Gabriel: Lord of Regrets (27 page)

She looked confused, then her lip quivered, and Gabriel felt something twang in his chest, hard, painfully hard. He scooped her into his lap and settled with her on a bench, while Soldier eyed them placidly and cocked a hip a few feet away.

“It’s like this.” He kept his arms around her while she leaked tears onto his chest. “When you love somebody, you don’t care what the labels are. You don’t care who is their mama or their aunt. I’m Hesketh, right?”

She nodded emphatically, damn near knocking his chin with her crown.

“You don’t care about that title. You never even knew I had a title. Your steppapa could end up with a title, and you don’t care about that either, do you?”

Head wag this time.

“The words don’t matter, Allemande, not as much as the feelings.”

“Then w-why don’t I feel like anybody w-wants me?”

She howled the question, all the hurt and confusion in her finally finding a voice. She bawled at length, loudly, soaking his lapels and clutching wrinkles in his cravat.

“They have me, but they want that stupid b-baby more, and think up names for it all the time,” Allie went on. “Aunt wants to paint, and Uncle brags that he can keep her busy for
years
and
years
, and then I might n-never see her again. And you wouldn’t say where you’d gone, and I hate it all… I just, I hate it
to
death
.”

He let her cry until he wanted to cry himself, because she was so lost and despairing, so far from home.

From an adult perspective, Allemande Hunt had been afforded legitimacy by her mother’s and her aunt’s sacrifices, and legitimacy should have been a treasured gift.

From an adult perspective, she’d acquired a wealthy, respected, loving stepfather, one whose connections in the greater world assured her security and likely her pick of husband as well.

From an adult perspective, her wealthy uncle had taken an interest in her future too, and what doors her stepfather couldn’t open, her uncle could, and not just in England.

She was a very fortunate and very heartbroken little girl, and she could turn to nobody except Gabriel to put right what was wrong.

Polly watched her daughter sleep, something she’d taken for granted when they lived at Three Springs. Allie’s appearance hadn’t changed noticeably since Polly had left weeks ago, but on the inside, where only a mother might see, the child was changing.

Guilt tore at Polly, not that Allie had given her anything to feel guilty about. Allie was polite, pleasant, and entirely without the mischievous spirit Polly had always treasured. Something was afoot, but perhaps it was only suppressed anger at a mother who’d abdicated from the job God assigned her.

And tomorrow, Tremaine would mount up and ride away, taking Allie with him. The thought was unbearable, as unbearable as if he were riding to war with Allie or departing across wide oceans, perhaps never to be seen again.

And the worst, worst part was that Gabriel would think he understood the ache in Polly’s heart and would offer her comfort, support, and understanding, though in truth, he wouldn’t understand anything at all.

She dreaded the lie she’d allowed to grow between them, dreaded more that Allie was expected to support the lie and live it. In two years of eating at the same table, tending to the same animals, and living under the same roof, Gabriel had never questioned who was Mother, and who was Aunt to the child. He’d worked, hard and incessantly; he’d been kind to Allie, and often more tolerant of her than her own family was.

But he’d not been taken into their confidence, and it was too late now.

Polly brushed a hand over Allie’s forehead and pressed a kiss to the child’s brow. She recited a mother’s prayers for her child’s safety and happiness, and never thought to add a word or two regarding her own.

***

Gabriel’s back wasn’t hurting, so much, but it was threatening to hurt and had him up and about well before dawn. He’d lost the habit of leaving the kitchen to the help and had thought nothing of repairing there to start his day with a cup of tea rather than wait about in his rooms for the breakfast buffet to be set up.

“What are you doing, prowling about down here?” Polly punched a wad of bread dough hard, folded it, and punched again in a familiar rhythm.

“I might ask you the same thing. Guests are not usually expected to make their own meals here at Hesketh.” Though he’d given orders
this
guest was to enjoy free rein in the kitchens at any hour. He pinched off a bit of dough and swung the pot over the open hearth. “One gathers you’ve had trouble sleeping.”

“Does one?”

Punch, fold, punch, fold.

Gabriel made a strategic retreat into the pantry and assembled the tea fixings on a tray, which he brought to the worktable. A sketch pad lay open, images of Allie covering the page.

“How have you found Allemande?”

“She’s… coping,” Polly replied as she pounded the dough within an inch of its floury life. “She says she’s looking forward to having a younger sibling, because she knows all about being a big sister, courtesy of Hildy and Hermione.”

“I suppose the basics are the same across species,” Gabriel offered, studying a sketch of Allie drawing her cat. “At least, at first. You keep one end fed, the other clean, and try to figure out which end is in distress when the creatures cries.”

“There’s a great deal more to it than that.” She left off punishing the dough and shaped it into two loaves. “I was going to make sweet rolls.”

“Don’t let me interfere with your culinary creativity.” He took the boiling pot off the hearth and poured the water into the teapot.

“I don’t feel like sweet rolls anymore.” Polly swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Must you drink that here?”

“Yes.” Gabriel got down two mugs. “The fires aren’t built up elsewhere in the house, and you’re here.”

“I don’t want to be here.” She leaned her back against the counter, wrapping her arms around her middle. Gabriel studied the line of her spine, the determination and misery in it, and set the mugs on the tray.

“Come.” He grasped her wrist, because her hands were floury, and pulled her to the back hallway. “Look at the ground, Polonaise.”

Polly shot him a scowl, but did as he bid, which meant he could show her a thick blanket of white covering everything—trees, lawns, benches, buildings.

“It started about three in the morning,” Gabriel said. “My back was warning me, and it further warns me that this won’t let up for a while. You won’t have to say good-bye to the child today.”

She pressed her forehead to the glass, and her shoulders slumped, in relief, he hoped, then he heard her breath hitch.

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s cold back here, and there’s a pot of tea waiting for you.” She went without protesting, which suggested more about how upset she was than even her posture had. He passed her his handkerchief and sat her at the table.

“I have to wash my hands.”

“Later,” he admonished as he poured her tea, added cream and sugar, and pushed the mug into her hands. “You sit and drink, and I will make sweet rolls.”

He knew how only because she’d showed him the first winter they’d been at Three Springs. He and Allie had learned on the same magically snowy day, and had occasionally exercised the skill when Polly allowed them the privilege.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?” Gabriel asked as he assembled spices and sugar. “That you’d be down here reverting to old habits?”

“That I was fretting over Allie’s leave-taking?”

“I know you, Polonaise,” he said, and he nearly added: What mother wouldn’t be fretting? Instead, he busied himself with melting butter on the stove. “You might fix a fellow a cup of tea, you know.”

“I might, except I have to wash my hands or I’ll get flour all over your mug.”

“Heaven forfend.” Gabriel mixed dark sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg—no cloves—into the melted butter. “Where are the confounded nuts in this kitchen?”

“Over the sink. Walnuts would do.”

“Nicely,” Gabriel agreed, for walnuts had been all they could afford at Three Springs. “I’ve asked St. Michael to stay on a bit, which you would know, were you not holed up with that child like a fox with a fall cub.”

“You could have told me, though I could have asked, you’re right. I’m just too…”

“Upset.” Gabriel rolled one of the loaves of dough out into a rectangle and poured half the sweet, buttery syrup over it, then sprinkled nuts over the lot. “If you are upset, Polonaise, you have only to apply to me, and I will deal with it.”

“You can’t fix everything with a wave of your hand, Gabriel. That’s a lot of nuts.”

“I like nuts. Allemande likes nuts.”

“She does.” This was said so miserably that Gabriel dusted his hands and sat beside Polly on her bench at the table. He took time to fix himself a cup of tea but then didn’t take a sip.

“You love that child. Why must you take yourself from her?”

“It’s time I did,” Polly said, resting against him. “There will never be a good time, but Beck and Sara deserve privacy, and I wasn’t needed there any longer.”

“Have you asked Allemande what she needs of you?”

“Children aren’t to be burdened with adult decisions. Hold me.”

“I can do better than that.” He rose and led her by the wrist to the pantry, closing the door behind them.

“Gabriel, it’s pitch dark, and the servants—”

“Know you are to have absolute dominion over the kitchen when you choose,” he finished. “And yes, it’s dark, so you’ll have to go by touch, won’t you?”

“Go?”

He hiked her up onto a counter that seemed about the right height. “You’ve been avoiding me, Polonaise. This is cruel to us both, also pointless.” He rucked her skirts up around her waist, and it took a little searching in the dark, but Gabriel soon had her hands planted on his chest.

“Where are your clothes, Gabriel Wendover?”

“I’m naked from the waist up.” He assured her of this by moving her hands over his chest. “You will not get flour on anything that matters. Kiss me.”

He didn’t give her time to protest, but found her mouth with his by virtue of framing her face with his hands and settling his lips over hers.

“Gabriel… we can’t.” But she didn’t pull away; in fact, she hooked one leg around his waist and cinched him closer.

“You’re in need of comfort, and pleasure can be a comfort.”

“But it can also—”

He kissed her again, and he’d not only removed his shirt in the pitch darkness, he’d also unbuttoned his falls. He let her feel that too.

“God, Gabriel.” She hooked the second leg around him and arched closer. “I want—”

“You want my hand on your breast, and my paws are not covered with flour, so you may have what you want.” He palmed one breast and applied gentle pressure.

“More,” she murmured against his mouth. “And I want you. Inside me.”

“Here?” He nudged at her and formed an actual thought as she went still: of all the ways they’d coupled, fast hadn’t been among them; nor had he taken her standing up. She was wonderfully open to him, and her hands roamed his back with such possession he couldn’t form another thought for all the need clawing at him.

“Gabriel.” She tried to lunge her hips at him, but he maneuvered away.

“Promise me, Polonaise.” He teased her again with the tip of his cock and a glancing caress to her breast.

She yanked him closer with her legs. “Promise you what?”

“You’ll tell me when something troubles you,” he growled, nipping at her earlobe. “Give me your word, Polonaise.”

“You want too much.” She slid her hands around his buttocks, then gave a frustrated growl of her own and slipped her fingers beneath his breeches, whereupon she got her claws into his arse. “Come here.”

“Promise.” He gave her two slow inches. “Or there won’t be any coming, here or otherwise.”

“Damn you.”

“Please, Polonaise.” He went still, except for the hand he smoothed over her hair. “I need you to promise.”

“I promise. I will tell you if I’m troubled. Now, I
beg
you, Gabriel, love me, please.”

He sank into her, in gratitude and relief, and it was some moments before he was able to reason that simply asking her for what he needed might be a tactic worth considering in the future.

***

Tremaine, damn his industrious half-French, half-Scottish hide, was already up and about, and likely eluding Polly on purpose. She’d wanted to ask him if the snow was truly reason enough to delay his departure, because if it wasn’t…

She’d been up half the night, sketching her sleeping daughter, pacing, dreading the next day’s parting, and longing for Gabriel’s arms around her.

Gabriel, who wouldn’t understand even if she found the courage to tell him.

Gabriel, who’d extracted a terrible promise, one she couldn’t keep even as she’d learned how to beg in the darkness of the pantry.

She made a mental decision to find Tremaine before the day was out and to accept his proposal of marriage, really accept it. As a traveling artist, Polly could not have her daughter with her, but as the girl’s aunt, and married to Allie’s wealthy uncle, there would be enough of a connection to guarantee she could see Allie very often.

And with Tremaine, there wouldn’t be any lies and untruths; there would be mutual consideration and friendship.

He would also expect to bed her.

“I can’t think about that.” Polly tied her painting smock on. She couldn’t work on Aaron’s portrait, because the light wasn’t going to accommodate them on such a gloomy day, but she couldn’t not paint, either.

Not today, not with her emotions in such an uproar.

In the heated darkness of the pantry, something had come clear to her.

She didn’t simply care for Gabriel, she wasn’t merely fond of him, or sexually infatuated—not
just
sexually infatuated, that is. She didn’t even
just
love him.

She’d gone and fallen
in
love with him, head over heels, irrevocably, absolutely. He’d known, he’d
known
easily, without a word from her, what had her so upset, and he’d offered her what comfort he could. The comfort he offered was terribly tempting, and because she did love him, she had to stop matters from going any further. He’d hate her for leaving him, but he’d hate her worse did she allow them to become further entangled.

And Tremaine’s proposal was the perfect cudgel with which to beat Gabriel’s untoward affection for her into oblivion. Gabriel was pragmatic and deliberate. He’d comprehend the message clearly enough when she announced her engagement, and Tremaine would get them a special license, did she ask it of him.

She’d ask. She’d demand.

If that didn’t work, she’d beg. She was getting good at it.

***

Aaron poked his head into the library, then came into the room, closing the door behind him. “We’re off.”

“Gone to inspect fences?” Gabriel tossed down his pen and regarded his brother’s disgustingly cheerful countenance.

“The sleigh is hitched,” Aaron said. “St. Michael is coming with us because his niece batted her pretty dark eyes at him, and Marjorie is joining us, lest her mother use the snow as an excuse to come calling.”

Gabriel decided not to ruin his brother’s mood entirely. “Enjoy your outing, then. But, Aaron?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve asked Kettering to travel here at his convenience.”

“Kettering?” Aaron grimaced. “Rather like asking Old Scratch over for Yuletide, isn’t it?”

Beelzebub, at least. “I’ve had a few thoughts I need to run by him, but I’m not willing to go back up to Town to do it. For all the coin we pay him, he can take a little country air.” While Gabriel kept an eye on Polonaise, Allemande, dear Uncle Tremaine, Lady Hartle, and various others among the
dramatis
personae
.

“I’ll not have Kettering interrogating Marjorie. I expect your support on that.”

“You have it,” Gabriel said, leaving his desk to build up the fire. “I don’t think it will come to that, in any case, but Kettering will respect your wishes.”

“See that he does.” Aaron took his leave, though as he attempted to shut the door behind him, Allie skipped into the room.

“Are you coming?”