A Winter Scandal

by Candace Camp

  “Yes. The roof’s gone now and some of the walls, as well.” She led him through the doorway and into the partially collapsed room beyond.

  Only two walls remained, but they sheltered the room somewhat from the weather. There was even a patch in one corner without snow. Grinning, Gabriel pulled Thea to him, wrapping his arms around her and smiling down at her.

  “At last, a bit of privacy.” He bent and kissed her. “I thought I was going to have to kiss you in the church again.”

  He kissed her cheek and took her earlobe between his teeth, worrying it delicately. “I keep trying to think of some way to get you alone. I was wondering this morning whether I could steal you away to that cottage again.”

  Thea smiled, her face turning dreamy and sensual. “I would not mind returning.”

  Gabriel let out a soft groan. “When you look at me like that, it’s all I can do not to pull you to the floor right here.” He pulled her back for another lengthy kiss, and when their lips parted at last, his breath was rasping hard and fast in his throat. “I’d like to send all my guests home.”

  Thea let out a little chuckle. “That would be rather rude.”

  “Frankly, I don’t care. If I were alone at the Priory, we would have an entire house to ourselves.”

  “That sounds inviting.” Thea linked her arms around his neck and went up on tiptoe to plant a light kiss on his lips. “However, I think ’twould be most improper for me to be in your house with you all alone.”

  “Propriety can go to the devil,” he growled, and pulled her to him again, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “I do nothing but think of you all the time. I am sure my friends must think I have lost my mind. They talk, and I don’t hear half their conversation, and when they ask me a question, I haven’t the faintest notion what to reply. It is entirely your fault.”

  “Mine!” Thea laughed. “Well, I like that!”

  “I like this,” he retorted, and came back to take her lips again.

  After a long moment, he raised his head, smiling down into her eyes. “I have something for you.”

  “What do you mean?” Thea tilted her head back.

  He reached into a pocket of his topcoat, pulling out a small box, which he held out to her on his palm. Thea looked down at the box and took a step back, then turned her gaze back up to him. “What is it?”

  He grinned. “Open it and see.”

  “But—”

  “It is Boxing Day. You give presents on Boxing Day.”

  “To the grocer and the man who delivers the coal and such.”

  “Well.” He shrugged. “I did not have it yesterday or I would have given it to you. I saw a shop in Bynford the other day, and I rode over there this morning to get you something.”

  “But I—I have nothing for you.”

  “You have already given me a far better gift than I deserve.” He jiggled the box in front of her face. “Open it. I know your curiosity is too great to leave it alone.”

  Thea laughed and picked up the box to open it. Inside lay a set of filigreed gold earrings, each centered by a bloodred oval stone. Thea drew in her breath sharply. “Gabriel!” She cast an amazed look up at him. “You should not.”

  “Do you not like them?”

  “Of course I like them. They are beautiful!” Thea traced her forefinger over one of the stones. “But they are too much.”

  “Nonsense. ’Tis only garnets. Mere fripperies, really. I would have gotten rubies, but this was the best they had. The jeweler in Bynford hasn’t a very large stock. Indeed, I was lucky to find these; they were the only red stone he had, and I wanted something to match that touch of red in your hair.”

  “But, Gabriel, I cannot accept them!” Thea’s hand clenched more tightly on the box even as she said the words. “A gift of jewelry? I could not accept jewelry from a man—well, obviously, a man other than my brother or—well, someone in my family.” She had started to say ‘other than a fiancé,’ but had swallowed her words at the last moment. She certainly did not want him thinking she was hinting at marriage. “It isn’t proper.”

  He laughed. “And when have we done anything that is ‘proper’?”

  “Well, I should at least appear to make an effort to do so.” Thea looked back down at the earrings, her finger unconsciously caressing the garnets. Finally, she closed the box and held it out to Gabriel. “No. I cannot accept them.”

  “What would I do with them? If you do not want them, then toss them aside.”

  “No!” Thea’s hand clenched around the little box, and she pulled it back to her chest. “They are far too lovely to throw away. Return them to the jeweler.”

  “And look like a proper muttonhead? I think not. No one but a spurned suitor would return a set of earrings. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

  She gave him an exasperated look and started to speak, but he laid his forefinger against her lips, silencing her. “No. Whatever you were about to say, please do not. Tell everyone they came from someone else—perhaps your grandmother left them to you. If you feel you cannot wear them, then do not. Hide them away in a drawer. But I want you to have them. Even if you never wear them, ’twill be enough to know that you have them, that they please you.”

  Thea had built up the fortitude to give the gift back to him once. She hadn’t the strength to do so again. She wanted the earrings, even if she never once put them on. It was enough to know, as Gabriel said, that he had given them to her. That he had chosen them because they reminded him of the highlights in her hair.

  “Very well.” Thea slipped the small box into the pocket of her dress beneath her cloak. “I will keep them. Thank you.” She could feel tears threatening, but she pushed them back. “I will treasure your gift. Always.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed him.

  His arms went around her tightly. They kissed again and again, hungry after the separation of the past two days. Thea strained up against him, frustrated by the thick layers of clothing between them. Obviously feeling the same way, Gabriel slid his hands beneath her cloak, moving them over her body.

  With an oath, he lifted his mouth from hers. “If only there were a roof.” He kissed her cheek, her ear, her neck, interspersing the kisses between his words. “And a door. Just a bit more warmth.”

  “I feel rather warm right now.”

  “Sweet heavens, I would kill to get your clothes off right now,” he growled, digging his hands into the soft flesh of her buttocks and moving her hips against him. Thea could feel the stiff length of his manhood pressing into her flesh, and an answering heat started deep inside her. “There are the storerooms below here,” she suggested. “They were in the cellars, so, at least where the roofs haven’t fallen in, they are intact.”

  “Really?” He raised his head in interest. “Where?”

  She let out a little laugh and took his hand, leading him out of the room and down the stone walkway. At the end of the columns, a set of weathered stone steps led downward. Part of the cellar roof had collapsed, letting in enough light to see dimly. The corridor was small and musty. They peeked into the ruins of the first room, then moved down the hallway to the next opening.

  “You see? It’s a room—and comparatively warm since we are belowground. It’s almost livable. Now, if only there were—” Thea stopped abruptly and turned to him as a sudden thought entered her head. She could see the same idea dawning in his eyes. “Do you think—”

  “That someone could have taken shelter down here?” he finished.

  Thea nodded, and they stared down the corridor. There was light at the other end, where much of the ruins had collapsed into the rooms below, creating an effective end to the cellars and lighting the nearby portions. But in the middle of the corridor between the two cave-ins, where the roof was still intact, it was quite gloomy. They would need more light if they were to see anything.

  “There’s an old lantern in the back room of the church,” Thea offered.

  It did not take them long to go to
the church and return with a lamp. They walked down the old corridor, holding the lantern high and peering into each doorway they passed. In the third doorway, their light at last revealed something other than an empty earthen room.

  Against one wall was a lumpy pile covered by a blanket, and another blanket lay in a heap at one end. A small, flat-topped rock stood beside the crude bed, and on top of the rock was a saucer with the stub of a candle. A jug sat a foot or two away from the bed, and a pail was in one corner of the room. A piece of crust lay on the floor before them. Clearly, someone had been living there.

  “Could it have been your sister?” Thea asked.

  “It would certainly explain why no one saw her. But I cannot imagine Jocelyn living here—even for a day or two.” Gabriel shook his head and backed out of the room. “We might as well check the rest of the place while we are about it.”

  At the end of the hallway, where the ceiling and walls had collapsed into a jumble, with nothing above them but the sky, they found the remains of a small campfire. Gabriel poked thoughtfully at the ashes with the tip of his boot.

  “How could Jocelyn have done all this? Made a fire? Lived so primitively? She never even dressed without the help of a maid.”

  “It wasn’t necessarily your sister who was living here.”

  “True. But I have little faith in coincidences.”

  “Do you think she is still living here? Perhaps if we waited …”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Whoever was here, they’ve not been around for at least two days. The snow around the cloisters was untouched, remember? No human tracks.”

  “You are right.”

  “I shall set a man to keep an eye on it. We could put up a little shelter at a distance and keep watch with a spyglass, just in case someone does return. But I think Jocelyn came to Chesley only to leave Matthew. Perhaps she stayed long enough to make sure he was placed in my hands. But it seems clear that, if my sister was ever here, she has long since departed.”

  Sixteen

  Thea spent the next few days refurbishing her wardrobe. She pulled the light blue dress that had once been her favorite out of the chest to which she had relegated it and set to altering the gown to better suit today’s styles. It took a bit of work to lower the waistline and narrow its lines, but with the extra material from those alterations she added a flirty little ruffle at the hem. She attached the new blue ribbon as a sash, which not only added a little brightness but also covered her less-than-expert re-sewing of the waistline. Hopefully no one would recognize the old dress after its modifications, and even if someone did, it didn’t matter. Gabriel had never seen it, and it was prettier than anything else she currently owned.

  Once that was done, she did what she could for her other clothes, adding a bit of lace or ribbon to one gown or another. She even went up in the attic and searched through the trunks of old clothes, finding a clump of bright red wooden cherries on an old bonnet, which she added for a splash of color to her dark blue winter hat.

  She could not help but wish for an elegant dress for Damaris’s upcoming Twelfth Night party. She had no desire to wear the same dull evening gown she had worn to the Cliffes’ Christmas ball. The haberdashery in Bynford might have a bolt of cloth that would do for an evening gown, and she would have enough time to sew one if she worked diligently. Thea did not consider herself a good seamstress, but she thought she could make up for her lack of skill with determination, which she possessed in abundance. Daniel had given her money as a Christmas present, which she had planned to save for books, but now she thought a ball gown would be infinitely preferable.

  It would be a long and chilly journey over to the haberdashery in Bynford in her brother’s pony trap, and she was sure that Daniel would find the reason frivolous. But it occurred to her that Damaris might be interested in such a trip. With that in mind, she set out for her friend’s house the next morning.

  She found Damaris’s household in a frenzy of activity. Rugs were being rolled up and carried outside to be beaten, silver was being polished and crystal washed, and every nook and cranny was being scrubbed.

  Thea commented on the bustle as Damaris led her into the smaller upstairs sitting room. Damaris chuckled. “Yes. I think my butler and housekeeper are vying to outdo one another. Greeves hired two extra footmen, and Mrs. Clemmons countered that she must have as many new maids. Then, of course, they had to prove that they had ample use for all of them. So they are turning the house inside out cleaning and polishing. I have been driven up here if I hope to have any peace. And they have not yet begun to decorate.”

  “I am sure that everything will look lovely for the party. Have you received the stationer’s cards for the characters?”

  “Oh, yes, I must show them to you. I shall allow you to have first choice of who you wish to be.” She brought out the box, and the two of them bent their heads over the cards, chuckling over the names and discussing the merits of the characters.

  “Dame Veracity would be far too dangerous for me,” Thea told her. “I hate to think what might leave my lips, given that temptation.”

  “I had thought of adopting Lady Vanity,” Damaris responded. “I could go about the entire evening with a hand mirror, admiring myself. But I decided that was unfair; ’tis far too fun a character to take for myself. I thought Jack Mischief would suit Sir Myles.”

  “Yes.” Thea laughed. “He would play it to the hilt, I am sure.”

  “There is nothing called Lord Handsome, unfortunately; that would suit your Lord Morecombe perfectly.”

  Thea glanced at her, startled, and hoped that her cheeks would not begin to color. “Not my Lord Morecombe, surely.”

  “I hear of him calling at no one else’s house.”

  “Well …” Thea was sure she was blushing now. “He comes to visit the baby.”

  “Of course.” Her friend sent her a droll look, but dropped the subject, saying, “I have the perfect one for Prince Arrogant. Lord Rawdon, don’t you think?”

  “You invited him to your party?” Thea asked in surprise.

  “Daniel mentioned it at the Christmas dinner, and it seemed rude not to invite the man.” Damaris shrugged. “He did manage not to hit anyone that day—although I must say, it looked like a near thing between him and Morecombe.”

  “Their relationship is … complicated.”

  “So I gathered. Is he really Matthew’s father?”

  “I think not, despite their looks.” Thea shook her head.

  “I understand—it is not your tale to tell.”

  “You’re right,” Thea responded, grateful for her friend’s social acumen. “In any case, I do not think Lord Rawdon will be here for the party. Morecombe told me that he had left town.”

  “Oh.”

  Thea was surprised to see that her friend looked a trifle crestfallen. “Are you sorry? I would have thought you would have been relieved.”

  “Well, he does seem to be a rather … unsettling guest to have at one’s party,” Damaris agreed, with a mischievous grin. “But, then, he would add a certain element of excitement. And he is handsome.”

  “You think he’s handsome?” Thea was again surprised.

  “Why, yes. Do you not?” Damaris looked back at Thea in equal surprise.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it.” Thea considered the notion. Lord Rawdon could hardly compare to Gabriel’s vivid dark looks, of course, but she could see how some women might be attracted to him. “He is very unusual. Such pale hair and those light blue eyes.”

  “Yes, but his eyes are bright, as well—they make me think of the center of a fire, where it is hottest. I imagine he is a hard man to lie to.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I wouldn’t say he is a comfortable man, mind you,” Damaris said with a smile. “But he has a very arresting sort of face.”

  “Damaris! Do you like Lord Rawdon?”

  Damaris laughed. “Goodness, no. I don’t think he is the sort of man one likes, do you? But he i
s … interesting. Still, I suspect the party will do quite well without his presence.”

  “I am sure it will. I was thinking of making a new gown for it.” Thea smiled at her friend. “I have to confess I had an ulterior motive for coming to call on you today. I hoped that you might be interested in a trip to the haberdashery in Bynford one day this week. They had some bolts of material that might do for an evening dress.”

  “Of course I would be interested. I had been thinking of making a trip to Cheltenham if the weather permitted. It would be marvelous if you would accompany me. But I have a better idea for your gown. I thought of it on Christmas, but I haven’t had a chance to tell you. I want to give you one of my ball gowns. All it would take is a bit of alteration, and my Edith can make any changes it needs.”

  Thea demurred, but Damaris was adamant, taking her by the hand and pulling her down the hall to Damaris’s chamber. She rang for her maid, and the woman soon pulled out the dress in question and laid it across the bed. Thea sucked in her breath. The sleek gown of dark red satin was at once luxurious yet gracefully simple.

  “Oh, Damaris … this is lovely. But, surely you would want to wear it?”

  The other woman shook her head. “I have a gown of peacock blue—which perfectly matches my mask, so I must wear that. I have only worn this gown once. Truthfully, ’tis not the best shade for me. It is more on the rust side of red, and I look better in a bluish tone of that color. That is why I thought of you; it is perfect with your hair. Only look.”

  Damaris gestured toward her maid, who quickly held the gown up to Thea’s shoulders and turned her toward the mirror. Thea looked at herself and felt a sudden, almost physical hunger for this gown. Damaris was right. The deep red, with its amber undertone, picked out the reddish highlights of her brown hair and warmed her skin. She could not help but think, too, how perfectly the garnets Gabriel had given her would match the dress. Not, of course, that she would wear the earrings; it would be improper, even if no one knew that Gabriel had given them to her.

  “But this is far too valuable.” Thea wrapped her arm around the waist of the dress even as she made her demurral, with her other hand holding the neckline up to her chest. Edith, the maid, stepped aside quickly, leaving Thea to gaze at her reflection alone. “And you might want to wear it some other time.”