by Amelia Grey
“I’m done here,” the earl said, sticking the pipe in the pocket of his greatcoat. “If my son’s wife is ever with child, I damn well want to be sure he is the father.”
Gabrielle gasped, and anger surged inside her. “You go too far, my lord.”
Lord Austerhill twisted his lips into a sneer at Gabrielle, turned, and stomped away.
“Wait,” her father called furiously to the earl’s retreating back. “You can’t leave. Where are you going?”
“To tell my son his wedding is off because his betrothed is…”
Gabrielle didn’t hear Lord Austerhill’s last words and was glad she didn’t. By the revulsion in his parting glance and the loud gasp from her father, she could imagine what he’d said.
“Damn you, man,” her father yelled and started after him. “This was not her fault, I tell you. Get back here!”
Lord Austerhill called to his servant, and the man immediately dropped his hold on the viscount and followed the earl until they disappeared into the mist.
Gabrielle’s father turned on her with rage. “By all the angels in heaven, what made you pull such a foolhardy stunt as this? I could imagine something like this from your sister, or even from your brother, but not you! You have always been my sensible daughter. Now look what you have done!”
Once again she retreated into silence. She had no answer for him.
“What in God’s name was going on between you two?” her father barked. “You have ruined everything! Do you know what you’ve done, the money this is going to cost me, girl?”
Gabrielle blinked at her father’s harsh tone. She had always known the wedding was for her father’s financial benefit and not her own happiness, but hearing him actually say the words pained her and, once again, her stomach quaked.
“Yes, Papa, I know,” she said softly, keeping her gaze locked on the viscount.
“Then explain yourself, Daughter. Have you no shame? By all that’s sacred, tell me why you agreed to meet him.” Her father threw a finger toward the viscount.
“It wasn’t planned. It just happened,” she said, knowing it was the truth but also knowing it didn’t explain anything. There was no logical answer for what she had done.
“Really?” her father asked in an incredulous voice as he threw a glance in Lord Brentwood’s direction. “Do you expect me to believe you woke before daybreak and decided you were going to take Brutus for a walk in the park and, by chance, you happened to meet a stranger, embrace him, and end up kissing him by accident?”
Yes, that is exactly what happened.
“After more than nineteen years of living with me, just how big a simpleton do you take me for?”
What she had done to her father was horrible for a well-behaved daughter; what she had done to the viscount was unforgivable. She feared there was no way she could make it right for any of them.
For the present, Gabrielle saw no way out other than capitulation. She lifted her shoulders and chin, and said what she knew her father wanted to hear. “I’m sorry for the distress I’ve caused you, Papa. Though I never intended for this to happen, I’m without excuse.”
“Yes, you are!” he said, anger rising in his tone again. “And now I’m left with the task of sorting all this out! If there is any chance of salvaging this engagement, the only way will be if I give more lands than were exchanged in the betrothal agreement, not to mention everything else we had worked out. With the wedding date just days away, funds, lands, and business ventures have already been mingled. It will take our solicitors weeks to sort it all out.”
Gabrielle stiffened. Salvage the engagement? Marry the earl’s youngest son, knowing he and her sister were in love? She couldn’t.
“No, Papa. I will not marry Staunton.”
“Nonsense,” he said gruffly. “You will, if I can talk him and his father into forgiving you.”
All thoughts of capitulation vanished. “It’s not nonsense. I’ve never wanted to marry him. You and his father arranged this marriage for financial profit, not for any love between Staunton and me.”
“Love?” His lips thinned in exasperation. “What is that, Gabrielle? Of course the marriage was for money. There’s no such thing as love. I should have known it was a foolish notion that brought you out to the park this morning to meet that man. It’s just as well you learn here and now that whatever it is you think you feel for him it isn’t love, and it has nothing to do with what makes a good marriage.”
No such thing as love? Did she believe that?
Maybe, yesterday. Maybe, before she saw the passion between Rosabelle and Staunton. Maybe, before she kissed Lord Brentwood and felt those wonderful stirrings of desire down in her soul.
Gabrielle looked toward Viscount Brentwood again. He was tall and lithe for such a wide-shouldered man, walking with far more ease than she would have anticipated considering what had happened to him. She expected him to be seething with uncontrolled anger like her father and Lord Austerhill, but when his gaze locked onto hers, all she sensed from him was a deep burning to know why.
A shiver of awareness slithered through her. He seemed to consume her with his dark eyes as he drew nearer. The way he looked at her played havoc with her breathing. She felt flushed and out of breath, as if she’d been the one running and in a struggle. A seeping warmth settled low in her stomach, an unwelcome warmth. That feeling had caused enough trouble already, and she wouldn’t give in to its comfort again.
The closer he came to them, the faster her heart beat, and not from fear of reprisal, but from very raw, very real attraction. There was a jagged red scratch on his cheek where his face had been shoved against the ground. His black greatcoat fell open and hung off one shoulder. His top hat was missing, and his thick, light brown hair was mussed and fell carelessly across his forehead. Despite all the recriminations she’d heard from her father and Lord Austerhill, she wanted once again to wrap her arms around Lord Brentwood’s strong, broad chest and feel his full, sensual lips on hers.
She couldn’t comprehend the reason she was so affected by him.
Lord Brentwood and the servant stopped in front of Gabrielle and her father. She was supposed to be making final preparations for her wedding next week and, instead, she was staring into the intense dark brown eyes of a stranger that were asking questions she knew she couldn’t answer.
That old eagerness to please stirred inside her. She wanted to take a step toward him, plead with him to forgive her, but something in the quiet way he looked at her made her remain where she was.
In a voice much less emotional than she was feeling, she said, “My lord, I assured my father this was not your fault.”
A brief moment of surprise flashed in his eyes before they turned dark and stormy again. She could see that he wrestled with something deep inside. Was it loathing for her, or for her father and the footmen who tackled him?
“I don’t need you taking up for me, Lady Gabrielle.”
She threw a cautious glance toward her father, surprised he was letting her talk to the viscount. “But I must,” she protested. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
His gaze stayed on her face, as if he was taking careful note of her every feature. “Really?” he asked quietly. “None of it?”
Stunned by what he asked, Gabrielle sucked in a hasty breath. He was reminding her of their passion. Her cheeks heated. He was seducing her right in front of her father, and she was powerless to stop him.
“Please don’t,” she managed to whisper softly so only he could hear, before saying in a stronger voice, “You must know I didn’t want this to happen.”
His eyes turned quizzical. “I don’t know that.”
“How could you not?”
“Because I don’t know what games you are playing, Lady Gabrielle, and I don’t know why you chose to involve me in them.”
“There is no game. You are just an innocent victim.”
The viscount drew back suddenly as if she had struck him below th
e belt. “I am no one’s victim, my lady.”
“No, of course, you’re right. I only meant I’m sorry you were treated like a common criminal just now.”
“Nevertheless, I willingly made the bed, and I will lie in it.”
Her stomach clenched at the implication of his words. “I’m not sure what you mean by that,” she said, though she feared she did.
“I will do whatever I must to make this right for you.”
She blinked rapidly. Merciful heavens! He was too blasted calm about all this. He was making her crazy. “What is right for me? You are the one who was wronged.”
“That is not up to us to decide,” he said, glancing toward her father.
“Indeed it is not,” her father chimed in as if on cue. “And I’m glad to hear you are going to be sensible about this debacle. But, of course, the first thing I intend to do is see what can be done to save her engagement to the earl’s son.”
Lord Brentwood jerked toward her, the fierce glare from his eyes cutting her as if it was a sharp knife. “You’re betrothed?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know of this?” her father barked.
“I didn’t,” Brent said tightly, keeping his hot gaze on her face. “I’m new to London and hadn’t heard.”
“I’ve heard of you,” her father said. “Your brothers are the talk of the clubs and scandal sheets.”
The viscount grimaced but said nothing.
Gabrielle swallowed past a thick throat. She, along with everyone else in town, knew about his twin brothers’ resemblance to the well-known and well-liked Sir Randolph Gibson. The scandal sheets mentioned them every day.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Of course, I should have told you I was to marry the Earl of Austerhill’s youngest son next week,” she admitted, knowing how terribly awful that made her sound after the way she had thrown herself at him.
Anger seeped into the viscount’s face, and from between tightly clenched teeth, he said, “Next week? And you didn’t see the need to let me in on that important detail about your life a little earlier?”
Her emotions were frayed. No answer she could give would satisfy him, so she simply said, “It didn’t seem relevant at the time.”
Lord Brentwood’s mood changed quickly, and he took a menacing step toward her. Brutus growled a warning. The servant’s hands clamped tighter around his arms and held him back as he said, “With you betrothed, tell me, what the devil were you doing kissing me?”
“That’s what I have been trying to find out for the past ten minutes,” her father added brusquely. “And it’s past time for one of you to tell me!”
Gabrielle’s gaze shifted from Lord Brentwood to her father and back to the viscount again. They both demanded and deserved answers.
Heavens above!
Surely there was something she could do other than tattle on her sister? But what?
Three
Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.
—Eddie Rickenbacker
Gabrielle paced in front of the window in the drawing room of their Mayfair home. Her faithful companion, Brutus, slept peacefully on his giant pillow in his favorite spot near the softly burning fire.
She kept reminding herself she was a calm, rational, and sensible person, even though her actions earlier that morning disproved that fact. Most of the shock of everything that had happened had worn off, and Gabrielle was feeling stronger and more capable of dealing with the crisis she’d created with her uncharacteristically impulsive and scandalous behavior in Hyde Park.
Staring at her father and the viscount, she became so emotional that, for a moment, she was on the verge of spilling all and telling them about Staunton and Rosabelle’s romance and deception when, thankfully, they’d heard someone approaching them in the park. Her father told Lord Brentwood they would talk later. He had then grabbed her arm, quickly whisked her to his waiting carriage and back home where she had been ever since.
After telling her he’d deal with her when he returned, he had left immediately to see Lord Austerhill. Her father desperately wanted to undo the damage she’d done by being caught in a compromising embrace with Lord Brentwood. In the hours since he’d been gone, Gabrielle didn’t care what kind of agreement her father might reach with Lord Austerhill, she would never marry the earl’s son.
She was over the shock of Rosabelle and Staunton’s love for each other and was thinking more rationally about that, as well. If the two of them truly loved each other, wasn’t it her duty to try to make it possible for them to be together? Just because Gabrielle had been willing to settle for a loveless marriage in order to be the obedient daughter didn’t mean Rosabelle must, too.
She was glad she hadn’t had to face her sister since she returned home. It wasn’t yet past noontime. Rosabelle was a late riser and always took an enormous amount of time with her toilette in the mornings.
With little more than a year’s difference in their ages, Rosabelle had always been very competitive with Gabrielle, but she never minded and often would let her sister win if they were playing cards or other games. To please her sister, Gabrielle had even postponed her debut at court a year so she and Rosabelle could debut together. They had always been close, sometimes talking until the wee hours of the morning about friends, books, beaus, and clothing. That is, until recently. Gabrielle had noticed her sister had been avoiding her. She had thought it was because Rosabelle was upset to see her leaving to have a home and family of her own. Now Gabrielle knew the real reason.
A shiver shook her. Gabrielle couldn’t even think about how dreadfully awful it would have been if she had married Staunton and then learned of her sister’s love for him.
Gabrielle heard the rear door open and stopped in front of the window. That must be her father. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her hands into fists. She willed herself to be courageous and strong. She had learned long ago how to reason with her temperamental father, and she had to do that now. It was best to be patient with him, let him have his say, and then calmly make her point. Slowly, her hands relaxed. Her eyes opened. She took a long, steadying breath.
In the past, it had always helped her to think of the worst that could happen and then come up with a solution. What exactly could her father do to her for her indiscretion? She supposed the worst thing he could do would be to try to force her to marry Staunton. She had already decided she’d never do that. So the next worst thing would be if she were forced to marry the viscount. That was almost as objectionable as marrying the earl’s son.
Almost, but not quite.
If she acquiesced to that, she would not only be agreeing to another loveless marriage, but she would be ruining Lord Brentwood’s life, too. She couldn’t do that to him.
She had to give her father another option. She would ask that he send her away to one of his many estates. She knew from gossip that each Season more than one young lady was sent to the country to live for a time. Some returned to London and Society, and others preferred to stay in the country.
Gabrielle had always loved the hustle and bustle of living in London. She loved riding in the parks, walking the streets, and looking in shops. She loved going to Vauxhall Gardens, the opera, and on the few occasions her father had allowed, to the theatre. She would probably be lonely in the country for a time, but with enough books to read, needlework to stitch, and her painting, she would find a way to cope and fill her days.
Her father’s voice drifted down the corridor. He was talking to Mrs. Lathbury, a short, rotund woman with a soft voice, who was frightened of her own shadow. She was the latest in a long string of housekeepers who had managed the duke’s Mayfair home over the years. Her father had never been an easy man to work for, and turnover in their staff occurred frequently, certainly more often than Gabrielle would have liked. She was only six when her mother died giving birth to her only son, Ellis, who was currently finishing his studies at Oxford. Gabrielle had often
wondered if her father would have been a kinder, softer man had her mother lived longer.
A few moments later, she heard the duke stomping down the corridor. Listening to his heavy footfalls, Gabrielle knew he was heading straight to his book room, which was opposite the music room.
Gabrielle wished she didn’t have to have this discussion with her father, but there was no way around it. And she wasn’t going to stand around worrying, fearful, waiting for her father to come to her. She was going to him to determine her fate.
She waited a reasonable amount of time and then squared her shoulders and headed that way. She stopped at the doorway to the drawing room when she heard Brutus moving behind her.
Looking back at the dog, she saw him half standing, struggling to lift his back legs and get them moving. “Stay,” she said and held out her hand. “You’ve done enough walking for today.”
Brutus made a low growling sound in his throat, as if to argue with her his right to go, as he continued struggling to stand.
“Stay, Brutus,” she said more firmly. “Down.”
Brutus stopped but continued looking at her with big, soulful eyes, panting heavily, as if hoping she would change her mind.
“I’m only going to the book room to see Papa,” she said gently, not wanting him to think she was scolding him. “There’s no reason for you to disturb yourself. Now be a good boy and lie back down on your soft pillow.”
Seeing he wasn’t going to win this battle, Brutus eased back down onto his bed with a groan, laid his head on his front paws, and stared at her with a sorrowful expression.
Gabrielle felt as if a cold hand gripped her heart. She knew the cold of their morning jaunt had seeped into his old bones and sapped a lot of his strength. It was heartbreaking to know her big brute of a dog and faithful companion could no longer climb the two steps by himself to get into her father’s coach. Muggs had struggled to help lift his hind legs and get him into the carriage. Brutus’s age was showing more and more as each day, week, and month passed.
She smiled lovingly at Brutus. “That’s my good boy. I’ll be back soon.”