She could not have been more than sixteen, with an unworldly air and innocent eyes. Her dress was fashionable, high-waisted, and plain-skirted, the gown of a young, gently-born miss. I could not fathom why she walked about Covent Garden by herself at this early hour. She seemed more suited to strolling formal gardens under a parasol while smitten young men vied to walk by her side.
She spoke with a faint accent, though she spoke English well. Perhaps she was an Englishman’s young paramour, perhaps the daughter of émigrés who had fled France long ago and elected to stay, even after Louis Bourbon had been restored and the Republic banished.
Whoever she was, she smiled at me, grateful for rescue. Her expression was guileless; too innocent to be a man’s paramour, I decided. She must be a dutiful daughter, gathering breakfast for her mother and father.
I tipped my hat. “Captain Gabriel Lacey, at your service. May I escort you somewhere?”
Her smile was crooked, her brown eyes sparkling with good humor. I paused, wondering where I’d seen that look before, not quite the same. Buried memory stirred.
“My father and mother are staying near, sir. I wanted peaches for breakfast, and so ventured to find them.”
That they’d let her come out alone in a strange city did not speak well of them. But perhaps they were provincial people, used to places where everyone knew everyone, where no one would dream of harming the daughters of respectable gentlefolk.
She stirred a protective instinct in me. I held out my arm. “What house? I will walk you there.”
She blushed and shook her head. “You are kind, sir, but I must not trouble you.”
“You can introduce me to your mama and papa,” I began, but a shrill voice cut across the market.
“Gabriella!”
My young lady turned, and her smile broadened into one of relief. “That is my mamma, now, sir. I thank you again for your kind assistance.”
I barely heard her. Hurrying toward me, through the milling housewives and maids, footmen, cart men, and cook’s assistants, came a ghost from my past.
The last time I’d seen her, she had been thin and frail, a gold and white girl looking at me with timid eyes, her dainty mouth hovering between a smile and puckered worry. Time had thickened her figure, but she retained an air of graceful helplessness, one that urged a gentleman to rush to her side and demand to know how he could assist her.
That air had ensnared me as a young man. I had proposed to her within a week of meeting her, wanting to wrap her in my protective arms.
Her face was still pale and flowerlike, though time had not been kind to it. Lines feathered about her eyes and mouth, and her skin had coarsened a bit. The curls that wreathed her forehead, under her bonnet’s brim, however, were still golden, perhaps a little darker than they’d been fifteen years ago.
She stopped a few feet in behind the girl, her lips parting in shock. Though I must have changed a great deal from the unruly and impetuous young man I’d been, she knew me, and I knew her.
Her name was Carlotta Lacey, and she was my wife.
It struck me then, like a boulder thrown with great force, that Carlotta had called the girl Gabriella.
My gaze shot to her, the breath leaving my body. The girl looked back at me, brown eyes innocent and uncomprehending.
Gabriella Lacey. My daughter.
