Read Gabriel: Lord of Regrets for Free Online

intends to have me for some kind of wife, his wishes will carry great weight in the courts, won’t they? He’s used to getting what and whom he wants.”
    Aaron drew her to her feet. “Maybe he was, but he seems different. Every bit as irascible, but not as arrogant.”
    “That should be the subject of a notice in the Times ,” Marjorie said, tucking her arm around Aaron’s. “Not that he’s miraculously restored to us, for Lazarus at least set a precedent in that regard, but that he might have learned some humility.”
    “Now, now.” Aaron jostled her affectionately. “People will be saying you’re your mother’s daughter.”
    “And your wife. At least for the present.”
    ***
    “So there you are.” George rose, his hand extended toward Gabriel as he welcomed him into the cozy manor house that served as the steward’s quarters. “In the flesh, just as your note said.”
    His handshake was solid, welcoming, and in two years, George had barely changed. He was aging well, typical of the Wendover men. He wasn’t quite as tall as Gabriel or Aaron, but he was quietly handsome, with brown eyes instead of green, and a patient humor with the things that set younger men to cursing and stomping around.
    “It’s good to be home, George.” Gabriel mouthed the platitude as they took their seats in the library, though it was the truth, too. “How fare you?”
    George lapsed into the predictable soothing patter of a man stewarding a huge agricultural enterprise. The estate held dozens of tenant farms, spread over tens of thousands of acres, and after twenty years in his position, George knew every acre of the property. Gabriel let his cousin roll on, about this pond silting up, that field needing to fallow, and the other tenant having yet another strapping daughter.
    “You might try barley straw in the pond,” Gabriel suggested, “if the problem is scum as well as silt.”
    George’s eyebrows rose. “Barley straw, you say? Is that something you picked up in Spain?”
    “I did.” Gabriel lied easily, though this was one of Beck Haddonfield’s tricks. As much as Beck had traveled, he might have picked up the notion in Spain. Or the Americas, or the Antipodes.
    “Were you so long ill, then, that you couldn’t come back to us for two years?”
    “It’s a long story, George, best told over a long winter night with a decent bottle or two at hand. Why are you emptying one of the hay mows?”
    “Mold.” George spat the word, as only a farmer facing winter would. “Damned rain or some such. Hay goes bad, but this was a damned pretty crop. We’re fortunate not much was damaged.”
    “Is the roof leaking?”
    “Mayhap. We’ve had some bad storms this fall, and rain can get in under the eaves when the wind blows just right. I tried to suggest to his lordship, your brother, we might be caulking the eaves, but he says the hay needs to breathe. Has a lot of answers, that one.”
    “You educated me when I thought I had all the answers.”
    “That I did.” George produced an unlit pipe from his pocket. “Or tried to. So who has the title now, Gabriel? And which title?”
    What did that matter when hay was getting wet? “One of us is Hesketh, the other is a courtesy lord. I care not which is which, but the solicitors, judges, and the College of Arms will likely have an opinion. In either case, the land needs tending, and you’re the man to do it.”
    “You might want to see if your brother agrees. He’s full of notions and has us marching off in this direction, only to charge off another day in that direction.”
    “Which sounds just like him.” Gabriel watched as George went through a familiar ritual of cleaning, filling, and lighting his pipe. “I trust you to interpret his orders accordingly, but until we sort out the legalities, you will continue to honor his directives.”
    “While the hay molds,” George muttered. “I’ll do as you say. Harvest is in, and the sheep are getting fat and woolly. The