Chapter 18 #3
“Doesn’t matter at all,” Cam said, because the story should have accuracy in important particulars.
“I don’t care,” Gabriella rejoined stoutly. “The dragon person lied. They told mean lies. Lady Josephine lies like that.”
Cam felt the bolt of anxiety go through Alice. The bolt of hope wrapped in dread. He could speak up, take over the narrative, but the story wasn’t his to tell.
“Lady Josephine has been very naughty,” Alice said. “The only part of the story I haven’t yet shared is that the mama and daughter had the very same unusual color of hair, darker than rubies, but equally red.”
Gabriella pulled a braid forward and narrowed her gaze on Alice’s tidy bun.
No snood.
“Oh.” She snuggled back against Alice’s side. “You are the mama, and I am the daughter, right?”
“Yes. I am the mama, and you are my daughter.”
“Lady Josephine was the mean liar. The baron put her in her coach when she tried to steal me.”
“That is all true, and the story is also true, Gabriella. Our friends don’t care that I never married your father. They love us just the same.”
“Lady Josephine is mean. Nobody likes her. She said nobody would like us if you were my mama. Are you truly my mother?”
“I am absolutely and truly your mother.”
And I will soon be your step-papa. Time for the step-papa story later, and what did the step part matter, anyway?
“Our hair is not a co-ind… co… That word you said?”
“Not a coincidence. My own mama had hair the same color, and so did her mama. The name for it is Titian, after a painter who liked models with hair this color.”
“I like my hair. My hair is Titian, and so is yours.” Gabriella lapsed into silence, and Cam again stifled the urge to sum up, to recount agreements reached, to reiterate understandings.
“Will you be my mama now?” Gabriella asked. “My real mama?”
“Will you be my daughter?” Alice asked. “You have many friends here, and they are very dear to you, Gabriella. I would not ask you to leave them. They have protected you and supported you when I could not. They will miss you terribly if you leave.”
Cam cleared his throat and earned no reproving looks.
“Your mama will live with me at Lorne Hall soon, which is just a few miles away. I have asked her to marry me. I was hoping you and your friends might come for a visit later this week. The place is very large, and I live there without much company.”
Though in London, Cam had had no company at all, other than the boys, of course.
Gabriella drew the end of her braid across her mouth. “Mrs. Dumfries says Lorne Hall is enormous. We could play cricket in the ballroom.”
Interesting notion. “We could also play cricket in the park,” Cam said, “or go fishing on the lake, or fly kites, or—”
“Who is he?” Gabriella asked, gaze narrowing on a figure on the terrace steps. “He looks serious.”
“That,” Cam said, “is one of the good dragons. His name is Leopold St. Didier, and you are right that his is a sober demeanor. I suppose he’s looking for me.” Cam rose. “Ladies, are we sufficiently sorted that I might excuse myself?”
Gabriella looked puzzled.
“We are wonderfully sorted for now,” Alice said.
“Delightfully sorted. Time enough later to deal with next steps. For today, we are… marvelously sorted.” She glowed and beamed and twinkled at him, once again the Alice who as a girl had turned every head, who had seized life with both hands and hugged the stuffing out of it.
“I thought so. Then excuse me for the nonce.”
Cam wanted to write down every word of the story he’d just heard, the story he’d just been invited to join going forward, the story with the happiest of all possible endings. Instead, he blew the ladies a kiss and bowed and strolled off in no particular hurry.
“What was my father’s name?” Gabriella asked, curling into her mother’s side as Cam sauntered away. “Did you know his name?”
“I know his name and a great deal about him,” Alice said.
Cam slowed his steps.
“He was Throckmorton Gabriel Lucius Wendover DeSales, Lord Throckmorton,” Alice said. “Fourth son of the Marquess of Hampton. He was merry and sweet and very handsome too.”
Lord Throckmorton. Lord Throck-rubbishing-morton. Well, of course. Truly, a certain dragon had much to answer for.
Cam continued his progress toward St. Didier, who stood on the steps, looking impatient and unhappy.
“What are we to do with the kidnapper?” St. Didier asked. “The coachy will sit at the foot of the drive until Michaelmas, but we must determine what’s to be done with her ladyship. Huxley is quoting the Old Testament and looking choleric. He doesn’t seem to have much of a vocation, if you ask me.”
“Lady Josephine’s fate should be decided by the person upon whom she wrought the most evil, and that would be Alice Singleton.”
St. Didier’s brows drew down in a manner that suggested even his vast knowledge of Society, life, and learned subjects was confounded.
“What have you learned, Lorne? You know something, something important.”
“You and Huxley can convey her ladyship to the Hall and see her confined under guard to a third-floor guest room. She is to be given food and water if she requests same. She will otherwise await sentencing at the whim and pleasure of my prospective baroness. If you have suggestions, please direct them to Alice, assuming Gabriella ever turns loose of her mother.”
On the swing, Gabriella and Alice were cuddled up, whispering and smiling, and Cam did not have the heart to interrupt them. Captain Lord Throckmorton DeSales, of all the handsome, charming… The story was not quite over and the ending not quite as happy as Cam would have preferred.
Yet.
“I’ll deal with the baroness,” St. Didier said. “I hazard you have not once, this entire day, spared a thought for your correspondence, and I must say, Lorne, I finally have occasion to be proud of you.”
He marched off and did not see Cam smile at his retreating form.