Page 84 of Gabriela and His Grace

Taking a step toward the staircase, Gabby murmured, “It sounded like…children laughing.”

“Your Grace,” Mrs. Evers exclaimed, her voice sharp, “I’m sure it’s just the wind. Cutting through the drafty attic.”

Gabby jerked her chin back at the housekeeper’s change in demeanor.

The older woman smoothed her hands over her apron and knotted her hands at her waist. “I apologize, Your Grace. I was simply worried you would climb the stairs and catch a cold.”

“Catch a cold? From the wind?” Gabby slid her gaze to a window that overlooked the back garden. The trees, bushes, and grass basked in the sunshine, with no breeze to rustle their leaves. She frowned as she glanced back at the housekeeper.

“Or maybe it was roosting birds,” Mrs. Evers stammered, her lips pinched.

“Maybe,” Gabby allowed, her eyes traveling up the attic staircase. “Should we go look?”

Mrs. Evers shook her head, rather forcefully. “The rooms are boarded up, so there wouldn’t be much to see.”

“Oh.” Gabby bit back her frustration. Why was the older woman acting so strangely all of a sudden? And why was Mrs. Evers so determined to believe the noises she heard were anything but laughter?

Maybe it was a ghost. Gabby paused as she considered the possibility. Sebastian had said the manor was very old and had seen its fair share of births and deaths within its walls. So was it plausible that spirits still called the manor home? With an uncomfortable swallow, Gabby decided it was.

“Would you like to see the brewing house, Your Grace?” Mrs. Evers asked suddenly, gesturing to a smallish building located off the back garden. “Whitfield Manor has been brewing its own ale for at least two hundred years.”

“I would like that very much,” Gabby said, turning to follow the woman. And she admonished herself not to look over her shoulder at the attic staircase as she did.

• • •

“Good God, boys, I told you it was important for you to be quiet.”

David paused in his reenactment of the squabble he and James had found themselves in with the Johnson boys from the village, his blue eyes owlish. Blue eyes strikingly familiar because Sebastian stared into a pair very much like them whenever he looked into a mirror.

“He’s sorry,” James rushed to say, glaring at David as he smacked his arm. “We’re sorry, Your Grace. Please don’t be angry.”

Any irritation Sebastian felt fled in a whoosh at the panicked look on James’s face. He’d worked to make the boys feel comfortable at Whitfield Manor, and in the ten months they had lived there, Sebastian liked to think he and the staff had done just that. It had taken every one of those months to convince James and David that he wasn’t going to pack them up and send them back to the cold and threadbare home he’d found them in.

But then he’d departed for Mexico and returned married to Gabriela Luna, and it seemed their old fears had resurfaced. Christ, he’d really made a mess of the whole situation.

Scrubbing a hand down his face, Sebastian dropped to one knee before both boys, waiting for each pair of eyes to meet his. “Of course I’m not angry. And I realize that it can be hard to be quiet when you’re very excited to tell the tale of your epic battle.” When David flashed him a toothy smile, Sebastian reached out to muss his hair. “But I don’t want to disturb my new duchess as she adjusts to her life here at Whitfield Manor.”

The boys nodded solemnly, their blue eyes large.

“When will we get to meet her?” James asked, his expression careful.

“Polly says she’s ever so pretty and kind, even if she does have a funny accent,” David added, already bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I should like to meet her very much.”

Sebastian snorted. “And so you shall, soon enough.”

As soon as he told his wife about them. Christ, it was something Sebastian should have done weeks ago. He’d had numerous opportunities to discuss the boys with her on their trip to San Luis Potosí and back, and Sebastian still burned with shame that he hadn’t told Gabriela about them when he’d proposed. He knew when she asked if there was anything she needed to know about his past that she’d been referring to his rakish exploits…but he’d avoided the truth about James and David as if they were a scandalous secret.

Yet so much about his relationship with Gabriela still felt precarious. He knew she cared for him; he sensed it when she smiled at him with a gentleness in her eyes. When she clung to him in her sleep. When she sighed his name as he stroked within her body. But did that mean she cared for him enough to stay? Because if he shared the boys with her and Gabriela eventually left, they would be devastated.

James’s sober stare was a silent prick at his conscience.

Eager to change the topic from the secrets he kept from his duchess, Sebastian resumed his seat and gestured to David with a hand. “Now what happened after Jesse Johnson tripped you coming out of the confection shop?”

As he had hoped, David launched into an animated recitation of the altercation, albeit at a much lower tone. Sebastian listened intently to the story, laughing when he was supposed to and congratulating the boys on their prowess, while silently making a mental note to pay a call on Mr. Johnson regarding his sons’ bullying.

When he pulled out the gifts he had brought from Mexico for the boys, he watched with satisfaction as they exclaimed over the trinkets, thanking him profusely with hugs. Sebastian then helped the boys set up lines of tin soldiers across the nursery floor, dubbing one side the valiant Mexican army and the other the invading French troops. James and David listened intently as he described the ongoing conflict, and the brave Mexicans he had met on his trip who were fighting to reclaim their country from imperial rule. They laughed over their play battles, and when David teased James for taking the game too seriously, Sebastian complimented the older boy on his battle strategies.

As a child, this was what Sebastian had always wanted: a family to call his own. And with David and James now residing happily at the manor, Sebastian was fit to bursting.