Perhaps he ought not to have begun the correspondence. It might be better to have known nothing, to have broken all ties, to have been content to be dead to everyone and everything he had left behind. Even Mary.
The year after Cyrus’s untimely passing, Mary’s spring letter had brought word of three other shocking deaths. Her sister and Julius—her brother-in-law—and nephew had died the previous summer, just after she had written him her last letter of the year. An outbreak of typhus had taken a few other people from the neighborhood as well, though it had not touched Mary herself, living as she did, almost as a hermit in her small cottage on one corner of the family estate.
That had been astounding news in itself, but there had been repercussions that were eventually to complicate Gabriel’s life and force his return to England. For Mary’s brother-in-law and Gabriel’s uncle, Julius Rochford, had also been the Earl of Lyndale. Philip, his only son and his heir, though married, had had no sons of his own—no legitimate ones, at least. And he had predeceased his father by one day. Gabriel, son and only child of the late Arthur Rochford, Julius’s younger brother, was therefore his uncle’s successor.
He was the Earl of Lyndale.
He hadnotbeen happy about it or about the death of his aunt, who had been sweet though dithery and a person of no account in her husband’s household. He had regretted the death of his uncle too. He had not grieved the loss of his cousin at all.
He might have ignored his changed status for the rest of his life, and had done so for six years after receiving word of it in Mary’s letter. No one knew where he was—except Mary herself, and she would not tell, having given her promise. If a search had been made for him, and he did not doubt that there had been some halfhearted attempt to discover the whereabouts of the new earl or whether indeed he still lived, then it had failed to turn up any trace of him. When he had taken passage for America, it had seemed a bit of an unnecessary precaution to use his mother’s name instead of his own. As it had turned out, though, it had been a wise thing to do. After a certain number of years—was it seven?—he would be declared officially dead and the next heir in line would succeed him to the title and inherit everything that went with it. That would be his second cousin, Manley Rochford, whom Gabriel remembered with no more fondness than he had felt for Philip. But . . .
May Manley and all his descendants live happily ever after. Or not. Gabriel did not care either way. All that had happened was ancient history. He wanted nothing to do with the title or the property or the pomp and circumstance to which he was now entitled as a British peer of the realm. He was perfectly content with his life as it was and wanted nothing to do with England.
Except that there was Mary. His aunt’s sister. Mary, with her clubfoot and crooked spine and deformed hand and plain looks. Mary, with her little thatched cottage and her flower garden of breathtaking beauty and her vegetable patch and herb garden and her cats and dogs—all of them strays that she insisted had adoptedher. Mary, with her books and her embroidery and her incomprehensible contentment with life.
Mary, now facing the threat of eviction.
Manley Rochford, heir to the title after Gabriel, was already acting upon his prospects. He had within the last year moved his family to Brierley Hall, as though by right, and taken over the running of the estate. He had dismissed the longtime steward, though he had no legal right yet to do so, and more than half the servants, indoor and out, in order to replace them with his own. His son, apparently a vain young man, was lording it about in the neighborhood. All of which facts in themselves would have elicited no more than a shrug from Gabriel. They were welcome, as far as he was concerned.
But . . .Manley had gone a step too far. He had given Mary Beck notice to leave his property by the time he became earl. She was not a member of the Rochford family, he had pointed out to her, and she had no claim whatsoever upon his charity. She was, moreover, a detriment to the neighborhood, where it was generally believed she had used witchcraft to bring the plague of typhus down upon her sister and brother-in-law and nephew, and upon a number of her neighbors too. He must consider the safety of his own family, he had informed her. And he must think of his neighbors, who were afraid to set foot upon Brierley land while Mary lived upon it.
None of which is true except the fact that I am not a Rochford, Gabriel,she had written in a letter to him.I know it is not. The neighbors are not so superstitious or cruel. But I must leave anyway. Please come home.
It was the only time she had ever put any pressure upon him to do anything at all. She might have exerted much further pressure, of course, by divulging her knowledge of where he was to be found in order to protect herself. But Gabriel knew she would not do that. Not Mary.
He had considered bringing her to America, setting her up in a comfortable apartment of her own in his home, giving her a part of his sizable garden, or even all of it if she wished, for her own use. But the journey might well kill her. And he could not imagine her being happy anywhere but in her own little cottage, where she had lived for as long as he had known her. And what would she do with all her strays? It might seem a trivial consideration, but they were Mary’s family, as dear to her as husband and children would be to another woman.
He had considered finding a good agent in London and putting a new steward of his own in at Brierley, someone who would be capable of making sound decisions and exerting his authority while reporting to Gabriel once or twice a year. But doing that would mean revealing that he, Gabriel, was still alive. And if that was revealed, then he would be allowed no more peace in America. He would be expected to return home to England to take up his inheritance and fulfill his duties and responsibilities as a peer of the realm. Even if he held firm and refused to go, the truth would surely be found out in Boston, and everything in his life would change. Probably not for the better. He enjoyed being respected, even courted. He wouldnotenjoy being fawned upon.
That last letter from Mary had turned out to be life altering. He had realized it from the moment he had broken the seal and read it. It had forced him to make the choice between the life he had built in America and the life he had left behind in England. The choice ought to have been ridiculously easy to make.
But there was Mary.
He had reluctantly put the business in the hands of Miles Perrott, his assistant and close friend, whom he would trust with his own life—andwith the running of the business. He had made him a partner, leased out his house for two years, made numerous other arrangements, all within a couple of months, and sailed for home with no more than a few months to go before he was officially dead.
A strange choice of word, that—home. His home was in Boston. Once he had established his authority in England and made some sort of arrangements for the smooth running of all he owned there, he could return, he had told himself as he watched America disappear over the horizon, to be replaced by endless expanses of ocean. Butmaking arrangements, he had admitted to himself during the endless days and nights of the voyage, was going to entail far more than he wanted to believe. For though even in Boston he would wish for an heir to inherit the business and the fortune he had amassed, here the need was of far more urgency. For in England he would not have the option of making a will and leaving everything to anyone he chose. In England there were rules and laws, at least for the aristocracy. If as the Earl of Lyndale he died without male issue—and both his father and Cyrus had died suddenly and early, not to mention his uncle and cousin—then the title and entailed properties and any fortune that went with them would go after all to Manley Rochford and his descendants: specifically that son who was already lording it over all who lived in the vicinity of Brierley.
Gabriel had not known Manley well when he was a boy—he had always kept his distance. But what he had known he had abhorred. The feeling had been mutual. The son sounded like a conceited ass. Gabriel did not know him. He had been a mere boy when Gabriel sailed for America.
His need to marry was an urgent one, and he had come to realize it long before the voyage was at an end and he set foot again upon English soil. It was not a happy thought. Nothing about this whole business was happy. But he no longer had the leisure to look about him for as long as it would take to find that one woman who would suit him and offer the expectation of a life of contentment. He needed to marry—and soon.
And his bride must be someone unexceptionable. An earl was not at liberty to marry a scullery maid or a shopkeeper’s daughter or . . . Well. He must choose someone who could fulfill the duties of Countess of Lyndale as though born to the role. She must be someone wellborn, well connected, refined; able to deal with difficult relatives, difficult servants, difficult neighbors . . . difficult everything.
As far as Gabriel knew, his name had not been cleared all those years ago, though he had never asked Mary outright. He might be facing hostility at Brierley, to say the least. He certainly needed a woman who was no timid mouse, one who would command respect by the mere expectation that it would be accorded her. It would help too, and not just for his personal gratification, if she had some beauty, grace, and elegance. And a few more years of age and experience than a young girl fresh from the schoolroom would have.
More important than anything else, he needed someone who could give him sons. Though that was the one thing that could never be guaranteed, of course.
And now it had struck him, as though as a joke, that Lady Jessica Archer might well be the perfect candidate.
Wasit a joke?
He really hadnottaken a liking to her. But he would admit that his hasty judgment might not be a fair one. He knew that from his professional life.
She was almost certainly on her way to London.
And so was he.
Perhaps he would have the chance to get a second look at her.
