Dear Impostor (42 page)

          Gabriel nodded; he should have remembered her
family. He was too accustomed to only looking out for himself, to having no one
about who cared whether or not he came home. And the shock of finding that
Psyche meant to remain beside him, despite the dangers, despite the pressing
and more rational need for her to distance herself from his company–it awoke
emotions which had been buried for years deep inside him.

          Once, he had been cast off from all that he
held dear, denied the refuge of his own home, rejected by those who should have
flown to his defense. He had built up a wall of cynicism to protect himself
from ever repeating such a crushing blow; he’d vowed he would never again be so
trusting, so vulnerable. He had built up his barricade brick by brick; Psyche
had no idea how high that wall had become . . . or that she had shaken it to
its selfish foundations, made the first crack in a battlement he had never
thought could be breached.

          Psyche was watching him, her expression
anxious. Gabriel pulled himself together and called to the driver. When the
carriage pulled up, Gabriel hopped out and summoned a young street sweeper
standing his post at the corner.

          “Here, a coin for you if you deliver a
message,” he told the lad.

          The youngster was ragged and dirty, but his
eyes were alert. “Yu’ sir,” he said.

          “Tell the household–” Gabriel gave him the
address and carefully described the house and square–“that Miss Psyche has been
called away to visit a sick friend; they are to say little about her absence
but not to worry. Can you remember all that?”

          “Blimey, yeah,” the lad agreed.

          “I’m sure the footman will have another coin
for you, if you tell him I wished it so,” Gabriel added. “Now, make haste.”

          The boy looked even keener. “I’ll run all the
way, gov’nor,” he promised. With Gabriel’s coin clutched firmly in his dirty
hand, the boy took to his heels.

          Gabriel returned to the carriage and signaled
the driver. It lurched a little as it again moved forward. A good thing he had
put a good stash of blunt at the bottom of the silk quiver with its fake
arrows, Gabriel thought. This costume had little in the way of useful pockets. But
he was too accustomed to his life turning unexpectedly upside down to go out
without having funds easily obtainable.

          Psyche was watching him. He told her the
message he had sent, and she nodded.

          “Do you think he will find the right house?”

          “With the promise of another coin as payment? I’m
sure of it,” he told her, wishing he hadn’t involved her and endangered her
orderly life. She looked so small and vulnerable. Her voice was still
uncertain, and he wanted urgently to comfort her fears. He wanted her . . .
that was the crux of it. And he was still trying to credit that she had elected
to remain with him. She had stayed, in the heat of danger and difficulty, when
she had every reason to leave him and protect herself. He could barely believe
it was true.

          “Do you not want me to come, Gabriel?” she
asked quietly from the corner of the carriage.

           They had reached the outskirts of London now, and the street lamps popped up less often, so the interior of the carriage was
darker. Fortunately, an almost full moon gave light to the driver and the team,
but it shed only a faint illumination inside the vehicle. Gabriel could no
longer see her face, it was lost in the shadows, though beneath her cloak, her
white costume made a pale silhouette against the dark cushions. She sat very
still, her hands clasped together in her lap.

          Not want her to come? He would have sold his
soul to keep her beside him forever. The sudden realization was blinding in its
intensity. He wanted her beside him, he wanted her soft body beneath him–his
yearning for her was so intense he did not trust himself to even take her hand.

          The truth was, he loved her. He loved her. Gabriel
had never thought he would love a woman again. But he loved Psyche with a heat
and a depth that shook his whole concept of himself. She was beautiful in her
soul as well as her body, intelligent, selfless, loyal, all those things he had
thought did not exist in any female form. He had taken his pleasure often
enough, enjoyed flirtations and trysts and hot-blooded joinings in tumbled beds
and on sun-warmed sands, but he had not expected to love. He had not even
imagined that the capacity for it still existed inside his hollowed heart.

          He loved her.

          Gabriel took a deep breath; he had not
answered her question, and the silence between them had grown strained.

          “Of course I want you with me,” he said. She
would have no idea how much truth the simple statement held. “But I must think
of your well being, Psyche. As I said, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

          He saw her relax subtly, the shape of her body
losing its tenseness, and he heard her take a long breath. She smelled of rose
oil, and he wanted her so badly—

          “I understand,” she said. “But I have the
right to make my own decision, Gabriel.”

          It was his turn to nod. He would not dispute
that. But what she did not know, and what he did not yet dare to tell her, was
that the danger existed not just from Barrett and his hired killers, but closer
at hand. Who would protect Psyche’s good name, Psyche’s pure loveliness from
Gabriel himself?

          The carriage rocked over a bump in the road,
and the steady cadence of horses’ hooves was the only discernable sound. Neither
spoke, but the silence between them was pregnant with emotions so powerful that
the air itself seemed to pulsate, like the blood in Gabriel’s temple and the
thundering of his heart.

          The moon was waning by the time they reached
the village which lay nearest to Gabriel’s hard-won estate. The carriage slowed
and rolled at a leisurely pace through the quiet lane; all the houses and the
one tiny inn were dark and shuttered; all the residents seemed to be asleep in
their beds, quiet of conscience and easy of mind.

          Gabriel wished he felt the same. Would Barrett
think to come after them here? Was Gabriel taking too much of a gamble? If it
had been only his own life he was risking, he would have chanced it all with
his usual rakish grin, but when Psyche’s well being also depended on his
choice, he found he had much more reason to second guess himself.

          The hours of their travel had passed without
conversation; he thought that Psyche had dozed in her corner of the carriage. He
had too much to think on for sleep to claim him; he was taut with all the
emotion that he had to suppress: the worry for Psyche’s safety that he did not
wish to alarm her with, the pent-up longing that he also did not wish her to
guess. Sleep was a luxury he would not be granted.

          It didn’t matter. He’d had many sleepless
nights in his lifetime, many flights from danger. But for the first time, he
was fleeing toward something–his redemption, his personal victory, his chance
to reclaim his rightful status.

          He stirred, wanting to tell the driver to
hurry. The first sight of his new property, the property he would never again
risk in a card game, the property he meant to leave to his sons and his
grandsons. . . When it was restored, it should even be suitable to bring a wife
to, it should be an almost suitable haven for–he glanced at the quiet figure
slumbering in the corner of the carriage. For the most generous, most
courageous, most beautiful woman he had ever hoped to find. He was not worthy
of her, and he knew it. Did he have any hope of claiming her heart?

          He would do his damnedest. But he had to bring
the estate back to some semblance of normalcy first; he knew that with Barrett
as its absentee owner, the place was bound to be shabby and in need of polish
and paint. But it would be done, with love and responsible care, he would see
to it, perhaps do some of it with his own hand. He longed to have roots again,
to have responsibilities, to prove that he was man enough to shoulder them.

          They left the village behind, passed a last
farm house or two, and the carriage picked up speed once more; Gabriel could
hear the driver urging on the tired team. Only a mile or two, now, by his
solicitor’s directions.

          When they turned off the main road into an
overgrown driveway, Gabriel leaned out the window of the carriage door, trying
to make out the first sight of the house that should be at the end of the
drive. He could barely contain his excitement. His movement seemed to wake
Psyche, though he had not spoken. She straightened, too.

          “Are we there?”

          He nodded, grinning like a schoolboy.

          Psyche seemed to share his eagerness. “Oh, is
it in sight?”

          “Not yet.” Gabriel had a sudden intense desire
to see his new home for the first time without any witnesses, except for
Psyche, of course, with whom he would willing share any treasure. Something so
important as reclaiming his lost birthright should be a private moment.

          He called to the driver. “Pull up, if you
will.”

          The carriage slowed.

          “What are you doing?” Psyche asked, her tone
puzzled.

          “I want to examine my property for the first
time without anyone nearby,” he said, unable to adequately explain his mad
jangle of emotions; he knew that his voice was unsteady. “I’d like you to come,
if you wish, but if you are too weary–”

          ”No,” Psyche said quickly. “I will stay with
you.”

          He helped her out of the carriage onto the
narrow dirt lane. The driver peered at them with sleepy eyes.

          “Go back to the village and wake the innkeeper;
ask for grain for the horses and food and drink for yourself,” Gabriel told the
man, handing him a half crown. “We shall interview the caretaker and look over
the house. You can come back for us after you’ve had a short nap, just after
the noon hour perhaps, and tell the landlord to have a meal waiting for us when
we return.”

          “Yes, milord,” the driver agreed, brightening
at the suggestion.

          There was a patch of open meadow just ahead
where the driver was able to turn the carriage, his hands on the reins deft and
sure. All of Psyche’s servants seemed both capable and loyal, Gabriel thought. Perhaps
because she, like her parents, treated them generously and with consideration. How
many mistresses taught their kitchen maids to read or worried over an injured
footman? Too bad his own father had never learned that lesson.

          The carriage retraced its path, leaving them
standing alone amid dark quiet woods. Gabriel hoped this was not a mad impulse.
“We will likely have to return to the inn ourselves later,” he told Psyche. “There
is supposed to be a caretaker, but he did not answer my solicitor’s letters. I’m
sure the beds will be damp and unaired and the furnishings covered in
dustcloths, probably not habitable until I can get some servants in.”

          She nodded and reached to tuck her hand inside
his arm. “You are brimming with excitement,” she said. “I can feel it, too.”

          He grinned, still drunk with exhilaration. “I
have waited so long,” he tried to tell her. “I know it may not be just as I’d
like, but as long as I can reclaim the land, refurbish the house. . . “

          ”Let us not waste another minute,” Psyche told
him, her tone almost as impatient as his. “Come!”

          They hurried up the lane, stumbling a little
in the darkness over the rough clods of dirt that littered the way, large trees
again crowding the narrow strip of road. He would have to trim some of these
trees, widen the drive, Gabriel thought. He would have a great deal of work to
do on this place, yet the thought did not dim his sense of expectation but only
made his ownership seem that much more real. A slight breeze stirred the leaves
of the trees, and somewhere, a sleepy bird twittered. It was not far from dawn.

          Walking rapidly, they turned one last curve
and then the trees fell away, and the landscape opened up. He could make out
the outlines of a sizable house, its silhouette dark against the skyline. Gabriel
stopped for an instant, and Psyche, as if sensitive to his mood, paused, also.

          It looked like a handsome dwelling, better
than he had dared hope for. There was a fine line of rooftop, a solid set of
stone steps that led to the front entrance, and two ells reaching back on
either side of the main house. The stables and other buildings were no doubt
hidden around the back. Before the residence stretched a swathe of overgrown
lawn, and he caught a glimpse of a stone wall to the side–perhaps a formal
garden.

          Yes, it had the prospect of a fine gentleman’s
seat. Gabriel would no longer be a vagabond, a homeless gamester living hand to
mouth, never sure where he would find himself at the next sunrise, the next
sunset. This would be his home, won by his own hand. He would owe nothing to
his father’s bitter bequest, and that made the victory even sweeter.