Читать книгу Marriage Made in Shame - Sophia James - Страница 10

Chapter Four

‘We meet again, Miss Ashfield.’

‘In circumstances even more trying than the last time, I am afraid, Lord Wesley. Mr Friar is newly come from the Americas and seems to have a poor understanding of the word “no”. His ability to pretend to be something he is not must be the only thing allowing him entrance here for he has few other redeeming features.’ She knew she was babbling, but couldn’t seem to stop. Surprise and relief at the earl’s presence obliterated her more normal reason and fright had made her shake.

As he joined her, Gabriel Hughes placed two fingers across the pulse on George Friar’s neck. ‘A trifle fast, but given the circumstances...’

Today he looked tired, the darkened skin beneath both eyes alluding to a lack of sleep. His glance had also taken in the telltale mark on the unconscious man’s cheek.

‘His dress sense is appalling, would you not say?’

At that she smiled. There was a certain sangfroid apparent in the comment. Indeed, he did not look even the least perturbed about what had happened.

‘I didn’t push him. He fell across that potted plant and down into the garden.’

‘After you slapped him?’

She felt her own blood rise. ‘I had asked him to remove his hand from my person, Lord Wesley, and he did not.’

He looked up quickly. ‘He didn’t hurt you?’ His gold eyes were darker tonight, though when she shook her head the anger in them softened.

‘Perhaps then it would be better if you were gone when he awakes?’

Taking that as a hint, she turned.

‘Miss Ashfield?’

She turned back. ‘Yes?’

‘If you say nothing of this to anyone, I will make certain that he never does, either.’

‘How?’ The question tumbled out in horror.

‘A firm threat is what I was thinking, but if you want him dead...?’

Could he possibly mean what she thought he did? Friar’s explanation of how Wesley had killed Henrietta tumbled in her mind to be dismissed as the upturn of his lips held her spellbound. He was teasing, but already she could hear the voices of others coming closer and knew she needed to be gone. Still she could not quite leave it at that.

‘Sometimes I am not certain about just exactly who you are, my lord. Amongst the pomp and splendour of your clothes and the artful tie of your cravat I detect a man who is not quite the one that he appears.’

But Gabriel Hughes shook his head. ‘It would be much safer for you to view me exactly as the rest of the world does, Miss Ashfield; a dissolute and licentious earl without a care for anything save the folds in his most complicated cravat.’

No humour lingered now, the hard planes of his face intractable, and as George Friar groaned Adelaide fled. She could not fathom the Earl of Wesley at all and that was the trouble. He was nothing like any man she had met before. Even when he laughed the danger in him was observable and clear. But the colour of his eyes in this light was that of the gilded hawks she’d seen as a young girl in a travelling menagerie that had visited Sherborne, the quiet strength in them hidden under humour.

Lady Harcourt looked up as she came to her side. ‘You are always disappearing, my dear. I am certain that is not a trait to be greatly encouraged. If your uncle were here and he asked me of your whereabouts, I would not know, you see, and so it would be far better if...’

Her words petered off as a shout at one end of the salon had them turning and Adelaide saw Mr Friar burst into the room using a large white handkerchief to wipe off his bleeding nose. She was glad he was heading straight for the exit even as she stepped back into the shadow of her chaperon.

Gabriel Hughes came into view behind him, accompanied by Lord Montcliffe, and the Earl of Wesley’s left hand was buried deep in his pocket. Walking together, the two men were of a similar height and build and every feminine eye of the ton was trained towards them as well as a good many of the masculine ones.

‘Goodness me. What is society coming to these days?’ Lady Harcourt lifted her lorgnette to her face to get a better view. ‘A fist fight in the middle of a crowded ball? Who is that short man, Bertram, with Lord Wesley and Lord Montcliffe?’

Adelaide’s heart began to beat fast and then faster. Would there be a scene? Would she be revealed as the perpetrator of the American’s questionable condition?

‘Mr George Friar is an arrogant cheat,’ her cousin drawled. ‘Perhaps the Earl of Wesley has finally done what many of the others here have not been able to.’

‘What?’ Imelda’s voice was censorious. ‘Broken his nose?’

‘Nay, Aunt. Shut him up.’

The Earl of Berrick, standing beside them, frowned. ‘I have my doubts that Lord Wesley would put himself out for such a one unless it suited his purpose.’

Bertie nodded in agreement. ‘He’d be far more likely to be in the card room or cavorting with the numerous women of the ton who are unhappy in their marriages.’

Lady Harcourt gave her grand-nephew a stern look. ‘You are in the company of a young girl in her first Season, Bertram. Please mind your tongue.’

‘Pardon me, Aunt, and I am sorry, Addie.’

Her cousin gave her one of the smiles that Adelaide could never ever resist.

‘Make it up to me, then.’

‘How.’

‘Come with me as my chaperon to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. There is a physic garden there that I have always wanted to see.’

* * *

‘You look like hell, Gabe.’ Daniel Wylde did not mince his words as they left the Harveys’ ball. ‘You need some beauty sleep.’

Gabriel heard the concern behind the words. ‘I’ll live.’

‘Who was he, to you? Mr Friar back there?’

‘No one. He’d tripped over the balustrade and had fallen. I was the first to find him.’

‘I doubt that.’ Montcliffe’s words were low. ‘Unless you have taken to slapping strange men I would say there was a woman involved. Besides, you would hardly take a hard swipe at an injured man unless you had some gripe with him?’

Gabriel swore, but didn’t answer.

‘Your sister, Charlotte, was unkind, Gabriel, but you were always nicer.’

‘It’s been a while. People change. I’d be the first to admit that I have.’

‘Why?’

One word biting at his guts, so easy just to spill the worries and feel better. Even easier to not. Still it might not hurt to sound Montcliffe out on a little of it.

‘What do you know of Randolph Clements?’

‘His wife, Henrietta, died in the fire at Ravenshill Chapel. It was rumoured you had something to do with that, but it was never proven.’

‘I think Clements killed his wife.’

‘And walked away?’

‘Unconvicted. Mr Friar here is one of his American cousins.’

‘You think he was involved, too?’

‘Odds are that he is here in London for a reason.’

‘He is single and wealthy. He wants a wife. Many might say that is enough of a reason. Who slapped him before you turned up?’

‘Miss Adelaide Ashfield.’

‘And she is...?’

Gabriel swallowed hard. ‘Penbury’s niece and one of this Season’s débutantes.’

‘The woman in gold?’ Montcliffe began to smile. ‘God, you have an interest in this lady.’

‘No.’ He made the word sound as definite as he could.

‘Yet you just avenged her for an insult, I am presuming? Such an action indicates more than mere indifference.’

Gabriel had forgotten about Daniel Wylde’s quick mind. He could also see the wheels of curiosity turning in sharp eyes.

‘You never told me about happened in the bloody chapel? Some say it was you who lit the fire.’

‘No, I can’t even remember how it started. I know I did try to save her, but then...’ He stopped, searching for a glimpse into recall and failing.

‘You couldn’t?’

‘I didn’t love Henrietta Clements in the way she wanted me to.’

There was silence, the guilt of it all howling around the edges of Gabriel’s sanity like a cold wind blowing relentlessly from the north. He had had liaisons with women all of his adult life, unrequited political connections, and this was the result. His penance. His atonement. The resulting impotence was only deserved and proper. A God-given punishment so very close to the cause of all his destruction—he could not deny it.

If he had been alone he might have hit something, but he wasn’t. As it was he held his hands into the side of his thighs in tight fists. The nail on his right forefinger broke into the skin of his thumb.

‘Perhaps I hurt your sister in the same way?’ Daniel offered the explanation.

‘Pardon?’ With all his other thoughts Gabriel could not quite work out exactly what was meant.

‘Charlotte. I didn’t love her enough, either, and we ruined each other. Same thing you are talking of, isn’t it?’

The minutes of quiet multiplied.

‘But then Amethyst taught me about the honesty of love.’

God, Gabriel thought, and what I would not give for a wife like that. Empty loneliness curled into the corners of hope. He had never felt close to anyone and now it would never again be possible.

For a second he almost hated the other’s joy. It was what happened when you were down on your luck. You became surrounded by those who were not. Even his sister, for all her poor choices in life, had written to say that she had met a wealthy and cultured man in Edinburgh with whom she could see a future.

‘Come to Montcliffe, Gabe. Some country air might be just what you need. Amethyst is almost eight months along in her pregnancy so she does not come to London any more, preferring the quiet of Montcliffe.’ Daniel Wylde was watching him closely. ‘She would be pleased to have you there and so would I.’

Thanking him for the offer, Gabriel replied that he would certainly think about it and then he left.

* * *

He actually spent the night thinking of Adelaide Ashfield. Her smile. Her blue eyes. The quiet lisp in her words. Friar was a threat to her in some way he could not as yet fathom. Gabriel knew that he was. He returned his attention to the notes spread across the table in front of him—maps, drawings and timings—as he searched for a pattern.

Clements was there somewhere in the middle of the puzzle though he had been careful to cover his tracks. His cousin George Friar told others that he had arrived in England a month or so before Henrietta had died, on the clipper Vigilant travelling between Baltimore and London. But when he had tracked down the passenger list for that particular voyage his name had not been upon it. Why would he lie about such a thing? Had he lied about who he was as well?

Frank Richardson had visited Friar and Clements, too. He had stayed over at the Whitehorse Tavern with John Goode, his cousin.

Four of them now. Gabriel knew there were six, because Henrietta Clements had told him so. She had been so angry she could barely talk when she had come to him at Ravenshill, that much he did remember.

‘My husband is here,’ she had said simply. ‘Right behind me, and I know for certain his political allegiances lie with France and Napoleon’s hopes. Take me away to the Americas, Gabriel. I have an aunt who lives there. In Boston. We could be free to begin again...together, for I have money I can access and much in the way of jewellery.’ Her arms came around him even as he tried to move away.

Then there was blankness, an empty space of time without memory. He had been trying to fill in the details ever since, but the only true and residing certainty he’d kept was the pain.

The knock at the door was expected, but still he stood to one side of the jamb and called out, ‘Who is it?’

‘Archie McCrombie, sir.’ The reply was firm.

Sliding the latch downwards, Gabriel ushered the small red-haired man inside, the cold air of evening blowing in with him and his coat lifting in the wind.

‘Friar is residing at Beaumont Street, where he has spent most of the last week enjoying the charms of Mrs Fitzgerald’s girls. I left Ben there to make certain he stays put.’

‘Did he meet anyone else?’

‘Frank Richardson, my lord. I did not recognise the others who came and went. Someone tailed me as I left, but I shook him off. Tall he was and well dressed. He does not seem to fit in around this side of town. He was armed, too, I would bet my life on the fact.’

‘Expecting trouble, then, or about to cause it?’

‘Both, I would say, sir. I’d have circled back and tailed him, my lord, if I wasnna meeting you.’

‘No, you did well. Give them some rope to hang themselves; we don’t just want one fish, we want all six of them.’

‘Yes, sir.’

After McCrombie left, Gabriel stood and walked to the window. It was raining outside and grey and the cold enveloped him, his life worn down into a shadow of what it had previously been.

His finances were shaky. He had gone through his accounts again and again, trying to find a way to cut down his spending, but his country estate of Ravenshill was bleeding out money as was his London town house. He wasn’t down to the last of his cash yet, as Daniel Wylde had been, but give it a few more years and...

He shook that thought away.

Once he had those associated with Clements he could leave London and retreat to Ravenshill Manor. Then he would sell off the town house. The new trading classes were always on the lookout for an old and aristocratic residence in the right location and he knew it would go quickly. In Essex he would be able to manage at least until his mother was no longer with him. He shook that thought away and swore softly as he remembered back to their conversation at dinner the night before.

‘You need to find a wife who would give you children, Gabriel. You would be much happier then.’

The anger that had been so much a part of him since the fire burgeoned. ‘I doubt I will ever marry.’

The tight skin on his right thigh underlined all that he now wasn’t. No proper women would have him in the state he was in and even courtesans and prostitutes were out of his reach. A no-man’s lad. A barren and desolate void.

When his mother reached out to place her hand over his he had felt both her warmth and her age. Her melancholy was getting worse, but he did not mention that as he tried to allay her fears.

‘Everything will work out. We will leave London soon and go up to Essex. You can start a garden and read. Perhaps even take up the piano again?’

Tears had welled in the old and opaque eyes. ‘I named you for the angel from the Bible, you know, Gabriel, and I was right to, but sometimes now I think there is only sadness left...’

Her words had tapered off and he shook his head to stop her from saying more, the teachings of the ancient shepherd of Hermas coming to mind.

‘In regard of faith there are two angels within man. One of Righteousness and one of Iniquity.’

The Angel of Iniquity was a better analogy to describe himself now, Gabriel thought, but refrained from telling her so.

The sum of his life. Wrathful. Bitter. Foolish. Cut off. Even Alan Wolfe, the Director of the British Service, had stated that Gabriel could no longer serve in the same capacity he had done, his profile after the fire too high for a department cloaked in secrecy.

So he had kept on at it largely alone, day after day and week after week. A more personal revenge. Once he had thought the emotion a negative one, but now...?

It was like a drug, creeping through his bones and shattering all that was dull; a questionable integrity, he knew that, but nevertheless his own.

The veneer of social insouciance was becoming harder and harder to maintain, the light and airy manners of a fop overlaying a heavy coat of steel. The lacy shirt cuffs, the carefully tied cravat. A smile where only fury lingered and an ever-increasing solitude.

Adelaide Ashfield’s honesty had shaken him, made him think, her directness piercing all that he had hoped to hide and so very easily. But there were things that she was not telling him, either, he could see this was so in the unguarded depths of those blue eyes. And Friar was circling around her, his derogatory evaluation of England’s royal family and its Parliament as much of a topic of his every conversation as his need to make a good marriage.

Revolution came from deprivation and loss, and he could not for the life of him work out why George Friar, a successful Baltimore businessman by his own account, would throw in his lot with the unpopular anti-British sentiments of his cousin. They were blood-related, but they were also wildly different people.

Perhaps it was in the pursuit of a religious fervour he had come with, the whispers of the young prince’s depravities rising. America’s independence had the same ring of truth to it, there was no doubt about that, a better way of living, a more equitable society and one unhampered by a monarch without scruples.

Conjecture and distrust. This is what his life had come to now, Gabriel thought, for he seldom took people at their face value any more, but looked for the dark blackness of their souls.

Gabriel strained to remember the laughter inside the words of Miss Adelaide Ashfield as he poured himself a drink, hating the way his hands shook when he raised the crystal decanter.

She was the first person he had ever met who seemed true and real and genuine, artifice and dissimulation a thousand miles from her honestly given opinions.

But he did wonder just who the hell had hurt her.