Chapter 20 #2
He bowed his head to the two sisters before departing. First, he went to Sibyl, gazing at her still form, brushing a hand over her cheek, then he went to check on Rosie, who was bundled up in her nursemaid’s arms. Finally, he went down to his study, where he penned a response to Preston.
He kept it short and brief.
If you truly want to get to know my wife, then you may visit her tomorrow.
Do not make me regret it, Preston, for we had our differences in the past. I do not want my wife coming to harm because of you, but you will see her on my terms, in my house, and you will leave whenever I ask you. Understood?
He instructed a footman to deliver the note before going back to the crash site, needing to keep himself occupied lest he go insane.
I could not save her, I could not protect her. She is lying there, unconscious, because I was not here. I am never here. Not for Sibyl, not for Letitia, never in time.
The thought echoed in his mind, over and over, torturous and demanding, until he found his way back to his wife’s bedside and held her hand like she could keep him adrift in the sea of chaos that was his mind and guilt.
Sibyl was swimming in an ocean of pain, aware of voices speaking around her. But mostly, it was the ache in her head and body that consumed her.
Every time she clawed her way back to the surface, more pressure blanketed her, forcing her down into a deeper sleep.
Eventually, she broke the surface, even if it felt like the most Herculean task in the world.
When her eyes opened, she did not find her sisters, whose voices she could have sworn she had heard during her fight through the darkness.
She did not find her husband either, although he was sitting on her other side, his brow pinched.
No, she found a man with hair dark as night, and it took her a moment to recall his name.
Preston. Gabriel’s cousin.
“Why… Why are you here?” The question slipped out, her voice hoarse from disuse.
Preston laughed, his voice nasally. “Heavens, Gabriel, she truly is your match. Bold and inquisitive. They are good character traits.”
Before Sibyl could frown and demand to know why she could not see her sisters first, nor her husband, even if he was there in the room, Preston spoke again.
“Your Grace, we are family now, even if we do not know one another very well.” His tone was too jovial, too bright for the circumstances. “I care about you, even if your husband refuses to let me meet with you. I have written to him several times.”
Sibyl’s head snapped to Gabriel, and the movement was too fast, making her mind spin. The letters that had caused him distress… they had been from Preston? His cousin, who only wished to get to know her better?
Gabriel had the sense to look away guiltily, and it made her wonder why he had kept this from her. She had worried the letters were about Edmund, yet this whole time, it had just been his cousin.
Why?
“Hello, Preston,” Sibyl finally managed.
“Hello, Your Grace. Or may I call you Sibyl, since we are family?”
“Your Grace or Duchess is fine,” Gabriel snapped.
Sibyl looked at him again, the motion making her head spin once more.
“I do not mind,” she croaked. “But…”
But part of me does not trust Preston’s smile. I have seen smiles too fake for comfort, too forced to feel genuine.
She did not say that, however. Instead, she smiled politely as she ought to, but even Rosie cried in her nursery as if she knew something was amiss.
Preston blinked at her as if to say, But what?
“Thank you for visiting me, Preston,” she finally said. “It is good to connect with Gabriel’s family.”
She could have sworn she heard Gabriel scoff, but he said nothing, and she maintained that polite smile while Preston drank tea at her bedside, speaking with her as if they were old friends.
Gabriel was mad, endlessly consumed with finding out who had sabotaged his carriage and endangered his wife. And it was with a single-mindedness that he set about doing just that.
Diving into London’s underworld, he walked into the Spindle, where he had once found Sibyl investigating her husband’s whereabouts. He had been so distrustful of her, not realizing that she would not have put herself in harm’s way if she had known where he was.
Now, he scanned the gaming hell with a keen eye. He dropped into a seat at the nearest table, enduring the wide eyes and stammering at his presence.
“Just deal,” he ordered the men surrounding him.
“At once, Your Grace. How fares your Duchess? Word is that she was—”
“She is fine,” Gabriel interrupted. “I am seeking information.”
The men looked at him, waiting for him to say more, not daring to ask questions.
“The late Earl of Kerrington,” he began. “I need to find his former associates.”
“Your Grace?”
Gabriel struggled to fight down a wave of frustration. “I need you to give me the names of his former associates—the ones still in London.”
“May we ask why—”
Gabriel shot them a hard glare and tossed down a card. “I just need to know if they’re still doing business here.”
“Yes, they’re still active in the area,” one man with beady eyes and gray hair, told him. “Most notably, Lord Berrington, a lowly viscount. But he will do anything to rise through the ranks. There is also Lord James. He was seen with the late Lord Kerrington quite often.”
Gabriel nodded, committing the names to memory as he dealt more cards. “Any enemies of his that you are aware of?”
The beady-eyed man laughed. “Plenty! Heavens, everybody had a score to settle with the late Earl. I did feel bad for him at times, for he could not even play cards without someone starting an argument.”
“Yes, but he probably owed them money,” one of the other men scoffed. “So it makes perfect sense.”
“Indeed, it does,” the first man sighed.
“Give me names.” Gabriel increased his bet.
And then he received those names, and he chased them into the bowels of London’s underworld.
He lost days to that chase, unable to bear seeing his wife lying injured in her bed.
Everything was agonizing, and the only thing that pushed him onward was Letitia’s voice, reminding him that he had not done enough, that he had not been fast enough.
This time, he swore he would not rest. Not until he had found the culprit who had almost gotten his wife killed.
Sibyl’s recovery was smooth enough; two weeks had passed, with her remaining in bed upon Gabriel’s insistence, until she was fully in the clear.
By the end of the second week, her concussion had well cleared up, and the ache in her ribs had, according to her, faded into a low throb.
“I miss you,” she told him one day when he stayed in Stonehelm House long enough to sit at her bedside, his jaw tight with guilt.
You did not protect her enough.
The words rang in his head, loud and jarring.
“Gabriel?” Her exasperated tone finally snapped him back into focus.
You need to be out there, looking for who did it.
“Please stop ignoring me.” Sibyl’s plea once again snapped him back to the present. “I miss you. I miss walking around the estate, and I miss holding my daughter. Why won’t you even look at me properly?”
Gabriel’s eyes cut to her, but forcing himself to look at her in such a state only heightened his need to chase and investigate.
“Sibyl, I—”
“Do not give me excuses,” she told him firmly. “Something is going on, and you will not tell me. Why are you shutting me out again?”
Tell her. Tell her that you are haunted by the need for vengeance again and that you cannot ignore it. You cannot stop like you did last time. You need to keep going, keep—
“Are you boxing again?” Her voice was quiet.
Gabriel shook his head.
“I hate that you are pushing me away,” she muttered, shifting to turn her back on him, like she felt he was doing to her. And he was, but it was for her own good. “I thought we were… I thought we were in a better place.”
“Sibyl.” No further words came. No explanation, not even an apology, and he hated himself for it. In the end, all he said was, “I must go out.”
“Of course you must.” She sighed, the noise choked, as if she were holding back tears.
Gabriel reached for her shoulder, only to be shrugged off. His hand clenched into a fist, and it remained so until he was out the door, mounted on his horse, and on the way to his next lead.
Nicholas visited Sibyl at the end of the second week, and Gabriel watched as he handed her flowers.
Distantly, he was aware that he had not bought her flowers. No, he was trying to do much more than that, but Sibyl’s face lit up at the gift, and an ugly thing twisted deep inside him as she embraced Nicholas.
“Do not move too much,” he warned quietly.
But Sibyl only scowled at him before hugging Nicholas tighter.
“Thank you, Nicholas,” she said. “It is nice that someone thought to do this.”
Another pointed glare came his way, and he looked away.
“Well, I would have brought you a sweet treat, but I do not know your favorites, and one cannot really go wrong with flowers.” Nicholas beamed at her, then turned to Gabriel. “Can I speak with you outside?”
Gabriel nodded, his jaw working.
The two of them retreated into the hallway, and Nicholas barely closed the door before rounding on Gabriel.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Your wife is injured in bed, and you cannot even buy her flowers? You cannot even sit with her long enough to eat with her?”
“How can I?” Gabriel snapped. “The culprit who hurt her is out there, and I cannot—”
“Gabriel, forget the culprit. I know that is the voice from your past demanding that you keep at it, but your wife needs you more, and you know it.”
“Nicholas, I-I cannot stand to see her like this.”
“Tough,” Nicholas almost spat, shaking his head. “No, truly, Gabriel, it is tough that you cannot because you need to. Sibyl is alone again, in pain, and her husband cannot even endure being at her side. How do you think that makes her feel?”
“I thought we were in a better place…”
Sibyl’s words from two days ago echoed in Gabriel’s mind.
Nicholas sighed, pushing a hand through his short hair. “I can help—”
“I do not need help. I need to move. I need to act.”
“You are being too stubborn for your own good, for your wife’s good.”
Gabriel glared at him. “Then I have only proven myself correct that I was never good enough for her in the first place.” He stepped back. “I must meet with somebody. They can give me names.”
“More names, more goose chases that lead you nowhere except to Sibyl’s resentment.”
“She will understand when I bring her justice.”
“She does not need that right now,” Nicholas insisted. “She needs you.”
“And I need to do this.”
Gabriel allowed himself a moment of pain over not being able to let go of his need for vengeance before walking away from Nicholas.
A short while later, he found himself outside one of London’s shadier pubs, the alleyway shadowed and dark, a perfect place to drag Lord Berrington into and toss him on the floor.
He towered over the cowering man. “You’d been hard to find, Berrington,” he snarled. “You weren’t hiding from me, were you?”
Lord Berrington covered his face with his arms. “N-No, Your Grace.”
“I think you’re lying,” Gabriel scoffed. “Perhaps you have heard that I have been looking for you.”
Indeed, the lowly Viscount had suddenly left London, likely thinking Gabriel would get bored or move on to the next target.
Gabriel had moved on, but he had always kept an ear to the ground for the Viscount’s return.
“I swear it, Your Grace. I have nothing to do with the Duchess’s accident!”
“So you do know why I have been looking for you.” Gabriel’s smile turned wicked, terrifying, making the Viscount tremble. “You blubbering fool. We could have had a good discussion, you and I, regarding your association with the late Lord Kerrington, but you have made your own choices.
“I have hunted you down, Berrington. I have combed through dangerous neighborhoods, spoken with many men who would not hesitate to pull out their pistols and shoot me in the chest, all to find you. Do you enjoy having such a bad reputation? Rats like you live in the shadows, and I pity the family that must bear your name.”
“Your Grace, please—”
“I am out of mercy.”
But before Gabriel could strike the man to finally get the information he needed, footsteps dragged against the cobbles. He turned, only to see four men filing out of the pub. A knife glinted in the lamplight.
“Is this your backup?” Gabriel sneered.
The viscount shook his head frantically. “I-I do not know them! Please—please, Your Grace, think of your wife—”
“Oh, I am.”
And then Gabriel barreled into the men, not willing to give them even an inch.
Sibyl and Nicholas had been right; he had not boxed in a long time. He had enough pent-up, wild emotions that he could now unleash on these men who thought they could beat him.
No.
For Sibyl, Gabriel would fight until he could not lift his arms, until he could not take another breath. He was hurting her, he knew, but he would make sure that she remained safe forever. If this was what it took, then so be it.
The knife slashed, and he leapt back, narrowly avoiding it. The blade cut through his coat, and he felt the sting of the blow, but he was already punching one of the others, ensuring he went down and stayed down long enough for him to hoist the man with the knife into the air.
The weapon dropped, and Gabriel snatched it up, letting his rage take over.
You must be enough. You must be enough. No one will hurt my wife ever again.
“You,” he laughed darkly, “have not caught me in a forgiving mood.”
He pressed the blade to the man’s throat, relishing his whimpers. But then, he pocketed the knife and punched him to the ground.
Even then, he did not stop. His fists moved of their own accord, punching and punching, lost to his fury and the need to eliminate every threat against Sibyl.
Eventually, he staggered backward, panting, the ache from the minor blows he had taken registering slowly.
Lord Berrington had not left. Instead, he stood behind an empty crate, shaking. “I-I will call the authorities!” he yelled.
Gabriel hummed. “Do it. But when they arrive, I will speak first, and I am certain they will be more interested in your shady dealings than a mere street brawl.” His lip curled in disgust before he started walking away. “We will have that meeting, Berrington. Do not be a fool next time.”