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“We are only ever invited because thetonwishes to gossip about us,” Gabriel pointed out, “and I will not play into their folly.”
His mother’s pleading gaze dropped from his then, and she glanced at the letters that were still resting in her lap. With a deep sigh, she admitted, “You are probably right.”
Gabriel didn’t think there was anything probable about it. It was certain that was the only reason they had been invited anywhere. It was always the case. Whether there were open jibes or sneered remarks, it didn’t matter. Every occasion ended the same way and news arrived at his ear sooner or later on whatever thetonhad been saying about him and the rest of the Tatford family.
He knew all too well what thetonthought of him and his brother, that they were just as lowly as their common mother and that they had no right to call themselves nobles, that they were rakes and drunkards and gamblers with no rights to the titles they had been awarded.
Though Gabriel had to admit that he had entered into his fair share of lechery in his youth, he had never been much of one for drinking and gambling. More often than not, the same could be said for his younger brother.
“Gabriel, I am well aware that you and your brother have not had an easy time of things since we returned to England.” Lady Sutthers sighed and when she rose to her feet to stand before him, Gabriel knew that she was about to try her utmost in order to get him to change his mind on the subject. “But as the earl, there are certain things now expected of you.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched hard, so hard in fact that it made his teeth hurt almost immediately. Yet he could not relax as he awaited the words he knew were sure to come from his mother’s lips.
“It is important that you engage yourself within the rest of society and find yourself a bride,” Lady Sutthers pointed out. When she placed a hand upon his forearm, Gabriel struggled to stop himself from flinching away. “You must make a life for yourself here and to do that, you need a wife and an heir and a good, strong family behind you to ensure that all will be well.”
“Mother, I am well aware of the responsibilities that have befallen me,” Gabriel assured her. She would never allow him to forget them, not for a single moment.
I wonder what she would say if I told her about the young woman in the bookstore.The thought crossed his mind for just a second, and then it was gone. To tell her of such a thing would be a ridiculous waste of his time, not to mention the fact that he could not even tell his mother the woman’s name or give any background as to her true character when he knew nothing about her.
Nothing but the fact she knows her own mind enough to wish to read John Locke,he thought, struggling to stop himself from smiling like a fool.
His stomach clenched the moment that he reminded himself he would likely never see the woman again. It was best to just forget about her entirely, and yet so far it had been impossible to do so. Though the thoughts of her had been fleeting during his conversation with his mother, they had been there just as they had been in the carriage on the way home, and he feared that they wouldn’t halt anytime soon.
“Please, Gabriel, I am not expecting you to attend every single dinner and ball, but promise me you will at least look through the invitations and pick a few,” his mother insisted, handing him the opened envelopes. He gritted his teeth and took them, resisting the urge to point out to her that most of them had been addressed to him in the first place.
He did not wish to open up that subject again, especially after the last time she had caught him trying to hide such invitations from her before she could find them, even having burned a couple along the way only for her to finger the remnants in the fireplace of the library. His mother was far too smart for her own good.
“I will look them over, but I will make no promises,” he said, gripping the letters perhaps a little harder than was necessary. Though they were just paper, they felt as though they were the most weighty things he had ever handled in his life, and he would have liked to dash them all at the nearby fireplace just to stand and watch them burn.
“Thank you, Gabe.” His mother smiled warmly and pecked him upon the cheeks just as if he were a young boy again about to be taken up to bed by his nursemaid. “And while you are looking through them, you might consider sending a few invitations of your own?”
Gabriel didn’t like the way his mother raised her eyebrow and looked at him with such a pointed expression. He had long since learned that his mother never suggested anything that she hadn’t spent hours or even days devising in her own head beforehand.
“I have no wish to invite anyone into our company, mother,” Gabriel said, and he returned her kiss with one of his own upon her cheek, “but you are welcome to invite anyone you may wish to share in your own while I am away on business.”
The scowl she gave him suggested that she wasn’t pleased to have to spell anything out for him, but she did so anyway. “I am more than capable of deciding whether to make an invitation of my own, but this particular invite ought to come from you, Gabriel.”
His entire body shivered at her words and even before she had said another, he already knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Your grandmother is likely lonely living in that cottage in Kent, all on her own.” She sighed and although it was clear that his mother was attempting to look sympathetic, he could still hear the darker tone in her voice that suggested she had not yet entirely forgiven his father’s family for the way that they had been treated all those years ago.
“Old Lady Tatford has never had any care for us,” Gabriel reminded his mother, speaking of his father’s mother with such disdain that it even made his own throat constrict.
“I would pay her no mind at all. I am sure she is quite content living in her own company after all these years alone.”
Seeing the way his mother flinched, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he had touched a nerve. For just a second, he allowed himself to imagine how his own mother might feel if she were to have grandchildren who never visited or invited her to visit them. Then he quickly reminded himself,my mother would never deny her own grandchildren’s existence.
“I will think about it,” Gabriel stated, hoping that would be the end of it, when there was a sudden brassy knocking coming from the front door of the house.
“Excuse me, my lord, my lady,” Peters said immediately, bowing before he removed himself to answer the door.
“I wonder who it could be at this hour,” Lady Sutthers mused, her gaze following the butler. Gabriel glanced in the direction of the grandfather clock behind her and rolled his eyes. It wasn’t nearly so late as she made out. In fact, it was barely halfway through the afternoon. There were over two hours until dinner was usually served.
“Were you not expecting anyone?” he asked, half expecting that she had somehow planned something to entrap him into seeing some guest or other. He eyed his mother closely as he asked the question, though if she had done so, there was no sign of it upon her face.
“I was not,” she responded with a shake of her head. “Were you?”
The two of them looked each other as though they both believed the other was up to no good and Gabriel couldn’t help but smile as he remembered how his father had always suggested that he was just like her.
