Gabriel: Lord of Regrets (9 page)

“Horses do the best job of fertilizing.” Danner sat back, no doubt ready to start in on a rousing difference of opinion over the merits of various types of manure. “Anybody knows horse shite works a treat compared to the others.”

The baby grabbed Gabriel’s ear. “You believe this?”

“I know it. I’ve the yields to prove it.”

“If I sent Aaron here to discuss this with you, could you make the time?”

Danner cracked another smile. “You don’t be sending that one anywhere. You be asking him to look in on me, and that’ll do. There isn’t a man standing can resist Joan’s sweet rolls.”

“Get her to make you up some of that salve.” Gabriel bent to hand off his burden. “And you’ll be dancing with Edith when her turn comes.”

“I plan to.” Danner took the baby and cradled her in his arms. “You’ve a way with a babe, my lord. You should be finding yourself a bride.”

“What has one to do with the other?”

“Ah, now,” Danner chided, “you’ve been farming and growing up, you say. A man who can handle a wee child is ready to handle a wife as well.” He shouted for Joan, which caused the baby to giggle. “Send his lordship along with some sweet rolls, and make up another batch. Looks like we might be having more company.”

Gabriel waited for Joan to wrap up the rolls, though as a younger man, he would have made his excuses rather than been seen stealing off with treats like a schoolboy.

A younger, stupider man. The thought made him smile as he thanked Joan for the rolls, complimented her on her grandchild, and urged her to give the salve a try. The first bun was gone before he’d gotten within a mile of the manor; then he spied Marjorie out with her groom and changed direction to intercept her.

Marjorie offered him a tentative smile. “Good morning, my lord. You called on the Danners?”

Gabriel returned her smile, though this seemed to alarm her. “I did, including the fair Miss Edith. Is that the half Turk you mentioned at dinner last night?”

She petted her horse, her whole demeanor relaxing as she went into a rhapsody about the horse’s stamina and sense.

“Could I trouble you to sit with me for a few minutes?” Gabriel asked when she was done with her panegyric, and immediately her guard went back up. “I’ve sweet rolls, you see, and wouldn’t want to eat them all myself. Or I would, but you will preserve me from such gluttony.”

“It’s clouding up, my lord.” The clouds were lowering, true enough, but clouds lowered over most locations in England several times a day.

“It’s been clouding up all morning.” Gabriel dismounted and handed Soldier’s reins to the groom. “My horse asks you to spare him from the additional weight of all these sweets, on me or my person.” He reached up to lift her out of the saddle and saw something like panic flare in her eyes. But she got to the ground in a lithe movement, and he found she was not quite as insubstantial as her appearance suggested.

“I don’t bite, my lady,” he murmured quietly so the groom wouldn’t overhear. “Not without an invitation anyway. Shall we stroll?”

“Let’s sit, if we’re to see to your sweets.”

“Come.” He winged an elbow, and she wrapped a hand around his forearm, though he could feel the tension in her and wondered if she’d always been so high-strung. “Will that bench do?” The very same bench upon which he’d first spoken with his brother.

“Of course.”

When they were seated, Gabriel passed along a sweet roll and laid his handkerchief between them. “Danner claims they’re irresistible. I have to agree. But, Marjorie?” She risked a glance at him when he paused. “I’m going to gobble up my treat, not my sister-in-law.”

***

Marjorie set the roll down untouched, and Gabriel couldn’t read her reaction. He munched in silence, wondering how one broached the topic he had in mind. The groom was patiently walking the horses a good distance away, and there were only so many rolls to stall with.

A yellow leaf came twirling down and landed beside his handkerchief.

“You don’t want to be married to me, do you?” Gabriel figured that was a fine place to start, while Marjorie found it worthy of a blush. “You won’t hurt my feelings, Marjorie, if you tell me you’ve developed an attachment to my brother. I rather like him myself.”

“It’s difficult, my lord.” Her voice was low, and she hunched forward as if to hide her face.

Gabriel munched on his roll, though all he could taste was guilt that Marjorie was to be subjected to awkwardness. More awkwardness. “Eat your sweet, my dear. It isn’t difficult. I was more than willing to marry you previously. You’re pretty, intelligent, pleasant company, and familiar with the Hesketh seat and holdings. The match would have been appropriate.” Which was an awful word for an intimate, lifelong relationship.

She stripped off her gloves and dutifully picked up a roll. “But now?”

“Now I think your affections have been engaged elsewhere, and I do not give one good goddamn—pardon my language—for what your mother wants. Neither should you.”

“She isn’t your mother, my lord.”

Gabriel dusted off his fingers on the handkerchief. “I think we might address each other informally, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what to call you.” Marjorie tore a bite off her roll but did not eat it. “And you don’t know my mother when she’s determined on something. Ask Aaron, for he’s borne the brunt of her maneuvering.”

Twenty yards away, the groom walked the horses, their hooves sloshing through the carpet of fallen leaves with a sussurating rhythm that put Gabriel in mind of the springs at his former post.

“I do ask Aaron. My brother tells me I’m to get the truth out of you, and he’ll abide by whatever your wishes are regarding the disposition of your marriage. But it isn’t that simple, you see.”

“I don’t see.” Marjorie hunched farther forward, looking young and put upon, which she was. “Mama claims there are legalities upon legalities, and good solicitors could make a great batch of scandal broth out of the lot.”

“And why would she do this to her only daughter? You and Aaron seem not exactly content, but suited.”

“He doesn’t think so,” Marjorie muttered around a mouthful of pastry. “He’s merely dutiful, my lord, and so am I. So here we are.”

Here we are, on a pretty fall day threatening to turn damp and miserable.

“So where are my heirs, Marjorie?” Gabriel put the question quietly, his conversation with Polly ringing in his ears. “I know my brother, and in two years, he hasn’t become a monk.”

She was silent, brushing the dead leaf off their bench, which told him Polly had likely been right.

Gabriel scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck and longed for the days when a simple steward might have a pleasant chat with his friend and confidante, the fair Hildegard. “A man doesn’t threaten to call out his own brother over a woman he regards as a mere duty.”

“Aaron threatened to meet you?”

“Which could leave him with the title anyway, something he says he does not want,” Gabriel pointed out. “This suggests he’s not thinking rationally. He cares for you.”

“He’s a gentleman,” Marjorie said, staring at her half-eaten roll. “He hates the business, though. All that correspondence, hours in the library with a pen in his hand, when what he wants is to be out, seeing to the land.”

“So he criticizes George at every turn and finds many excuses to leave his desk and get into the fresh air.”

“George finds many excuses to bother him,” Marjorie countered. “The man is afraid to make a decision, or so Aaron has said.”

“My father did not suffer fools,” Gabriel rejoined, though Papa had had a sweet tooth. “He took the management of the land most seriously. George learned diplomacy and deference as a result. But we stray from my topic, Marjorie: Will you fight for your marriage, or must I do it for you?”

“You?” She shot him such an incredulous look that Gabriel was assailed by… not simply guilt, but shame.

A coolish sort of breeze fluttered the edges of his handkerchief and sent more leaves cascading toward the earth.

“I wasn’t a very good fiancé, was I?”

“You’re a dozen years my senior. Were you supposed to play dolls with me?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said, “if that’s what it took to become your friend.”

He was friends with Polly. The realization caused a trickle of warmth to well up through his insides.

“
Now
you want to be friends?”

“You could use a friend,” Gabriel said. “God knows, I can use a few more.”

Marjorie’s expression became thoughtful. “Miss Hunt said the same thing. About me. She said…”

“What did she say?”

“A good friend is the best defense against any adversity.”

“Eat your roll.” Gabriel passed the remaining half to her. “We need to talk again, my lady, but know this: even if you let your mother set aside your marriage to Aaron, I will not be eager to wed you.”

“Plain speaking,” Marjorie allowed as she nibbled on her roll. She did not seem overset by plain speaking.

“You don’t care about the title, do you?”

“Honestly?” Eating her pastry, she looked very pretty and very alone. “I hate it. Aaron hates it, but it’s what brought us together.”

“Hate is a strong word.” Particularly strong coming from Marjorie.

“The title cost me my mother,” Marjorie said, popping the last bite into her mouth. “Your title did. She’s a good mother to my brothers and sisters, but in my case, she stopped seeing
me
long ago. I’m not a daughter to her; I’m a marchioness on the hoof.”

“One comprehends your point.” Gabriel smiled at her bluntness and at the way the roll had disappeared now that her nerves had settled. “Do you also hate the idea of providing the Hesketh heir?”

Marjorie dusted her hands together and made a production out of folding her gloves over and tucking them into a pocket. “You were blunt before, but not… not like this.”

“I’ve been away from society,” Gabriel replied, “but I ask, not out of vulgar curiosity, but because it’s the duty of a spare to provide the offspring if the title holder can’t. As Aaron’s wife, that duty could well befall you.”

Marjorie waved a second roll in the direction of the Hartle holdings. “Tell that to Mama. She craves the title, not the right to crow that her grandson is the heir.”

“Are you sure?” Gabriel thought back to little Edith and the magic of her gummy smile.

“I am certain.” Marjorie made short work of her second sweet. “It’s as if Mama gets the title by having it hung around my neck.”

“I suppose I could die again,” Gabriel mused, shifting about to ease the ache in his back. “That would serve her ends.”

“Don’t even jest about it.” Marjorie’s tone was uncharacteristically sharp. “You didn’t see your brother upon the occasion of your death. He wanted to go to Spain, because the reports did not satisfy him you were truly gone. But then your father took ill and Mama started her nonsense and the estate was without leadership. You put much on him, and it’s not a joking matter.”

The female of the species apparently did the protecting at Hesketh too. “Believe me, Marjorie, I was unable to come home at the time, not unwilling.”

“Aaron says your back still pains you.”

“Sometimes.” When had Aaron passed that along? “He’s decent to you?”

“Always. He’s better since you’ve come back, though. He’s not so beset, not so terribly worried every minute.”

“We were never exactly close, not like some brothers,” Gabriel reflected. “I think we each assumed the other would always be there. I didn’t want him to buy his colors, but he was horse mad and going quietly crazy here.”

“I tried to talk him out of signing up, but he’s as stubborn as Mama.”

“Stubborn is not necessarily a bad thing.” Gabriel bumped her shoulder gently with his. “You might try it yourself.”

“No, thank you.” Marjorie passed him his handkerchief, which allowed him to capture her hand and hold it. “There’s enough stubbornness hereabouts to suffice.”

“You love him, don’t you?” Gabriel said it quietly, but she heard him because she held his gaze long enough for him to see her eyes filling with tears.

“It doesn’t signify.”

Gabriel prevented her from rising by his grip on her hand, because he had the sense her next words would be the most important they’d exchanged.

“Mama says…”

“Hang Mama.” Gabriel pulled her to him and looped an arm across her shoulders. “Would you treat your daughter the way your mama treats you?”

“N-no.” She shook her head, her forehead resting on his shoulder. “Never.”

“That should tell you something, Marjorie the Reluctant Marchioness.” He tucked his handkerchief into her hand. “You and Aaron need to talk about your marriage. I know he’s stubborn and he’s hardheaded, but you love this about him too. Find a way to use it to your advantage.”

“There isn’t a way.” She shifted, and he let her go. “You’ll see. Mama will get that dreadful Mr. Erskine to threaten all manner of legal warfare, and you’ll fall into line, and Aaron will allow it.”

“Talk to him,” Gabriel urged, patting her hand. “I’m satisfied you don’t want to be my bride, and you must understand I won’t want you for my wife.”

“I understand, and ought to thank you for it, but it’s Mama who must understand,” Marjorie said as she rose and smoothed out her habit. “If Aaron lets me be set aside and you won’t have me, then I can’t think what my life will be like under my mother’s roof.”

“You’ll have the dower house, if you wish it,” Gabriel said, the decision made as the words left his lips. “If it comes to that, which I doubt, you’ll have support for life from Hesketh. Aaron will insist on it, at least.”

“You mean this?”

“I’m not in the habit of jesting over such matters.”

She regarded him, looking not quite so young. “That is more like the man I was engaged to. Not in the habit of jesting about much of anything. You’re different now. Aaron says it’s as if you’ve been to war.”

“I’ve the injury to support the analogy. Shall we walk back, or would you prefer to ride?”

“Walk,” Marjorie decided, letting Gabriel signal the groom to return the horses to the stables. “So what were you doing all those months we feared you were dead?”