They paused, allowing Lady Macbeth to sniff about the bushes. “Then there was the midnight swim in the creek.”
“Good God. No one caught you...”
“Well…”
He groaned. “Forget I asked.”
“Certainly.”
“Any other incidences?”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment and his pulse jumped.
“Gabriella?” he said with a warning.
“Well, if you must know, I skipped classes one day. I had plans to see the stable boy, you see. All the girls thought him comely.”
James’s insides tightened in a painful coil, green tingeing his vision. The image of her being touched by anyone other than him rattled him inside out. He worked his jaw loose. “What happened?” he asked softly.
She didn’t speak for so long, he thought she wouldn’t answer. Lady Macbeth tugged on her lead and Gabriella followed her path along the bushes. The dew-covered grass dampened the edges of her lively striped frock. “He, er, had plans of his own.”
James waited, violence gathering like an untethered storm over the channel that separated England and France.
She sniffed her lofty disdain one could only learn at the knee of a ducal family. “Let us just say he was not a gentleman.”
James’s patience toppled to irritation. “I would have the entire story, Countess. Did he hurt you?”
She turned to him with a pleading glance. “You must promise not to be angry.”
“I promise not to be angry… with you.” It was the best he could do. He might have to hunt down and kill the boy—who was now a man and likely still terrorizing young women. That sort of behavior wasn’t the sort one always outgrew.
She considered him for a long moment, then with the short nod, continued her walk with Lady Macbeth. “Well, he pulled me down in the hay.”
James flexed his fingers.
“Rebecca went after him with a rake,” she said quickly. “I was unharmed, but suffice to say she saved my life that day.” Gabriella’s quiet tone spoke volumes.
“Something she appears to be quite adept at,” he murmured under his breath.
She shot him a quick glance. “Rebecca didn’t fare quite so well. He turned his fury on her then. He hit her arm. It became infected. The doctors wanted to… to…” She shook her head, and a tear dripped off her chin. She has a horrendous scar, you know.” Her shudder reached through to James, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his chest.
“What happened to the blighter?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“But you weren’t hurt?” he demanded softly.
“No. Just my pride.”
James drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long stream of relief. “What a reckless little thing you were,” he said mildly, hiding his outrage over a stable boy that would definitely atone for his aggression. Just as soon as James could locate the profligate. “Any other mad occurrences I should know about?” None could be as frightful as that one, he thought.
“Only, the time I bumped into Rebecca, and she flailed into Sebastian’s arms. That happened during our come-out ball. Shufflebottom grabbed me, but, well, you remember, don’t you? That was the night you snuck me back in the house—which reminds me, how did you know the inside of the London Dorchester mansion so well—”
“Gabriella,” he interrupted, “you’re straying from the topic at hand again.” This was not a direction he wished for the conversation at hand.
“Oh, yes. Well, Sebastian never saw me, and, for the longest time, he believed Rebecca had thrown herself at him, angling for a betrothal.”
“I suspect that didn’t go over well in Ryleigh’s eyes,” he said wryly and not without sympathy.
