Despite 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—’
‘You meant by way of a demonstration, didn’t you, Land?’ Gabriel interjected smoothly.
‘Well, perhaps,’ Land said grudgingly.
Gabriel handed him a ball. ‘Since you are quite the expert, you may show us the way,’ he said solemnly.
‘That was adroitly done,’ Regan said, as Land, his mood soothed and puffed up with importance, began to demonstrate how to throw.
Gabriel shrugged. ‘He was just a little over-excited.’
‘He has a dreadful temper sometimes.’
‘He’s a very intelligent lad. He just gets impatient, that’s all.’
‘Remind you of anyone?’ Regan said innocently, delighted when this comment was rewarded with a bark of laughter.
Volunteering, along with Lady Lucinda, to set up the nine-pins, keep the scores on the large chalk board and return the balls through the chute, Regan had plenty of opportunity to observe Gabriel with the children. He no longer towered over them when he spoke to them, but automatically crouched down to their level. With shy Portia he was gentle, with exuberant Jack he was firm, but Land he talked to as an equal, consulting him gravely on the finer points of the game and encouraging him to demonstrate tricky shots. She hadn’t noticed how much Land had changed these last few months. She’d noticed his temper becoming more volatile, she’d noticed that his trousers seemed to be always too short, but she hadn’t realised the boy was taking his first tentative steps towards manhood.
A whoop of excitement from Lady Sarah, whose eye was as eagle-sharp as the Duchess’s, startled Regan from her reverie.
‘Sticker,’ Land shouted, for every one of the pins had fallen over. ‘We won.’
‘A return, a return,’ Portia, who had been playing on the other side, in Gabriel’s team, called enthusiastically.
‘I think it only fair that Lady Lucinda join in,’ Lady Olivia said, with a malicious smile. ‘Little Jack can take her place at the other end.’
‘Oh, no!’ Jack cried, tugging on Gabriel’s sleeve. ‘Please may I not play another game?’
‘Yes, if you will let go of my coat, for you are creasing it,’ Gabriel said, laughing. ‘I shall take Lady Lucinda’s place.’
To Regan, then, fell the job of setting up the pins, while Gabriel stood beside her, keeping the score and returning the balls. ‘I have to say that I am, despite my reservations, rather enjoying myself,’ he said.
‘You are finding the ladies’ company charming?’
‘I was actually referring to the children,’ Gabriel replied with a wry smile.
When he smiled at her like that, Regan’s heart behaved in a most ridiculous fashion. When he smiled at her like that, she couldn’t help wishing—thinking—things she should not!
They both watched while Land tried to adjust Lady Lucinda’s aim. She bowled wide, scoring nought for the third time in a row, making Jack scowl, though Portia, Regan was touched to see, gave her a consoling hug. ‘Lady Lucinda has been very kind to Portia,’ she said, trying to distract herself.
‘She has many admirable qualities,’ Gabriel said. He turned away to chalk up Lady Sarah’s second sticker. When he turned back to Regan, he was frowning. ‘Truth be told, so too do Lady Olivia and Lady Sarah. I didn’t expect this to be so difficult.’
Regan stooped down to set up the pins. The curve of her bottom visible through her gown was rather too delightful a view for him to eye with impunity. When he realised that his admiration was taking rather solid physical form, Gabriel quickly averted his gaze.
Another couple of throws passed before Regan could work up the courage to speak her mind. ‘Gabriel, I think the reason you are finding it difficult is that you don’t love any of them.’
‘The reason I’m finding it difficult is that I’m being thorough. My method is sound.’
‘Then why can you not make up your mind?’
‘I can. I will,’ Gabriel said, sounding horribly unconvinced.
‘Have you tried to imagine any of them as the mother of your children?’
‘That was rather the point of having Portia, Land and Jack here,’ Gabriel said uncomfortably. In truth, he had tried, but had signally failed to conjure up an image of any of the Three Graces as the mother of his child.
‘And yet you are still struggling to choose. Perhaps you should try kissing them,’ Regan said exasperatedly.
Gabriel dropped the chalk he had been using to mark the board. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘To help you decide, I mean. I’m sure none of them will object. Quite the contrary, I would imagine.’
‘I cannot go around indiscriminately kissing young ladies.’
‘A laudable aspiration and yet it did not prevent you from kissing me.’
‘That was different. You’re…’
‘Not important?’ Regan snapped. ‘Not worthy of the same consideration?’
‘That’s not what I was going to say,’ Gabriel said to her retreating back as Regan stormed from the skittle alley. ‘What I was going to say,’ he said morosely to the empty space where she had been, ‘was that you, unlike them, are someone I actually want to kiss.’