Gabby chewed her lip. There are times when a person should be deceived, for his own good. Perhaps Sudhakar had no remedy for Quill’s headaches. In that case, what Quill didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Finally she got out of bed and sat down at the delicate little writing table in the corner of her room. She was going to break a promise, but she was doing it for Quill’s own good.
She penned a letter to Sudhakar, the vaidya of her father’s village. She described Quill’s problems as clearly as she could. It was up to Sudhakar to decide whether he would be able to help her husband. But the vaidya was of the highest Brahman caste. He was unlikely to deny a plea for help if he knew of a medicine that might cure Quill’s headaches.
After a moment’s thought, she also wrote a letter to her father. She informed him that she was married and that due to the unexpected death of his old friend, Thurlow Dewland, she was now Viscountess Dewland. Then, without detailing any of the circumstances, she pleaded with him to encourage the vaidya to help with her husband’s ailments.
Finally she curled back into a small circle and went to sleep. She dreamt that she and Quill were dancing and he wasn’t favoring his leg at all. But when she pointed it out, he smiled and said that was because they were in a field. And when Gabby looked around her, he was right. They were dancing in a grassy field next to a pond full of frogs. She woke up groggily to find it was sunrise and her maid was pulling back the curtains.
“Time to rise, my lady,” Margaret said. “The coaches are waiting to take us to the estate in Kent.” She paused, self-importantly. “They’ve dressed up the one coach all in black, even the roof.”
At Gabby’s inquiring look, she said, “That’s the coach for the old viscount. Calling it a hearse, they are. Got to get to Kent, doesn’t he?”
Gabby shivered, but Margaret chattered on about the black plumes that adorned the horses’ heads and the fact that even the servants’ coach had swags of black crepe covering the windows.
The gloomy procession reached Dewland’s country seat around four the following afternoon. Very little had been said in the main coach. Gabby sat next to Quill, who held her hand, but didn’t say one word during the entire journey. After around two hours, Gabby started wondering just how long Quill could remain silent at a stretch. He did answer questions when they stopped for the night at the Queen’s Cross Inn, and there was a dizzying moment when he drew her into an alcove and kissed her insensible. But he kissed her without speaking, and once back in the coach the next morning, he fell silent again.
Gabby chewed on her lip for the last hour of their journey, wondering how on earth a woman who talked too much and a man who didn’t see the use of words were going to rub along together.
Kitty Dewland sat opposite her, looking utterly composed and making pleasant conversation. In Gabby’s opinion, Kitty had not yet realized that her husband was dead. And Peter slept in the corner most of the afternoon. To Gabby’s amazement, he reclined so stiffly that his velvet coat was not rumpled in the least when they climbed from the coach in the late afternoon.
By the time they reached the Dewland estate, the manor had already been put into mourning. The largest parlor was hung with black silk, and the servants wore black hatbands, armbands, and gloves.
During the weeks before the funeral, Gabby hardly saw Quill at all. He was out of the house most of the time, walking the estate with his father’s manager. “He can’t ride, you know,” Kitty explained. “And walking takes a good deal more time. But one can’t see the fields properly from a carriage.” That was the first Gabby knew that Quill wasn’t able to ride a horse.
Her husband sat next to her at meals, but their conversations were trivial and often fell away into silence. Quill’s mother, Kitty, had developed a bewildering habit of switching back and forth from light fashionable conversation to hopeless sobbing. Gabby spent her time worrying about Kasi Rao’s future and writing more and more letters to London and India.
On the day before the funeral itself, Gabby was sitting alone in the breakfast room eating a scone and guiltily wishing that the ceremony were over. Sometimes it was hard not to compare the relentless swags of black cloth draping the walls of Dewland Manor to the vases of bright orchids adorning her home in India.
Just then someone walked into the breakfast room. Instantly Gabby’s heart started to race. Every instinct told her that Quill had just sat down and that it was his black sleeve that lay close to hers. Finally she raised her eyes.
“Gabby.”
She bowed her head in a polite greeting. “Good morning, my lord.”
“Wife,” he said quietly, bending closer.
Gabby swallowed. Should she reply in kind? No. “Husband” would sound idiotic on her lips. But Quill’s “wife” sounded gloriously possessive.
His lips touched hers softly. “Are you sleeping well?” A trace of a wicked grin played around his mouth. Quill had decided that a light flirtation might dispel his driving lust for Gabby. It was dehumanizing, this lust. It reduced him to a tortured care-for-nobody who wanted to ravish his wife before breakfast and the devil with the consequences.
“No,” Gabby replied, clear brown eyes fixed on his. “I can’t sleep well at all. I miss you.” Her voice trailed off. Then she whispered, “Husband.”
Quill froze and barely stopped himself from lunging at Gabby and carrying her straight out of the room.
With a deep breath, he shakily reassembled his self-control and made another stab—not quite so successful—at a flirtatious tone. “Damn it, Gabby, you’re supposed to make pleasant conversation, not drive me into a frenzy of lust. Just look at the condition I’m in now.” He cast a disgusted look into his lap.
Gabby looked at his pantaloons, but she didn’t see anything unusual.
Her husband broke into laughter and she scowled at him. “I don’t see anything funny about it,” she said with dignity.
With a sudden movement Quill bent his head and took his viscountess’s mouth, kissing her with a languorous thoroughness that sent scorching spikes of heat through his body.
When he pulled back, Gabby’s eyes were dazed and had gone a dusky brandy color. Quill caught up her hand and kissed her palm. She shivered instinctively. He took that hand and deliberately placed it on his groin.
Gabby jumped and tried to pull her hand away.
“Remember what I said I would do to you?” Quill said, his voice a hoarse promise.
Gabby nodded.
“Will you do the same to me?”
Gabby’s eyes grew round with surprise. At least Quill hoped it was surprise, rather than horror. He lifted his hand, and to his eternal delight, Gabby didn’t pull away from him. In fact, she didn’t move at all. It was a new kind of torture.
Finally he had to remove her warm hand himself and sweep her into another kiss, or who knew where they would end up. Probably making love on a bed of crumbled scones.
That kiss, not to mention Gabby’s touch, did nothing for Quill’s condition, as he’d described it to her. In fact, when Lady Sylvia walked into the room accompanied by two whining Graces (Beauty was temporarily living in the servants’ quarters, as the move had proved too disturbing for her fragile bladder), Quill had to sit in his place and eat approximately five scones more than he cared for, because he was unable to walk from the room.
The viscount was laid to rest the following morning in the chancel of St. Margaret’s. Gabby had met many members of the London ton at Lady Fester’s ball; she met members of the county nobility over funeral baked meats. What was most surprising was how exhausting it all was.
Gabby curtsied, and curtsied, and curtsied again. She accepted congratulations on her marriage. She encountered delicately raised eyebrows when it was revealed that she was not, in fact, married to her fiancé but to his brother, the new viscount.
And she overheard a conversation that made it clear that a certain Lady Skiffing, for one, believed that Gabby had discarded Peter when she realized that Quill would shortly be a v
iscount. It was hardly a comfort that Gabby detected a note of admiration in Lady Skiffing’s voice.
It wasn’t until late morning that the last callers were ushered from the black-hung parlor, whispering their final condolences as they left. Only the family lawyer, Mr. Jennings of Jennings and Condell, remained.
The dowager viscountess was drooping on a settee, her face strained and white. Lady Sylvia sat across from her, the very picture of elegant mourning attire. Gabby clutched her hands together tightly, trying not to steal glances at Quill.
The butler bowed himself out of the room after informing them that a light luncheon would be served in twenty minutes.
Kitty shuddered. “I shall be in my chambers,” she said faintly.
“Mama, it would be best if you ate something,” Peter said.
“I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.”
“Kitty,” Lady Sylvia broke in, “it is time to discuss the future.”
“I shall read Viscount Dewland’s will after luncheon,” Mr. Jennings stated, looking alarmed.
“Yes, yes,” Lady Sylvia said, waving her hand dismissively. “I don’t mean you, Jennings. I’m sure there’s nothing interesting in Thurlow’s will. What I mean is, Kitty, what would you like to do now?”
“Do?” The question seemed hardly to register on Kitty Dewland. “I shall…I shall retire to my chambers,” she replied. “And then we will return to London.”
“When Lionel died, I sat in the house and cried until I thought I was turning into a fountain,” Lady Sylvia stated, her tone brisk. “It was a wretched time. Mind, some crying is good for you. Has to be done. But sitting around in the house where you lived with your husband is not the place to do it.”
Tears welled in Kitty’s eyes. “Oh, I couldn’t—”
“Yes, you could,” Lady Sylvia snapped. “You’re prone to melancholy at the best of times, Kitty. And I’m not going to sit around while you turn yourself into a watering pot. We’re leaving the country. You can cry yourself blue in the face just as easily in Switzerland as in London.”
Kitty sobbed. “How can you even suggest that I leave the house where dear Thurlow was so happy? You’ve never been so unfeeling, Sylvia!”
“I’ve got feelings, all right,” Lady Sylvia retorted. “I don’t want you to malinger. You’re going to cast a pall on the house, Kitty. Think of that. We’re widows. We don’t belong with a newly married couple. You think that Gabrielle and Erskine are going to feel cheerful with his mama bursting into tears at every meal?”
Gabby shot Lady Sylvia an indignant look. “Quill and I would never wish you to leave your home because of us, Lady Dewland. We aren’t intending to be cheerful anyway,” she added, rather confusedly.
Lady Sylvia snorted. “Whether you’re planning on cheer or not, gel, you’re not going to have it if Kitty is sitting around weeping all the time.”
Kitty wiped her eyes with the handkerchief Quill silently handed her. “You’re right, Sylvia,” she said finally. “The last thing I wish to be is a burden to dearest Gabrielle and Quill.”
“You wouldn’t be a burden!” Gabby cried. “I would feel terrible to think that you left the house because of us. We should be the ones to move.”
Kitty gave a watery little laugh. “What a comfort you would have been to your mother, Gabrielle. You shan’t move, because this house belongs to Quill now. I suspect I own the dowager house?” She looked inquiringly at Mr. Jennings, who pursed his lips to indicate that the information was privileged, and then nodded. “I shall retire to the dowager house so I won’t be in anyone’s way.”
“For goodness sake, Kitty, you’re giving me palpitations from pure irritation, and it takes quite a provocation,” Lady Sylvia snapped. “Thurlow wouldn’t want you to retire to the country like some kind of bird-wit! If you still wish to turn into a hermit once we return from the Continent, you may. But meanwhile, I’ve a hankering to see Paris again before I die, and you’re coming with me. And if we can’t go to France because of the antics of that blown-up little puppet, Napoleon, we’ll travel about the Continent for a few months until the French toss him out the door.” Any rebellious Frenchman could have gained backbone from Lady Sylvia.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Kitty faltered.
Quill leaned down and patted his mother’s hand. “I think you should go, Mother. I believe that a change of scenery will be good for you.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter where I am,” Kitty replied, slipping back into the dazed state she had maintained before the funeral.
“There you are,” Lady Sylvia said, nodding at Quill. “I’ve got to get her on the move, that’s what. Otherwise she’s like to simply fade away. Not the sort of thing I would do, mind. But Kitty’s a delicate sort. Always has been, even when we were mere girls.”
“May I accompany you, Mother?” Peter sat down next to his mother and stroked her hand.
Tears were falling silently onto her black gloves. Her eldest son drew another handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. Kitty struggled to speak.
“I think it would be best if Peter traveled with you,” Quill observed.
That seemed to settle the matter.
“We shall sail on the White Star,” Lady Sylvia announced. “The vessel is going to Naples, and Lady Fane told me Naples was thronged with Englishmen last year.
“Supposed to be a pretty city too,” she added as something of an afterthought. “I asked Jennings to look into it.”
Mr. Jennings cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of booking passage for Lady Breaknettle, Lady Dewland, and their attendants, of course.” He bowed toward Peter. “I shall obtain a berth for yourself and your valet directly, Mr. Dewland. The White Star sails from Southampton in three days.”
“Three days,” Kitty moaned. “Oh, I can’t do it! I can’t do it.” Gabby was fascinated to see that she instinctively turned toward her elder son.
“Nothing for you to do,” Lady Sylvia commented. “I told Stimple to start packing up your things this morning. She’s probably well near finished with your trunks by now. It’s not as if there’s much to bring. We can always buy blacks over there, you know. No one does clothing better than the French.”
Kitty didn’t answer, but just leaned against her youngest son’s shoulder and burst into hopeless tears. Quill silently handed her yet another handkerchief.
PROMPTLY AFTER LUNCHEON the family moved to the library. Mr. Jennings cleared his throat importantly and began to read.
The will began with a pious declaration: “In the name of God, amen. I, Thurlow Dewland, in perfect health and memory, God be praised …” Gabby’s mind wandered as Mr. Jennings droned on and on with a list of lesser bequests to the household servants in London and to those who resided on the Kent estate. The viscount left money for the poor in the Dewland parish, and fifty pounds toward the new roof needed by St. Margaret’s, their parish church.
Kitty sniffed and said that Thurlow always thought of those less fortunate than himself.
Mr. Jennings recommenced with a long list of debts to be discharged from the estate. Then he looked up, briefly, and noted that the following codicil had been added the previous January: Viscount Dewland strictly instructed that no debt should be settled if presented by a Mr. Firwald, as he had sworn never to pay for the worthless merchandise provided by the said Firwald.
Quill frowned. “Pay it.”
Jennings nodded briskly and made a note to himself.
“Why are you going against Father’s directive?” Peter asked, sitting up in his chair.
Quill didn’t stir but just looked at his brother with heavy-lidded eyes. “Firwald sold Father the crystal vase that he bought for Mother last Christmas.”
“Oh.” Peter leaned back into his chair. “I see.”
“Thurlow’s wishes should be respected,” Kitty interjected.
“Mother, the vase was broken when Father was in a state of choler,” Peter said delicately.
“He always said the
re was a crack in it,” Kitty replied feebly.
“Father had a constitutional dislike for paying his debts,” Quill remarked.
That seemed to close the subject, and after clearing his throat, Mr. Jennings continued with a list of bequests. A second cousin living in Buckfordshire received a carved ivory tusk, as well as a French bedstead with canopy, on account of the cousin’s admiration for the said piece and the viscountess’s disdain for the same.
“To my wife’s cousin, Lady Sylvia, I leave the silver-gilt bowl made in Italy, now found in the Yellow Drawing Room. She can either use it for herself or share it with those animals she erroneously calls the Graces.”
“Fustian!” Lady Sylvia said, looking pleased all the same.
“To my beloved wife, Katherine, I hereby double the income she would have received from her original marriage settlement, in consideration of the fact that I should wish her to live as one that were and had been my wife.”
Kitty broke into sobs again, and Mr. Jennings paused before detailing the dowager house with appurtenances situated near the main Dewland manor in Kent.
“To my youngest son, Peter John Dewland, I hereby leave a tenement with the appurtenances situated in the Blackfriars, London; a messuage in Henley Street in the borough of Kingston, with barns, stables, orchards, gardens attached; and a one-fourth life interest in the income of my estate in Kent, as well as residence in the family domicile.”
“Very generous,” Lady Sylvia interjected at this point. “Very generous indeed.”
“To my eldest son and heir, Erskine Matthew Claudius Dewland, I leave all my remaining worldly goods, to include the great house in London, Dewland Manor in Kent, and all the rest of my goods, chattels, leases, plate, jewels, and household stuff whatsoever.”
Mr. Jennings paused. “I believe that the deceased would have eliminated the following codicil, given recent events,” he noted, in a particularly colorless voice.