Winning the Mail-order Bride & Pursued for the Viscount's Vengeance & Redeeming the Rogue Knight (9781488021725) by Robinson Lauri; Mallory Sarah; Hobbes Elisabeth

Author:Robinson, Lauri; Mallory, Sarah; Hobbes, Elisabeth
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488021725
Publisher: Harlequin Sales Corp
Published: 2017-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

‘Gilmorton!’

Gil started. ‘I beg your pardon, Mama. Did you say something?’

The Viscountess looked at him with exasperated affection. ‘My love, I have been addressing you for the past ten minutes. I might as well have asked these citrus trees to move themselves.’

Gil begged pardon again and gave her a rueful smile. ‘I came into the orangery to help you arrange the pots and I have done nothing. Forgive me, my thoughts have been otherwhere. What is it you said to me?’

She shook her head at him. ‘Your thoughts have been otherwhere since you came home a week ago.’ She looked suddenly serious. ‘You have said nothing about where you have been, save that you did not achieve your purpose of punishing Lord Kirkster.’

‘Mama—’

‘No, Gil, let me finish. I wanted to tell you that I am…’ she paused, choosing her words carefully ‘… I am relieved your plan did not succeed. Robin and Kitty are gone and nothing can change that. The grief of it will be with us for ever. I have accepted that and I would like to think that you have, too, and that you can now get on with your life. I am very glad to think you are no longer seeking vengeance. It will do you no good, my love, and there has been too much damage done already.’

‘Even more than you know,’ he muttered, so quietly that his words were lost as a sudden gust of wind rattled the door of the orangery.

The Viscountess was looking at him with a mixture of love and concern. She said softly, ‘You were a soldier for so long, my son, that I am sure violence is not unknown to you, but you are a good man and I would not have you do anything dishonourable, even in the name of justice.’

Too late for that.

He looked away. She would be distressed beyond measure if she knew just how dishonourably he had acted. But that was his burden and he must bear it alone. He had at last faced up to the fact that his thirst for vengeance had been born out of grief and guilt that he had not been able to protect his family. And now the thought of how he had wronged Deborah Meltham was a constant pain, like a knife in his heart.

He heard his mother sigh and when he looked back she was tending one of the small potted citrus trees. She was still in full mourning, with a white linen apron tied over the gown to protect the black crepe while she was in the garden. The black-lace cap she wore accentuated the increasing amount of grey in her dark hair, but there was a serenity about her, a tranquillity that Gil envied. He sat down on a stone bench and watched her moving between the plants, nipping off an errant shoot or a dead leaf and tidying the soil in each pot.

‘How do you cope, Mama?’ The question burst from him.

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