Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The following morning, Gabriel received a written confession over breakfast with the assurance that the Bow Street Runners would be at Preston’s townhouse soon to further investigate.
He had bathed and made himself presentable, for he would not let Preston use his disheveled state against him.
Snatching the confession up, he stormed to Preston’s townhouse and slammed his fist against the door. When it swung open, he stormed past the butler.
“Preston!” he shouted. “Preston.”
“Heavens, what are you shouting about?” Preston walked out of his study, frowning. “Are you trying to rouse the whole neighbor—Gabriel?”
Gabriel shoved him back into the study, kicking the door shut behind him.
Preston frowned, his eyebrows twitching. “What is going—”
“Why did you pay a Bow Street Runner to write a false statement about Sibyl’s accident? And more so, why did you frame an innocent man?”
Preston laughed uneasily. “Gabriel, what are you talking about?”
“Do not play innocent,” Gabriel snarled. “You insult what little intelligence you have by doing so. I saw your signature on an invoice from Cain Bailey—he had confessed.”
“I do not know who that is, and Lord Samuel… it is terrible what happened to him, but I most certainly was not involved—”
Gabriel was tired of the act. He slammed the written confession down onto his cousin’s desk. “Then explain this. It was written by Bailey himself after he was arrested last night.”
Preston’s face paled as he looked at the report, his eyes skimming over it. Then, slowly, his expression twisted into something harder, nastier.
Gabriel had never seen such a look on his cousin’s face.
“You, dear cousin, the renowned Duke who thinks he is untouchable,” Preston sneered, “have been so blinded by your little Duchess that you cannot see the danger she poses.”
Gabriel’s brow furrowed, taken aback. “What does that mean?”
Preston’s lip curled, and he muttered under his breath. Gabriel only caught duchy and tainted.
“Preston,” he snapped. “What are you talking about?”
Preston stared up at him, his eyes darkening with what Gabriel could only describe as madness.
“I am deserving of the title of Duke of Stonehelm. Look at what you have done with it. You get into petty fights in your little tavern. You’ve turned our family name into a joke, the Helm.
You are a weak, weak man, Gabriel. You could not control your whore of a sister, and could not turn away from a used woman.
“You have destroyed this family! So, yes, it was me who sabotaged the carriage, and your lovesick Duchess was supposed to suffer far, far worse than she did. Alas, she did not get what she deserved.”
Gabriel’s world stopped for three agonizing seconds as those words sank in—and then he exploded. The fighter in him raged.
He hauled Preston over the desk and swung at him, pouring his fury into his fists. Preston’s eyes rolled back, his head lolling as Gabriel released him. He crumpled to the floor in a heap.
Gabriel did not waste time, grabbing his cousin by the collar and dragging him outside. As promised, the Bow Street Runners were there, waiting for him. He dropped his cousin at their feet.
“Make him suffer,” was all he said as Preston was gathered up and pushed into the waiting carriage.
Gabriel watched the carriage roll away, his body finally surrendering after late nights and the lack of proper sustenance. He dropped to the pavement, staring off into the distance.
Whore of a sister.
A used woman.
He had spent his life trying to protect those he loved, and he had failed. And he had done it again.
The fury drained out of him, only to be replaced by sorrow as he realized that by trying to protect Sibyl with such single-mindedness, all he had done was lose her.
He had destroyed the only thing that mattered to him.
At Branmere Hall, Sibyl found herself with more time on her hands than she had anticipated, and her heart only ached more for it. The distance from her husband was tearing her apart, but she couldn’t bear the thought of facing him.
It was an agonizing battle, one she could not keep enduring, at least not without the distraction of her sister and her family.
Phoebe had taken to mothering Rosie, demanding to hold her, feed her, and read her bedtime stories. It had almost distracted Sibyl. It had almost made the numb emptiness in her chest give way to a smile.
Now she was sitting in the parlor, listening to Phoebe tell Hermia about her lessons that day as she embroidered. It was not something she enjoyed doing, but books made her heart weep for how Gabriel had guided her back to that love. How he had guided her back to herself, only to break her apart.
Embroidery kept her hands busy, but her thoughts remained on him.
Suddenly, the door opened, and all three of them looked up as Charles led Oscar and Isabella into the room, their faces grave.
Sibyl was on her feet immediately, worried that something had happened to their parents, but their eyes flickered to her.
Gabriel…
Her heart sped up.
“Please take the children out of the room,” Hermia said. But Sibyl scarcely heard a word, panic seizing her.
Two nursemaids ushered Rosie and a protesting Phoebe out of the room.
“What is it?” Sibyl asked, her voice cracking. “What has happened to Gabriel? I-I told him that he would put himself in harm’s way. I feared he would take the investigation too far.”
“Gabriel is fine, Sibyl,” Oscar soothed. “It is about his cousin.”
“Lord Preston?” Sibyl frowned. “What about him that would bring you out here?”
“He has been arrested in relation to your accident,” Isabella said gently.
“We met him briefly when he attempted to visit you the first time, but Gabriel herded him out while you were unconscious. He seemed charming enough, demanding to have his worries eased by seeing you, so nobody thought anything bad about him. But…”
Sibyl’s stomach sank. Something had always felt off about Preston, but she had never thought him a bad person, only that he tried a little too hard to be involved in hers and Gabriel’s lives when he was clearly not welcome.
All those dinner invitations, the incessant questions about her health, the flowers he had brought…
And yet the whole time, he had been the one to cause her accident.
“He confessed that—” Isabella broke off, inhaling sharply. “He intended to cause more damage. It was an attempt on your life, Sibyl, and he will be punished severely for it.”
Sibyl collapsed back into the armchair she had been occupying, her breath coming fast as she tried to process the news.
Preston had attempted to kill her? And Gabriel… Gabriel had been in danger, hunting the culprit down, when all along it was his own cousin.
A knock on the door had them all looking up.
The butler entered, holding a note. “For Her Grace, the Duchess of Stonehelm.”
Sibyl was back on her feet, snatching the letter when she recognized Gabriel’s script. She hated how her heart fluttered.
“Dear Sibyl, I have fought the urge to write to you a thousand times out of respect, but I can no longer do it. Preston was the culprit I was looking for all along. You have no reason to fear for your safety anymore. He has been apprehended and will be tried soon. You are no longer in any danger.”
Sibyl blinked, her eyes scanning for more words, more lines—just more. She turned the note over, finding it blank.
“That is all he has said?” Isabella demanded. “Nothing else? No apology, no plea for you to return to him?”
“That is all,” Sibyl whispered. Hermia guided her back to the armchair as the letter fell from her hands. “That… That is all he wishes to say to me after spending two weeks apart? After how I left?”
The formality of his words shattered the numbness in her chest, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to hold back a sob.
It was truly over. He had pushed her away, and she had fought back, and now he had made it clear that there was nothing between them anymore.
“Excuse me,” she gasped, fleeing the parlor, sobbing into her hand.