by Amelia Grey
“It’s true you have nothing to fear from me, but alas, I cannot be your chaperone.”
She stepped closer, though for half a second he had the distinct feeling this confident young lady was suddenly uncertain. But the thought vanished when she surprised him by reaching up to touch the side of his face. Even though she wore a cotton glove, he felt heat and gentleness in her hand, and he caught the intoxicating scent of rosewater on her skin.
“You seem a kind and decent man.” She hesitated, and then drew a deep breath. “Forgive me,” she whispered.
She rose on her toes and placed her lips on his. Brent was stunned by her action, but as her body leaned into his and her lips pressed against his, surprise was replaced by an intense and immediate feral desire to possess her, which he struggled to control.
Her lips were soft and warm despite the chill of the morn, and he was lost to her tender kiss. It took a moment before it filtered into his brain that she wasn’t really very good at kissing, though she was trying hard to play the seductress. That simple fact made her all the more intriguing and desirable.
When her arms wound around his neck and her lips parted, Brent dropped Prissy’s leash and drew her gently into his embrace. Though he had no idea why, this woman was obviously serious with her intentions, and his body could no longer resist her attempt at seduction.
Brent coaxed her lips farther apart and tasted the warmth of her mouth, teasing her with his tongue. He slid his hands inside her cape and around her waist to the small of her back and felt her feminine softness. She gasped into his mouth when he brought her tightly against him. She was slender, yet very womanly melting into his arms. Beneath her wrap, his hand roved up and down the sensuous curve of her small waist and gentle flare of her shapely hips.
He couldn’t believe how wonderful and sweet her pliant lips felt beneath his. A rampant hunger sprang up inside him, and he deepened the kiss, letting his mouth cover hers more fully, frantically seeking her inner depths. She matched his hunger as if she had been yearning just for his touch. His hand moved up her rib cage to settle over the soft, tempting swell of her breast, and his insides quivered at how delicious she felt. Beneath his hand, her chest heaved with each determined breath, each skillful caress. A soft, involuntary whimper passed her lips, and her arms tightened around him. Her fingers dug into the thick fabric of his greatcoat.
Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he heard Prissy barking again, but the sound barely registered. The little creature was always barking at something. Brutus woofed a couple of times, but there was no way he was leaving the golden-haired beauty with the enchanting blue eyes who had walked freely out of the mist and so amazingly into his arms.
Brent reached up and pushed her cloak away from her shoulders, letting it fall to her back, giving him more freedom to touch her supple body as he desired. His lips left hers, and he kissed his way down the slender column of her neck, past the tied, corded sash that held her cape on, to where a bit of lace at the neckline of her dress teased and tickled his cheek and chin.
“Gabrielle!” a man shouted.
“Unhand her, you scoundrel!” another man bellowed.
Startled, Brent released her. A button on the sleeve of his coat caught on the lace at the neckline of her dress and ripped it as he stepped away.
In the blink of an eye, Brent saw four men charging toward him. Two of the men were well-dressed gentlemen, and the other two were wearing servants’ garb. He glanced over to his seducer. Her eyes held firmly on his. He expected to see fear or maybe regret in their depths, but what he saw was guilt.
Guilt?
Surely not, but the expression on her face told the tale. She wasn’t frightened of him or the men barreling down on them.
Had she planned this?
Was it possible that barely a fortnight in London and he’d already been caught in a parson’s mousetrap by the conniving, sweet-smelling hand of an angel?
While it was true he had planned to look for a comely, well-suited wife while in London, he had no intentions of being leg-shackled by anyone he didn’t choose.
“Sirs, I’m Viscount Brentwood,” he said as the men skittered to a halt in front of him. “I assure you this is not what it looks like. I was not attacking this young lady.”
“Lord Brentwood,” the taller of the two gentlemen said, “I am the Duke of Windergreen, and I assure you, I saw you kissing my daughter!”
A duke’s daughter! Blasted hell!
He didn’t know what kind of wretched plan was in that lovely head of hers, but he knew how powerful dukes were. This little scheme of hers could easily land him in Newgate if he wasn’t careful.
Brent turned to face the bewitching young lady, who still stood close to him, and whispered, “You did this deliberately, didn’t you?”
Her blue eyes rounded in horror. “No, of course not. How could you think that?”
“Right now I’m finding it very easy to think that.”
“Explain yourself, Brentwood,” the duke demanded.
Damnation!
He turned back toward her father. What could he say to the duke? That his daughter was the one who had kissed him? Would the duke believe him or even care that this lovely young angel he called Gabrielle was the one who initiated the kiss?
Somehow, Brent thought not.
In the dark recesses of his mind, Brent realized he heard Prissy barking again. It wasn’t her yappy, irritating bark or her snarling growl at blowing leaves. It was a painful whine.
Brent tensed again. Something had happened to his mother’s dog.
He glanced down. It wasn’t the mastiff giving her trouble. Brutus stood quite innocently beside his mistress.
Prissy cried again, a piercing screech of alarm as if something had hold of her. Brent’s mind went blank, and without thinking about consequences, he bolted toward the sound.
“Catch him!” Brent heard the duke shout behind him, but he kept running toward the dog.
But not much more than a few steps farther, he was slammed to the ground from behind, a heavy body landing on top of him.
Brent grunted and winced. He struggled to throw the man off his back as a beefy hand shoved the side of his face into the hard, wet ground.
“Stop!” he yelled. “I’m not running away. I hear my dog. I need to go to her. She’s hurt.”
“Sure she is, my lord,” the servant muttered above him as he pushed Brent’s face harder into the cold, rocky earth. “And I have a manor house in Kent, too.”
What a hell of a mess he was in. Something was wrong with his mother’s dog, and he’d been caught in the park at daybreak kissing a duke’s daughter.
“Damnation,” he rasped into the hard ground.
No wonder his mother had always said it would be a cold day in hell before she went back to London.
Two
Never mind your happiness; do your duty.
—Will Durant
Gabrielle’s heart jumped to her throat. Panic threatened to overwhelm her.
She watched in horror as her father and her fiancé’s father yelled at their footmen to catch the retreating viscount. Heavens above, she didn’t blame him for running away. If she were him, she’d be trying to get away too!
He thought she had deliberately tried to leg shackle him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
She only wanted to kiss him.
Gabrielle knew her father and Lord Austerhill occasionally enjoyed a smoke, a talk, and a long early morning walk in the park. But she had been too consumed with her own troubles to even consider that they might be in Hyde Park this chilly morn.
Heavens above, what had she done? But, of course, she knew the answer to that.
With a brief squeeze of her eyes, she tried to blot out the image of seeing her fiancé and her sister wrapped together in a passionate embrace in a dimly lit corridor where the Autumn Ball was being held. She feared that scene would be forever etched in her mind. How had she missed their love for ea
ch other? She had always considered herself so discerning, so intuitive, but obviously not when dealing with matters of the heart.
With what she witnessed, a different young lady might have thrown herself out a window or across her bed and cried like a fool, but Gabrielle had never been a fool… other than being foolish enough not to notice her fiancé and sister were in love. This, in turn, had made Gabrielle wish for a window. Instead, she had grabbed her cape and her faithful dog Brutus and had gone to the park and thrown herself at a gentleman!
What in heaven’s name had she done?
Watching the servants chasing after Lord Brentwood, she had to wonder if the window might have done less damage.
She didn’t know what madness had come over her, but when she’d seen the tall, handsome man standing in the swirling mist, for a moment she couldn’t breathe. He was beautiful, regal, nearly otherworldly, which could be the only reason she had forgotten all about this world and approached him. When his gaze had drifted down her face, she’d felt a quickening of something wonderful skimming along her breasts and then sailing inexplicably to the lowest recesses of her abdomen. Just remembering how she had felt when he looked at her brought the elusive sensations tingling back into her body, feelings she’d never experienced when her fiancé had looked at her.
In the distance, the sound of a body being slammed to the ground, followed by a loud grunt, cut off everything but her own distressed gasp. With a wince, she turned to see her father’s footman sprawled on top of the viscount, and Lord Austerhill’s servant pressing the innocent man’s face into the ground. Queasiness filled her stomach, and Gabrielle thought she might be sick. She swallowed past a thick throat and steeled herself for the backlash she knew wasn’t far away.
Brutus sensed her distress and nudged against her hip with his body, growling low in his throat. Out of habit, she reached down, and with a pat on his big head, assured the dog she was fine. He reached up and sniffed her hand.
“What in the name of Hades are you doing out here with that man?” her father demanded. Grabbing her upper arm, he turned her around to face him. Brutus growled again, but her father paid the dog no mind.
Feeling as if her breath was trapped in her chest, and unable to move, Gabrielle stood in mortified silence, staring at the two enraged men glaring at her. The raw fury in their faces spoke of dire consequences and suddenly rendered her speechless.
“Gabrielle!” her father said more sharply, squeezing her arm.
Her father had always been a short-tempered man, but he had never touched her—in kindness or in anger. She hated disappointing him, but there was no changing what had happened. She calmly took hold of her father’s wrist and removed his clenched hand from her arm before Brutus decided to attack. That would prove a bigger disaster than she was facing right now.
“It’s clear we’ll get nothing out of her,” Lord Austerhill spat, not bothering to hide the contempt he felt for her. “As I suspected, she is too filled with guilt to speak.”
“No, Lord Austerhill,” Gabrielle said, struggling to pull herself together. “I am not afraid to speak. There is simply nothing I have to say about my presence in the park.”
Her father shook with uncontrolled rage. “You better have something to say, young lady, and you can start by telling me what you are doing out here alone with that man.”
“I believe we saw what she was doing here, Duke,” Lord Austerhill argued. “What I want to know is why, when she is to marry my son a week from today.”
How could she tell her father she had enticed the viscount because something about him drew her, and she wanted to be kissed the way she saw her fiancé kiss her sister last night? How could she admit to Lord Austerhill she wanted to experience the unbridled passion she saw on her sister’s face when his son had kissed her? Though one look at her father’s thin lips, not to mention Lord Austerhill’s bulging eyes, let her know she didn’t want to tell either man the truth. Besides, how could she explain to them what happened when she was as astounded at what she’d done as they were? No, it was best to remain silent and let them think what they wished.
Gabrielle had never been a witless ninny who was led by fanciful dreams of romance and feminine emotions. She was calm, sensible, and never flustered—until today. The truth was, she had never done an impetuous thing in her life. She was her father’s oldest child. She was dependable, rational, and obedient. That was why she had accepted the practical, unemotional marriage her father had arranged for her in the first place. That was what those of her kind did.
Or so she had always believed. Now she wasn’t so sure. After what she experienced with this viscount, this stranger, Gabrielle had to wonder if she had only buried feelings of passion and desire in order to please her father.
But, what in heaven’s name had come over her this morning to make her throw all of her upbringing away and want to be kissed and held in the arms of a handsome stranger? What was there about Lord Brentwood that had awakened the wanton desire she’d felt when she looked at him?
“Speak, girl, speak,” her father demanded again.
“Have you absolutely nothing to say in your defense?” Lord Austerhill snapped.
Gabrielle was forced to ignore her father and the nobleman. She had no answer. She felt as if her whole life had suddenly shifted, and she didn’t know herself.
She glanced back at the man on the ground. She watched in horror as the two footmen struggled with Lord Brentwood. No matter what her father or the earl thought about what they witnessed, she was the reason the viscount was being manhandled like a common footpad, and it was her responsibility to help him.
Suddenly, Gabrielle was not concerned about her father’s ire, herself, her sister, or Lord Austerhill’s son. She was appalled to watch the handsome viscount dragged unceremoniously to his feet, his hands held firmly behind his back by the servants.
She turned to her father. “Papa, tell Muggs not to hurt Lord Brentwood. What happened was not his fault; it was mine.”
Her father’s jaw was set with rage. He was a rigid man, straight as the blade of a soldier’s sword and just as hard. In his younger days, a mere glance from him could send a shudder through the household staff, and her younger brother and sister racing to hide beneath their beds.
“I’m not the least concerned whether Muggs hurts the man. He can kill the scoundrel for all I care. And for your information, young lady, when a man puts his hands on an untouched maid of quality, it is never her fault as far as I’m concerned. The blame is always with the man, though the girl is always the one punished.”
“Notice whom her concern is for, Duke,” Lord Austerhill remarked scathingly. “Did you hear her say one word about how this shameful act of betrayal she’s committed is going to destroy my son?”
Gabrielle smothered an angry retort about his son by pressing her lips tightly together. Her ill-advised words of concern for Lord Brentwood didn’t sit well with the earl or her father and wasn’t going to help the struggling viscount.
“Clearly, your daughter has been carrying on an affair with this man behind my son’s back with secret assignations.”
Gabrielle gasped. “That is not true, my lord. I haven’t,” she said earnestly, and immediately wondered if letting them know this was the first time she had ever met the man made her seem more a wanton doxy than if she and Lord Brentwood had been long-standing lovers.
Apparently her fierce denial did nothing to salve the earl’s rancor. His bushy gray eyebrows rose with skepticism, and a nervous tic worked each side of his wide, sneering mouth.
Indignation dripped from his words as he said, “That is not what it looked like to me. You two seemed to know each other very well indeed, considering the way you were wrapped in each other’s arms, with your lips locked together as if you were trying to swallow each other. Your torn gown and gaping cape were falling off your shoulders.”
No longer able to hide the turmoil churning inside her, a shiver of outrage shook her. Gabr
ielle gasped so loudly Brutus growled a warning.
Gabrielle’s chin lifted defiantly. “Lord Austerhill, you owe me an apology. My gown was never off my shoulders.” She looked down at the bodice of her dress and winced inside when she saw the delicate lace that had edged the neckline of her dress was torn free. Hastily she added, “A bit of lace was ripped away from the fabric when it caught on the button on Lord Brentwood’s sleeve. That is all.”
“Ha!” Lord Austerhill shouted loudly. “As if any of that matters anyway. Tell the story any way you like. It won’t change what was going on here or the outcome it has now created.”
Resentment and anger at the man’s pompous attitude festered inside Gabrielle. She was the one who had been wronged by his son carrying on a tryst with her sister. Gabrielle opened her mouth to protest and tell the man the ugly truth she had discovered just hours ago at the ball at the Great Hall, but caught herself. Accusing his son would mean telling on her sister, as well, and while Gabrielle wanted to strangle the impetuous Rosabelle for her deception and betrayal, she couldn’t risk ruining her by telling Lord Austerhill and her father what had been going on between Rosabelle and Staunton.
“Now see here, Austerhill,” her father stated firmly. “That is enough of that kind of talk. There has to be a reasonable explanation for what we witnessed.”
Austerhill took the bowl of his pipe and knocked it quite firmly against his palm, sending ashes fluttering to the ground. Somehow, Gabrielle knew the man was telling her that, to him, her worth was no more than ashes to be trampled beneath his feet.
The earl looked up at her father with steely eyes and a grim expression. “Maybe you need clarification to satisfy your questions concerning your daughter’s actions, Duke, but I do not. My son is not going to marry a woman who was caught alone with a man for any reason. All I can add is I thank the saints in heaven I found out what kind of person she is before she married my son and became his wife.”
“Austerhill. There is no call to get—”