* * *
The wedding meal was a large one, six courses and all served on generous trenchers themed with objects pertaining to a wedding, and when Gabriel stood to talk he kept things impersonal as he addressed the small gathering.
‘Thank you for coming and enjoying this day along with us and a special thanks to Lord Penbury for allowing me his niece’s hand in marriage.’
He turned then, his pale gaze running across her. ‘Thank you, too, Lady Wesley, for agreeing to marry me and I hope our union shall be a long and happy one.’
Raising his glass to her, he proposed a toast. ‘To Lady Adelaide Wesley.’
At least in strong drink some of the reasons for this marriage might be made less obvious, she thought, as she finished her glass, watching as a servant stepped forward to fill it up again. Her agreement to marry Gabriel Hughes was not quite running away from the worse alternatives presented, but at that moment it felt awfully akin to it.
Lord Wesley had not truly looked at her during the whole ceremony save when he had placed the ring on her finger and even that he managed to execute with only the briefest of contact.
He regretted this marriage, she was sure that he did. Oh, granted, her gown was wonderful, the blue bodice clinging about her waist and hips before flaring out on to a full skirt of colour.
Beneath the silk was a satin petticoat, sleek against the wisp of stockings. Christine Howard had dressed her hair in a style reminiscent of the old Grecian gods, fastening at the back of her head in ringlets and ribbons, a half veil attached on rose buds.
She felt beautiful. She did. But Gabriel Hughes had made no effort at all to touch her, even inadvertently.
No, rather he had spent the whole of the day moving away, creating distance, allowing others to stand between them and barely talking.
Even his mother had observed her in pity as the older woman had retired upstairs earlier and Amethyst Wylde had looked at Adelaide sternly as she had taken her hand on their leaving.
‘I hope that your union will be every bit as fulfilling as my own, but if you should ever need an ear to listen or a quiet place to talk you only need to send word.’
But.
The word qualified everything and the deep frown between Lady Montcliffe’s eyes saw to the rest.
And then everybody was gone, the busy work of servants the only noise left as her new husband drew her into a small salon to one side of his town house and closed the door.
‘I need to talk to you Adelaide. In private.’
Chapter Thirteen
He didn’t speak as he stood there, running one hand across the back of his neck as though easing an ache. When the silence lengthened she sought for words herself.
‘The flowers in your house are all beautiful.’
Another bunch of white hothouse roses stood on the table to one side of the room.
He glanced across at them and then back at her, clearly having other more important things on his mind. His eyes were so unusual, Adelaide thought, the gold of them traced in darker green around the edges. He had broken his nose at some point in his life, for the bridge of the bone was closer to the skin there, giving his beauty a more menacing air.
‘Thank you for marrying me.’ His words were quietly said.
‘You thought that I wouldn’t?’
‘I know you have heard many rumours about my past, so...’ He didn’t finish.
‘The ones that elevate you to a lover of some note?’
He laughed unexpectedly and the sound made things easier, less formal. ‘Well, perhaps not that one, but there are others.’
‘Mr George Friar made certain that I knew of a law case in which a woman of your acquaintance had been killed.’
‘I see. And he told you it was my fault?’
‘I do not think he likes you so...yes, he did. I have heard other things about you, too. It seems you are a man who inspires gossip.’
‘Yet still you married me, knowing this and despite all those who were lining up to court you?’
‘Well, that queue had shortened somewhat after the Whitely ball when you were hurt.’
Again he laughed, but she was tired of skirting around their situation.
‘My wedding ring fits perfectly.’ Looking down at her left hand, she straightened her fingers to where the Renaissance gold glinted in the light. Could this marriage ever be the same?
‘It was a family heirloom of my grandmother’s. She gave it to me a long time ago and said I was to keep it safe for the wife I would choose. At the time I wasn’t sure I wanted a reminder of such permanence, for at seventeen you have such a notion of yourself that everyone else is excluded.’
Adelaide smiled. ‘The first time I ever saw you Lucy Carrigan told me that you were the most handsome man in all of society and that the place in which you lived had mirrors on all the walls. To look at yourself from every possible angle, she said, because you were so beautiful.’
‘I doubt you would have wanted anything else to do with me if that was the case.’
‘Yet there is some truth in what she was saying. Your clothes. Your manners. In society you are a man I barely recognise, but here...?’
The gold of his glance slid away and he turned towards the window.
‘I have lived in the shadows for a long time, Adelaide. Now I find myself wishing for something else entirely.’
‘The shadows?’ She wanted to know what he meant by that word. Brothels? Gambling halls? Drinking parlours?
His eyes lowered and met hers directly. ‘I work for the British Service as an Intelligence Officer and have done so since I was eighteen. My life has not all been indolence.’
Adelaide’s mouth dropped open. This was the very last thing she thought he might tell her and yet it all made perfect sense: a camouflage to disguise the truth.
‘You are allowed to confess to the doing of such a job?’
‘I couldn’t before, but as you are my wife now...’
‘So that was how you were hurt?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Your left hand is scarred on the top. It has the look of a bullet wound?’
He raised the appendage to survey the damage before frowning and looking away. ‘My mission for the British Service was to ferret out information that could be important. Great things that might change the course of history are hard to come by, but tiny clues and small pieces of information glued together can be as valuable.’
His injured hand lay against the window now, fingers splayed out against the glass, parts of his skin almost transparent in the light, though the scars were darker.
‘You were on the Continent with Daniel Wylde? In the war on the Peninsula against Napoleon?’
He shook his head. ‘There were secrets in London that were far simpler to shake out than those on a battlefield or with force. A woman unhappy in her marriage, a letter that was left unfinished, a drawer that could be unlocked to find the telling remnants of anarchy. With my reputation access was always easy...’
‘The persuasive gentle arts?’ she returned. ‘And you are good at them?’
‘Too good,’ he whispered back and in those small words she understood with clarity what the subterfuge had cost him. Living in lies, secrets and deceit had had its own price and Gabriel Hughes had paid heavily for it. The darkness beneath his eyes alluded to such a penalty.
‘I shouldn’t wish for a husband who was...unfaithful even for the cause of King and Country.’ She hated the way her voice shook, but she was shocked by his candour and the way he could confess to these sins with barely a backward glance.
‘Good, for I do not work for the Service in that capacity any more. After the fire...’ He stopped.
‘You were too visible? Less able to hide?’
Another truth flickered in the gold and this time it was one she could not quite fathom.
‘I have not been a saint, Adelaide, or a man who has made all the right choices. But sometimes the information that I uncovered saved innocent men and women and I am at least glad for that.’
* * *
He had not told her the whole story, but for now it was enough.
Mirrors and shadows. Lucy Carrigan’s ruminations had had a deal of truth within them, figuratively at least. He lived through each day seeing a version of himself reflected in the eyes of others that was as unreal as it was precarious. His life. For years.
No one had had the chance to know him before he was gone again, lost in the translation of services to the King and spiralling into a desolation that was all encompassing.
He had thought he would never get back again, never sleep again, never smile or marvel at the world or a woman whose mind he could see working even as she stood across from him.
‘I married you for salvation, Adelaide.’ The words dried in his mouth even as he whispered them.
But she had heard for her eyes widened, bluer than the sea and as clear.
‘So in essence you are telling me that your reputation with women stems from business rather than from pleasure?’
‘Much of it was a smokescreen. A simple kiss, a few well-chosen words and they were happy.’
‘A far more tepid version of the exploits whispered about you in society, my lord?’
Gentle humour crossed into her face as his laughter filled the room, rusty from a lack of use, but there nonetheless. He felt the tension of the last hours begin to unloosen and reform into something else entirely.
He was not the man he had once been, not the man all of London town spoke about as he passed. But the lack of feeling in one part of his body did not exclude his finesse in others and his wife was the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of knowing.