He gave Visel an abrupt nod. “I bid you a good evening.”
Visel wasn’t quick enough to hide his surprise—or the flash of angry disappointment—at Gabriel’s sanguine reaction. It was almost as if he’d followed Gabriel with the hope of generating another disagreement—perhaps another duel, or a confrontation of a more immediate nature.
The back of his neck prickled as he walked away. Visel’s dislike of him was almost tangible. The primitive part of his mind—the animal part that had saved him countless times in his war against Assad—strained for any sound and prepared to repel Visel’s attack.
But the only footsteps he heard were his own.
By the time he reached Upper Brooks Street, he was loose-limbed and exhausted. And also more than a little expectant when he saw his wife’s windows were still lighted. He stared up at her room for a long moment before making his decision. Visel was nothing but a troublemaker and he should ignore whatever it was the man had been trying to imply. Indeed, his hatred of Gabriel probably meant he was willing to say anything. He refused to let the other man come between him and Drusilla.
He would shave himself since Drake would be in bed, and then he would pay his wife a late-night visit. The notion made him smile. Yes, he would try again—and keep trying, until she grew to accept him.
When he went to open the front door, he found it locked, which was when he recalled he’d sent the servants to bed when he’d left. And forgotten to bring his key.
“Idiot,” he muttered beneath his breath. He looked at his watch: it was past two. He’d go around back and see if the door to the sunroom was unlocked. If it wasn’t, then he’d have to wake up a servant.
The narrow alley that ran beside the house was dark and he had to walk slowly. The servant’s entrance was at the rear of the house and the journey was treacherous it was so dark. He would tell Parker to hang a lantern outside the door and leave it all night. A person could break their neck in this gloom and the last—
“—all right, Dru. I understand. I do.”
Gabriel froze as a dark figure came out through the door in the high wall that led to his garden. What the devil?
The shadow stopped just outside the wall. “I shall see you on Thursday?”
Gabriel took a quick step back into the servant doorway, his hand clenching so hard on his walking stick it cut into his skin. He recognized the voice even though he’d only heard it once before.
Whomever Rowland was talking to—Gabriel’s wife, apparently—spoke too softly to be heard.
“What’s that you say?” There was another long pause: “Well, just once more, then—for old time’s sake. I know, me too. Thank you, Dru.” He shut the garden door and then turned—not in Gabriel’s direction, but toward the small stables that served the house. Rowland didn’t even hesitate before opening the door into the building and closing it softly behind him, behaving for all the world like a man who was comfortable in his surroundings.
Gabriel leaned back against the servant’s door, his brain refusing to admit what his eyes and ears had just witnessed. She was meeting a man she’d held hands with, a man he’d asked her not to see again—in their back garden, at two in the morning.
It was bloody amazing.
He stalked back around to the front door and rang the bell, coming to a boil as he waited. It was Parker who opened the door, and he was wearing his nightcap and a red plaid robe.
“I am sorry, sir. The evening footman said you’d dismissed him earlier and I took him at his word.”
Gabriel forced himself not to shove past his servant and thunder up the stairs to his wife’s room.
“He spoke the truth, Parker. I forgot my key.” He dropped his cane into the brass holder, tossed down his hat, and began yanking off his gloves.
A few letters were scattered on the salver, and one caught his eye. He turned his head to read the direction: Mr. Theodore Rowley.
Gabriel froze, his right glove only half off. His heart was pounding in his ears and his neck and back had become so tight—so tense—the muscles actually hurt.
He glanced up to find Parker looking at him, his gaze in the flickering candlelight . . . knowing. “You may go back to bed, Parker.”
“Thank you, sir. Good night.”
Gabriel waited until the older man turned the corner before looking at the letter. So, he had gone for a walk and she had not only had a secret meeting with her lover but she’d written him a letter, too?
He flung his gloves onto the table before picking up the letter, turning it round and round in his hands. The temptation to open it tore at him more violently than gale-force winds. It was his right to know whom she was corresponding with and what she was saying. As her husband everything she did was subject to his approval.
Gabriel suddenly envisioned himself lurking in the dimly lighted foyer, furtively reading his wife’s private correspondence like some sneak thief.
He tossed the letter onto the salver, snatched up the candlestick, and headed for the stairs. He took them two and three at a time, already composing the things he would say to her. He had told her he’d not tolerate a continued liaison with a man she was apparently accustomed to holding hands with and meeting in their back garden. Now she could deal with the ramifications of her willful, thoughtless actions.
He flung open the door to his room, startling Drake so badly the older man dropped a pair of boots he’d been carrying to the dressing room.
“What the devil are you doing still awake?” Gabriel snapped, slamming the candlestick down hard enough that it sheared a sliver of wood off the inlaid console table.
Drake’s eyes jumped from Gabriel to the table, back to Gabriel. He opened his mouth.
“Never mind,” Gabriel said, sliding a hand beneath his cravat and ripping it from his neck so viciously the fine fabric made a friction burn on his skin. He flung the wrinkled linen onto his dressing table and began unbuttoning his coat, his hands shaking with barely restrained violence.
“Mrs. Marlington was looking for you, sir.”
Gabriel stopped, arrested. “When?”
Drake swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a way that Gabriel might have found amusing—if he didn’t feel like such a monster for terrorizing the poor man. He pushed the air noisily from his lungs.
“I apologize for snapping at you,” he said, tossing his coat to Drake. His valet caught the garment and nodded, the slight flush over his cheekbones telling Gabriel the apology, as terse as it was, had pleased him.
“She was looking for you about two hours ago, sir.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Only that you’d gone out.”
Gabriel lowered himself into his dressing room chair, his boiling anger gone as suddenly as it had seized him, cold fury taking its place. So, she’d been doing proper reconnaissance before making her plans and inviting her lover.
Drake came to remove his boots. “I just fetched some hot water, thinking you might be back soon,” Drake said, turning one boot in his hand and looking for flaws before setting it down carefully and removing the other.
Gabriel grunted, his brain pulsing.
Drake glanced at the connecting door to his wife’s room. “Would you like me to shave you?”
He considered his reflection in the mirror. Candlelight glinted off the tiny hairs that grew fast enough that he had to shave twice a day. He ran his knuckles over his jaw. Did he want to see his wife? He’d been so certain a mere moment earlier, but he’d look a damned fool rushing in there like a jealous husband, wouldn’t he? Besides, he’d wanted to shave because he’d been planning to take her to bed. Now he wanted to throw her out of the bloody house. She could go to her lover, by God.
Gabriel realized he’d become excitable just thinking about speaking to her. No, talking to her in such a mood would be catastrophic.
He met Drake’s eyes in the mirror. His valet was a perfect example of his breed, and his expression was as unreadable as the dark side of t
he moon.
“Not tonight, Drake. I’m for bed.”
* * *
Her husband did not greet her with breakfast.
Drusilla had heard him return home last night—terrifyingly soon after Theo had left. Just thinking of the idiot’s ill-conceived visit made her stomach churn with nausea.
What would have happened if Gabriel had seen him on his way back? Good God! What if Gabriel had been here?
She knew the answer to that: Theo would be standing in Hyde Park at dawn with a pistol in his hand a few days hence.
She’d shivered at the thought.
Where had Gabriel gone for such a short time? He’d not been away above a few hours. He could have visited his mistress—mistresses—she corrected, gritting her teeth. But she somehow doubted that.
Yet he’d not visited her, either. She’d waited and waited for him to come to her last night, although she could hardly blame him for staying away after her shrewish behavior. She’d waited even after the light between their dressing rooms was extinguished—for over an hour. Even after she’d gone to sleep, she’d done nothing more than thrash and twist and turn until the bedding formed a tight spiral around her body.
So she’d given up on sleeping and gotten out of bed at dawn, waiting impatiently until it was a civil hour to summon Fletcher. She was dressed in her nicest morning gown and in the breakfast room before eight.
Only Parker was inside when she arrived. “Good morning, Mrs. Marlington.”
“Good morning, Parker.” She hesitated. “Has Mr. Marlington already eaten?”
“No, ma’am, he has not returned from his morning ride. Can I bring you some tea and toast?”
She smiled at the fact that her preferences were already well known. “Yes, thank you.”
A freshly ironed paper sat at the head of the table, giving her hope he might join her. She was just finishing her toast when she heard the distinctive sound of boots in the hall. She closed the paper and set it aside.
He stopped in the doorway when he saw her. “Ah, Mrs. Marlington. I didn’t expect you would be up or I would have bathed and changed first. I smell of the stables.”
He was ruffled and sweaty, his dark brown top boots dusty: he looked delicious.
“Please, do not delay your breakfast on my account,” she said, and immediately cringed at her cold tone and hastened to add, “Indeed, I would like it if you joined me.”
His eyebrows shot up, but he entered the room. “Very well. A pot of coffee, Thomas,” he told the footman hovering beside the door.
The servant left, and Gabriel went to the buffet. When he turned back to the table, she saw he had a full plate.
He spread a napkin over his lap, his expression distant, reserved. Gone was the affectionate, teasing, and amorous man of yesterday. He must have noticed her eyes on his mountain of food. “Riding always works up an appetite.”
“Do you ride every morning?” she asked, latching on to the innocuous topic.
He cut into a slab of ham. “Most mornings.”
The breakfast room was silent but for the sound of cutlery on crockery.
He met her eyes, his own unreadable, while he commenced to methodically consume the contents of his plate.
Drusilla’s face was hot, and she knew she must be red and splotchy. She took a sip of tea, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I hope you don’t mind, but I accepted an invitation to dine at Exley House.”
He swallowed, took a drink of coffee, and wiped his mouth with his linen before saying, “Very well,” and resuming his meal.
She could tolerate it no longer. “I wanted—”
Parker entered with his pot of coffee and cast a look at Drusilla’s empty plate. “May I bring you anything else, ma’am? Perhaps another pot of tea?”
“Thank you, no. I shall float away if I drink a second pot.”
Parker looked ready to hover, but Gabriel said, “You may leave us, Parker. Thomas, we shan’t need anything else.”
Drusilla looked from Parker’s receding back to Gabriel. What was going on?
He laid down his silverware and pushed away his unfinished plate. “I was going to wait until later today to speak to you, but I would rather do so now if you have a few minutes to spare?”
“Yes, of course.” A chill shot up her spine at his cold, polite tone.
“What I am about to say will no doubt surprise and displease you. However, it cannot be helped.”
Drusilla stirred a bit of milk into her final cup of tea and waited, her body becoming tenser by the second.
“I have a son.”
Her spoon clattered against the porcelain teacup and her head whipped up. He was looking at her with that haughty, distant expression she was beginning to hate.
“I b-beg your pardon?” The words came out a croak. She cleared her throat. “Did you say you had a son?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him, looking for signs of... anything. But he was as readable as a brick wall.
“He is not yet six and his name is Samir.” He watched her closely, and she couldn’t help wondering what her face looked like; what was he seeing? “When we move to the country at the end of the Season, I intend that he will go with us—that he will live with us at Sizemore.”
Drusilla suddenly recalled Visel—and his sly questions about Gabriel’s family—did he know about this? He must; that must have been what he meant.
Dear God—was the child one of the French actresses’?
The room was quiet but for the ticking of the longcase clock behind her and the faint sounds of street noises. He took another sip of coffee. She had to ask—had to.
“And his mother?” Her voice broke on the last word, and she felt her face heat. “Will she be living with us, too?” She hadn’t meant to say that.
His high, sharp cheekbones flushed. “His mother is dead.” His grim expression told her that was all she’d get out of him on that subject.
She swallowed—something she seemed to be doing constantly—her mind beginning to function again, beginning to whir, in fact. No, the child could not belong to one of his mistresses. She had been foolish. If the boy was almost six, Gabriel could not have been much more than a boy himself when his son was conceived. In fact, he must have been in Oran and—
“He is only recently arrived in England and he does not speak English very well. He is, however, conversant in French.”
“He is in London?”
“Yes.”
“But . . . where is he?”
His nostrils flared slightly. “He is with friends for now.”
She looked down at the table, to where her hand was turning her unused fork over and over and over in place. If the boy wasn’t at Exley House or here—where was he? Drusilla could not bring herself to ask.
“He has a nurse he is fond of and she will come with him. The schoolroom and nursery at Sizemore are both remote from the rest of the house. He will be close enough for me to see him as much as possible, but not so close as to cut up your peace.”
His words rendered her mute. Did he really mean what he’d just said? Could he believe she was so . . . cold?
“I know this is unconventional, but it is likely he has no other immediate family, and—even if he does—I wish to keep him with me.”
Drusilla stared down at the fork.
He had a child. A child he loved enough to insist on bringing him into their home. He was not asking her permission; he was telling her.
“I hope your silence does not mean this will present a problem for you?”
She looked up, bristling at his haughty expression and commanding tone. How dare he drop such a bomb on her and expect a quick and thoughtful response?
How dare he assume the worst of her only because of her silence?
“And if it was a problem, Mr. Marlington?”
His handsome features shifted into hard, haughty lines. “Then you would have to learn to overcome it. My son will live in my house.”
> Drusilla held his stare, so furious at his high-handed ways and insulting assumptions she felt she might go up in flames. Who was he to believe her so cruel and unfeeling? She released the fork, folded her napkin, and set it beside her plate. “Was that all you wished to say to me?”
His jaw flexed. “No, that is not all. I saw you sent a letter to Mr. Rowland last night.”
Drusilla’s jaw sagged. Was that the only thing he’d seen? Oh God, please don’t let him have seen Theo.
He nodded, as though she’d said something. “I thought I had made my desires on the subject of Mr. Rowland clear.” His words were clipped, his tone as sharp as a blade.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, even though she’d heard him perfectly well.
He put his napkin beside his plate, the action mirroring hers. “I am going upstairs to change, bathe, and then get dressed. And when I come down again, I will pay a visit on Mr. Rowland.” She sucked in a breath and he smiled. “His direction was on the envelope, you see.”
“Wh-what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to tell him what I hoped you would have told him—that I don’t want him talking to my wife. I am going to tell him this will be the last time we speak of the matter. The next time, we will let pistols do the talking.”
“But . . . but this is outrageous. He is not my l-lover.” She paused to catch her breath, her face scalding at the word. “He is part of a group I formed to provide assistance to the poor and needy.”
His expression was implacable. “Either he leaves the group, or you do.”
“This is a group to administer money to charity,” she repeated.
“If you wish to manage charity endeavors with Mr. Rowland, you may do so through the proper intermediary, your man of business.” He hesitated, a harsh expression on his face. “Unless he, too, is a man you hold hands with in public?”
The reality of what was happening had finally begun to seep in, like rainwater into hard-packed soil: he was forbidding her to see somebody—a man.
She shook her head slowly from side to side. “No. You cannot do this.”
His mouth shifted into an unpleasant smile, and he sat back in his chair, resting his hands loosely over his flat midriff.
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