by Sara Bennett
Antoinette sidestepped a couple as they stood gazing around them, expressing their wonder in broad Scots, and glanced back over her shoulder.
He was staring right at her.
There was a puzzled expression on his face, but as their eyes met she saw the flash of recognition. She didn’t wait for more. Antoinette sped on, and when she reached a clear space began to run in earnest, telling herself she was running for her life.
She looked back again at the next exhibit, and saw that he was closing in. There was a staircase and she ran up, slipped, only just saving herself by catching on to the railing. She hurried through a stained glass exhibit, the colors like jewels in the light that poured into the building, and then down another staircase. He was closing in; she knew it by the angry exclamations and gasps behind her as he plowed through those who stood in his way.
They were in the central aisle now, and potted plants and ferns and mature trees turned the space into a wonderland of greenery, but to Antoinette it was a blur. She picked up her skirts and petticoats, her bonnet fell back, dangling about her neck by its ribbons. Painted poles and bright banners made her dizzy, and then she saw it.
The way out!
In another moment she was outside in Hyde Park, moving toward the nearest street, telling herself that if she could find a hansom cab or a trolley bus she could escape him.
“Antoinette!” he roared.
With a whimper Antoinette tried to outdistance him, but her tight, heavy clothing was hampering her, and she knew that at any moment he’d be upon her and then all her struggles would have been for nothing. Ahead of her she could see a trolley bus trundling along through the traffic. If she could only get to it, climb on board…With a sob she forced her weary body to make a last effort.
His hand closed over her shoulder, spinning her around, and he was wrapping his arms around her, holding her in a grip it was impossible for her to break. She tried to scream but she had no breath left. The fight went out of her then, and she was reduced to gasping and hanging limp in his arms.
He must have known she was beaten. He set her down on her feet, but he kept a strong arm around her shoulders, pinning her to his side so to a casual observer it must have looked like an overly friendly embrace.
“Let me go. I’ll scream,” she gasped, still trying to breathe.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, equally breathless.
She tried to pull away from him but his arm was like iron, and then he caught her hands with his free hand and held them, too. “Let me go!” she wailed.
“No,” he gritted.
She glanced up at his face. He looked angry and bothered, his hair windblown, his eyes blazing. Her gaze lingered, and she couldn’t seem to look away. He caught her watching, and a smile flickered at the corners of his lips.
“Did you think I’d just give up and sail away, sparrow?”
“I didn’t think about you at all.”
His smile grew. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure.”
He laughed, and then suddenly his face went blank. “Of all the cursed luck,” he muttered. He was looking over the road, where a coach had stopped, and abruptly he turned her around and headed back the way they’d come. Antoinette fought him, sensing something was very wrong, and when she couldn’t escape she craned her neck over her shoulder to see what it was he’d seen.
“Don’t look, for God’s sake,” he growled. “He’ll see you.”
“He?” She was still trying to see, and suddenly she caught a glimpse of a short man crossing the road with a brisk, confident stride, his hand on his top hat to stop it being caught by the wind, an ivory cane in his other hand.
Lord Appleby.
Shock paralyzed her for the second time. Meanwhile her captor bundled her along, all but carrying her back through Hyde Park and into the Crystal Palace. There was an argument about their tickets—daily ticket holders weren’t allowed to leave the building. He muttered something and, propping her against the wall, found enough money in his pocket to purchase two more tickets.
I should run away, she told herself. But where would I go? Lord Appleby was on his way, and suddenly she knew whom she’d rather be with.
“This way,” he said. “There’s a refreshment room down here.”
There was indeed, and when they reached it he found a free table, sat her down in a chair, and drew another close to her, so that he could retain his grip on her hand. It might have been romantic if he wasn’t her jailer.
“I suppose you’re going to give me over to him now,” she said dully, staring at his fingers clasped around hers. “I hope he is paying you well.”
“Hardly,” he mocked. “I’m not going near him, and neither are you.”
She turned her face toward him and blinked. “But…”
“You still think I’m his man,” he said coldly. “Well, I’m not and never have been. Where’s the letter?”
Antoinette groaned. “Not again—”
“Yes, again. And again and again. Until you give it to me.”
“I need it,” she hissed.
“To give to your new protector—I remember. Where is he, by the way?” And he looked around as if expecting to see someone in ducal robes hovering among the potted plants.
“I only said that because I thought you…I thought Coombe would be impressed. I wanted him to believe I could give him his racing stable.” She tried to wrench her hand free, but still he held it tightly. Her fingers began to go numb.
“Everyone said you were Appleby’s mistress.” He was watching her intently.
“You shouldn’t listen to gossip,” she said coldly. “I was never his mistress. He wanted everyone to think I was so I’d be forced to marry him. It may surprise you to know I am quite an heiress.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t believe me.” She tried to keep the tremble out of her voice, telling herself it didn’t matter to her whether he believed her. But the truth was it did.
“On the contrary, I do believe you.”
He smiled into her startled eyes.
“Come, Antoinette, who do you think Madame Aphrodite sent to meet you? Why did I happen to appear at exactly the right time and in exactly the right place?”
Her face must have shown her sense of betrayal, because he reached out and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“No, she didn’t give you away. She’s on your side. And so am I.”
“You can’t be.” She spoke instinctively.
“Why not?” he retorted, moving in closer still.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she found herself thinking about kissing. Antoinette’s eyes flicked back to his, and she saw him pick up on her feelings. There was a sudden tension between them, and this time when she found it difficult to catch her breath, it had nothing to do with exercise.
She realized he was waiting for an answer. “Because you want the letter, and the only person who would want it besides me is Lord Appleby.”
That gave him pause, but he rallied. “You’re wrong. That letter belongs to my mother. Appleby used it to take Wexmoor Manor from my father, Sir Adam Langley, and from me. I want it back.”
“Then you are…?” she said, dazed.
“Gabriel Langley.”
Gabriel, the boy who’d scratched how much he hated sums on his desk. That Gabriel. She’d been close to the truth when she thought he might be Priscilla’s son—he was her nephew. There were so many thoughts crowding into her head she struggled to find the right words.
“The letter I am carrying doesn’t have anything to do with you or your father.”
His eyebrows came down. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me or not, it is the truth. My letter is not your mother’s letter.”
“Then why did you refuse to give it to me?”
“I thought you were under instructions from Appleby to retrieve it, that he’d learned I had it and he meant to destroy it. And me, too,
probably.”
He said nothing, watching her, trying to decide whether to believe her. Antoinette knew the signs; she was struggling through the same questions herself.
“How can I believe you?” she whispered.
“Because you know it’s true,” he said urgently. “Think, Antoinette.”
She was thinking. Carefully she relived the last few weeks, seeing it from his side and from hers. Could they have been so mistaken about each other, so stupidly, stubbornly blind? If only they’d trusted each other from the beginning.
“If you’d trusted me,” he said, reading her mind, “then this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Trusted you?” she retorted. “The first time I saw you, Mr. Langley, you were holding up my coach with pistols!”
“It was playacting.”
“But I didn’t know that! Later on I realized—or at least I thought—you’d been sent by Lord Appleby and that everyone at Wexmoor Manor was in league against me. I was completely alone and friendless and in enemy territory.”
His eyes narrowed. “Darling, you’ll have me sobbing in a moment.”
Someone cleared her throat and they both looked up. A waitress had arrived to serve them. Antoinette asked for lemonade and Gabriel requested distilled water—the Crystal Palace supplied water to all who asked, free of charge.
When the waitress was gone he reclaimed Antoinette’s hand. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let go.
“Everyone thinks we’re lovers having a tiff,” he teased.
“Stop it.”
His eyes turned serious as they gazed intently into hers.
“I wanted to tell you the truth. Several times I began to tell you but for some reason it always went wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for forcing your way into my bedchamber?” she retorted, her color high.
His mouth curled up in his wicked smile. “No, not for that.”
“You tried to make me tell you where the letter was by…by physically assaulting me.”
“I wouldn’t call it that, darling. Besides, you assaulted me, if I remember correctly.” He frowned. “How did you manage that if you’re the respectable young lady you claim to be?”
She didn’t want to answer him, but she could tell he wouldn’t stop until she did. “There were some books in the library.”
“Books?”
“You know,” she hissed. “Books.”
“Do you mean the one about the sultan’s harem?” There was a glint in his eyes.
“Yes.”
“I’m impressed,” he said, his gaze dropping to her mouth.
The lemonade and water arrived, and Antoinette made a great production of sipping the cold, sweet liquid.
“So why did you carry on with matters when you weren’t the experienced woman I thought you to—”
Her glass thumped down onto the table. “I knew you were going to ask me that! I don’t know why. I just…it just happened.” But she wasn’t being honest and she knew it. Not being honest had got them into this mess in the first place.
Her hands tightened around the glass, and she stared fiercely into the pale lemonade. “Lord Appleby had already seen to it that my reputation was ruined and he was going to force me into marrying him. I wanted to fight him, to do something to spoil it for him. I used you, Mr. Langley, to revenge myself upon my abductor. It was as simple as that.”
Chapter 29
Gabriel was disappointed, although he hid it well—he was good at masking his feelings. He’d been hoping she’d say she made love with him because she couldn’t resist him, although he realized how foolish that was. Antoinette was trapped, frightened, and she must have seen the giving of her body as a way of taking control of the situation. What they did wasn’t about love, it was purely a physical attraction.
“I see,” he said. “Aphrodite has told me the story you told her, and you’ve just filled in most of the blank pages. The only question you haven’t answered is what you’re doing here in London.”
She gave him a wary look.
“We seem to be on the same side,” he said, watching as she took another sip of her lemonade. “Do you agree?”
“If you mean by being on the same side that we’ve both been wronged by Lord Appleby, then yes, we’re on the same side.”
“Then we need to help each other.”
“I don’t need your help.”
It was so patently untrue that he burst out laughing.
“Stop it, people are looking,” she said, glancing around. “What if Lord Appleby were to come by?”
“For his glass of lemonade and cream cake? Come, sparrow, let’s shake hands and be friends.”
She eyed his outstretched hand suspiciously.
“Remember,” he said slyly, “I wasn’t the only one pointing pistols at people. We’ve both been at fault. Now let’s put it behind us.”
She struggled a moment, but in the end her better sense won. She took his hand. Immediately he tightened his grip. Her eyes widened.
“Let me go!”
“I will. Tell me about this letter.”
A sideways glance under her lashes, flirtatious and wholly adorable. “If I tell you…”
“I can help you, Antoinette.”
“Let me go and I’ll think about it.”
He gave her the time she asked for. As she finished her lemonade he glanced at his fob watch, sighed, and leaned back in his chair, watching the patrons come and go from the refreshment room. The Crystal Palace was truly a wonderful thing, but just now he wanted to be somewhere else.
Preferably in bed with Antoinette.
The image made him smile. He embellished it further, imagining her mouth on his, and the little sounds she made when he was pleasuring her.
“Mr. Langley?”
She was looking at him oddly, and he realized she’d been speaking and he hadn’t heard.
“Please, call me Gabriel. We know each other intimately, after all.”
Her eyes narrowed.
He waited.
“Mr. Langley, I will now show you the letter you have been so keen to possess.”
“Possess. I do like that word.”
She ignored him, reaching into her sleeve with her fingertips, and drawing out a tube of rolled paper. Carefully she spread it out on the table, before handing it over to him.
Bemused, Gabriel bent his head to read.
It wasn’t at all as he expected. The letter was written by a woman called Miss Bridewell, and she was passing on information she had gathered from an acquaintance she’d just visited. She didn’t explain what the visit was about but she did give a name and an address.
Mrs. Miller is at 22 Jonah’s Lane, Lambeth. She has been a resident there for ten years. There may be restrictions on visiting her, but if you mention the name Orange you will be allowed in.
Gabriel finished reading the words and looked up at her, his eyebrows raised. “What does it mean? Who is this woman and why is her address such a secret?”
Before she answered, Antoinette took the letter back and rolled it up, returning it to her sleeve. “First I will tell you where this information comes from. Miss Bridewell is my governess and my friend. When Lord Appleby first came calling, she remembered the name from an acquaintance she knew from years ago, someone who was once Lord and Lady Appleby’s housekeeper, so she wrote to the woman to ask what she knew of him. The woman wrote back warning us against him. She wouldn’t say any more, so Miss Bridewell went to see her and persuaded her to tell us what she knew. You see, she was there when Lady Appleby supposedly died, only she didn’t.”
She looked up at him. “Mrs. Miller is Lady Appleby.”
“Lady Appleby…” His face grew very grave. “The Lady Appleby who is dead, or supposed to be? Do you mean…?”
“He locked her away once he tired of her. She was an heiress, too. If I can talk to her, prove she is who she is, then his name, his reputation, will be destroyed and my sister and I will be safe.”
>
“Have you been to the address in Lambeth?”
“Yes. The building used to be the Asylum for Misfortunate Women, but it burned down. The patients are scattered elsewhere in London and I don’t know where to look.”
“I’ll find her,” he said confidently.
Antoinette gave him a skeptical glance.
“I know someone who is very good at finding people. He’s married to my half sister’s maid…at least she was her maid, once. Marietta speaks of her as a friend these days. I’ll go and see him now.”
Antoinette heard only one word. Marietta. He’d spoken the name, that name he’d called in the night in his sleep. But Marietta was his half sister. She’d been convinced Marietta was his lover, a rival. Now she saw it was yet another mistaken belief that had kept them apart and suspicious of each other, when one question would have resolved the issue and saved her all that pain…
“Antoinette? Wake up, darling. Do you want to stay here, or will I escort you back to Aphrodite’s Club?”
Antoinette rose to her feet. “I will come with you.”
Gabriel smiled. “Good.” He held out his arm, and after a moment she took it.
Antoinette found herself watching him surreptitiously as they sat together in the cab, stopping and starting in the dreadful crush of the London traffic. She couldn’t help herself. The shape of his cheek, the curl of his hair, the way his mouth rested in a half smile, even when he wasn’t laughing. And his hands, strong and long-fingered. These were the hands that had given her such pleasure in Devon.
She missed the way he made her feel. She’d dreamed about him last night while she slept in Aphrodite’s Club. Her body was moving to his touch, heat curling in her belly, and it had been so real that when she woke she truly believed he was there with her. The sense of loss and disappointment she felt when she realized it was nothing but a dream was so painful that she curled up beneath the covers and wept.
She’d accepted then, alone in her bed, that she would never forget him. He would remain with her, a part of her, until she died. Such a realization was a depressing thing for a young woman of twenty years.