He discovered from them exactly where they planned to go with Mary and at approximately what time they expected to arrive at each place. And he told them he would be obliged to them if they would stay away from Hyde Park.
“We will certainly do so,” the dowager assured him, giving him a hard look. “But do remember, Gabriel, that in a duel it is just as likely that the aggrieved party will be shot dead as the offender. I would not wish to see my granddaughter widowed so soon after she has become a bride.”
“There will be no guns, ma’am,” he assured her, “and no shootings. No deaths.”
“I am almost sorry to hear it,” she told him. “But go now. Edith and I need to get ready for a day of pleasure.”
He went to Sir Trevor Vickers’s house next. Bertie had told him at breakfast that his mother was going to call upon Mrs. Rochford this morning.
She had indeed gone and was already back home.
“She received me, Gabriel,” Lady Vickers told him after she had asked about Jessica and been assured that she was recovering from her swoon and was in very good hands. “I sympathized with her over the ordeal she suffered last evening. My sympathy was genuine. She thanked me profusely for calling on her. No one else has. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps later. But that may be too late. I went mainly because I felt dreadfully sorry for the woman last evening. But I went also because both Trevor and Bertie felt that you needed to know if Mr. Rochford plans to leave London in a hurry to avoid any further inquiry into his own behavior all those years ago. And yes, Gabriel. Although there was nothing in the hall downstairs to suggest an imminent departure, upstairs in Mrs. Rochford’s sitting room, where she received me, there was a pile of packed trunks and bandboxes outside what must have been her dressing room. And I could hear activity inside there all the time we spoke. I do believe they are planning to leave tomorrow or even perhaps today.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, taking both her hands in his and squeezing them.
She sighed. “Why is it,” she asked him, “that it is always the women who suffer? Do not make your wife suffer, Gabriel. She is far too young to be a widow.”
“I do not know what Bertie has told you,” he said, “but there will be no pistols at dawn, I assure you, ma’am. Or at any other time of day either.”
“Just remember,” she told him, “that only you stand between him and the earldom he has so craved, Gabriel. Watch yourself. Please.”
“I will.” He kissed the back of one of her hands.
Bertie went with him when he left the house. They proceeded to Archer House, as planned hastily when Gabriel was carrying Jessica from the private parlor at the hotel. While Bertie was shown into Netherby’s study, however, Gabriel was asked to step up to the drawing room, where Anna and Jessica’s mother were awaiting him.
“Jessica will be fine,” Gabriel assured them before they could even ask. “She was conscious before I left, and she is in excellent hands. Her maid is very competent, as I am sure you know. And Mary has healing powers that extend to all living beings.”
“Jessica is not a deer or a horse,” the dowager duchess said tartly. “But Ruth I know I can depend upon. I have never known Jessica to faint. I daresay the prospect of your being shot dead in a duel was too much for her sensibilities. I suppose she cares for you.”
She was on the verge of tears, Gabriel could see, but like her daughter—on most occasions—she had herself well under control and looked every inch the duchess.
“And I care for her,” he said. “There will be no duel. No pistols. No deaths.”
“There is a veritable army of Westcotts downstairs in Avery’s study,” Anna told him. “We have been excluded, of course. We are mere women.”
“One woman fainted this morning, Anna,” her mother-in-law reminded her, “because she was included and realized there was a possibility that her husband of less than a week could have his brains blown out before today ends.”
“But as Avery pointed out to us when we got home, Mother,” her daughter-in-law said, “Gabriel cannot afford to die just yet. If Mr. Manley Rochford could avoid prosecution, he would become the Earl of Lyndale after all, and that is unthinkable.”