“Don’t start, Bethany,” Aislinn snarled, “just because I shine in these gowns and your flat-chested, untidy figure can scarce do any of them justice.”
“Enough,” Isolda exclaimed, “from both of you.” She scrutinized Bethany closely, paying careful attention to the yellow gown and the fact that her daughter appeared to be hiding something behind her person. “What do you have there behind your back, child?”
Bethany grinned proudly and revealed her secret. It was a sparkling diamond tiara that she had been holding onto for almost ten years. Isabella had given one to her, Aislinn, and Ella.
“I thought you lost that thing,” Isolda said with little emotion.
“I lost mine, Mother,” Aislinn chimed in. “That or Bethany here stole it.”
“Oh be quiet, Aislinn!” Bethany retorted. “Mother, I wanted you to see for yourself how beautiful this ensemble will be with the tiara as its accessory.” Bethany held the gown up against her body and clumsily set the tiara a top her head.
“See,” she said gleefully. Aislinn and Isolda both stared at the display and remained silent. Bethany was puzzled. Was her eye for fashion so unrefined that even her best efforts to dazzle left the audience too mortified to speak?
“Well? What do you think,” Bethany tried again.
“If that is what you want, darling,” Isolda said after her shaking her head quickly, as though her nose had just been tickled, “then I think your ensemble is just…delightful.”
“It really is sweet,” Aislinn added. Bethany felt a bulge in her throat. She let the dress fall back over her arm and caught the tiara as it slid off her head. Were they mocking her? She expressed gratitude and departed from the chamber as gracefully but rapidly as she could. She felt tears well up behind her eyelids. Had Isabella ever made Ella so insecure that she could never tell sincerity from ridicule? Was that commonplace for mothers and daughters; was Bethany just expecting too much? What would it have been like to have a mother like Ella had? Bethany did not know. She hung the stunning yellow gown in her own wardrobe and tucked her tiara away in her jewelry box. Tears poured down her cheeks.
She would never know.
Gabriel and Seely sped across the landscape until they could see the crest of the Delaquix estate breaching over the treetops. Gabriel pulled back on Seely’s reins and the horse’s hooves grinded to a halt. How could he possibly tell Ella what he’d seen in Kersley? Would it do any good to burden her? Nothing had changed. Not really. Their charade would go on as planned. Thurlow would be brought to justice and his many indiscretions exposed. There would be justice for Benjamin and Gabriel as planned. Everything else…
The Hussars. Gabriel never knew just how far their indiscretions ran. He would not allow new revelations to badger his fortitude nor his equanimity. It would only encumber the efficacy of a brilliant operation; one that only benefited the world, or at least the people of Gwent and now the residents of Kersley. Ella herself stood to gain a great deal in her compliance with Gabriel’s madness. He had to remain focused on the agenda. There was no other alternative.
He kicked at Seely’s side lightly and the horse reared astirly. They would not stop again until they stood at the precipice of destiny.
As planned.
Chapter Fifteen
“I wish that no-good vagrant had never stepped foot in this house,” Frome announced from his place in front of the stove. Marion glanced over to Marguerite and the two women shared an unutterable communiqué. It was of no use to wish that Gabriel had never come into Ella’s life. He had come and Ella would never be the same because of it. Both women knew as surely as they knew they were standing there in that kitchen that morning: Ella was in love with Gabriel.
“I never claimed to like Gabriel,” said Marion from her seat on a wooden stool in the center of the room, “nor did I approve of his mad scheme for even one second. But I am still confident he will be returning. And soon. If poor Louis’ experience has told us anything, it is simply that coming face to face with his brother’s murderer was more than Gabriel could ever have planned for; more than he could bear.”
“How does pummeling poor Louis have anything to do with Thurlow?” Frome implored vehemently.
“It has everything to do with it,” Marguerite answered, from the table bench adjacent to Marion. “Ella said Gabriel was inconsolable that night. He was edgy and irritable and primed to pounce like a jungle cat. He did not want to attack my sweet Louis. He simply could not see anyone else standing there in that moment but Thurlow. And I agree with you, Marion.”
“About what?” Marion asked.
“He will be coming back. Of that I am sure.”
“Even if everything you are saying is true, Marguerite,” Frome contended, “how does such a volatile man benefit Ella or any of us by residing in this home and carrying out this ridiculous farce? Gabriel is violent and unpredictable. We have established that. How do we know he won’t next target Ella for his aggression?”
“He won’t hurt Ella. Not ever,” Marguerite stated, looking down at her thumb and index finger manipulating a loose thread from her garment. “I don’t fear for her at all. At least in that respect.”
“How do you know?” Frome asked, his rage desisting ever so slightly.
Once again, Marion and Marguerite shared a look that spoke volumes.
“Because all I want to do is stop the man that will hurt her.” Gabriel’s towering presence echoed like a drum to his startling declaration. He stood in the entryway of the kitchen from the back courtyard. The sun carved out his tall figure and shone like a spotlight against his tousled hair and intense eyes. Frome, a proud man his whole life, felt timid in Gabriel’s presence but stood his ground in front of the “no-good vagrant”.
“What are you doing back here?” the old man demanded.
Marion stood and pulled Frome back by his shoulders. “Frome, stop please. Gabriel come in here and eat something already, will you?”
“I’m not fixing him anything to eat!” Frome blurted. Marion rolled her eyes, though she made sure Frome did not see it.
“I will, then,” Marion replied. “Just go outside and take a walk.”
“Don’t order me around, woman,” Frome snapped. “I don’t feel much like walking.”
“Then sit down! In another room! Anywhere else. Just go. Please, Frome.” Marion begged. She wanted to be so careful that Frome did not feel his concern for Ella was being hurled back in his face. She also could not risk being too kind. Marion and Frome had a system of rudeness and contempt as surefooted as the coliseums of Rome. It was and always would be the lifeblood of their… relationship.
Gabriel was motionless as Frome took a deep breath and exited the kitchen by way of the dining room.
“Well, come in here,” Marion commanded Gabriel with an air of malevolence. She shuffled dishes from the counter and retrieved a pot to boil eggs. “You look as though you have not eaten or slept in two days.”
“I haven’t,” Gabriel replied, stepping forward.
“Well, whose fault is that?!” Marguerite snapped.
“My own,” he said coolly. It infuriated Marguerite that she could not get any kind of emotion from the same man who’d almost beat her lover to death.
“How is….?” Gabriel paused when he could not recall the name.
“Louis? You mean how is the man that you beat to a pulp? Well he is doing just fine, no thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry, Marguerite.”
“Yes, yes. I know that,” she replied. “Gabriel, a little temper and hot blood never hurt a man; you just need a woman to temper it. Either find that or find yourself a cage.”
Gabriel was shocked. Marguerite fought to keep from grinning in gratification. She felt much better.
“Where were you?” Marion inquired as she placed several eggs gently in the pot. “We didn’t know if you had left for good.”
“It was wrong of me to worry you like that,” Gabriel said, refusing to take a seat. “
I hadn’t planned it. I just was overcome with fury and guilt for what I did to your—er—friend, Marguerite. I thought he was one of Thurlow’s spies. Two of Thurlow’s men had followed us home from the Delancelle estate. When I saw someone I did not recognize in the shadows, I reacted hostilely. In the darkness of the night I thought it was Thurlow I was striking. It is no excuse. It was utterly unforgivable.”
“Quite right,” Marguerite declared. For several moments, no one muttered a word. Gabriel could not postpone his angst any longer.
“Where is Ella?” he appealed. “Is she all right?”
Marguerite was about to answer, but Marion beat her to it.
“She is upstairs contemplating whether she wants to attend a gala tonight at Isolda’s home. It is an unofficial prelude to the royal ball on Saturday eve to celebrate Prince Leopold’s return from his military deployment.”
“I must go see her,” said Gabriel. “Right now. I have to explain myself to her.”
“Just wait right there,” Marion ordered, “I will tell her you are here and she will come and meet you. For now, sit here and wait for these eggs to cook and then eat them.”
Ella hardly left her room more than thrice in two days. In the beginning, she tried to carry on like she was relieved to have Gabriel gone. But her façade was short lived.How had this happened to her? How could she have been so featherbrained as to permit Gabriel Solange to enter her world? It may have been a stale, uninspired world, but it was predictable and free from … whatever plague he’d had set upon her. Ella tried to convince herself that it was an innocent mistake to get swept up in the momentum of his story. It had promised excitement and intrigue and what girl wouldn’t want to escape the boredom of ordinary life for a spell? An innocent mistake. But it had been no such thing and Ella could no longer deny that. From the moment he’d taken her body in his arms, she had compromised her integrity and her wherewithal to linger there in his embrace, whether by his arms or by his enterprise. She could have screamed that first night when he ambushed her. She should have shrieked and carried on until he fled back into the dark abyss from whence he’d come. That would have been the end of it. But she stayed in his arms; she’d never left. Not even then was she free. And that was not a mistake but indulgence. There was nothing innocent about desire. By its very nature, desire was the personification of innocence lost. She had never felt longing until she met Gabriel. And now his enticing power over her was enough to afflict her every thought and consign her to the hell set apart not for sinners, but for fools.
Marion knocked twice before venturing into Ella’s seclusion. She’d done it over a dozen times in the last two days to bring Ella food, help her prepare for sleep, or just to check in on her. This time, Marion was a little trepid. How would she tell Ella the news that Gabriel had returned?
“Hello, love,” Marion said to Ella, who sat perched on the interior window ledge, “It looks like Marguerite and I win the bet. You know why? Because—“
“Because Uncle Peter has returned,” Ella interrupted without looking away from the window. “I know, Marion. I saw him ride up several minutes ago.”
“Oh,” Marion said. “Well, he wants to speak with you; I suppose to explain himself. Do you want me to send him up?”
Ella did not promptly respond but continued gazing out the window. “No,” she said, turning toward Marion at last and trying not to appear too bent in melancholy, “that won’t be necessary. Please tell Gabriel to get cleaned up and to meet me down in the foyer tonight so that we may attend Isolda’s dinner party on time and in style. Thank you, Marion.”
When was she going to say something?
Gabriel could not help but feel a sense of déjà vu as he sat across from Ella, who only gazed out the carriage window as Gwent’s streets rolled by. Ella wondered if perhaps the coach where she and Gabriel sat was completely still and the outside world was what was moving.
“Ella,” Gabriel said, “if you don’t want to say anything to me, so be it. Just listen. I apologize for not telling you where I was going the other night. I had to go and I don’t regret doing it, but I should have let you or Marion know that I would be returning shortly. I am sorry.”
“Very well,” Ella replied curtly, still lost in the quandary of whether it was she who was unmoving or the rest of the world. “I’ve listened. You are sorry. Let us just get this evening over with.”
“That is all you have to say?”
“What else do you want me to say, Gabriel? Oh sorry, Peter.” Ella said, severing her hypnotic view of the outside and looking back at him fiercely. “You are sorry for leaving me guessing. I get it. I forgive you. Trust me, there are worse crimes that have been committed than not leaving a note or something else equally trite when you go on a vacation.”
“Stop behaving like a spoiled child, Ella. Either except my apology or don’t. But stop acting as though I have imprisoned you in some perpetual limbo where you don’t know if you can trust me or not.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. You know that you can. You knew damn well these last two days that I would return. God forbid, I step away from this insanity just long enough to prevent me from almost beating yet another innocent man to death.”
“I knew you were returning? Who do you think I am? Your soul mate? The person that can read your mind and your erratic intentions? I am none of those things, Gabriel. But even if I were, why do you think I would have defaulted to your need to escape ‘this insanity’ as the reason for your disappearance, when you and I both know that there is a dangerous murderer out there who already killed your brother and may or may not know who you really are?!”
Gabriel was blindsided. How had he missed something so blaringly obvious?
“Gabriel,” Ella went on, “it was not a matter of fearing whether or not you would return. It was being afraid that you were dead.”
His heart dropped into his stomach.
“Ella, I…I…”
“Don’t. You’re alive and you’re here and now we get to go back to work. Remember, we are simply playing parts. Like you told me earlier: everything is predicated upon my talents as an actress.”
Gabriel could hardly utter a sound. She’d defeated him, finally. Ella had been able to thwart his sure-sightedness, his hubris. And she had done it all by exposing the most fragile and vulnerable elements of her own heart. She was twice the person he could ever be.
The carriage bucked and they came to a slow stop.
“Look, we’re here,” Ella proclaimed with overzealous glee. “This should be fun!”
Chapter Sixteen
The Duchess of Timmelin was the guest of honor at Isolda’s banquet. It had been nothing short of a miracle that Isolda had been able to persuade the woman to attend the event, but the promise of thrilling insight and delicious gossip regarding who would and would not be attending the ball two nights later was more than the duchess could resist. Isolda had secured more than a cohort in tittle-tattle however, for the Duchess of Timmelin was one of Queen Arabella’s closest confidants. She was many years older than Arabella and, in her widowhood, ignorant of any other way to spend her time and money than blathering about the hierarchy of Gwent’s society (and mocking clandestinely or even outright when those who wanted her approval so desperately fell over themselves to get it). Isolda coveted the duchess’s position more than she did anyone else’s, even the Queen. For the queen was still desperate to prove herself and do everything right. The Duchess of Timmelin was retired from such titular ambitions.
Isolda spent the beginning of the party waiting her very own guest of honor. Peter and Ella had arrived promptly and even for two people who had never appeared that interested in one another, a discernible coldness exuded from the space between them. Isolda took a moment to infer quietly what might have brought about the frigidity but gave up when it bore no significance to her intentions that evening. Ella smiled and greeted each guest who approached her. For almost an h
our, she maintained that quiescent grin across her face. Isolda was certain her niece abhorred every second of it.
Ella looked quite dazzling in her mauve gown and silver jewelry, her thick curly hair pulled up behind her ears. Isolda would always assert that Aislinn was more stunning than her cousin, but that did not mean she was blind to Ella’s charms. One was always wise to know their enemy, and Isolda knew her niece all too well.
“I believe ridding Gwent of such undesirables is more than beneficial to this kingdom and should have been done long ago.”
The Duchess’s dictum was well underway as Isolda circumvented her other guests and placed herself at the noblewoman’s side. A small crowd of about six or seven guests was gathered around the silver-haired fashionista that was the Duchess of Timmelin, and those who were not completely engrossed in the elocution of her political viewpoint were feigning it marvelously.
“I know we live in an egalitarian time and believe me, I am all for progress,” the duchess went on, “but the depletion of our resources and the brazen contempt for our laws and traditions is an indication of criminality. It is that plain. The people of Kersley would do better in a cloistered community outside of Gwent. This land is simply growing too rapidly to accommodate two such opposing cultures.”
A unilateral susurration of acceptance rose from the crowd. Isolda was all too willing to second the affirmation. She noticed that Ella was not far from the group, immersed in conversation with another female guest. Isolda wondered if her niece had heard any of the Duchess’s soliloquy. Then she got an idea.
“Your ladyship,” Isolda said to the duchess, “I must introduce you to my niece, Ella Delaquix. I believe you already met her uncle, Peter, the Duke of Ebersol.” Isolda spoke stridently enough that Ella heard the invitation clearly. It was all she could do not to drop her head and sigh in dread.
“Oh yes,” the duchess said jovially, “I do remember. What an agreeable man. And you are his niece?” She directed her question to Ella who had slowly, painfully made her way to her aunt’s side.
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