Rowland creature send a letter to his wife on his wedding day?
You went to your mistress’s house the morning of your wedding, some bloody-minded voice in his head pointed out.
I went to see Samir, to explain why I would be scarce for the next few days.
Perhaps she is merely discussing yet another of her tedious charities with the man? Perhaps the letter is nothing more than a report on spending?
“Ha!” Gabriel wrenched open the door to his library, his vision red. “Then why the devil didn’t she just tell me so?”
His bellow startled a shriek out of a maid who was dusting a bookshelf, and she shot toward the door without being dismissed. Gabriel heard a soft click behind him as he went to stare out the window and impose some order on his chaotic thoughts.
The library looked out over a small garden, its flowers, hedges, and little winding path charming. The whole house was charming—not that he’d had anything to do with it. His stepfather had won the place in a card game, and then he’d proceeded to do what he always did: fix the property and either sell it, allow the family of the gambler a life estate, or lease it for some purpose or other.
Given the size of the dowry his wife had brought with her, they could have set up housekeeping anywhere short of St James’s Palace—although Prinny might even lease them that since he was pockets to let.
It was bad enough taking houses from his mother’s husband or an allowance or country estate from his grandfather. But taking money from a woman who hated him—and who might even have some lover waiting in the wings? No, that would be unbearable.
His fingers gripped the wide window frame until his knuckles whitened. He was behaving like a child. He knew in his gut that his bride was still an innocent and would not be unfaithful to him with another man—at least not physically. If anything was going on between her and the milksop she’d been sitting with in the tea shop, it was the sort of tragic, gothic tale the Minerva Press cranked out—and which his sisters adored.
He shouldn’t care what she was doing or whom she was doing it with, but he did.
“Blast and damn.” Gabriel closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He had no interest in living a life of turmoil and tension. Their union was permanent, and he was not a child to rail against reality. He would need to sit her down and try to find common ground—try to overlook their differences and find something in which they both shared an interest.
But not tonight. Tonight he was tired, impatient, and irritable. Bedding his virgin wife in his current condition would certainly lead to tears.
He turned from the window and went to his desk. Other than a pen knife, a few quills, and empty ink vials, there was only the leather-wrapped packet from his grandfather, His Grace of Carlisle.
He opened the deed, even though he’d stared at it for a good hour last night.
“This was a property that came to your grandmother through her mother,” the duke had explained when he’d spoken to Gabriel in Exley’s library last night after dinner. Even after five years, Gabriel was not quite sure what to make of his proud, distant grandfather. The Duke of Carlisle was a famous stickler for propriety whose sensibilities had taken a battering since the day his daughter returned to England six years earlier. Gabriel knew the duke couldn’t have been happy about his own appearance a year later: a bastard grandson with a notorious connection to corsairs But—and Gabriel had to credit the man—the duke had made certain he would never want for money or security.
“The estate is called Sizemore Manor—is between Exham Castle and London.” His Grace had given Gabriel one of his distant, wintery smiles. “So it will have the added advantage of being near the marchioness,” he said, seemingly unable to refer to his own daughter by her name. “And yet not too close.”
Gabriel had almost laughed at what the man had left unspoken. Yes, he loved his mother, but it would not do to live too close and have her constantly in his pocket, offering nonstop advice to him or, God help him, to his new wife.
The duke had continued, as unsmiling as ever. “It comes with a pretty piece of farmland which has always supported the property with some to spare. It has been