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

‘Will the magistrate allow you to stay with his lordship, Corbridge? No? Then I trust he will accept it if we pack a valise for him. Come.’

While Corbridge laid out a change of linen and Gabriel’s shaving gear, Caroline fetched her new travelling case and took one of the razors to its lining. Under the leather she slid thirty guinea coins, all she could find in the safe, and six hairpins, tied in a handkerchief. Corbridge set out a pair of evening shoes and she wrapped the little pistol from the safe in the stockings and tucked that into the toe of one of the shoes. It would all come right, she had to make herself believe it, but just in case...

‘Please tell his lordship that this is my newest valise and to be particularly careful of it. He can be so careless.’

‘As you say, my lady.’ Corbridge took the bag and Caroline was left with nothing to do but wait and try to find some comfort in the fact that Gabriel was not languishing in Brighton’s lock-up.

* * *

Cris and Tamsyn reached Brighton at ten the next night, bringing with them a second coach containing four burly men. ‘Some of my grooms,’ Cris said as he straightened up from kissing her cheek. ‘I guessed you might need the barricades manned.’

‘People are such vultures,’ Tamsyn said as she hugged Caroline. ‘Tess and Alex send their love and they are staying in London to do anything needed at that end. Where is Gabriel?’

Caroline told them everything while they ate supper. ‘Do you know what happened?’ she asked Cris. ‘Gabriel is hiding something, but I cannot believe he would kill his own father.’

‘You have seen his back, of course,’ Cris said. ‘A court might well feel that evidence of such harsh treatment shows motive enough, especially as he was holding a whip when the body was discovered. But I do not know the truth. What he told me is what he told you. Like you I do not believe he did it and also that he is withholding something.’

‘I have sent for Louis,’ Caroline said and took a sip of the port she and Tamsyn were sharing with Cris.

‘Yes? Then you share my instincts about this. But I have always understood he remembered nothing of the accident.’

‘I cannot think of anyone other than his brothers whom Gabriel would shield at the hazard of his own life,’ Caroline said. ‘But we cannot expect to see Louis until late tomorrow at the earliest.’ The doorbell rang. ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Who is that at this hour? People have no decency.’

‘Major Stone, Mr George Stone, Mr Louis Stone, my lady.’ James opened the door wide and Gabriel’s three brothers walked in, heavy-eyed and travel-worn.

‘Where is Gabriel?’ Ben demanded the moment they were inside.

‘Residing with the magistrate,’ Caroline said. ‘How did you all get here? I am so glad to see you, but I only wrote to Louis yesterday. Come in, sit down. James, fetch food and wine.’

‘I never got your letter. I saw the papers and left Cambridge immediately.’ Louis was pale and behind the lenses of his spectacles his eyes were red with exhaustion. ‘I found the others in London at Lord Weybourn’s house.’

The brothers ate while they listened to the news, but Caroline noticed that Louis soon put down his knife and fork. He looked as though he might be sick at any moment.

‘So, either someone saw something at the time that seems incriminating and have only just come forward in response to my father’s probing for scandal in Gabriel’s life, or he is making bricks without straw. But Gabriel is not telling me the entire truth, of that I am certain. If only someone we can trust actually saw what happened.’

There was an aching silence, then Ben put down his cutlery with a clatter. ‘I saw and George, too. Gabriel doesn’t know.’ He looked across the table at his brother sitting beside Louis. George’s face as was white as his clerical bands. ‘He would be furious if he knew we had spoken.’

‘Gabriel can kick you from here to London for all I care,’ Caroline snapped. ‘I only want him alive to be able to do it.’

Louis snatched up his glass, gulped the contents and banged it down again. ‘I did it. I killed Father.’

Chapter Twenty-One

‘Lady Edenbridge has sent this valise by your valet, my lord.’ The magistrate’s man set the bag down on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. ‘He asked me to pass on her message to please be careful of the leather as it is her ladyship’s new case.’ He passed a professional hand over the surface and nodded approval of its quality. ‘Sir Humphrey is dining alone this evening and requests the pleasure of your company at dinner, my lord. I will come up to assist you at seven o’clock, if that is convenient.’

Such a polite gaoler. ‘Thank you, yes. Please convey my thanks to Sir Humphrey.’ Gabriel waited until the valet had bowed himself out then opened the valise.

It was not like Caroline to fuss over her possessions, let alone send chiding messages at a time like this, which meant she was up to something. He lifted out the carefully packed clothes, then almost dropped one evening shoe in surprise at its weight. The little pistol designed to be carried in a pocket gleamed up at him dangerously. Gabriel shook his head, checked that it was loaded and uncocked and slid it into the breast of his coat. What else had she done?

Even empty the bag was heavy. It did not take him long to find the money and the hairpins. He sat on the edge of the bed, the little twists of wire on one palm, wondering at the strange tightness around his heart and the absurd, inappropriate urge to laugh. He was hysterical... No, I am happy. Oh, Caroline, you will never give up, will you? Presumably she imagined him in some dank cell, picking the locks, fighting his way to freedom, and she would give him the tools to escape whatever the cost to herself. ‘I love you, you brave, loyal, beautiful woman.’

How long had he felt like this and not recognised it for what it was? Those unguarded words as he had left her had come from somewhere deep inside, a blinding revelation that the way he felt when he was with her, when he thought about her, was love.

The urge to laugh left him as suddenly as it had come, but the grip around his heart did not ease. Of all the times to discover that he could fall in love—and with his own wife, the most unlikely of miracles. Gabriel stamped down on the hope that Caroline might one day come to love him, too. She was as open as she was loyal and honest. She had admitted her physical attraction to him, a daring thing for a young lady to do, so it seemed impossible that she would be reticent about the much more respectable emotion of love.

Better that she never did, given that all he could look forward to was disgrace at the best and death at the worst. He could not, would not, tell the truth about what had happened. Of all the times to find his loyalties stretched on the rack. He could hear his mother’s voice in his head as clearly as he had that day when he had been fourteen and had found her weeping in her bedchamber. Promise me you will look after your brothers, Gabriel. Swear to me. And he had sworn, not understanding. Not then.

* * *