it before her face. The return of the legitimate earl from the dead would be disastrous for Mr. Rochford. It would kill all his expectations. And it was clear for all to see that he was eagerly anticipating those expectations. If he hated to wash his family linen in public, why had he done so? She felt intensely uncomfortable.
“After seven years it does seem unlikely,” Alexander said briskly. “Your father is coming to London later in the Season, I understand, Rochford? I shall look forward to making his acquaintance. I do not believe I have had the pleasure of meeting him anytime in the past. And you have recently arrived in London, Thorne? From America, I have heard? I trust you had a decent voyage?”
“Thank you. I did,” Mr. Thorne said. “There were no severe storms to put me in fear of my life. Or any cutthroat pirates either. It was all, indeed, rather tedious, which is the best one can hope for of any lengthy journey.”
“You lived in Boston?” Elizabeth asked, smiling. “I suppose you left friends behind you there. They must have been sorry to see you leave.”
“I was happy there for a number of years,” he said, and went on to describe some of the social life of Boston.
Jessica was grateful to Alexander and Elizabeth for so effortlessly turning the conversation away from a topic that ought not to have been aired for public consumption. She felt oddly guilty for Mr. Rochford’s questionable manners, as though she was responsible for his being here—as perhaps she was in a sense.
His name was Gabriel, Jessica thought. Mr. Thorne’s, that was. He had spent thirteen years in America, having fled there after some upset with his family. He had come back, reluctantly, to claim a recently acquired inheritance. How long ago was it that the other Gabriel, Gabriel Rochford, had fled after presumably assaulting a neighbor’s daughter and then murdering her brother? Though murder might be too strong a word if there had been a fair fight. Or a duel. Or, as Mr. Rochford himself had allowed, it had been self-defense. If Mr. Gabriel Rochford did not appear within the next few months, he would be declared legally dead and his kinsman would become the new earl.
An inheritance brought me back. And a family situation that necessitated my being here in person.
She could remember his saying those words at Richmond.
Surely . . .
“Lady Jessica,” Mr. Rochford said, speaking low in her ear, “would you do me the honor of presenting me to the Dowager Countess of Riverdale and the lady beside her, who I believe is her sister?”
But as he was about to offer his arm, Anna came to join the group and he turned to compliment her on her appearance and bow over her hand, which he raised to his lips.
Grandmama, Jessica saw when she turned her head, was nodding in her direction and smiling even as she was saying something to Aunt Edith. It looked as though they approved of what they saw.
Mr. Rochford had known his cousin well—or well enough, to use his exact words. Surely even after thirteen years a cousin one had known well enough would not have become totally unrecognizable.
Besides, Gabriel was not that uncommon a name. She would surely be able to think of one or two others if she set her mind to the task.
Nine
It had not taken Gabriel long to understand that he had been invited to Lord and Lady Hodges’s party as a possible suitor for Lady Estelle Lamarr, while Rochford was being matched up with Lady Jessica Archer. He was seeing the less than subtle hand of the Westcott family at work, if he was not greatly mistaken, or at least of its female members. Both young ladies, extremely eligible, must be a bit of a worry to their fond relatives, for both were almost certainly past the age of twenty yet remained unmarried, unbetrothed, and seemingly unattached.
What the family had perhaps not taken into account, at least in the one case, was the character of Lady Estelle. She had a winning smile and an air of open candor. And a twinkling eye. He had noticed all three as well as her prettiness at the Parley ball.
“I wonder if you understand, Mr. Thorne, that we have been thrown together to discover if we like each other,” she had said to him when he already did understand after Lady Molenor had made a point of presenting him to her—again—and then