Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3)(44)

“Thank you for being so frank with me,” she said spontaneously. “It’s nice to be treated like an adult.” With a quick, awkward laugh, she added, “Even if I don’t always behave like one.”

“Being imaginative and playful doesn’t make you any less of an adult,” Gabriel said gently. “It only makes you a more interesting one.”

No one had ever said anything like that to her before, praising her faults as if they were virtues. Did he mean it? Blushing and perplexed, Pandora lowered her gaze to her cards.

Gabriel paused. “While we’re on the subject of Jenner’s,” he said slowly, “there’s something I want to tell you. It’s nothing of import, but I feel I should mention it.” Faced with her quizzical silence, he explained, “I met your brother a few years ago.”

Thunderstruck by the revelation, Pandora could only stare at him. She tried to imagine Theo in the company of this man. They had been similar in the most obvious ways, both tall, wellborn, handsome, but they couldn’t have been more different beneath the surface.

“He visited the club with a friend,” Gabriel continued, “and decided to apply for membership. The manager referred him to me.” He paused, his expression unreadable. “I’m afraid we had to refuse him.”

“Because of his credit?” Pandora faltered. “Or was it his temperament?” At his long hesitation before replying, she said anxiously, “Both. Oh, dear. Theo didn’t take it well, did he? Was there an argument?”

“Something like that.”

Which meant that her volatile brother must have behaved very badly indeed.

Her face heated with shame. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Theo was always crossing swords with people he couldn’t intimidate. And you’re the kind of man he was always pretending to be.”

“I didn’t tell you to make you uncomfortable.” Gabriel used the pretext of reaching for a card to inconspicuously stroke the back of her hand. “God knows his behavior was no reflection on you.”

“I think he felt like a fraud inside,” she said pensively, “and that made him angry. He was an earl, but the estate was a shambles and in terrible debt, and he knew practically nothing about how to manage it.”

“Did he ever discuss it with you?”

Pandora smiled without humor. “No, Theo never discussed anything with me, or with Cassandra and Helen. My family wasn’t like yours at all. We were like . . .” She hesitated thoughtfully. “Well, there was something I once read . . .”

“Tell me,” Gabriel said softly.

“It was an astronomy book that said in most of the constellations, the stars don’t actually belong together. They only appear to. They look to us as if they’re close to each other, but some of them exist in another part of the galaxy altogether. That’s how my family was. We seemed to belong to the same group, but we were all very far apart. Except for me and Cassandra, of course.”

“What about Lady Helen?”

“She’s always been very loving and kind, but she lived in her own world. We’re much closer now, actually.” Pandora paused, staring at him fixedly and thinking she could try for hours to describe her family, and she still wouldn’t be able to convey the truth of it. The way her parents’ love for each other had been conducted like warfare. The glittering beauty of her untouchable mother, who would disappear to London for long stretches of time. Her father, with his unpredictable mixture of violence and indifference. Helen, who had appeared only rarely, like a visiting wraith, and Theo, with his occasional moments of careless kindness.

“Your life at Eversby Priory was very secluded,” Gabriel commented.

Pandora nodded absently. “I used to fantasize about being out in society. Having hundreds of friends, going everywhere, and seeing everything. But if you live in isolation long enough, it becomes part of you. And then when you try to change, it’s like looking into the sun. You can’t bear it for too long.”

“It’s only a matter of practice,” he said gently.

They continued the first hand of cards, which Pandora ended up winning, and played another, which she lost to Gabriel. After congratulating him good-naturedly, she asked, “Shall we stop now, and leave it a draw?”

His brows lifted. “With no victor?”

“I’m a better player than you,” she told him kindly. “I’m trying to spare you the inevitable defeat.”

Gabriel grinned. “Now I insist on a third hand.” He slid the deck of cards toward her. “Your turn to deal.” As Pandora shuffled the cards, he leaned back in his chair and regarded her speculatively. “Shall we make the game more interesting by having the loser pay a forfeit?”

“What kind of forfeit?”

“The winner decides.”

Pandora chewed her lower lip, mulling over possibilities. She sent him a mischievous grin. “Are you truly bad at singing, as you said before?”

“My singing is an insult to the very air.”

“Then if I win, your forfeit is to sing ‘God Save The Queen’ in the middle of the entrance hall.”

“Where it will echo unmercifully?” Gabriel sent her a glance of mock-alarm. “Good God. I had no idea you were so ruthless.”