Page 174 of Dawnlands

“Ma would have liked it,” she said. “You can do that. And don’t be too late to bed.”

She went up the stairs with her firm tread and left the two young people alone in the parlor.

Gabrielle went down on her knees at the hearth, raked aside the logs, and drew the shapes in the ash that her great-grandmother had taught.

Matthew smiled. “I’m glad she taught you,” he said.

She rose to her feet. “And I wanted to speak to you,” she said shyly.

“Well, that’s kind of you, because I have been feeling like a fool.”

Despite herself she nearly laughed. “We’re all in an odd position.”

“Hester has told you? About the proposal I very wrongly made to her?”

“Yes, she told us. And she and Mia asked me to speak to you.”

“This is all my fault,” he confessed. “I apologized to Mia months ago, and in writing to Hester, but I can see they neither of them forgive me, and I’ve been such a miserable fool, Gabrielle. I have hurt the girls that I care for most in the world! And to propose to Hester so soon after speaking to Mia…”

“Was it the Nobildonna who made the proposal?” Gabrielle asked.

He hesitated. “Yes,” he admitted. “But I should have refused at the start of it all.”

“You should,” Gabrielle said gently. “But I don’t see how you could. She’s your mother, she’s bound to arrange the best match she can for you, and it’s not as if you could defy her. You’re still a minor.And if you had to marry someone, I can see that you would prefer Hester to anyone else.”

“Exactly!” he said eagerly. “So I sound like a man ruled by his mother as well as a fool. An obedient fool.”

“You have to be obedient,” Gabrielle said mildly. “And now that your stepfather is dead, there is only your mother.”

“She terrifies me,” he said frankly.

“She is…” Words failed Gabrielle.

“She dares… it’s as if she has no fear.”

“At court?” Gabrielle guessed.

He nodded. “I dare not say—she has no fear even in the very greatest of events.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have this house if she did.”

“I know, and I should be grateful. I am grateful—but what she dares!” He shook his head. “And she employs me…”

“You haven’t done anything…” Gabrielle was tentative. “Matthew, you haven’t done anything… bad?”

“I hardly know!” he burst out. “I do a little part of the whole, but I don’t know what the whole of it is. Just before the prince was born, she had me running errands around London, it was like a dream. There were riots in the streets, and fires burning at the crossroads, and lights in the Protestant windows, and people tearing hangings out of the chapels, and I went from Lincoln’s Inn to the palace to Hester’s house and back again, and I had no idea what I was doing! I took her to Uncle Rob when it was past midnight and the house was dark and still she went in, and I have no idea what she said!”

“Dr. Reekie was part of it?”

“No!” he suddenly exclaimed. He knew that he should not speak of Rob. “No, he had nothing to do with it. Don’t think that. He refused to do… a favor. The Nobildonna sent me to ask something of him, and he refused me. And later she told me he had refused permission for my marriage to Hester.”

“But why?”

“She said it was the lawyers. Then she said she could not say.”

Gabrielle rose up from her chair and put her hand on his shoulder as he stood at the fireplace. “Oh, Matthew,” she said tenderly. “Oh, dear Matthew. This is too much for you.”

He turned and she stepped into his arms and he held her, his cheek resting against her smooth hair. “Gabrielle, I was really afraid. I am afraid that she has done something…” He could not tell her what he feared.