I told her. “And the reason we—”
The woman’s face closed to us as if shutters had been thrown across it. “No she isn’t. She’s the aunt Gabriel went to see in Paris. I remember the name. Look here, I don’t know what kind of scheme you’re trying to pull on me, but it’s not going to work. I want you to leave. Now.”
“I am his mother,” Iris told her. “He didn’t know it himself; only six or eight people ever did. And now you. That’s part of the long story.”
The green eyes flickered down to the war journal, then back to me. “You were saying something.”
“I was about to say, the reason we got involved with the string of events that led us here is that someone we both . . . care about needs to know that the succession is secure before he can free himself.”
She was unmoved. “What if he doesn’t? What if I ‘lose’ the marriage certificate, say that Gabe’s illegitimate, say we want nothing to do with you?”
“Then your son would be robbed of a heritage that has been a part of England for eight hundred years,” Iris told her. “You’ve really never heard of the name Hughenfort?”
The green-eyed pilot shrugged. Shrugged! I pictured the reaction of the Darlings to that shrug, and stifled a laugh.
“I’ve heard of York and Windsor, too, but that doesn’t make Jack York down at the garage into a prince. I don’t know. We’re happy here. Gabe’s got a good life. Why would I want to spoil him by showing him a castle, having people bow and scrape and call him—what would they call him, anyway?”
“Your Grace,” I told her helpfully. “But they’ll call him what you ask. In any case, I’m afraid it’s too late. You may choose to have nothing to do with Justice Hall—which is certainly what the current duke would like to do—but we know about you now, and there will be church records.” (If they weren’t bombed, lost, or stolen, I added mentally.) “Like it or no, your son is the sixth Duke’s heir.” The irony of
“Come back with us,” she burst out. “Not permanently, just to see it, to meet the family—
“What, now? Don’t be ridiculous. I have a business to run.”
“Surely this is your slow time of year,” Iris said diplomatically.
“Christmas!” I said suddenly. “A Christmas holiday in an English country house. Your son would adore it.” I had to work to get some enthusiasm into that suggestion—personally, I’d rather have been condemned to a week in the trenches. “And anyway, I’ll bet it’s been a while since you had a holiday.”
“I couldn’t leave Ben here alone.” She was weakening, definitely weakening.
“Bring him, too,” Iris urged, scenting capitulation, but the final unscrupulous blow was mine to deliver.
“Your husband loved Justice Hall,” I told the woman. “There are pictures of him and his ancestors on the walls, the journals he kept as a boy, servants who watched him grow up. And although I never knew him, I feel confident that the thought of his son there, even on a brief visit, would have made Gabriel very happy.”
Five days later, we all boarded the boat for England.
The voyage back across the ocean, though in truth slowed by weather, seemed to fly, sped on the running feet of an active five-year-old, made smooth by the intelligence and innate grace of his mother. Helen—for so we were to call her—did not let go her apprehension so much as put it to one side, until she had seen and judged all with her own eyes, and made her decision. Before we had left New York Harbour, she and Iris were forever tied, joined by the two Gabriels but also by mutual respect and a very similar way of looking at the world. Both had known hardship, both retained their humour; within days, they began to look like mother and daughter.
Even Ben, who had to be cajoled into making the arduous journey and who could easily have felt even more useless an appendage than his legs were, soon caught the spirit. His laughter as three strong porters hauled him up the gang-way was somewhat forced, but once settled into a deck-level cabin his independence and good cheer reasserted themselves, and one night I spotted him on the dance floor, jogging his Bath chair back and forth in time to the music with a giggling young flapper on his lap, clinging for dear life. He caught my eye and winked.
Then we were in Southampton, with ice-slick decks and a low, grey dawn that drizzled sleet and threatened snow before the day was through. We had come without fanfare, with no family to greet us, nothing but a pair of anonymous hired cars arranged by Mycroft. I listened to the complaint of gulls, and asked myself for the hundredth time if I had been right to permit this.
Iris’s impulsive invitation, blurted out in the twofold excitement of finding a grandson and freeing a husband at one blow, had caught me unawares. Christmas at Justice Hall for young Gabe and his mother? With its current duke barely healed from a murderous attack and the shadows full of unidentified threat? Surely this was hardly the time to bring a new duke home? That thought had not occurred to Iris until late that same evening, back at the Webster Inn; when it did, when she realised what she had done, she was horrified, and had nearly rung up the O’Meary household then and there. Instead, we had gone out and talked with the two Canadians by clear light of day, and in the end, the four of us had decided to go ahead. It had caused us all a great deal of soul-searching. I could only pray we had made the right decision.
Helen, standing by my side as we were nudged towards the dim outlines of the harbour, had clearly been thinking along the same lines. “You are sure my son will be safe?”
“This from a woman who takes the child barn-storming?” I replied with a smile.
“One barrel roll, that’s all he’s ever done with me, and that on his birthday.”
“Yes,” I said more seriously. “We need to take precautions, but I’d wager Marsh and Alistair against a regiment of guards. The boy’ll be safe in that house.”
Watched by hawklike eyes every instant, no doubt, but he was too young to chafe over restrictions. And we would give it out that the Canadians would be at Justice until Easter, whereas in fact they would return to Canada in early January, weather permitting.
“What is Lord Maurice like?” Helen asked me.
“I met him in Palestine. He’s a different man there.”
“A better man?”
“More at home—a part of the landscape, even. The desert burns away extraneous parts of a person. Among the desert peoples, true wealth is measured by what a man carries inside him—his skills, his history, his family. Justice Hall suffocates Marsh. Which is why he will be the first to understand if it has the same effect on you. Keep in mind that the estate can run itself if it has to. Marsh is trapped there at the moment, but not for reasons that affect you and Gabe. Remember that. It’s not going to eat you.”
I had been saying the same thing in various ways all the way across the Atlantic. Her wait-and-see attitude prevailed, which was all a person could expect, or ask.
“Oh yes,” I added, “the rest of the family doesn’t know that Marsh and Alistair have been in Palestine. Let them keep guessing.”
“The sister sounds . . . daunting. And the name, so close to mine. Strange.”
“She’ll be uncomfortable and protective, but if you let her know that Justice will always be her home, she’ll settle down. After all, you and Gabe are no real threat. Her children would never inherit anyway.”
“That really is wrong. Don’t you think? Women should be able to inherit. It’s archaic.”
“I know. I suppose it’ll change, some day.”
Gulls screamed in the cold air, horns sounded, stevedores shouted. The docks were nearly under our feet now, and we joined the passengers streaming back to their staterooms to collect bags and companions.
“Iris is sure great, isn’t she?” Helen commented from behind my shoulder. “Have you met her . . . friend? Dan?”
“I haven’t, no. And yes, I like Iris a great deal.”
“I’m glad you talked me into this,” she said suddenly. “I’m looking forward to meeting Marsh and the others, seeing the house. Gabriel’s house.”
“I did mean what I told you, that he would have loved to see you and the boy there. He revelled in every inch of the place.”
“I know,” she replied. “You can feel that in the journal.”
Following the mention of the diary, we jostled along the corridor in silence for a time. At her door, she stopped with her hand on the knob. “I want the man caught, who did that to Gabriel,” she said. “That staff major.”
