He sat holding up the heavy rounded glass to the shifting light of the fire, admiring the handsome amber color swirling within. Who among his antecedents, he wondered, had chosen and bought the bottle sitting on a table by his side?
Could it have been his father, the late Henry Penhallow? Or perhaps his grandfather, the late Richard Penhallow? Or Grandmama’s father—he had no idea what his first name was—the late so-and-so Penhallow?
Late, late, late.
Gabriel swallowed in a gulp what was left in his snifter and refilled it, then leaned back, welcoming the sensation of warm haziness spreading throughout his limbs, worming its way into his tired brain, forcing it to slow, quiet, and, he hoped, cease its rapid bewildered workings.
Late, late, late.
They were late and he was late.
How was he any different from Grandmama? Callous young fool that he had been, he had ignored his patrimony, wasted his time in Society, gone gallivanting off with the Diplomatic Corps.
So shall ye sow, so shall ye reap, poor old Mrs. Worthing had said. Very like a character from Shakespeare, Gabriel now thought, a bitter smile twisting his lips. Not one of the Bard’s great heroines, to be sure, but a minor role, one in which melancholy prophetical commentary, tinged by a stroke of interesting madness, served to highlight the tragic action of the play.
I have been living in a dream, Grandmama had said, with obvious self-loathing.
Apparently, so had he.
Only a few days ago, while still in Bath, he had entertained himself with idle speculation. Oh, yes, he’d be hosting hunting parties with his friends, and with little else to do he’d take up horse-breeding.
What a joke. He was a joke.
Horse-breeding.
He had been to the stables and seen what a deplorable condition they were in. They’d be lucky if the roof didn’t collapse and injure the horses. Laborers were needed at once. Tomorrow. His hands clenched and he nearly snapped the stem of the snifter. If it weren’t impossible due to the darkness and his own ignorance of where tools and supplies might be, he’d go out there right now and start the repairs himself.
If there were any tools and supplies.
It was all so difficult to understand. There was money aplenty. He himself, upon attaining his majority, had inherited from his mother’s estate a very handsome income and he had never once touched monies deriving from Surmont Hall. Vividly did Gabriel recall his brief interview with Mr. Farris, the family’s man of business, when he had turned twenty-one. He had sat in Farris’s London offices, furnished with discreet good taste betokening the firm’s longstanding competence and success. In a dry, precise way, Farris had informed him as to the extent of his income, and how things stood with the Hall’s estate. Yes, there was plenty of money—a king’s ransom, one might say.
Just that it hadn’t, apparently, been spent.
He was late, all right.
Years too late.
An unfamiliar emotion—sharp, unpleasant, as if his heart burned rankly within—gripped him and it took him a few moments to realize that it was shame.
It almost made him glad his father and grandfather were dead, that they were spared the knowledge that Gabriel Penhallow, the illustrious scion of the family, was a fool and a wastrel.
The image of Livia standing in the Great Hall, her face shocked, an ugly clump of dust trailing upon the hem of her gown, came to him again and his shame intensified.
How could she possibly respect him? Especially when he didn’t respect himself: who could respect a man who had abandoned his responsibilities so grossly?
Tomorrow he’d send for Mr. Farris. And find Eccles the bailiff. And see for himself just how bad things were, both throughout the Hall and on the estate.
Tomorrow was going to be quite a day. Yes indeed.
Gabriel took in a deep breath of air and slowly released it. He looked slowly around the unfamiliar room.
It had been occupied, once, by his father and mother. And by his grandparents. And so on and so forth, generations of Penhallows, stretching back into the mists of time. If he were a fanciful sort, he might conjure the shades of his ancestors, perhaps gathering in this very room, despising him, despairing of him, laughing at him.
Gabriel drank some more brandy.
It was a good thing, he thought wearily, that he wasn’t prone to such sick fancies.
Besides, his own disgust with himself was more than enough.
His gaze settled upon the bed.
Good God, what a joke. You could put a whale in there and still have room. Room for Jonah, too, who was, after all, a fool to try and escape what was expected of him.
Gabriel laughed, the sound seeming loud in his own ears; he half-expected a sonorous echo of it bouncing off the walls.
Instead there was only silence again—in its own way a loud, booming sort of silence. It seemed to descend upon him like a heavy weight, intent on crushing him. Abruptly Gabriel stood, took a hasty step toward the door, a rush of blind urgent need propelling him toward Livia.