by Dare, Tessa
He laughed a little.
“It was so unnerving.”
“I can only imagine.”
“But wonderful. Looking back, I don’t think it was lust at first sight. It was trust at first sight. I felt safe with you. All those firsts that I believed had been stolen from me . . . With you, I got them all back. I took them back, on my own terms. I only wish I could go back and help recover all the firsts you missed, too.”
“I’ve had some firsts of my own. First time being sneezed on by a Highland steer. First time playing midwife to a goat. First sham sandwich. That was a last, as well.”
She poked him in the ribs. “You are terrible, and I love you.”
He reached for her, cradling her cheek in his hand. “Hearing those words was a first.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But it won’t be a last.”
And because she knew he wouldn’t take the lead tonight, she leaned forward to kiss him.
Her kiss was sweet and searching. Gabe wasn’t certain how to respond. He didn’t want to refuse her, but he’d be damned if he’d press her one touch further than she wished to proceed. So he let her take the lead, making himself open to everything she wanted to give—even when she kissed and caressed his body with a tenderness so foreign to him, he wasn’t certain he could have borne it for anything less than love of her.
She hiked the hem of his shirt and shrugged out of the dressing gown he’d given her. They peeled away all the layers until they were both fully naked, and from there it was the simple, beautiful inevitability of joining. Clasping, holding, moving together in an unhurried rhythm that nonetheless quickly brought them to the brink. Her fingernails bit into his shoulders as she shivered and cried out with release. As he raced toward his own climax, she held him close, forbidding him to leave her embrace. He surrendered to the temptation, spending inside her with a primal, possessive joy.
Afterward, she snuggled in his arms. “You don’t need to save my reputation, but I hope you know you’re going to undermine your own. Long engagements and weddings in St. George Hanover Square? Not terribly ruthless or intimidating, Mr. The Duke of Ruin.”
“I’m not going to undermine my reputation,” he said. “I’m going to destroy it, thoroughly. For you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I love you so dearly for it.”
He was going to give her everything. Even if it meant living in her world, among the aristocrats he despised, choking back his pride and resentment.
The Duke of Ruin died here today, in her arms. And Gabe wasn’t entirely certain who he’d be going forward, but he knew one thing. He would be her husband and protector. And he would never allow anyone to hurt her again.
Along that line of thought, he had best return her to her house before morning broke.
“I need to see you home,” he said. “The last thing we need now is for a neighbor across the square to see you tiptoeing from my house to yours at dawn. Courting scandal at this stage would only give your family reason to object.”
“I’m tempted to argue, but I won’t.”
“I’ll check the corridor,” Gabe said. “We don’t want Mrs. Burns surprising us again.”
“She wouldn’t tell a soul.”
“Perhaps not, but she might scare the soul out of me.”
As Gabe ventured into the corridor, he paused and held his breath. From down the way, he heard the creak of floorboards. As he moved toward the sound, a ghostly figure appeared in the distance.
Gabe shook himself and rubbed his eyes. “Hammond?”
The architect’s silvery hair stood at wild angles, and he was clad in only a white nightshirt. On one forearm, he balanced a tray of food. He had a bottle of wine tucked under his other arm, and a pair of wineglasses clutched in his free hand—the source of the clanking, Gabe presumed. The man was sweaty and breathless.
“What the devil is going on?” Gabe asked.
“Devil, indeed.” Hammond leaned over his tray to whisper. “I finally learned the truth about Burns.”
“Brilliant,” Gabe muttered. “I thought you’d ruled out ghost, witch, and vampiress. What’s left?”
“The woman’s a succubus.”
“What’s a succubus?”
“A female demon.” Hammond’s eyebrows lifted. “One who feeds on sexual pleasure.”
“Well, then. I am exceedingly sorry I asked.”
“Gerard, is that you?” The sultry, smoky female voice came from within a nearby chamber. “I’m waiting.”
“Good God. The enchantress calls.” Hammond backed his way into the bedchamber, tray and wine in his hands. “If I’m dead in the morning, bury my corpse with a stake through the heart.”
Numb with shock, Gabe returned to his own bedchamber.
Penny lifted her shoulders in question. “Well?”
“I have good news and bad news.”
“Let’s have the bad first, please.”
“The bad news is, I’ll never, so long as I live, wipe the past two minutes from my memory.” He scratched the back of his head. “The good news is, tonight we’re in the clear.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The morning of the ball was so frantic with preparations that when Gabe met Penny at the door, he didn’t even trouble with greetings.
“Come.” He took her by the hand. “I have something for you in the study.”
When he closed the door behind them, she blushed and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Er, Gabriel . . . I really would love to, but my hair’s just been washed and pinned, and I’m down to my last few wearable frocks.”
“I’m not after that,” he assured her. “Not that I’d mind it, of course. But it’s not my intent to bend you over the desk for a passionate tryst . . . today.” After taking a moment to chase that tempting image from his brain, he patted the chair behind the desk. “Sit.”
Gabe opened a strongbox hidden in a cabinet and withdrew a large, flat velvet box. He placed the box on the desk blotter, inordinately anxious. “Go on, then. Open it.”
She lifted the top and peered inside. “Oh, Gabriel.”
He moved behind the chair, looking over her shoulder at the sparkling array of rings. Diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald . . . every precious gem he could think to request at the jeweler’s, and a few he hadn’t known existed.
“I thought you’d prefer to be surprised, but I didn’t trust myself to choose one you liked. So I simply bought them all.”
“They’re exquisite.”
He waved off her praise. “None of them are fine enough for you.”
“I don’t need even one ring so grand, let alone a tray of them.”
“Too late. They’re all yours. Wear them all at once, if you like. Or designate one for each day of the week.”
She pried a ring from the velvet padding—a pale pink diamond set in gold and ringed with smaller sparkling stones. “I always did love pink.”
“Try it on.”
Penny slipped the ring on her third finger. She held her hand at a distance to admire the way the stone flashed in the light.
“It’s beautiful.” She rose from the chair and kissed him. “Thank you. I love it.”
He exhaled, relieved. “Good. Now let’s have it back. I’ll lock it up for safekeeping.”
She held her hand close to her chest. “Must I take it off?”
“Yes, you must. We’re not engaged.”
She arched one golden eyebrow and smiled. “Yet.”
Good God. He didn’t know where her faith in him originated—dropped off by pixies floating on the breeze with toadstool parasols, most likely—but at this point, he didn’t bloody well care. If he pulled this off, he would be either the most cunning bastard in England, or the luckiest. Probably both.
Pouting a bit, she twisted the ring off her finger and dropped it into his hand. “We’ve agreed to marry each other. Bended knee or not, that seems to meet the definition of a betrothal.”
“It doesn’t meet my definition,�
He replaced the rings in the safe, taking his time to be certain the strongbox was locked securely.
When he was finished, he turned to see Penny crouched on the floor, surrounded by scattered papers and correspondence. Papers she was never meant to see.
“Gabriel, what is all this?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I can read.” Clutching the papers in both hands, Penny shook her head. “You’re planning to ruin my family.”
Penny hadn’t been meaning to snoop, but as she’d risen from the desk chair, she’d knocked the papers to the floor. When she crouched to retrieve them, she saw her own name. It was a betrothal contract.
She scanned through the first few pages, feeling entirely justified in doing so. This would be her marriage, too. Apparently, he’d made several drafts. Just like the rings, he’d prepared for every possibility. Why hadn’t he consulted her?
And then, at the bottom of the pile, she found an agreement that wasn’t drafted in her name. It bore Bradford’s name, and it wasn’t a betrothal contract.
It was a betrayal.
“You were never meant to see those,” he said.
“Oh, I can imagine I wasn’t,” she replied.
She certainly understood why Gabriel had kept these papers from her view. The reason was inscribed in black ink on crisp parchment, legible and stark, defying her to hope there could be any misunderstanding.
The truth was plain, and it was a dagger to her heart.
“This says you’ve purchased a loan from the bank. A loan taken against my family’s property.”
She lifted her head and found Gabriel staring back at her. His expression was inscrutable.
He didn’t even attempt to deny it. “Yes, I did.”
“That mortgage was drawn for the purpose of farmland improvements. It was meant to help tenants through the lean harvests, keep them from starving. Now you’re threatening to call in the debt unless my brother agrees to our marriage?”
“No, no. You’re misunderstanding.”
She rattled the contract at him. “It’s right here, in plain language.”
“I’m not threatening to call in the debt. I’m offering to forgive the debt entirely. In exchange for your dowry.”
Her jaw dropped. “That’s supposed to sound better?”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “It was meant as a last resort, to be used only if he wouldn’t give his consent. Call it insurance.”
“I call it insulting. Because that’s what it is. You planned to do this without my ever knowing? I’d blithely go about telling everyone how devoted we are to each other, and all the time my family would know the truth. That I was purchased.” She let the paper slip to the floor as she stood. “When you said you insisted on doing this ‘properly,’ I had no idea this is what you intended.”
“Don’t make so much of it. We both know how aristocrat marriages work. No matter which man you married, your dowry would be a legal transaction.”
“Yes, of course,” she said bitterly. “Because what man would marry me without financial inducement.”
“There’s no financial inducement on my part.” He gestured at the papers. “I’m not even coming out ahead. The amount of your brother’s loan is far greater than your dowry. I’d be losing money on you.”
The words hit her like pebbles winged by a cruel schoolboy.
He swore. “That came out worse than I intended.”
“I certainly hope so. This is a nightmare.” She retrieved the papers and ripped them down the center, shearing them in half. Then she took the halves of the sheets and slowly tore those into even smaller pieces. That still wasn’t enough. She kept up her grim, methodical shredding until the pieces became bits, and the bits became snowflakes.
“My solicitor has copies of those,” he said.
“I don’t care. It was satisfying anyhow.”
He came around the desk, closing the distance between them. “Your brother is never going to agree to our marriage unless some form of leverage is applied. Did you have a better idea?”
“Yes! Here is my wild idea. I will tell him that I love you with all my heart, and that I wish to spend the rest of my life with you. And if he says no, we’ll marry without his blessing.”
He took her by the shoulders. “Think about what you’re suggesting. Your family would shun you. Everyone will say you’ve been ruined.”
“I don’t care what anyone says.”
“Well, I care. I care what people say about you. What they say about us, our children. Penny, I’m telling you—”
“Telling me? I thought a proposal involved asking me. I fell in love with you partly because you respected my choices, on everything from my dinner to my engagement ring. Suddenly, you’ve become an autocrat.”
He sighed wearily. “I’m trying to protect you. I’ll do whatever is required to keep you from becoming a scandal, even if that means taking matters into my own hands.”
“What does that mean?”
“If your brother knows how we’ve spent the past few weeks, I’m sure he’d agree we must wed.”
Oh, Lord. Her stomach knotted. “You would tell him I’m ruined.”
His expression was hard.
“Soiled in the eyes of society,” she went on. “Worthless. That he has no choice but to bless the match, because how could anyone else ever want me.”
“You know I don’t see you that way.”
“But you are willing to let my family see me that way, and then use that to your advantage. After everything you know of my past, I can’t believe you would stand here and even suggest such a thing.” She wrapped her arms about the hollowness in her chest and hugged tight. “Everyone warned me not to trust you. All my friends. I refused to listen.”
“You knew my reputation from the first. I never claimed to be anything else.”
“I suppose you didn’t. I was naïve enough to fall in love with you anyway.”
“Maybe you didn’t fall in love with me,” he snapped. “Maybe you fell in love with a man who doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe you don’t truly love me at all.”
She waited for him to contradict the statement. Assure her that yes, he loved her beyond anything. Instead, he released her and passed a hand over his face. “You’re emotional. Fatigued. You should go home and rest.”
“I’m going home, but not to rest. I’m going to pack my things. You’re right, perhaps it’s time I reached out to my family. I can leave with Bradford tonight.”
“Penny, wait.”
“No,” she said. “I’ve waited long enough. I’ve lost ten years of my life to secrets and shame, and I refuse to surrender a single day more. Not even for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“MRS. ROBBINS! MRS. ROBBINS!”
Delilah—the bird who couldn’t learn “I love you” after a thousand repetitions of the phrase—had learned to mimic this instead. The parrot had the poor housekeeper running all over the house.
Penny rose from the bed where she’d been moping all afternoon and dragged herself down the stairs before Mrs. Robbins could take the trouble to climb them.
When she arrived downstairs, however, she found the drawing room stacked with boxes. Small boxes, large boxes, hatboxes. In the middle of them all stood Emma.
“Surprise!” Emma spread her arms, gesturing toward the boxes with a tacit voilà. “Your wardrobe has arrived. I told you it would be finished in time. A full complement of frocks and underthings for daily wear, two evening gowns suitable for the opera or the theater, gloves and heeled slippers to match—and of course, your gown for the ball. I can’t wait to show you everything.”
“Don’t bother.” Penny removed a stack of boxes from a chair and numbly sat down.
“What?”
“Leave them boxed. It will save me the trouble of repacking them when I leave.”
“Oh, no. Did your aunt refuse to help you?”
Penny shook your head.
“Your brother, then. He won’t change his mind?”
“It’s not my family. It’s . . .” Tears pressed to her eyes. “Emma, I feel like such a fool.”
Penny broke down and told her friend everything. Everything. From Cumberland and secret dancing lessons, all the way up through the contracts and heartbreak. She condensed a great many of the details by necessity, but she held nothing back.
By the end, the two of them were side by side on the divan, each of them dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs. Even Delilah gave a mournful whistle. Mrs. Robbins brought a pot of comforting tea.
Emma embraced her. “Penny, dear. I am so sorry.”
“I don’t know what to do. You all attempted to warn me, and I thought I knew better. I believed he was good inside, at his core. I thought that he would set aside these ruthless vendettas once he came to believe that, too. My judgment failed me.” She sniffed. “I ought to have known it when he insulted my sandwiches.”
“You weren’t a fool,” Emma said. “You trusted your heart. And to be honest, I’m not convinced your heart was wrong.”
“Were you listening to anything I said?”
“I know. What he did was horrible. I’m not excusing him for it. But men do nonsensical things when they’re in love, and they become perfectly idiotic when they’re afraid of losing it. Don’t be too hard on yourself. The good qualities you saw in him do exist, even if he’s allowed them to be vanquished by fear or anger. No one is entirely good or entirely bad.” Emma took her by the hand. “You look for the best in people. It’s one of the qualities I most admire in you. You’re so brave.”
“I’m not brave.”
“You have more courage than anyone I know. Even having been hurt so deeply, you persist in opening your heart time and time again.”
“To kittens, maybe.”
“To people, too. Me, for one. I’ll never forget how you invited me to tea the very week I married Ash. We’d never even met, and no other lady of the ton would have acknowledged my existence. A seamstress turned duchess? Somehow you understood how desperately I would need a friend.”
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