who had fled England thirteen years ago. Too many details were circumstantial at best, and he had a decent though not infallible alibi. But there might be some sort of trouble facing him anyway, in the form of resentment, even outright hostility, from the people living in the vicinity of Brierley. He had always had a decent relationship with almost everyone, but things might have changed at the end and been perpetuated by his absence. He had felt it wise to find out what he could before he went there so that he would know exactly what he was facing. Mary could not be expected to know everything. She lived the life of a near hermit.
He had not intended any great secrecy, then. If he had, he would surely have changed his first name, which, though not unique, was not common either. He wondered if Lady Jessica was the only one who had guessed the truth. Several other people, including Anthony Rochford himself, had heard him own to the name Gabriel last evening.
But he had been asked a question. And a lie was pointless. Lies usually were.
“Thorne was my mother’s name,” he told her, “and that of her cousin in Boston. He officially adopted me as his son after I had lived there and worked for him for six years. His wife was dead and he had no children of his own. My name was legally changed, with my full consent. I had used it when I took passage to America, and I had used it there. I would rather be a Thorne than a Rochford, though I do regret any disrespect that shows to my father, who was a decent man.”
“You are the Earl of Lyndale,” she said. She appeared to be speaking more to herself than to him.
“Regrettably,” he said.
“Why do you regret it?” She frowned.
“I was happy in America,” he said. “I was never happy at Brierley.”
“Why have you returned, then?” she asked him. “Why have you not just let everyone continue to assume you are dead? Or perhaps you still intend to do so. Perhaps you have come here to amuse yourself before returning to the life that makes you happy. But no, that cannot be your intention. Why would you hope to marry me if you intended to resume your life as Mr. Thorne, wealthy businessman from Boston? Your wishing to marry me makes sense only if you intend to be the Earl of Lyndale.”
He moved closer to her and stood looking down at her for a while before setting one booted foot against the edge of the seat beside her and resting one forearm across his thigh. “Why have I returned?” he said. “And why have I decided to stay? Call it duty, if you will, to those who work—or worked—at the house and on the estate.”
“Have you known all this time that your uncle and cousin were dead?” she asked him.
“For most of the time, yes,” he said. “Letters are slow in crossing the Atlantic, especially in winter.”
“So why now?” she asked him. “Just for the sheer satanic pleasure of raising hope in the man who believes he is about to become the earl and owner of Brierley and any fortune that goes with it? And in his son? And then of dashing those hopes at the last possible moment?”
“There is one person at Brierley,” he said, “who is and always has been very dear to me. She lives in a small cottage in the park that surrounds the house. She has been threatened with eviction when the new earl comes into his inheritance. He plans to have a lake created out of the land around her cottage. He plans to use the house itself as a picturesque sort of folly on an island in the middle of it. She has nothing beyond the cottage itself and the small allowance my uncle made her. That has already been stopped, though there is no one at Brierley with any legal right to have made that decision. She is about to be destitute, with no way of providing for herself. It is for Mary I returned, Lady Jessica.”
She was gazing up at him, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted.
“She is my late aunt’s sister,” he told her. “She was born with a deformed back and foot and hand. She takes in stray cats and dogs and any troubled wild creatures that come her way. The gardeners occasionally bring her wounded birds and she mends