Imelda chose that moment to add her twopenn’orth.
‘We can wait to see how the land lies in the morning, Penbury. Adelaide’s foolish reaction may after all be attributed to a kind heart or an innocent foolishness. There may be some dividend in that.’
‘Dividend? Did you see the other girls rush forward? No. They were far too sensible to get themselves embroiled in such a scandal. Lord Wesley is trouble with his wild ways and insolence and good common sense has taught them to keep well clear of a man who ruins everything he touches.’
‘He was not the one throwing the punches, Uncle.’
‘Because he knew he was in the wrong. God binds a man and a woman together for eternity in marriage and only a dissolute womaniser would want to interfere with that.’
Her uncle looked out the window after this outburst and Adelaide did the same. The lights of London flickered by in myriad colours, the streets almost empty of people as bells somewhere rang out the late hour of two. In the reflection of the glass she could see the stilled outline of Alec and the smaller form of Lady Harcourt. Her own face, too, was mirrored back, her hair tied in an intricate form that had taken her maid, Milly, an hour to secure.
For nothing. For disaster. She wondered what had happened after they had left. Had anyone helped Gabriel Hughes or had he limped off out of the mêlée with a curse? Or not left at all? Had worse things happened? Had the Murrays waited outside for him and beaten him again? Was he now lying somewhere no one could find him? She shook her head against such worries.
The Earl of Wesley had barely looked at her and he had been furious. He’d made no effort at all to protect himself, either in words or in actions, though she knew without any shadow of a doubt that he was nowhere near as civilised as he seemed. Why had he not fought back? Why had he allowed the husband of a woman he must have expected to confront him beat the daylights out of his non-resistance and so very publically? Nothing of it made any sense.
‘Lord Berrick will probably withdraw his interest in courting you now.’ Her uncle’s words broke into the silence. ‘And although your fortune is substantial, Adelaide, every family of the ton would shy away from a girl who shows such poor judgement in a social situation.’
‘I see.’
‘No, you don’t, my dear.’ A thread of cynicism that was unusual for Alec Ashfield could be heard in his words. ‘With just a little good sense you could have made a glorious union and now...now they will all be fleeing and you will be left, unattached, unwanted and ill thought of. There is sadness in that which will become more poignant as you age and miss out on all the milestones of your counterparts.’
Adelaide frowned. In his words were the seeds of truth, she thought. Lady Imelda simply stared at her and said nothing.
* * *
Cressida Murray sent a note to his town house the next morning, the flourish of ink enquiring after his health and telling him that she would be leaving that day with her husband to go back to Yorkshire and that he was not to contact her again.
Gabriel screwed the paper up and threw it into the fire where the dainty sheet of paper was caught in orange flame and disappeared.
No doubt Gavin Murray had been present when she had written it, but he was glad for the closure. He now owed her nothing. A debt paid in full.
Crossing the room, he looked into the mirror and almost smiled at the face that stared back at him. Hardly recognisable, his left eye swollen closed and his lip split. But it was the bruise that spread from ear to cheek that was the most noticeable, a broken blood vessel that had marked and darkened the surrounding tissue.
Nothing that could not heal though, he thought, as he took Adelaide Ashfield’s lavender concoction down from the shelf and layered it thickly over the places that hurt. The ointment had worked like magic on his knuckles and had eased some of the scarring on his thigh. He hoped it would do the same for his face.
He imagined the gossip that must be swirling around the ton this morning after the spectacle last night. God, if he did not have his mother to look after and Ravenshill Manor to rebuild he’d be off on the next sailing to the Americas. Somewhere far and wild and free. Somewhere he could make his own way in a world not bound by propriety and manners and expectations.
A knock on the door had him looking up and Daniel Wylde and Lucien Howard both entered the room.
‘Hope you don’t mind the intrusion, Gabe. We heard about the altercation last night and came to see if you were still alive.’
‘Just.’
The three of them smiled.
‘From all accounts you simply allowed Murray to beat the daylights out of you?’ The words were phrased as a question and as Gabriel pulled down three glasses and filled them with his best brandy, he nodded.
‘I’d given my promise not to retaliate.’
‘To Cressida Murray?’
‘She loves her husband. I was caught up in the ruse of it.’
‘Why?’
‘I owed her—’
‘Not that much, surely,’ Lucien interrupted. ‘And what the hell is on your face?’
‘A lavender ointment Miss Ashfield made up for me.’
‘Miss Adelaide Ashfield from Sherborne? The Penbury niece?’
‘The same.’
‘I hear she was the only one who tried to help you last night. Her reputation has fallen a little because of it. Seems as if she could well be packed off back to the country by her uncle, ruined by her ill-thought-out kindness.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘My mother over breakfast.’ Lucien’s words were quiet.
Daniel Wylde had the temerity to laugh. ‘And the countess is always so well informed. Personally, I think Adelaide Ashfield’s star may have risen for such actions prove only compassion and tender-heartedness. And bravery. On that score my wife would like for you to come to dinner tomorrow night, Gabriel. At the town house. She has told me that she will not brook a refusal and is down in London only for the week.’
‘I am certain the ton would frown at her invite if they knew of it.’
‘That’s why she wants you to come. Amethyst seldom graces any society function. She is of the opinion that anyone who so flagrantly breaks the strict code of manners needs to be encouraged and expects you at eight. Luce is coming, and Francis. He is off to the Americas in a week or so, after the hope of gold and a clue he said you had given him.’
‘The chancy pot at the end of a rainbow?’
‘Not to St Cartmail.’ Lucien’s laughter was loud.
‘You had better enlighten him, then, Gabe. For if he dies in his quest for gold his demise will be squarely on your head.’ Daniel’s interjection was measured.
‘And if he discovers riches, will it be the same?’ Gabriel finished his drink and placed the glass down half-on and half-off the edge of the mahogany table, teetering between safety and peril. ‘There is risk in everything. Take that away and life goes, too.’
‘The philosophy of jeopardy? Stated like a man with nothing to lose.’ Lucien sounded like he was out of patience and Daniel took over.
‘Come tomorrow night at eight, then. Bring a bottle or two of this brandy.’
‘I doubt Amethyst would want to gaze at my face in this condition. It would probably put her off her food.’
‘Nothing much could do that at the moment, Gabe. She is heavily pregnant with our second child and starving.’
‘And you have only been married a little under two years.’
‘Amethyst wants our brood to meet their grandfather before he dies. If Robert lives for ever, which he looks likely to do despite his heart condition, we will be overrun with progeny. Not that I am complaining.’
And he wasn’t, Gabriel thought. Daniel Wylde was a man with a family and a place and a wife who was unusual and interesting. He had not stuck to the rules of the ton, but lived outside of them well and happily.
Perhaps he could do the same?
‘Could an invite be sent to Miss Adelaide Ashfield as well? I should like to apologise to her for the problems that I have caused her and I doubt the Viscount of Penbury will allow me anywhere near the house now.’
‘It can.’ In the two words Gabriel heard both humour and question, but he chose to ignore it.
Chapter Eight
An invitation arrived for Adelaide just after lunch, the Wyldes’ servant waiting at the front door for an answer.
‘The Earl of Montcliffe and his wife have invited you for dinner tomorrow night?’ Her uncle was incredulous. ‘Have they not heard of the problems at the Whitely ball?’
Imelda broke in. ‘Daniel Wylde and his new wife seldom come to anything in London. I hear they spend most of their time in the family seat outside of Barnet, but they are respectable and well thought of. Lady Montcliffe is from trade, of course, though extremely rich in her own right. As I have not heard a bad word about them perhaps we should view this as a chance of...reinstating your niece’s reputation in society.’
‘She’d need to be chaperoned.’
‘Bertram could accompany her. He is an acquaintance of Wylde, after all, and it is well past time to allow him some familial responsibility.’
Adelaide’s heart beat faster. Lord Montcliffe was also a friend of Lord Wesley. Had Gabriel Hughes been invited, too? Without Imelda Harcourt there and with her cousin in tow she might be given a greater amount of freedom to speak with him. She waited to see what her uncle might say.