Page 50 of The Duke on Her List
Gabriel gave her a nod of gratitude.
“Very well,” Reeves said, turning to Gabriel instead. “You can tell me. How is it that you come to have a niece living with you?”
Agnes glared at her brother. “Reeves, that’s a mighty personal question.”
“Well, he’s courting my sister,” Reeves pointed out. “That’s also fairly personal, wouldn’t you say so? I think I have the right to want to know a few things about him.”
“I don’t mind answering the question,” Gabriel said. “But perhaps we might allow Helena to step out of the room if we’re going to be discussing personal things about her life?”
“I want to stay,” Helena countered. “Besides, dinner has only just started, and I’m hungry.”
“Helena, you know that we’re going to be talking about your parents, don’t you?” Gabriel asked her. “I don’t want you to have to listen to that.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t mind, Uncle Gabriel,” she said. “You don’t have to protect me. If I could live through what happened to them, I can live through talking about it.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Agnes told him. “You don’t owe my brother answers like this.”
“I don’t mind,” Gabriel said. “If he needs to know, he needs to know.”
He faced Reeves. “My sister and her husband perished in a carriage accident seven years ago,” he said. “And I was the only family Helena had left, so of course I took her in. I expect any decent man would have done the same thing.”
Reeves nodded. “I suspect that’s so.”
“Since then, she has been as dear to me as if she was my own daughter,” Gabriel said. “I have raised her for nearly half of her life. I consider her much more than just a ward. I love her.”
“I have a child myself,” Reeves said. “Emma. Nine years old.”
“Just the age Helena was when she came to me,” Gabriel said.
“So I do understand,” Reeves said. “I know what it’s like to be entrusted with raising a daughter. I know how difficult such things can be—and how rewarding. And I do regret that you passed a night worrying about your own niece’s well-being.”
“It was all I could do not to come over here and wake you all up in the middle of the night to get her back,” Gabriel said. “Of course, I didn’t receive the letter until past midnight, and even then, I seriously considered it.”
“What stopped you?” Agnes cut in.
He hesitated. “I know that I said the letter could have come from anyone,” he said. “But I did have a few indications that you were the sender. The man who delivered it was someone I thought I remembered seeing on your staff once. He looked familiar to me. I might have been wrong, but I thought I was right. But more than that, it was the handwriting.”
She frowned. “The handwriting? When have you ever seen my handwriting?”
Then her eyes widened, and he knew she’d remembered when he had.
The letters she had written to him before. The ones he had told her he’d thrown away unopened. But he had, of course, seen her penmanship on the outside of the letters, where she had addressed them to him.
It was as much a surprise to him as it was to her that he remembered that. But when he had received the letter from her last night, he had recognized the writing. Even before he had opened it, he had thought,Agnes.
It might have been from anyone—but really, he had been certain it was from her. Certain enough to trust. Certain enough to wait.
Reeves was looking from one of them to the other. “What’s happening here?” he asked. “Whendidyou see my sister’s handwriting?”
“She…wrote me a letter once,” Gabriel said, knowing that he couldn’t possibly speak the truth here without creating all kinds of trouble.
“What kind of letter?” Reeves asked.
Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say. He had spoken without thinking, and now he found himself lacking a convincing lie to put forward. He glanced at Agnes.
Agnes spoke up as smoothly as if her response had been planned. “It really isn’t any of your business, Reeves,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” Reeves set his fork down.
