Page 51 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gabriel did not like it.
He didn’t like it when Lucy explained how she’d met Dominic at the village pub, and why she believed he would help them. Gabriel didn’t like it when Uncle Roman listened thoughtfully to Lucy’s plan, interjecting helpful ideas and agreeing with her all along the way.
He didn’t like it when Sir Colin Semple, the king’s man, arrived at the appointed hour for dinner at Thornecliff that evening, wearing his best formal attire and a blandly polite expression that didn’t match his watchful eyes.
And he especially didn’t like sitting down to table with Sir Colin, the Drakes, a bright-eyed, flushed Lucy, and Uncle Roman at his most forbidding, all the while knowing that his cousin, Dominic, was out there somewhere risking his life to keep Gabriel safe from the hangman’s noose.
“How nice to see you, Lord Roman,” Sir Colin said. “It’s been too long.”
“Are the two of you acquainted?” Lucy asked, seeming taken aback.
Gabriel wasn’t. His uncle was taciturn, serious, and unsocial, yet somehow the man knew everyone. There had even been rumors he’d served as an agent of the Crown himself, at one time; he certainly had the connections, both high and low, to make him useful to His Majesty’s government.
“Lord Roman and I run in similar circles,” Sir Colin responded vaguely as the footmen went round the table with the first course, which consisted of both chestnut and artichoke soups, and a dish of mackerel dressed with fresh fennel and mint.
“I must admit, I was surprised to receive your invitation, Lady Lucy.”
Gabriel had to give the man credit. He didn’t tiptoe about.
“Once I heard you’d taken a room at The Prancing Pony, I could hardly resist,” Lucy replied lightly. “You were so droll upon our last encounter at Sharpe’s. I thought Thornecliff would enjoy meeting you.”
“Did you?” Sir Colin cocked his head.
Gabriel didn’t like the way the agent looked at Lucy, as though he was dissecting her with his beady little eyes. “Of course,” he said, drawing the man’s attention. “Any friend of my betrothed is a friend of mine.”
“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” Sir Colin murmured, taking a sip of his artichoke soup.
Around the table, the Drakes exchanged glances with each other and Lucy took a fortifying gulp of wine while Uncle Roman frowned repressively at her.
Gabriel knew he was meant to act as host, charming Sir Colin and keeping the evening lively and interesting. But all he could think about was Dom wearing The Gentle Rogue’s black mask and clothes, galloping up the Bath Road in search of a carriage to rob.
Chafing at the fact that he was sitting here uselessly eating fish while his brother faced unknown dangers and the threat of capture, Gabriel set down his fork with a clatter that made Lucy jump.
“Do your nerves trouble you?” Sir Colin inquired, taking another delicate sip of soup. “I wonder why.”
“Well, if I had to guess,” Fitz piped up, “it’s the presence of Lord Roman here that’s got the bride-to-be feeling jittery!
I nearly jumped out of my skin like a molting lizard when I had to meet my dear Caroline’s mother again, after we eloped.
She said she didn’t mind, but I thought she was still quite likely to box my ears for robbing her of her chance to see Caroline down the aisle!
And of course, the whole business was complicated by the fact that she had married my father by that time.
Caroline’s mother had, I mean, not Caroline. ”
“Have you tried the mackerel, my love?” Caroline asked, placing a fond hand on her jabbering husband’s forearm. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”
At the other end of the table, Uncle Roman dabbed at his lips with a white linen napkin. “Lady Lucy has nothing to fear from me, so long as I remain convinced that she has my nephew’s best interests at heart.”
Gabriel turned to stone, his fist clenched around the stem of his water goblet. This, again. He’d thought they’d laid his uncle’s concerns about Lucy to rest when it became clear she wasn’t working with Sir Colin to bring down The Gentle Rogue.
“You can have nothing to say about my marriage,” Gabriel reminded his uncle coolly, forcing his muscles to unclench. “It’s been many years since I needed your permission to do anything at all.”
“Yes. And look how well that’s turned out.” Roman arched a brow.
“I must say,” Sir Colin murmured, making every head at the table swivel in his direction, “I am quite surprised to see you in attendance, Lord Roman. Almost as surprised as I am to be here myself. Have you indeed reconciled with your nephew, at long last?”
Gabriel clenched his jaw as his uncle met his gaze down the length of the table.
“Nothing brings a family together like a wedding,” Uncle Roman replied with an ironic twist to his lips.
“I assure you, I’m not at all nervous about meeting Lord Roman,” Lucy interjected, a little too loudly.
A high flush rode her cheekbones; she looked ready to stab someone with her fish knife.
“And while I would be happy to facilitate a return to cordial relations between my husband-to-be and his family, I would hope that said family wouldn’t require the excuse of a wedding to own up to their past mistakes and vow to do better by him in the future! ”
Sir Colin’s eyes darted back and forth between Lucy and Uncle Roman as though he was watching a bout between two circling pugilists. They were certainly giving him a good show to go along with his dinner.
Gabriel knew he ought to step in. This wasn’t part of the plan, an undignified family squabble at the dinner table in front of the embarrassed Drakes and a very interested Sir Colin.
But he took a moment to savor the warm feeling of Lucy glaring at Uncle Roman with her fish knife in hand, like an avenging Valkyrie brandishing a sword of flame.
She had such spirit, such fire in her.
Men twice her size quailed in the face of Lord Roman de Vere’s displeasure, but not Lucy. No one in Gabriel’s life had ever stood up to Uncle Roman for Gabriel’s sake. It made him want to pick her up from her seat, carry her out of the room, and ravish her on the spot.
But someone here needed to stick to the plan, rather than getting caught up in the complex undercurrents of emotion swirling around this table.
“Our wedding will be a joyous occasion,” Gabriel said with finality, giving his uncle a cool smile that warmed when he turned it on a still-fuming Lucy. “As for me, I am more interested in the future than the past.”
“That’s lucky,” Fitz remarked, “as you’ve forgotten most of your past.”
“Indeed.” Gabriel toasted his friend, and he only meant it a bit sardonically. “Perhaps that makes the past easier to let go of.”
“Maybe you’d get your memories back,” Lucy said sharply, throwing her napkin down beside her plate, “if some people were willing to face them with you, and explain what really happened all those years ago.”
At the other end of the table, Uncle Roman didn’t move a muscle, but somehow all the energy in the room seemed to bend toward him as though he was drawing it into himself.
“I agree with my nephew,” he said, impassive as a judge handing down a sentence. “The future is all that matters. And I will do whatever it takes to ensure Thornecliff’s future.”
“A future without me in it, you mean,” Lucy cried, standing up from the table so quickly that she upset her wineglass. Claret splashed across her plate, soaking into the white linen tablecloth like blood.
“That’s enough, uncle,” Gabriel snapped, reaching for Lucy with a concerned hand that she shook off gently.
“It certainly is enough,” she said lowly, mortification tugging her mouth into an unhappy curve. “I must make my apologies, everyone. I’m afraid I’m not…feeling very well.”
“Let me walk you up,” Gabriel began, starting up from his seat, but Lucy waved him off. She truly did look unwell, pale and trembling as she apologized to the footman who’d hurried over to clean up the spilled wine.
“No, no, I’ll be quite all right,” she protested, “I only need to rest. Please don’t break up the party on my account.”
“I’ll accompany you,” said Caroline. And perhaps due to her forthright, no-nonsense manner as she folded her napkin and stood up, Lucy simply nodded. The two women left the dining room arm in arm.
Some party , Gabriel thought bleakly as they all resettled themselves silently around the table and waited for the footmen to remove the first course and bring in the second.
He would’ve given anything to toss Sir Colin and his uncle out on their ears so he could follow Lucy up to her bedchamber and make sure she rested.
Or make her feel better in some other way.
But that wasn’t possible, because it would ruin all their plans and the entire purpose of holding this infernal dinner party in the first place.
Gabriel had to sit there, under the flat, unblinking stare of Sir Colin Semple, so that when reports of The Gentle Rogue’s latest robbery arrived, the agent of the Crown himself would be Gabriel’s alibi.
He sighed as a footman set down the platter of roast mutton in rosemary sauce and offered Gabriel a silver carving knife.
It was going to be a very long evening.
Fitz did his best to carry the conversation, though it was an uphill battle with Uncle Roman brooding at one end of the table, and Gabriel glaring at him from the other. An hour went by while they ate mutton and Fitz nattered on about their travels and the strange customs of birds.
The footmen did another remove, then brought out the rest of the savories: dish after dish of pickled beets and spears of pickled carrot, calf’s foot jelly in the shape of a rose, buttered peas flecked with mint, turnips glazed in honey and sherry, and a variety of cheeses.
Through it all, Sir Colin kept an attentive silence. He ate placidly, his unremarkable face showing nothing more than a polite interest in the food and the other guests.