Page 48 of The Hidden Lord
“I have made arrangements for your Miss Dulwich to travel to Trenwith Abbey,” Gabriel offered, apparently hoping to fill the uncomfortable quiet. “The staff will see to her needs until we arrive.”
Henri nodded curtly but said nothing, applying herself to her toast with grim determination. Miss Dulwich had wept with relief when they had encountered each other in her bedchamber the afternoon before, and she was happy the other woman would be joining her at her new home. She had told her to find Lisette directly upon her arrival at the Abbey. But if Gabriel wanted conversation, he could work for it.
“The carriage will be ready within the hour,” Gabriel continued. “I thought we might make good time if we leave promptly.”
Another nod. Another bite of toast. Another moment of silence that she hoped was making Gabriel as uncomfortable as his behavior had made her.
The atmosphere was so tense that Henri could practically feel Gabriel’s discomfort radiating from the opposite seat. Good. Perhaps now he would understand how it felt to be dismissed and ignored.
Finally setting off, she kept her gaze fixed determinedly on the passing countryside, though she was acutely aware of Gabriel’s attempts to engage her in conversation. His comments about the weather and their travel time were met with either silence or the briefest possible responses.
“Henri,” Gabriel said finally, his composure clearly strained. “Surely, we can discuss whatever is troubling you.”
“Can we?” Henri asked without turning from the window, sharp with sarcasm. “Or will you simply issue more commands about what I may and may not do?”
“I was perhaps … overly firm in my insistence that we depart quickly,” Gabriel admitted.
“Overly firm,” Henri repeated, finally turning to face him with indignation. “Is that what you call treating me like a child to be ordered about rather than your wife?”
Gabriel moved to sit beside her, gently lifting her chin so that she was forced to meet his gaze. The touch was tender, but Henri was not ready to be soothed by physical gestures.
“What is truly wrong?” he asked quietly.
Henri’s composure cracked, and suddenly, words poured out of her in a torrent of frustrated accusation. “You are lying to me, Gabriel! About your involvement with the manuscript, about your interest in the sketch, about everything that truly matters. You rescued me from that horrible man, you married me, you have shared my bed, yet you still treat me like a stranger who cannot be trusted with the truth.”
Gabriel was quiet for a long moment, his expression thoughtful as he seemed to weigh her words. Henri waited, hoping that her honesty might finally prompt some reciprocal openness from her husband.
“You are right,” he said finally. “I am … unaccustomed to sharing my personal matters with anyone. The nature of my work has required a certain discretion that has become second nature.”
She did not think it was just his work that made him secretive, recalling the vulnerability glinting in his eyes the night he had … she swallowed … deflowered her.
“But I am not anyone, Gabriel,” Henri said, softening slightly. “I am your wife.”
“Yes,” Gabriel agreed, though Henri could see him struggling with some internal battle. “You are.”
He was quiet again, and Henri could practically see him building walls even as she watched. When he spoke again,he had taken on that careful, diplomatic tone that she was beginning to recognize as his way of revealing nothing while appearing to be forthcoming.
“Perhaps we ought to solve this mystery together,” Gabriel said slowly. “Truly together, as partners. And once we understand what the sketch actually reveals, I will have had time to accustom myself to this new situation. Then, mayhap, I will tell you more about why I was at Danbury’s that morning.”
Henri felt a mixture of hope and frustration at his words. It was something, certainly more than the complete secrecy she had been receiving, but it was still so much less than what she wanted. Still, she recognized that pushing for more now would likely cause him to retreat entirely.
“I would like that very much,” Henri responded. “Being partners, I mean.”
Gabriel’s smile was small but appeared genuine. “Then partners we shall be, Lady Trenwith.”
As they continued their journey north, Henri found herself cautiously optimistic. It was not the complete honesty she craved, and Gabriel was still clearly keeping the most important truths locked away, but it was a beginning. Perhaps if she proved herself as a partner in solving this mystery, he might eventually trust her with whatever secrets he was so determined to protect.
As Gabriel watchedHenri eating the simple fare provided by the coaching inn, he found himself studying his wife with a combination of admiration and bewilderment. Even after their tense morning and the emotional confrontation in the carriage, she had greeted the innkeeper’s wife with genuine warmth, inquiring after the woman’s health and complimenting thecleanliness of the establishment. It was a natural grace that Gabriel envied, this ability to connect with strangers as easily as breathing.
He, meanwhile, had directed the necessary business of changing horses and arranging their meal with his usual efficiency, but he was painfully aware of the distance he created between himself and everyone around him. Even with Henri, the woman who shared his bed and bore his name, Gabriel felt as though he were living behind a wall of glass, able to see and be seen but somehow unable to truly touch or be touched.
What kind of husband am I going to be?
The question had been nagging at him since their wedding, but it pressed with particular urgency now as he watched Henri laugh at what the serving girl had said. After so many years of deliberate isolation, of keeping his deepest thoughts and feelings locked away from even his closest associates, Gabriel was beginning to wonder if he had lost the ability to form genuine connections altogether.
Henri deserved better than a husband who could only offer her the controlled mask he presented to the world. She deserved someone who could match her heart, who could engage with her brilliant mind not just as a diplomatic partner but as a true companion. The problem was that Gabriel had no idea how to become that man. It had been so much easier when he conversed with her before, at her uncle’s home, and he had known they would never move past that point. Never make love, marry, or live together.
His experience with intimacy was painfully limited. The women in his past had been brief diversions. Connections that served a purpose but asked nothing of his true self. Henri was something else entirely, a force of nature who had crashed into his carefully ordered existence and left him questioning everything he thought he knew about himself. Or, if he wasbeing honest with himself, perhaps it was he that was the force of nature, practically throwing her over his shoulder to make off like some sort of brutish barbarian. Not his finest day, to be certain.
