She was his wife. This was their wedding day. It still seemed unreal.
“I was thinking about my father,” he told her.
“Tell me,” she said.
“I think,” he said, “I never quite forgave him for dying. It was unnecessary, you see. He neglected a chill because it was more important to him to serve his parishioners than to live for me. I blamed him for that, for loving them more than he loved me. But he didn’t, I understand now. He loved everyone. I had a very special place in his heart—I was his son. But that did not mean he loved his flock any the less. He was a man who had a religion—he was a clergyman. More important, though, he lived that religion. Maybe I should forgive him at last. What do you think?”
“I think you already have,” she said.
She was gazing back into his eyes. He was going to have no alternative than to love her, he thought, and was amazed he had not really considered the matter before. He was, after all, his father’s son and Cyrus’s adopted son. This was a different relationship, a far more intimate one. But she was his. His wife. This morning he had vowed to love, honor, and keep her. She had given up everything today in order to spend her life with him. She would, God willing, be the mother of his children. Of course he was going to have to love her.
He had certainly enjoyed making love to her. And he had been right when he had thought that day at Richmond Park that despite his first impression of her she might be capable of passion.
“Gabriel,” she asked him, “what are we going to do about Manley Rochford? And his wife? And Anthony Rochford?”
Yes, and there was that. It had been at the back of his mind all day. He had largely ignored it because this was his wedding day.
We, she had said. What are we going to do?
“I knew he was planning to come here soon,” he said. “I was hoping, though, to get there before he left. It would have been easier to confront him there. I waited too long.”
“Because I wanted a family wedding,” she said. “We ought to have married on Tuesday, as soon as you came with the special license.”
“Even then it would have been too late,” he said. “We would probably have passed him on the road. Besides . . .” He smoothed her hair back from her face, hooked it behind her ear, and touched his fingertips to her cheek. “I liked our wedding just the way it was. Did you?”
“I am very glad Mr. Vickers did not drop my ring,” she said, and he watched a smile light her eyes.
And there, he thought. There. That was how he wanted her to look. For him. Because he had pleased her or amused her. Because they could share a joke. Because there was some bond between them. He smiled back at her, and there was a flicker of something in her eyes, something that took away the smile but left a lingering look of . . . what? Wistfulness? Yearning?
“I liked our wedding,” she said.
But she had asked a question.
“I suppose,” he said, “I should call on him. Privately. Let him know I am back. Still alive. Give him a chance to leave quietly and avoid embarrassment.”
“You suppose we should call on him,” she said.
His first thought was that he would not expose her to that. But it was for this very thing he had married her. This confrontation with Manley and the return to Brierley.
She did not wait for him to answer. “Would he give in that easily?” she asked him. “Or would he have you arrested?”
It would be a toss-up. It could go either way. Manley might simply admit defeat and creep on home, taking his wife and son with him. He might not want the humiliation of having all his hopes dashed in full sight of the ton. On the other hand, his disappointment would be colossal, and he might choose to fight. He had set up Gabriel as a ravisher and murderer thirteen years ago, he and Philip between them. He might well believe that the charges would stick now and take Gabriel to the gallows. Or he might try to send him scurrying back to America with the threat of arrest. It had worked before, after all.
“He might,” he said. “I believe he wants very badly to be the