Мэри Бэлоу: Someone to Romance

“We have had a wonderful time, Gabriel,” Mary said. “And now it has become more wonderful, especially for dear Jessica. You have had a good day too?” She was smiling her sweet, placid smile, giving everyone, both at their table and at all the rest, time to settle down to a semblance of normalcy.

He spoke very quietly, for their ears only, as Great-aunt Edith poured him a cup of tea. “There has been a spot of bother,” he said, smiling. “Nothing for any of you to worry about. I am delighted you have had a good day. The weather has certainly been your friend.”

His smile succeeded only in making him look paler.

“A spot of bother?” Grandmama asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It delayed me for a while, ma’am. But it is being very competently dealt with by Netherby and Dorchester and Riverdale. As soon as I judged my presence to be no longer essential—at least for the present—I came to set your minds at rest. I hoped I would find you still here.”

“With what are they dealing competently, Gabriel?” Jessica asked. She was chewing the second half of her sandwich. It tasted only marginally better than the first.

“Manley Rochford is dead,” he said, and his hand closed tightly about hers on the table.

She lifted her chin. She was not going to faint again.

“Oh, Gabriel,” Mary said. “How?”

“I arranged a rendezvous with him in Hyde Park,” he told them. “I intended to . . . punish him before allowing him to leave London and return home. There is no proof, you see, that he murdered anyone. And the other charge would merely drag the name of an innocent woman through the mud and would probably not result in a conviction. So I knew there was really no legal recourse for achieving justice. I decided instead to confront him myself. But not in a duel. I sent him a message simply asking him to meet me in Hyde Park. I had people with me and others keeping an eye upon any route he might take to join me. I did not expect any real trouble, but unfortunately I underestimated him. He brought a gun with him and would have shot me in the back with it had not Mr. Ginsberg shot him first—and killed him. Ginsberg is the man whose daughter was ravished and whose son was murdered. I do beg your pardon. But I saw no way of not letting you know.”

Jessica clutched his hand. And they were all silent for a long minute.

“I will say only this,” Grandmama finally said, keeping her voice as low as his had been. “I am not sorry he is dead. He deserved to die. And I am not sorry he was killed by Mr. Ginsberg. It is fitting that he was the one to mete out justice since no court of law would be able to do it. Now.” She raised her voice somewhat. “A scone, Miss Beck? With strawberries and cream? I can assure you they are always delicious here.”

And, amazingly, they continued with tea just as though this were any other afternoon of social leisure.

A week later Viscount Dirkson and his wife stood just inside the open doors of their drawing room, greeting the select group of guests who had been invited to their soiree. Aunt Matilda looked so very much younger and lovelier than she had two years ago, before she met the love of her youthful years again and then married him, Jessica thought as they hugged. Aunt Matilda glowed with happiness even after the two years of marriage.

Gabriel was nervous, Jessica knew. For he had agreed to play the pianoforte for the “impromptu” concert that would begin later in the evening. He had agreed to play the Bach piece he had performed at Elizabeth and Colin’s party and one or two other pieces.

“The thing is,” he had explained to her, “that whenever I have played for other people in the past, it really has been an impromptu thing. I have never had to stare the ordeal in the face for days ahead of time and wonder if I was going to make an utter ass of myself.”

“You will not,” she had said. “Allow yourself to disappear into the world of your music, Gabriel.”

He had given her a hard look. “You do understand,” he had said.

“Yes, I do,” she had assured him.

“And another thing,” he had said, refusing to be fully reassured. “When I play the Bach piece, Jessie, it will be nothing like it was last time. When people use written music, they can more or less guarantee that what they play now will be identical or at least very similar to what they played in the past and what they will play in the future.”

“Yours will be just as lovely this time as it was last, even if not identical,” she had told him. “Better even. Because it will not be music that has been frozen onto a sheet of parchment but music that is living and breathing inside you.”

He had laughed. Though he was no less nervous tonight than he had been since Aunt Matilda asked him during that garden party where he had kissed Jessica for the first time. How could he be nervous over something like this when he had lived through a nightmare of a week, starting with that moment in Hyde Park when he had come so close to being shot in the back and killed?

Jessica would have nightmares about that for the rest of her life.

Everything had been settled. There had been enough witnesses—and illustrious ones at that—to swear that Manley Rochford had been about to shoot an unarmed Gabriel in the back and had been stopped in the nick of time in the only way possible. His motive was perfectly clear to everyone who needed to be convinced. He had been deprived of the title he had so long coveted, and he was fearful that he would be charged with rape and murder. He had compounded the danger of that happening by attempting to kill the man who stood between him and what he had believed rightfully his until the night before. Mr. Ginsberg, though he had a definite motive for killing Manley Rochford, could not rightfully be accused of murdering him. He had shot to save the life of an innocent man, who, moreover, had had his back to his would-be killer.

No one had asked Mr. Ginsberg what his intention had been when he followed Manley to the park. He had returned home. So had Mrs. Rochford and her son, returning to their home and not Brierley. They took the body of Manley with them for burial.

Jessica and Anna had called upon Mrs. Rochford before she left. They had not been at all sure they would be received, but they were. Mrs. Rochford had been wan but gracious. She was not sorry, she had assured them, that she was not after all to be the Countess of Lyndale. She had never wanted the title. She had implied, though she had certainly not said it, that she was not sorry either that her husband was gone. She had family of her own, she had told them—brothers and a sister who all lived close by and would support her. Not financially, she had added, but in every way that mattered. And she had her son, who she claimed was good at heart and would grow stronger under the influence of his uncles. She had thanked them for calling.

Gabriel had called upon her too—and been received. But she would take nothing from him, he had reported. He owed her nothing. Quite the contrary. She and her son would manage. She would be able to live frugally now that they would be on their own—a statement that had spoken volumes about how Manley had lived. She had thanked him for his offer of help and sent him on his way.

“I am expecting Anthony to return at any moment,” she had explained to him. “I would rather he not find you here, Gabriel.”

Mary had also returned home. They had wanted her to stay until they were ready to go themselves, but she had explained to them that she was no longer needed here and was missing her home and her animals and her garden quite dreadfully.

Gabriel was sending Mr. Norton back to Brierley with Mary to take over as estate manager from the man Manley Rochford had put in place. Mr. Norton had much to do to start sorting out the mess of fired servants and the ones who had been brought in instead of them. All must somehow be found employment, Gabriel had instructed Mr. Norton, since it would be grossly unfair to make servants suffer for the perfidy of their employer. Mr. Norton had been confident that he could settle all to his lordship’s satisfaction. A number of the servants could simply be sent back to Mrs. Rochford’s home, for example. She would surely have need of at least some of them.