“My uncle?”Gabriel calmed a bit, loosening his hold on Lucy and giving her an apologetic grimace.
“Yes,” Spofford said, belatedly cautious.“I was given to understand that Mr.Farthingdale went with him, to care for Wolverton Chase, when Your Grace, er, came of age.”
Fitz, having finally extricated himself from the carriage, sauntered up on Gabriel’s other said with a wide, cheery smile.“Spofford, how are you, old thing?Terribly good of you to make all ready for us.We are positively famished and near to expiring for want of tea.Would you be so kind?The second drawing room, perhaps?Thank you so much.Now come along, Thorne, let’s show Lucy what she has to look forward to when she becomes your bride.”
Taking Gabriel’s other arm, he propelled all three of them up the steps and through the front door.
Gabriel shook him off.“What the devil are you playing at, Fitz?”
“Oh, a thousand pardons—did you want to stand in your own drive, brangling about with the servants all day?”Fitz blinked innocently.“Or did you want to come inside and have some tea and get your bearings?”
“Damn you, Fitz,” Gabriel snarled.“You know, don’t you.Tell me!”
Fitz held up his hands, placating, but his eyes were full of sympathy.“He’s at Wolverton Chase.”
Gabriel frowned.“My family’s old hunting lodge?But why?—”
“He went with your uncle and Dom,” Fitz said, clearly choosing his words with some care.“When you… There’s really no nice way to put this.You banished them from Thornecliff.”
“But why—?”Gabriel cut himself off.“I know, I know.You weren’t there, and I wouldn’t speak of it.”
Looking relieved, Fitz nodded.“Exactly so.Now, you two go on to the drawing room, I’m going to go check on Caroline.No doubt she is giving detailed instructions on the handling of her trunk full of books.”
Moving like a wooden soldier, Gabriel led Lucy through the foyer with its enormous chandelier and domed ceiling, down the hall and into a well-appointed drawing room decorated in dove gray with rose-pink accents.
Running a hand through his hair, disordering the golden locks, Gabriel blew out a breath.“My apologies for that…outburst.It’s just, I’d been looking forward to seeing Farthingdale again.I imagined introducing you to him— And now, damn it to hell.For all I know, the man is dead.”
Lucy couldn’t stay silent.“But Gabriel, who is he?Your former butler?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said shortly, his eyes remote.“Just a servant; they come and go.Nothing to make a fuss over.I was only…surprised.I had expected him to be here.”
“Gabriel,” she said chidingly, “he sounds like he means much more to you than ‘just a servant.’”
He dropped her hand and Lucy immediately felt cold.Stalking over to a settee covered in silvery velvet, he dropped down onto it and put his face in his hands.“He was.Farthingdale was—is, I hope—the best of men.”
His voice was muffled, but Lucy could clearly hear the thread of pain running through it.Crossing to him, she nudged him over until she could perch beside him, close enough to lay her head on his shoulder if she wished.
“Tell me about him,” she requested softly.
So he did.In a slow, halting voice, Gabriel spoke of Albert Farthingdale’s patience.His roundabout way of giving advice, which involved asking questions rather than telling a young boy what to do.His kindnesses, both large and small.
Farthingdale had been the one to whom both Gabriel and his cousin, Dominic, had gone when they’d needed to be patched up after a scuffle or when they needed encouragement after one of Uncle Roman’s blistering lectures.He’d never forgotten a birthday.He knew all their favorite treats and the best places to hunt for blackberries and the proper way to tie a fishing lure.
“He loved you,” Lucy murmured when Gabriel finally fell silent.
Lucy remembered a conversation she’d had once with Thornecliff about her habit of treating the servants as though they were human beings.No wonder he hadn’t thought her strange for it.
“Then where is he?”Gabriel demanded, his entire body a coiled spring of tension.“Did I banish him, along with my closest family—or did he choose to leave with them, because of the monster I became?Have I systematically destroyed every good thing in my life?”
Lucy ached for him.It made her reckless.More reckless even than usual.
She put her hands on his jaw and forced him to look at her.“Stop it.You haven’t destroyed everything good in your life.”
He reached up and circled her wrists with his hands, not to pull them away from him, but merely to hold on.As if she was the only thing keeping him afloat in a storm-tossed sea.
“No, I haven’t, have I?By some miracle, by the grace of something I’m not sure I can believe in, I’ve got you.”
For the first time since he fell, Lucy initiated the kiss.Pulling his head down to hers, she brushed their lips together, softly at first, then she opened her mouth and invited him inside.
