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

He laughed, too, as he followed her back to the drawing room, telling himself that he had absolutely nothing to worry about. Caroline would be safely, respectably, hidden and his life could return to normal, mercifully free of female interference. Perfect. He wondered why he did not feel happier about it.

Cris strolled in. ‘If you’ve nothing better to do, my valet will cut your hair now.’

Gabriel hauled himself to his feet and went upstairs to his fate.

Chapter Twelve

‘It is a very extravagant carriage for a housekeeper.’ Caroline stood on the front steps of Tess’s house and studied the chaise and four that stood at the kerb while the footmen loaded on her new trunk. ‘Will it not cause gossip if I do not travel on the stage?’

‘You are a very superior housekeeper and I am a top-lofty employer who would not dream of his upper servants being seen on the common coach.’ Gabriel said. He seemed distant somehow, with his fashionable cropped hair, and he was more smartly dressed than she had ever seen him. He had a cool detachment that she guessed was the manner he adopted when he was playing cards. It certainly succeeded in hiding his feelings from her.

Not that they had been very apparent for the past four days in any case. While she had remained secluded in Half Moon Street he had communicated by politely formal notes, recounting his agent’s progress in despatching the elderly Mrs Buckley to her retirement and setting up funds for Caroline to draw on. Yesterday evening the man himself had arrived, fresh from the country, bringing the account books for Caroline to go through with him.

Tess’s housekeeper had chosen her new wardrobe of respectable plain gowns and caps and Dollands in Bond Street had sent two pairs of spectacles with plain lenses. She had gone, heavily veiled, to the domestic agency to interview for her own maid who would be picked up from there on the way so there was nothing to connect her with the Weybourns’ house. The address of Reddish’s Hotel in Jermyn Street had completely satisfied the agency.

‘You look the part and we have left no kind of trail anywhere.’ Gabriel seemed relaxed, standing on the step beside her, but she could tell he was watching the street.

‘And you look different,’ she said without thinking.

‘It is the hair.’ He glanced down at her, a formal stranger.

‘No, it is more than that. You look positively respect...’ Oh, goodness, that was not tactful. ‘I mean...’

‘Respectable,’ he agreed with a shrug. ‘Wrestling with your brother’s estate has prompted an unusual desire to be about the business of my own properties. I have the haircut so I thought I would further unnerve my various solicitors, bankers and agents by looking like the sort of earl they normally have to deal with. My brother Louis is in town, so I’ll drag him round, too. Hopefully he won’t decide that estate management is the last thing he wants to do and bolt on me.’

‘That will be pleasant, being with your brother.’ The footmen were still struggling to secure the trunk to the chaise. ‘Is he very like you?’

Gabriel gave a snort of amusement. ‘Hardly. Louis is a serious soul with my head for figures, which you need to be a good card player, but I doubt he’s ever played more than whist for sixpenny stakes. He’s a cautious lawyer to the bone, although where he inherited that from, I have no idea. When he’s finished his final year at university I hope he will take control of the estates for me. He could go to the Inns of Court and eat his dinners, qualify fully, but I think he wants to get down to work.’

‘He is not your only brother, is he?’

‘He is the youngest. Ben’s in the army and George is a vicar. I haven’t seen them for over a year, I suppose. We’re not a close family and they don’t seem to have wanted money recently. Not so much they needed to turn up to ask for it in person, anyway. Oh, for goodness sake! Haven’t you two the slightest idea of how to tie a rope?’ He strode across to the chaise and snatched the rope from the flustered footmen, flicking it into place and tying off the ends with a complex, rapid knot.

How sad that he was not close to his brothers, Caroline thought. She adored Anthony and even Lucas was good company when he wasn’t pandering to their father’s latest whims. A soldier, a vicar, a lawyer and a gambler. In most families the gambler would be the youngest son, not the oldest. Gabriel was intelligent, decisive, gallant and...isolated, she thought. Despite his friends, despite his title and rank, he seemed to be a wolf walking in the wild, fierce and independent and alone.

‘Ready,’ Gabriel said, and opened the chaise door for her. ‘You have everything you need?’

‘I will miss you.’ The words were unconsidered, true. Unwise.

Gabriel’s expression had been neutral, now it became even more shuttered. ‘You should be glad to see the back of me.’

‘You gave up a valuable estate for me. You understood that I was in trouble, so you rescued me. You have made a future possible for both Anthony and for me. It all took time and money and effort and risk. I am very grateful.’

‘I am easily bored, it was a diversion,’ Gabriel said with a shrug. ‘Do not have any delusions, Caroline. I take what I want for as long as it is amusing and no longer. You have my lawyer’s address for any correspondence.’ He closed the door and walked away as the others appeared on the steps.

‘Gabriel?’ Tess called, then shrugged and came to where Caroline still stood on the step of the chaise. ‘Men! Now, take care and don’t forget to write. Let us know if there is anything that you need.’

‘You have been so very kind, thank you.’ Of course her lip was trembling and her vision was blurred. Tess and Tamsyn had become friends in these past few days and it was a wrench to leave them. Nothing to do with insensitive, amoral, hard-hearted men. Nothing. She had been a distraction for a while, now he no longer wanted her. She was no longer amusing. Fair enough. She did not want him. Not at all.

Caroline blew her nose briskly as the chaise rattled away over the cobbles and into Piccadilly. By the time it drew up in front of Wellings and Arbuthott, Suppliers of Domestic Staff to the Nobility, her new spectacles were firmly in place, her face composed and her spine straight. She had been snubbed, but that was her own fault for attempting to get close to a rake. The lesson was learned and she wouldn’t make that mistake again if she ever saw Gabriel Stone in the future, which was reassuringly unlikely.

* * *

‘There is a young gentleman to see you, my lord.’

Gabriel turned with relief from Louis’s lecture on the desirable length for agricultural leases. He was never certain whether his youngest brother was naturally earnest or whether it was a shield he erected when they were together. For the thousandth time he wondered if Louis was actually afraid of him, then dismissed the thought. He was unconscious that night when their father...died. He could remember nothing of it, surely?

He realised that Hampshire was waiting for him to collect his thoughts. ‘No card?’