Gabriella wouldn’t like what Max was about. In fact, he could all but guarantee her outrage, but wed him she would. And be glad for the opportunity when he explained the alternative.
“Pennington? Did you hear me? Wreck? Villains? Woods?” From the sardonic smirk twisting Bainbridge’s mouth, he well knew Max had.
“Yes, I’m aware,” Max admitted, giving him a moody smile. “I’m the one who saw her home. Rescued her driver too.”
Except for the slightest lifting of one eyebrow, Bainbridge did a remarkable job of keeping his surprise contained.
A commotion at the door announced the onset of more guests.
“The Breckensole twins have arrived at last,” Bainbridge offered needlessly.
The five late-comers burst in amid apologies, laughs, and heartfelt greetings.
At once, Gabriella’s inquisitive gaze met Max’s, almost as if she’d searched for him upon entering as he had for her this half hour past. He lifted his glass and brows simultaneously in a silent salute.
Resplendent in a chaste white gown adorned with cherry-colored ribbons and an embroidered overskirt, she outshone every other woman present. The candlelight caught the whispers of golden-bronze threading her hair and made her skin gleam with a pearly effervescence. Her berry red lips parted slightly in the tiniest of hesitant smiles, tipping those rosebud lips upward, before she drew her regard away. Nevertheless, wariness and distrust yet tinged her thick-lashed eyes when she regarded him.
Disappointment stabbed, chinking at his pride. For God’s sake. What had he expected? That she’d suddenly welcome his company after months of avoiding him?
Yes, dammit. That’s precisely what he’d expected.
At the very least a slight warming after he’d rescued her and helped her injured coachman. Most assuredly after he’d inconvenienced himself and ridden to Colechester to fetch the doctor. He’d gone so far as to make sure Mrs. Breckensole’s every medical need was met at his expense.
Not that the Breckensoles were aware of that last bit. He wouldn’t put it past Breckensole to refuse out of pride and spite. Max felt obligated to pay the fees after a lengthy, enlightening chat with Mr. Armstrong Edgeman, the brother of this evening’s hostess, had revealed Breckensole’s finances were in dun territory.
But mainly, he’d anticipated a favorable response because of the stirring kisses he’d shared with Gabriella.
Oh, she’d done the pretty in her feminine and flowing handwriting. She’d sent ’round a politely worded note thanking him for his assistance. It hadn’t escaped him that she made the gesture and not her grandfather. Her perfectly worded missive held no hint of the sensual vixen he’d kissed more than once.
Her twin, also wearing a frothy white gown, only Miss Ophelia’s bore lavender-toned accents, immediately swept to Miss Twistleton’s side.
“May I have your attention, please?” Beaming, Mary Twistleton stood at the front of the room and clapped her hands twice drawing everyone’s attention. “Please do have a seat. Now that everyone is here, we may begin the evening’s entertainment. I’m sure you will be well-pleased.” She swept a gloved hand toward the Breckensoles. “Ophelia and Gabriella have kindly agreed to lead off with a rendition of Sonata for Violin and Piano in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.”
Ah, they were part of the evening’s entertainment. No wonder the party hadn’t begun on time. Heaven forbid the order of performances be changed to accommodate late arrivals. Max took in Scarborough’s stiff mien and realization struck. For his sake, his mother couldn’t adjust the agenda. To do so would completely disconcert the earl, a man who held to rigid routines and schedules. Sympathy again washed him for the other man’s plight.
“My son, the Earl of Scarborough and my daughter Nicolette will follow with Mozart’s Sonata in C.” Her proud, but fond gaze rested on her children for an instant before she flicked her elderly father a rather strict warning glance and then motioned expectantly to the guests still standing. Her brother, the banker, was noticeably absent. “Plenty of seats remain. Please find one.”
Not exactly plenty.
Max waited as the others obediently filed to their places. All except the Breckensole twins. After bussing their hostess’s cheek and exchanging swift hugs with her, they made their way to the pianoforte.
Other than their attire, the women appeared identical, and it never ceased to flummox him that while he appreciated Ophelia’s loveliness, he’d never felt the slightest jot of attraction to her. Her sister on the other hand, had him in a constant state of arousal. That truth irritated as much as confounded.
He didn’t hail from a family given to emotion or impulse, although he’d always had a devil of a time reining in his sense of humor. Nonetheless, he didn’t like or appreciate his unfettered responses to Gabriella. They fogged his mind, muddled his intentions, and that he could not permit.
Ophelia settled gracefully onto the bench before the grand instrument, and his jaw loosened the slightest in astonishment when Gabriella collected the violin from atop the polished mahogany.
She played the violin? A pleased smile ticked his mouth upward. By Jove. They had something in common after all. Ridiculous that he should be so delighted at something so inconsequential. At once he desired to play Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with her. Perchance after they were wed…
Eyes narrowed slightly, he took note of the remaining seats. Another small, satisfied grin curving his mouth at his good fortune, he made his way to three unoccupied chairs in the front row. One was undoubtedly intended for their bubbly hostess. The others…
Without a pang of compunction, he claimed the pair for himself and Gabriella.
Her eyes rounded the merest bit as she shifted her gaze between him, the empty seat to his right, and the only two other unoccupied chairs in the room. Her mouth, a sweet, prim line of reproach, she looked pointedly to those vacant chairs.
Her expressive gaze fairly screamed, “Move!”
Not on his life. He gave a slight shake of his head.
Her eyelids lowered the merest bit, and her acute gaze promised vengeance and a proper dressing down. A perverse thrill scuttled up his spine. Oh, Miss Gabriella Breckensole was a worthy opponent, to be sure.
He cocked an eyebrow, crossed one leg over the other, and tipped his mouth upward in a silent challenge. Do your worst, love.
Fairly bristling with indignation, her eyes grew dark and smoky. Just as swiftly, her features softened into a benign mien, but she couldn’t quite subdue the sparks spewing from her gaze. She’d happily plant him a facer, he hadn’t a doubt.
Something—surely not guilt or remorse or a misplaced sense of integrity—scuffed hard and abrasive against his need for revenge. A lesser man might’ve quelled under her blistering stare. Beneath the knowledge that he was a manipulative blackguard. Yet he didn’t move.
It wouldn’t do to switch places now, in any event. After all, the presentation was about to begin, and indisposing the other guests and further delaying the performances would be most inconsiderate of him. Or so he assured himself.
Bastard, his conscience railed. Knave. Cretin. Jaw taut, he stifled his recriminations then dispassionately lifted a shoulder as if to say, “It’s too late now, chérie.”
Up went Gabriella’s chin; a sure sign he’d further aroused her ire. But unless she wanted to crawl across the laps of the other guests and claim the lone chair in the middle of the third row, she’d have to join him in the front. Well, she might take the chair beside Jessica Brentwood, but he’d vow Miss Brentwood had saved it particularly for Ophelia. Everyone knew they shared a special friendship.
Ophelia played a few opening chords, hauling his wayward musings back to the present, and the audience settled into a polite—perhaps the tiniest bit strained—silence.
Slightly angling away from the rows of guests, Gabriella lifted the violin to her chin. For several unexpectedly pleasant minutes, only the sound of the sisters’ expert playing filled the room, and he
found himself lost in Bach’s hauntingly beautiful tune.
Gabriella played with grace and passion. Eyes closed, her lashes trembling every now and again as she swayed in time, emotions flitted across the smooth planes of her alabaster face.
That the twins practiced together often was apparent and that they’d had superb instructors, equally so. Their grandfather permitting the sisters this luxury astonished him. More than a little, truth be told. It seemed when it came to his granddaughters, Breckensole wasn’t a complete and utter arse. The old sod reserved that characteristic for nearly everyone else.
Max found himself humming along, his fingers itching to play his violin. He didn’t close his eyes, for he couldn’t bear to tear his gaze from Gabriella.
The last note faded away, and after a brief, rather stunned silence, the audience interrupted into enthusiastic applause and calls of approval. Pink tinging their cheeks, the sisters dipped curtsies and after Gabriella set aside her violin, they made their way to the seats.
“Ophelia.” Miss Brentwood patted the chair beside her. “Sit here. I saved it especially for you.”
Just as Max had suspected.
With a questioning glance to her twin, Ophelia paused, obviously worried about deserting her sister. She had no choice. No other two seats were available together. He’d seen to that; God rot his black soul.
An affectionate smile bending her mouth, Gabriella nodded whilst giving her twin a little shove in the back. “Go along.”
Fingering her fan, she faced him. She could either sit beside him or disrupt the third row. With a resigned sigh, only decipherable if one studied her closely, she claimed the chair to his right and promptly flicked her painted, lace-edge fan open. And snapped it shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. You are cruel.
He almost laughed aloud at her silent, terse message. Instead, tenser than he ought to be, he watched to see if she’d draw the frilly accessory through her hands. That meant I hate you.
Staring straight ahead, she didn’t move except for the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest, the slow blinking of her expressive eyes, and the tap-tap, tap-tap of her slippered toes. Nonetheless, he felt the vexation radiating from her. A doubt didn’t exist she’d love to have snubbed him once more. Instead, she’d sunk onto the blue-cushioned seat with the aplomb of a queen and disregarded him as if he were a lowly boot-shine boy.
Her decision revealed an aspect of her character he’d already suspected she possessed and which played perfectly into what he intended to do to regain Hartfordshire Court. Miss Gabriella Breckensole would suffer rather than cause others discomfort or inconvenience. That he would exploit the goodness in her for his own mean ends said much about him for all of his professions that he was a gentleman.
“Well done, Miss Breckensole,” Charles Edgeman, Mrs. Twistleton’s aged father, a retired banker, whispered loudly on her other side. More than a little deaf, Edgeman was wont to bellow when he believed himself inconspicuous. “I quite enjoyed your performance. One of the best I’ve heard, I do believe.”
Once more, color climbed the slopes of her ivory cheeks, but Gabriella demurred with a kind smile and bowed head. “You are most kind, Mr. Edgeman.”
“I quite agree,” Max murmured. “Is there anything you don’t do well?”
“Hold my tongue when you are about,” she snapped, a false smile painted upon her lips.
Which only made him want to kiss the soft pillows until a seductress’s smile bent her mouth. Her fresh fragrance tickled his nose, and he inhaled deeply. Yes, definitely a hint of lemon, lavender, and jasmine. An interesting, heady, and unexpected mélange. Much like her.
Scarborough, looking crosser than a scorpion caught by the tail, and his vivacious sister perched side-by-side on the bench. Miss Twistleton whispered something to her brother, and his features softened a trifle. He even deemed to twist his mouth into a half-smile.
Max hadn’t any sisters. Not a brother either. He’d often wondered what it would’ve been like to have another child to keep him company. Maybe he wouldn’t be turning into a cold, unfeeling bastard, not so different from his father, after all.
“Happy birthday, Miss Breckensole,” he murmured softly. “Did you and your sister get your gifts?”
She gave him a reproachful glance, marked uncertainty shadowing her expression. “Fishing for praise? I already told you that we did, and I thank you. But surely you know full well it’s improper, and we cannot keep them.
“Ah, yes, in the arbor. I forgot.” He hitched a shoulder. “No one but you and I know where they came from.”
“The seamstress knows,” she all but hissed beneath her breath.
“Ah, but she’s in London, and doesn’t know who they were for.”
“You are impossible,” she muttered with a little shake of her head, causing her earrings to bob.
“So you’ve remarked before.” From the side of his mouth he whispered, “I didn’t know you played the violin.”
“I should think there are a great many things you do not know about me, Your Grace,” came her equally hushed but acerbic retort. She tilted nearer a fraction. “Cats make me sneeze. I abhor fish of any sort, most especially shellfish, and I don’t take milk with my tea. I cannot resist maid of honor tarts, I enjoy long walks and sketching, and I have a distinct dislike for bullies and liars.”
Touché, chérie.
“Now do be quiet, Duke. We’re being most rude.” A censuring sideways glance accompanied that pert comment.
He hid a grin. If any woman could bring him up to mark, if he cared to be brought up to mark that was, it would’ve been Gabriella Breckensole. Appearances mattered to her. He’d already garnered that truth. Another factor in his favor.
Scarborough’s and his sister’s fingers whisked back and forth upon the keys, and under cover of the music Max murmured in Gabriella’s shell-like ear, “I should like to call upon you tomorrow. To take you for a carriage outing.”
So swiftly did she whip her neck to gawk at him, she nearly smacked his head.
Another delighted chuckle threatened to escape. Her strong reaction was sure to have drawn attention, and only sheer will prevented him from turning to see who’d noticed her shock. He didn’t want the gossip starting just yet.
Her pretty, pink mouth parted in astonishment, she stared as if he’d sprouted several more noses or eyes or a pecan-sized boil on his chin. The colliding of their gazes proved astonishingly intense, and lingering far too long for propriety, had a surge of sensual awareness slamming into him.
Merde, but if she didn’t put him off his stride like no other.
He did venture a swift, casual glance around. As he suspected, a few guests peered at them curiously. With an insouciance he was far from feeling, he affected a mien of ennui, and ever so slowly, focused his attention on the infuriated woman beside him.
The music grew to a frenzy, and she snapped her mouth shut even as green flecks sparked in her eyes once more. She faced forward.
“No.”
That was it. No niceties to temper the rejection. No explanation. Just no, which revealed she’d erected her battalions once more.
He leaned nearer, staggered at the self-loathing spearing his gut at the moment. He really was a ruthless, bloody cad. “Yes. You will, my dear. Because I have the means to ruin your grandfather, and only you can decide which course I’ll take. Utter annihilation or a mite more benevolent bend.”
Pacing the length of the bridge for at least the seventh time, Gabriella checked her watch. She’d deliberately arrived fifteen minutes early in order to make sure the Duke of Pennington didn’t do as he’d vowed last night and call upon her at Hartfordshire Court.
His arrival was sure to send Grandpapa into an apoplexy and Grandmama back to her sick bed. Ophelia, on the other hand, would be agog with curiosity and sure to ask a myriad of questions Gabriella either had no answers for or was unwilling to reveal.
How she despised lying to her grandparents and sister, but th
is was better. She could discover exactly what the duke schemed and determine what troubles he plotted, and how to best foil his ominous plans.
She swung around and marched back over the cobblestones, the clacking of her sensible half-boots a welcome distraction to the tumultuous thoughts roiling about in her head. Clutching her sketch-pad and pencil case she glowered at the undeserving ground.
Oh, how tempted she’d been to give him a proper set down and cut him as she’d threatened to do, but then thought better of it. It behooved her to stay in his good graces, even if his opinion meant less to her than the terrified mouse that had scrambled across the road a bit ago as she tramped down the drive
Just when she had thought—hoped—that perhaps there was a streak of decency in the Duke of Pennington, that she might be able to approach him, and perchance strike a bargain, he’d resorted to heavy-handed tactics once more. Weighty and bitter disappointment fueled her anger. He’d left her with no choice but to agree to see him today. She’d much rather have told him to go bugger the devil.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The very first thing she’d done upon entering the Twistletons’ was to search him out. As if seeing him in person would erase the hours he’d consumed her thoughts. And not just because of his vile intentions.
No, other things kept sifting into her mind: their meeting in the arbor. His strong hands encircling her waist. The almost sensual brush of his thighs cradling her bum as she rode before him. His warm breath caressing her ear as he whispered to her. And his crisp, alluring manly scent which she could still smell if she closed her eyes. And hardest to erase from her memory, his wonderfully, delicious mouth upon hers.
Her lids drifted downward, and with a little start, she popped them wide open again.
She most certainly wasn’t indulging in daydreams about the insufferable man or how magnificent he smelled. Or the queer way her body responded to him. Indeed, she was not. She forbade it. The foolish optimism she’d allowed after their meeting in the arbor had evaporated, leaving her disillusioned and all the more distrustful.
Seductive Scoundrels Series Books 4-6: A Regency Romance Page 9