Page 41 of A Winter Scandal

Thea felt her cheeks warm, but she nodded, staring back at him with her clear, straight gaze.

Gabriel made a small shrugging motion. “I cannot deny there is a possibility. As you were quite vociferous in pointing out, I have hardly lived the life of a saint, though I have tried to take care … well.” He stopped, casting another little glance at her, and cleared his throat. “At any rate, Matthew’s coloring is very different from mine. My mother was dark; Jocelyn’s was fair. That would not preclude his being my son, of course. But I would think that any woman I have, um, known, would come to me straightforwardly and ask for my help. I do not think that I seem a cold, uncaring brute, at least not to, ah, people who have been around me.” Now it was he who looked embarrassed. “I think I am generally accounted a generous man.”

Thea suspected that he was. Gabriel could be arrogant and annoying, and more than once, she had felt a most unchristian urge to hit the man. While it would be silly to pretend that he was anything but a virile man who enjoyed the company of women and the pleasure that it entailed, she had realized that he was not the selfish sort of hedonist she had first imagined him to be. She did not think he was the sort to take his pleasure without any thought to what happened to the woman who provided it. He could be kind, and she had no doubt that he could be generous.

So why then would a woman not ask him for help if she was carrying his child?

Thea sighed. “No. I think Matthew is not yours.”

“I can see that it distresses you to give up that idea.” The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement.

“Don’t be absurd. It isn’t as if I want you to be Matthew’s father.”

“No?”

“Of course not. It is just that it would explain someone bringing the baby here and putting the brooch with him. There is little reason for a complete stranger to do so.”

“Which makes it difficult to believe that he was left by anyone but my sister.”

Thea nodded. “I am sorry. I know it must be upsetting.”

“To think that my own sister would not even come to me? Talk to me? Ask me for help?” He stared off into the distance, his jaw hard. “Bloody hell! I don’t know what to think. I cannot understand why she would care so little, trust me so little. It makes me furious to think that she would stay away this long without even contacting me or her mother—that she would not write to let us know she was not dead. But at the same time, I am elated to think that Jocelyn might still be alive. I had almost given up hope. And then you showed up with that brooch in your hand …”

Thea drew in a sharp breath. “You had assumed she was dead?”

He nodded. “I did not want to believe it. There was no reason to think so from her note. She just said that she could not marry Lord Rawdon, that she wanted to be happy. My first thought was that Rawdon had done something to upset her, that he had made her so unhappy she ran away. I thought she would turn up in a few days, contrite and tearful over the scandal she had caused. I tried to find her, of course, hoping I could get us out of the incident with as little scandal as possible, but I could not. It was as if she had vanished into thin air. I could not imagine where she went. I still cannot.”

“What about her fiancé? Did he have no idea?”

“Him!” Gabriel’s lip curled, and his face turned as hard as stone. “I could not see that he even cared that she had left. He went to his clubs and sat about drinking, doing all his usual things. I asked him how he could sit there so calmly, and he said, ‘Am I supposed to gnash my teeth and wail because a girl decides to cry off?’ That was when I hit him.”

“Oh, dear.”

Gabriel’s grin held no humor, and his eyes had a feral glint as he admitted, “There was a bit of a mill. The club tossed us out. Ian said it was a near thing that there wasn’t a challenge.”

“A challenge? You mean to a duel?”

He nodded casually, as if duels were an ordinary part of one’s day. “But Myles kept it from going forward. I haven’t talked to Rawdon since.”

“I am sorry. It must have all been very difficult for you.”

His gaze was bleak as he said, “I lost my sister and at the same time I lost my best friend.” He shrugged. “But how I felt wasn’t really important. All I cared about was finding Jocelyn. But she had disappeared completely. She never wrote to tell us that she was all right or to explain why she had left. It is like living in limbo, not knowing whether someone is alive or dead, half the time angry with them for leaving you in ignorance, the other half grieving for them. The more time passed, the more I believed she must have passed on.”

Thea’s heart squeezed in sympathy. “And then I found Matthew.”

He nodded. “Now I have hope. When I saw that brooch, for the first time in a long time I thought I would see Jocelyn again. I thought maybe she was waiting to see what I would do, that she feared I might reject her and the child. So I hoped that she would be nearby, that if I looked for her, I would find her. But now …” Gabriel sighed. “It seems clear she does not want me to find her. She was careful to stay at a distance, to bring the baby to Chesley only to leave him. Jocelyn—or whoever left Matthew—seems to be rather adept at keeping out of sight. I think I shall write to my businessman in London, get him to hire a runner to look into it. I am, frankly, a little at a loss here.”

“What about Matthew?”

“There is scarcely anything I can do but provide for him, is there? If there is the slightest chance that he is Jocelyn’s child, I cannot turn him away.” Gabriel smiled faintly. “And he is rather engaging, isn’t he?”

Thea thought of the baby’s sunny smile, the silky texture of his curls, the way he fell asleep so trustingly in her arms, and her heart melted all over again. “Yes. He is very engaging.”

“Perhaps our time would be better spent making a home for Matthew.” He glanced at her. “I should not say our, should I? You may not wish to help me. I need to make the Priory inhabitable for an infant—hire a staff, get a housekeeper, reassure everyone that I am not operating a house of ill repute. And, well, whatever else needs to be done. I fear I am woefully ignorant. That is a good deal to ask of you, I know—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Thea assured him quickly. “I should be very glad to help you. Is there a nursery area in the Priory?”

He looked at her blankly. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember seeing a room with a cradle. I haven’t the slightest notion how to get a cradle, either.”