She smoothed her skirts, wishing she could so easily smooth away her emotions. Then she turned on him and prayed she looked cool and unaffected.
“Yes, I have received offers. Plenty of offers before yours.” She added the last to hurt him, but her sneer didn’t even seem to register.
He charged forward a step and Felicity’s body reacted against her will at the sight of this normally controlled man losing control in the face of her anger and refusal.
“And did you understand that your dowry was part of their suit? A reason for their offers?”
She folded her arms. “Of course.”
“Did you hate them for it?” he asked, voice now deceptively low.
“No,” she ground out.
“Then why do you hate me for starting out with the same reasoning, Felicity? Why do you shun me and judge me for the very same thing?”
She moved forward now, driven to her own brink and wanting to lash out. “Because I never wanted them to care!”
Her hand came up to cover her lips the second the words were spoken. Had she just admitted that?
Her eyes met his and she backed away step by step, retreating from the kindness, the gentleness, the surprise and joy that she saw in his stare.
When he spoke, his voice was calmer and more gentle. “I didn’t tell you about my financial position because I wasn’t proud of what my family was. And ultimately, to be honest with you, I forgot about your dowry. I forgot about the past. I forgot about making things ‘right’. I forgot about everything except for you.”
Felicity stared, as shocked by his admission that she had become such a part of his life as she had been by her own.
He reached for her, catching the hand she still held to her lips and drawing it toward his heart. When he pressed her fingers to his chest, she felt the steady, sure beat of his pulse.
“So take your blasted dowry, Felicity.” He smiled just a little. “Give it away for all I care. Donate it to that Widows and Orphans Society that is all the rage. Or spend it all on slippers and ridiculously expensive hat pins. Whatever pleases you. I’ll happily remake my own fortune.” His smile fell and his dark eyes grew serious. “But whatever you do with it, don’t use the money against me. Don’t make it an excuse. If you don’t love me, if you cannot ever come to love me, than simply state it now and I will cease all my pursuits.”
Felicity blinked up at him. “Do you-do you want my love?”
He seemed surprised that she would ask such a thing. His eyes went wide and the steady beat of his heart suddenly doubled. “I do. But I am not selfish. I ask for nothing I do not freely offer myself.” He pressed her hand more firmly against his chest. “My heart, Felicity. My soul. My life. My future. Do you want those things? For all the joy and heartbreak they may bring? You must be certain of me and of yourself. Because as much as I adore you, I cannot spend the rest of my life with you constantly questioning and accusing me.”
Felicity blinked. His words brought shame rushing toward her. She had been so unfair to this man from the very beginning. She had judged him. She had railed against him. She had denied him. And she had always kept some little part of herself from fully trusting him.
And yet, through it all, he had been nothing but kind to her.
As she stared up into his eyes, she knew what she would say. And she knew she would spend the rest of her life making all those things up to him. She’d spend the rest of her life loving him.
A tear she had been trying to keep him at bay now fell freely. She did nothing to swipe it away.
“You offer me your love. Your everything?”
He nodded.
She smiled and for the first time in years the expression went from her lips all the way through her soul.
“I love you, Gabriel. I did not want to, but it happened. And if you offer me your heart, then I take that precious gift. And I swear to you that I will spend the rest of my days endeavoring to deserve it. And to deserve you.”
“Felicity, Felicity,” Gabriel whispered as his mouth moved toward hers. “You deserve already every happy ending I will give you and more.”
A Woman Scorned
Chapter One
1823
In the sparkling social sphere of the ton, some girls had been born to play piano for everyone else’s pleasure. To stand to the side of the dance floor and watch while others spun around, laughing flirtatiously. To observe the faces of gentlemen fall, ever so slightly, when they were assigned as their escorts into a dinner or garden.
Despite being the daughter of a Duke, Lady Madeline Reynolds had always been one of those girls.
She was aware of it. In fact, she had become quite resigned to it during the seven long years since her coming out. She hadn’t really minded being a wallflower. She had a few close friends and pursuits that had nothing to do with the opposite sex. And her parents adored her. There would be no union thrust upon her, though she couldn’t pretend to be unaware that her entire family worried she would end a lonely maiden aunt, being traded back and forth between her two brothers and their future families.
Still, she had accepted that a great passion or a sweeping romance or even a little flutter of connection was out of her reach.
Or at least she had until she had a brief glimpse of what a life of something more would have been like.
When David Langston had swept her into a whirlwind courtship just two years before, she had thought, for just a fleeting moment, that she had met her match, her mate. And when he offered for her hand, she was beside herself with happiness. Enough so that she had been able to ignore the nagging feeling in her stomach that something was amiss with David.
If she hadn’t ignored that sinking sensation, she might have been more prepared when her father broke the engagement after discovering David was asking another girl, Jane Davenport, to be his mistress. And the final insult was that David was going to pay to keep his potential lover with Madeline’s dowry.
“You deserve more, duck,” her father had said, as gently and patiently and kindly as he always spoke to her. “I had to break the engagement on your behalf.”
And, of course, being a sensible girl, Maddie agreed. But nothing had been the same for her since. The scandal had been overwhelming and she had gone into seclusion for the remainder of that Season. The next had been nearly as bad. People whispered and clucked their tongues in sympathy behind her back. Whatever small pleasure Madeline had taken in the balls and parties and teas, and it was very small pleasure indeed, was gone. Lost forever, along with that piece of her heart that had secretly hoped for the happily ever after of her favorite fairy tales.
Ever since the best families retreated to their winter estates a few months before, Maddie had been dreading the next Season. She had found herself dreaming of those endless parties, but always she looked down to be naked or dressed in a clown’s vestments or something equally hideous, while the leering crowd blathered on.
But then, the light at the end of the tunnel had appeared in a very unexpected way. She had received a letter from her favorite aunt, Countess Serena Heatherton. Serena was breeding and after a difficult pregnancy had been ordered to bed by her doctor. Her aunt had asked Maddie to spend a few months at her side, forgoing the Season entirely.
And that was how Lady Madeline Reynolds came to be sitting not in the midst of a crowded, hot parlor while young women cast mournful glances her way or gossiped behind her back, but in the middle of a field of waving green grass, a book in her hand and a smile on her face for the first time in what felt like an age.
It was an engrossing tale, one her brothers called ‘one of her silly gothic romances’, with a dark and mysterious hero and a heroine who always seemed to be on the very brink of utter disaster.
“Silly girl,” Maddie murmured out loud to the wayward heroine. “Why do you always go downstairs in the middle of the night with no candle?”
She rolled her eyes ever so slightly. As much as the tales were riveting, she would ne
ver behave so shamelessly or so recklessly. No, she was quiet, dependable Madeline Reynolds.
With a start, she wondered if that was what would be engraved on her tombstone one day.
Quiet, dependable Madeline Reynolds. Maiden Aunt.
A sigh escaped her lips as she returned her full attention to her book. There was no use becoming maudlin over something that would never, could never change. She was what she was and life was what it was and she had learned to live with it. After all, there was a place in the world for sensible maiden aunts. She was just never going to be the kind of girl the heroine of her book was, or the sparkling diamonds of the first water of each Season were. She was never going to have an adventure or a great romance or…
“Great God, woman, look out!”
Maddie looked up just in time to see the huge black horse looming above her, its nostrils flaring and its eyes wide as its rider pull up hard on the reins to keep the beast from tramping Madeline.
With a scream, she released her book, vaguely aware of it flying through the air in one direction as she rolled the opposite way to avoid the horse’s strong, powerful hooves. Her scream only seemed to incite the animal further, for he twisted and turned, struggling against the guiding hand of his rider. Maddie watched in horror as the man above her lost his seat and went tumbling to the ground below while his horse galloped off toward the next hill.
Maddie scrambled to her knees and crawled across the few feet that separated her from the rider. He lay on his back, his eyes shut in unnatural slumber.
“Sir?” she asked, pressing her hand to a very strong shoulder and giving him a little shake. There was no response and Maddie swallowed hard as she leaned closer to see if the gentleman was still breathing.
“Sir?” she repeated, a bit closer to his ear as she shook him harder. Again there was no response. “Dear God, he’s dead.”
“I’m not dead,” the man who was now just inches from her face groaned, his warm breath stirring her hair. “But by God, every time you shake me it jars my aching head and I wish I were.”
Madeline released him with a start and leaned back as the man opened his eyes. Despite the situation, despite the fact that she should have been more concerned for the stranger’s welfare than anything else, she couldn’t help but catch her breath. The man’s eyes were the brightest, most beautiful blue she had ever seen. And they were situated on an equally handsome face. His skin was tan, darker than most of the men in her acquaintance and he had full lips. Ones she couldn’t quite stop looking at.
“So, little miss,” he asked as he ran a hand through his thick, black hair. He frowned as little pieces of grass fell away. “Do you mind telling me if you were trying to kill me, or was that only a happy accident?”
#
Nathan Blackstone’s head pounded and his backside was getting wet from the damp grass, adding insult to injury. Thank God he had already been to his appointment and was on his way home. He had learned long ago that when dealing with one’s betters, one always had to look his best. Otherwise, they would perceive the faults as weakness. And Nathan had never liked being weak.
He glanced over at the young woman who had caused this entire mess. Thank God he had seen her sitting the middle of the road, for the love of everything holy. He could have easily trampled her. Now that his heart was beginning to return to a somewhat normal rate and his head was only throbbing to a dull rhythm, he sat up slowly. Christ, that hurt. He rubbed the back of his neck.
She wasn’t anyone he knew. Not from around here, he guessed. Judging from her plain gown and the severe way her brown hair was styled, he had to assume she was a governess or perhaps a lady’s companion.
Whoever and whatever she was, she was staring at him, mouth open just the slightest bit and eyes wide with a combination of surprise and a little, tiny flash of annoyance. Though how she deserved to be annoyed, he couldn’t guess.
“Well?” he asked. “Was it attempted murder or just silliness?”
“I beg your pardon?” she snapped, scooting back from him.
He realized that the tantalizing scent of flowers had come from her skin, not the field around them.
“It was you who nearly trampled me, sir!” the young lady said, pushing to her feet. “I was sitting here when you came riding up like a demon from hell on that horrible black horse and destroyed my quiet reading.” Her face fell. “Oh, my book!”
She spun around and dropped back to her knees, searching through the high grass. With her back turned, Nathan couldn’t help but stare at the rounded curve of her backside that was offered up to him when she crawled around in her search.
Clearing his throat to push past a sudden fullness, he slowly got to his own feet. “She nearly kills me and she’s worried about her book.”
The young woman’s spine stiffened as she returned her attention to him. “Will you stop saying that! I didn’t nearly kill you, you nearly killed me.”
“How do you figure that? You were sitting in the middle of the road!” he snapped, quickly losing patience despite the fact that he couldn’t stop staring as his unwanted companion’s cheeks filled with hot blood, darkening them to a fetching pink.
She stopped blustering and tilted her head to the side. “The road? This is a field.”
Nathan shut his eyes and slowly counted to ten. Well, she clearly wasn’t from around here. “Miss, if you will look behind you, you will see that the grass is slightly trampled. Perhaps less than it usually is due to the recent rains. That trampling is due to the traffic that comes through this field. We locals call it the Dawson Field Road, named as such because the field has been tended by the Dawson family for five generations. And because it is…” he hesitated and quirked a brow. “A road.”
His companion sucked in a harsh breath as she looked down the hill over the stretch of field and the very clear demarcation where other travelers had gone before him. Her face was even pinker now and her eyes, which were a startlingly dark brown, were so wide that he feared she would strain herself by holding them in that position.
“Miss?” he said softly, moving toward her one step.
She dipped her head. “My apologies, sir,” she said as she turned toward him. “I had no idea, I feel so wretched. Are you hurt at all? Is there anything I can do to alleviate the pain?”
Nathan stared down into her uplifted face. She wasn’t the kind of girl one would describe as pretty. Her face consisted of strange angles and curves. But her eyes were exceptional and her mouth was quite fetching. He wouldn’t have thought it out of line to call her handsome.
And she was offering to help ‘alleviate’ his pain, which conjured up several rather naughty images he normally kept in check, especially around women whose names he didn’t even know.
Something he intended to change immediately.
“I am fine. And I am Nathan Blackstone,” he held out a hand. “I work for Viscount Marcus Fulton as his estate manager. You must be new to the area, what house do you work at?”
The young woman blinked, staring at his outstretched hand as if she wasn’t certain what to do with his offering. Her exotic dark eyes snagged his.
“What house do I work for?” she repeated.
Nathan wrinkled his brow. She looked confused by the relatively simply question. Was she, perhaps, a bit daft? What a shame that would be, for her eyes told of intelligence and wit bubbling beneath that starched surface.
“Yes, I assume you must work at one of the houses in the shire. You sound quite cultured, so I would wager you are a governess or lady’s companion. Am I correct?” he pressed. The answer to that question would certainly answer his unspoken one about her mental state.
She stared at him for a long moment and Nathan had the impression she was weighing her options of how to answer. But finally she nodded. “I-I am a companion to Countess Serena Heatherton.”
He hesitated, waiting for her to continue, but she remained silent, merely staring at him with that same wary expression that was
a combination of confusion and anxiety.
“And, er, your name is?” he prodded.
“Oh,” she gasped. “I apologize. It is L-Maddie.”
“Maddie.” Nathan smiled. “Well, now we’ve been properly introduced and I insist on walking you back to the Heatherton estate gate, once we have collected Quint.”
“Quint?”
“The ‘horrible black horse’ I was riding,” he explained. “I believe he only trotted over the hill there. He never roams too far.”
Maddie took a step back and her face had gone deathly pale. “I-I’m not sure.”
“He’s harmless, I promise you,” Nathan said, carefully taking her arm. She stared at his hand like it was from an alien species, but didn’t hesitate as he led her forward. “Like the two of us, he simply made a poor first impression.”
“I’m a bit frightened of horses,” Maddie admitted, her face darkening once again.
Nathan nodded. “Many are. They’re such big beasts. But I cannot leave him here along the road and I cannot allow you walk home alone after I nearly ran you down-”
“Due to my own stupidity,” she interjected.
Nathan cast a side glance at his companion. She looked utterly forlorn, judging herself for a mistake that had led to no permanent harm.
“Just lack of knowledge,” he corrected. “It isn’t exactly the same thing. Ah, there he is.”
Maddie stopped as he moved forward and caught Quint’s dangling reins. The animal whinnied a hello and trotted behind Nathan as he returned to Maddie’s side. She was still pale and trembling ever so slightly, but she held her ground as Nathan and Quint came to a stop.
“Quint, let me introduce Maddie,” Nathan said with a smile. “Maddie, Quint.”
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