The Prince's Bride

Chapter Sixteen

Gabriel stood in the midst of utter chaos, keeping the dogs off of Ryan. His sister had fainted at the sight of him. One man caught her up; another recoiled against the wall. Two small girls dressed in dueling shades of pink spilled from the house, jabbering and spinning, reigniting the dogs.

Gabriel stared down at the two children, the baby, his sister (unconscious), the man holding her (suspicious), at Lady Ryan, and the second man on the wall, and all six of the dogs. It was more people than Gabriel had encountered altogether in five years.

His sister’s eyes fluttered open and she began squirming in the man’s arms. “I’m alright,” she proclaimed. “I’m alright, I’m alright. Killian, I’m all right. But can you put me down?”

The children were momentarily silenced by her protestations—but only just. Now they bobbed up and down, shouting, “Maman!” and reaching small hands to her skirts. “Put her down, Papa!” the girls ordered, “Put her down!”

Slowly, carefully, the man—she’d called him Killian, so he must be her husband—settled Elise on her feet. She held to him and searched every face until she locked eyes with Gabriel. In a breathless, tear-choked voice, she whispered his name.

Gabriel did not answer; it hadn’t seemed like a question. Also, he had no words. The mere sight of her knocked him backward as squarely as a punch. He landed dizzyingly in the past. Her eyes were so familiar; her expressions exactly as he remembered. Her posture was the same, and the set of her chin. She was the most important face of his boyhood—but now a grown woman. She looked so very much like their mother. She was somehow... shorter? That couldn’t be right, she wouldn’t have shrunk. No, of course not, he’d grown.

Elise—living, breathing, tearful Elise. Adult Elise—with three children who referred to her as Maman. The sight of her flipped him forward and backward in time, like thumbing through the pages of a book. Only, the middle had been torn away. How could he make sense of their story if the intervening years were lost?

Also how must he appear to her? He was a man now, obviously; with a face and bearing probably very much like their father’s—if their father had been bearded and disheveled and dressed like a common woodsman.

“I’m sorry for the shock,” he finally said. The words came out in French.

“No apologies,” Elise whispered also in French. She wiped away a tear.

Behind him, Lady Ryan pressed a gentle hand to his back. He leaned into the pressure. The warm imprint staked him to earth as memories streaked through his mind. He saw the swing in the garden at the Palace Royale, Elise pushing him too high while their nursemaid begged them to stop. He saw the two of them diving into the water at their seaside villa in Nice, coming up with handfuls of perfectly round stones, swimming to the beach and making a nest of their pretend eggs. He saw the darkness and fear of the prison and bright sun through the bars of the executioner’s wagon. He wasn’t sure he could’ve borne the memories if Ryan hadn’t been there with a firm hand to his back. It was imprudent to rely on her, he knew. He took a step to the side. He wasn’t a child or an invalid, and she need not protect him. But he didn’t feel protected, he felt calmed. He pulled off his hat, remembered his crude haircut, and crammed it back on his head.

“Killian,” Elise was telling her husband, “this is my brother. But can you believe it? My brother. Here. He’s come. After all of this time.” She laughed, an elated, tear-choked sound.

One of her daughters clung to her skirts and the other pressed against her, hands raised. Behind them, the baby on the stoop began to cry.

Elise seemed not to notice any of it; her gaze was locked on Gabriel. She took a step forward and he braced, unprepared to be touched. Sweat cooled the back of his neck; his throat was dry. She touched the sleeve of his coat and Gabriel looked down, staring at her small, clean hand on the stiff mud-streaked fabric. He thought of the clothes beneath the coat; simple, rustic, mended. He thought of his filthy boots. He tried to conjure up something to say.

The baby’s cries grew louder and Killian Crewes scooped her from the floor. “Everyone on this stoop...” Killian Crewes announced, “who is the height of my elbow or shorter, will now retreat to the nursery, select any book, and read it for the length of one hour.”

“But Papa, we cannot yet read!” reminded one of the girls, jumping up and down.

“How will we know when an hour has gone?” said the other girl. “We cannot tell time!”

“Where is Nanny?” He hitched the baby on his hip.

“Nanny requires ten minutes of total silence and total stillness to lie down in a dark, cool place,” recited the first girl.

Killian Crewes made a growling noise and narrowed his eyes on the bouncing girls. “Marie—take Noelle, will you? You’re big enough to hold her, surely.”

“Oh yes, Papa!” said the girl called Marie, reaching skinny arms and tiny hands for the baby.

“Brilliant.” Killian deposited the baby with her sister. The child was too heavy—more than half the weight of the girl herself—and Marie staggered under the burden. The baby sensed the instability and let out a protesting screech.

“Quiet, Noelle,” lectured Marie. “We must choose a book and learn to read for one hour.”

These are my nieces, Gabriel thought. I am in possession of nieces.

He’d known he was an uncle from Elise’s letters; but seeing the girls in life affected him in a different way than reading about them. They were beautiful. Their names were French. They were not afraid of him or of dogs or of their tall, imposing father. They appeared fearless. Beautiful and tireless and fearless.

Elise paid them no mind; she’d not taken her eyes from his face. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Gabriel tried to hold her gaze, but he found himself unable. The force of her attention seemed to rip open something inside him, something bound, and creased, and sealed with wax. He didn’t like it—not the openness, nor the bareness of it. He felt unprotected, exposed, vulnerable.

“Hallo!”

And now a shout rose above the chatter of the children. Gabriel tensed. He wasn’t accustomed to shouted greetings. He wasn’t accustomed to newcomers spilling from doors or around corners.

The shout came from a youth—aged anywhere from sixteen to twenty. The boy came around the side of the house with a fishing pole and pail. The dogs sprang from the stoop and raced to him, leaping and barking. He was a tall boy, broad shouldered, with black hair and a broad grin.

“Bartholomew, thank God,” snapped Killian. “Call off your mongrels, we’ve guests and they’ve been terrorized by your unruly wolfpack.”

“Sorry, Killian!” called the boy. He whistled to the dogs and made a gesture with his hands. The animals bolted around the side of the house. He dropped his pole and pail.

“What’s happened?” the boy asked, bounding up the steps. “Why is everyone on the stoop?”

“Can you take Noelle?” asked Killian.

“Hello, you...” the boy sang to the baby, taking her from Marie and swinging her into his arms. He turned to Gabriel and Lady Ryan. “Are you the terrorized guests? My apologies about the dogs. Truly. I snuck away to...” and now he pantomimed casting a line with his free hand. “The dogs love the water but frighten the fish. I’ve better luck if I leave them.”

Gabriel stared at him, trying to place a young man among the cast of family members in his sister’s letters. The boy had positioned the baby facedown over an arm, like a footman might drape a napkin. She gnawed blithely on his wrist. The two girls leaned against him and strained arms upward, as if he might carry all three of them. They spoke over each other, imploring him to take them fishing.

“The dogs must be restricted to the stables, honestly,” Killian was telling him. “We’ve enough chaos. For now, take the girls inside, will you? Seek out Nanny and tell her to contain them in the nursey until I come for them. Tell her also that I wish to speak to her at her earliest convenience.”

“No, Killian, you mustn’t threaten Nanny,” Elise said distractedly, casting a glance over her shoulder.

“Sorry again about the dogs,” the boy volunteered. “I’m Bartholomew by the way. If you’re thinking of how long to stay, please do not consider the threat of my dogs. Truly—banish all thoughts of them from your mind. You’ll not see them again.”

Gabriel stared at him. He’d not thought of how long he might stay; he’d no intention of staying any time at all. He’d only come to protect Lady Ryan. This wasn’t a visit, it was a... a chance meeting.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Lady Ryan called from behind him. “The dogs were no bother. Please don’t think of it again.”

“Come on then, girls,” Bartholomew said, “you’re to be ‘contained,’ did you hear your Papa?” He limped inside, holding the baby on his arm, dangling Marie from the opposite wrist, and dragging the third girl on his boot. When he passed the frowning butler cowering against the wall, he called, “Hello, Wallace!”

“My nephew is to blame for the dogs,” Killian Crewes said with a sigh, “but the children are not so easily explained. Elise, we must find a replacement nanny. Also, we cannot remain on the stoop all day. What is your vision for entertaining the guests?”

“I’ve no vision for it,” said Elise, not taking her eyes from Gabriel’s. She was shaking her head back and forth.

Ryan felt Gabriel’s body go rigid. He did not, she was certain, wish to goinside. He would not chatter away with the sister he’d not seen in fifteen years—not with her dazed and fainting and weeping over him.

“Would it be possible,” Ryan cut in, “for us to become more acquainted in your garden?”

Mr. and Mrs. Crewes turned to consider her.

“Anywhere outside would be lovely, actually. If it wouldn’t be too much bother.”

Their stare endured. Finally, Mr. Crewes said, “Forgive me, but you are—?”

“Oh sorry,” Ryan said. “I am Lady Marianne Daventry. Of Winscombe. In Guernsey.”

“How do you do?” he said cautiously. “And you’re acquainted to Elise’s brother... how?”

“Right. That. How can I explain it? Well, I was once betrothed to, er, Prince Gabriel? That is, I still am, or so I’m told. We were betrothed as children. By our fathers. So I’m hesitant to say I know him, more like I know of him? Or rather, I knew of him?”

“Oh, now I remember,” exclaimed Mrs. Crewes. “Yes, yes, yes. You’re the Earl of Amhurst’s eldest daughter. From Guernsey. Lady Marianne—I completely remember.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks, smiling back and forth between the two of them.

“I am, in fact,” said Ryan. “All grown up, I suppose. And I’m called Lady Ryan—or simply Ryan, as is my preference. We do not stand on ceremony at Winscombe.”

“But we visited Winscombe several times as children,” enthused Mrs. Crewes. “I actually loved our time there because I’m so very fond of sea bathing. There’s a little trail down the cliff to the beach on your estate, is there not?”

“Yes. Daybreak Walk, we call it,” said Ryan, smiling. “What a very good memory you have. It’s a delight to see you again, Highness—after everything that’s happened.”

“Killian,” said Mrs. Crewes, spinning to her husband, “Lady Marianne’s father was a very dear friend of our papa’s. Their home was but a short sail from the French port of St. Malo, which is a port on d’Orleans lands. Our families have a long history as neighbors. And our fathers arranged for Gabriel and Lady Marianne to marry when they came of age. It was to be an exchange of property, mingled fortunes, that sort of thing. In all that’s happened, I’d forgotten about the betrothal.”

“Oh yes, I can see how that might slip one’s mind. And I should like to hear more, truly—but on the topic of abandoning this stoop...” Killian prodded. “Perhaps Lady Ryan’s suggestion of tea in the garden would be the thing? Can we settle on that for the moment?”

Ryan glanced at Gabriel, hoping to covertly gauge his level of comfort with the notion of a garden tea.

“But have the two of you reunited?” asked Mrs. Crewes, looking back and forth between Gabriel and Ryan. “But of course you have. If not, how would Lady Ryan find us? Although—how did Lady Ryan find Gabriel? I don’t understand.” She laughed a little, clearly unsettled and confused and delighted all at once.

“I’m going to make a command decision,” cut in Mr. Crewes. “We’ll ask Wallace to have tea brought to the garden. In the meantime, I wonder if you, Lady Ryan, and my wife might discuss your unlikely journey from Guernsey to Wiltshire. Also, perhaps the two of you could oversee staff as they set things up in the garden? While you manage this, I’ll avail myself of Prince Gabriel. His expertise with horses precedes him, and I have a mare about to foal. I’m deuced worried about her.”

“A mare about to foal?” repeated Mrs. Crewes, spinning to him. “You can’t mean to take him to the stables, Killian? Now? No. He’s only just—”

“I should be happy to look in on the mare,” Gabriel cut in, descending the first step of the stoop.

Ryan exhaled in relief. Mr. Crewes understood.

“I’ve given everyone quite a shock, I know,” Ryan interjected, “turning up with no warning. I can try to explain. If Mrs. Crewes will—”

“Please call me Elise,” Elise said, waving a hand. She wasn’t looking at her; she stared only at her brother.

“The stables are in the back,” Mr. Crewes said lightly, leading Gabriel down the steps.

Gabriel looked again to Ryan and she nodded. Yes. Go. Look at the horse.

And then they were gone, disappearing around the corner of the house.

Elise Crewes watched them go like she was watching an heirloom burn in a fire.

“Will he stay?” asked Elise Crewes softly.

Ryan, of course, had no idea if he would stay, or vanish, or become the king of France. She’d thought she’d never see him again, and now here he was.

“Probably?” Ryan guessed.

“But should I go with them?”

It wasn’t Ryan’s nature to stride into situations and tell people where not to go, but it was her nature to solve problems. The problem here seemed to want a very slow pace and room for everyone to come accustomed to everyone else.

“Perhaps a more pressing task,” Ryan suggested, “might be to oversee the laying of the tea? The less formal, the better, I think? And with few distractions?”

“Yes, alright. I understand,” Elise said. She gathered up her skirts and then stopped. “But how well do you know my brother, Lady Ryan?”

“I only met him yesterday. If you can believe it.”

“Yesterday?”

“Well, when we were children—and then yesterday.”

“You must stay on with us, I hope you know,” she said, walking again. “As long as you are able. You will be our guest.”

“Thank you. I find myself too desperate to refuse your offer.”

“Desperate?” asked Elise.

“Yes, well, there’s more to the story than simply the old betrothal. I’ve come because of a conflict of interest with your cousin? A man called Maurice? But first...” and now she cleared her throat “. . . if I’m meant to stay, can I trouble you to admit my maid into your servants’ quarters? I’ve left her cooling her heels in the carriage, and she becomes agitated in small spaces.”