The Prince's Bride

Chapter Eleven

Gabriel gathered a loaf of bread, a bowl of raspberries, and a triangle of cheese, and set them on his small, rough-hewn table. He hung the kettle over the fire to reheat. He kept only one set of utensils, and he clonked these down next to the food. There was a cloth for a napkin and butter and salt and jam. He stepped back, staring at the spread but seeing nothing. In his mind’s eye, he saw only a man hurting Lady Ryan. Not just “a man.” His own cousin, marauding about with Gabriel’s title. How deep a cowardice, he thought, to brutalize defenseless young women. Maurice had clearly survived the French Revolution hale and hearty. With so many dead or lost, he was climbing the ranks of their shattered family. And his response was cruelty to Lady Ryan and her family?

Gabriel coped with cruelty by healing it away—he’d said this when he’d explained his work, and it was true. But he couldn’t heal Lady Ryan, he couldn’t even help her.

Lady Ryan. He repeated her name in his head and thought of the moments before he’d seen the abrasion on her neck. She’d welcomed his request to undress her. Before that, he’d knelt before her and she’d bared her legs to him. He’d picked up her tiny foot and held it in his hand. Their time beside the waterfall had evoked a surge of desire so potent, he’d thought he would expire from it. The memory of it—of kneeling, and touching, and unhooking—was too new to regret and he repeated it, over and over, in his mind.

The kettle whistled, and Gabriel jumped. He stepped to the fire to move it to a higher hook. She might not want coffee, so he poured cider into a clay goblet. Was this enough? Gabriel knew virtually nothing of entertaining guests.

“Oh, how lovely.”

Gabriel looked up. Lady Marianne, skin glowing, head tipped sideways, padded into his small kitchen, drying her hair with the towel. The borrowed nightshirt swallowed her shoulders and fell loosely to the middle of her legs. Her feet were bare.

“I’m famished, actually,” she said, sliding into a seat. “Do you mind?”

How natural she seemed. Unaffected. He’d known so few women in his adult life, he couldn’t say if this was remarkable, or fleeting, or feigned. The memories of his own mother were not steeped in calmness. She’d been beautiful and demanding, and life inside a cave would have sent her into hysterics.

Gabriel didn’t know Lady Ryan, not really, but he remembered a sort of serenity—a steadiness—from the letters she’d written as a girl. She was curious rather than judgmental; hopeful rather than preoccupied with dread. Their betrothal hadn’t seemed to distress her. In their two, brief meetings, he remembered her as pleasant and matter-of-fact. She wasn’t so very different now. Channing Meade had evoked her screams—and rightly so. But she wasn’t screaming now; she hadn’t screamed since he’d collected her. How, he wondered, had he almost not gone for her?

“Will you be offended if I eat while we talk?” she asked, studying a raspberry before popping it into her mouth.

He shook his head, watching her chew. But he had gone for her. He’d brought her inside his home. He’d invited her to tell him everything. The screaming was over; now the recruitment would begin. And he would be forced to refuse her.

Gabriel wanted nothing to do with life outside the forest. He could exist perhaps; eat food, brush past strangers on the street, find some work. But he could not bungle through inane conversations, he could not relax in crowds, he couldn’t breathe in layers of stiff clothing. He couldn’t spend hours a day inside of doors. He couldn’t stomach the way horses were handled by untrained grooms or work in a stable that was not his own. He couldn’t trust anyone. He would never sleep.

And these were only his preferences. What he could never, not ever, survive was the mantle of being a prince. Royalty meant ceding a colossal measure of control that he’d vowed never again to release.

“Mr. Rein?” she was prompting. “Shall I begin? Will you hear it?”

“Yes.” He exhaled. “I will hear it.”

She froze for a moment, perhaps not expecting him to agree. His stomach gave a flip. She was so very pretty. Her hair had begun to dry. Loose brown waves swung about her face. She shoved up the sleeves of the nightshirt and took up a slice of bread.

“Right. Thank you. Let’s see, where shall I begin?” she wondered.

“Why don’t you start by telling me how your sisters are safe alone in Guernsey? Where is this imposter prince now?”

“Excellent question,” she conceded. “We’ve no guarantee of their safety, actually. The imposter prince departed Guernsey more than a fortnight ago—in late July—claiming some pressing business in Paris. He’s vowed to return on the fifteenth of October. He is a very precise person. Particular and fussy. He gave us no reason to believe we would see him before that date. We were meant to use the intervening time to... ‘come to terms with our future.’”

“Your future?”

“The future with him in charge. He manages things. And he marries me.” She took up another slice of bread and nibbled the crust. She did not gobble or smack. She was hungry, clearly, but her manners prevailed—small bites, slow chewing, shallow sips of cider. She was a lady. This made Gabriel think of his father, a gentleman—a prince—and the boy Gabriel once had been. Even as a child, he’d spent hours with his nanny and tutors to refine his manners and comportment. All of it was a faint memory now, like watching a familiar dance but having no notion of the steps.

“Naturally, we’ve come to terms with nothing,” she was saying. “Instead, we’ve made a careful study of our options. My sister Diana wants to fight, and Charlotte wants to beg—but I know better. Fighting him would invite harsher punishments and begging would only play into his inflated sense of entitlement. Our only choice is to outsmart him. October fifteenth is like the swinging door of a jail. Until it clangs shut, we’ll slip in and out, trying to find a way to subvert him.”

“And your way has been to wander about an unfamiliar forest in mainland England until you stumble upon Gabriel d’Orleans?”

She stopped chewing and stared at him. Too late, he realized he’d again pronounced his name like a native.

“Yes,” she said, taking a drink. “Well no, not entirely. We also contacted solicitors to challenge the betrothal. We looked into hiring a man who might serve as a sort of bodyguard and advocate, speaking in lieu of our sick father. We even thought of marrying me off to someone—anyone—else. But when I showed my sisters the last letter from yo—er, my last old letter from the true Prince d’Orleans, we agreed it was worth the effort to try and find you—er, him. The most efficient and least expensive way to extricate ourselves from the imposter prince was to present the real prince.”

Gabriel lowered himself into the opposite chair, trying not to think of himself being presented to someone. Even worse, to claim he was “the real prince.” It would be like digging up a dead man and wheeling him about, telling the world he’s not dead, only a little dirty and asleep.

“Just to be perfectly clear, I’m not on a mission to marry the real Prince d’Orleans,” she rushed to add. “He need not follow the terms of this old betrothal, simply... make himself known so that the imposter prince steps down. His mere presence will end the fight, in our view. There would be no dickering with solicitors or documents. We’ve no desire to engage in a lengthy negotiation with this man. He is unreasonable, to say the very least.” She touched a stray hand to the scab on her neck.

“I don’t understand why marriage to you would give Maurice so much power over your father’s estate?” Gabriel said. “I understand you have no wish to marry an abusive man, and I don’t blame you, but why is Maurice’s stake in the betrothal so far-reaching?”

She shrugged. “The terms of the union state that all of Winscombe goes to my husband, the Prince d’Orleans, on the occasion of my marriage.”

“Like a dowry,” he said. He’d not understood the terms as a boy, but he had some notion of the way marriage merged fortunes.

“Yes, exactly like a dowry, I suppose.”

“Why would you be dowered with your family’s entire estate? What if your father had had a son?”

“Well, my father did not have a son, but I suppose if he had done, that boy would have inherited the title only. Not the lands or the house. They are tied to my marriage.”

“But why?” Gabriel hadn’t questioned the betrothal as a boy, but in hindsight it was a very odd arrangement, indeed.

“Money,” she said. “Your late father gave my Papa a loan at the time of the betrothal. Sorry, it’s a challenge for me to continue speaking as if you’re a stranger in all this.”

“I might as well be a stranger,” he tried.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said tiredly. “To answer your question: Papa has become too ill to explain his motivations, but I believe at the time, he desperately needed money. He’s a good man—well-liked and respected—but he is prone to bad investments. Your father was an old friend and he gave Papa the desperately needed loan. The terms of that exchange saw you betrothed to me, despite the fact that we were toddlers. And my dowery would be Winscombe. It was all my father had at the time.”

“Your future marriage was the collateral on the loan?”

“Not just collateral,” she said, “it was the repayment.”

“But why did they—”

“The benefit to your father was... you would eventually own Winscombe, which is an ancient English estate so very close to the coast of France. The benefit to my father was money in the short term and a prince for his daughter in the long term. It was a bit of a shortsighted arrangement, honestly—rash and unorthodox. But there is a friendly history between our two families; generations of intermarriage and alliance. And our fathers were great friends, weren’t they? There was an understanding that you would grow up to be a generous steward of Winscombe. This was all before French princes began losing their heads to the guillotine of course.”

“Yes. A lifetime ago,” he said.

“Sorry. That was insensitive. What I mean is, I’m no student of French foreign affairs, but the French Revolution happened and we never heard from any of the d’Orleans family again. Until now. I can only guess things are looking up for royal sons of France, because this person, this imposter prince Maurice, is not shy about flaunting the title and staking claim to everything to which he feels entitled.”

“If Maurice is flaunting the title,” said Gabriel, “why pursue your obscure estate in the English channel? The portfolio of d’Orleans properties is extensive—everything from seaside villas to castles.”

“Money. Again, money—it’s the answer to so many questions, isn’t it? Maurice intends to sell Winscombe. French aristocrats have been left with very little. The rioters gutted Crown property during the Terror and now Napoleon is leading the country into its eighth year of an expensive war. Money and lands are scarce for the average French princeling, I believe.”

Gabriel thought of this. He read the papers, but it was difficult for him to guess at his family’s solvency. His father was dead, of course, but he’d lost touch with everyone else, even his mother. He tried to remember this man—his second cousin Maurice. He was older than Gabriel; a lanky youth who ran with other cousins in their teens. Gabriel outranked him, of course, but he remembered that Maurice went out of his way to treat Gabriel like a child. And he was so very preoccupied with the family’s royal blood, despite the fact that everyone in their circle was related to the king in one way or the other.

Gabriel also remembered Maurice’s zeal for almost (but not quite) taking cruel advantage of servants for sport. If a footman brought tea, he would badger the man to fetch small additions to the spread, one item at a time, for the novelty of seeing him scramble. Back and forth to the kitchens he’d send the man for a salt cellar, a larger spoon, a smaller spoon, a dish of olives, a husk of vanilla seeds, a fresh napkin, milk for the cat, open the drapes, draw the drapes—on and on it went. All of this, just for a snicker from other cousins, but Maurice thrived on the attention. Even as a boy, Gabriel had been bothered by this unnecessary abuse of rank.

“Honestly,” Lady Ryan was saying, “I would have married the imposter prince if he’d been decent and fair-minded—a man who I could remotely tolerate.” She stared into her cup. “I’m twenty-four and unmarried, with no proposals to speak of. I had no debut in London, but I’ve been out in Guernsey society—such that it is—for years. My childhood betrothal was not common knowledge. As far as anyone knows, I’m fully available. Even so, there has been no interest, so—”

She glanced at him and then away. “Why shouldn’t I consent to an arranged marriage? When the proverbial wolf has been at our door for so many years? Winscombe can be profitable, I believe, as soon as we dig out of our father’s mismanagement. He is dear to us, obviously; but his health and our financial problems are dueling burdens that encroach on two sides. As soon as we curtail one of them, the other flares. My sisters and I live with the pervasive feeling of almost-but-not-quite drowning, as if we’re just about to reach the surface and take a breath, but then—no. We gulp down only the smallest little watery gasp, and under we go again.”

She made a sad little chuckle. “If some man turned up, claiming to be my betrothed, and he consented to join our good fight toward solvency and gave me the chance to have a family of my own, I would’ve gone along. If he wasn’t terrible. But the imposter prince is so very terrible. And he has no interest in our father or increasing the productivity of Winscombe. He means to sell it off in parts and relocate me and my younger sister to France. He would leave Diana and our father behind to rot. He wants no family with me, although he does seem keenly interested in making my younger sister something like his concubine. I know it all sounds unbelievable—and trust me, it is beyond all belief—but it’s happened. And we are scrambling to subvert it. Scrambling tooth and nail.”

Gabriel put aside her comments about her willingness to marry “just about anyone” and tried to learn more about his cousin Maurice. There must be some way to turn him out without Gabriel, himself, leaving Savernake Forest.

“This imposter prince, as you call him,” he asked, “did he simply turn up with his dogs and begin ripping jewelry from your neck? Did he size up everything at once and claim it?”

She shook her head. “No, not at first. He arrived unannounced on an ordinary summer day. He was accompanied by two carriages, a retinue of servants, and a great many trunks and dogs and horses. I was actually in the kitchen garden with our cook when they arrived. We were sorting out what vegetables we may put up for winter to clear room for autumn planting. When I saw his procession, I thought, What’s this? A traveling band of actors? I’d never seen so many flags and banners and liveried horses and trunks lashed to carriage rooftops.

“I met his herald—the man travels with his own herald—on the front stoop and, after five minutes of convincing the man that I was not a servant and, in fact, Lady Marianne Daventry, the man bade me to make myself ‘presentable for His Serene Highness, the Prince d’Orleans.’

“I was so confused by all of it—the carriages, and the bandying about of this royal title, and this man tsking over my perfectly presentable day dress—that I mistakenly believed the herald was the prince himself—a grave insult, apparently. Also, proof of my poor breeding. It was the last straw, and the herald actually returned to the vehicles in a huff and closed himself up inside. I was standing on the stoop, trying to decide what to do, when Charlotte opened the front door.”

“Your sister?”

She nodded. “The youngest. And...” an exhale “...a singular beauty, if I do say so. Everyone else does. When she was in view, four men spilled from the carriage, and the herald announced Maurice, Prince d’Orleans, without further delay, and on and on it went. We were given no choice but to invite them inside. I rang for refreshments and Charlotte and I received them in the drawing room. The man came to ruin our lives and I served him tea. Kind of like what’s happened here between me and you,” she said taking a bite of cheese.

Gabriel ignored this. “And then they broached the topic of the betrothal?”

“No, first the lot of them—the imposter prince, his herald, various courtiers, and a steward—made certain we were all properly introduced and they understood who was who. I was the eldest. My sister Charlotte was the youngest, barely fifteen. Our middle sister, Diana, was in the stables that morning. My father, the earl, was indisposed. When this was sorted, they asked when they might speak to Papa.”

“Who is ill,” provided Gabriel.

“It’s his heart, we believe,” she said. “He drifts in and out of consciousness, and even when he is alert, it is only enough to eat and be washed. That day, he’d been particularly lethargic. I offered my apologies and told them the earl was not well. If I’d known their true purposes, I would’ve lied and said he was in London, or Scotland, or on the moon. But I did not know, and the imposter prince launched into a thinly veiled interrogation about Papa’s fitness, including questions about what male guardian looked after us. By the time I comprehended the very great risk of revealing too much, Charlotte had rattled off thorough answers to all of his questions. Within ten minutes, the imposter understood that we were three women living alone on a vast estate with an invalid father and no other protection. It’s obvious that Winscombe is weather-beaten and in need of repairs. He could also see that I’d remained unmarried all these years and was perfectly situated to honor the original betrothal. Finally, he saw that I had at least one beautiful sister who might be swept up to sweeten the deal.”

“So when did he raise the topic of the betrothal?” he asked.

A shrug. “Not for several wretched days.”

“What excuse did he give for calling to Guernsey if he waited days to mention the betrothal?”

“He reminded me of the great friendship between our two families,” she said. “He said he wouldn’t hear of departing until he’d gained an introduction to my father. He gave us a little explanation of his inheritance of the d’Orleans title—how his cousin Gabriel had been missing these great many years and was presumed dead.”

“He used these words?” confirmed Gabriel. “Missing and presumed dead?”

“That is what he said,” she answered carefully, watching him. “And then on the third day, he approached me alone in the drawing room. He told me that, as the new prince, he was also the proud owner of everything in the d’Orleans estate—including the decades-old betrothal that bound the firstborn daughter of the Earl of Amhurst to the current prince. He said it was a union that had happened time and again down through the centuries—a tradition of the two families—and now it was our turn, that we would marry.”

“He demanded it,” guessed Gabriel. “And you fought?”

“Well, the first time he raised it, we were both perfectly... civil, I suppose you’d say. He believed me to be under his charming spell and dazzled by his title. He also mistook me for someone who is easy to command. I stammered out something about having no wish to marry. He replied that I had no choice in the matter, that I should prepare myself—that we should all prepare ourselves for sweeping changes at Winscombe.

“After he’d said it, I remember I sat alone in the drawing room and sort of... absorbed my own shock. You’ve heard of someone screaming into their pillow? This moment was like screaming into a pillow. It was far worse than the dog attack that happened later, worse than the temper fit when he ripped away the necklace. We’d foolishly allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. We have a beautiful estate but little money. Our father is too ill to advocate for us. But we got on so happily in Guernsey. Our family is well-liked and our neighbors are decent and respectful. No one took advantage. Until your cousin.”

“But the violence,” Gabriel pressed, “when did he drop the pretense and begin to bully you?”

“Ah yes, the dogs,” she said. “Please believe me when I say I had no intention of trotting out my battle scars.”

“I’ve known great violence in my life, unfortunately. My own father was executed. Before that, our family was terrorized.”

“Yes,” she said, watching him. He’d just revealed himself. She knew it, and he knew it. His identity was proven. She said nothing. She waited.

Gabriel forged on, trying to remember his point. “My early exposure to mindless violence has made me a student of that moment.”

“Moment?”

“The tipping point where civil debate turns to aggression.”

“Oh right,” she said. “I don’t suppose I’ve thought of it in those terms. Every minute of his visit was so very wretched. Never did Maurice engage in ‘civil debate.’ He’s very underhanded about doling out punishments. For example, he didn’t set his dog on me outright; the dog attacked, and he refused to call it off. He didn’t strangle me, he fingered my necklace and then pulled so hard, it snapped. Both incidents could be explained away as accidents unless a witness happened to be there to see it.”

“I’m sorry for what you’ve suffered, Lady Ryan,” he told her—the truth. He was sorry. He lived a solitary life, but he understood injustice and vulnerability and abuse. Injustice and vulnerability and abuse were the reasons for his isolation.

Not for the first time, he thought of asking her to stay here, in the forest, with him—to stay hidden and safe from the threat of Maurice, or the burden of managing an old estate and an infirm parent. But of course her troubles were shared among sisters, and love for her home was obvious. She didn’t want to hide away in the forest with him. She didn’t even know him. And forest life was not easy. Even Samuel’s sons—twin boys who’d been raised to love the forest and horses—had, in the end, chosen a different life. Hiding was not the answer for everyone.

“And I’m sorry I’ve thrust our crisis on you,” she said. “I’m sorry to have opened your desk and found out your real name and forced you to admit it. Your privacy and solitude are priorities, clearly. What I’ve done to you resembles Maurice’s crimes against me—we both turned up, claimed to be owed something, and waved proof in everyone’s faces. I see the unfairness of it. I am loathe to draw anyone else into our nightmare, but if I could just compel you to challenge this person.”

“I... can’t,” Gabriel told her.

She stared at him, her face creased with concern. “But, why not? If I must beg you, I will.”

“Please don’t,” he whispered harshly. “Look, I will try to help you in some way. I cannot go myself, but I have money. You may use it to hire lawyers.”

“I don’t want to fight the imposter; I want him gone. Why would I travel all the way here, risk all the dangers of the forest, only to find you and then hire a lawyer?” Her voice was filled with tears.

“You’re not hearing, me, Lady Marianne. I cannot—”

“Please do not refer to me as ‘Lady Marianne.’ That is what he calls me. I am Ryan. Lady Ryan if you must, but ‘Lady Marianne’ is the helpless woman betrothed to a terrible stranger and that is not me.”

He swallowed. “Lady Ryan, will you listen?”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and brushed away tears.

“You’re exhausted,” he told her. “You’ve been through a storm, and an ambush, and were lost in the wood. I have misrepresented myself to you, and I can imagine the frustration of it.”

“I’m not one of your horses,” she said. “I needn’t be soothed into docility. I’m perfectly docile. I can accept that you won’t do it—I can—but I should like to know why. My sisters will want to know. I want to know.”

“Will you sleep now and let us talk again in the morning?”

“You’re joking? You would send me to bed with a vague promise of revisiting this topic ‘in the morning’? No sir, I will not. I would know it now.”

“You want to know, and I want to be left alone,” he growled, pushing back from the table. “We can’t always have what we want, can we?”

She laughed a little at this, thank God. The irony was, he did not want her to go away. Even though she asked the impossible, everything about this conversation had thrilled him. Having a real conversation with a real woman—not just any woman, but the girl from the letters, all grown up—was invigorating. He never wanted to stop talking to her or looking at her. He could watch her eat raspberries every day for the rest of his life.

Well.

And wasn’t this a truth he didn’t want to acknowledge?

He could hardly tell her that.

“Look, Lady Ryan. You are articulate and determined, and good for you. I go days without speaking to anyone at all—and now you would have me reveal deep convictions that were borne of the darkest moments of my life?” He began walking the perimeter of the room. She kept silent, watching him.

Finally, he said, “The forest is safe and private. It requires nothing from me but survival. If I leave it, I would have to relearn how to carry on. And I don’t want to relearn. My old life betrayed me in terrible ways.” He paused beside the wall and leaned back, staring at her. He crossed his arms over his chest. “That is one reason.”

“Alright,” she said carefully. Her expression had softened.

“I don’t know anything but horses and living off the land. And these have been enough—for years, this was enough.”

She nodded.

He pushed off the wall and started again to prowl the room. “People will expect me to behave like a prince. Not only have I forgotten how to be a prince, I don’t want to know how. The world assumes that a prince manages things, rules over a kingdom. Perhaps he does and perhaps he doesn’t, but the result is—as I’ve experienced it—a prince is actually ruled by his subjects. Sometimes, they love him and he is obligated to retain their love. Other times they hate him, and he is compelled to win back their regard. Sometimes they hate him so much, they cannot be won over, and they kill him. Regardless, his life is not his own—not his work, not his study, not whether he marries or who. His enemies are chosen for him, as are his allies. He’s given almost no choice in how he spends his time. All of these very basic things are controlled by his duty and his country. Various members of my family have been in exile for years, and I can only guess that they have suffered—but not me. I am finally in control. No longer at the mercy of nameless, faceless subjects; of governments; of my family’s bloody place in bloody world history.”

“Gabriel—”

“Lastly,” he said, cutting her off, “there was a culminating event—a disaster—that caused me to take shelter in the forest. That disaster convinced me without a shadow of a doubt that I am not safe outside the forest, nor is anyone with whom I share my life. I can’t elaborate further, so please do not ask, but I have freedom from fear in the forest; outside of it, I do not.”

“Gabriel, enough,” she said softly and he looked up. He’d not realized his voice had risen. He’d almost forgotten she was there.

“Enough,” she repeated. “You’re safe here in a way you’re not safe elsewhere; and I’m sorry. It has been selfish of me to not accept no for an answer. I couldn’t see around my own crisis. I was entitled and short-sighted.”

“You deserve an explanation.”

“And you’ve explained—and I believe you. I’ve been—” And now she sighed. “Thank you.”

This was unexpected. She watched him now with eyes bright; her pretty face gentle, her body relaxed. She looked like she could listen to him prattle on about the safety of the forest all night.

Gabriel frowned. “You’re exhausted. You should sleep while it’s still night.”

She considered him a moment longer. She glanced to the direction of his bedchamber and back to him. Finally she said, “Alright. Will you walk with me? I’m not sure I can navigate the room when the candles are snuffed.”

His eyes flicked to hers. She stared back. Gabriel felt a blast of something hot and potent. It was hazy and breathless and smelled like a thermal spring. He’d taken her to the waterfall to help her, not—

He breathed out. Touching her had simply happened. His current impulse was not to help, it was to indulge. Arousal crawled through him like a wolf. The rawness of their conversation was rapidly fading away and a deeper connection, a greater intimacy, smoldered between them.

“Gabriel?” she prompted.

Of course he couldn’t refuse her; not after everything else. He was not a miser. He was simply not a prince.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll get the lamp.”

She waited for him to collect the light and then preceded him down the dim corridor.