Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Once home, Sibyl went upstairs to the nursery, already tugging the opals out of her hair. She set them on a small table beside the nursery door.
Rosie slept soundly in her cot, her face nestled in a small silver toy that had not been there the day before.
Turning, Sibyl raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. “You gave her a gift?”
“Yes, the night she was ill,” he answered, turning his head away, but she caught the flush on his cheeks.
“I found it in my s—in the old nursery. It is an old gift, so I do apologize. I was not sure if you would be happy if I bought her something new. When she fussed, I thought a toy would soothe her. She seemed… She seemed to like the smoothness of the silver.”
“Indeed, she does,” Sibyl murmured, turning back to Rosie. “She is sleeping so peacefully. When she took ill the other night, I really thought that none of us would sleep again.”
She gave a half-hearted laugh, knowing that would never happen. Still, her motherly fears had won over.
Gabriel didn’t answer, so she looked up, finding him at the tail end of Rosie’s cot, gazing down at her. There was a soft smile on his face, and it twisted her heart so painfully yet beautifully.
“Sibyl, you ought to rest,” Gabriel said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I will follow you shortly, if that is all right.”
For the first time, perhaps due to his smile or the gift, Sibyl didn’t hesitate.
If anything, it felt good to let someone take over, to share the responsibility of watching over Rosie.
Edmund had abandoned her weeks after Rosie’s birth.
Even when Sibyl had been in pain and crying in her sleep from agony, he had not stayed at her side.
Now, knowing that when she returned to her chamber, Rosie would be watched over by a man who, by some miracle, cared about her well-being… it was astounding.
Sibyl was sitting up in bed, looking at her bookshelf, both scared to pick up a book and excited to, when a knock sounded at the door. It creaked open, revealing her husband holding a tray laden with silver plates. His eyes instantly fell to the low neckline of her nightgown.
“Hello,” he said quietly.
“Hello,” she answered, blushing.
“I noticed you did not eat anything at the ball,” he said, stepping further into the room. He nudged the door shut with his foot before flashing her a smile. “I brought treats.”
“You did?” She craned her neck, making him laugh.
“Impatient,” he teased, coming to stand at the side of the bed.
He paused, setting down the tray on her nightstand. She eyed the bowl of fruit that had been chopped up finely, as well as the plate of sugared sweets and—
“Chocolate,” she gushed. “I have not had chocolate in so long!”
Gabriel looked askance at her. “You have not?”
She shook her head. “Edmund told me I should not eat it after giving birth; he stopped buying it. It could not afford it, I imagine,” she scoffed.
Gabriel lowered himself onto the edge of her bed without asking.
Sibyl felt strangely comforted by the fact. Part of her wanted to sit closer to him, to feel his shoulder against hers, to pull back her white bedsheets and invite him in. The other part did not want to push her luck.
“Well, I am not so inclined to give you poor advice,” Gabriel muttered, holding up the tray. “Eat to your heart’s content, Duchess.”
Sibyl popped a square of chocolate into her mouth along with a strawberry. The blend of tastes made her close her eyes in bliss.
“Besides,” Gabriel continued, plucking a yellow and red sweet, “it is time we shared a meal properly again. Breakfast is good, but I miss—” He broke off, clearing his throat. “Never mind.”
“What do you miss?” Sibyl prompted.
Gabriel fell silent for so long that she thought he would refuse to answer, but eventually he spoke again. “I miss looking at you in the candlelight at dinner.”
Sibyl blushed furiously, suddenly very interested in the pattern on her next chocolate square. Gabriel reached for a piece as well.
Her eyes snagged on his lightly scarred hands. His scars would be barely visible in the daylight, she imagined, but the candlelight seemed to accentuate them.
She did not ask, but he noticed her staring.
“You are right about what you said earlier,” he said, breaking the silence. “I do evade questions, and it only pushes you further away.” A long sigh slipped past his lips.
Sibyl held her breath, waiting.
“The person who was connected to Edmund was my sister. Her name was Letitia. She was… She was the light of my life.”
“The girl in the portrait,” Sibyl whispered.
Gabriel nodded.
Sibyl swallowed. “Mrs. Pentwood did not tell me a lot about her. Only that she existed, and that she was very loved, but no longer…”
“Alive,” Gabriel finished, his voice tight.
“But she loved this estate even more than the townhouse. I had always thought a young lady would love Stonehelm House, as it was right in the middle of the ton, central to the social scene. But no. Letitia enjoyed the rolling hills and the cooler air of the countryside. She used to say that she felt hidden. Like the hills could give her anything—a story, a secret—and it would rise in the distance, and it would be all hers. I think she fancied herself quite like Kathy from Wuthering Heights.”
He laughed softly. “She was always sneaking away, her skirts flying. Even as a young girl, she was a wildfire. To tame her was a fool’s errand.”
“She sounds very different from you,” Sibyl noted.
“Indeed.” Gabriel popped a raspberry into his mouth.
“She burned fiercely, she did. But she loved Stonehelm Hall, and that is why it remains decorated so brightly. My gift to her on her debut was to redecorate the whole place as she saw fit. I bought her other things, of course, but that was my offer. My idea was to gift her Stonehelm Hall upon her betrothal and move to a smaller estate.”
“And the necklace,” Sibyl murmured, her face paling. “That was also hers?”
“My mother’s,” he corrected. “It was a gift from my father, but my mother wanted Letitia to have it when she debuted. She told me to tell Letitia to wait for love, to chase it endlessly when she found it. And oh, she did, but—but she chased it into darkness. Into a danger that can only come from a woman who thinks she is in love, but is, in fact, being used.”
“Edmund,” Sibyl gasped, her blood running cold.
Gabriel nodded. “Edmund. Letitia met him when he was pretending to be deployed in the countryside, but I did not tell you everything about their history. The way… The way we found Edmund was exactly how I found my sister, all because of him.”
Sibyl didn’t know why she did, or if he would even want or need the comfort, but she slid her hand towards his. He took it, only to place a chocolate square in her palm with a wry smile.
“My sister loved anything different,” he continued.
“Her debut experiences were brief, especially once she met Edmund, but she was the lady who drank more than was polite at balls, danced her shoes half off her feet, and never came back before curfews.
Anything that went against the grain, Letitia sought to do.
“I think Edmund discovered that very quickly. He was an addict, back then. You may not have known it, but I only know because he got her addicted to laudanum. That, and alcohol, I imagine. I warned her against him time and time again, but she ignored me.”
Finally, he took her hand, squeezing it tightly.
“By the time I learned just how deep Edmund’s addiction and debts ran, he had already taken her away from London, likely enticing her with stories of beautiful exotic countrysides and beaches.
Instead, he gave her an opium den to die in before abandoning her.
I still do not know how long he had abandoned her for. ”
He swallowed thickly, his throat bobbing.
“I found her half dead in Italy,” he said stoically.
Still, grief pooled in his brown eyes. “She cried out for me, begged me to stay with her, begged me to make it all stop. She burned fiercely, as I said, but this fire consumed her, and it put her in so much pain. So, I stayed. For a long time, I tried to provide her with the best care I could. Treatments, doctors—anything. Yet she snuck out sometimes. She sought the drug Edmund had lured her away with, desperate for more fixes. I was helpless, unable to stop her.”
Something else seemed to cross his mind, but Sibyl did not push. He was already revealing far more than he had in weeks.
She squeezed his hand back, leaning closer to him. “It must have been difficult,” she empathized.
“Difficult is one word for it,” he sighed, pushing a hand through his hair.
Without even thinking about it, Sibyl reached out to tangle her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. Gabriel smiled down at her, holding up a slice of strawberry. Daringly, she bit into it and chewed slowly, watching as he gazed at her mouth.
“I wanted revenge,” he confessed quietly.
“Sibyl, I wanted it so much that I thought the moment I laid eyes on him, I would shoot him dead for what he did to my sister. No, a gun is too impersonal for how I felt.” His voice lowered to a growl.
“I would have dragged him to the nearest empty plot of land, beat him to a bloody pulp, and left him to die in the street like he left my sister to die—rotting in her own filth and hazy mind.”
Sibyl’s heart broke all over again, but all she could do was be there for him. “You are not alone in this need for revenge. I am only sorry you did not get it. I am sorry that he did what he did. Your sister deserved a much brighter, longer life.”