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

‘Excellent.’ Gabriel put down his glass and took her hand in both of his, lifted it and this time just touched the back of her fingers with his lips. ‘Courage, my lady. We will get you out of this one way or another.’ Then he turned to the terrace door and was gone in a swirl of brown robes.

Chapter Seven

The servants, used to their master’s whims, responded well to Caroline’s requirements for the after-dinner entertainment. The gardeners produced braziers and flambeaux, set around a semicircle of the most throne-like chairs she had been able to glean from remote corners of the house. A large stool had been heaped with sheepskins with an ancient wolf pelt at the foot and set in the centre, where the steps from the terrace led down to the lawn. Footmen collected armfuls of cloaks against any evening chill and Blackstone was concocting the nearest mixture he could invent that resembled mead.

‘I regret we do not have sufficient drinking horns for all the guests,’ he apologised to Caroline, who assured him that goblets would do. Slipping laudanum into a drinking horn would be decidedly tricky, she thought, touching the carefully measured dose in the little phial in her pocket. Much as she disliked the man she wanted to do Woodruffe no harm and she had rechecked the doctor’s notes and her own measurements.

The guests, well fed and glowing with plentiful wine, came out as she was casting a final look over the stage set. They had forgone their port and she set Blackstone circulating with the honeyed wine as soon as they were all settled. The candles were extinguished in the house behind them, leaving them in the summer night beneath a clear sky with the afterglow of sunset to keep the stars at bay.

The men continued to talk, but gradually the atmosphere seemed to reach them and the volume dropped, conversation became sporadic. In the house the clocks chimed ten and Caroline, eyes straining, made out a flicker of movement approaching across the lawn. She nudged William, the footman with the most impressive bass voice.

‘The bard approaches!’

She thought she knew what to expect. This was all smoke and mirrors, a performance, and yet as the tall figure came up the steps and into the firelight she caught her breath, seized with an almost superstitious awe. Robed and hooded in black and holding a long staff, Gabriel had become a figure from the remote past, a mystical creature of magic and power, both spiritual and physical. This was not a grey-bearded Merlin, stooped and ancient, this was a virile man in his prime, as likely to draw a sword as a magic wand.

Around her there were sharp intakes of breath, the sounds of men straightening themselves in their chairs—or leaning away as though faced with a threat. Gabriel stood, head bowed for a moment, then threw back his hood and sat down on the heaped animal skins with the air of a tribal chieftain taking his place on a throne. He held up his hand as if for silence, although save for the crackle of the fires and the hooting of an owl in the Home Wood, there had been no sound.

‘Marwnad Cynddylan Dyhedd deon diechyr...’

The words dropped into the night air, soft as the owl’s wingbeat. Only one person there understood their meaning and yet, shivering, Caroline thought they all knew this was a lament, an ancient warrior’s song of glory, loss, death.

The rich, dark voice strengthened, deepened and Caroline lost herself in the sound, lost herself in the enchantment the enthroned figure was weaving. She had no idea how long Gabriel spoke for. When the liquid Welsh stopped it took them all a moment to realise it. Caroline released an unsteady breath and heard around her the others doing the same. One or two of the guests shook their heads as though rousing from a dream. No one applauded, but the very silence was filled with appreciation.

She rose, took the wine jug from the nearest footman and began to circulate, topping up the goblets in the men’s hands. They hardly seemed to notice her. Woodruffe certainly did not as she tipped the laudanum from the phial in the palm of her hand into his wine.

She resumed her seat and the spell was spun again.

‘Mawredd gyminedd, mawr ysgafael, Yrhag Caer Lwytgoed, neus dug Morfael...’

The sky was entirely black now, except for a dusting of early stars, and the braziers glowed sullen red.

‘“I shall mourn until I enter the fastness of the earth,”’ Gabriel said in English.

She thought his right hand moved and then there was a burst of flame as the nearest fire blazed up, making those nearest it recoil, dazzling the dark-adjusted eyes of all of them. From the far end where the staff had gathered there was a scream of alarm. When, blinking, Caroline could see properly again the dais was empty and the robed figure had vanished.

‘My dear Knighton!’ The men clustered around her father, full of congratulations. ‘Magnificent! The atmosphere, the voice, the drama!’ That was Lord Calderbeck, uncharacteristically animated. The others echoed him, only Woodruffe hung back, his hand on the back of his chair.

Caroline kept an eye on him as she directed the servants to clear the terrace of its chairs and props, watched him follow listlessly as the other guests trooped back into the drawing room.

‘Damn good show, Knighton,’ he roused himself to say. ‘If you’ll forgive me, I’m for my bed. Don’t feel quite the thing, you know...’

/> The others barely spared him a glance. Caroline, assessing the heavy eyes and barely stifled yawns, hurried to his side in a display of feminine concern. ‘Are you unwell, Lord Woodruffe? Should we send for a doctor?’

‘No, no. Just a trifle weary for some reason. The night air, I have no doubt.’ He smiled at her, a knowing smirk that had her fighting the urge to step back. ‘You’re a good girl to make a fuss of me. Make a wonderful wife for some lucky man, eh?’ His chuckle was lost in another jaw-cracking yawn and he wandered off towards the door, leaving Caroline to struggle with the expression on her own face.

‘Send a footman to keep an eye on Lord Woodruffe,’ she said to Blackstone. ‘We wouldn’t want any accidents on the stairs.’

Now what? Is Gabriel watching from the darkness, waiting for us to go to bed, or is he already in the house, perhaps in Woodruffe’s room? But her part was done. The men drifted towards the card tables and Caroline took herself to bed, still half-lost in the swirling mists of ancient legend.

* * *

Her maid was agog with the excitements of the evening. ‘Ooh, my lady, when there was that great flame and he vanished I almost fainted with the terror of it. Witchcraft it was.’

‘I’m sorry you were frightened, Jenny.’ Caroline unhooked her earrings and sat at the dressing table for the maid to unpin her hair. ‘It was only the kind of tricks they play on stage.’

‘I wasn’t really scared, my lady—it was lovely, like a novel. I’ve got shivers up and down my spine just thinking about it.’

‘Well, I have shivers, too. Go and close the doors on to the balcony, please, before the moths get in.’