He skidded to a halt at the foot of stairs as all of his worst nightmares came screaming back to life.
“No, NO!” he shouted, not caring that he would wake the entire household.
Gabby’s body lay lifeless at the foot of the stairs.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again. He wouldn’t let it.
Jonathan fell to his knees and immediately checked for signs of life.
He gently pushed a lock of her sable hair back from her brow and nearly wept with relief when she groaned slightly at his touch.
She was alive.
Jonathan could barely breathe.
In some part of his consciousness, Jonathan was aware of voices around him, Piers and Evelyn from upstairs, Andrew beside him, the staff from belowstairs. None of it mattered though. All that mattered was Gabby.
“We need to get the doctor,” said Eve in a trembling voice, moving to Andrew, who took her in his arms and pressed a swift kiss to the top of her head.
“I’ll go,” Andrew said grimly.
He turned and told a watching footman to prepare his horse.
Evelyn had come to kneel by Gabrielle too, taking a cold hand in one of her own.
“Mr. Casings,” she called, “can you please have some hot, sweet tea prepared?”
“What happened?” Piers demanded, coming racing down, nodding to the cook to signal that the woman should do as Evelyn had said.
“She fell down the stairs,” Jonathan answered grimly, still hunched over her, his eyes never leaving her face.
“N-no.” The hoarse muttering came from Gabrielle, and her eyes fluttered open. “Pushed,” she said weakly.
Jonathan’s heart thudded painfully at the word, and a fiery rage burned through him.
Someone had pushed her? Someone in this house, where she’d been safe?
Now that she was awake, at least somewhat, it was time to move her.
Jonathan stood and scooped her into his arms, clenching his jaw to control the anger heating his blood.
He began striding up the stairs, people moving out of his way as he went.
“Andrew, when you go into the village to get the surgeon, stop by the Inn. Get that damned Townsend back to this house,” he growled.
He hadn’t liked the man. Now he knew why.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GABBY BIT HER lip to stop herself from snapping at Jonathan as he fussed over her like a mother hen.
“I’m leaving this room today,” she told him firmly, though they’d already had the argument countless times that morning.
It had been two nights since she’d been pushed, and she had long since recovered.
Miraculously, there had been no injury, bar a few bumps and bruises, and she’d had plenty worse than that in her lifetime.
“You need to rest and recover,” Jonathan countered.
Gabby sighed and sat up, eliciting another flurry of fussing and pillow plumping. If he didn’t stop soon, she would scream or stab him. She truly would.
Only in the toe or some such place though. Nothing fatal.
“Jonathan, when we were in Prague, and I took a stray bullet to the leg, we had to bandage it up and find our way to Austria. I managed. You managed without turning into a fussing old lady.”
His eyes snapped up to hers at that, looking mightily affronted, but she was past caring.
“That was different.”
“How?”
“It just was,” he argued, moving toward the sash windows overlooking the west gardens of the property.
“How?” she demanded louder.
“Because I hadn’t lost you for years then, Gabby. Because I hadn’t been faced with the possibility of living without you. That’s how,” he said.
Had he yelled back at her, she would have continued to fight. But since he spoke softly, helplessly even, her heart melted, and she couldn’t maintain her anger.
With another deep sigh, Gabby sat up then swung her legs over the mahogany four-poster bed dominating the bedchamber she’d been given and stood up.
A warning look to Jonathan was enough to keep him in his place.
She padded toward him, her feet sinking into the plush, cream Persian rug beneath her feet.
“Jon,” she started, resting her hand on his arm, not allowing herself to be distracted by the corded muscle she felt there. “Neither of us can change what happened. But I cannot suddenly become a simpering miss locked away in a tower.”
“I’m not asking you to do that, Gabby,” he said, turning to gaze down at her, his eyes glowing with intense emotion.
“But you are, Jon,” she said, dropping her hand from his arm and stepping back. Being so close was scrambling her thoughts, and he needed to hear this, to understand. “I am who I am. And you knew that before I got hurt, before we fell—”
She cut the words off and bit her lip.
He had never actually said the words. Not recently.
He quirked a brow as she stumbled to a stop, but she chose to skip over the awkwardness and plough on.
“And what happened the other night just proves that I need to start training hard. I need to get ready to fight. And I need to go to London to find out who is behind all this.”
“We know who is behind all of this,” he growled in response, and Gabby found herself once again biting back her irritation.
“I do not believe for one moment that Lucas did this to me,” she stated firmly, moving away from him to throw open her wardrobe doors.
“How can you be so blinded to him? He had disappeared from the study by the time I returned, Gabby, and he was nowhere to be seen when Andrew went to the inn, even though he said he’d been staying there.”
“But he would never do such a thing, Jon.”
“Well who the hell else would it be?” he asked, frustration colouring his tone. Not frustrated with her, but the situation. He’d been so attentive to her she nearly couldn’t breathe with it.
“I already told you, perhaps I was mistaken.”
Gabby knew she sounded unconvincing, because she wasn’t convinced. In fact, she knew with absolute certainty that she’d been pushed.
But she knew with the same certainty that Lucas Townsend wasn’t responsible.
“We both know you weren’t mistaken, Gabby,” Jonathan said darkly.
“Well, can you at least acknowledge that there’s a chance it wasn’t Lucas?” she asked, starting to feel exasperated.
“Fine,” he conceded, as though they hadn’t discussed this hundreds of times since the accident. “But the alternative is that someone snuck in to do it. Which means that someone besides us knows you’re here.”
Gabrielle suddenly felt exposed and couldn’t supress her shiver.
“I know,” she mumbled, hating feeling like a sitting duck.
She had stupidly allowed herself to become relaxed here, happy even. Especially since Jonathan’s arrival.
This near catastrophe reminded her just how much danger her life was in.
Jonathan reached out and tipped her face up to look at him.
He studied her for a moment, his eyes burning with concern.
“Shall we talk of something else?” he asked; she was grateful to him for seeing that the conversation was becoming too much.
She nodded her head, her eyes transfixed to his and so she saw the moment that the concern was replaced with something much more exciting, much more inflaming.
Desire.
“Shall we talk about how difficult it is for me to stand here with you in that…” He indicated her soft cotton night rail with a nod of his head. “…and not devour you on the spot?”
Gabrielle’s mouth popped open at his words, and the want evidenced in his tone.
“This?” She laughed breathlessly. The material left no skin uncovered from her toes to her neck.
“Yes, this,” he confirmed with a toe-curling smile. The finger that had been under her chin skimmed down her neck to smooth its way along the high neckline of
the night rail. “This and the idea of what’s under it. Presumably not much, since it is night wear?”
He paused as though awaiting her confirmation, so she nodded because she’d been rendered speechless by his movements.
“As I thought,” he said. “It’s been driving me mad for days.”
“I had no idea,” she managed to croak.
“You could wear a sack, Gabby, and you would still drive me wild.”
Oh, Lord. The man had a way with words.
“When all of this is over, we are disappearing, you and me,” he said.
Gabby smiled at the idea. How blissful it would be. “And where shall we go?” she asked.
“Everywhere.” He laughed, pulling her into his arms. “Anywhere. Just as long as it is me and you.”
“It sounds perfect.” She sighed, leaning against him, allowing herself the indulgence of feeling his rock-hard strength pressed against her. “I can’t wait.”
“We won’t have to wait long. I won’t rest until this is done.”
“I know,” she whispered before his mouth dipped to capture her own.
This kiss was soft and tender and touched Gabrielle to her very soul. She poured all the love she had for him, all her hopes for a happy future together into it, and it felt as though Jonathan did the same.
He moved to cup her face with his hands, and she gripped onto his superfine feeling as though she would melt into a puddle at his feet otherwise.
It was exquisite. It was magnificent. It was everything a kiss between soulmates should be, and Gabby’s heart soared.
After what seemed like seconds and eons, Jonathan broke the kiss and gazed down at her, his golden eyes filled with tenderness.
“You’re really well enough to be up and about?” he asked, and Gabby blinked at the mundane question after such a kiss.
“Y-yes,” she said, her brain still decidedly addled from his attentions.
“Good. Let’s get you dressed and outside then,” he said, letting go of her to move and ring for Daisy.
“What am I doing outside?” she asked, baffled at the sudden change in him.
“We’re training,” he said decisively.
Gabby couldn’t contain her glee.
“Why the change of heart?” she asked.
“Because I won’t survive much more of those kisses without being able to make you mine,” he said with a devilish smile. “So the sooner we are all ready to find this person out and beat him, the sooner I can do what I really want in your bedchamber.”
With those words, he swept from the room, leaving Gabrielle almost expiring on the spot.
“AGAIN,” GABBY DEMANDED, the light of battle in her deep brown eyes.
Jonathan would rather they stopped, but he valued his life too much to suggest it.
They’d gathered quite an audience during their fencing, with Piers, Andrew, Evelyn, and even the stable master standing to the side watching.
Gabby raised her sword, and almost before he had time to do the same, she came at him in a flurry of movement.
Damn, she was good. He’d forgotten how good.
He had hoped to distract her from practising at all, by telling her of the plan he and Andrew had discussed earlier. Both men agreed that they should all remove to London.
It seemed to Jonathan, and Andrew had agreed, that only someone within a positon of some power would be able to orchestrate the attack on Gabby in Paris and likewise, the ongoing attacks here. Given that there were very few people who had even known of Gabby’s role in the mission in Paris, and given that the people who did know were high up in the Home Office, Jonathan’s suspicions made sense. And those men, he knew, where all in Town for the Season, with the one exception being Piers, of course.
Jonathan didn’t like to risk hurting Gabby and so he had thought, stupidly in hindsight, that telling her all about what he and Andrew suspected, and what they planning to do, would distract her enough for her to give up on the idea to practice.
He’d been wrong, of course.
He’d always been wrong to think that he could hurt her.
She was more than able to give him a run for his money.
And this was her rusty!
Gabby had made short work of agreeing to his hastily thrown together plan, not least because she was so anxious to take a stab at him!
In point of fact, she had seemed positively nonchalant about it all until Evelyn, who had been listening unashamedly as he filled Gabby in, insisted that the ladies needed to shop to get “ton ready.”
Jonathan chuckled softly as he remembered Gabby’s vociferous objections.
But the laugh was short lived as Gabby swept her sword round and aimed for his chest.
The thrust and parry went on and on, each of them circling, neither one gaining the upper hand.
Jonathan was holding back but not much.
She was impressive, and so beautiful it hurt.
Her sable locks had long since come loose and were flowing down her back, her cheeks were flushed red with exercise and excitement, and her eyes sparkled with the thrill of the fight.
In fact, she was so distractingly beautiful that Jonathan momentarily let his guard slip, which was how he ended up on his back, with Gabrielle standing over him, her sword tip inches from his neck.
“It seems I’m not the only one who would benefit from some practice,” she said with a wicked grin.
Though his pride stung a little, and his backside a lot, and though he knew he would never hear the end of this from Andrew, Jonathan couldn’t help but grin in return.
She looked so happy, and with each round, her confidence grew.
“I concede defeat,” Jonathan said as Gabrielle extended a hand to help him up.
He grasped her delicate fingers in his own, but instead of getting up, he pulled on her hand until she landed on top of him.
Her gasp of surprise made him grin, and the blush that bloomed on her cheeks made his heart pound.
She was glorious, and he was finding it harder and harder to keep his hands off her.
“Jonathan,” she admonished, scrambling to move off him.
“Smooth, Jon,” Andrew’s voice called.
Jonathan ignored him. He was solely focused on Gabrielle and what her movement was doing to him.
“You,” she bit out between her teeth, “are incorrigible.”
“And you, my love,” he answered, lifting a hand to smooth a lock of her hair back, “are beautiful.”
“Oh…” Her eyes widened and her lips parted, and Jonathan nearly ravaged her there and then.
In fact, the only thing that stopped him from doing so was the fact that they had an audience.
“Ahem.”
Jonathan released Gabby, and she leapt to her feet.
He looked up into the face of Evelyn, who was now glaring at him, her arms crossed. He’d have been worried, except for the glint of mischief in her brown eyes.
“When you’ve finished manhandling the lady, Jonathan, I’d like to borrow her.”
“For what?” he asked. He was probably being far too conscious, but with their suspicion that there was a rogue employee on the estate hired to hurt her, he was loath to let her out of his sight.
“Well, we need to visit the mantua maker in the local village. According to Mr. Casings, she isn’t at all bad, and we shall need to add quite a few items to Gabby’s wardrobe if we’re to arrive in London during the Season.”
Gabby scowled beside him, and Jonathan had to supress a grin at her obvious displeasure.
He knew her well enough to know she neither cared for, nor thought of, the fashion and fripperies that came with entering the haute monde during a London Season.
In fact, she would very probably rather spend her days in breeches.
Jonathan thought back to the times where she had been in breeches, when they’d been in the middle of a mission, and a gown would have just gotten in her way.
Remembering how they’d clung to
her like a second skin made his mouth dry up.
He rather thought he’d prefer her to spend her days in breeches, too.
But Evelyn was right.
If their plan was to work, they needed to make sure everything was in place.
“Is this really necessary?” Gabby grumbled.
Evelyn turned to the other lady with a stern look.
“Yes, it is. Mr. Casings’ purchases for you were very kind and more than suitable when hiding away in the country. But if you are to blend in with the Quality, then I’m afraid we need more. Much more.”
“She couldn’t blend in if she tried.” Jonathan spoke the words before he knew what he was doing, his eyes fixed firmly on Gabrielle’s delicate profile.
She turned to him then, her sinfully dark eyes shining, and it was all he could do not to haul her to the ground once more.
“I know that look.” Andrew drew close and wrapped an arm around Evelyn’s shoulders. “My love, I suggest you leave now, or Jonathan will be following you like a lovesick puppy.”
“I hardly think you’re in a position to judge, Drew,” Jonathan quipped.
“Ah, but at least I get a treat every now and then,” the other man winked, earning a furious blush from Gabby and a playful slap to the arm from his wife.
“Could you two keep your minds, or at least your tongues, out of the gutter until we’ve left?” she scolded, which was decidedly unfair since Andrew had started it.
“Come, Gabby,” she continued, taking the sword from Gabrielle’s reluctant hands and handing it to Andrew.
The other man hefted the weapon from hand to hand, testing the balance, and suddenly, he looked up at Jonathan, a gleam in his green eyes.
“Shall we?” he asked.
Jonathan grinned in response.
It would do him some good to release some of his frustration and teach Drew to keep his mouth shut in the process.
“It would be my pleasure,” he answered with a slight bow. “Shall we ask Piers to keep score? I know what a cheat you are.”
They looked to the fence where Piers had been standing with Evelyn and Jonathan, but there was no sign of him.
“He must have had work to do,” Andrew said. “Never mind. No scorekeeping necessary. We both know you won’t beat me.”
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