Mrs. Jacobs blinked. “An eye on her?”
Gabriel’s expression hardened slightly. “I know nothing about Miss Amelia Shirley except that she appeared unconscious on a roadside.”
The housekeeper’s smile faded. “Ah.”
“I trust no one,” he said. That, at least, was a statement nobody in the county would dispute.
Mrs. Jacobs folded her hands neatly before her. “You suspect her of being untrustworthy?”
“I suspect everyone.” The answer felt entirely reasonable to Gabriel. “I intend to discover precisely who she is and whyshe was traveling alone,” Gabriel continued. “Until then, she remains under my roof and under a watchful eye.”
The housekeeper nodded slowly. “Very well, Your Grace.”
Gabriel gave a short nod and turned towards the door. As he left the office, he found himself thinking about Amelia Shirley once more. That irritated him. She was temporary. A mystery to solve. Nothing more. Yet something about her story refused to fit neatly together.
I had to make those pleas stop, for they simply exhausted me to the point of striking a deal. Still, I cannot set a young lady out there where danger could befall her. I have more honor than that.
Most young ladies did not flee from their families without careful explanation and suitable scandal management. They certainly did not then offer themselves up as governesses within hours of arrival at a stranger’s home, nor did they appear relieved at the arrangement as though some invisible weight had been lifted. The thought lingered with Gabriel longer than he liked, unwelcome and mildly irritating, before he dismissed it as irrelevant speculation.
Whoever Miss Shirley is, she is now part of my household, and speculation is warranted.
Pushing the matter aside with practiced discipline, Gabriel made his way upstairs. His intention was simple enough: to check on Valerie before the day properly began and invite her to abreakfast meeting. As he approached her bedchamber, however, voices drifted into the corridor, carrying an ease that made him slow his steps without actually understanding why. Valerie rarely spoke in anything beyond brief, measured responses when he was present. More often than not, she seemed to exist in a state of quiet compliance, carefully contained and distant.
Yet now she sounded entirely different. Lively. Animated. Unburdened. Gabriel stopped outside the partially open door without announcing himself, the instinct to listen overtaking courtesy.
“Then he tripped over his own boots,” Valerie said, her voice bright with laughter she did not seem to be restraining at all. “I thought Cook would faint on the spot.”
Her maid Trixie’s giggle followed immediately. “Oh, I wish I had seen it.”
“You should have seen his face,” Valerie continued, still laughing. “It was absolutely glorious.”
Gabriel frowned faintly at the threshold.
Was this Valerie?
This voice belonged to someone else entirely. Something unfamiliar tightened in his chest as he listened, though he did not identify it as concern.
When was the last time I heard her laugh like that?
He could not recall a single instance that troubled him more than he cared to acknowledge. For a moment, he remained outside the door, listening to the exchange as though it belonged to another household entirely. Then, with deliberate control, he pushed the door open.
The change inside the room was immediate and absolute. Valerie’s laughter vanished as though it had never existed. Her posture corrected itself at once, shoulders drawing back with practiced precision. The lightness in her expression disappeared, replaced with careful composure that settled over her like a mask.
“Uncle Gabriel,” she said, rising from her chair with formal politeness.
Her maid stood as well and curtsied, her earlier amusement gone so quickly that it might have been imagined. The room itself seemed to shift, becoming smaller.
Gabriel resisted the urge to sigh. “Valerie,” he said, stepping fully into the room.
His niece folded her hands neatly in front of her, every gesture exact. “Yes, Uncle?”
The contrast struck him more sharply now that he stood within it. Moments ago, she had sounded like a child at ease in her ownskin. Now she sounded as though she were addressing a formal inquiry rather than her guardian.
Gabriel realized, with mild discomfort, that he had no idea how to bridge the gap between those two versions of her.
“I wish for us to have breakfast together this morning,” he said.
Valerie blinked, the only break in her composure. “Breakfast together?”
