by Shana Galen
Derring had put him in the servants’ quarters. Gideon didn’t know why that should rankle. Derring could have left him for dead. He could be crawling his way across the filthy ground floor of the Rouge Unicorn Cellar instead of this room, which smelled lightly of lemon and wax.
Gideon didn’t even deserve the servants’ quarters, but he didn’t like to be reminded of his station.
Far, far below Susanna.
“How is your sister?” he asked, stalling before he made the trek across the room again.
“Ask her yourself.” Derring moved aside.
Gideon’s world tilted, and when he righted it, Susanna stood in front of her brother, her face pale and her eyes wide. Seeing her beautiful and whole after the ordeal washed the last vestiges of pain away. He couldn’t feel anything but the pounding of his heart when he looked at her.
“You’re hurt!” She crossed the room in three strides and put her hands on both his arms. She smelled, as always, of flowers and clean linen. Her unbound hair tumbled in waves down her back, one curl falling over her shoulder and brushing lightly against his hand. A wave of desire slammed into him, and he staggered back against the wall.
“You should lie down. You’re not well enough to be up and about.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. He was desperate to touch her bare skin, kiss those pale pink lips. He flicked a glance at Derring, standing like a sentry. Gideon would never touch Susanna again.
“Another turn about the room, and I’ll have my strength back. Then I’ll be out of your house.” And your life.
“No!” She tugged him toward the bed, and he followed without thinking. “You must rest. You cannot possibly think to leave. Brook, tell him.”
Gideon raised a brow at Derring. “Yes, Brook, tell me.”
“The doctor says you need another two or three days to recover. You are welcome until then.”
Susanna pushed at his shoulders, lowering him to the bed. Gideon sat, wiping the sheen of sweat from his upper lip. “Forgive me if I’m eager to take my leave.”
Susanna glanced at her brother and then back at him. When her gaze met his, Gideon thought, Look at me. Only me.
“A moment,” she said to Gideon, holding a finger up.
She spoke to her brother in quiet tones. Derring shook his head, and Susanna’s rapid whispers grew more heated. Gideon would have listened, but without Susanna’s touch, the pain in his side returned and bloomed, blocking almost everything else out. He’d kill Beezle for shooting him, watch him dance at Beilby’s Ball, the noose tight around his scrawny neck.
The door clicked shut, and Susanna leaned against it. With a start, Gideon realized they were alone. “Isn’t your brother afraid I’ll ravish you if he doesn’t stand guard?”
“You’re in no position to ravish me at the moment, more’s the pity.”
Gideon jerked his head back. What the hell did she mean by that?
She pressed her hands against the door and filled her lungs. Her breasts, beneath the thin wrapper she wore, rose and fell, and Gideon realized, quite suddenly, her feet were bare. Her pink toes peeked from beneath the white hem, so clean and pretty.
“I was afraid you were dead,” she said.
“Not yet.”
“Brook told me you gave him the necklace. You never fenced it. Never left Town.”
Gideon didn’t speak. Three, four steps at most separated them, but it felt like a thousand. He wanted to hold her, bury his head in her hair, pull her down on the bed beside him and infuse himself with the warmth that would make him feel alive again.
“He wants to make you a Runner.”
“God knows he could use a good man.”
“Exactly.” A smile played on her lips. “So could I, Gideon.” She stepped forward, hesitated, took another step. He barely resisted the urge to hold his hands out to her.
“I’m sure the ton is teeming with good men.”
“I don’t want them.” She shook her head, knelt before him, and slid her hands into his. “I want you.”
“No.”
She placed a finger as light as a feather on his lips. “Yes. Marry me, Gideon.”
He grasped her wrist, pulled her hand away from his mouth. “What the devil is this? Another of your larks?”
She didn’t flinch at his harsh tone, merely brought her other hand up to wrap around the hand holding her wrist. “I love when you touch me,” she said. “You can’t know how much I’ve missed it.”
He released her as though she had burned him. “You’d better go back to your room.”
“Why?” She arched a brow. “If I stay, will you kiss me?”
“I might do a hell of a lot more than that.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “Good. That’s what I want—you, every day and every night. I know it’s not right or proper, and I know you don’t care about those rules. So I’m asking you to marry me. Please say yes.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about you since we parted. I love you, Gideon.”
“No, you don’t. I’m not the right man for you. I don’t deserve you.”
“You saved my life, more than once. You risked everything for me. I don’t deserve you, but I want you anyway. You must feel something for me.”
“That’s not it, Susanna.” He rose, flinching at the stabbing reminder of his wound. “The things I’ve done… I’m not worthy to marry you. Or anyone.”
“What have you done?” She looked up at him from her knees. “Took the pistol ball Beezle meant for me? Saved me from Dagger Dan? Found me food, clothing, a place to rest after I’d all but forced you to accompany me?”
“You didn’t force me. I wanted to go with you.”
Hope flashed across her face. “Why?”
He closed his eyes. “Do you want to know how I got this scar?” He brushed his hand over it, feeling the smooth, raised skin under the pads of his fingers.
“You told me. You fought a boy from a rival gang.”
“I was twelve, and the other boy a few years older. Satin caught him in our territory and brought him back to the flash ken. Told me to fight him.”
“And he had a knife?”
Gideon nodded. He could see the dark flash ken in his mind, smell the stench of it, hear the drip, drip of water from one of the corners. “Satin had either let him keep it or given it to him. Made the fight that much more interesting.”
“I don’t need to hear this.”
Gideon hauled her to her feet, held her wrists. “Yes, you do. This is who I am. I fought him, and when I stumbled, he held me down and cut me.”
Her face contorted with pain, almost as though she felt the agony of the knife slicing her own skin.
“Everyone cheered him on. There’s nothing quite like watching blood spilled. Watching a fight to the death. That’s what it was. He’d kill me, or Satin would kill him.”
A tear ran down her cheek, and her eyes filled with pity.
“I don’t want that.” He nodded at her face. “I don’t want pity. I don’t deserve it. You think I had pity for him? I pushed him off me, and the knife hit the floor.” He could still hear the thud when it landed on the packed earth. “I reached it first, and when he came for me, I plowed it into his chest.”
Gideon swallowed the bile that rose when he remembered the soft yield of flesh as the knife slid in, the warm gush of blood over his fingers, the tangy smell of it.
Another tear slid down her cheek.
“I drove the knife in and up, and when he went limp, I kicked him to the ground. That’s the man I am, Susanna. You don’t want me.” He released her and stepped away, the pain of memories and fresh wounds almost felling him.
* * *
Her heart broke for him, for the boy he’d been,
for the innocence lost. She needed to wrap her arms around him, hold him, whisper words of love to him. That would come later—she hoped. He’d allow it in time. He’d forgive himself in time.
“You’re wrong,” she said.
His gaze jerked to hers, and she read surprise and confusion.
“I do want you. I want all of you, Gideon. The good and the bad. I don’t care what you’ve done. All of that’s in the past. I know who you are now. I know who you can be.”
He stared at her as though she were half-mad.
“Don’t say no. Don’t say you won’t have me.” She took a chance and threw herself into his arms. He caught her, pulled her hard against him. Pleasure exploded like a firework in her heart. He did want her. He must.
“How can I resist you?” he murmured into her hair. “You break down my defenses.”
“You don’t need them with me.” She clutched him tightly, the pure joy of being in his arms again making everything else in the room, in the world, fade away.
“I’m not free to marry you. Beezle escaped, and he’ll come for me.”
She pulled back and met his gaze, her own expression concerned.
“Let me catch him. Let me prove to you I’m worthy by—”
She silenced him with a kiss. She’d intended it to be a quick kiss, but when she might have moved back, his immobile lips softened. Heat coiled through her when he parted her lips, dipped his tongue inside.
Breathless, she clung to him when they separated. “Don’t ever say that,” she managed through gasps of air. “You have nothing to prove to me. I love you for who you are.”
“I want to be better.”
“I spent my whole life trying to be someone my mother wanted me to be and failing miserably. I would never place that burden on anyone else. I want you. You, Gideon, as you are. I ask you again, take me as I am, marr—”
“No.”
Cold seeped into her, weakened her legs until she needed his arms to hold her. She tried. She didn’t know what else to say. She would lose him.
“You’re wrong about me.”
Tears blurred her vision. She should walk away now, escape before he saw her cry, before she began to weep.
“I do care about rules, and I won’t have you propose marriage to me.”
He released her shoulders and knelt, still holding one hand. Susanna swiped a hand across her face, unsure whether her eyes deceived her.
“What are you doing?”
“I love you, Susanna. Despite our differences, despite your fondness for mongrels and glim-sticks, despite the fact that you’ve made an honest—well, mostly honest—man of me.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. The joy spilled out of her.
“Lady Susanna, will you marry me?”
“Yes.” She fell on the floor, all but knocking him over with her embrace. “Yes.”
He kissed her, his lips soft and tender on hers, his hands circling her waist and moving up her back possessively. Yes. She wanted to belong to him, only him, now and forever.
A sound broke through the haze of passion, and she jolted when her mother appeared in the open doorway. Susanna sucked in a breath. “Mama.”
“I see I am interrupting.”
Gideon pulled Susanna to her feet. “Lady Dane, a pleasure to meet you again.”
“Is it, now?” She raised a brow. “Might I ask exactly what you were doing to my daughter?”
Susanna tried to speak, to save Gideon, but he silenced her with a wave of his hand. “I kissed her in celebration. She has just agreed to be my wife.”
Her mother’s expression didn’t change. Her thin lips remained pressed together, her eyes suspicious. “I do not think Susanna has the power to grant that request.”
Susanna bit her lip. She’d thought her mother understood, thought things had changed between them. Now she would have to marry without the countess’s blessing. She was not yet twenty-one, not of an age to marry without parental consent. How would they obtain the funds to elope to Scotland?
“You will have to speak to her father,” Lady Dane said.
Susanna jerked with surprise.
“Her father?” Gideon asked. “Mr. Southey?”
“Yes. Tell him you already have my approval. Tell him you wish to marry with all possible haste.”
Susanna ran to her mother, who opened her arms and hugged her tightly.
“This is not what I wanted for you, but I can admit now that I was wrong before, and I may be wrong now. And so I wish you every happiness, darling,” her mother whispered. “I hope you find as much as I have.”
“Thank you,” Susanna said with another hard squeeze.
“No, thank you. Because of you, I found love again.” Her mother kissed her cheek. “I couldn’t be more pleased, more proud of you, Susanna. Be happy and marry with my blessing.”
Twenty-one
He hadn’t lived to see their wedding day. Gideon Harrow had to die—rumor had it he’d been killed by a slug ball from Beezle’s snapper—in order for Dudley Dorrington to be born. Dudley Dorrington was a distant cousin of the Derring family from somewhere in Lincolnshire.
Or perhaps Nottinghamshire.
Dudley had cropped hair, a clean-shaven face, and a wardrobe full of fine coats, trousers, breeches, and blasted—no, bloody, because he spoke like the swells—cravats.
Dudley was an inspector for private hire by the very wealthy and very discreet. He also worked closely with the Bow Street Runners, often using Sir Brook’s office. So far he’d proven himself one hell of an inspector. Though he’d never been in London before, he had the uncanny knack for finding men and cargo in the rookeries. He might have looked familiar, but no one could quite place him.
Lady Susanna Derring had fallen in love with her distant third—or was it fourth?—cousin at first sight. They’d married as soon as the banns were called. And now, today, Dudley Dorrington was the husband of Lady Susanna.
Of the options offered by Sir Brook, Gideon had chosen the name Dudley because every time they were in public and Susanna was forced to call him Dudley, it made him smile. Who the hell named a brat Dudley? Gideon almost felt sorry for those coves.
And he didn’t mind at all that Susanna still called him Gideon in private. They would have ample time for her to use his real name now that they had wed.
Susanna said the wedding was lovely. Gideon didn’t know what the hell it was. He hadn’t even looked around the church. Easier to avoid the Earl of Dane’s and Sir Brook’s scowling mugs that way. Easier not to spot Corker and Dab loitering in the back of the sanctuary, or Des and Brenna sitting in the front. He didn’t know how the hell they’d heard about the wedding, and he didn’t want to know. He wanted only to survive this wedding breakfast and corner Susanna alone.
She’d looked stunning in her pale pink gown, the sunlight streaming through the windows behind her and lighting her hair until it seemed to shimmer with pale fire. Her large eyes had never left his face as her father, now Lady Dane’s husband, had placed her hand in his. He’d looked down at the white-gloved hand resting in his own gloved one. He’d thought about how he’d never owned gloves before. He’d thought about how none of that mattered to anyone anymore. She was his, and she didn’t care about gloves or titles or wealth.
Gideon supposed that was for the best. He would never be a wealthy man on an inspector’s salary. At least not what she considered wealthy, but Susanna said she was content to live modestly. Until he had saved enough to rent a flat of their own, they resided at Derring House. Gideon planned to earn the blunt he needed quickly—anything to escape the dour-faced Crawford and the gong summoning all to dinner.
After today, he’d sleep in Susanna’s room. Derring had him moved to a guest chamber after the betrothal had been announced, but Gideon found he felt more comfortable in the servants’ quarters.
He suspected he’d be most comfortable in Susanna’s bed—if the wedding breakfast ever ended.
“Not long now,” Marlowe whispered, pausing at his side.
Gideon gave her an innocent look, and she laughed. “I know you too well, Gid—sorry, I mean, Dudley. I can read your thoughts. You can’t wait to tumble her.”
“Why, Countess, I don’t know what you mean.”
Her blue eyes danced with merriment. “You always were good at aping your betters. The way I see it, she loves you exactly as you are.”
“Foolish mort.”
She smacked his arm. “Not at all. Now, off with you. Keep an eye on Des before he makes off with the silver.”
Gideon’s gaze cut to his friend across the room. Des was indeed eyeing a silver serving spoon with interest.
“Did you ever think you’d see Des Stewart and the Earl of Dane in the same room with a half-dozen thief-takers, and Gap and Tiny?”
“Can’t say I did. Can’t say I think any of them will ever be invited back again either.”
Des slipped the spoon into his coat, and Gap shoved Tiny back, sending him sliding into a footman whose tray of champagne toppled over.
“Susanna does try,” Marlowe said with a sigh. She put a hand on his chest to indicate he stay where he was. “I’ll take care of it. You go upstairs and find Susanna.”
“Upstairs?”
She winked at him. “Oh, didn’t you know? She’s in her room waiting for you.”
“And you waited this long to tell me?” he called after her. He all but sprinted from the room, not caring how eager that made him appear, not caring that the entire room probably knew exactly where he was going and what he would do. He cared only for Susanna.
Gideon knew which door was hers. He’d seen her maid come out of her room and scuttle down this hallway.
Gideon went straight to her door, knocked softly, and heard her call, “Who is it?”
“Me.” He looked nervously down at his shoes. “Gideon. Your husband.” He said the last loudly, in case one of the brothers was nearby. Brothers could be notoriously overprotective of their sisters. Best to remind them of his new status.
