He lifted out the carefully packed clothes, then almost dropped one evening shoe in surprise at its weight. The little pistol designed to be carried in a pocket gleamed up at him dangerously. Gabriel shook his head, checked that it was loaded and uncocked and slid it into the breast of his coat. What else had she done?

  Even empty the bag was heavy. It did not take him long to find the money and the hairpins. He sat on the edge of the bed, the little twists of wire on one palm, wondering at the strange tightness around his heart and the absurd, inappropriate urge to laugh. He was hysterical... No, I am happy. Oh, Caroline, you will never give up, will you? Presumably she imagined him in some dank cell, picking the locks, fighting his way to freedom, and she would give him the tools to escape whatever the cost to herself. ‘I love you, you brave, loyal, beautiful woman.’

  How long had he felt like this and not recognised it for what it was? Those unguarded words as he had left her had come from somewhere deep inside, a blinding revelation that the way he felt when he was with her, when he thought about her, was love.

  The urge to laugh left him as suddenly as it had come, but the grip around his heart did not ease. Of all the times to discover that he could fall in love—and with his own wife, the most unlikely of miracles. Gabriel stamped down on the hope that Caroline might one day come to love him, too. She was as open as she was loyal and honest. She had admitted her physical attraction to him, a daring thing for a young lady to do, so it seemed impossible that she would be reticent about the much more respectable emotion of love.

  Better that she never did, given that all he could look forward to was disgrace at the best and death at the worst. He could not, would not, tell the truth about what had happened. Of all the times to find his loyalties stretched on the rack. He could hear his mother’s voice in his head as clearly as he had that day when he had been fourteen and had found her weeping in her bedchamber. Promise me you will look after your brothers, Gabriel. Swear to me. And he had sworn, not understanding. Not then.

  * * *

  Dinner with the magistrate was surprisingly civilised. Sir Humphrey was a widow
er in his early sixties, a burly, down-to-earth man.

  ‘You’re better off here,’ he remarked as he gestured to Gabriel to refill his wine glass with the good Burgundy they had drunk with the beef. ‘It will do no harm for it to be known that you surrendered to me of your own free will the moment you heard the rumours. Makes a good impression, that sort of thing. Lady Edenbridge will be safe in that house with all your servants around her, I have no doubt.’

  Nor had Gabriel. He would not have left her otherwise, but Corbridge had his orders, and Gabriel’s pistols, and he would lose a large wager with himself if Cris de Feaux wasn’t on her doorstep by tomorrow.

  ‘Sunday tomorrow,’ Sir Humphrey observed. ‘We won’t see the coroner before Monday, I imagine. He lives in Lewes, of course, you’ll recall from the original inquest, it being the nearest town to the house. You’ll not want to go to church tomorrow, I presume?’

  ‘I have no desire to disrupt a service, which is no doubt what would happen.’

  ‘Quite. Should I ask the vicar to call in? Perhaps you would welcome some quiet contemplation and prayer with him.’

  ‘Thank you, no.’ The last thing he needed was quiet contemplation. What he needed was to be alone with Caroline, a large bed and a Not Guilty verdict. What he wanted was his hands around her father’s throat. Neither of those ambitions could be confessed to the vicar. ‘The use of your library would be much appreciated.’ If nothing else the sight of his unwilling guest calmly reading might help convince the magistrate that he had no bloody crimes on his conscience. It was likely to be a long day.

  * * *

  ‘Who the devil?’ Sir Humphrey enquired the next morning as the sound of the knocker reached the breakfast room. ‘We have hardly finished our meal. This is no time to be making calls.’

  ‘The coroner, perhaps?’ Gabriel suggested, moving aside the London Sunday papers that the footman had placed between the two men. Time enough for the first stagecoach to bring Monday’s budget of gossip, speculation and lies. He was not going to ruin his breakfast with yesterday’s.