The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (Lords of Disgrace 4)

‘You will come down to the house and perform your work for my guests, in that case,’ Knighton ordered.

‘When it is ready, my lord, with pleasure.’

‘You have nothing but what you are working on now?’ Calderbeck demanded, bridling at Gabriel’s indifferent tone.

‘Nothing that is of the spirit of this place.’

‘Well, perform something else,’ Knighton said impatiently. ‘Tonight, nine o’clock.’

‘And bring your harp to the party,’ Frampton added, making the younger men guffaw with laughter.

‘I sing unaccompanied,’ Gabriel said. Hell and damnation. Could he recall any of the Welsh tunes his great-aunt and her housekeeper had taught him as a child? He could sing well enough, but he had not been prepared for this.

‘No doubt your hermit is wary of performing to an audience after so much time alone, Father. Or perhaps he fears his voice is not all he boasts of.’ The words, spoken indifferently, brought the men round to stare at the speaker as though they had forgotten there was a woman with them.

‘We do not want a poor performance. Not with such distinguished guests,’ said Lady Caroline as she rode forward into the clearing. She put back her veil as though to study him more closely and her expression, as she stared down at Gabriel, was suited to a lady who has found the chimneysweep’s boy on her new Oriental hearth rug. He risked a quick assessing glance. Her face was unmarked and she seemed to be managing her horse without any difficulty. He let out a breath he had not realised he’d been holding.

‘Why not have him come up to the house later this afternoon, Father? Blackstone can show him the salon and let him practise his voice a little.’ She shrugged. ‘Or not, as you choose. I merely thought it might save us an evening of strange discords if I were to hear what he can do.’

Gabriel kept his eyes lowered, respectfully not staring, it must have seemed, when in fact he was having difficulty keeping the surprise off his face. Where had the Lady Caroline he knew vanished to? This bored, haughty creature was surely not the blushing, passionate, brave woman who had made him that outrageous offer, who had come to visit her father’s hermit to assure herself of his welfare?

‘A good idea, Caroline.’ Gabriel looked up and saw that Knighton was nodding approval. He had no qualms, it seemed, about exposing his daughter to the close proximity of his hermit. Presumably he had every faith in her chaperon. The earl gestured abruptly at him. ‘Come to the kitchen door at three. We’ll all be outside, no one for you to disturb.’

Except your daughter, but apparently she does not count. ‘My lord.’ He was finding it mildly amusing to discover the amount of meaning—and insolence—one could convey with an apparently subservient bow. He must see if his own and other servants possessed the same skill.

Gabriel stood at the edge of the clearing and watched the riders make their way along the twisting track that skirted the contour of the hill before descending to the far side of the lake.

‘Grottos...’

The word floated back on the still air. Another of Lord Knighton’s landscape follies in planning. Gabriel wondered what he would want to ornament his grottos. Water nymphs, perhaps, or tritons.

He watched until the last of the horses, the bay hack with its blue-clad rider, vanished into the trees, ignored and unpartnered. Woodruffe took a complacent approach to his courting, Gabriel thought as he sat down on the log seat. Or perhaps the matter had been agreed and he was behaving as neglectfully as a fiancé as he would as a husband. From what he knew of the man, neglect would be infinitely better for Caroline than his attentions.

The summons to the house solved the problem of gaining an interview with her. If he had not known better he would have thought she had arranged matters in order to speak with him in private, but apparently this confounded beard was enough to hide from even the most perceptive young lady. He tugged at it and thought longingly of his razors before he began to dredge through his memory for Welsh songs, poems or even sermons.

* * *

‘You are very clean for a hermit.’ Mrs Gleason, the cook, eyed Gabriel up and down as he stood in the doorway of her immaculate kitchen looking as meek as he knew how. Subtly mocking Lord Knighton was one thing, but cooks were the empresses of their domains and even their employers treated them with respect if they knew what was good for them.

‘I wash in the lake every day, Mrs Gleason.’

‘And what’s your name then?’ That was Molly, the kitchen maid, all freckles and crooked teeth and a big grin that showed them both off.

‘Petrus Owen, Miss Molly.’

That triggered the giggles again. ‘Ooh, Miss Molly!’

‘You’ll be Miss Out On Your Ear, my girl, if you don’t finish those potatoes,’ Cook snapped. ‘And you, you big Welsh lummox, stop lurking about like something out of those novels Lady Caroline’s maid is always reading, go on through to the end of the passage and knock on Mr Blackstone’s door. You give me the cold grues, standing there in that Popish outfit.’

‘Yes, Mrs Gleason.’ He winked at Molly as he passed and was out of the door before her giggles erupted again.

The butler answered the knock on his door after a good minute. From the waft of violet pastilles on his breath Gabriel deduced he had been having an after-luncheon snooze to recover from the onerous duty of finishing off the leftover wine.

‘Oh, it’s you. His lordship said to take you up to the Blue Salon.’ He glowered at Gabriel, apparently found nothing obvious that he could object to, considering his employer was misguided enough to employ such a man, and stalked off along the passageway

to the foot of the servants’ stairs.

‘Bring that with you.’ He gestured in passing to one of the hard wooden hall chairs. ‘I’ll not have you sitting on the good upholstery. That robe or whatever it is looks as though it would shed.’