“If you don’t mind, children, I’d rather you had this argument when we were safely away from here,” Gabrielle interrupted the two bickering giants who stood either side of her.
“Sorry, darling.” Jonathan smiled charmingly.
Andrew rolled his eyes and muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath.
They were an infuriating pair, but terribly charming with it.
The sound of approaching hooves brought both men to instantaneous attention. Gone were the affable rogues; in their place two highly trained, dangerous men who were out to catch their man. Or men, as the case may be.
“You were right, Gabrielle,” Andrew whispered, his attention focused on the street they’d just turned off. “This must be the meeting point.”
“Of course I was right,” she replied smugly. “But we won’t achieve anything by chit-chatting here.”
“Let’s go then,” Andrew responded.
Before Gabby could move, however, a strong hand reached out and gripped her arm.
She sighed wearily before Jonathan even spoke then turned to face him.
“Is there any point in me asking, nay begging, you to stay here?” he asked.
“Do you think there’s any point?” she countered.
“It would be less safe to leave her alone,” Andrew said, and though Gabby appreciated his defence of her joining them, she wasn’t thrilled that he acted as though she weren’t even there.
“I don’t want her around guns,” Jonathan answered over her head.
“She’s a spy, Jon. It comes with the territory.”
“I’m aware of that, Ash. I just—”
“If you ladies are quite finished bickering, can we get on with the assignment?” Gabby interrupted irritably.
Andrew grinned and nodded his agreement.
Jonathan, however, merely raised a brow, and the expression on his face caused Gabby’s heart to gallop more than any perilous assignment ever could.
“Lady?” he said softly, dangerously.
“Well, it did seem as though you’d rather settle in for a coze with your friend than actually do something. My mother was the same,” she responded sweetly.
Without warning, Jonathan’s armed shot out and snaked around her waist, lifting her clean off her feet.
“Shall I prove my manliness to you, darling?” he asked with a wicked grin.
Gabrielle paid no attention to Andrew’s complaining and claims of feeling violently sick. Paid no attention to the danger that lay just around the corner. Paid no attention to the rain soaking her. All of her attention, every inch of her being, was focused on the man holding her in his arms.
“You might have to,” she responded wickedly before his lips captured her own.
Gabby thought she could die right then and be happy. Little had she known that someone else had the same idea for her.
“Much as I’m enjoying the show, we do have a job to do.” Andrew’s grumpy tone eventually penetrated the haze of lust surrounding Gabby, and she reluctantly pulled her mouth from Jonathan’s.
He lowered her to her feet with a growl of frustration that sent her pulse fluttering all over again, though it had yet to slow much.
“When this is over, I’m taking you somewhere that nobody will be able to speak to us, interrupt us, ask us to work, or even find us,” he promised.
“Well, let’s get it over with then,” she responded with a wink.
His laugh, slightly strangled though it was, followed her round the corner of the alley, Andrew and Jonathan coming swiftly in her wake.
She should have known, had known really, that something about the scene before her was off.
For one thing, there had been only a solitary figure standing in the street when Gabrielle arrived on the scene. And he was waiting for them, by the looks of things.
What should have been a meeting between a British informant and the Frenchmen she’d been watching for the past few months was just one man, with one horse tethered nearby.
They should have turned and run right then, but who could have thought one person would be a threat to any of them?
From that second on, time seemed to slow for Gabrielle.
She watched, almost detachedly, as the lone figure raised a hand. She watched yet did not move as she spotted the pistol in his hand.
“Miss Dumas,” he said pleasantly with a nod, as though pleased that she had arrived.
From seemingly far away, she heard Jonathan’s voice scream her name. Still she did not move.
There was a bang, and for a moment, she wondered why the gun was smoking, before finally, far too late, the excruciating pain pierced the fog.
Looking down, Gabby saw that the front of her gown was becoming soaked with dark, oozing blood.
Still he was not finished. This lone stranger who had come for her.
She felt Jonathan’s body slam into hers as he knocked her to the ground.
Her head slammed against the brick at the impact.
Another bang. But this time, no pain.
Though her thoughts were now hazy and sluggish, Gabby thought that surely this shot should hurt too?
But coherent thought of any kind was getting harder to hang on to.
He knew my name, she thought. He was here to kill me, before finally, mercifully, the darkness came.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NEITHER OF THEM spoke for what seemed like an age.
Gabrielle still had to know Jonathan’s version of that night’s events.
Jonathan still had to know how Gabrielle had survived, how she had come to England.
Yet, the words would not come.
And so they sat contemplating silent regrets and horrified memories and useless yearnings for what might have been.
Finally, the whinny of one of the horses gave them both a jolt, and Gabby felt brave enough to look at Jon. To try to gauge his reaction to her sorry tale.
“What happened next?” he asked quietly, his tone dead and emotionless.
If she hadn’t known him as well as she had, Gabby may have been hurt at his seeming lack of interest or feeling.
But she knew that tone. Knew that expression.
This was what people like them did when there was a chance that emotion would get in the way of what needed to be done. And right then, this information needed to be shared.
Taking a fortifying breath, Gabby looked once again toward the river, as though the water would somehow make this easier to talk about.
“I’m not sure, to tell the truth. I had obviously lost consciousness. When I awoke, a man was carrying me to a carriage. I know now that it was Captain Townsend, though I did not know that at the time.”
Had Gabby been looking at him, she would have seen the flare of dark anger in Jonathan’s eyes at the mention of the other man.
“He took me to a farmhouse some ways outside the city. The family there took care of me, nursed me back to a semblance of health. The captain visited every single day until I began to improve.” She smiled gently at the memory of this wonderful stranger who had been such a friend to her.
Jonathan had yet to speak, so Gabrielle continued on, eager now to have her whole sorry tale known by him. Eager to have him help.
“Once I’d gotten stronger, I begged Lucas to take me to England. Someone had hired that man to shoot me. There was no way anyone who set up an assassination like that would get his own hands dirty with my blood. I was determined to seek my revenge on the man, or men, who had arranged for the shooter to kill me.”
“You mean me.”
It was the first time Jonathan had spoken in minutes, his tone gruff, his attention fixed on the river or maybe on memories that Gabby wasn’t privy to.
“I did. Then. Now…” Gabby sighed as the mammoth task of getting to the bottom of this sorry mess loomed before her. “…now I have no idea who I mean.”
“And you never once wondered why this Lucas appeared from nowhere on the very night that you were shot an
d carried you off somewhere?”
The bitterness in Jonathan’s tone didn’t escape Gabrielle’s notice.
He sounded furious.
“Of course I wondered. I’m not an idiot,” she bit out. “But I hardly had a choice in whether he carried me off or not since I’d been left for dead.”
He reacted to her words as though she’d physically slapped him, and she wanted to take them back, but they were true. And she didn’t like the implication that she’d somehow done something wrong.
“You never asked him how he came to be there?” Jonathan persisted.
“Yes, I asked, Jonathan. Of course I asked. But, well, the man obviously has his secrets.”
Jonathan snorted.
“And you would blindly trust a man who kept things from you?”
The irony of his words did not escape Gabrielle’s notice.
Hadn’t they all been blindly trusting each other for years?
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she countered softly, and just like that, his anger seemed to deflate.
“And he agreed to bring you to England though you were obviously not strong enough for the journey?” Jonathan persisted, casually ignoring the inference of her words and seemingly determined to find fault with her rescuer.
Her rescuer who, even now, called at Piers’ home constantly to ensure that she was doing well and growing stronger. To offer assistance wherever he could.
Gabrielle bit back a sarcastic reply and turned fully to face this beautiful, stubborn man.
“Jonathan, Captain Townsend is a good man. A kind, decent, honest man.”
She thought briefly of Lucas’ cryptic remarks about the Spencer family but pushed the memory aside. She had plenty of things to work out without adding another mystery to her pile.
“He helped me. He saved me. And though he was against the idea, ferociously against it, he agreed to take me here rather than allow me to find my own way. I have a lot to be thankful to him for.”
Jonathan finally turned his face to hers, and Gabby recoiled slightly at the snarl he was wearing.
“And exactly how thankful were you, Gabby? On a ship for weeks without any witnesses to what you might have done?”
ALL RIGHT, JONATHAN conceded. That had been a low blow. She didn’t deserve his disdain.
For one thing, he didn’t believe she would do anything to jeopardise her innate integrity. For another, it really wasn’t any of his business, much as that thought killed him.
And, really, he was in no position to piously judge anyone, considering what he’d gotten up to in his youth.
He was about to apologise when her hand shot out and lashed against his cheek.
His first thought was that he had deserved it.
His second: it bloody well hurt.
He watched as the offending hand shot up to her mouth, and her eyes widened, as though horrified by her own actions.
She shouldn’t be. He had undoubtedly deserved a slap.
“Jonathan, I’m—”
“Don’t apologise,” he interrupted. “I deserved it. And I should be apologising to you.”
He reached up and removed her hand from her mouth, wanting desperately to replace it with his own mouth but managing to restrain himself. Just.
“Gabby, I am sorry. I should not have said such a thing. If you have found happiness with someone else, then I am happy for you.”
He was an absolute liar. But she didn’t need to know that.
“And, and whatever you do with him, I approve.”
Wait, what? No, that didn’t come out right.
“I don’t approve, I just—”
She was frowning now in total confusion, and he didn’t blame her. What the hell was he blathering on about?
“It isn’t that I disapprove,” he spluttered. “Lord knows, I would be a hypocrite indeed after my own escapades.”
Did she just growl?
This wasn’t going well. At all.
“You don’t need my approval is what I’m trying to say. Not that you asked for it, of course. And why should you?”
“Jonathan, I—”
“No, it’s fine,” he said swiftly.
The last thing he wanted was her explanations of how she’d fallen in love with a man who hadn’t run off and left her. Or worse, her pity.
“I’m happy for you and the captain.”
He spat the last word as though it were the vilest of oaths, but this conversation was worse than any pain he’d endured before, so he was entitled to hate the man who was replacing him.
Gabrielle was silent for an age.
When she finally spoke, she removed her hand from the death grip of his own.
He’d forgotten that he even held her hand and berated himself for it.
What if that was the last time he’d ever get to touch her? Why hadn’t he savoured every single second of it?
“Thank you for your blessing, or approval, or whatever it is you’re offering me,” she said with a small smile. “But I assure you it is unnecessary.”
He looked up at her then, rather than concentrating on her delicate hands.
“The captain has been a wonderful friend but only a friend, and he will never be anything more. He has no interest in being anything more. And neither do I.”
He must not have hidden his suspicion well if her soft chuckle was anything to go by.
“Perhaps you don’t,” he answered, his heart lightening just a touch at the knowledge that hers didn’t now belong to someone else. “But I refuse to believe that there is a man alive in the world who doesn’t want more from a woman like you than friendship.”
He watched as a soft blush stained her cheeks. He loved that she still blushed.
“It is true,” she argued, dropping her head to stare at her hands. Her hands were getting a lot of attention during the course of this conversation. “The truth is, the captain lost his heart many years ago. Just as I did.”
Jonathan had never been accused of having less-than-steely self-control in his life but, really, when she said such a thing, what could he do but pull her to him and kiss her senseless?
So that was exactly what he did, and when he felt her immediate compliance, he thought that perhaps, after all this time, the Fates had finally decided to forgive him.
CHAPTER NINE
HOURS LATER, AND back in the safety of her room, Gabby was giving herself a very stern talking to. She really would have to stop kissing him. Or allowing him to kiss her, rather.
Gabrielle knew this. Of course she knew this. She was a sensible woman with a brain in her head.
A brain that had now turned to mush because of the reappearance of Jonathan Spencer.
Was she just being a fool? Opening herself up to yet more heartbreak?
Probably.
But it really didn’t feel as though she had a choice in the matter. Her heart had decided years ago that Jonathan was the only man she would ever want.
Shamefully, the knowledge that he had set out to kill her had been the only thing stopping her from going straight to him when she’d recovered slightly. Not hatred of him, or anger, or even pain. She would have risked all the pain in the world to be with him again.
Now that she believed he was innocent of the crime she had laid at his feet, what was left to protect her from her love for him?
There was nothing, she knew.
Yet to go back to how things had been seemed impossible.
They had both been changed by the events of that night.
And, as a matter of fact, she didn’t even know his version of the events of that night, since he hadn’t shared them with her yet.
They had gotten quite distracted, she could admit.
Her mind flashed back to the moment he’d kissed her, and her heart once again started a frantic gallop.
Lord, the man could kiss.
“Are you all right, miss? You’re becoming very flushed.”
Gabby’s eyes snapped up to the mirror to s
ee the reflection of her concerned-looking abigail.
“I’m quite all right. Thank you, Daisy,” Gabby muttered. “Just — ah — well, it’s rather warm in this room.”
Daisy looked pointedly at the empty grate, and indeed at the sash window that had been opened to allow the steam from Gabby’s bath to disperse but wisely said nothing.
Daisy wasn’t stupid nor was she deaf or blind. So, no doubt, she was well aware of the arrival of the dashing Jonathan Spencer.
And the fact that Gabby was suddenly going around feeling too hot in cold rooms must be suspicious.
“Perhaps we should spend a little more time on dressing your hair this evening, miss?”
Gabby should tell her no, of course. Should ask why on earth she would want to do that when she hadn’t been making any particular effort thus far.
It wouldn’t do to fuel more salacious gossip, after all.
She should do all of that.
What she actually did was smile conspiratorially at the romance-minded maid, nod her head and say, “And perhaps we should finally give one of those satin evening gowns an outing.”
Daisy’s squeal of delight pierced her eardrums but did nothing to remove the grin from Gabby’s face.
“YOU’VE SENT WORD to Andrew?”
“I have. I expect him by the week’s end.”
Jonathan stood at the window gazing unseeingly at the rolling grass of Piers’ vast gardens.
Irrational though it was, he was desperate to see Gabby again, to know that she was safe.
What harm could she possibly come to here in Piers’ house? None, of course. But it didn’t stop the clawing fear, the ridiculous need to stand guard outside her room and make sure she never disappeared from his life again.
“I’ve never known Gabby to be less than punctual before,” Piers said from his seat by the fire.
At his words, Jonathan whipped round, ready to dash off and make sure she was all right.
His fear must have shown on his face for Piers raised a hand as though to stop him from going anywhere.
“I’m just making an observation, Jonathan,” he said softly. “No doubt she is making an extra effort with her appearance this evening, for one reason or another.”
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