Silence settled around them. Gabriella held her breath. Slowly, like the sun rising over the horizon, Huntley’s eyes filled with deep curiosity and the sort of admiration that Gabriella had never before been subjected to from anyone. He stared at her a moment before quietly saying, “It must be the weather.”
A sigh of relief swept through her. “Yes, it must be.” She gave Warwick and Fielding a pointed look. “Don’t you agree?”
They reluctantly nodded, though their guards clearly remained in place, secured like impenetrable walls of steel. They didn’t trust Huntley in the least; that much was clear. And they didn’t like the fact that he’d come here from out of nowhere, without the pedigree to commend him for the position.
A sudden dislike rose through her throat, tingeing her tongue with a bitter taste. It made her want to leave this place and the people it contained with uncanny speed. And yet, as much as she disliked it, it was the life to which she’d been born, the life to which she was beholden. To simply turn her back on it now when her parents depended on her . . .
A bell sounded, signaling that it was time to go in to the dining room. Fielding offered her his arm once more, and she dutifully accepted. But as she did so, her gaze landed on one of the windows, and on the reflection captured within. It was of a blonde-haired woman, her eyes filled with resigned sorrow, affording her the look of a sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter.
“I have to say that I found your behavior this evening baffling, Gabriella,” her father told her later during their drive home. Shadowed against the opposite side of the carriage, her parents’ expressions were impossible to read, but Gabriella had heard the tightening of her father’s voice, a reminder of his trained control. Her mother’s silence, on the other hand, was like a living, breathing thing that filled the space between them, to the point of suffocation.
“My behavior?” Gabriella dared, her hands curling into the diaphanous silk of her skirts.
Not once, in all her years, had she ever questioned her parents’ behavior or argued against them. It wasn’t done. Was it? Children were taught to respect their elders. Her father’s word had always been law, and her mother’s advice had been meant to be followed.
Gabriella stared at them now—at the faceless silhouettes that bobbed in time to the carriage’s movement. Occasionally, the glow from a streetlight would steel through the window, brightening the tips of their noses for one flickering second.
“That is what we are discussing,” Warwick grumbled.
Nails digging against the sides of her thighs and her heart drumming wildly against her chest, Gabriella shoved aside the temptation to smooth things over with platitudes and chose honesty instead. “You were unforgivably rude to Huntley,” she murmured.
Her mother gasped, but said nothing further. Warwick, however, leaned forward with the slow precision of a predator. His face emerged from the darkness, shrouded by dull shades of gray that no doubt softened the furious glint in his eyes. “He may have a title, Gabriella, but he is not one of us.”
“He is common,” Gabriella’s mother pointed out, as if she sensed that Gabriella needed reminding.
“And he speaks as though he’s struggling to pronounce the words,” Warwick added, “not to mention his lack of education. For heaven’s sake, Gabriella, the man has had no proper schooling. He admitted as much himself. And he is a peer! A man we’re meant to consider our equal! Forgive me, but I don’t believe I have ever heard of anything more absurd!”
Fearing that her parents might become suspicious of her concern, Gabriella chose to retreat, saying simply, “It was no reason for you to be cruel.” As much as she’d always loved her parents, she had seen a side of them in recent days that she intensely disliked. It was a certain sense of superiority that she’d never really noticed before, perhaps because there had never been occasion for them to show it so clearly. But it was out in full force now with Huntley’s arrival, and Gabriella found herself, for the first time ever, questioning her station in life.
“Cruel?” Her father laughed. “I did the man a favor by informing him that he is never going to be welcome among our set. If he’s wise, he’ll stop wasting his time trying.”
Oh blast. She could not let that statement go without comment. “Like it or not, Papa, he is the Duke of Huntley. I really think you ought to resign yourself to the fact.”
“The most unsuitable duke I’ve ever seen. And his sisters!” Gabriella’s mother shuddered. “I’ll trust you to remember that we have forbidden you from socializing with any of them in any capacity.”
“The last thing we need is for Fielding to withdraw his interest on account of any poor judgment on your part,” Warwick said.
“Oh heavens,” Lady Warwick exclaimed with her hand on her chest, “you must not squander the opportunity you have of becoming Lady Fielding.”
A prospect that hadn’t really concerned Gabriella one way or the other, until recently. Now, after witnessing how unfeeling he could be, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was the right choice for her, no matter the stakes at play. Marriage was, after all, quite permanent.
“Would you still love me if I didn’t want to marry him?”
She’d spoken without thinking, and found herself completely surprised by the thought she’d just voiced, and quite unsure of where it had come from.
A lengthy moment of silence passed, as though her parents were having some difficulty processing her words themselves. Eventually, her mother chuckled. “What a silly idea,” she said with a smiling voice. “Of course we would.”
“You don’t seem to approve of Victoria’s choice, and she chose love above everything else,” Gabriella said with a strange sense of envy that she’d never felt before.
“Your sister broke a brilliant engagement in order to marry a tradesman,” Warwick clipped with unconcealed vehemence. “That doesn’t mean we don’t love her anymore, it just means that we would be forced to move in different circles if she were still in England, which, as you know, she is not.”
“But all of that is beside the point, is it not?” Gabriella’s mother asked as she placed a calming hand on her husband’s arm. “After all, Fielding will eventually propose, and when he does, Gabriella will accept. That’s all there is to it. She will not make her sister’s mistake.”
“But will I be happy?” Gabriella asked, choosing to ignore her mother’s note of warning.
“Of course you will,” Warwick insisted. “Fielding will make an excellent husband. You will want for nothing.”
“What about love?”
