Despite her best efforts to fill her father’s shoes, she wasn’t a man. A male. She might be a Gascoigne, but she was unsettlingly aware that there were certain interests men of their class developed that ladies neither indulged in nor necessarily understood.
Whether she could steer Harry through the next five years of his life was a question that sat uneasily, unresolved in the back of her mind. What she could do, what she vowed to do, was to do all she could to encourage him to take up the burdens of adulthood, and his title, and to accept the restrictions that entailed of his own free will. Perhaps to see his position as a challenge.
In that, his reaction to Sybil’s invitation was encouraging. Madeline made a mental note to thank Sybil accordingly.
Meanwhile, why the library? She inwardly snorted, and made another mental note to whisper in a few select ears that she would appreciate a warning should said ears’ owners suspect that her brothers were up to anything outrageous.
There was no point expecting them to transform into angels overnight.
The dinner that evening at Crowhurst Castle was a relaxed and relatively easygoing affair. Or rather, it should have been, and seemed destined to be so for everyone else, even Harry, yet for Madeline, from the moment she climbed the castle steps and followed Muriel into the front hall, she found herself subtly, curiously, and largely inexplicably off-balance.
The sensation-as if her world had fractionally tilted, as if its axis had suddenly canted-bloomed in the instant she reached Sybil, waiting to greet them beside the double doors leading into the drawing room.
“Muriel! Welcome.” Sybil and Muriel clasped hands, touched cheeks; although much younger, Sybil was very fond of the older lady. “Do go in.”
Turning from Muriel, Sybil’s eyes lit. “Madeline-I’m delighted you could come at such short notice.” Taking her hand, Sybil clasped it between hers. “Just our usual circle, my dear, to spread the word that Gervase is home for the summer, so to speak.” Sybil held her hand for a moment longer, her eyes searching Madeline’s, then she pressed her fingers. “Naturally, the girls and I are very glad he’s home.”
The emphasis suggested that Madeline should read something more than the obvious into the remark. Nonplussed, she smiled and retrieved her hand. “Of course. His presence must be a comfort.” She omitted any mention of Gervase needing to deal with strange difficulties like the mill, and stepped back to let Harry make his bow.
Sybil greeted him with her customary easy and gentle smile-underscoring the unusual way she’d interacted with Madeline, suggestive of something, but as to what Madeline had no clue.
Madeline knew Gervase’s father’s second wife distantly for many years, but over the past three years since Gervase had inherited the title and, Sybil and his sisters taken up residence at the castle, while Gervase himself had remained largely absent overseas, Sybil had held the fort, and thus had met Madeline regularly, at the very least every week. As the other senior lady of the small community and moreover one born to her rank, it was to Madeline Sybil had most often turned. They got on well, so Madeline wasn’t surprised to be greeted warmly. What she hadn’t expected was that peculiarly meaningful welcome.
Walking into the drawing room with Harry by her side, she told herself she’d over interpreted. Either that, or there was something going on with Gervase and his family that she didn’t know.
They’d barely crossed the threshold into the long, elegant drawing room when Belinda appeared at her elbow.
“There you are!” Belinda beamed, transparently delighted. “We’re so glad you could come.”
Madeline studied her curiously. “So your mother said.”
“Well, yes! I daresay she did.” Belinda’s exuberance dimmed not one jot. “Perhaps I can take Harry around to meet the others. Gervase is over there.”
Finding herself all but pushed in that direction, Madeline consented to step further into the room. Presumably Belinda had been instructed to ease Harry’s way; considering, justifiably she was sure, that from the superiority of her sixteen years Belinda would be able to manage him, she left her to it.
She herself needed no assistance, not in this company; with a smiling nod to Lady Porthleven, holding court on the chaise, and to Mrs. Entwhistle beside her, she strolled into the room.
And saw Gervase.
Standing before the marble mantelpiece, he was chatting with Mrs. Juliard. As if sensing an arrival, he glanced across the room. His eyes met hers; he stopped speaking.
And she stopped breathing.
It wasn’t his appearance that snatched her breath away-she’d seen him in settings such as this before, where his height and the width of his shoulders, tonight clad in a superbly cut walnut-brown coat, made him a cynosure for female eyes.
The subtle arrogance and less subtle command that cloaked his every movement, from the idle gesture of a hand to the way he turned his head, the strength and power implicit in the characteristic stillness of his stance-none of these things were responsible for her lungs seizing.
Nor was it his face, the features whose lines even in this company were startling in their lean, chiseled hardness, with aggressive clarity branding him a descendent of warrior-lords.
She’d encountered all these facets of him before, and they’d never affected her, impinged on her. They didn’t now, not of themselves.
It was the look in his eyes, the way he looked at her, that jerked her nerves tight, then left them taut and quivering.
Before she could draw breath, before she could even think, he turned back to Mrs. Juliard, excused himself, then strolled across the room to greet her.
Or, as her senses reported it, he prowled over to demand her hand; halting before her, his eyes on hers, he held out his hand, calmly waiting until, frantically shaking her wits into order, she remembered to surrender hers.
His fingers closed strongly around hers, and more of her nerves quaked. For the first time in her life she understood what being tongue-tied felt like. She managed a nod. “Gervase.”
His lips lightly curved. He inclined his head. “Madeline.”
She made the mistake of looking into his eyes, searching for some clue as to why he was watching her like a hawk watched prey, like a cat watched a bird-and found herself trapped, unexpectedly caught in the mesmerizing, agatey, green-flecked amber depths.
Gentle heat spread beneath her skin. All sorts of crazed notions flitted through her mind. It took an effort of will to banish them, to sternly reassert control over her wayward wits-and drag them back to reality. “I-” She broke off and glanced around, noting the others present. She cleared her throat. “It seems you’ve gathered the local elite.”
“Indeed. After our encounter with Squire Ridley this morning, I thought it might be wise to make it more widely and definitely known that I intend remaining at the castle for the summer.”
Releasing her hand, Gervase turned slightly, so that the group of gentlemen by the windows was in their line of sight. “I haven’t yet had a chance to ask if anyone else has been approached about their mining leases.”
She leapt on the topic, as he’d known she would. “This seems the perfect time to ask.”
Smiling lightly, he strolled by her side as they joined the other gentlemen. In planning the evening, he’d searched his memory, and recalled this as her habit; before dinner she chatted with the gentlemen, who, as now, welcomed her into their midst without a blink, shifting to make space for her, as well as for Gervase.
After the usual brisk greetings, she asked, “Have any of you been approached about your mining leases?”