Marriage Made in Shame

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.

Chapter Five

Adelaide had tried to like Frederick Lovelace, the Earl of Berrick, but in truth he was both boring and vain, two vices that added together led to the third one of shallowness.

‘A titled aristocrat no less,’ her uncle had proclaimed after noticing Berrick’s interest at their last meeting, a lilt in his voice and pride in his step. ‘I thought Richard Williams a catch, but here is a man of ten thousand pounds a year, my dear, and a country home that is the envy of all who see it.’

As the earl in question regaled her with myriad facts about horse racing, however, Adelaide struggled to feign an interest.

Eventually he came to the end of his soliloquy and stopped. ‘Do you enjoy horses, Miss Ashfield?’ he queried, finally mindful of the fact that he had not asked one question that pertained to her as yet.

‘No. I generally try to stay well away from them, my lord.’ She saw the resulting frown of Lady Harcourt and her uncle as he began to speak.

‘My niece rides, of course, though the tutor I employed to teach the finer points found her timid. Perhaps you might take a turn together in Hyde Park if it suited you. I think she simply needs more practice at the sport to become proficient at it.

‘Indeed, if you were going there by any chance today, perhaps we could meet, Miss Ashfield? I should be more than willing to help in your equestrian education.’

Her uncle looked pleased and nodded with pride. ‘Well, now that you mention it we were intending to take a turn around the park.’

Adelaide did not deign to answer, but her pulse began to race. Please God that her uncle would not promise Berrick her company.

‘Perhaps my niece and I could meet you there around five?’

Short of refusing outright Adelaide could say nothing. At least her uncle would be with her, but it was just this sort of ridiculousness that had put her off coming to London right from the beginning.

‘I shall be there at five, then. Lord Penbury, Miss Ashfield.’ Taking her hand as everyone stood, Berrick bowed across it, his head barely reaching the top of her brow and a growing bald patch clearly visible.

When he was gone her uncle finished the last of the brandy in his glass and turned towards her.

‘A well brought-up young man, I think, Adelaide. A man who might suit you well with his wide interests and great fortune. At least we would know it is not your money that he is after for he is well endowed with his own.’

Adelaide listened with horror. ‘You promised you would allow me the choice of a husband should I come for the Season, Uncle. I should not wish to be told who is the right one to choose and who is not.’

‘That might all be very well, my love, but Frederick Lovelace is a good man from a sterling family and it behoves me as your uncle to offer the advice so that you are aware he’d make a remarkable connection.’

‘He may be a good man, Uncle, but he is not the good man for me.’

Alec Ashfield turned and for the first time ever Adelaide saw real anger come into his eyes. ‘Then find one, my dear. Find a man who can be all that you need and want and I will give you my blessing.’

Lady Harcourt stood as tension filled the room about them.

‘I am sure she will, Alec. It may just take a little time for your niece to realise the honour the Earl of Berrick accords her, but let us hope this meeting you have organised goes somewhere towards the fact.’

Adelaide took her leave, feeling like screaming all the way up to her room on the second floor. She should never have agreed to come to London in the first place, she knew that now. She should have stayed at Sherborne and dug her feet in, refusing to be budged by any argument presented, because this was the result of it all. This coercion and well-meaning forcefulness.

When a tear welled up and fell over one cheek she angrily wiped it away.

She had not always needed to explain things to her old aunts, the fact that she was resigned to a productive spinsterhood simply accepted. An option the same as the one they themselves had taken and nary a second of regret for it, either.

The day suddenly felt heavy and difficult and now there was the further worry of a ride in a few hours in Hyde Park with a suitor who had a lot more hope than she knew was warranted. Could she feign sickness and simply miss it? She shook her head.

No, she would meet the Earl of Berrick with her uncle and tell him herself that she was not interested in marrying him or anybody at all. Hopefully that would be the end of it.

* * *

The ride began badly as Lord Berrick took her hand and pressed his lips to her skin, an action so reminiscent of her skirmish with Mr Friar that she found herself snatching her fingers back and standing there speechless. All around her others watched, the eyes of the ton upon them.

‘I have looked forward to this, Miss Ashfield. I hope you will allow me to help you mount.’

When he placed his hands beneath the stirrup of the horse Adelaide thanked him. At least up on her steed he would be out of touch, so to speak, and she might be able to relax just a little.

She and her uncle had dismounted as soon as they had got inside the gates and now her uncle had elected to stay and wait whilst she took a turn about Rotten Row. This was a tactical manoeuvre, probably, and one that gave Frederick Lovelace some time alone with her.

At least the track was busy. With only a small difficulty she could get around the whole thing without having to converse with him to a great extent save to tell him of her desire to remain unattached.

Adelaide had never been proficient at managing a horse and here amongst many other steeds her stallion seemed nervy and difficult. At Northbridge she seldom rode, preferring instead to walk the short distances between the manor and the village. In London it seemed everybody was an expert, the tooling precise and accomplished.

Taking in a breath, she tried to hide a building fear. She had heard it mentioned more than once that horses could tell if their rider was afraid and acted accordingly. From the prancing of the horse beneath her she was sure he must understand her frame of mind completely. It obviously felt a certain attraction for the filly the Earl of Berrick rode, as it constantly veered to one side to get closer.

Just what she needed, she thought to herself, and, jamming her hand about the reins, made a supreme effort to keep them apart. At that moment when she looked up she stared straight into the laughing molten glance of Lord Wesley.

‘Miss Ashfield.’ He tipped his hat to her. The animal he rode was huge and black. A mount she imagined one would ride into battle, the arrogant stance of its head marking it out as different from all the others in the park.

Like horse, like owner, she found herself thinking uncharitably, though his presence seemed to have had the effect of making Lord Berrick back off a bit and for that she was glad. Two more turns and she could reasonably call it a day. If she managed one with Lord Wesley then all the better.

‘I see you are as proficient at riding as you are at dancing the waltz.’

She could not help but smile. ‘You have not yet seen me paint a watercolour or stitch a tapestry. I am even worse at those most necessary of feminine skills.’

When he laughed the sound burrowed down into the marrow of her bones, making her warmer than she had been.

‘What are you good at, then?’ he asked.

‘Healing,’ she returned. ‘I run a clinic at Northbridge and people come for miles to get my ointments and tinctures. I have a garden, you see, and my aunts taught me many things about—’

She stopped as she saw his surprise and wondered if such skills would be deemed appropriate by the lords and ladies of society.

‘Like Asclepius?’ he returned and she shook her head.

‘Well, I cannot restore the dead to the living as he did, my lord, but then neither do I wish to be smote with Zeus’s thunder.’

‘It might be argued accepting gold for raising the dead was hardly good form. Someone had to stop it.’

Adelaide was astonished. It was seldom she had met anyone, apart from her aged aunts, with a solid memory for the complicated names and deeds of the Grecian legends. A scholar, then, and a man who hid such learning? Today the sun had brought out the colour in his hair to a variety of shades of light brown, red and gold. When he wiped back the unruly hair on his forehead, she saw that the knuckles on his left hand were bruised and split. From the contretemps with Friar?

Adelaide glanced about to see that Lord Berrick was not too close before she mentioned them. ‘I could give you salve for your fingers if you wanted it.’

As an answer to that he merely jammed his hand into his pocket and she pushed back her spectacles with a sigh.

‘Why do you wear them?’ He did not sound happy.

‘The spectacles?’ She couldn’t quite understand what he meant.

‘The glass in them is plain. Poor eyesight normally requires the fashioning of a lens for improved vision.’

She gave back her own question. ‘Do you keep hawks, my lord?’

‘No. Why?’ He shifted on his horse in order to watch her better.

‘I think you would hold an affinity with a bird who notices all that is around him even as he pretends nonchalance.’

With a gentlemanly tilt of his head Gabriel Hughes dropped back; a slight tug on the leather and he was gone, Lovelace replacing him.

‘Is it not just the most appealing time of day, Miss Ashfield, and might I also say that you ride magnificently.’

As Adelaide swallowed back mirth she also resisted the strong impulse to turn around and look for the enigmatic Earl of Wesley.

* * *

Gabriel watched her trot on with the popinjay Lovelace chattering beside her and thought he should simply turn for the gate and leave. But something made him stay. Her uncertainty with the horse, he was to think later, or the unguarded way she had looked at him when she had offered her salve.

The shout came from close by, reverberating as a young man called his friend. Any other day such a sound might not have mattered, but with Adelaide holding her reins so tightly her horse took umbrage and reared. She had no hope at all in managing it.

Berrick simply stepped his horse to the side and watched, uncertain as to what he could do.

Gabriel was off his mount in a second and strode towards her frightened animal, reaching out for the dangling reins as he told Adelaide Ashfield to hold on any way that she could. Frightened blue eyes turned to him, but the message seemed to be getting across as she crouched down on the back of the stallion and grabbed large handfuls of mane in her fists.

Within a moment he had gentled the horse, and when it had settled enough for Gabriel to move around to the side, he reached up to the terrified rider.

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