* * *
There was silence when she finished, then Tamsyn, her faint Devon accent heightened by emotion. said, ‘Your father is somewhat obsessional, is he not? And in the grip of a strong compulsion to gamble. I can understand how dangerous that can be. My cousin Franklin, Lord Chelford, got himself in over his head with gambling debts, then moneylenders, and ended with vandalism, murder and an attempt to frame me for the crime.’
‘And he almost managed to murder you,’ Tess said with a shudder. ‘It is all a secret, of course. People think he went slightly insane and died after an unfortunate encounter with a Bow Street Runner.
‘Anyway, we understand that people do act in these extreme ways and that you aren’t exaggerating in the slightest. Besides anything else, if your father is going to use force, then nothing else matters. And Gabriel is just the person to help, he was wonderful with Tamsyn’s problem.’
‘Once he stopped lecturing Cris on how unsuitable I was for a marquess,’ Tamsyn said with a grimace. ‘He was quite right, of course, but it did not endear him to me at the time!’
‘There are four of them, close friends.’ Caroline tried to pick her way through the relationships. ‘Gabriel, your husbands and someone else? Gabriel did tell me, but I’m afraid I have forgotten.’
‘Grant Rivers, Earl of Allundale. He and his wife Kate live up in Northumberland with their two children. I wish they would come down to London for a while, but Kate is shy of society. So, you have five of us on hand to help, although if you need to flee the area, I am sure Grant and Kate would give you sanctuary.’
‘I can’t just run away and hide for ever. I do not have any money, just a little jewellery, so I must earn my living somehow. I suppose I could become a nursery governess, or a companion to a reclusive old lady, if you wouldn’t mind providing me with references? I am very reliable, despite appearances.’
And horribly afraid, and ridiculously homesick, despite everything. And Anthony. Could I have looked after him any better by staying?
‘It would not be as bad as marriage to the Egregious Edgar, but a pretty grim existence nevertheless,’ Tess said. ‘I almost ended up like that, only in my case it was that or become a nun.’
A nun? ‘I can see that marriage to Lord Weybourn was preferable,’ Caroline said, finding her spirits rising as she finished her second cup of tea. She still could see no easy way out of her problems, but at least she felt confident her new friends would not desert her. She need not feel afraid now and married to Woodruffe she would have been just as cut off from Anthony.
There was a tap on the door and a maid came in. ‘The bath is ready, my lady. And Miss Perkins is brushing and pressing your gowns, ma’am,’ she added with a bob of a curtsy to Caroline.
‘A bath would be heaven,’ Caroline said as the door closed behind the maid. ‘I have spent a day and a night up a chimney.’
‘I would have thought that Gabriel would look after a lady better than that,’ Tamsyn said with a chuckle. ‘On the other hand, he is the only man I know who would think of hiding someone in such a place, so, on balance, it was probably for the best.’
* * *
‘Are you ready to get out now, ma’am? Or should I top up the hot water?’
‘Oh, top it up, please. I’ll lie here for a while longer.’ Caroline slid under the scented water once more, rubbing at her scalp until she was convinced that every last piece of grit, soot and dead spider was out of it.
‘I’ll be back in a while then, ma’am.’ The maid heaped towels on a chair and went out.
After ten minutes the water began to cool and there was no sign of the maid. Or of a bell pull. Caroline climbed out and wrapped herself in a large bath sheet, towelled her hair and began to explore. She tried one door and found herself in a large bedchamber, the dressing table littered with perfume sprays, hair brushes and ribbons. She rather suspected that this was Tess’s own room.
She could hardly rummage in the clothes presses for a robe. Caroline tied her damp hair up into a turban with a small towel and cracked open the door on to the corridor. Still no sign of the maid, so she ventured out, her bare toes curling into the deep pile of the carpet runner over the polished boards. What had happened to the girl?
The door opposite her opened, she took a hasty step backwards, trod on the trailing edge of the towel and sat down with a thud as one of the Roman emperors appeared on the threshold.
‘Caroline? What the devil are you doing?’ Not a Roman emperor, just Gabriel, swathed as she was in linen.
‘Looking for the maid.’ She scrabbled at the fabric, too embarrassed to look down and see just how much of her wet body was exposed. Even if there was no bare flesh, then damp linen was surely clinging to every curve. She tried to hold Gabriel’s gaze to stop it moving down below her face. ‘She vanished and I’ve no robe.’
‘Nor have I and Alex’s valet is nowhere to be seen.’ He grinned, but behind the amusement was something she had never seen in his face before, the thing that had been piquing her feminine pride ever since her first reckless proposal to him. There was heat in his eyes, and awareness, and he was not the rake who had made the agreement, not the man who had kissed her at the soirée. And he was most certainly not the hermit who had been focused on knight-errantry and rescuing her from her father’s ploys.
This Gabriel was looking at her as a man looks at a woman he wants, with all his attention, and she had no idea whether she was terrified or thrilled. It had meant something to him, after all. He is remembering what nearly happened in the chapel, he desires me. The blood was singing in her veins and her breath was coming in short gasps and the sight of his naked shoulders and arms was enough to make her want to drag him back into the dressing room and— He stepped back and closed the door sharply just before she, too, heard the hurrying footsteps.
‘Oh, miss, I’m ever so sorry, I was bringing your robe from the laundry and then Prue knocked a pile of my lady’s lace on to the floor, so I bent to pick it up before it got soiled and tripped up his lordship’s valet who was bringing Lord Edenbridge’s robe and...’
‘Not a problem. Just shut the door.’ Caroline got to her feet, careless of dignity. Those eyes, dark and intense and locked with hers. She looked down at herself and was faintly surprised not to see steam rising.
‘Yes, miss. Sorry, miss.’
Caroline put on the robe and let the maid deal with her hair, then dressed, scolding herself all the while.
Focus. This is not about Gabriel. This is about making a new life for myself, about staying safe. About not ending up starving in the gutter or in some brothel. The man is a rake and whatever he wants, even if it is me again for five minutes, it will not last. So stop daydreaming. And anyway, he doesn’t really want me, he’s just a typical man. That night we were so wound up it is a miracle we didn’t combust from tension and just now I was sprawled at his feet, nearly naked. He would have re