Gift-Wrapped Governess (21 page)

 

The next morning, with Portia, Land and Jack having been entrusted to their new best friend, Gabriel's head groom, Regan took the opportunity to pick a spray of winter foliage and set off on her own private pilgrimage. Wandering past the brew house, the old bakery, the stillrooms and cold stores that had been built for the original manor, she took the short path that led to the steward's house. Smoke billowed from the
chimney. Clutching her cloak around her, for the first flakes of snow were beginning to fall, she leaned against a mossy wall and lost herself in the past.

‘I thought I'd find you here.'

‘Gabriel! You startled me, I was miles away.'

‘Years, you mean. Has it changed much?'

‘Very little.'

‘Do you remember the time when your father caught us using his precious accounts table as a spinning top?'

Regan smiled. The table, made of sturdy oak, was circular and set on a rotating device that facilitated access to the alphabetised drawers. She had been sitting in the middle of it, with Gabriel whirling her round and round, when her father had come in. ‘What a lecture he read us. You especially, I recall.'

‘
“One day, the privilege of administering this most esteemed estate will fall to you, Master Gabriel. I trust by that time you will have learned to treat it with more respect.”
I've never forgotten. He made me feel so unworthy, a much more effective punishment than anything my own father ever meted out. Beatings, I could easily forget. The disapproving and disappointed look on your father's face, never. I like to think he would approve of my actions since I inherited the title.'

‘I was just on my way to visit his grave.'

‘Shall I accompany you?'

‘I'm sure you must have other things…'

‘Oh, a thousand, but none more important. I won't come if you don't want me to.'

She tucked her hand into his arm. ‘No, I'd like that. Thank you.'

They walked together in silence, their steps evenly matched, along the lane that followed the path of the Blairmore River, across the rustic wooden bridge, to the ornate gate which gave entry to the graveyard. Gabriel lifted the
latch and ushered Regan through. It was quiet here; only the tumbling of the water over the rocks on the shallow riverbed disturbed the silence. The ducal crypt was a simple stone building with the crest over the door, rather like a small chapel. Around it, the graves of other family members were clustered, some dating back over two hundred years, the inscriptions eroded and worn smooth by the passage of time and the weather.

It was testament to the esteem in which her father had been held, Regan knew, that he was buried there, for it was a privilege accorded very few outside the immediate family.

‘I'll wait here,' Gabriel said. ‘Take as much time as you need.'

Twelve years since she had been here, but she picked her way without hesitation to the spot against the western wall where Papa lay. In the lonely days after he died, Regan had come here often. With Gabriel at school and Mama too taken up with her own cares, clearing the house that she had called her own, Regan had been largely left to her own devices. Setting the spray of greenery she had picked on the ground beside the stone, she knelt down on the cold ground. An immense sadness overwhelmed her, for how happy a family they had been, unwittingly thinking their life at Blairmore Hall would go on for ever. When they left, and her mother had remarried, she had been discouraged from mentioning their previous life, for her mother wanted to look to the future.

‘I hope you do not blame her, Papa, as I did, at first,' Regan whispered, her fingers tracing his name on the cold stone. ‘I thought she wanted me to forget you, but I realise now it was just her way of coping. Dear Papa, I hope you do not blame me either. I could not talk of you to Mama, but you were always in my thoughts, I promise you.'

At the gate, Gabriel watched her, caught up in a tangle of unfamiliar emotions. Had his father been more like Regan's, he would perhaps have realised how much his death would
affect her. Though there was little he could have done other than write expressing his condolences, he felt guilty for not having performed even that small act of kindness. The loss of her mother had brought her a different kind of hardship. Duty and obligation—Regan understood those every bit as much as he did.

Strange coincidence that they had been similarly burdened in the last five years, she struggling to raise a family that was not hers, he struggling to repair the damage inflicted on the estate by a profligacy not his. It was true, such a struggle was isolating, but was he lonely, as Regan was?

Perhaps. Was it odd that he had not considered that a wife and family would remedy this condition? Most people would say so. Would Regan? There was no denying that he felt an inexplicable urge to confide in her. She would understand, he was sure of it. He had never craved understanding before, but he needed Regan to understand him, if only because it would stop her judging him harshly. It confused him that her opinion of him mattered so much. He was not used to being confused. It was an uncomfortable feeling and it was all Regan's fault.

Regan. She had none of the English peaches-and-cream beauty each of his potential brides had. Her attraction was in the serenity of her brow, the clear-sighted gaze of her big hazel eyes, the inviting curve of her mouth. It was in her expression rather than her features. There was, too, a hint of latent sensuality that whispered its soft desire to be woken. When he had kissed her, it had not so much been the touch of her lips, nor the feel of her slender body moulded to his, that had aroused him so. More the way she had looked at him, the way she had kissed him back. Her desire would match his. Fiery, like her hair. Like her temper. He still could not quite come to terms with the changes in her, so strong-willed and so ready with her opinions. Circumstances had moulded her, experience had shaped her. He knew all about that.

A longing for something he could not describe and did not want to name filled him as she made her way across the grass to him. ‘I have to get back. I promised I'd show the ladies around the portrait gallery before luncheon,' he said, his voice sounding much more brusque than he intended.

‘Then we had better make haste,' Regan said. ‘Thank you for coming with me this morning, Gabriel. It made a difficult task less onerous.'

‘It was nothing, truly. I only wish I had done more to lessen your burden at the time.'

‘As you said yesterday, water under the bridge. We should hurry—I won't have your mother accusing me of leading you astray yet again.'

D
espite his stated anxiousness to get back to the Hall, they walked slowly on the return journey, stopping to throw sticks over one side of the bridge, rushing to the other rail to watch their journey downstream. There were icicles hanging from the wooden struts. Gabriel tucked Regan's hand into his arm as they walked. ‘Are you really happy with your lot in life?'

‘You asked me that yesterday.'

‘You didn't answer yesterday.'

She frowned. ‘If pressed, I would say I am content rather than happy. I confess, there are times when doing one's duty is not quite the reward it ought to be.'

‘With that, I can agree wholeheartedly.'

‘This estate, the title—it must carry great responsibilities.'

‘More than you can imagine.'

He was looking straight ahead, his face set into forbidding lines. Only yesterday, it would have been enough to discourage her from probing further, but something had subtly changed in the nature of their relationship. He was still essentially a stranger to her, but a stranger whose fate mattered. ‘This marriage you are contemplating…I cannot help but think you will regret it.'

Gabriel sighed. ‘I thought I had explained my reasons.'

‘Explained, but not persuaded me of their validity. You are placing too much reliance on how the ladies relate to children. If you had seen how I was with children before I was obliged to learn, you would have thought me disastrous. Necessity is a wonderful teacher.'

‘Not always. I have an example very close to home which proves that.'

Regan grimaced. ‘True, but—has it never occurred to you that your parents were largely indifferent to you because they were so indifferent to each other? Such an ill-matched pair could never be happy.'

‘Which is precisely the reason for how I am going about things. By taking care to select a wife who shares my own values, then I believe affection will in time grow between us.'

‘Affection is such a trivial emotion compared to love, Gabriel. True love. Real love. The love that should exist between a man and his wife. And you have to remember, you will be a husband before you are a father. Wanting always to be with someone. Feeling incomplete without them. I believe—I
strongly
believe—that it must be the foundation stone for any marriage.' Regan stopped abruptly, conscious of having strayed far into very personal territory.

‘Which romantic folly explains your own single state, presumably,' Gabriel said, made cruel by being made once more to question himself. ‘Though more likely your siblings put paid to any such hopes.'

‘Well, in that you are quite mistaken,' Regan retorted, hurt by his coldness. ‘Not all men are so wary of
encumbrances
as you are! As a matter of fact, there was someone, only it did not transpire.'

‘What happened?'

‘Mr Elmsley is an eminently respectable, perfectly nice, kind man with a most respectable fortune, and he was happy
to welcome Portia, Land and Jack into his home. Only—only I didn't love him.'

Gabriel's eyebrows shot up. ‘In your circumstances, surely you cannot have considered
that
of such import?'

‘I consider it
the
most important thing. Foolish as it may sound to you, I am not willing to sacrifice my own chance of lasting happiness just to provide the children with a father figure and a more comfortable home.'

‘You also sacrificed the opportunity to have a family of your own.'

‘My own children, if I am ever blessed with them, will be the product of love, not of duty. I, thank heaven, do not have your dynastic obligations.'

‘And I, thank heaven, do not have your sentimental, illogical mind,' Gabriel threw at her. ‘The very idea of basing a marriage on such a volatile emotion strikes me as foolish to the point of madness. Spent passion is more dangerous than indifference, it is a receipt for disaster.'

They had reached the gate to the Elizabethan terraces. Gabriel tilted up her chin with his finger, forcing her to meet his eyes. Grey more than blue, a hint of the temper he was straining to keep in check in the set of his mouth. ‘I told you already, Regan, but I'll say it again, just so that there is no room for misunderstanding. I am taking the happiness of my future family very seriously.'

Regan pushed his hand away, determined not to let him intimidate her. ‘But not your own, I note. I know you mean what you say, Gabriel, but I cannot agree with you.'

She made to walk away, but Gabriel caught her cloak and pulled her to him. ‘It is you who are misguided, Regan, holding out for love. At least the qualities I seek actually exist.'

His body was hard against her own, tensed like a coiled spring. The same tension coiled in her, making her reckless. ‘You are choosing duty over happiness, Gabriel. Security over love.'

‘You mean passion.' Under her cloak, Gabriel's hand tightened on her waist. He knew he should not be doing this, knew it was dangerous, but could not seem to stop. He flattened his other hand on her back. He could feel the heat of her skin through the wool of her gown, the soft leather of his gloves.

‘I mean love. Enduring love, which in turn makes passion endure.' She was speaking from the heart, about feelings so deep she had not ever put them into words, yet she felt no embarrassment, only a sense of urgency. It mattered somehow, though she did not know why. ‘When one loves, truly loves, passion cannot be spent,' she said recklessly, wondering if she would ever find out the truth of such a bold statement. She couldn't breathe. Gabriel's touch was indecent. This conversation was most improper. Her reaction to it even more so, for though she knew she should end it, she did not want to.

‘Passion is nature's chemistry, nothing more. The attraction of opposites, which first pulls, then repels. It is nature's whimsy to make that desire burn too bright, for it makes the extinguishing of the flame all the more bitter,' Gabriel said, taking sanctuary in cold, dispassionate logic, in an effort to explain the quite illogical effect Regan's kiss had had on him. Simple attraction, nothing more. Irrelevant, if temporarily distracting, as was the curve of her bottom at the base of her spine and the swell of her breasts through her dress.

‘Love is not so ephemeral,' Regan replied. Gabriel's touch was making her hot and cold at the same time. A confusion of impulses made it impossible for her to move. ‘Such passions as you are talking about are not love.'

‘Basic instincts,' Gabriel insisted, ‘that is all they are. That is what drove our kiss yesterday. Now that we understand it, we will be able to resist it.' He meant it, though his voice did not echo his conviction, for the heat of her, the heady perfume of her, her slender softness were making his senses reel, his groin ache.

‘Resist?' She was sure he was going to kiss her again. She
was sure he was talking arrant nonsense. She had no idea what she thought, save that she wanted him to kiss her. She couldn't think of anything but his kissing her; she couldn't take her eyes from his mouth, willing it to claim hers, until he hesitated, and she remembered just as he did, and pulled away.

‘The portrait gallery,' Gabriel said curtly.

‘Where your Three Graces await.'

‘My what?'

‘It's how I think of them,' Regan said, looking away to disguise her blush. ‘You had best hurry or you will be late.'

‘Yes. Yes, I should not keep them waiting,' Gabriel agreed. It was not like him to run away. He was not running away! There was nothing to run away from. What he was doing was sticking to his plan.

‘Basic instinct, he would have it this time,' Regan muttered to herself, pulling the long hood of her cloak over her hair as she watched him stride off. ‘Which feels no more of an explanation than his talk of inappropriate echoes, but he was right about one thing, it should be resisted. A steward's daughter, no matter that she is the granddaughter of a viscount, could never be a match for the Duke of Blairmore, even if she was biddable and unencumbered and all the other things he wants. Not that I would, even if he wanted me. Gabriel Toward is as incapable of love as I am of being so hen-witted as to allow myself to fall in love with him.'

Satisfied with this little declaration, she went off in search of the children, guiltily aware that she had barely given them a second thought all morning.

 

Gabriel was nothing if not thorough. Duty might be a demanding master, but it at least had the merit of familiarity. Not bothering to summon his valet, he changed his buckskins for pantaloons and pulled on a clean white shirt, as he tried
to reassemble the carefully constructed reasoning that had led him down this matrimonial path he was following.

‘I need an heir,' he muttered to his reflection as he deftly folded and tied the length of starched white neckcloth into that most deceptively simple of knots, the Waterfall. ‘I must therefore marry.' Another neat fold. ‘I want my heir to be happy, as I was not. I must therefore ensure that his mother and I are as one in our ambitions for him.' He paused, trying to picture himself with this as-yet-unconceived child. Would he make a good father? An image of himself only this morning, pontificating to Portia, Land and Jack, made him wince. He didn't want to take a chance on necessity teaching him, as Regan said it would.

As he finished the last complex manoeuvre, which resulted in a perfect Waterfall, Gabriel grinned. There was no need for him to do so, when he had a ready-made family to learn from. Buttoning his striped waistcoat and shrugging himself into a dark-brown cutaway coat, he resolved to spend as much time with the children as possible, which would mean spending more time with Regan, but that was unavoidable. He could ignore her allure. He would stop himself from thinking about her. Her lips. Her taste. Her desirable body. He could stop. He could!

 

He spent the afternoon making a concerted attempt to become better acquainted with his Three Graces, as he now could not help thinking of them, to stop himself from wondering where Regan was and what she was doing and to stop himself from comparing their responses to what he imagined would be hers. And, most of all, to stop himself from wishing that he had kissed her again. Just once. Because the ache of
not
having kissed her was proving more difficult to bear than the guilt he would have suffered if he had.

His concentration was not what it should be. The Three Graces were not as diverting as they should be, considering
he was set upon making one of them his wife. Though he encouraged them to voice their own opinions, they chose instead to seek his. He encouraged them all the more. Though Lady Sarah more often than not resorted to espousing her mama's or papa's views, Lady Lucinda surprised them all with a passionate defence of the Dutch school of painting over the English.

‘And contrary to the plaque on this painting, I do not believe it is by Rembrandt,' she said, peering closely at a portrait of the fifth Earl, who had become the first Duke. ‘See here? The hands are far too clumsily rendered. I believe you should more accurately have it labelled
from the school of.
'

‘You are something of an expert on the matter,' Gabriel said.

He meant it as praise, but Lady Lucinda blushed with mortification rather than with pleasure. ‘I beg your pardon. I did not mean—I should not have questioned—I am sure that if you have labelled it as Rembrandt, then it must be.'

Gabriel turned his attention to Lady Olivia. Lady Olivia had perfectly arched brows. She had rather fine eyes, too, an unusual shade of blue that was more like turquoise. Further encouraged, she proved herself well-informed upon subjects as wide ranging as the shocking novel
Frankenstein
, and the possibility that Lord Liverpool might facilitate a return to the gold standard. Lady Olivia had a sense of humour, too, though at times—when she was speculating on the peculiarities of Shelley's domestic arrangements—he found her cruel rather than funny.

But this, Gabriel assured himself as he bathed before dinner, was a minor consideration. As was the fact that he found her just a little cold. As he shaved himself, not allowing his valet to do so, he tried to imagine kissing her and his razor nicked his cheek, for another pair of lips, and a pair of clear-sighted hazel eyes, swam into view instead. He tried, but Lady Olivia's mouth refused to take form and his body
refused to be roused by the thought of hers. A minor consideration. Very minor. Almost of no import at all.

 

The weather deteriorated over the next few days. With snow now falling heavily, the Blairmore Hall party opted for skittles—most of the party, for the Duchess, when asked if she wished to take part, produced a basilisk stare that suggested she had been asked to act as a swineherd's laundry maid.

The skittle alley, a very grand affair, had been the work of the third Duke, reputed to have been a Jacobite, if the letter from Bonnie Prince Charlie himself held in the archives was to be believed. He had lent the Prince a sum of money, never repaid. ‘And more likely used to fund his lavish lifestyle than to pay the wages of his rebel army,' Gabriel informed his guests. ‘A taste he shared with my great-grandfather, as you can see,' he said, throwing open the doors to allow them to precede him.

The alley was constructed almost entirely of wood, with a hammer-beam ceiling embossed with the ducal crest, the walls clad in oak panelling and the skittle run itself, twenty-four-feet long, of highly polished mahogany. A long wooden chute ran the length of the run at an angle to allow the balls to be returned to the bowlers and benches were set down one wall for onlookers.

Only Land and Gabriel had played before. ‘So we should play and everyone else should watch,' Land suggested excitedly.

‘Land!' Regan cast him a reproving glance. ‘Don't be so selfish.'

Her brother, his competitive hackles raised, looked mulish. ‘I only meant—'