The Unexpected Marriage Of Gabriel Stone. Louise Allen

to his discussion about stone quarries with Lord Calderbeck. ‘What the devil?’

      ‘I trod on Lord Woodruffe’s toes, Father. I am so sorry.’

      ‘Then why in blazes is he clutching his...er...?’ The fact that he was addressing his daughter appeared to dawn on the earl and he stopped mid-sentence. ‘Brace up, man, and stop whimpering!’

      Woodruffe straightened, shot Caroline a malevolent look that made her shudder and limped back into the house.

      It was a good start. Now she had to balance her behaviour on the knife edge between giving Woodruffe a disgust of her and betraying what she was doing.

      The telescope had rolled across the terrace and she went to pick it up. It was a good instrument and there was a dent in its brass casing now. Caroline raised it to her eye to check that the lenses were not damaged, scanning round as she fiddled with the focus screw. Yes, it was working perfectly, thank goodness.

      The trees on the far hill came into sharp definition and there, strolling back to his chapel, was the hermit. He probably thinks no one is looking at him now he’s finished his performance, she thought with a smile as the tall figure turned and walked up towards the path into the trees. Again that sense of recognition swept over her and this time, without the beard and the accent to distract her, she placed him.

      Lord Edenbridge. The image swooped and blurred as her hands shook. Gabriel Stone. Petrus, the Latin for stone or rock. How could I not have realised?

      ‘I say, do take care, Lady Caroline, you almost dropped the telescope again.’ Mr Turnbull took it from her lax grip.

      ‘Thank you, Mr Turnbull. So foolish of me, but staring through it made me suddenly light-headed.’

      Somehow she chattered on, made conversation as the party drifted back into the drawing room. Gabriel Stone. Here. Why? It had to be something to do with her. He had no reason to be taking employment of any kind, let alone something as peculiar and uncomfortable as fulfilling an eccentric man’s expensive fantasies about landscape features. But what did he want?

      ‘Dinner is served, my lord,’ their butler announced, making her jump.

      Caroline got a grip on herself. Dangerous peers of the realm might be lurking in the shrubbery—literally and mysteriously—but she had a dinner party to deal with. ‘We are a most unbalanced group, are we not?’ she said with an attempt at a gay laugh. ‘Lord Calderbeck, may I claim your arm? The rest of you gentlemen must escort yourselves in, I fear.’

      She had set out the place cards with strict attention to precedence. Marcus Fawcett, Viscount Frampton, sat on her left hand as she occupied the hostess’s chair at the foot of the table with Lord Calderbeck on her other side. Woodruffe, a baron, was left watching her from his position midway down the table. She turned and began to flirt lightly with the viscount. The stare turned to a glare and young Lord Frampton sat up straighter, his expression faintly smug.

      Just as long as I do not have to deal with him as well! Caroline accepted a slice of beef with a smile and asked the viscount about his horses. From experience, he could be relied upon to bore on for hours once started on that theme, which had the dual benefits of distracting his mind from flirtation and also allowing her time to think about a certain earl.

      Why on earth hadn’t she recognised Gabriel immediately? That beard and the curling mane of hair, she supposed. And the fact that when they had met before she had been too embarrassed to study his face closely. It was that rangy body with its easy movement that had always attracted her and that was what she had recognised through the telescope.

      ‘Spavined? How distressing,’ she responded automatically to Frampton’s ramblings about one of his matched bays, then closed her ears to an account of just what the farrier had advised doing about it and what his head groom had thought.

      But what was Gabriel Stone doing here with his Welsh accent and his poetry? She would wager her entire allowance for a year that the man had never so much as rhymed a couplet in his life. Surely he hadn’t come with a view to collecting on her shocking IOU after all? No marriage had been announced, no betrothal announced, so the terms of the bargain were not met in any case.

      They had parted with angry words, on her part at least, but if Gabriel had wanted to make his peace with her he was going to preposterous extremes to do so. Besides, he had not revealed his identity when they met at the hermitage and he had made no attempt to contact her since.

      ‘And what do you think of your father’s hermit, eh, Lady Caroline?’ Lord Calderbeck’s voice was loud enough to draw the attention of all the diners.

      ‘I...I haven’t...I mean I don’t...’ She was blushing, she knew she was. And stammering and generally behaving in a most suspicious manner. ‘I have not had the opportunity to view the man at close quarters,’ she managed. ‘I have been rather occupied. But I consider the impression he creates from a distance to be most picturesque. My father has such a good eye for a landscape effect.’

      That at least earned her an approving look from the far end of the table. Perhaps her father’s violent anger with her had been forgotten for now, although she could not delude herself that the truce would hold once she defied him again over Lord Woodruffe. And she would defy him, she was even more certain of that now as she watched her suitor eating his way through the mound of food on his plate without the slightest sign of appreciation or discrimination. His eyes, when they met hers, held promises of retribution that banished the image of a portly, middle-aged buffoon, replacing them with threats of domination and pain.

      * * *

      Gabriel dumped the bucket he had carried down to the stream to deal with his after-dinner washing up and closed the door of his cell. It was cool now that the sun was down and the mossy grove seemed to stay damp however high the daytime temperature. He had performed his first charade for his employer, seen the glint as the sinking sun had caught the lens of at least one telescope, and there was small risk the house party guests would leave after dinner to inspect him. It was safe to relax.

      The fire was still alight after his culinary efforts earlier and he tossed on some wood, more for the cheerful flicker of light than for the warmth. For a man who had never had to so much as make himself a cup of tea before he was quite pleased with his cookery, even if all he was doing was converting the food sent over from the big house kitchens. He had heated soup without scalding it, he had chopped up what he assumed were the leftovers from yesterday’s roast along with onions and a carrot, fried the result with beef dripping and consumed the savoury mess along with a hunk of bread that was only slightly stale, washed down with a mug of the thin ale that had been provided in a firkin.

      Not what he was used to, he thought as he stretched out his legs in front of the fire, but he was getting accustomed to it and the constant fresh air was sharpening his appetite, even for his own cooking. It was certainly easier to adapt to the food than it was to the long skirts of his robe. How the devil did women cope with the encumbrance? To say nothing of the fact that it was decidedly draughty around the nether regions.

      The chilling effect of cold air had probably been an advantage to monks fighting the temptations of the flesh in their quest for celibacy. Not that cold draughts had been necessary the other day when he had found himself with Lady Caroline in his arms. It had been anger that had heated his blood then, fury that anyone could manhandle a woman, let alone her own father.

      He had expected to discover that she had been bullied, but not that she was suffering actual physical harm. Bullying he had expected to be able to deal with by giving her moral support and by finding something on Woodruffe that would persuade the man to drop his pretensions to Caroline’s hand. His dubious sexual proclivities were well enough known for that to be ineffectual as a pressure point—Gabriel must find something else. It might amount to blackmail, but he had no qualms about that in this case. And probably Woodruffe would prefer it to facing him down the barrel of one of Manton’s duelling pistols, which was Gabriel’s fall-back plan. It wouldn’t be difficult to work up some kind of quarrel with a man as objectionable as Edgar Parfit.

      But if Caroline was being mistreated