Running his thumb along the blade of a brass-handled letter opener, Gabriel shook his head. “I’ve searched every inch of the trunk she left in her bedchamber a dozen times. I found nothing but a few nondescript items of clothing and a bottle of lemon verbena.”
He did not share the moment when he had opened the armoire to discover that she had left his gifts behind. Gifts he had never actually seen until that moment. As he had gently fingered the delicate muslin of the gown, the cashmere stole, the frivolous pink slippers suited only for dancing, the wistful strains of “Barbara Allen” had echoed through his memory. His dispassionate recitation also failed to reveal that the familiar fragrance of her perfume had sent him staggering from the room, aching with longing.
“What about her letters of reference? Have those turned up?”
“I’m afraid not. It seems my man returned those letters to her on the same day she was hired.”
Steerforth sighed. “That’s most unfortunate. Even a single name might have given us a trail to follow.”
Gabriel raked his memory. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, some maddening detail he couldn’t quite grasp. “During the very first meal we shared, she mentioned working for some family. Caruthers? Carmichael?” He snapped his fingers. “Carstairs! That was it! She told me that she’d served as governess for a Lord and Lady Carstairs for two years.”
Steerforth came to his feet, beaming at him. “Excellent, my lord! I’ll set up an interview with the family immediately.”
“Wait,” Gabriel commanded as the man gathered his walking stick and hat. With his vision growing a little crisper each day, he couldn’t bear the thought of just sitting around the mansion and letting strangers search for Samantha. “Perhaps it would be best if I conducted this interview myself.”
If Steerforth was disappointed to have his sleuthing usurped, he hid it well. “As you wish. If you dig up any leads we can follow, contact me immediately.”
“You can count on it,” Gabriel assured him.
Steerforth hesitated at the door, turning his felt hat over in his hands. “Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, Lord Sheffield, but you never have told me why you’re so desperate to locate this woman. Did she rob you while she was in your employ? Steal something that was irreplaceable?”
“Yes, she did, Mr. Steerforth.” A rueful smile played around Gabriel’s lips as he gazed up into the man’s sympathetic eyes. “My heart.”
Cecily Samantha March sat on the flagstone terrace of Carstairs Hall, taking tea with her best friend and partner-in-deceit, Lord and Lady Carstairs’ only daughter Estelle. The warm June sun caressed her face while a balmy breeze stirred her short cap of honey-gold curls.
She’d spent two months dousing her hair in mineral oil but, to her mother’s chagrin, still hadn’t managed to rid it completely of the henna-induced tint. Deciding she could no longer bear to have Samantha Wickersham staring back at her from the mirror, Cecily had finally chopped most of it off in a fit of pique. Estelle had assured her that bobbed curls were all the rage in London anyway. Cecily thought they suited her—made her look more mature, less like the foolish girl she had once been.
Of course, her mama had cried when she saw what Cecily had done and her papa had looked near to bursting into tears himself. But neither of them had had the heart to scold her. Her mama had simply ordered one of the maids to sweep up the fallen locks and toss them in the fire. Cecily had sat and watched them burn.
“Has your family started wondering why you’re spending so much time over here?” Estelle asked, helping herself to a scone from the tea tray on the table.
“I’m sure they’re glad to be rid of me. I’m afraid I’m not very good company these days.”
“Nonsense. You’ve always been marvelous company. Even when you’re moping about with a broken heart.” Estelle smeared clotted cream on the flaky layers of pastry and tucked it into her mouth.
At least when she was with Estelle, Cecily didn’t have to pretend everything was as it should be. She didn’t have to laugh at her brothers’ jokes and feign interest in her sister’s latest needlework project. She didn’t have to reassure her mother that she was perfectly content reading in her room until the wee hours of morning or avoid her papa’s bewildered eyes. She could tell by the worried glances they exchanged that she wasn’t giving a particularly convincing performance. She had perfected her acting skills during all of the amateur theatricals she and her siblings had put on for their parents when she was a child, but they seemed to have deserted her on the day she abandoned the role of Gabriel’s nurse.
Estelle licked a dab of cream from the corner of her mouth. “I was afraid your parents might think it odd that we’ve been spending so much time in each other’s company when we were supposed to have spent half the spring touring Italy with my parents.”
“Shhhh!” Cecily nudged Estelle under the table, reminding her that Lord and Lady Carstairs sat just inside the tall, arched windows of the drawing room, enjoying their own tea.
With her quick wit, black curls, and dancing dark eyes, Estelle was the only friend Cecily could have trusted to help her carry out such a risky scheme. But discretion had never been one of her stronger traits.
“It’s just fortunate that I returned home only a few days before you and your family did,” Cecily murmured, hoping Estelle would take the cue and lower her own voice.
Estelle leaned closer. “We didn’t have much choice with that rascal Napoleon threatening to blockade all of England. Mama didn’t want us to get stuck in Italy and miss the entire Season. She was afraid I’d catch the eye of some passionate, but penniless, Italian count instead of some stodgy English viscount who will always care more for his hounds than me.”
Cecily shook her head. “That only makes me loathe the little tyrant more. What if your family had returned home before I did? My parents would have been frantic with worry. I’m just grateful that our families don’t travel in the same social circles. I can only imagine the disaster if they tried to compare notes on our journey.”
“I promised to send word to Fairchild Park the second we set foot on English soil, didn’t I? That would have given you ample time to come up with some new excuse.”
“Like what?” Cecily asked, taking a sip of her tea. “Perhaps I could have just sent my mother a note—‘I’m terribly sorry, Mama, but I’ve run off to offer my services as a nurse to a blind earl who just happens to be one of the most notorious rakehells in the ton.’ ”
“Former rakehell,” Estelle reminded her, arching one dark graceful wing of an eyebrow. “Didn’t he swear off seducing women and breaking hearts the first time you met?”
“So he claimed. And if I hadn’t been such a callow fool, I would have believed him. Instead, I challenged him to run off and join the Royal Navy just so he could prove himself worthy of my love.” She shook her head, sickened by the naïve and selfish child she had been. “If I had eloped to Gretna Green with him when he asked, he never would have been wounded, never would have lost his sight.”
“And you never would have gone to Fairchild Park.”
“When I heard the rumors that he was living all alone in that house like some sort of wounded animal, I thought I could help him,” Cecily said softly, watching a pair of peacocks strut across the rolling green lawn.
“Did you?”
She was spared from answering by the strident jangle of the front door pull. She frowned at Estelle. “Are your parents expecting anyone?”
“No one but you.” Estelle blinked up at the midafternoon sun. “Odd time of the day for a surprise caller, isn’t it?”
They both cocked their heads toward the drawing room just in time to hear the butler intone, “The earl of Sheffield.”
Cecily felt all of the blood drain from her face. Although her first instinct was to duck under the table, she probably would have remained paralyzed with shock had Estelle not grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her behind the fat rhododendro
n bush growing through a crack in the flagstones just outside one of the windows.
“What in blazes is he doing here?” Estelle hissed.
Cecily shook her head wildly, feeling as if her heart were going to pound right out of her chest. “I don’t know!”
They crouched behind the bush, hardly daring to breathe as introductions were made and pleasantries exchanged.
“I do hope you’ll forgive the intrusion.” Gabriel’s deep, smoky voice drifted out the window, sending a shiver of yearning over Cecily’s skin. All she had to do was close her eyes and he was behind her, on top of her, inside of her.
“Don’t be absurd!” Estelle’s mother chided him. “We’re quite honored to meet such a celebrated hero. All of London is abuzz with news of your astonishing recovery. Is it true that you’ve completely regained your sight?”
“I still struggle a bit when dusk first falls, but those shadows are growing easier to navigate every day. My physician seems to think that my mind is just taking a little while to catch up with the progress my eyes have made.”
Cecily pressed her own eyes shut, unable to resist casting a brief, but fervent, prayer of thanksgiving heavenward.
“I didn’t come here today to talk about me,” Gabriel was saying. “I was hoping you could help me with a personal matter. I’m searching for a woman who was recently in my employ and was once in yours—a Miss Samantha Wickersham.”
“He’s looking for you!” Estelle whispered, elbowing Cecily in the ribs hard enough to make her grunt.
“No, he’s not,” she replied grimly. “He’s looking for her. Don’t you remember? It was your idea that we give him a letter of reference from your parents. You were the one who forged your father’s signature.”
“But we assumed that if he tried to contact them, they would still be in Rome.”
“Well, guess what? They’re not.”
“Samantha Wickersham?” Lord Carstairs was saying. “I don’t seem to recall the name. Was she some sort of domestic?”
“Not exactly,” Gabriel replied. “According to the letter of reference you provided her, she was governess to your children. For two years.”
Lady Carstairs sounded even more bewildered than her husband. “I don’t recall her or such a letter. That would have been several years ago, but I’m sure I’d still have some recollection of the name.”
“Her employment would have to have been fairly recent,” Gabriel said, the wariness in his voice increasing. “Miss Wickersham was a young woman, probably no older than five-and-twenty.”
“Well, there you have it! That’s quite impossible. Our son Edmund is at Cambridge right now, while our daughter is—Just a minute. Estelle, darling,” her mother called toward the open windows, “are you still out there?”
Estelle shot Cecily a panicked look.
“Go!” Cecily gave her a frantic shove. “Before they come looking for you.”
Estelle went stumbling out from behind the bush. She smoothed the white muslin of her skirt and gave Cecily one last petrified look before calling out cheerfully, “Yes, Mama. I’m right here.”
As Estelle disappeared into the house, Cecily crawled through the bush and sat with her back to the brick wall beneath the window. She pressed her eyes shut, fighting the temptation to steal just one look at Gabriel. It was torture to be so close to him, yet a world away.
“This is our Estelle,” Lord Carstairs was saying, the note of pride in his voice unmistakable. “As you can see, she outgrew her need for a governess several years ago.”
“She’s the perfect age to start filling up the nursery with babes of her own,” his wife added with a nervous titter. “After we find her the perfect husband, of course.”
Biting back a groan, Cecily banged the back of her head against the bricks. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, Lady Carstairs was trying to marry off her best friend to the only man she would ever love.
As Gabriel murmured a greeting, she tried not to envision him bending over Estelle’s hand, tried not to imagine those clever lips of his flowering against its snowy softness. Unlike Cecily, Estelle rarely braved the sun without gloves and bonnet.
“So where’s your little friend?” Lady Carstairs asked. “Weren’t the two of you taking tea?”
Cecily’s eyes widened. The slightest whisper of her name and she would be exposed for the liar and fraud she was.
“There’s no reason we can’t all take tea together with Lord Sheffield,” Estelle’s father boomed. “Why don’t you go and fetch Miss—”
Estelle launched into a fit of violent coughing. Cecily slumped against the wall in relief. After several rounds of concerned murmurs and slapping on the back, Estelle managed to choke out, “So sorry! Scone must have gone down the wrong way.”
“But you didn’t have a scone,” Gabriel pointed out.
“I did earlier,” she replied, the wintry note in her voice daring him to contradict her. “And I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive my friend. She’s very shy. She bolted like a rabbit when she heard the front bell ring.”
“That’s quite all right,” Gabriel assured her. “I really haven’t the time for more introductions. And while I appreciate the hospitality, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your invitation to tea.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t be of more help, Sheffield,” Lord Carstairs said, his chair creaking as he rose. “It sounds as if you’ve been the victim of some unscrupulous character. If you still have this forged letter in your possession, I’d advise you to turn it over to the authorities immediately. They might be able to find this woman and bring her to justice.”
“There’s no need to call in the authorities.” The determination in Gabriel’s voice sent a shiver down Cecily’s spine. “If she’s out there somewhere, I’ll find her.”
When Estelle emerged from the house a short while after Gabriel had taken his leave, Cecily was sitting on the hill overlooking the small duck pond. A mother duck drifted across the pond’s serene surface, seven tiny bits of brown and green fluff gliding in her wake.
“I never dreamed he’d call my bluff on the letters of reference,” she admitted as Estelle sank down in the grass beside her, arranging her skirts in a graceful bell. “He never even saw them.” She turned her anguished gaze on Estelle. “I don’t understand why he’s still looking for me—for her! As soon as he regained his sight, I thought he’d go back to the life he knew before we met.”
“Which time?” Estelle asked gently.
Cecily hugged a knee to her chest, no longer able to bite back the one question she’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask. “How did he look?”
“Quite scrumptious, I must confess. I always thought you were exaggerating his charms— blinded by love and all that rot—but I must say that he’s a rather magnificent specimen of manhood. And I adore the scar! It adds an aura of mystery.” Estelle shivered with delight. “It makes him look like some sort of pirate who might carry you off over his shoulder and ravish you within an inch of your life.”
Cecily turned her face away, but not before Estelle saw the blush come creeping into her cheeks.
“Why, Cecily Samantha March, he’s not the only one you’ve been keeping secrets from, is he?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do! Is it true? Were the two of you…” Throwing a glance over her shoulder, Estelle lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lovers?”
“Only one night,” Cecily confessed.
“Only once?”
“No. Only one night,” Cecily repeated, carefully enunciating each word.
Estelle gasped, looking both delighted and horrified. “I can’t believe you’ve done that. With him! You’re very progressive, you know. Most women wait until after they’re married to take a lover.” She leaned closer, fanning herself with her hand. “I just have to ask. Is he as accomplished as he looks?”
Cecily closed her eyes as Gabriel’s accomplishments came flooding back into h
er memory, sending a rush of hot desire melting through her veins. “More so.”
“Oh, my!” Estelle fell back in the grass, her arms spread in a mock swoon. But she sat up just as abruptly, stealing a troubled look at Cecily’s slender form. “Dear Lord, you’re not …with child, are you?”
“I wish to God that I was!” The confession burst from Cecily without warning. “Doesn’t that prove what a terrible person I am? I’d be willing to break my family’s heart, suffer the censure of society, and risk everything if I could just have some small piece of him to carry with me always.” She buried her face against her knee, no longer able to bear the weight of her friend’s pitying gaze.
Estelle stroked her hair. “It’s not too late, you know. Why don’t you go to him? Tell him the truth? Beg his forgiveness?”
“How could I?” She lifted her head, gazing at Estelle through a mist of tears. “Don’t you understand what I did? I nearly got him killed. I abandoned him when he needed me the most. Then, to try and atone for those sins, I tricked my way into his house and toyed with both his memories and his affections.” A harsh sob tore from her throat. “How could he ever forgive me for that? How could he ever look upon me with anything but loathing?”
Even as Estelle gently drew her into her arms so she could cry out the tears she’d been holding in for the past two months, Cecily had another terrible thought. Now that Gabriel knew Samantha had been lying to him, how long would it be before he started to wonder if the night she had spent in his arms was nothing but a lie as well?
Chapter Twenty One
My darling Cecily,
One word from your lips and I would never leave your reach…
The stranger made his way through the crowded London streets, his expression so forbidding and his long strides so determined that even the beggars and cutpurses scurried to get out of his way. He seemed oblivious to the bitter October wind that cut through the shoulder-cape of his woolen greatcoat, the chill droplets of rain dripping from the curved brim of his tall beaver hat.