CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Leave,” Gabe ordered his brother through clenched teeth as he tucked Helena safely behind him to keep the bastard away from her, although Gabe would murder him with his bare hands if he ever touched her again. “Now.”
When he’d entered the library and found her on the settee with Adam, her dress mussed and his brother’s clothes half-removed, and he knew…
This wasn’t one of Clarissa’s assignations, not with the fear on her face, and certainly not with the scent of her still lingering on him from making love to her less than half an hour ago. This was Adam’s duplicity.
And the only thing that had stopped Gabe from killing him was Helena.
He stared at Adam, but the ties of brotherhood that had once been between them as boys no longer existed. Now when he looked at Adam, all he saw were lies and deceit.
“Fine,” Adam snapped out as he buttoned up his fall and scrambled into his waistcoat. “But I want what I’m owed.” He pulled on his jacket and yanked his sleeves into place. “And I’m taking what’s mine.”
Gabe reached into his inside breast pocket and withdrew a stack of banknotes. “I planned on giving this to you tonight so I wouldn’t have to see you at the wedding tomorrow, since the money is all you care about.” He held out the notes. “It’s more than worth it to be rid of you.”
Adam snatched the notes from Gabe’s hand. “I meant Alice.” He shoved the notes into his waistcoat. “She’s mine, after all. And she’s surely worth something to Clarissa’s family. Just think what raising the daughter of a duke will do to their social status.”
Gabe’s heart skipped. “Leave Alice alone.”
“What do you care? You don’t want her.” He shook his head.
“As soon as she’s old enough, you’ll send her away to school in Scotland or to distant relatives in Cornwall whom you can pay to take her off your hands.
Any place far enough away that you won’t have to deal with her or even think about her.
” Adam shrugged. “Or you can make it easy and pay me to take her off your hands right now. I’ll leave with her in the morning, and you’ll never be bothered with her again.
After all, that is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?
For me to step up and claim responsibility for my mess. ”
Gabe’s fists tightened at his sides, and he clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth ground together. But he couldn’t have said what he was furious at—Adam for his demands…or for being right. He had wanted exactly that, for years.
“She’ll only be in the way here and never be missed once she’s gone.” Adam gestured at Helena. “You and the lightskirt will surely whelp several brats of your own and easily replace her.”
Gabe swung. His fist landed hard against Adam’s chin, snapping his head back and sending him reeling to the floor.
A loud gasp went up from the doorway. Gabe glanced up—
Nanny Potts stood in the hall, her hands clamped over her mouth and her eyes wide as saucers, her round face white. She stared at the three of them for a silent moment, then spun on her heel and fled back toward the nursery.
Gabe let out a muffled curse of frustration in her wake, knowing a new nanny would most likely have to be hired. Or the pay doubled for this one.
“You’ve caused enough problems in my house,” Gabe bit out. And in my life. “Leave. And never come back.”
He strode across the room to the bell pull and gave it a vicious yank.
Uncomfortable silence filled the room as Adam slowly rose to his feet and rubbed at his chin, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
Helena did her best to stand straight-spined and brave, but Gabe could still see her trembling, along with the pallor gripping her face, even in the shadows of the dim lamplight.
Her eyes were fixed on the rug at her feet so she wouldn’t have to see the way Adam sneered at her as he wiped the blood from his lip.
Gabe didn’t blame her. He never wanted to set eyes on his brother ever again either.
A footman rapped his knuckles on the open door. “Your Grace?”
He nodded at Adam. “Please help my brother to pack up all his personal belongings in his room.” The footman stiffened, knowing what Gabe meant.
Do not let my brother steal anything that isn’t his.
“Then make certain he’s helped into the carriage and driven to the village inn.
This will be his last visit to Grangely Park, understand? ”
The footman nodded, his suspicious gaze darting to Adam. “Yes, Your Grace.”
With a fierce curse, Adam shoved past the young servant and stomped out into the hall. But the footman dutifully followed after like a good watch dog.
Helena stepped forward to close the door after them, then leaned back against it to block it, as if afraid Gabe might leave her after all. Or go after Adam and murder him.
Instead, Gabe softened his gaze on her and silently held open his arms.
With a soft cry, she ran to him and buried herself in his embrace. He pulled her against him and held her tightly until she calmed her breath and eased away her shaking. Her hands loosened their grip on his waistcoat, and she eased out a long breath, her stiff body relaxing against him.
“I’m so sorry,” he rasped out. “I should never have trusted him.”
“He didn’t hurt me.” Her voice emerged muffled and vulnerable against his shoulder. “All he wanted was to make it look like…” Then his heart broke when she finished, “Like I was no better than Clarissa.”
“I know.” He nuzzled his cheek apologetically against her hair.
“When you told me he approached you for money, I should have known he’d try something like this.
Christ! I should have tossed him out on his arse the moment you told me— No, the day he arrived when he first attempted to extort money from us. But I didn’t.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder. Gazing up at him with understanding, she rested her hand against his cheek. “Because you’d hoped Adam might redeem himself and be a true bother again.”
“Yes.” Grief sat heavy on his chest like a lead ball. He turned his head to place a kiss in her palm and claim whatever small solace he could. “I’d hoped we could start again, be as close as we were when we were boys.”
He’d been so very wrong.
She lifted up on tiptoes to kiss him. On her lips, he tasted an absolution he didn’t deserve. He dropped his arms to his sides and stepped back.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she frowned, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head and gestured at her dress. “What Adam did to you—”
“He did nothing but muss my appearance,” she assured him. She stepped to the mirror over the little side table and let out a frustrated sigh at her appearance. “I look a fright, though, don’t I? I can’t let any of the guests see me like this.”
“You look fine,” he assured her quietly and leaned against the back of the settee for support. He felt beaten and overwhelmingly guilty that he had let the situation come to this.
She smoothed down her skirts and straightened her bodice. “If Adam tore my dress, I swear I will let Mrs. Swenson have at him with whips and—”
“Adam was right,” Gabe said quietly.
She froze, then looked hard at his reflection in the mirror. “Those are words that never go together.”
“Maybe they do this time.” He crossed his legs at his ankles and stared at his boots, not daring to look at her. The guilt gnawing at his gut was from more than just tossing his brother out of the house.
“And what, exactly, is he right about?”
A knot formed between his shoulder blades, but rolling them didn’t relieve the tension. “Perhaps Alice would be better off with the Wentworths.”
“No.”
“Clarissa’s sister has three children who—”
“No.” Helena crossed to him and kicked his boot with her slipper to gain his attention.
When he slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers, she gestured her hand rapidly between the two of them.
“We are her family—you and me, Maggie and Caleb, their boys, the villagers—our own children someday who will be her brothers and sisters.”
“The Wentworths are her blood family,” he said quietly. “She deserves to know them.”
“The Cavanaughs are her blood family, too. In time, she will come to know the Wentworths, but she is meant to live here.” She shook her head. “Where is this sudden doubt coming from?”
“It’s not a new doubt or sudden.” He shoved himself away from the settee.
“I’ve been wondering ever since Clarissa’s death if Alice wouldn’t have a better life with her Wentworth relatives than with me.
” He gestured an angry hand in the direction of the upstairs bedrooms where Adam was packing.
“For God’s sake! If I can’t even maintain a relationship with my brother, what chance do I have of being a good father to Alice when she isn’t even mine? ”
Grief for him darkened her face. The sight hit him like a punch.
“But she is yours, Gabe. Right here, in your heart where it matters.” She placed her palm on his chest. “That’s what I’ve been trying to make you realize over these past few weeks during all the riding lessons and picnics, all the miles we’ve walked together, the hours of story time before bed…
It doesn’t matter who her biological father is. You are her true father.”
No, he wasn’t, and a few weeks of picnics and riding lessons could never make up for that. He shook his head. “She’d be better off with the Wentworths.”
Helena gave a determined lift of her chin, despite the glistening tears in her eyes.
“We had a deal, remember? You agreed to spend time with Alice, to come to really know her and accept her, to…” To love her.
She didn’t say it, yet the unspoken words hung in the air between them as surely as if she’d actually uttered them.
She swallowed hard, then continued in a thick voice, “You can’t do that if she’s living somewhere else. ”
“The deal we made was only for our engagement period,” he countered quietly. “Once we’re married, your rules no longer apply.”