Gabriel: Lord of Regrets by Grace Burrowes Read Free Book Online

row,” Aaron said. “We damned near came to blows about it. He was sure it had been planted the year before. I showed him the harvest entries, but even then, he tried to tell me I’d forgotten to enter three hundred acres of yield, rather than admit he’d forgotten the land had sat idle. The tenant didn’t want to get into the middle of the argument, but eventually his was the deciding vote.”
    “Stewarding is a much more difficult and interesting job than I’d thought. Exhausting, too.”
    “Is that what you were doing? Serving as somebody’s land steward?”
    “Yes.” When he wasn’t falling in love.
    “I’ll bet that was an adjustment.”
    The comment was neutral, not angry, not resentful, not even jeering, but Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say in response.
    Aaron rose and set his glass on the mantel. “I know you’re still trying to make up your mind. Am I your brother or your enemy or both? You’ve been through an ordeal, and though I ought to treat you to some bare-knuckle oratory for thinking as you have about me, you’ve had your reasons. Still, your reappearance has cast a great deal into confusion, and for Marjorie’s sake more than my own, we need to know what you’re about.”
    “What I’m about?”
    “She was your fiancée, not mine. I married her for reasons you may discuss with her, but I’m wondering if the marriage is valid, given that it was effected under false pretenses.”
    In all his wildest imaginings—and some of them had been wild indeed—Gabriel had not envisaged that Aaron’s marriage would become a bone of contention. “You’re accusing me of fraud, when I lay on my stomach for months—?”
    Aaron held up a hand. “Part of the reason I find myself with your wife, so to speak, is because Lady Hartle started rallying her solicitors for a breach of promise suit. Her daughter was to be the Marchioness of Hesketh. Your arrival means some other lady will hold that title.”
    “Unless I never marry.” He’d been almost resigned to such a fate, in fact.
    “I won’t ask that of you, because it would put the burden of the succession on my humble shoulders, exactly where it is now. Moreover, it won’t spike Lady Hartle’s guns if you remain a bachelor. The simple fact that you’re alive takes the title from Marjorie and me.”
    “Blessed Infant Jesus.”
    “Marjorie asked me, when I told her you lived, who votes your seat when you’re legally dead. Who directs the solicitors? To whom do the Hesketh holdings belong? Whose portrait is Miss Hunt going to paint?”
    “Your artist.” The artist who’d dodged dinner in a show of either pique or great good sense. “That one is easy. Send the lady packing, given the confusion you allude to.”
    Aaron picked up his glass from where he’d set it on the mantel, and appeared to study the contents. “And thereby notify the entire polite world you kept your existence secret from your own brother for two years, that you made a joke of the Lords, or you’ve gone half lunatic on us, seeing plots where they don’t exist?”
    “I take your point.” Gabriel felt weariness pressing down on him. Getting Polly the devil away from Hesketh had become his most immediate concern among many immediate concerns. “She can start with a portrait of Marjorie. That should be safe enough if we keep the footmen close at hand and insist on an indoor sitting. Your wife is very pretty, by the way.”
    “Ah, but is she my wife?”
    “Do you want her to be?”
    “It matters naught what I want. The resolution of Marjorie’s status will lie with what she wants, and let me be clear on this, Brother. As far as I’m concerned, it matters not what you want, either, not one bit, not to me.”
    “That’s as it should be.” Gabriel tossed back brandy that should have been sipped and set his empty glass aside. “But I’m loathe to suggest I could be marrying her.”
    “Why?” Aaron regarded him steadily. “If she’s used goods, it’s not her