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

‘My lord.’

Gabriel took his hat from the hall stand and let himself out of the front door. There was a new hell off Hill Street that was as informal as the stakes were high. It was one place he was quite certain he’d be safe from prosing brothers, well-meaning friends, matchmaking mothers and respectable damsels with big blue eyes and that was where he would be until midnight.

Chapter Thirteen

It had never occurred to her that a housekeeper’s life would be a lonely one. In a large household there was a butler, a steward, a cook and a mature lady’s maid for the mistress of the house, a little inner circle of upper servants. But here, with no family in residence, the housekeeper reigned in an isolated state.

Caroline set the flower arrangement on a table in the hall and looked out through the open door, down the carriage drive between the high yew hedges that were receiving their first good cut in years and on to the green haze of the Vale of Aylesbury in the August sunlight. Behind the house the beech woods rose like a blanket over the swell of the Chiltern Hills, nestling it into the tiny valley of the Spring Bourne, the seasonal stream that rose from the chalk after heavy rain, then vanished in summer.

This was a lovely spot, the house was charming and soon it would become a home for Anthony and for herself. But meanwhile, although there was a lot to do and even more to be thankful for, the loneliness pressed in on her. And it has only been three weeks.

‘I’ve finished the panelling in the dining room, Mrs Crabtree.’ Jane, the housemaid, came into the hall carrying a basket of jars of beeswax and polishing cloths. ‘It’ll take a few more goes to get the shine up proper, though.’

‘Once a week and not too much wax, more elbow grease,’ Caroline said. That was what was advised in Mrs Pomfrett’s Household Management, the thick tome that was her night-time reading. ‘Too much wax builds up and dulls the shine.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’ll lay the table in your room, Mrs Crabtree. Almost time for luncheon.’

That was another thing. Every meal had to be taken alone in the housekeeper’s parlour while the cheerful sounds of chatter from the servants’ hall echoed down the flagged passageway. She’d been tempted to prop a book up in front of her, but that was a bad example to the maids, so must be resisted. They relied on the training they received here for their next post, perhaps promotion to a bigger household, or cook-housekeeper to a widow or single gentleman. It all left far too much time to be thinking about a certain brown-eyed gentleman.

‘There’s a rider coming up the drive, Mrs Crabtree.’

‘Who can that be?’ Caroline squinted against the sunlight, heart pounding. A boyish rider on a chestnut hack with a rather shambling gait. Not a tall man on a fine piece of bloodstock. Of course not.

‘Close the front door, alert William that someone is coming. Possibly they are lost and want directions.’

She followed the scurrying maid towards the back of the hall and waited in the shadows while the footman emerged, tugged down his waistcoat and went to open the door.

‘Good morning, sir. I regret that none of the family is in residence.’

‘Well, I am now.’ The light, cheerful voice cracked mid-sentence, betraying the speaker’s nerves as well as his age. ‘I am Mr Anthony Holm and this is my house.’

William’s gulp was audible. ‘Perhaps you would come through to the drawing room, sir, and I’ll fetch the housekeeper.’

Caroline hardly caught a glimpse of her brother before William had him shut in the front room. She met the footman halfway across the hall.

‘Mrs Crabtree, ma’am, I didn’t know where to put myself! The poor young gentleman can’t know his father’s sold the estate to Lord Edenbridge.’ That was the story she had told the staff, not wanting to expose her father’s folly at gambling it away.

‘I’ll go and speak to him. Don’t bring refreshments until I ring.’ She went in and closed the door behind herself. ‘Anthony,’ she said quietly. ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Caro!’ He spun round from his contemplation of the view from the window, his face a mixture of pleasure, surprise and then, when he took in her costume, bafflement. ‘What on earth are you doing here dressed like that?’

She hugged him fiercely, shaken by how much his gangling frame had grown since the last time she had held him. He was not her little brother any longer. ‘Oh, how I have missed you! Sit down and I’ll tell you everything—and then you must tell me how you got here.’

She left out the offer to exchange her virginity for the deeds, saying instead that she had explained the situation to Gabriel and he had immediately returned them. When it came to her reasons for fleeing she told him only that Woodruffe had an unsavoury reputation. Even so, Anthony was clearly old enough to guess it was worse than she said.

‘The old devil,’ he gasped when he heard that their father had beaten her. His horror became fascination at the story of Gabriel’s imposture and he was boy enough to be vastly amused at the thought of an earl disguised as a hermit.

‘So here I am, guarding your inheritance and staying safe myself,’ Caroline finished.

‘He’s a great gun, isn’t he? Lord Edenbridge, I mean.’ Anthony’s face glowed with hero worship. ‘Father told me, just in passing, about losing Springbourne. I said what I thought, pretty loudly, and got a thrashing for my pains.’ He shrugged off her hands when she would have caught him to her for a hug and stuck out his chin pugnaciously. ‘I’d got an invitation to stay with Percy—you know, Herrick’s younger brother?—near London, so I went there. Father didn’t mind.

‘Then I called on Lord Edenbridge and he told me he was looking after the estate for me. His youngest brother was there, a bit of a stuffed shirt, I thought.’ His blue gaze slid round to her. ‘Edenbridge didn’t say anything about you.’ When she did not comment he shrugged. ‘Anyway, he advanced me some money from the estate, so I thought I’d come and have a look. May I stay?’

‘Of course you may.’ She just wanted to hold him and not let go. ‘But you must remember that you are here as a guest of Lord Edenbridge and I’ll let the staff know you were upset because of the estate being sold, but that the earl has allowed you to visit for a while. And you must call me Mrs Crabtree and treat me like the housekeeper. We can say that I knew you when you were a little boy, which is true and that will explain any familiarity.’

‘Crabtree?’

‘I realised I hadn’t thought of a name and when I arrived that was the first thing I saw,’ Caroline said defensively. ‘I think it sounds suitable for a housekeeper.’