Chapter Eight
They had set out just after dawn, the sky was still clear, but Gabriel knew it would not last. The storm clouds were already forming, and the rain would start up again.
The end of winter always brought rain, and particularly squalls and thunderstorms that came and went swiftly, sometimes violently, wreaking havoc.
Especially if one were out traveling the roadways with an inexperienced driver… a boy, no less.
He had not slept last night. He had kept thinking of Miss Vickers, of her puttering around the kitchen as if she’d done it a hundred times before. Heating milk and finding a tin of biscuits, listening quietly but attentively as he told her about Caro and the accident.
When he escorted her back to her room, he’d wanted to sweep her into his arms and kiss her. It was all he could do just to bid her a simple good night.
Mud streaked the hillside, and the swollen brook at the bottom of the ravine rushed brown and angry.
Gabriel reined in his horse at the bend in the road where the tracks veered sharply, deep gouges left by the frightened team.
His two footmen, sent ahead on horseback, had already dismounted and were picking over the sodden ground.
“It was here, my lord,” one of them said, pointing to the jagged break in the hedgerow. Beyond, the earth fell away steeply into the ravine, a treacherous slope of wet grass, loose rocks, and slippery mud.
Gabriel swung down from his saddle and stepped to the edge.
The scent of churned soil and splintered wood carried on the damp air.
A broken wheel lay half buried in the mud below, mute evidence of how close Miss Vickers and her maid had come to disaster.
His jaw tightened as he imagined the boy, scarcely more than a child himself, clinging to the reins while the carriage had careened down the hill.
“God above,” he muttered. His gloved hands clenched as memory pressed upon him—another broken carriage, another storm, another helpless slide into ruin. He hadn’t been there with them, but so many nights he could not sleep, imagining the utter fear that his dear and only sister had felt.
Just a few nights before Olivia, Max, Caro, and Juliet had departed, the dowager countess hosted a dinner, a quiet affair at his townhouse, the earl’s official townhouse, not his mother’s home a few doors down.
Just family and a few close friends. Juliet’s birthday dinner, and she had been so happy.
He had done little more than kiss her on the cheek and hand her the gift, which was wrapped prettily: a necklace and matching earrings.
Something his mother had purchased because he had not had the time—he’d been far too busy in meetings, rounding up support, making sure that his friends would be there at the House of Lords when he gave his speech about reforming the madhouses.
Little knowing that in a few short days, that speech would not matter because his sister, brother-in-law, and Juliet, his future bride, would drown.
Gabriel had many regrets and so much guilt about how little time he’d spent with his fiancée.
He had promised Juliet that evening as he clasped the necklace around her neck that after the speech was done the next day, he and Mother would set out for the family estate, and he would spend so much time with Juliet that she would likely grow bored with him.
Juliet had giggled and said that that would never happen.
Besides, she had believed in his cause—it had been a noble one and taken much of his time because it was so important.
She had told him that she had wanted to stay and attend his speech with the countess, but Olivia had begged her to depart with them.
Caro loved to spend time with Juliet, and they could play games and sing songs along the way.
Juliet could not say no to his sister, nor to Caro. She had placed a sweet kiss on Gabriel’s cheek, and he had gathered her in his arms and held her. It would be the last time he would spend with her…
One of the footmen approached quietly. “Fortunate they came away with their lives, my lord.”
Gabriel gave a curt nod. “Fortunate, indeed.” His voice was thick.
He would not allow such a tragedy to touch those under his protection again.
No more. He could not allow this to happen ever again.
Not Miss Vickers, not her maid, not even the reckless boy who had taken his father’s place on the box.
He drew a long breath and forced himself to straighten. “Mark this place,” he commanded. “The hedge will be restored, a stone wall raised, and warnings fixed upon the road, long before that treacherous bend in the road. Never again shall a carriage come to ruin on this spot.”
The men bowed and moved off to do his bidding. Gabriel lingered, his gaze fixed on the ravine. The storm clouds were gathering again, and they would have to set out soon. They had already done the bulk of the work.
With ropes tied around their waists and then to sturdy tree trunks at the top of the ravine, they had gone to retrieve Miss Vickers’s trunks.
But the carriage was useless at this point, so splintered and broken that they had left it there.
He would not risk his men in attempting to haul it up to the road.
It was far too heavy. He would write to the employer, the owner of the rental carriage, explain the situation, and send him compensation.
He thought of the courage that Miss Vickers had shown, and the wherewithal she’d had to get herself, her maid, and Billy to safety. His footmen had shown him the parasol that had splintered in two.
“A clever idea, my lord,” Theo said. “Strong enough to keep the door open so that Miss Vickers and her maid could climb out.”
“Aye, Alice told us Miss Vickers insisted she go first, my lord. A right brave woman, Miss Vickers is.”
Gabriel nodded in agreement. Brave as well as beautiful.
He hadn’t really slept last night. He’d kept thinking about her…
Miss Vickers…Elizabeth. Strange how she did not seem to be an Elizabeth to him, nor a Miss Vickers.
But then again, she was American, from Boston.
Everything else about her—from her long, wavy, dark locks to her curvaceous figure, her height, and those long legs that he’d seen as she’d rocked Caro to sleep—made him think she could not possibly be Elizabeth Vickers, an heiress from Boston.
And those extraordinary violet eyes… Damn, he should not think of her in that way.
She was not his to look at, to claim…to want.
He would have to tell her, though. He would tell her about the carriage and what he intended to do, because Miss Vickers did not know what happened after she had gotten herself and her maid out of that carriage, tracked through mud and rain to find Billy, half unconscious, and managed to the three of them to the horses.
She had led them all to safety. She’d backtracked and led them to Gabriel’s estate, in the midst of a thunderstorm, as lightning still flashed and hit the ground.
She’d not conveyed how frightened she’d been, but he’d seen it in her extraordinary violet eyes, the fear and the relief at being welcomed into the safety of his home.
He would not take advantage of her trust in him.
But he would need to tell her the truth, that the carriage had ended up sliding farther down the hill, where it had crashed against the trunk of a large tree. They would surely have been severely injured—or worse, killed—had it not been for Miss Vickers’s quick thinking and courage.
Theo handed him the splintered parasol. Gabriel would take it back with him, for it had belonged to Miss Vickers, and he would see if he could have it repaired.
If not, he’d replace it for her—hell, he’d purchase her seven parasols, one for each day of the week.
But this one, this one, he would keep. Because when Miss Vickers returned to America, he would have it, and it would remind him of her.
And it would remind him that she was alive and well.
“This time,” he whispered, “it was not too late.”