Chapter Sixteen #2
“You will figure out a way, won’t you?” Benedict coaxed. “A way for her to be safe following her passion while still serving honorably as my wife.”
The man winced. “She needs a location, Benedict. Right now, the Rose Garden serves as her waystation. People find her through that, and she returns there to transform back into Miss Caddick.”
He frowned. “The Rose Garden is not the right place for that. Can another place be found? Or created?”
Gabriel shrugged. “With enough money, a building could be purchased.” He caught Benedict’s gaze, a great deal of information passing that went deeper than his next words. “It would tie her to London.”
He meant she could not go to Vienna for his Congress. She would not be at his side for state visits to wherever the diplomatic life might take him. He meant that as a life companion, Miss Caddick would not be around.
“I do not need her to tell me the minds of Vienna’s peasants. Her use is in her knowledge of England’s poor.”
“Yes, but…” Gabe struggled with his words. Neither of them was prone to discussing feelings. It did not mean that they weren’t aware of tender emotions. “Benedict, I know you are lonely. I thought you wanted a wife to address that.”
How wrong his friend was. But perhaps the man was projecting his own lack onto Benedict.
“What about you, Gabe? Do you wish for a woman in your bed?”
“I serve you, my lord. I seek nothing more.” The words were automatic and formal. Benedict scoffed.
“Don’t start ‘my lording’ me. If I am lonely, you are ten times such. You work the long hours at my side, then spend even longer implementing my plans. There has been no time for any tenderness in your bed. Do you not wish for it?”
“I serve you,” Gabriel repeated, his tone firm. And if will alone could deny the hungers of the heart, then he would believe Gabriel spoke the truth.
He did not.
“What if you were set here in London? If you were head of my household here, then you would have enough leisure to find the love you seek.”
“I never spoke of love.”
“Gabe, you don’t need to. You have always sought someone who loved as purely as you do.
But one cannot find that in a battlefield.
Nor in the benighted evenings with the likes of LeFauvre.
” He topped off his friend’s glass. “But you could find it in London. You could attend parties here, meet debutantes, and charm all the innocent girls of England.”
“Those girls will not dance with a bastard.”
“Some will. You might find one, if only you would look.”
Gabriel set down his glass rather than drink it. “Is that what you want of me? Do you curse me to manage your errant wife so that I will dance with debutantes? Benedict, you are drunk.”
“I want you to find love, Gabriel, because you want it. And if any man deserves it, it is you.”
“Perhaps I will find it in Vienna.”
“In that nest of vipers and villainesses? No, I want you to meet a good English girl. I want you to fall desperately in love and pop out a dozen worthy children. You must father England’s next generation.”
“And watch my mother poison anything I might create? No good woman will marry Madame Sabate’s son. And no grandchild will escape her name.”
“There is a way. If you fall in love, you will create an answer.”
Gabriel openly scoffed. “When did you become such a romantic?”
Never. Always. “I am merely voicing what you will not. Tell me you don’t wish for exactly what I describe.
Tell me to my face. I know you will never lie to me.
You have sworn it. Do it now and I will assign Nathaniel to watch over Miss Caddick.
I will take you to Vienna where you can search among foreigners for whatever will slacken your lust.”
Gabriel looked into his eyes. Indeed, Benedict had forced him to. And then he tried to lie. He formed the words, he moved his lips, but he could not bring himself to put breath to the words. In the end, because he was unfailingly honest, he confessed the truth.
“Sometimes, I long for a good wife. I wish for a woman in my bed and children at my feet.”
“As all good men do.”
“But I will not abandon you.”
“Of course not!” Benedict snapped. “You will obey my order. And that is to find a solution for Miss Caddick and me. If it entails buying a building, then you have access to whatever funds you need. Create this future for her and me. And in the meantime, dance with some pretty girls. Kiss someone in the shadows. Open your heart to the future you so want.”
Gabriel didn’t answer except to abruptly slurp his brandy.
From the looks of him, one would think he had been sentenced to the firing squad.
But in this, Benedict knew the truth better than Gabriel.
Some men—and Gabe was one of them—had been beaten away from their dreams so many times, it was easier to run from them than try again.
But in this, he would not allow his dearest friend to fail.
“You will do this, Gabriel, or I will find a woman for you and force you to marry her.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened in alarm. “You will not!”
“I will, and you know it.”
“Even you do not have that kind of power.”
Benedict snorted. “Try me.” And then he abruptly pushed out of his chair. “I shall demand an accounting of you when I return. See that you have something to report.”
“What?” Gabe hastily rose to match Benedict. “Are you going somewhere? You did not tell me.”
“I am telling you now. I am heading to Cornwall and my horrible castle. My father neglected everything while I was in Spain. Though his manor house is fine enough, he has left the castle in disrepair—”
“I should go with you. I can put things to rights”
Better than he could, truth be told. Gabriel was much better with that kind of detail than he was. “Not this time, Gabe. I need to face my family ghosts on my own.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, no doubt understanding much more than Benedict was entirely comfortable with. His relationship with his family had never run smooth.
“When will you return?” Gabriel asked.
“In time for the wedding, but not much before.”
“You will abandon your bride until the day you wed?” Though he clearly tried to keep his tone neutral, there was censure in Gabriel’s voice.
“I am not abandoning her,” he returned firmly. “I am leaving her to you. You will see that she has everything she wants.”
“And what if she wants you?”
He shrugged. “She will have to accept you as my substitute. Indeed, that will be the tenor of our marriage, so I suggest you both get accustomed to it.” There was no compromise in his tone, and being the seasoned military man that he was, Major Vance understood every word as a command.
Even so, the man reacted with laudable reluctance. “That is not how things are done, Benedict.”
“And when have I ever looked to the world to teach me how to act?”
“Never.” The word came out with a grumble.
Benedict softened his gaze. He went so far as to touch his friend’s arm in a rare show of uncertainty. “I need this, Gabe. I know it’s irregular. Please say that you will accomplish it for me.”
It took a moment. Benedict could see the war in the man’s eyes between what he considered moral actions and the gray area in which Benedict operated. But in this, Gabriel remained true to his loyalty.
“Whatever you need. You know I am your man.”
He did know. But he doubted Gabriel knew to what extent that loyalty would be tested. Likely in the very near future.
“Good man,” he said. And then he dismissed him, knowing that there was a strong possibility that he had just sent his best friend to seduce his future wife.