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

It must have been that very first time, that night at Springbourne when all that had seemed to matter had been persuading her to marry him and finally losing himself in her. The time before he realised he loved her, the time when he had complacently thought of children as some theoretical, abstract outcome of their marriage. But they were not an abstract. They were real, important, and he had thrown the miraculous news that he was to be a father back in her face along with his anger and ingratitude at being saved from the gallows.

He got to his feet, raked the wet hair off his forehead and turned to walk back. Apologise. Thank her. Try to understand his own feelings about his past, about their future. Hope against hope that somehow he could understand hers, because Caroline was his wife and he loved her. Somehow, with no model of how to do it right, he was going to have a family to look after. For the first time in his adult life he felt fear, gut-clenching, knee-weakening fear. What if I can’t do it? Can’t be a decent father and husband? What if...? The doubts raged in his head like the wind that was battering the coast now.

It seemed like a hundred miles back along the shore, the shifting pebbles dragging at his feet until his legs began to feel like lead. He should cut up towards the coast road. Gabriel stopped and assessed the ways up the low, crumbling cliffs and saw, in the distance, a figure coming towards him, laboriously battling wildly blowing skirts and hampering shingle. As he watched her bonnet whipped off her head and out to sea and her hair broke loose as she clutched for the ribbons, the blonde streamers in the wind like a flag. Caroline.

Gabriel began to run, heedless of the strain on his tired legs. It was like a nightmare where every step seems to be mired in mud. She was carrying a child, she shouldn’t be struggling along this damned beach. She was coming to him.

He realised the moment she saw him and recognised who it was, because she stopped walking and bent over, hands on her knees, out of breath. When he reached her, breathless himself, she had straightened up and only the high colour in her cheeks and the rise and fall of her bosom revealed the speed she must have been walking at.

‘Caroline. You shouldn’t be out here, not exerting yourself like this.’

‘I am pregnant, not sick.’

‘Why did you follow me?’ He took her arm and steered her, unresisting, up the beach to where a fisherman had constructed a rough shelter out of driftwood and old planks. ‘Sit down, it is going to rain again in a moment.’

‘I saw you leave, so angry you could hardly walk straight. And I saw where you were heading and I thought...’

‘That I was going to throw myself in the sea?’

‘No.’ She smiled faintly. ‘But I thought you might need me.’

‘If I did, why should you care? This is the man who is so damned thoughtless and insensitive that a shock is enough to make him cruel and ungrateful.’

‘You are my husband.’

‘And you take your vows very seriously,’ he said, feeling the weight of despair on his shoulders. He was a duty to her and she was going to do her duty if it killed her.

‘So do you. To whom did you make a promise to always look after your brothers? Your mother, I suppose.’

He nodded, unable to find the words. When she did not press him he managed to say it. ‘She killed herself. Took poison. I’ll never know whether my father beat her or whether it was the unkindness of words or neglect. I was fourteen, too young to really understand. Such a good little boy.’

‘Were you?’ That little smile had deepened, made soft dimples in her cheeks. He wanted to kiss them.

‘I was the heir. It was my duty to be good,’ he said, mocking the earnest child he had once been.

‘And then you turned into a miniature hellion to deflect your father’s anger on to you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Clever, as well as brave. Your mother would have been very proud of you.’ When he shrugged, embarrassed by the praise, appalled to find it mattered so much, she asked, ‘But why did you become so remote from them that they were unable to come to you and tell you what they had seen?’

‘If I had shown I was fond of them then he would have suspected.’

‘So you made yourself be alone with no one to love you.’ To his horror Caroline burst into tears, just as another squall hit, lashing them with icy rain. Gabriel curled himself around her, sheltering her, and let her sob on his shoulder until the squall and the tears ceased together. ‘Oh, I am sorry. I feel so weepy at the moment. Harriet says it is because of the baby and her sister was a complete watering pot for months.’

He found a handkerchief and mopped her eyes, but she took it from him and blew her nose briskly. ‘I am too stunned to add up.’

‘I have only just missed my courses, but I am always so regular and I am absolutely convinced that something has changed.’ Caroline took a deep breath. ‘It is far too early to have said anything. Many pregnancies don’t go beyond the first month or two. But somehow...’

‘Somehow you are sure.’ He stood up and held out his hand to help her to her feet. ‘Shall we start out before the next rain squall comes?’ When she nodded and slipped her hand into his he felt a shock of fierce protectiveness. ‘I’ll do my level best to be a good father, Caroline. At least I’ve plenty of experience of what makes a bad one.’ She said nothing, but tightened her grip for a moment. ‘I’ll do my best to be a good husband, too. I’m not good at emotion, Caroline.’

‘I noticed.’ She was teasing him, he thought. Hoped. ‘I understand. It has never been very safe for you to feel, has it?’

He thought that was all she was going to say. They walked back slowly in silence,

then, as they reached their own front door, she said, ‘Promise me something?’

‘Anything.’