Yet Gabriel would swear for all he was worth that she was innocent. Alethea had probably never even heard of Mrs. Watson, and even if she had, she would be too well-bred to admit it.
“I hear someone coming,” she whispered in alarm.
He didn’t. Or perhaps he did but was hoping to ignore it. He was painfully aroused. He couldn’t hide it from her. Through the layers of their clothing his erection reared against her in rampant demand. If he did not regain his self-mastery, he would—God, he’d do anything if she would grant him her favor, invite him to her bed.
His frank gaze met hers. “Is there any chance that you desire me as badly as I do you?”
Her slight hesitation gave him hope.
“Please, Gabriel,” she said, her eyes dark with emotion. “Do not embarrass us both when I have invited my friends to make your acquaintance. I have spoken well of you. Let me not appear to be deceived.”
“Later then?” he asked after a moment. “Will you at least reassure me that I have not made you angry? Will you promise—”
She laughed unwillingly. “I shall not promise you anything except supper and an evening of country entertainment. And I’m not angry.”
“Fair enough.” He drew away, his expression amused. “I’ve no choice but to behave myself and appear a well-mannered guest.”
“I shall accept nothing less.”
She was a little wary of how easily he had conceded. Weren’t scoundrels of his ilk notorious for their seductive persuasion? And indeed, as he allowed her to rise, she noticed the obscure smile that tightened his mouth.
“Beware of false retreats,” he said in a mocking voice.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her heart beating in uneven palpitations. Perhaps it was better she did not know.
He stood. He looked as elegantly gorgeous as she did disheveled. “I’m leaving now. If I meet anyone in the hall, I shall simply explain that I lost my way in the dark.”
Chapter Twenty
Gabriel walked from her room in bemusement, thinking that his last utterance was not a lie. He did feel lost, and all points of his personal compass directed him to her.
It was the first time in his life that he had abandoned an attempt at seduction because he wanted a woman desperately enough to care what she might think of him afterward. He hoped it meant nothing. Alethea had been interwoven in his past for as long as he could remember. The one woman he’d always dreamed of possessing. If she had known what he had been thinking while he kissed her, how he had ached to coax her, she would have been justified in taking her crop to him again.
He paused as he reached the top of the stairs. No guests in sight. She was safe from discovery. She wasn’t safe from him, though. His entire body pulsed with primal sexuality. He wondered if he would survive supper without giving himself away. He would look a bit peculiar if he crossed his legs all night. Was that how the custom of placing a napkin across one’s lap had originated?
“Sir,” an anxious young male voice inquired. “Is anything wrong?”
Gabriel glanced downward at the under-footman who’d appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m fine, thank you.”
He wished he could reassure her that he wasn’t anything like the rebel pillory boy she remembered. Unfortunately, he wasn’t convinced that he was much different now. Apparently, she hadn’t heard that he’d half-murdered his stepfather a week before the nasty bugger had ended up getting himself killed in a tavern brawl. A good thing, too. Gabriel knew it would have only been a matter of time before he murdered John for the numerous abuses to which he had subjected Gabriel’s mother.
There was something different about Alethea, though, and it wasn’t anything he could identify.
She still flustered him. And he thought he flustered her.
But he’d begun to notice at certain moments a cynicism about her that he would not have expected. Well, she had lost her true love, the man chosen by her parents, who had guarded her from little beasts like Gabriel. And with good reason.
He didn’t want to believe that the sadness he saw in her was simply grief over the man she had chosen first. That she was the sort of woman who could only love once.
But it was the obvious answer.
Chapter Twenty-one
Alethea’s older cousin, Lady Miriam Pontsby, a likable busybody in her early forties, detained Alethea before she made her entrance into the formal dining room. Lady Pontsby had not been officially invited. However, she was a beloved relation, with the instinct of a bloodhound for change in the air, and the minute she’d heard that her cousin was entertaining one of the notorious Boscastle men, she’d driven herself and her husband in her creaky carriage the entire five rainy miles that lay between her home and the earl’s.
Lady Pontsby shivered melodramatically as a footman divested her of her damp cloak. “I came as fast as I could, Alethea, when I learned who was to be your guest of honor. Blackguard, Boscastle, gambler. And your dear brother is not here to protect you. Why didn’t you let me know earlier?”
Alethea smiled with fondness at her short, plump cousin. “I think I’m safe enough. The vicar and his wife are here. And there wasn’t any need to alarm you.”
“Did your brother propose to Emily yet?” Miriam asked.
“I believe he’s still working up the courage.”
“It has been a year!” Miriam exclaimed. “Whatever is he waiting for?”
Miriam smothered the impulse to ask the same of her young female cousin. To her practical way of thinking, a woman did not fail if she made a less-than-perfect marriage. She only failed if she did not marry at all. Alethea’s plight drove her to distraction. Neither a widow nor a spinster, not exactly fresh on the marriage mart, she presented a problem not covered under the rules of good society.
It was bad luck that Alethea’s betrothed had met his end on the battlefield. The well brought up could not bring themselves to discuss the vulgar details of Jeremy’s undignified demise. He was gone, unfortunately, and nothing could change that.
But what to do about the lady he had left behind? Miriam was at her wit’s end. Alethea spent her spare hours riding horses and tending farm animals instead of searching for a new husband. Never mind mourning. Nobody in Helbourne observed all of Society’s silly dictums.
And now her pretty young cousin, through the hands of an unfathomable fate, had attracted a Boscastle male to her supper table. Was Alethea already bewitched? She had not shown an interest in another man since Jeremy’s death, or even before, that Miriam recalled. What had come over her to invite a member of London’s roguish family to the house while Robin was gone?
Miriam had not wasted a moment in speeding to Helbourne to oversee this perplexing state of affairs. The very least she could do, as a dutiful country relation, was to ensure that her heartbroken cousin was not lured into an illicit arrangement with a man of Sir Gabriel’s indecent charm.
“I understand your desire, my dear, to offer hospitality to a neighbor,” Miriam went on as her husband escorted them to the dining hall. “But what if he intends to turn Helbourne into one of those hamlets where men debauch unwilling—or willing—maidens and hold an orgy every full moon?”
Alethea and Lord Pontsby shared a smile over Miriam’s head. “Single-handedly?” Pontsby murmured.
“I imagine there are more scoundrels where he comes from,” Miriam said. “That family is full of them.”
Alethea lifted her brow. “Did you know that he and I were actually born less than a mile apart? And that his—”
“The good people of this parish, you included, Alethea, would expire of embarrassment were you to gaze out the window one moonlit night to witness noblemen chasing naked ladies up and down the hills.”
“Why don’t we wait to address that issue when and if it occurs?” Alethea bit her lower lip. “Although I daresay it would be a less alarming sight than that of Squire Higgins running about in the altogether after his broody hen.”
Miriam whiten
ed. “Your darling mama is frowning down at me from her heavenly abode for being remiss in my duty toward you.”
Alethea paused in the doorway. Never one to stand upon formality, she’d encouraged the footman to seat those guests who had arrived early.
She had not, however, expected that every person she’d invited to supper, and a few she had not, would brave the rain to grace her table. She had a full house on her hands. Wilkins had already brought in a half-dozen chairs from the music room.
The main attraction strolled up behind her, wide-shouldered, hair and soul as dark as midnight, a man who had not only addled the wits of his hostess, but had also apparently unsettled the collective composure of her five suddenly attentive female supper guests. Make that six, she amended silently as Miriam turned to Gabriel with a chastening frown that quickly dissolved into a look of dumbfoundment. In fact, her cousin appeared so befuddled by the sight of Sir Gabriel in the flesh that Alethea almost wished for her prior disapproval.
“Miriam.” She wiggled her elbow into her cousin’s side. “Blackguard, Boscastle, gambler. Remember?”
“I don’t believe everything the gossips tell me,” Miriam breathed, pressing herself against the door with a sigh as Gabriel bowed.
“Madam,” he murmured, his voice deep with irony, “I have not had the pleasure—”
Miriam glanced distractedly at Alethea. “One of England’s finest families,” she whispered from the side of her mouth. “Pray do not faint and spoil the evening. I see possibilities in your future I had not expected. My previous remarks derived from ignorance, and I admit it.”
Alethea caught firm hold of her cousin’s arm, speaking in an undertone, “Think of wicked noblemen, Miriam. Imagine yourself naked—being chased into the blackguard’s arms.”
Miriam’s gloved hand fluttered in a spiral to her shoulder. “What if Society has misjudged him?” she whispered with a thoughtful smile. “Do we have proof that he is a rogue? Shall we stoop to scandal and slander those who may most benefit us?”
Gabriel directed a guileless smile at Alethea. “Have I done something wrong?”
She glanced away before her guilty blush betrayed her. “I do hope you like ordinary country fare, Sir Gabriel. A well-done roast and pudding.”
He studied her for a few reckless moments, then offered her his arm. “It is what I grew up on.”
“And it did not do you a bit of harm, by the look of it,” Lady Pontsby said, striding forward with her husband.
Alethea released the faintest of sighs and fixed a smile upon her face as she and Gabriel prepared to separate and take their respective seats. When her cousin looked back at her with a sly grin, she pretended not to notice and said, “Sir Gabriel has dined at many tables since his early life. I do hope our country hospitality does not bore him.”
He smiled gallantly. “I need only a peaceful evening to entertain me.”
Alethea’s lips parted. “I shall remind you of that if you start to fall asleep.”
“With you in the same room?” he asked, grinning wickedly. “Your presence would raise a dead man from his grave.”
She shook her head. “Do not dare to say anything like that at supper.”
“Why not?”
“Oh—just sit down, Gabriel. Eat your supper and be a nice guest.”
His grin widened. “Will you be a nice hostess if I do?”
Chapter Twenty-two
At her silence, he took his seat between a widowed baroness and Lord Pontsby. The baroness immediately engaged him in conversation. “The previous owner of Helbourne Hall was planning to have a grotto built where the oak grove now stands. He consulted a foreign architect for the design.”
Oak grove? Gabriel lowered his soupspoon, striving to appear respectful as he racked his brain. He wanted desperately to make a good impression. But where the bloody hell on his estate was the oak grove? “Ah,” he said, trying to catch Alethea’s attention. “The oak grove. Not a bad idea for a grotto, is it?”
The silver-haired baroness looked sweetly distraught. “We understand that your predecessor meant for this edifice to be used to entrap young women into—well, I expect you know.”
Gabriel dropped his spoon. He’d spoken only a few words. How the devil had seducing virgins been laid at his door? He looked across the table again at Alethea for help. Pretending to be unaware of his dilemma, she gave him a vague smile and proceeded to butter her slice of bread.
He coughed lightly. “Well, according to the ancient Druids, an oak grove is a sacred haven for…” He didn’t exactly know what. He did recall, however, he and his brothers awakening on the occasional midsummer sunrise to watch the village girls gather to greet the dawn. If there had been oak trees in the background, none of the boys had noticed or cared.
“You’re rather tall to be a Druid, aren’t you?” the baroness ventured after a few moments of silence. “Dark enough, but not at all diminutive.”
He met Alethea’s amused gaze. “I don’t think Sir Gabriel is admitting to any pagan tendencies, Lady Brimwell.”
“Well, what is he admitting to?” the Reverend Peter Bryant joked. “Speak up, Sir Gabriel. I’ve heard all manner of sins confessed.”
Alethea shook her head. “Not at my supper table. You may have my guest at another time, if you please.”
“What I’m saying,” Gabriel continued, realizing that he was actually enjoying himself without gambling, drinking heavily, or accumulating more sins upon his mortal soul, “is that the trees are pretty and despoiling innocents is not.”
Not that Gabriel had ever given more than a fleeting thought to the innocents. However, if God struck the guilty or hypocritical dead, he would soon be felled by a righteous lightning bolt through the roof. He glanced up in expectation from the table. Luckily no such divine retribution occurred. Perhaps God was saving his vengeance for a time when Gabriel least expected it.
A gambler at heart who could not resist taking a risk, he added and actually meant, “There shall be no grottoes built for any illicit purposes as long as I remain at Helbourne.” An ordinary bedchamber was good enough.
“And how long shall you remain, Sir Gabriel?” Alethea asked, her fingers tracing the stem of her goblet.
Damned if he knew. It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that his decision depended on her. But he had already resolved to put Helbourne on the market and return to London, hadn’t he?
He said, “I’m sure you shall all be tired of me before I leave.”
And if he eluded a definite response, he was certain he had not deceived Alethea. She carefully changed the subject and looked up as the main course arrived at the table. Gabriel should have been relieved that she had released him from having to lie.
Instead, he struggled to understand. Why had she shown any interest in him at all? For old times’ sake? Because she had a tender spot in her heart for errant boys? He hoped she was not one of those ladies who believed a bent nature could be straightened by a few kind gestures.
The conversation turned from rakes ruining young women to farming. Gabriel talked, as if he had the faintest interest in scaring off crows from cornfields, the fate of country craftsmen, and the upcoming Michaelmas hiring fair; he was reminded to buy his geese early before the good ones went. As if he’d know what to do with them.
At length, fortified with wine, candied nuts, sweetmeats, and cheese, the guests moved into the music room for a game of Slap the Slipper, Gabriel standing shoulder to shoulder with Alethea until it was all he could do not to disgrace himself again. It was almost a relief when he was partnered off to play whist.
He and the vicar sat against Alethea and Mrs. Bryant. As the thirteen cards were dealt, he was hard-pressed to restrain a patronizing smile. It was unfair to wager against these amateurs—and then Mrs. Bryant took the trick, forcing him to drop his condescending attitude and pay attention.
He lost.
“We won against the London gambler,” Mrs. Bryant crowed. “Can you credit it,
Alethea?”
Alethea feigned a frown. “Aren’t we supposed to be ashamed of ourselves for encouraging his pursuit of gambling? At the very least, it doesn’t seem right to boast that we took a shilling from him, a man whose activities we criticize.”
“Tell him we’ll raise the stakes next time,” the vicar said in a jovial voice as he rose to leave.
“Will there be a next time?” Gabriel asked casually as he and Alethea walked through the front door into the wet night.
“We haven’t bored you?” she asked in surprise. “You would actually come back?”
“Only if I’m welcome. Am I?”
She gave him an artless smile that sharpened the aching desire he had subdued for hours. “Yes,” she answered, mischief lighting her eyes. “We shall play more games. Do you like Hunt the Thimble?”
He stared at her, stricken with a sudden need to kiss her throat and all the creamy skin below half-hidden by her curls. “Can we play it alone?”
“I don’t think it would be as much fun.”
He held her eyes. “I think you might be surprised.”
“We’ll have to see,” she said carefully.
“That sounds promising.”
“I’m bringing my two older sisters next time,” Mrs. Bryant said behind them as she waited for her cloak. “They won’t believe I beat Sir Gabriel.”
“Did you let her win?” Alethea inquired under her breath.
“No,” he and Caroline answered in unison.
“I suspect, however,” Gabriel said with a feigned scowl, “that Mrs. Bryant is an expert cheat.”
Mrs. Bryant squared her shoulders. “Can you prove it?”
Gabriel grinned. “Probably. I shall watch you more closely next time for bent cards and subtle winks. Come to think of it, you did cough quite a bit, and we never riffled the deck for markings.”
She looked delighted. “Are you going to challenge me to a duel of honor if I’m caught?”
“What will the weapons be?”
“Bible verses,” she said with a wicked chuckle.
Wicked As Sin Page 10