“I—” Gabriel broke off. “I was not here to protect her.”
“You could not have known. She was only having tea with…?”
“Her sister,” Gabriel said. “Her younger sister, Alicia.”
“Where is she now?”
“I do not knownorcare,but she is not here. So she is safe, while my wife is not!”
“Gabriel.” Nicholas’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. The touch was both too much and grounding. “Gabriel,breathe.We have gotten Sibyl back into Stonehelm House. She is already being examined by a physician.”
“I do not know if she has regained consciousness.”
Gabriel felt like a caged animal, torn between investigating the accident and running to his wife’s side. But right now, everything inside him fought to stay there, to find out what had happened.
“She is with her other sisters,” Nicholas reminded him, for it was he who had sent a carriage to pick them up.
Around them, people paused, looking and whispering. The gossip about Sibyl and Gabriel had begun to die down, the last Gabriel had heard, but now all eyes were on him.
Heavens,he wanted to tear every one of them apart.
His wife’s accident was not some spectacle to gawk at. No, it had risked her life. It had put her in danger, and he… he could not keep his composure.
“Gabriel.”
“What?” he snapped.
“I need you to focus,” Nicholas insisted. “You have not been at the King’s Hound for a couple of weeks now, and while I think that is a good thing, for it means you have not felt distressed enough to punch it out on some poor soul, I can sense how tense you are. What has been going on?”
“Nothing.” Gabriel whirled around to face his friend, his face tight with anger, with every tangled emotion he couldn’t work through. Not right now, not with the tear in his conscience.
“Do not insult me like that.” Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “Tell me.”
“It is Preston,” Gabriel snarled. “He keeps insisting on meeting Sibyl properly,personally,and it has been grating on me. I have not told Sibyl because she does not know what a—” He struggled to find the right words. “A money-grabbing fool he is. She will simply consider it an opportunity to learn more about me, but I want to keep her away from him, so I keep telling her that all is well.”
Nicholas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. A few agonizing seconds before he finally said, “Let us investigate the damage further.”
Finally, Gabriel returned to Stonehelm House after finding a loose bolt in the carriage’s wheel spoke, as if it had just been waiting to come undone and cause the carriage to collapse, and in turn injure his wife.
He felt almost awkward to enter the chamber Sibyl was in, surrounded by her two older sisters. When the floorboards creaked, both Duchesses looked up at him.
Isabella was glaring at him, while Hermia’s face was pale with worry.
“Did you find out anything about the accident?” Hermia asked, letting go of Sibyl’s hand.
His wife was still unconscious, courtesy of a sleeping draught the physician had prescribed until he could assess the full extent of her injuries.
He nodded. “I will speak with you both out here. I do not want to disturb my wife.”
Hermia nodded, but he could have sworn he heard Isabella scoff. His jaw clenched as they joined him in the hallway.
“First of all,” he began, “is Rosie all right?”
Isabella nodded. “Her nursemaid is with her in the nursery. She is uninjured but cannot stop crying. It is as if she knows her mother is not well.”
Gabriel’s heart broke at that, but he forced himself to nod. “Second, I want you both to know that I care for Sibyl a great deal. This will never,everhappen again.”
“Gabriel—” Hermia tried.
