by Lauren Smith
Sybil pushed through the web blocking her path, a nearly invisible, dense strand of intricately woven webs, and hurried down the trail. She kept her parasol at the ready—just in case something larger than an eight-legged critter stepped in her way.
It only took a few moments—less than twenty paces—and she entered the small clearing, shielded by large bushes on all sides. The crunch of carriage wheels and light conversation floated on the spring breeze, but she could decipher none of the words. Just as if someone heard her speak, they would not be able to identify her voice or intuit what she said.
Anticipation coursed through her as she spun in every direction. The area was not large, there was no place to hide. Unmistakably, the small clearing was empty except for Sybil.
Pain gripped her chest at the same time sorrow shredded her insides.
She was too late.
The note had said noon. The midday hour had come and gone with Sybil attempting to outwit her trailing maid. She glanced up, but the shrubs stood so high they blocked the overhead sun. The time must be after one at least—an hour later than Gideon had bid her meet him.
Did he think she did not wish to speak with him after he failed to call on her the day after Mallory’s birthday celebration? Certainly, Sybil had been angry and disappointed; however, that did not mean she would turn him down. There was still so much she didn’t understand about the last year: why he’d left her, why he’d returned, where he’d been, and, most importantly, where did they go from here.
Had Gideon returned to renew their courtship, or only to give her a sense of closure?
She needed to know before her brother forced her to make a decision about the Duke of Garwood. He’d come to meet with Silas and had made it known that he was willing to wed Sybil and make her a duchess.
Willing to wed…yes, Silas had confirmed that was how the duke had phrased it.
As if she were a woman who needed others’ pity.
As if she had no other recourse for her future.
He was willing to wed her.
The duke did not love her. There was no affection or even tender feelings between them. He would provide her with a home, an adequate allowance befitting a duchess, and in the future, a family. Any other debutante would have gladly accepted Garwood’s offer of marriage.
But Sybil was not a debutante…and she’d known true love.
She’d tasted passion so strong her thighs quaked at the mere thought of it.
She’d had a desire sparked so hotly within her that the proposal of a loveless, passionless marriage of convenience held little appeal to her—less than little appeal. Absolutely, unequivocally no appeal.
She hadn’t lied all those months ago. Even if Gideon were a blacksmith or a merchant’s younger son, she would still love him. She would willingly give up the life she knew as the sister of an earl to be with him. The notion of raising a family in Cheapside or moving closer to the port area did not frighten Sybil because Gideon would be with her. He would protect her, care for her, and make certain they had everything they needed to survive.
That much she was certain of, if nothing else.
Yet, her faith in Gideon did not diminish her irritation.
Footfalls sounded on the path, leaves crunching under heavy boots as someone came toward her.
Had she been spotted ducking down the narrow trail? Was someone coming to see about her well-being?
The last thing Sybil needed, the very last thing her brother would endure, was another scandal.
It seemed her name—and that of her brothers—was forever linked to one scandalous escapade after another. Sybil had been mentioned so many times in Lady X’s gossip column Silas had stopped berating her about it nearly three months prior. It might have had to do with his first mention in the sheet when he was turned away from Mr. Caruther’s Shop due to Slade’s mounting debts with the proprietor.
“Hello?” Sybil called down the shadowy path. If it came to it, she would claim she’d stumbled upon the trail unknowingly and taken it, becoming quickly lost. Then she would beg the intruder to show her the way back to the walking path. She’d bat her eyelashes and flash her most genuine smile if need be. “Hello. Please announce yourself.”
When the footfalls continued without slowing, Sybil backed farther into the clearing. Not that it would save her if the person were bent on harm or scandal.
When Gideon stepped into view, she exhaled sharply.
Twice in as many days, she’d thought the worst of a situation, and both times, it had been Gideon who appeared. Peculiar that in both instances she’d been expecting him but feared it would be someone else entirely.
He took in her appearance from head to toe. “Were you expecting another?”
“Of course, not,” she retorted. Her relief fled, and her ire returned. “It is only that I could not escape my maid for some time. I thought I was late, and you’d be gone already.”
Gideon crossed the clearing, and Sybil waited for him to take her into his arms, pull her close, and gaze into her eyes. He’d done it so many times in the past that she could feel his strong arms around her. It had been a very long time since anyone held her—or made her feel loved and wanted. However, his hand did not reach to capture her. Instead, it tugged at her hair.
“Ouch!” Sybil batted his hand aside. “Whatever are you doing, my lord?”
When he raised his hand for her to see, he held a stick, complete with green leaves, between his fingers.
Sybil’s face heated with embarrassment.
“You also have dirt on your cheek, and your skirt has a snag.” A smug grin pulled at his lips, and he dropped the stick to the ground. “I suppose I should have surveyed the area before requesting that we meet here.”
“Neither of us could have known,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, a year does not seem enough time for such growth.”
Sybil would not admit that the time he’d been gone felt closer to ten lifetimes to her.
“All the same, thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you’d get my note…or agree to meet.” He stumbled over the words as his stare darted about the clearing. Gideon had never been an arrogant lord, yet neither had his confidence ever been lacking. This uncertain man before her was not the Lord Galway who’d left her all those months ago. He was different—unburdened but far from lordly.
How could a man raised in the upper crust of London society somehow lose his aristocratic air?
He was Gideon, the man she’d pledged to love until her dying breath, but at the same time, he wasn’t.
“What happened, Gideon?” Sybil asked, her stomach twisted when his expression drew serious. Any hint of a smile was now gone.
“I requested an audience with your brother and attempted to call on you, but I was turned away,” he admitted.
“Not now. I mean…what happened while you were gone?” Sybil watched him closely. If he wouldn’t speak of it, at least she could gauge his emotional responses. “Was it another woman?”
She’d sworn never to verbalize her greatest fear, that Gideon had left for another woman. Briefly, there had been rumors that he’d cried off and fled London to be with another. Lady X’s scandal sheets had blamed Sybil for his disappearance and called into question her standing as a lady of impeccable decorum and morals. It had nearly been enough to have Sybil requesting to journey back to Paris to live with her mother.
Gideon closed his eyes, turning sharply away from her. “Would it be easier to accept if it were?”
“Yes.” No. If it were another woman who’d stolen him away, then it would only lead to Sybil doubting everything they’d ever shared—and the continued question of why he was back.
“I wish I could give you that answer, but…” His words trailed off.
It wasn’t about another woman. He hadn’t left her because someone else had captured his heart. There was a small measure of comfort in that, at least.
“Do you plan to leave again?”
“No, but n
ot everything is within my control.”
“What does that mean?” Sybil stamped her foot, and her knuckles turned white from her grip on the parasol. “I’ve grown tired of your riddles.”
“I would offer you the world if I could. However, I do not seek to disappoint you again.” Gideon pivoted and walked back toward the overgrown path. For a brief moment, Sybil feared he was leaving her again, that she’d spoken out of turn, and he was walking away. Turning back, he stalked through the grass carpeting the ground. “I can speak with Lichfield again. Request an audience and plead for forgiveness.”
“I’m not certain that is wise, Gideon.”
“Because of Garwood?”
Sybil shrank back at the name. Gideon knew of her courtship with the duke. She could see the hurt and betrayal in his stare.
“You were gone for over a year without a word,” Sybil whispered. “There was gossip—“
“Yes, that I’d taken up as a pirate or made off to Gretna Green with another woman.” He ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair, leaving it delightfully disheveled. “My favorite, I must say, was the report that I’d turned into nothing more than a common highwayman, terrorizing coaches from Dover all the way to Bath.”
Sybil shook her head back and forth. “I never thought ill of you; however, I was also not certain you’d return. My brother, he—“
“Wants the best for you.” Gideon halted before her, his eyes searching hers. “I have always wanted the best for you, as well. I thought it was I, but now…I cannot be so certain. Do you love Garwood?”
A bitter, stilted laugh bubbled up from deep inside her, filling the space around them with a crude sort of irritation. “How can you even ask that?”
“I must know, Sybil,” he demanded, grasping the parasol from her hand a bit too forcefully and tossing it to the ground. “I needs must know where your heart lies. With me, or with this duke. I will not harbor any ill will toward either of you if you’ve found love in my absence, but I must know the truth.”
Sybil wasn’t prepared to speak on any matters of the heart, mainly because it was not only her thoughts that were confused and conflicted. Every inch of her knew she loved Gideon, yet why disclose it aloud if it led to further agony?
Guarded. That was how Garwood knew Sybil; however, she hadn’t always been that way.
Once, she’d loved openly and freely without fear.
It was not so anymore.
* * *
* * *
GIDEON STARED DOWN at Sybil. His Sybil. Kind, compassionate, with a hellion streak as long as the road to Edinburgh. His nights were filled with sweet dreams of her, held tightly in his arms. His days were unending hours of longing.
The long months without her had been torturous.
He’d never known her to do what was expected. And now was no different. He needed her to reassure him that things had not changed in his absence—that she loved him, and their affection for one another could flourish once more.
Sybil was not cursed with a tendency for hesitation.
It was what Gideon admired most about her. She knew what she wanted when he so often questioned his every decision.
“Sybil?” Gideon despised the begging note in his tone.
Leaving her as he had was wrong. He’d known it at the time; however, he’d thought the news was yet another wild goose chase, as all the ones before it had been. Two or three days away…that was how long he’d expected to be away from her. Enough time to journey to Dover, check on Giles’ information, and return to London.
“The last year has been the hardest of my life,” he confessed. More difficult than even those first few months after Charles was taken and Gideon had returned home to admit to both his father and Charles’ sire what had taken place in London. Charles was gone—taken—and Gideon hadn’t any idea where. “I truly long to tell you where I’ve been, what I was doing, and why I needed to stay away. However, I cannot speak of it yet. Just know that I thought of you…survived every moment away because I knew that one day I would come home to you.”
Gideon ran his finger along her cheek, reveling in the feeling of her soft, warm skin against his.
For the briefest of moments, he thought himself too weak to keep his secrets from her. He could confess everything and know she would not breathe a word to anyone. Did they not hold many secrets between them?
Just as quickly, though, doubt set in. If he told her of his race across the country to rescue Charles, the many months spent moving from place to place as they eluded the hunters who trailed them, he would be putting her in danger. He and Charles had only retuned to London once they were confident they’d shaken the men following them; however, they couldn’t hide forever. If the hunters learned of Gideon’s identity, they would come to town and stop at nothing to take Charles back in order to collect their bounty—and his friend would be lost. Forever.
No, he couldn’t speak a word of it to anyone until there was confirmation from the Admiralty Court. The paperwork that would ratify Charles’ freedom from the press gangs. Making it so he’d never again need fear for his safety.
Until that day came, Gideon was sworn to secrecy.
“Gideon,” she said, stepping back from his touch. “I must go. Esther will likely call for the watchman if I am away for another moment.”
“Don’t go. Please.”
“I must.” Sybil collected her parasol, brushing away the leaves that clung to the delicate lace fringe.
“Allow me to make amends, even if you do not seek to renew our courtship.”
“I will speak with my brother,” Sybil said. “He will see the error in turning you away from our home.”
Why was Sybil willing to go to such lengths to mend the relationship between Gideon and her brother? It was Gideon’s place to rectify the situation, not hers. “That is too much.”
“Do you love me, Gideon?” Her brow arched high as if she expected him to hesitate as she had.
“Of course,” he confessed, throwing his arms wide. “I love you with everything I am.”
She nodded, her decision made, though Gideon was uncertain what she’d silently debated.
“I will come to you after I speak with Silas.”
“I will meet you—“
“No, I will come to your house.”
“You cannot.” Gideon vehemently shook his head. It was too risky for Sybil to be seen at his home—scandal notwithstanding. What if the impressment hunters had tracked Charles and Gideon to London? What if the Admiralty Court sided against Charles and came to collect Gideon as a treasonous man?
“Why ever not?” she demanded, her annoyance flaring once more.
Bloody hell but he’d missed her, far more than even he realized. She challenged him, pushed him to the limits of society’s edicts, and had him questioning even his own decisions. How could he turn her away?
“Please, Sybil.” Gideon closed his eyes to banish the images of Sybil arriving after nightfall on his stoop. She’d ask to enter, and he’d be helpless to refuse. “Things are not what they once were. We are no longer a courted pair. All of London is abuzz with news of your coming betrothal to another.”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the man’s name aloud.
“It was not my decision to encourage Garwood’s interest.” Sybil pushed past Gideon toward the trail leading back to the walking path. “Nor will I entertain the courtship any further, my lord.”
Without another word, Sybil started down the path, using her parasol as a walking stick as she jabbed the pointed tip into the ground, matching the stomp of her booted feet. Gideon might have been amused with her display of irritation, perhaps even called her back to make things right; however, it was not within his power to right anything.
He could not confess where he’d been all these months.
He could not tell her why she could not come to his home as she’d done so many times before.
He could do nothing but promise his love for her, and pray
that one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, he would be free to explain everything.
The upward tilt of her chin as she marched out of view sent a shiver of unease coursing down Gideon’s back. If there was one thing he’d learned about Lady Sybil Anson, it was that when she set her mind to something, her determination knew no bounds.
Gideon counted the long seconds until half an hour had passed since Sybil fled.
No matter what Sybil said, Gideon was aware that Lord Litchfield had an aversion to scandal, and if Gideon sought to court Sybil once more, it would serve him well to keep both his name and Sybil’s above reproach.
Sybil had courted scandal more times than she’d had suitors.
But her ruination would not come by his hand.
Chapter 5
The lady loves a scandal. I assure you, my dearest readers, nothing can be closer to the truth about the Earl of Lichfield’s sister. Many say it can only be attributed to her upbringing in France. After all, the French certainly have a way with theatrical wiles. Why ever would Lady Sybil put an end to the Duke of Garwood’s courtship unless she had hopes of Lord Galway coming to heel?
* * *
~ LADY X, 30 March 1816
* * *
“YOU CANNOT DO this, Silas,” Sybil shouted, the windowpanes rattling in their casing. “You are a brute, a scoundrel, a beetled-headed buffoon!”
“Sybil,” Lady Lichfield hissed, setting her wine goblet on the table next to her. “That is not necessary.”
Despite her sister-in-law’s admonishment, Sybil kept her narrowed stare pinned on her eldest brother where he sat behind his desk, a fortunate place for him to rest else Sybil was likely to throw a punch at his perfectly sculpted jaw. The room spun around her, the warmth of the hearth heating her skin as the pungent aroma of cigars burned her nose.
Silas scrubbed at this face before lifting his stare to hers, his expression mirroring Sybil’s narrowed glare. “You gave me no other option.”