Lady Rosalie, along with her bosom friend, Lady Lavinia, Countess of Winterbury, had a particularly grating way about them.They each seemed only to care for one another, and to find every other human in their immediate vicinity to be far beneath them.
Including, it was rumored, their husbands.
Lucy’s opinion of Lady Rosalie hadn’t been improved by the fact that her only response to Lucy’s missive about her brother’s accident had been a short note to Gabriel expressing her sympathy for his condition and a hope that he would improve quickly.She was quite unable to visit, she claimed, as she was much taken up with her sojourn at the Winterbury estate in the Lake District.
“Too busy promenading about Lake Windermere with Lady Lavinia, looking down their noses at the locals and congratulating themselves on their own superiority,” Lucy grumbled now.
Gabriel shot her an amused look.“So you have met my sister.”
“Yes, unfortunately.”Lucy sniffed.“Though she’s not much of a sister, if you ask me.I would never be able to stay away if Gemma or Nathaniel was hurt.”
“No,” Gabriel agreed, cocking his head to regard her warmly.“You would rush to their side and ply them with novels and ginger biscuits and tales of your adventures.But your family is close; I hardly know my sister.We didn’t grow up together.When our parents died, she was sent to live with a distant cousin’s family.They had daughters, and it was considered a better situation for her than to be under the care of a bachelor uncle.Though Uncle Roman wed not long after he arrived at Thornecliff to oversee my upbringing.”
“You have an aunt?”For some reason, this surprised Lucy.Perhaps she’d assumed that for the relationship between uncle and nephew to devolve so completely, there must have been no sensible ladies present to calm the troubled waters.
“I did, but she died less than a year after their marriage.As far as I know, Uncle Roman never remarried.”But Gabriel frowned, clearly very aware that a great many things might have befallen his uncle without Gabriel’s knowledge, including matrimony.
“And your cousin, Dominic?”Lucy prompted, a little hesitant to poke at the sore spot but terribly curious all the same.“He was born before she died?”
“Dom is two years older than I am,” Gabriel corrected her absently, still staring at the fast-approaching manor house with a furrowed brow.“He was my aunt’s son from her first marriage.But Roman adopted him.Dom is legally a de Vere.”
“Legally and in all other ways, a de Vere,” pronounced Fitz dramatically.“You’re much more like each other than I am like my brother, Robert.Or at least you were at school.Though you shouldn’t have looked much alike, him so dark and you so fair, there was something about the two of you that was like peas in a pod.”
Gabriel smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.“We both grew up trying—and mostly failing—to garner Uncle Roman’s approval.I suppose it created a certain commonality.I wonder what Dom is like now.He would be, what?Thirty-three?Perhaps he is married.Perhaps he has children of his own.”
Lucy and Fitz exchanged uneasy looks.When the storm clouds gathered over Gabriel’s head in this fashion, it could be quite difficult to jolly him out of the incipient dark mood.
“Why don’t you write to him and find out?”suggested Caroline, with the blithe unconcern of someone who tended not to notice other people’s moods.
Lucy held her breath, expecting Gabriel to react with curt dismissal at best, or with snarling anger at worst.But those were the responses of the closed off, complicated, difficult Thorne, with full access to his memories of the pain that shaped him.
Gabriel only regarded Caroline thoughtfully and said, “Perhaps I will.”
Lucy didn’t have time to contemplate whether this was a good or a terrible idea—this Mr.Dominic de Vere might well be able to spur Gabriel’s memories to return, but it was hard to imagine a more agitating way to go about it than for Gabriel to confront the cousin who had once been as close to him as a brother, and from whom he was now totally estranged.
The only thing she could think of that might be more explosive would be if his uncle, whom he’d clearly revered at one point and now couldn’t stand, showed up at Thornecliff.
But Gabriel had weathered the tiring days of travel well, Lucy thought.He seemed no more worn down than the rest of them, and the wound on his head had healed well.He hadn’t mentioned a headache since they left London.So perhaps it would be all right.
Or perhaps he would step foot into Thornecliff, on land his family had owned for five hundred years, and immediately regain all his memories.
She would find out soon enough, because they had arrived.
The carriage pulled sedately around the circular drive in front of the house, and an elderly man in the impeccable suit of a butler descended the steps to stand at attention in welcome.
Beside her, Gabriel suddenly reached for Lucy’s hand and gripped it tight.Concerned, she glanced up at his face.His mouth was pressed into a thin, worried line.His black eyes were trained on the butler.
The moment the carriage rolled to a stop, he leapt down and turned to help Lucy alight.Still hand in hand, he towed her directly to the elderly butler and said, “You there!Where is Farthingdale?”
The butler, an impassive white man with carefully erect posture and an unflappable air about him, evinced no surprise at this extraordinary greeting.“Your Grace,” he intoned.“Welcome home.Allow me to introduce myself, as I have been informed you will not recollect my name.I am Joseph Spofford, and I have been the butler here at Thornecliff for the past dozen years or so.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said impatiently, his hold on Lucy’s hand tight enough to bruise.She was becoming anxious.“The…previous butler.Albert Farthingdale.Where is he?”
Spofford didn’t blink.“I’m sure I could not say, my lord.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”Gabriel snarled, jerking his head to stare down at Lucy with wild eyes.“Did you tell them not to agitate me, too?I’m not a child, to be kept from the truth!”
“I didn’t,” Lucy cried, even as Spofford, gray eyes widening a bit in alarm, said, “My lord, I simply don’t know Mr.Farthingdale’s whereabouts now.It’s been twelve years!I beg your pardon, but perhaps you might ask Lord Roman?”
