Auberge joined me in watching them. "I cannot repay you for what you have done," he said. "You have my deepest obligation."
I remained gazing up the stairs after Carlotta and Gabriella had gone. "I don't know, Auberge. I cannot help feeling that Gabriella would not have been in danger at all if not for me."
"No, Captain. I, too, feel great guilt, but the one who should bear it is Payne. Were he not such a beast, Gabriella would have gone without incident to your rooms and been comforted by you. We might have had a merry argument, but no more."
"My reason tells me this," I said. "Still I go over it and over it, wondering what would have happened if I had said the right things or done things differently."
"Whatever we feel, I am forever in your debt for restoring her to us." He paused. "And for not taking her away again."
I met his gaze. "She loves you. You are her family."
"You have the law," he said.
"The law is not everything."
Auberge pressed his lips together and nodded, as though afraid that if he went on in this vein, he'd lose what he'd gained. "You will take care of her when she is here?"
"Oh, yes," I answered fervently. "You can be assured, I will watch her every move."
We stood awkwardly a moment, two men who were, in truth, rivals, and whose bond over a common problem had come to an end.
"Carlotta finally told me," he said after a time, "the reason she left you to stay with me in France. I asked her quite closely about it last night."
I lifted a brow. "And what did she say?"
Auberge slid into French, as though unable to keep up his halting English. "That when you were in France with her, she'd had a letter from her father. He wrote that he would dissolve her marriage to you and drag her home to marry the man to whom he'd tried to betroth her before. Her father was sore in need of money, as I said, and you had little. He convinced her, in her naivete, that he could do such a thing. Carlotta said that she had no idea until now that divorce and annulment were such difficult things to obtain. You were ready to return to England, and she feared that if she came back here, her father would force her into the marriage she'd run to India to escape."
"Good Lord. The little fool. Why did she never tell me of this?"
Auberge shrugged. "She was young, she was afraid, and as we agreed, Carlotta is not one to think things through. She simply acts. She and I had grown to know each other, and I admit, I flirted with her and quite fell in love with her. So, when she came to me in trouble, I had no compunction against taking her away. For that, I am sorry."
"Dear God." I exhaled. "Poor Carlotta. She must have been terrified. And she did not feel that she could come to me." The knowledge hurt, even now. "But you made her happy, Auberge. She fled with you into safety, and you loved her."
Auberge nodded quietly. "We have been very happy."
"And she would not have been happy with me." I knew this to be true. "Not even in the absence of her father's threats, which were empty. She would never have had what she has with you."
Auberge sent me a warm smile. "You are a good man, Captain."
"No, I am not." I studied him for a time. "I have always wanted to hate you. But I have to admit that you are a good man in your own right." I shook his hand once more, deciding to begin my life again, free of the past. "Be well."
"Au revoir," he said.
I bowed and departed, not returning his wish.
*** *** ***
Two weeks later, a hired coach let me off before a spreading, graceful house, approached by a mile-long drive that wound beneath powerful and ancient oaks. The house, golden brick in the middle of Oxfordshire, welcomed me with promise.
A tall butler met me at the front door, bowed to me, asked how my journey was, and bade two footmen in full livery take my valise to my room.
"Her ladyship is in the gardens," he said. "She directed me to lead you there once you had arrived. If you need to refresh yourself, I can have a footman take you upstairs."
"No, thank you," I said. Lady Breckenridge had departed London a week ago, and I had missed her more than I liked to admit. "I will visit the gardens."
"Very good, sir."
The butler led me into a wide echoing hall, cool in the summer heat. Gilded frescos graced the ceiling, and a windowed rotunda far above let in soft light.
At the end of the hall, French doors led to a three-stepped terrace, and below this were the gardens. They ran for acres, cut into sections by wide walkways. Climbing roses blanketed trellises in scarlet and pink, and fountain after fountain played in the main walkway, lending a cool sparkle to the sun's brilliance.
At the base of the terrace, Lady Breckenridge waited, splendid in summer yellow, a wide hat over her dark curls. An older woman with a basket over her arm snipped roses from a nearby trellis. She had the same pointed features and dark blue eyes as Lady Breckenridge.
"So you've arrived, then," Donata said as I came off the stairs.
"Indeed." I bowed, leaning heavily on my walking stick. The ride had been long, the hired coach, cramped.
The countess, Donata's mother, looked up. "This is your captain, Donata?" She gave me the same sharp scrutiny as her daughter. "Yes, he'll do. We'll take supper in the blue dining room. It is the least stuffy."
So saying, she hoisted her basket and wandered off into the garden in pursuit of perfect roses.
Donata slipped her hand through the crook of my arm. "She has been asking me when we will wed."
"Has she?" I said. "This winter. New Year's, perhaps?"
She looked up at me, startled. She had been gone before my interview with Denis and Carlotta, and I had not written her of the details, preferring to discuss them with her in private.
Her expression turned suddenly warm, then thoughtful. "Yes, I believe New Year's would do very well."
I placed my hand over hers and met her gaze. "If you will have me."
Donata smiled up at me, and I realized that I loved her to distraction. "Yes, Gabriel," she said. "I will."
I kissed her, enjoying tasting her lips in the soft summer's light.
When we caught up again with her mother, she said, "Mama, Gabriel and I will be married at New Year's."
Without looking round, the countess snipped another rose. "Excellent, dear. A special license, I think, in the gold drawing room. It is the warmest that time of year."
END
Please continue reading for a preview of Captain Lacey's next adventure
A Death in Norfolk
By Ashley Gardner
Book 7 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries
* * * * *
Chapter One
England, 1817
In September, amidst a driving rain that swept across the Norfolk coast, my hired coach rolled up the drive to my ancestral home and deposited me at the house's front door.
My valet-in-training, Bartholomew, a lad used to working for the very rich, gazed at the edifice in doubt. "You lived here, sir?"
The house stood silently under lowering skies, the roof over one wing completely collapsed. The windows were dark, and many had been broken. Bricks and weeds decorated what was left of the lawn, and the drive was pitted and weed-choked.
"Indeed I did," I said.
The house had at one time been a fine Palladian affair, with fanlights, columns, and a pleasing symmetry. Now the golden stone was chipped and fallen away, the Corinthian columns at the door dark with grime. Bits of brick and fallen slates littered the ground.
"And you're going to invite her ladyship here?" Bartholomew's doubt rose several decibels.
My wife-to-be, the Dowager Viscountess Breckenridge, daughter of an earl, had grown up on an elegant estate in Oxfordshire and now dwelled in a modern, costly townhouse in South Audley Street in London. I had spent a month at the Oxfordshire estate this summer, and the comparison between the two houses was dire indeed.
"Her ladyship insists," I said.
"Well, you've got your wor
k cut out, sir, I must say."
"That is why I'm pleased you've come along to help."
Bartholomew's mouth popped open, his face taking on a look of dismay. Former footman to the great and wealthy Lucius Grenville, Bartholomew held himself high above common laborers. I could not resist teasing him.
"Yes, sir," he said.
"Do not be alarmed; I was not suggesting you try a bit of carpentry. But you can help me coordinate and supervise the repairs."
That was more to Bartholomew's liking, and he relaxed.
I had another errand to run while I was here in Norfolk, a letter to deliver which had weighed heavily in my pocket all the way from London. I was reluctant to carry out the errand, though it was a simple one, because doing so would be symbolic.
Take the enclosed to one Brigadier Easton at Winston House south of Cley. Completion of delivery deducts twenty guineas from your debt. Denis.
I'd been tempted to put both letter and enclosure onto the fire. First, because I'd rather earn back on my own the cost of my recent divorce, paid for by James Denis, than in any way feel that he owned me.
Second, because a letter written by Denis would not be innocuous. If Grenville had asked me to deliver a message, I'd think nothing of it, but anything involving Denis could never be that simple.
The enclosed message hadn't been sealed. Denis had known I'd insist on reading what I delivered, and he'd not tried to hide it. I'd opened the paper and found a note that had made no sense to me.
I decided I'd make the delivery in case it proved important to Brigadier Easton, but I would not let Denis or the brigadier draw me in further, nor would I become their go-between. I'd deliver the letter, and that would be that.
My front door was locked but I had a key, kept among my possessions for twenty years. I hadn't been back to this house since I'd left it to follow my mentor to the army and India, to fight the Tippu Sultan long before the Peninsular Wars began.
The lock proved to be frozen, the key immovable, but a firm shove broke the bolt right out of the wall.
I walked into a dim, dust-coated interior.
I left footprints in the dust as I moved through the wide entrance hall and looked into rooms on either side of the corridor. I expected memories--good and bad--to assail me, but this ruined house looked so different now that it spoke to me not at all.
I studied the fireplace in the dining room, where my father had leaned while he regaled my mother and me with his pompous lectures. The fireplace had been painted wood, but now the mantelpiece had fallen, exposing the brick behind it.
Behind me, Bartholomew coughed and pulled out a handkerchief. I moved on to the next room, the library with windows looking over the back garden. The garden was nonexistent now, a stretch of weeds that ran down to join the fens at the bottom of the field.
Here I did feel the touch of my past. My father had beaten me in this room, me bent over the desk, my face pressed into its wooden surface so often that I remembered every swirl of its grain.
My father had beaten me for every sin, real and imagined. He'd been trying to make me obedient and instead had made me rebellious. As I'd grown older, I'd started deliberately inviting the beatings, because I'd realized that if Father were beating me, he wouldn't be beating my mother.
As I stood in this room, I remembered why I'd been so keen to follow Aloysius Brandon and his young wife into the army, why I'd hurried to procure a wife of my own. My mother had died long before I'd gone, and I'd wanted out of this existence, to get away, to find the world outside these walls, to live.
Well, I'd done that. And now here I was, twenty years older, injured, world-weary, far more cynical, and about to marry again. To a lady who'd have put my father into his place faster than a cat swats a sparrow out of the sky.
"Captain!"
Bartholomew's shout cut through my musings. His voice held a startled note, and I hurried out, my walking stick tapping in the dust.
I found him at the front door. Coming up what was left of the drive was an elegant carriage with high-stepping horses complete with silver-gray plumes. The coachman had a matching brush in his hat, and the door of the carriage held the crest of the viscounts Breckenridge.
"Bloody hell," I said.
The horses shook their heads at the rain, plumes dancing. Bartholomew hurried forward at the same time a footman jumped from the back of the coach right into the mud. The footman unhooked a box from under the coach and placed it under the carriage door.
Bartholomew opened the door, and a well-formed ankle came down, foot in a pristine leather shoe stepping onto the box. I came forward to help the lady descend as Bartholomew and the footman stretched a canvas between them, holding it high to shield her from the rain.
Donata Anne Catherine St. John, Dowager Viscountess Breckenridge, was thirty years old and my betrothed. That she'd agreed to marry me still came as a bit of a shock.
Lady Breckenridge let go of my hand, thanked Bartholomew and her footman, and lifted her skirts to walk the few feet to the house. She said nothing as she went inside the front door, tilting her head to take in the entire wreck of the house.
"I thought you were to stay with your friend near Blakeney," I said, following her. "With its wonderful view of the sea."
"I am, but I could not resist seeing the house of your birth." Lady Breckenridge turned in a circle in the hall, staring up the wide staircase. "A man's home can tell much about him."
"That is what I fear," I said.
"Nonsense. It's falling apart, but there are good bones here. Well designed. Late seventeenth century, with later additions."
As I stood, rather uncomfortably, on the bones of my ancestral home, she patted my arm. "Now, Gabriel, I know it's bad of me to pounce on you without warning, but I do so want to see the place."
She was determined, and I complied. A marvelous thing happened as I took my betrothed from room to room, explaining what was what. The past became just that, the past. My father was no longer the ogre who ruled my life. He'd become a distant ghost, gone for eight years now, releasing his stranglehold on me.
"Good bones, as I said," Donata remarked as she stood in the largest bedroom, empty of all furnishings. "Well anchored. The wing that has fallen in was an eighteenth-century addition, was it not? A good architect can restore it and fix the flaws that kept it from standing."
"The Lacey fortune hardly runs to architects," I said.
"But the Breckenridge one does."
I took her hands. "I know you berate me for being too proud, but the last thing I want is to run through your money to repair my life. Every member of the haut ton supposes that's what I'm doing, but I want you to believe that I am not."
Donata shrugged. "I like you being proud, and to the devil with what my friends believe. But I'm not being charitable, Gabriel. I am being practical. I will have to live here too, and so will my son, and I hardly want to worry about bricks falling on me as I walk about the passages. Besides, I will be inviting Lady Southwick--the friend with whom I am staying--and this house is so much better than hers. The Southwick house is gigantic, but modern, gaudy trash. I do want to best her."
The gleam in her eyes was both alarming and amusing.
"You generally say you care nothing for what your friends think," I said.
"And I do not, but Lady Southwick and I have always been rivals. She even had it off with my husband--briefly--a long time ago. I believe she was as appalled by him as I was, so that one-upmanship didn't quite work out as she liked."
As always whenever Donata mentioned her brute of a husband, whose face I'd once had the pleasure of bruising, I felt both irritated and protective. "Why do you stay with her, then?"
"We rather enjoy the game, I think. You'll understand when you arrive. And she will try to lure you from me. It is her way, I must warn you."
Her words were flat, but her eyes flickered.
"I have no wish to be lured, I assure you," I said.
Why the devil Lad
y Breckenridge wanted me to stay at a house with a woman who would try to cuckold her, I could not guess, but I didn't have much choice. The nearby inns were hardly fit for a viscountess used to the very best of everything, and I'd been pleased that she had a friend of equal rank and wealth nearby. I'd been included in the invitation to stay at the house, and it would have been churlish of me to refuse.
I did finally persuade Donata that she should leave the cold dankness of the Lacey home and return to her rival's house, which would at least be comfortable. Donata kissed me lightly on the lips and let me lead her back to the carriage.
Once she was gone, I went back through the house, looking at what furniture and things the assessors had not taken. I knew I was simply delaying my errand for Denis, but the rain was pouring down, and Denis's mission could wait. I was not his lackey.
I ended up in my mother's sitting room, her sanctuary, once a room of whites and golds, light and airy. The view from the windows looked past the ruined garden to the fens and the sea. A windmill with a tall, cylindrical body and four-bladed fan turned slowly in the wind.
The windmill had been there for as long as I could remember, a sentinel in the flat land, built in the last century as part of the ongoing effort to drain the fens. I'd sneaked into in the windmill more than once as a child, only to be hauled out by the keeper before I could ruin the pumps. The great creaking machinery had fascinated me.
I turned back, the room now dark after the rain-soaked glare. As I stood waiting for my eyes to adjust, I realized that something incongruous lay across the one remaining, mice-chewed sofa.
I went to the sofa and leaned down to look. In the dim light I saw a dress--a long, high-waisted pale muslin that a young debutante might wear. The garment was thick with dust now, the hem tattered. When I lightly touched the sleeve, the gauze that covered the silk crumpled to nothing.
I straightened up, puzzled indeed. I had no sisters and no female cousins. My mother had died when I'd been a lad, and she'd not brought out any young women as favors to friends or even had them to visit. My father, as far as I knew, had chosen his mistresses from the glittering demimonde, ladies with much experience who'd never wear such an innocent gown as this.