Wordlessly the duchess drew Pandora away with her through one of the doors that led to the outside balcony. Although they had spent time together in the company of others, they hadn’t yet found an opportunity to talk alone. There were more or less constant demands on the duchess’s time: everyone from her infant grandson to the duke himself desired her attention. In her quiet way, the duchess was the hub around which the entire estate revolved.

It was cold and dark out on the balcony, the breeze causing Pandora to shiver. She hoped the duchess hadn’t brought her out here to say something disapproving. Something like, You certainly have a lot to learn, or You’re not what I would have chosen for Gabriel, but it seems we’ll have to make do.

As they stood side by side at the railing, facing the dark ocean, the duchess took the shawl from her shoulders, unfolded it, and draped it over them both. Pandora was still with astonishment. The cashmere was light and warm, fragrant with lilac water and a hint of talcum. Tongue-tied, Pandora stood next to her while they listened to the soothing chirr of a nightjar, and the musical trills of nightingales.

“When Gabriel was about Ivo’s age,” the duchess remarked almost dreamily, staring out at the plum-colored sky, “he found a pair of orphaned fox cubs in the woods, at a country manor we’d leased in Hampshire. Has he told you about that?”

Pandora shook her head, her eyes wide.

A reminiscent smile curved the duchess’s full lips. “It was a pair of females, with big ears, and eyes like shiny black buttons. They made chirping sounds, like small birds. Their mother had been killed in a poacher’s trap, so Gabriel wrapped the poor th-things in his coat and brought them home. They were too young to survive on their own. Naturally, he begged to be allowed to keep them. His father agreed to let him raise them under the gamekeeper’s supervision, until they were old enough to return to the f-forest. Gabriel spent weeks spoon-feeding them with a mixture of meat paste and milk. Later on, he taught them to stalk and catch prey in an outside pen.”

“How?” Pandora asked, fascinated.

The older woman glanced at her with an unexpectedly mischievous grin. “He dragged dead mice through their pen on a string.”

“That’s horrid,” Pandora exclaimed, laughing.

“It was,” the duchess agreed with a chuckle. “Gabriel pretended not to mind, of course, but it was qu-quite disgusting. Still, the cubs had to learn.” The duchess paused before continuing more thoughtfully. “I think for Gabriel, the most difficult part of raising them was having to keep his distance, no matter how he loved them. No p-petting or cuddling, or even giving them names. They couldn’t lose their fear of humans, or they wouldn’t survive. As the gamekeeper told him, he might as well murder them if he made them tame. It tortured Gabriel, he wanted to hold them so badly.”

“Poor boy.”

“Yes. But when Gabriel finally let them go, they scampered away and were able to live freely and hunt for themselves. It was a good lesson for him to learn.”

“What was the lesson?” Pandora asked soberly. “Not to love something he knew he would lose?”

The duchess shook her head, her gaze warm and encouraging. “No, Pandora. He learned how to love them without changing them. To let them be what they were meant to be.”

Chapter 15

“I should have stood my ground about the honeymoon,” Pandora groaned, hanging her head over the railing of the paddle steamer.

Gabriel removed his gloves, tucked them into a coat pocket, and gently massaged the back of her neck. “Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

They had wed that morning, only a fortnight after he’d proposed. Now they were crossing the Solent, the narrow channel between England and the Isle of Wight. The voyage of three miles took no more than twenty-five minutes from Portsmouth to the harbor town of Ryde. Unfortunately Pandora was prone to seasickness.

“We’re almost there,” Gabriel murmured. “If you lift your head, you can see the pier.”

Pandora risked a glance at the approaching view of Ryde, with its long line of white houses and delicate spires bristling from wooded shores and inlets. Dropping her head again, she said, “We should have stayed at Eversby Priory.”

“And spent our wedding night in your childhood bed?” Gabriel asked dubiously. “With the house full of our assembled relations?”

“You said you liked my room.”

“I found it charming, love. But it’s not the appropriate setting for the activities I have in mind.” Gabriel smiled slightly at the recollection of her bedroom, with its quaint framed needlework samplers, the much-loved wax doll with a tangled wig and one missing glass eye, and the bookcase of well-worn novels. “Besides, the bed is too small for me. My feet would hang over the edge.”

“I suppose you have a large bed at your terrace?”

He toyed softly with the dark wisps of hair at her nape. “We, madam,” he murmured, “have a very large bed at our terrace.”

Pandora hadn’t yet seen his house at Queen’s Gate, in the Royal Borough of Kensington. Not only would such a visit have gone against all propriety, even in the presence of chaperones, but there hadn’t been time in the mad flurry of wedding arrangements.

It had taken Gabriel nearly the entire two weeks to find a way for the word “obey” to be struck from the wedding vows. He had been informed by the Lord Bishop of London that if a bride didn’t vow obedience to her husband during the ceremony, a marriage would be ruled unlawful by the ecclesiastical court. Gabriel had then gone to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had reluctantly agreed to give him a special and highly unusual dispensation, as long as certain conditions were met. One of them being an enormous “private fee” that amounted to bribery.