oneliness that had seemed like peace before he had become used to Caroline’s presence.
‘I see. You no longer require my company?’ Caroline’s colour was up. ‘Or my presence in your—’ She broke off as a footman came in with a tea tray and thanked him as he set it at her side. ‘Bed,’ she finished when the door closed again. ‘I cannot say you did not warn me. But I also warned you, Gabriel, that I take marriage vows seriously. I am not prepared to simply acquiesce to this. I will not nag, I will do everything in my power not to mention it again, but I will not be closeted in the depths of the country while you commit adultery all over London.’
‘Adultery?’ It took him so much aback that he stared at her. ‘Who said anything about adultery?’
‘You did. Before we were married. You said you would not keep your vows, you as good as instructed me to take a lover once I had provided you with the requisite number of sons. Well, Gabriel Stone, I am not prepared to be stabled down here in the country like a brood mare awaiting the attentions of the stallion. I will be faithful to you because I take vows seriously, but I will live in London or here or visit friends as I wish.’
He could not deny what he had said, fool that he was. ‘I have no desire to be with another woman.’ When had that happened? ‘Nor would I force myself on you. If you allow me to your bed then I would be...honoured. There will be no other women in my life.’
‘Then why do you want me away from you?’ Caroline attempted to pour tea, sloshed it into the saucer, said a word he had no idea she knew and banged the teapot back down again.
‘Because I thought you would want your freedom to do the things that interest you. I want... I am not used to this intimacy, of living with someone, sharing thoughts.’
‘The day you share a thought with me, an intimate, important thought, without it being forced from you, will be a first, Gabriel.’ Caroline lifted the teapot again and this time managed to pour two cups. ‘I do not want to pry, I do not expect you to share every passing thought, every private contemplation with me. I do not want to force your secrets out of you. But I do not want to spend the rest of my life alone and I find it hard that you seem to want loneliness. Aloneness.’
‘Everyone is different,’ Gabriel said harshly.
‘Your brothers love you. Your friends and their wives love you. What are you afraid of, Gabriel? That I might love you, too?’
‘You love far too many people for your own safety, Caroline. That is your nature and I cannot prevent you including me in the band that you take to your so-loyal heart. But to fall in love with me? You have far more sense than that. It would be a tragedy, would it not?’
He could accept love now, he was learning that. The changes in the lives of his three closest friends had made those friendships richer. His brothers, rallying round at the wedding, welcoming Caroline without hesitation, had stirred something deep inside him. He was their older brother and it had always been his duty to protect them as well as he could, and, at the end, he had so nearly failed. Caroline was a woman who had turned to him for help and it was his duty to give that, whatever it took.
But he had always known there was something lacking in him, some spark that some other men seemed to have, the willingness to expose himself to the risk of pain that love, accepted and returned, brought. Had brought. He would not think of his mother. ‘I fear hurting you,’ he said now, as gently as he knew.
‘Deliberately?’ she asked, watching him with a frown line between her brows as though he was a puzzle to be solved.
‘No. Never that.’
‘Then do not shut me away. This is a lovely house and I would like to spend time here with you. But not now. We will go back to Brighton, finish our honeymoon, learn to co-exist a little better, if you can bear that. Then we will decide what each of us does next and discuss it.’
Caroline was making plans. He was beginning to recognise that when she was under pressure she felt better for having a strategy. ‘Very well. Shall I show you around now we are here?’ He could manage that, surely? He had the courage to face a duel, wade into a street fight. Take a beating. He could summon up the guts to show his wife around a house.
* * *
They drove back to Brighton in a state of wary truce. Something had gone very wrong in that house, Caroline knew that for a certainty, and she felt as certain that Gabriel had built high walls around the memories. But the poison was seeping out like the miasma from a vault. She shivered convulsively, appalled at the ghoulish image that conjured up. She was becoming emotional lately and every little feeling seemed heightened.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No. Just a goose walking over my grave.’ Stop thinking about graves.
‘I have upset you. I am sorry for my temper and my secrets. I want whatever compromise is best for the both of us, whatever will work for us.’
‘Compromise is a word that does not come often to your lips, I think.’ She ventured a teasing note and, glancing up, was rewarded with a smile.
‘Not often enough, I am sure.’
Reassured by the smile, Caroline tucked her gloved hand under Gabriel’s elbow and was not repulsed. We must look the perfect just-married couple, she thought as they reached the Parade and passed the grassy length of Marine Square, its new houses sparkling white in the sunshine. ‘There is Lady Carmichael. She was so pleasant when I spoke to her in Donaldson’s the other day.’ Caroline waved. ‘Oh! Gabriel, she cut me.’
‘You are imagining things. She must not have seen who we were.’
‘But she did, I saw her recognise me and then she just went blank. Gabriel, slow down, there is Mrs Wilberforce, walking with her daughters.’ As the curricle drew level she smiled and waved. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Wilberforce.’
The matron who had beamed at her only that morning gathered her three girls closer as though to shield them from contagion and hurried on.
‘Stop!’ Caroline made a grab for the reins and when Gabriel brought the pair to a halt she half-scrambled, half-jumped down, gasping in pain as she jarred her sore toe. ‘Mrs Wilberforce, wait, please.’
The older woman turned. ‘Lady Edenbridge, I will thank you not to accost me, or my daughters, again.’