Eliza turned in surprise. “Grandmama?—”
“My dear, the man speaks sense,” Helena said with serene finality. “We cannot stay here. Not now.”
Gabriel inclined his head to her respectfully. “I am gratified that you agree, madam.”
Helena smiled faintly, the corners of her mouth softening in a way that suggested she saw more than she chose to say. “Prudence is rarely misplaced, my lord. And I confess I have had… uneasy feelings of late.”
“Then it is settled,” Gabriel said. “The carriage is waiting. If there are belongings you wish to bring, my men will assist you.”
Eliza looked from one to the other, her frustration palpable. “This is unnecessary,” she began, but her grandmother laid a hand lightly upon her arm.
“Eliza,” Helena said softly, but with unmistakable authority, “we will go. Pack what we require and no more. There is no point in arguing the matter. My decisions is made.”
Her tone brooked no resistance.
Eliza exhaled sharply, her lips pressing into a thin line. “As you wish,” she murmured.
When she disappeared into the adjoining room, Helena turned her attention back to Gabriel. Her expression was calm, but there was a knowing gleam in her eyes that unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
“You will forgive my candor, my lord,” she said quietly, “but I believe this arrangement is reflective of a certain… consideration for my granddaughter.”
He frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“The pair of you seem to keep crossing paths and locking horns at every turn. I’ve never seen her quite so perturbed by any gentleman,” the elder Miss Ashcombe said. “It’s quite remarkable.”
“And if I do have a certainconsiderationfor her, you would be amenable to that?”
Helena smiled, her expression enigmatic and still quite smug. “The house of Hawthorne has ever been entwined with ours. It seems only fitting that the circle should close, in one fashion or another.”
Gabriel could not decide whether her words were merely enigmatic or faintly ominous. “I am not sure I follow your meaning.”
“No,” she said, her gaze drifting toward the window where the light fell pale and uncertain through the glass. “But in time, I think you will.”
When the doorclosed behind him and she heard the low rumble of masculine voices outside, Helena allowed her composure to slip for the first time that morning. She pressed a hand to her chest, drawing in a steadying breath. The moment she had waited for — dreaded, prayed for — had finally come.
She had always known it would.
The curse that had haunted her all her life, just as it had haunted every Ashcombe woman before her, might finally be lifted.When Hawthorne and Ashcombe blood are joined, the curse shall be undone.It sounded so simple when spoken aloud, so clean in its promise. But she knew too well what it cost. Every time they had come close, disaster had struck, befalling either one or the other, and sometimes both. There would be more danger for Eliza and the Earl than for any others before. She couldn’t say why. Not yet. It wasn’t clear to her, but the leaves and the cards had confirmed that terrible sense of doom that was hanging over her. And yet, she knew there was no going back. What had been set in motion could not be undone and they were like magnets to one another at that point.
It was not enough for them merely to meet or even to have an attraction for one another. Not enough for affection to flicker and fade. The bond had to be real — deep, undeniable, sealed by love as much as by name. Only then could the shadow that had dogged their family for generations be lifted.
Helena’s mother had died alone, as had her mother before her. Each had known love, fleeting and fierce, but never marriage. Never peace. Every Ashcombe woman had been left to raise her child—her daughter, because it was always,alwaysa daughter— alone. To mourn him, to feel him fading from the world even as she brought new life into it. And every generation of the Hawthornes had grown more distant from the original line. The current Earl was the grandson of a distant cousin of the previous Earl, aw far removed from the origination of that curse as a person could be and still lived under the weight of it, albeit unknowingly.
It was the way of the curse — to give love but deny happiness, to bless them with children but not with companionship.
Helena had sworn she would not see Eliza suffer that same fate.
If there was a chance — even the smallest — that Gabriel Hawthorne might be the one to give her that, she would see it through. If being under his roof could bring their fates closer together, then so be it. The fire between them was already there; she had seen it spark with her own eyes. Now it must be stoked, tended, and allowed to burn until there could be no undoing it.
Only then might her granddaughter’s life be spared the loneliness and bitter grief that had marked all Ashcombe women. Only then could the curse be broken — and the love that had damned them for generations finally redeem them instead.
She turned toward the small window where the Earl stood speaking with his groom beside the waiting carriage. His profilewas sharp against the pale morning light, his bearing that of a man accustomed to command.
Yes. He would do.
And Helena Ashcombe, who had waited more than sixty years for this chance to find its way to her door, smiled faintly as she whispered to herself, “At last.”
Chapter
