chapter Eighteen
The next several days were spent in intense preparation. Penelope had her records sent up and spent several hours poring through them, pulling copious notes from her most successful cases. She wrote letters to several of the men she’d worked with as well and was thrilled when three of them replied that they were willing and would be available to speak at Gabriel’s hearing.
She also interviewed Gabriel extensively again. She already knew most of what he told her, but she wanted to get it fresh in her mind. Then she, Gabriel, Liliana and Geoffrey sat down with everything she’d compiled and laid out their defense.
Penelope had never been so grateful for her cousins as she was now. Logic had never been her strong suit, and that was before her emotions were all tied up in knots over this. But logic was practically Liliana’s middle name, and Geoffrey was a gifted strategist. All Penelope had to do was write down their points and put her evidence in order—which she did twenty times if she did it once, hoping that if she did it enough, it would be automatic to her when she was in front of the commission. Otherwise, she feared she’d lose her place and not only make a fool of herself, but harm Gabriel.
She tried not to think of what it would be like when Mr. Allen made his accusations about her. She prayed it would not turn into a horrid ordeal, but consoled herself with the knowledge that even if it did, in a few days’ time she would be Gabriel’s wife and it would all be worth it.
Then she would get back to work to ensure that that’s what happened.
Where the days were focused on readiness, the nights were spent on passion. In the weeks since she’d taken Gabriel into her bed, he’d striven to drive her slowly, madly insane with need. He’d drawn out her pleasure past the point of bearing and then pushed her even further before letting her find release. He delighted in showing her places on her body she’d never have thought to put tongue, hand or sex to, much less imagined finding bliss there.
But as she closed the bedchamber door the night before they were to depart for London, she sensed tonight would be different. She could taste the tension in the air, like metallic honey on her tongue—sweet and heady but with a sharpness that raised the tiny hairs on her arms.
As the door clicked shut, Gabriel whirled on her so quickly she actually yelped. He swept her into his arms in one fluid motion that carried them both to the bed and dropped her in the middle of it even as he climbed up with her.
“Pen,” he said hoarsely, tearing at the buttons of his trousers. “I need you now. Can you forgive me?” he asked as he pulled her dress up past her waist and kneed her legs apart.
She understood his violent need to be inside her. She felt it, too, as if despite all that they’d done to prepare for what was to come, they both knew they might fail. They each feared this would be the last time they would lie together.
“Come to me,” she urged him.
He pushed into her, his shaft hard, hot steel. She moaned, the friction a raw pain/pleasure, as she wasn’t as wet as she normally was by the time they reached this particular intimacy. When he was lodged deep, Gabriel hung over her, his arms braced on either side of her shoulders, taking in great gulps of air.
She felt herself softening around him, adjusting to his invasion in small, pleasurable degrees.
Gabriel’s muscles strained with the effort not to plunge into her. Instead, he dropped to one elbow and took her mouth with his, sending his other hand between them to find the bud of her center. He stroked her in little circles that sent pleasure rushing through her like a drug. Circles he mimicked with his tongue in her mouth. His ministrations combined with the pulsing flesh that invaded her soon had her flooding with sweet moisture.
The very second he felt her wetness surround him, Gabriel rose back up and took her in unrelenting thrusts that rocked the bed with their ferocity.
Penelope simply held on, taking, wanting, needing everything he had to give her. Neither of them could last long at this pace, nor did they, exploding into a maelstrom of sensation that wrung hoarse cries from their throats.
After, Gabriel stripped them both and cleansed them with warm water that had been left in the ewer. As she floated in sleepy exhaustion, from not only the intensity of their lovemaking but from the days of frantic work, he curled his body around hers and they both succumbed to sleep.
It was only at her very last moment of consciousness that she realized he hadn’t pulled out before spilling his seed. She fell asleep with a smile on her face, dreaming of golden-eyed, brown-haired babies.
* * *
A crash of lightning awoke Penelope just after dawn. Well, what should have been dawn, as any sun that was meant to greet the earth in morning’s glory was buried behind angry clouds. She watched out of the bedroom window as they rolled through the sky in a unbreaking wall of gray, casting a pall over everything below.
Gabriel eased up behind her, wrapping his naked body around hers, and settled his chin upon her shoulder as he, too, scanned the sky.
“Are you still going to try to ride in this?” she asked anxiously, staring outside with dismay.
It had been decided that they would all go to Town together. Geoffrey had tried to convince Liliana to stay in Shropshire, as their baby was expected in a matter of weeks now, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Penelope knew that Liliana worried that the hearing would not go well and refused for Penelope to be all alone in her grief if that happened, as she’d been when Michael had died. But Penelope knew nothing and no one would be able to console her if she lost Gabriel. Not ever.
They planned four days for the travel to London, allowing that Liliana would not be able to push as quickly as they might without her. The intention was for the women to share a carriage while Gabriel and Geoffrey rode alongside, Geoffrey because he didn’t relish being cooped up for four days with two worried women, and Gabriel because he didn’t relish being cooped up at all.
But he wouldn’t be able to ride outside in a cold rain.
She turned in his arms just enough to see his face, which had gone dark as the storm clouds outside.
“That is my intention, yes,” he said. “If the rain holds off.”
The skies opened up before they’d even broken their fast. They waited a few hours longer than they should have, to see if it would let up, but it did not. Knowing they already risked slower travel times due to mud or potential flooding, Gabriel finally ordered Penelope’s carriage to be brought around. He said it was so that Liliana would not be overly cramped and uncomfortable with four in a carriage, but Penelope understood that he neither wished her cousins to know of his weakness, nor for them to be subjected to the surliness the trip was bound to bring out in him.
As Penelope settled herself against the plush green velvet squab, Gabriel pulled himself into the carriage behind her. Unlike the cramped conveyance that had spirited them to Somerton Park, Penelope’s carriage was a traveling coach with wide seats made for four and multiple carriage lamps that lit up the interior almost as well as a room. It also boasted large windows. She’d pulled back the shades in order to give Gabriel as much sense that he was not trapped in the dark as she could.
Still, she could see that tension gripped him. He settled across from her with a stiffness unlike him, and she noted his chest fell very shallowly. As the coach swayed into motion, she said gently, “Remember, Gabriel. All that you are feeling is not real. It is simply your body reacting to an association we’ve yet to discover.”
He nodded tightly and closed his eyes, but she could see that he suffered.
For the next half hour, she kept up murmured conversation in an effort to calm and soothe him. The cursed weather did nothing to help her cause, thunder rumbling in booms and lightning flashing with cracks that startled even her.
After a particularly harsh streak, a small groan reached her ears. Gabriel’s knuckles were white where they gripped his knees. Penelope bit her lip with despair. Nothing she was doing was helping him.
Then she stripped off her gloves and slipped out of her heavy cloak. She spread it on the floor of the carriage before slipping to her knees in front of him.
Her hands slid over his and his eyes flew open. “Shhh,” she said at the question in his golden brown depths. His gaze was fixed on hers with a mixture of desperation and blossoming awareness. “That’s right,” she said, running her hands over his thighs, letting her thumbs drag along the sensitive inner parts before stopping just shy of his manhood. “Keep watching me,” she purred. “Keep all of your attention focused on what I’m doing.”
Without breaking eye contact, she slipped her hands into the fall of his trousers, loosening buttons until the flap parted. His flesh had yet to harden, probably because so much of his energy was occupied just holding himself together. But she didn’t mind.
She took him into her hand, stroking gently, then harder. Squeezing on a stroke, then running her fingers lightly to the tip and circling it with the pad of her thumb.
Soon Gabriel was stiff and groaning for an entirely different reason.
By the time she took him into her mouth, she knew he was thinking of nothing but the hot flick of her tongue and the suction of her cheeks as she pleasured him. His hand fisted and relaxed in her hair, again and again until finally, he spilled himself with a hoarse shout.
He returned the favor, of course, with an intensity that left the inner carriage walls ringing with throaty cries of her own, and afterward, they dozed in each other’s arms. He was at peace for a time, but it wasn’t long after they woke that the tension gripped him again. All Penelope could do was hold him and whisper that all would be well.
They met Liliana and Geoffrey for dinner at a coaching inn that night. The rain had not let up enough for Gabriel to ride outside even for a short period. He asked Penelope if she would mind forgoing stops and pushing through to London—the idea of having freedom from the carriage for a few hours’ respite only to face the prospect of having to get back in was too much for him to bear. She agreed, of course, and they made plans to rendezvous with her cousins after the latter reached Town a couple of days behind them.
They rode at a relentless pace, stopping only to change teams every three hours or so. And each mile they traveled, Gabriel’s hold over himself seemed to fray. Penelope bit her lip as she watched him, sweat beading on his forehead. She hated seeing him suffer so, but a part of her also wondered if this forced confinement could actually be a good thing.
She reasoned that this was the longest time he’d ever allowed himself to suffer thus. Were it not storming, he’d be out of the carriage in a shot. But what if the prolonged time he had to remain here was, in effect, pushing his deeply buried memory to the surface like a sunken splinter? If she could just see the end of it, perhaps she could help him pull it out.
So when he cried out a few hours later, waking himself from a fitful sleep, she placed her mouth next to his ear.
“Tell me what you dreamt of,” she coaxed, her voice as low and hypnotic as she could pitch it. “Don’t let it fade away, Gabriel. Tell me what you see.”
He moaned, his head turning away from her. “Where are you?” she pressed. “What can you smell? What do you hear?”
“Blood,” he rasped. “Death. Cloyingly sweet. Rotten.”
Her heart squeezed in her chest, then accelerated to a rapid beat. What on earth? “Do you hear anything?”
He shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut. “No, it’s quiet. Too quiet. Still and . . . and dark. So much pressure, pinning me down. I can’t breathe,” he cried. “I can’t breathe!”
His chest was rocketing beneath her hand. He was breathing, but too fast. Too hard. She knew panic was setting in. Everything in her told her she must keep pushing. If she didn’t get this out of him now, he might never be free of it.
But what if you push him too hard, like you did Michael?
A cold fear shivered through her. No, she’d only been trying to help Michael.
You’re only trying to help Gabriel, too.
For the briefest of moments, doubt crippled her. So much that she trembled with it. But then she shoved it away. She’d learned much and she’d helped many since Michael had died. Gabriel insisted he trusted her instincts. She would have to, too. Because he needed her to.
“Where are you, Gabriel? Answer me,” she commanded harshly.
“Buried,” he groaned. “Buried alive.”
What? Penelope’s breath caught in her chest. Surely he couldn’t be—
“Buried,” he said again. “Under my dead horse. Under the bodies of my men. Help me!”
His eyes flew open, rolling wildly around the carriage as he tried to place himself. His breathing had sped up to a dangerous level, and his hands shook like an apoplectic. He banged his fist against the wall frantically, signaling for the driver to stop. A relentless, unceasing banging that she knew would leave his hand bruised.
Her heart beat desperately in her chest as she watched helplessly. Had she pushed him too far? “I’m here, Gabriel,” she said, trying to reach him, but the moment the carriage rolled to a stop, he flung open the door and leapt out into the rain.
She followed, pelting cold drops smacking her face as she hopped down into the mud. She searched for his figure through the driving rain. In a flash of lightning, she spotted his silhouette several yards ahead. He was bent over with his head near his knees. She rushed to him, heedless of the sucking mud that ruined her boots and threatened to send her sliding to her bottom beside the road.
“Gabriel?” she called out as she drew near.
He looked over at her. She could tell that much in the darkness, but unless another flash of lightning hit, she would not be able to see his features. Was he all right?
When she reached him, she bent at the same angle as he, trying to get close enough to read his face. Rain drenched them both, though truthfully, she didn’t notice her own shiver until she registered his.
“Gabriel?” she asked tentatively. “Do you remember what just happened?”
He straightened wearily. “I remember more than that.” Her heart broke at the pain in his voice. He scrubbed his hands over his face, whether to sluice the water from it or hide from her, she didn’t know. “I know what my mind refused to let me see.”
“What?” she asked, half terrified to know.
“It was on the final charge of the battle,” he said. “I was pulled from my horse.” His breaths came harsh as he struggled to tell the story. “A French infantryman caught me by surprise as I was fighting the lancer in front of me, and I hit the ground so hard it knocked the breath from me.”
As he spoke, she could see it all happening in her mind’s eye. Her Gabriel, battling for his life. Her own breath strangled in her chest as she listened, even though he was standing here safe in front of her now. Thank God. Thank God he’d survived.
“As I was scrambling to rise, cannon shot exploded not feet in front of me. I was spared, but—” He shuddered, and she felt an answering shiver snake through her, even though she did not yet know what he would say. “The spray of blood and flesh knocked me back to my arse, and before I could scramble out of the way, I—I was pinned by the body of my dying horse.”
She gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth.
“He screamed for what seemed like hours before he died,” he said, his eyes squeezed tightly closed now. “The battle raged on around me, but no one could hear my cries for help. Bodies fell and piled left and right—horses, men.”
He opened his eyes to look at her then, just as a streak of lightning flashed. The bleakness on his face knifed through her.
“I remember a woman falling next to me,” he said, his voice gone flat. “She may have been a camp follower, or perhaps an officer’s wife, but her face was so lovely and so peaceful, I thought for a moment that she might be an angel come to save me. Before I realized she was dead.”
“Oh, Gabriel,” she whispered, tears coursing down her face. She felt them hot on her cheeks before she even registered she was crying. The terror he must have felt was unimaginable. She had no words, could only whisper again, “Oh, Gabriel.”
“When it was all over, I lay there still. Trapped beneath the rotting corpses of friends and enemies alike. The air was heavy with death and the sun so hot. It had rained the night before the battle, so everything was moist and steamy. I thought I would die of thirst, and then . . . then I prayed for death as the days went by, until finally, I lost consciousness.”
“You were there three days,” she whispered, remembering what he’d said the nurse at the hospital had told him.
“Yes.”
She wanted to hold him. To pull him to her bosom and assure him that nothing so horrible would ever happen to him again. That he would never be trapped and helpless, ever. But if they lost at his lunacy commission, he would be. No, not beneath bodies on a battlefield, but trapped just the same, helpless in the decisions made for his own welfare. For his very life.
They simply had to succeed. And to do that, they needed to reach London without having caught an ague.
“Come. Let’s get out of this rain,” she said, tugging him back toward the carriage. He got in with hardly a hesitation, though he still tensed like steel. But he let her hold him as he dropped off into an exhausted sleep, and they remained that way until they reached the next coaching inn.
Penelope made the decision that they would stay the night. They both needed dry clothes and time to recover from that ordeal. She hadn’t been able to stop crying for the past hour. No wonder, she thought. No wonder his battle fatigue had manifested itself in mania, what with horrid, horrid memories like that bottled up in his mind.
As she watched him sleep, she prayed they had reached the bottom of the well now, and that from this day forward, the only things that would bubble up inside of him would be clean and fresh.
She prayed he was finally healed.
* * *
It was dusk on the third day when they rolled into London. It was still raining, just a light mist now, but even the moist air couldn’t mask the distinctive smell of the city.
After three days’ hard travel, not to mention the emotional wringer they had both been through, when the carriage approached his columned town house just off Grosvenor Square, neither of them was at their best. Yes, they were in fresh clothes—travel worn, but clean. That wasn’t what she meant, however.
Penelope watched Gabriel with concern. He’d been quiet most of the day. He’d made it into the carriage this morning with barely a hitch, at which point she had breathed a sigh of relief. And while he was still on edge, the day’s ride hadn’t seemed nearly as awful for him.
He’d been kind when she engaged him, even smiled at some story she’d told. But he also seemed . . . fragile. More vulnerable to her. Was it the wounded quality around his eyes when he stared out of the window? Was he worried, as she was, about the trial just two days hence? Or was she simply making up excuses for his withdrawn silence?
She wished she knew.
The carriage was met by servants in the blue and silver livery of the Devereaux family. Gabriel stepped out of the carriage first, handing her down himself. He placed her hand upon his arm and started up the front stairs. Before they were greeted by the rather dour-looking butler who’d just opened the door, Gabriel leaned down and whispered, “In two nights’ time, you will be entering this house as its mistress, you know. It will be the happiest day of my life, and not because we’ve prevailed. Simply because you will be my wife.”
A melting warmth drizzled down her middle, coating her sudden case of nerves with pleasantness.
A woman appeared behind the butler, her dark skirts limned in the light spilling from the doorway, giving the oddest illusion that the butler was wearing a dress. When the servant stepped aside to grant them entry, Penelope saw it was the marchioness. Soon to be the dowager marchioness, though the woman did not know it yet. She allowed herself a small smile.
“Lady Bromwich,” she said with a curtsy. Seeing Gabriel’s mother gave her a surreal jolt. She hadn’t given any thought to the strange reality that her future mother-in-law was the identical twin of her former. In truth, she hadn’t given her upcoming marriage to Gabriel much thought at all.
It wasn’t how she’d intended to pursue love again. She’d intended to take her time, to select a nice, quiet man. One with no drama in his life.
But then he wouldn’t have been Gabriel.
Her soon-to-be husband was dutifully kissing his mother’s cheek. “It is good to have you home, Gabriel,” the marchioness said, her voice suspiciously gruff.
“Thank you, madame,” he said, straightening. “I expect it shall become the norm shortly.”
He led Penelope into the foyer as he conversed with his mother, not relinquishing her hand.
“—sister is here,” the marchioness was saying as they pressed farther into the house.
A smile lit Gabriel’s face at that news, but it dimmed a bit when she added, “And, of course, your brother and Amelia. There is something else you should know—”
Gabriel stopped short just at the base of the grand staircase, his arm tightening beneath her hands. Penelope glanced up and saw immediately why. Her stomach knotted. Mr. Allen.
“Good evening, my lord. Lady Bromwich, Lady Manton.” The director’s overly solicitous tone oozed like oil paint over her skin. “I am happy to have the chance to thank you for your hospitality on behalf of myself and my staff.”
Penelope turned her head to the parlor, where indeed, Carter and Dunnings stood conversing with another man she did not know. The two attendants were dressed not in the linen uniforms of their profession, but dark suits, making their presence seem even stranger to her.
“What the devil are they doing here?” Gabriel demanded. Penelope frowned. It wasn’t like him to be so sharp, but she could understand why he was. He’d just been through three days of hell, was facing the terrifying prospect of losing everything in his life and then, when he arrives home, the very people who wished to take it all from him were drinking brandy in his parlor.
He was likely furious. At the very least, his nerves had to be on edge.
Only to be made worse when his sister-in-law came forward and said, “They are guests, of course. They’ve graciously come to Town to testify on behalf of the family. Surely you didn’t expect them to stay in rented lodgings.” Lady Devereaux turned her gaze to Penelope with a disdainful flick. “What is she doing here?”
“She is testifying on the behalf of the head of this family,” Gabriel growled.
“Enough!” Lady Bromwich’s voice cut in.
The unease that had settled in Penelope’s middle since seeing Mr. Allen and his attendants grew. After all that Gabriel had been through during the carriage ride to London, he needed to recuperate in a place of peace and quiet, to prepare himself for the ordeal to come.
“Please, Gabriel,” she said low enough that only he could hear. “Let us decamp to Stratford House.”
He squeezed her arm and said sotto voce, “I will not be driven from my own home, Pen. And neither will you.”
She pursed her lips, worry mixing with irritation. Stubborn man. And rotten, rotten in-laws.
“Now,” he said, taking her hand from his arm and brushing it lightly with his lips, “I should like a quick word with my brother and then I will show you to your room.”
She wished he would show her to her room now, and stay with her, but he’d already headed for where his brother stood in the far corner of the parlor.
“Edward tells me that Gabriel has not had an episode in nearly two months now.” Penelope turned her head to see the marchioness standing near, her eyes on Gabriel much the same way Penelope’s own were. The older woman watched her elder son with the same worry and hope she did.
“Yes,” Penelope said quietly. “None since the first day I arrived at Vickering Place.”
Penelope looked at Gabriel now. How far he’d come. She could tell he was angry with his brother, not because he gave it away by expression but because of the large gulp he took from the brandy he’d just accepted from a passing maid. She’d seen him drink only when he was upset. But he was keeping everything together.
“Hmmm,” the marchioness replied. “So you really think he’s cured, then, do you?”
“I do,” she said, looking back at Gabriel’s mother. She spent a few minutes detailing what she thought had caused Gabriel’s problems and the progress they’d made—not sharing any of his most personal things, but enough so that the marchioness might understand. “So you see, while he will always carry the mental scars, I do believe the worst is over.”
She glanced at him then—more and more, her eyes automatically sought him in a room. At this rate, she’d be staring at him several hours a day in a year or two. She perused his handsome face and froze upon it. Something was amiss.
He was holding his lips in a way that he never did. She frowned at the odd expression. When he brought a hand up to scratch at his shoulder, alarm screamed through her.
“I am glad to hear that,” the marchioness was saying beside her. “It is a terrible thing to see one son trying to wrest power from another. Almost as terrible as thinking one has lost his mind.”
But Penelope was hardly listening. Instead she started moving toward Gabriel as if in a daze. Oh no, she thought wildly as he started tugging at his cravat. No. No. No. No.
When he started shedding his jacket, his brother frowned. “I say, Gabriel. Are you well?”
At that, Mr. Allen’s head perked up and his eyes narrowed on Gabriel. Carter and Dunnings started paying attention, too, particularly when Allen discreetly waved them toward the corner where Gabriel was now tipping back the empty brandy glass as if it offered more to quench his thirst.
He growled with frustration and smashed the snifter on the floor.
Behind her, the marchioness gasped.
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. She had to get to him. If she could just get to him, perhaps she could stop this before it got out of hand.
But Mr. Allen’s men reached him first. Carter tried to grasp Gabriel’s arm, but the move seemed to enrage him. “Get off of me!” he roared, shoving the attendant away. Dunnings tried next, grabbing for Gabriel’s feet, but he kicked the man’s hands away.
“Don’t!” Penelope yelled.
Somewhere, Lady Amelia shrieked. “I knew it! I told you he was a lunatic!” Penelope wanted to slap her.
In the corner, Carter had managed to get behind Gabriel and was about to grasp him around the shoulders when Gabriel saw him and turned to defend himself—which put his own back to Penelope.
She’d reached him at last. She touched his shoulder. “Gabriel—”
“I said get off!” His arm shot out behind him, catching her with a force that knocked her at least a yard and slammed her into a small table. She caught her forehead on the corner as bursts of white exploded behind her eyes and hot liquid started to run down her face.
“He’s gone mad!” she heard Gabriel’s brother shout. “He’s just hit a lady.”
“No,” Penelope said, wincing against the pain. She pressed her palm hard against her aching brow, hopefully stanching the blood in the process. She struggled to rise even as her head spun, making it only to her knees. “No, he thought I was one of the attendants. He didn’t mean to hurt me. It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have touched him.”
But no one paid her any mind. Through the one eye she could partially see through, she watched Mr. Allen join his men and the three of them subdue Gabriel. His howls of protest ripped through her, joining with the anguish already tearing her apart. What had happened? And how had it happened so fast?
“Are you all right, m’lady?” A young maid knelt in front of her and pressed a square of linen against Penelope’s bleeding head.
“I’m fine,” she answered, trying to look around the girl to see what they were doing to Gabriel. “I just need to—”
“Take him upstairs and lock him in his room,” Edward Devereaux ordered. “Post guards outside of both exits.”
“No!” Penelope shouted, trying now to use the kneeling maid as leverage to get to her feet as the attendants dragged a fighting Gabriel from the room. “Gabriel!”
His face jerked around when he heard his name, but the eyes that looked at her were not golden brown. Nor did the round, black irises flicker with any recognition at all.
Her Gabriel was gone, replaced by a madman.