He could feel the heat of Lady Jessica’s hand through his sleeve. He could smell her perfume, or was it soap? It was a warm, pleasant scent, whatever it was. He had noticed it last evening too when he had sat beside her on the pianoforte bench.
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
She looked at him in apparent surprise. “Well enough to keep myself afloat if a boat I am in should capsize within sight of land,” she said. “If that was what you were asking.”
“It was,” he told her. “All too many people think it wondrously picturesque and romantic to be rowed about on a lake or river without even considering the very real danger of drowning.”
“Is this your roundabout way of saying I looked both romantic and picturesque out on the water just now?” she asked. She was playing the haughty grand lady again. Or perhaps there was no playacting involved. This outer demeanor seemed to come naturally to her.
“No,” he said. “It is my way of saying I am glad you are able to swim.”
“My safety matters to you, then, does it?” she asked him.
“Since I intend to marry you,” he told her, “of course. I can hardly marry a dead bride.”
“Ah. That is still your intention, then, is it?” she said. “But are you not afraid Mr. Rochford will snatch me from under your very nose?”
“No,” he said.
“He is very attentive,” she said, “and very charming. Not to mention handsome.”
“I have a higher opinion of your intelligence,” he said.
“But he will be an earl one day,” she said.
“Perhaps.”
There was a brief silence before she spoke again. “And you, Mr. Gabriel Thorne,” she said. “What do you have to offer the daughter and sister of a duke? Will you be an earl one day?”
Was he mistaken or had she put a slight emphasis upon his first name?
They met Boris Wayne, one of Lord Molenor’s sons, and Adrian Sawyer, Viscount Dirkson’s son, at that moment. Each had a young lady on his arm—the very two with whom Gabriel had tried and failed to make conversation earlier. There was a merry exchange of greetings. The four of them were on their way down to the river to see if there were any boats free.
“We are going to see the hothouses,” Lady Jessica told them.
“I would not bother if I were you, Jess,” Boris Wayne advised. “We were just there and they are very hot inside and very full of people. Who wants to be jostled by the multitudes just for the pleasure of cooking as one gazes at row upon row of orange trees? We stayed for three minutes total.”
“Two,” the young lady on his arm said. And giggled.
“And a half,” her sister added—and giggled.
“There is a floral clock through there,” Adrian Sawyer told them, pointing to a high privet hedge to his right, “and an impressive fountain. And there is the rose arbor up beside the house. Someone told me there are a thousand blooms there, but I did not stop to count.”
The sisters thought that deserved another burst of glee.
“The air is cooler out on the river,” Lady Jessica said. “Enjoy the boats.”
The four of them went on their way, chatting and laughing.
“They were mute when I met them earlier with their mother and eldest sister,” Gabriel said. “Giggling, but otherwise mute.”
“Doubtless they were intimidated by your solemn grandeur,” Lady Jessica said. “And your advanced age.”
“Do you think?” he asked.
“I think,” she said.
“I suppose,” he said, “I ought to have realized that if the hothouses were recommended to me, they would be recommended to multitudes of others too. Shall we forget about them? Go to the rose arbor instead?”
“To see a thousand roses?” she said. “By all means. It will make a change from gazing upon a single one.”
“Are you offended by those?” he asked her.
She turned her head to look at him again. Her parasol made a lacy pattern of sunshine and shade across her face beneath the brim of her bonnet. She was very beautiful. It was not an original observation, but her good looks were a constant source of wonder to him.
“No.” She hesitated. “Quite the contrary.”
Crowds seemed to be gathering on the terrace and the reason became obvious as they drew closer. Tea was being set out on long tables covered with white cloths, and it did indeed look like the veritable feast Lady Vickers had predicted. Servants were setting up small tables and chairs on what was left of the terrace and on the lawn below.
“Are you hungry?” Gabriel asked.
“I would rather go to the rose arbor,” she said.
Interesting. She might have lost him easily enough among the crowds gathering about the food tables—if she wished to do so, that was. Apparently she did not.
He expected that the rose arbor would be crowded too, and probably it had been until a short while ago. Now there was only one group of people on the lower tier, deep in animated conversation. The second and top tiers appeared to be deserted. Tea had been deemed of more interest than roses.
It was an impressive part of the garden, running along the whole width of the house as it did. There were trellises, archways, hedges, flower beds, low walls, the wall of the house itself, all of them loaded with roses at various stages of blooming. A high hedge, cut with geometric precision, extended all the way down the side of the arbor farthest from the house, giving the impression of deep seclusion and the reality of breathtaking beauty. Even the sounds of voices and laughter seemed muted here.
“I think,” Lady Jessica said, “this is what heaven must smell like.” She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly.
“We will have to be very virtuous for the rest of our lives, then,” he said, “so that we may enjoy it together for eternity.”
“Which might be an embarrassment,” she said, opening her eyes, “if I should end up with a different husband and you with a different wife.”
“Impossible,” he said.
“Do you always get your own way, Mr. Thorne?” she asked, cupping a yellow rose in both hands, though she was not quite touching it, he noticed.
“Only in the important things,” he said.
“And I am important?”
“Yes.”
She looked around until she saw a wrought iron seat close to the wall of the house, with its climbing rose plants, and went to sit on it. She left room for him beside her. The floor of this top tier was paved with pinkish brick. There was a small fountain in the middle, its granite basin shaped like a fully opened rose.
“Is Thorne your real name?” she asked him.
Ah.
“Yes,” he said.
“Not Rochford?” she asked.
“No.”
She closed her parasol and set it down on the seat beside her. “I believe you are lying,” she said.
“You think I am the long-lost earl, then?” he asked her. “Just because I share a first name with him?”
She looked up at him as he stood by the fountain, his hands clasped at his back, and her eyes roamed over him. “Are you?” she asked, her voice so soft it was hardly audible.
He gazed back. Secrecy had not been his original plan when he decided to come to London rather than go direct to Brierley. He had merely wanted to be better prepared to go there. He had wanted to look like an English gentleman for starters. He had wanted to hire a good lawyer and agent and acquire an experienced, reliable steward. He had wanted to find out what he needed to do to verify his identity and establish his claim. He had wanted, perhaps, to find out if there might be any trouble awaiting him—legal trouble, that was—though he did not believe there would be anything he could not handle. He was no longer the frightened boy who had fled England thirteen years ago. Too many details were circumstantial at best, and he had a decent though not infallible alibi. But there might be some sort of trouble facing him anyway, in the form of resentment, even outright hostility, from the people living in the vicinity of Brierley. He had always had a decent relationship with almost everyone, but things might have changed at the end and been perpetuated by his absence. He had felt it wise to find out what he could before he went there so that he would know exactly what he was facing. Mary could not be expected to know everything. She lived the life of a near hermit.
He had not intended any great secrecy, then. If he had, he would surely have changed his first name, which, though not unique, was not common either. He wondered if Lady Jessica was the only one who had guessed the truth. Several other people, including Anthony Rochford himself, had heard him own to the name Gabriel last evening.
But he had been asked a question. And a lie was pointless. Lies usually were.
“Thorne was my mother’s name,” he told her, “and that of her cousin in Boston. He officially adopted me as his son after I had lived there and worked for him for six years. His wife was dead and he had no children of his own. My name was legally changed, with my full consent. I had used it when I took passage to America, and I had used it there. I would rather be a Thorne than a Rochford, though I do regret any disrespect that shows to my father, who was a decent man.”
“You are the Earl of Lyndale,” she said. She appeared to be speaking more to herself than to him.