by Candace Camp
“Inappropriate? It was clever, my dear girl.” He picked up one of her hands and brought it to his lips. “And that is exactly why I find it so enjoyable to talk to you.”
She could not really feel his lips; after all, a glove was between his mouth and her skin. But her hand tingled nevertheless. Thea pulled her hand back and folded it with her other in her lap. She should really make a protestation against his familiar gesture. She should explain that her wit had carried her away, that she had never kissed other men, as her tart retort had implied.
Instead she said only, “You do?”
“Enjoy talking with you? Of course. I would not, otherwise. You are quite right in what you thought of me from the beginning. I am a thoroughly selfish man, and I am given to my pleasures. I rarely do anything that does not please me.”
“I do not think that is true.” Thea met his gaze. “If you were a selfish man, you would not be driving through the cold, trying to discover who left a baby at the church.”
He looked at her oddly. “In what way do I not act in my own interest? It may be my sister’s child.”
“There are a number of men who would not try to find their sister in this instance, knowing the possibility of scandal it could bring. Who would not want the child.”
“No, I am not one of those men. If that raises me in your estimation, then I am fortunate.” He paused, then his mouth quirked up again. “Has it raised me enough to call me Gabriel?”
Thea could not help but chuckle. “You are a most persistent man. It would be terribly forward for me to call you by your given name. I have known you less than a week.”
“Not true. Not true at all. By your own admission, you have known me for over ten years. It seems to me that I should be considered an old friend.”
Thea rolled her eyes. “What a complete hand you are! We met almost eleven years ago and have not spoken since. Scarcely a friend.”
“A family friend, then. I have been friends with your cousin since we were boys.”
“My second cousin. Whom I have seen only little more often than I have seen you the past ten years.”
“You are a most difficult woman. Call me Lord Morecombe, then, if you must. But I shall call you Althea.”
“Pray, do not. No one calls me Althea except for older ladies who have known me my whole life and do not know me at all.”
“Ah. Well, I shouldn’t like to belong to that category. So what should I call you? Let me think …” He studied her for a moment.
Thea shifted under his scrutiny and turned her face away, aware of a vague fear that he would somehow see too much in her.
“I think I shall call you Thea.”
She whipped back around to gape at him. “How did you know?”
“Is that what you are called?” He smiled. “’Twas only a guess. But it seemed to suit you better.”
She shrugged. “It is what my brother and sister call me.”
“Thea.” He tried the name again. “I like it.”
She should not warm to the sound of her name on his tongue, Thea knew, but she did. How could her name seem so different when he said it? So warm and intimate? And why was it that all the inappropriate things Morecombe did were enjoyable?
“So when I say, ‘Thea,’ will you reply, ‘Lord Morecombe’?”
“You are being absurd.”
“Not I. I think it is the Lord Morecombe that will be absurd.”
“Perhaps I shall endeavor simply not to call you anything.”
“Clearly you haven’t the least concern about wounding my feelings.”
Thea tried to glare at him, but she broke into a chuckle before she could even begin to level a stare at him. “Oh, all right. Gabriel. Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. There. Are you satisfied?”
He smiled. “Yes. I believe I am.”
Bynford was slightly larger than Chesley, but it also boasted only one inn and tavern. Gabriel and Thea were greeted by the innkeeper, a middle-aged man of substantial girth who beamed as he invited them into his best private room.
“Will you be dining with us, sir? We have a very nice rack of lamb. Perhaps a cup of mulled wine to take away the chill?”
Gabriel agreed to both food and drink and added that he would like a word with the innkeeper, as well.
“Of course, sir. What may I do for you?”
“I hope you can provide me with some information. I am looking for someone who may have come through Bynford, perhaps even stayed here at your inn.”
“Indeed? Well, I will be happy to help you if I can. When did this person pass this way?”
“Perhaps two days ago. I am not sure whether it was a man or woman or a couple, but they would have had a baby with them. The child has fair hair and blue eyes.” Gabriel turned toward Thea.
“He’s about six months old, and about this tall.” She gestured with her hands. “A beautiful child.”
The man’s eyebrows sailed upward. “A babe, you say?”
“Yes.” Thea took a step closer. “Have you seen him? Was he here?”
“No, ma’am. I am afraid there has been no wee one in this place since … well, months.”
“Oh.” Thea sighed. “You looked—I thought you recognized the description.”
“I’m sorry. I did. That is—what I mean to say is I have not seen a child like that, but I have heard that description. Just yesterday it was—a fellow was in here asking me about a woman and a little boy.”
“Really? Are you certain it was the same child?”
He shrugged. “Since I never saw him, I can’t be certain, but the man asked about a woman with a child of such an age who would have been here in the last few days. Terrible eager to find them, he was, but, like I told you, there hasn’t been a baby staying here in a long time.”
“Did the man mention any names?”
“No.” The man thought for a moment, then shook his head and repeated, “No. I’m certain not.”
“This man who was asking you. Did he say who he was?”
“No. He was closemouthed, that one. Not a friendly sort, either, I’ll tell you.”
“Did he say anything about the woman with the baby? What she looked like?”
“No. Truth is, I’m not sure he said that much about how the baby looked, just how old he was and that he was a boy. He said … I think he said the lad was blond, but that was all.”
“What did he look like, this man who inquired after the woman and baby?” Gabriel asked.
The innkeeper tilted his head to one side, thinking, then said, “He wasn’t very noticeable. Average, you might say. Not tall, not short.”
“His hair?”
After much thought, the innkeeper decided that it was brown, though he had kept it covered most of the time with a cap. “Sorry, don’t know the color of his eyes. I didn’t notice. I didn’t think that much about it until you came in asking for the same baby.”
“How was he dressed?” Thea asked. “I mean, was he dressed like a gentleman?”
“Oh, no, he wasn’t a gentleman. Didn’t talk like one, neither. He looked—well, like a worker, I’d say. Not wearing livery, like a footman, say, but maybe like a gardener or a gamekeeper. A heavy jacket and a cap.”
“You said he didn’t talk like a gentleman. How did he talk?”
“Not like anybody around here.” Once again the man thought for a moment. “I’d guess he was from the city.”
“London?”
The innkeeper nodded. “I’ve only been there a few times, you understand, but that’s how he sounded to me.”
Gabriel nodded, then went on, “Have you seen a lady recently, even one without the child? She’s about this tall.” Gabriel gestured at his shoulder. “Her hair is dark blond, and her eyes are blue. She’s very pretty. About twenty years old.”
The man regretfully shook his head. “There’s been no lady traveling alone, sir. There was one woman, but she had a companion with her, and both of them were up in years. A man and wife, a few men. A
schoolboy and his tutor.” He paused, thinking. “That’s all I’ve seen, sir.”
Gabriel asked him a few more questions about anyone in the area who might have a baby of the right age, but the man could think of no one except the solicitor and his wife, who had a brown-haired, brown-eyed child under a year of age. Gabriel thanked him, pulling out a gold coin to hand to him.
“If you see or hear anything else about this woman and child,” Gabriel went on, “I would appreciate it if you could get word to me. I’m at the Priory, near Chesley.”
“Of course, sir. I’d be happy to. I shall keep my ears open, you can count on that.” The innkeeper bowed more deeply than Thea would have thought possible for a man of his size and left the room, pocketing the coin.
“What do you make of that?” Gabriel turned toward Thea.
“Someone else looking for Matthew’s mother? I have no idea.” Thea frowned and sat down. “I suppose he could have been looking for someone else entirely, although that seems unlikely.”
“It would stretch my belief in coincidence too far.” Gabriel began to pace. “It could be the woman’s husband or father, I suppose. She has run away, and he is searching for her.”
“In that case, Matthew would have nothing to do with you or your sister.”
Gabriel nodded. “But if so, why would the baby have had Jocelyn’s brooch with him?”
Thea agreed that it made little sense, but she could offer no other possible explanation for another man inquiring after a woman and child. She could come up with a few tales fit for the pages of a lurid novel—kidnappings and lost heirs and such, but all ended in the same impasse. Why would the baby have had Jocelyn’s brooch pinned to his underclothes?
They ate the hearty luncheon that the innkeeper brought to them, and the warm spiced wine did much to rid them of the chill from the winter drive. Afterward, they visited a few nearby shops, asking the owners the same questions they had posed to the innkeeper. No one recalled any stranger with a baby, though the apothecary said that someone had been in the shop asking the same questions the day before. His description matched that of the innkeeper, even down to the man’s not having been “from around here.”
Their last stop was the haberdashery, where Gabriel bought a number of pieces of cloth, not only for diapering, but also for making more clothes for the baby. Thea knew a widow in Chesley who would be grateful for the money to sew up a few little gowns. Thea had decided to crochet another blanket for Matthew, and so, while Gabriel was sidetracked by the haberdasher into a perusal of quality neckcloths, she looked at the shop’s yarns. She wound up purchasing enough not only for a blanket but a little sweater, as well. Finally, she could not resist adding a few ribbons and a length of blond lace. It was foolish extravagance, she told herself, but even that knowledge could not dampen her pleasure over the purchase.
The return trip to Chesley was quieter. For some time Gabriel drove, his eyes intent on the road, without saying anything. Thea, watching him, did not wish to disturb his thoughts. It was, she found, surprisingly enjoyable to simply look at his profile. His black lashes were absurdly long, his chin and jaw strong. She could see the beginning of a shadow over his cheeks and jawline as the day wore on. She was aware of an urge to reach out and trace his straight black eyebrow with her forefinger or to slide her finger along his jaw. Just imagining it made her shiver. Thea looked away, tucking her hands under the lap robe.
“Cold?” Gabriel looked over at her and reached out with one hand to pull the traveling rug higher, tucking it in more firmly against her side.
Thea smiled at him, that same treacherous longing fluttering in her insides. “Thank you. I’m fine, really.” She paused, then went on, “What are you going to do now?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Frankly, I don’t know what to do. Clearly, if Jocelyn is Matthew’s mother, if she left him here, she does not want to be found.”
“I’m sorry.” Thea could hear the hurt in his voice. What must it feel like to know that one’s sister, missing for over a year, had been so near and would not even contact him? “It very well may not be her.”
“I know. But it is hard to think otherwise, with her brooch pinned to his clothes.”
“The brooch could have been stolen. Or perhaps she sold it.”
“But why attach it to a child and then place that child only minutes away from where I live? I cannot believe in such a coincidence. If he is not Jocelyn’s child, I think it is very clear that someone wants me to believe he is. But why?”
“She might hope it would insure her child’s future. If someone could make you believe the child belonged to Jocelyn, perhaps you would take the baby in. Even if you did not accept him as your nephew, you might very well provide him with the necessities of life, maybe even more—an education, a start on some sort of career when he is older. If I were starving and alone and I had that brooch, that would seem a much better use than selling it for a few coins.”
Gabriel looked at her. “I did not think of that.”
“You doubtless do not have people turning up at your door homeless and hungry, the way a man of the cloth does.”
“No. I suppose not. But how did she get her hands on the brooch? And how would she know that much about Jocelyn?”
“I don’t know. She would have to know something about you, as well—that you are at the Priory, for example. And that you are the sort of man who would care about such an obligation. There are many gentlemen who would not lift a finger to help such a baby.” Thea hesitated, then asked somewhat hesitantly, “Do you think there is any possibility that what I suspected at first might have some truth in it?”
He glanced at her, his expression wry. “What? That Matthew is my by-blow?”
Thea felt her cheeks warm, but she nodded, staring back at him with her clear, straight gaze.
Gabriel made a small shrugging motion. “I cannot deny there is a possibility. As you were quite vociferous in pointing out, I have hardly lived the life of a saint, though I have tried to take care … well.” He stopped, casting another little glance at her, and cleared his throat. “At any rate, Matthew’s coloring is very different from mine. My mother was dark; Jocelyn’s was fair. That would not preclude his being my son, of course. But I would think that any woman I have, um, known, would come to me straightforwardly and ask for my help. I do not think that I seem a cold, uncaring brute, at least not to, ah, people who have been around me.” Now it was he who looked embarrassed. “I think I am generally accounted a generous man.”
Thea suspected that he was. Gabriel could be arrogant and annoying, and more than once, she had felt a most unchristian urge to hit the man. While it would be silly to pretend that he was anything but a virile man who enjoyed the company of women and the pleasure that it entailed, she had realized that he was not the selfish sort of hedonist she had first imagined him to be. She did not think he was the sort to take his pleasure without any thought to what happened to the woman who provided it. He could be kind, and she had no doubt that he could be generous.
So why then would a woman not ask him for help if she was carrying his child?
Thea sighed. “No. I think Matthew is not yours.”
“I can see that it distresses you to give up that idea.” The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement.
“Don’t be absurd. It isn’t as if I want you to be Matthew’s father.”
“No?”
“Of course not. It is just that it would explain someone bringing the baby here and putting the brooch with him. There is little reason for a complete stranger to do so.”
“Which makes it difficult to believe that he was left by anyone but my sister.”
Thea nodded. “I am sorry. I know it must be upsetting.”
“To think that my own sister would not even come to me? Talk to me? Ask me for help?” He stared off into the distance, his jaw hard. “Bloody hell! I don’t know what to think. I cannot understand why she would care so little, trust me so li
ttle. It makes me furious to think that she would stay away this long without even contacting me or her mother—that she would not write to let us know she was not dead. But at the same time, I am elated to think that Jocelyn might still be alive. I had almost given up hope. And then you showed up with that brooch in your hand …”
Thea drew in a sharp breath. “You had assumed she was dead?”
He nodded. “I did not want to believe it. There was no reason to think so from her note. She just said that she could not marry Lord Rawdon, that she wanted to be happy. My first thought was that Rawdon had done something to upset her, that he had made her so unhappy she ran away. I thought she would turn up in a few days, contrite and tearful over the scandal she had caused. I tried to find her, of course, hoping I could get us out of the incident with as little scandal as possible, but I could not. It was as if she had vanished into thin air. I could not imagine where she went. I still cannot.”
“What about her fiancé? Did he have no idea?”
“Him!” Gabriel’s lip curled, and his face turned as hard as stone. “I could not see that he even cared that she had left. He went to his clubs and sat about drinking, doing all his usual things. I asked him how he could sit there so calmly, and he said, ‘Am I supposed to gnash my teeth and wail because a girl decides to cry off?’ That was when I hit him.”
“Oh, dear.”
Gabriel’s grin held no humor, and his eyes had a feral glint as he admitted, “There was a bit of a mill. The club tossed us out. Ian said it was a near thing that there wasn’t a challenge.”
“A challenge? You mean to a duel?”
He nodded casually, as if duels were an ordinary part of one’s day. “But Myles kept it from going forward. I haven’t talked to Rawdon since.”
“I am sorry. It must have all been very difficult for you.”
His gaze was bleak as he said, “I lost my sister and at the same time I lost my best friend.” He shrugged. “But how I felt wasn’t really important. All I cared about was finding Jocelyn. But she had disappeared completely. She never wrote to tell us that she was all right or to explain why she had left. It is like living in limbo, not knowing whether someone is alive or dead, half the time angry with them for leaving you in ignorance, the other half grieving for them. The more time passed, the more I believed she must have passed on.”