Gabriel gripped the side of his chair that his knuckles whitened. “Are you, by any chance, acquainted with a Philip Merivale?”
“Yes sir. He is my father.”
Gabe breathed heavily. “You mean to say hewasyour father as he—he fell in battle? At Waterloo?”
Katy threw him a curious glance. “No sir. He is very much alive.”
“It can’t be.” Gabriel felt the blood leave his face.
“You may go now, Katy,” said Miss Hilversham, “and yes take the girls outside in the fresh air for half an hour.”
“Yes, Miss Hilversham.” The girl curtsied and threw a last curious look at Gabriel before she left.
Miss Hilversham played with her quill. “What do you intend to do, Your Grace?”
Gabriel still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Merivale might be alive. It was a mistake. It was a different Merivale. But first, Birdie. Birdie was what mattered. He’d go down on his knees and beg if he had to.
“I need to find Birdie. Please, Miss Hilversham. Help me.”
The teacher nodded. “You are in luck and will be able to catch two birds with one stone. I sent Miss Talbot to the Ashmore residence in Oxfordshire a fortnight ago. You will find her there.”
Gabriel had no idea what she was talking about, killing two birds with one stone, but he shook her hand gratefully.
Chapter 24
Birdie was readingThe Romance of the Forestto the Dowager Duchess Augusta Ashmore, who sat in a dark blue winged chair and snored so loudly she woke Bart, the three-legged dog, who napped by her feet. Birdie was well aware she’d lost her listener; however, she continued reading. There was something soothing about reading words out loud. At least she didn’t have to think whilst she spoke. Or talk to her friends Lucy and Arabella, who were sitting on a sofa nearby, drinking tea, and conversing with hushed voices.
Birdie loved her friends dearly. But right now, she could not bear their concerned glances and worried frowns they gave her every time she was in their presence.
Lucy, the Duchess of Ashmore, was a lively thing with a head full of brown, unruly curls. Her mouth never stopped moving. She was married to a man completely her opposite, the powerful and, Birdie thought, rather frightful Duke of Ashmore who rarely smiled. She did not know what Lucy saw in him, but the two seemed to be one heart and one soul. The man melted every time he was in Lucy’s presence. Lucy herself transformed into a bundle of bliss every time he was around.
Birdie sighed. Gabriel had never seemed to melt in that manner when she was nearby. The only influence she’d had on the man was that he’d had a tendency to run away and lock himself up in a tower.
So much for him loving her.
She sighed again.
Arabella was the duke’s sister and therefore Lucy’s sister-in-law. Her strawberry blonde hair was coiffed back neatly and her aristocratic nose and forehead left no doubt as to whose family she belonged to. Arabella had always been the gentle, sweet one in their group of friends. Yet she’d proven to have a stubbornness and thirst for adventure that equalled Lucy’s.
She, too, had married for love. Philip Merivale, the Duke of Morley, was more of an engineer than a duke. Birdie had merely blinked when, at their introduction, he’d shot the question at her about whether she agreed that the new steam propulsion technology was already outdated before it had become fashionable.
“For travelling by air is the new future, madam. Would you agree?” he’d asked.
“Er––”
“I take that as a yes.” He’d beamed at her, then whirled off to convince Ashmore to install an automated platform in Ashmore Hall that would vertically transport not only freight but also people. Ashmore had listened, interested.
Watching her friends together with their husbands and families, Birdie was conscious of a painful pang in her heart. She was an outsider. An invisible bubble of bliss and contentment surrounded them.
She felt she was like a black blemish in the middle of a colourful spring meadow.
Birdie shifted uncomfortably.
“Birdie, dear, I daresay you can stop reading now that grandmamma is deeply asleep. She will be quite upset to miss all you’ve read while she slept and no doubt will make you re-read it all later on,” Arabella said in her gentle voice.
Birdie shut the book and pushed up her spectacles.
Lucy threw her a measured look. Birdie fidgeted. Speaking from experience, it never boded well when Lucy had that look in her eyes.
