“It does,” the sergeant agreed. “Shall I wait for you?”
“Come with me. You’re more pleasant than I am.” Taking a deep breath, he swung the brass boar’s-head knocker against the dark green door. The French cavalry didn’t unsettle him. Talking to a young lady with whom he had nothing in common but a set of parents—that was something else entirely.
A moment later the door opened, and he found himself looking at an older, round woman with her hair tucked into a maid’s cap. “May I help you?” she asked, looking his red and white uniform up and down. “Sir?”
Marjorie had a maid? Gabriel cleared his throat. He needed to remember to be polite and civilized. This wasn’t a battlefield. “Is Miss Forrester in?”
The maid held out her hand, palm up. “Your card, sir, and I shall inquire.”
His card?“I don’t have a card.” If he did, he would only have to reprint it after today, anyway. “I’m Major Gabriel Forrester. Her brother.”
Her small eyes narrowed a little. “Wait here, then. I shall inquire, Major.” The door closed on his face.
“Rude woman,” Kelgrove commented from behind him. “She would have been falling all over herself if you’d told her you were the Duke of Lattimer.”
“But then Marjorie wouldn’t know who the devil was calling on her.” He didn’t give a damn what some maid thought of him in the meantime.
The door opened again. “This way, Major Forrester. Miss Forrester will be down in a moment.” Without waiting for a response the maid motioned him into the room directly off the foyer. Two chairs, a couch, and an end table sat in the center of the small, spare room, with a writing desk shoved against the near wall, a few shelves above it, and nearly every available space covered with bouquets of large, yellow daisies. Even with the fresh flowers, though, the room smelled musty, the closed-in sensation somehow made worse by the pervading scent of lemon verbena.
“This is very… cozy,” Kelgrove muttered under his breath. “Smells like a funeral, though.”
Gabriel nodded. The flowers, the scattering of books and baubles about the room, fit his nightmare of domesticity. None of it, though, felt like his memories of Marjorie. Had she changed that much? Or had he known her that little?
“Gabriel? Oh, good heavens, itisyou!”
He faced the doorway. Marjorie was taller and slimmer at one-and-twenty than she’d been at seventeen, but that wasn’t what struck him first. Rather, it was the careful bun in her dark hair, the simple, modest gown of green muslin beneath a green and yellow pelisse, the straight shoulders and level, blue-eyed gaze—somewhere over the past four years since he’d last seen her she’d grown into a pretty, clear-eyed woman.
“You look very well, Ree,” he said, smiling as he walked forward to take both her hands in his. “And you’ve done nicely for yourself.” Gabriel kissed her on the cheek.
She freed her fingers, stepping into the small room and shutting the door behind her. “I’m glad to see you, but what are you doing here? I thought you were in Spain.”
“I was, until just under a fortnight ago.” He gestured at Kelgrove, standing before the window like a stout, red-coated paperweight. “Ree, my aide-de-camp, Sergeant Adam Kelgrove. Adam, my sister, Marjorie.”
“Ma’am,” Kelgrove responded, bowing.
“You brought your sergeant? Is this something official, then?” she asked, frowning.
“Yes, and no.” He scowled. Fighting was so much easier than polite conversation. “Kelgrove said I should have sent word first. I apologize for not doing so. The past handful of days have been… interesting.”
Marjorie put a hand on his forearm. “You never need to apologize for visiting me, Gabriel.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Perhaps for doing it so rarely, but not for the act itself.”
He inclined his head. She’d learned polish, and that was good. Manners and refinement were better weapons than a pistol in London Society. “To it, then. It seems we had a great-great-uncle. Ronald Leeds. The Duke of Lattimer.”
A small furrow appeared between her delicate brows and then vanished again. “I heard about him. He passed away, didn’t he? Five or six months ago. It was in the newspapers. They couldn’t find any heirs, and speculation was that the Crown would end up with the property.” She tilted her head. “Did you inherit something? Because you already send me more than you should, Gabriel. I don’t expect any more.”
“I did inherit something.” He pulled the signet ring from his pocket and handed it to her. “Actually, I inherited everything.”
Her fair cheeks paled as she stared at the absurdly large ruby in its heavy, ornate gold setting. “What? You— If this is a jest, it isn’t the least bit amusing.”
“It isn’t a jest. I had no idea, either. I’ve taken a leave from the army and just this morning finished three days of signing papers and answering questions about Mother and her family, to see if they matched answers they already had. It was ridiculous, but at the end they handed me that ring and a great deal more paperwork—and in essence the deeds to three estates, a large house here in London, and another one in Inverness. I need to go to Scotland to have a look at the Lattimer property, but I wanted to tell you that you won’t have to rely on my salary any longer, as…” Gabriel trailed off as his sister let out a sob and sank onto the couch, the ring clutched to her chest.
“It’s true?” she quavered, wiping at the stream of tears running down her cheeks. “Truly true?”
Gabriel frowned. Tears? For the devil’s sake, he didn’t know how to deal with tears. “It’s true. But what’s wrong? You’ve managed all this on your own,” he said, gesturing at the small house around them. “An increased income will only make keeping it up that much easier. And you’ll be able to have—”
“Keeping it up?” she repeated, glancing toward the door and lowering her voice. “Do you… Why would I want to keep up this moldy, outdated rabbit hole?”
“But Kelgrove said this was your address. Your house.”
