hug her close. He held her for a long time, his eyes tightly closed, his arms noticeably gentle.
“Gabriel, Gabriel,” she said over and over in a deep, almost manly voice, patting his upper arms. She laughed softly. “Look at you. You are all grown up.”
The man Jessica assumed was Mr. Norton stood just inside the door, which Gabriel’s valet had closed quietly before disappearing back to the bedchamber.
“You came all this way?” Gabriel asked rhetorically, moving back far enough to look into her face, though he kept his arms about her. “Mary? What were you thinking?”
“I heard that Mr. Rochford had come here,” she said. “And I was afraid he would have you thrown in jail, Gabriel. I was afraid they would . . . hang you before I could stop them. So I went to find Mr. Norton and persuaded him to bring me. Don’t chastise him for coming, even though you had not given him orders to leave his post. I threatened him. I told him if he did not bring me, I would come alone on the stagecoach and you would not like it and blame him. And I meant it. I have a letter with me from Ned Higgins.”
“Ned Higgins?” He frowned. “But Mary, never mind that just now. Let me take your coat and make you comfortable and introduce you—”
But Mary was not to be deterred. If she had been able to talk without stopping for breath, she would surely have done so. “Ned is the young groom who brought me that little fawn and stayed outside the cottage while you and I set its broken leg,” she explained. “Not so young any longer either. He has a wife and three children, two of whom like to come and pick flowers from my garden for their mother when I pretend not to be looking. Ned is still squeamish about animals in pain, bless his heart. I wrote the letter for him, Gabriel, because he can only barely read and write. I asked Mr. Norton to be there, though, so that he could watch and make sure that I wrote only what Ned said and that I did not prompt him at all. Ned did read it over when I was finished, and then he signed it. Mr. Norton witnessed it with his signature. Something I did not know before then was that after Ned left the cottage on that day—you were still there with me—he came upon a cluster of men gathered about the dead body of that poor young man. Ned watched while he was taken up by a few of them to be carried home to his father. So. They are not going to hang you, Gabriel, or throw you in prison. I won’t let them.”
She was breathless by the time she finished. And the whole of her focus was upon Gabriel.
“Mary,” he said, “thank you. Thank you for all this. Thank you for coming, though I am vexed that I made it necessary for you to travel all the way to me when I ought to have gone to you. Thank you for the news, for bringing the letter, for caring. But come and be comfortable. Let me introduce you to someone very special. To Jessica. She did me the great honor of marrying me yesterday.”
He turned her toward Jessica and released his hold on her.
And they looked at each other, the two special women in his life.
“Jessica.” Mary’s hands, one terribly twisted, came up beside her face, palm out, and her face lit up with a smile. “But you are lovely.”
And Jessica realized something that made no sense from the point of view of her eyes. Mary Beck was beautiful. It was something to do with her face—her plain face—and her eyes. She had heard it said that the eyes are the window to the soul. But Mary’s eyes . . . No. One could not see her soul through her eyes. One could see it in her eyes and beaming out from them to light and to warm the whole world. Mary was a living soul. Which was a bewilderingly foolish thought. Especially upon an acquaintance of mere moments. It was true, though. Surely it was.
Jessica reached out both hands, and Mary set hers in them. Jessica clasped the twisted one very gently. “How very happy I am to meet you, Mary,” she said, and kissed the older woman on the cheek.
Travel over English roads must not have been comfortable