Tempting Fate

by Kerrigan Byrne

  He was too brutal to be handsome. His jaw square and wide, his chin strong and sharp. The hollows of his cheeks were deep as canyons and the skin beneath his eyes bruised from sleepless nights, creating a starkness about him that threatened to break her heart.

  But it was his eyes she couldn’t look away from.

  They weren’t dark as she’d first thought, merely set deep into a heavy brow and rife with shadows.

  The gaze he affixed onto her was a mercurial silver/grey. The striations within the irises might have held some green and gold if he stood in the sun. Transfixed by their beauty, Felicity found it impossible to identify what she read in those eyes. No word existed in her vocabulary to do so, but it tugged at her with an aching intensity.

  His expression could have been cast from marble, and yet it was wary and prepared, as if he expected her to strike him. Or spit upon him.

  Or scream and flee.

  Perhaps some people had done.

  Unexpectedly, her fingers itched to explore his compelling face. To smooth over his brow and draw a thumb over the pinkened skin of the long scar.

  What unimaginable pain he had endured.

  A strange, dark part of her hoped he’d answered in kind.

  That out there, someone else was just as broken.

  Dismayed by her uncharacteristic ferocity, Felicity became suddenly aware of how warm his breath felt on her skin, feathering over her cheeks in apple-scented puffs. Indeed, warmth emanated from every part of him, and the recognition struck her with bewildering force that beneath his elegant clothing and inelegant features, Gareth Severand was a man.

  An incomparably large man with expanses of flesh and muscle so diametrically opposed to her own, she couldn’t fathom what they must look like. What it must be like to move through the world as he did. A tower of strength and skill and scars.

  She almost envied him.

  As someone so consistently aware of her own vulnerability, she was struck with awe by his apparent invincibility.

  This man fascinated her.

  “Look your fill before you make up your mind.” His voice was strung as tight as a bowstring, and his eyes focused on something behind her, as if he could no longer stand to meet her gaze.

  “Dear Mr. Severand.” She put a hand on his arm, hoping to convey a modicum of comfort. “Be at ease. My mind was quite made up this afternoon. Your features have nothing to do with it. If anything, I should think you appear as though you wouldn’t hesitate to do your job. I’m more convinced of that than ever.”

  He stared at where her hand rested just above his elbow as he quietly said, “There isn’t a force in this city that could go through me to get to you.”

  He was being hyperbolic, of course, but for some reason she believed him.

  Releasing his arm, she touched her own cheek, both glad and guilty to find nothing there but smooth, unbroken skin.

  “Did this all happen whilst you protected someone else?”

  “Yes.” His gazed followed her hand with the intensity of a hound begging to be fed.

  One of them should have pulled back. There was no reason for him to be standing over her like this. Or for her to tilt her head up a little higher. To step one inch closer. But some spell held her in a strange thrall, blocking out all visceral details that didn’t have to do with him.

  If he should press his lip to hers, would she feel the deep groove of the scar there? Did his mouth taste like hers did? Like apples and heat?

  The door burst open to admit the efficient whirlwind that was Mrs. Emmaline Winterton, her red hair disheveled, the feather in her smart peach cap drooping, and copper ringlets heavy with rain.

  “Please pardon my tardy return, Felicity,” she demanded. “I was detained on the bridge as a cart full of bees— of all the ridiculous creatures— had quite tipped over and bogged everything up! Blighty little beasts went everywhere, and we ran for our lives through rivers of honey. Just look at my hem.” She lifted a hem that did, indeed, appear sticky, baring a lovely ankle boot and a good part of her stockinged calf in the process.

  Having hopped away from her scandalous proximity to Mr. Severand, Felicity looked up to ascertain if he’d noted— or appreciated— her companion’s stockings.

  Astonishingly enough, his eyes hadn’t left hers yet, and his nostrils flared as if struggling to lift a herculean weight.

  Felicity whirled around, aware that her bustle grazed his thighs.

  Oh, lord. His thighs. Why did thinking of them make her blush?

  Still immersed in the tragedy of her hem, Emmaline forged ahead. “Also, a curiously anxious Billings bade me to inform you that they’re minutes from ringing the dinner gong— I haven’t eaten a thing all day and am famished beyond all— oh, hello.”

  Finally, she glanced up to notice that they were not alone.

  Felicity rushed to make introductions. “Emmaline, this is Mr. Gareth Severand, whom I’ve engaged as my personal protection. Mr. Severand, allow me to introduce Mrs. Emmaline Winterton, my chaperone and companion.”

  Emmaline’s Baltic blue eyes went incredibly owlish as she looked up and up at the stoic Mr. Severand.

  This must be the reaction he’d been expecting from Felicity.

  Unease and suspicion mixed with curiosity.

  Remembering her manners, Emmaline tore her eyes from his face and bobbed a curtsy. “A pleasure, Mr. Severand.”

  “Likewise,” he rumbled from behind Felicity, sending shivers and stinging goose pimples thrilling over her flesh. His voice seemed quite two octaves lower than before. If that were possible. Was it because of Mrs. Winterton’s radiance? Her shapely bared calf? Her heavy lashes and brilliant red hair?

  Why should it matter if he found Emmaline pretty? She was pretty.

  Emmaline retreated toward the door with backward steps, as if she didn’t want to turn her back on the mountainous man behind Felicity.

  “Allow me to make myself presentable, and I’ll harass the staff to make sure they set a place for Mr. Severand. Excuse me.”

  Felicity turned her chin to her shoulder, glancing behind her. “Shall we pour another drink and go through?” she offered, wary of being left alone with him at the moment. When all of her nerves zinged with a phenomenon both primal and electric.

  His lashes shuttered his eyes as he looked away, but not before she caught the heat melting the metal of his gaze.

  His tongue moistened a wickedly full lower lip before he answered, “After you.”

  Chapter 4

  Back before Gabriel’s surgeries, he was careful to never eat in the presence of anyone, not even his brother. The wounds to his cheek and the skin above his upper lip had healed so terribly that he could only open his mouth so far without ripping the scar open.

  Since the skin grafts, he could eat with much more ease, but still hadn’t much use for the behaviors and strictures of dining with the upper class.

  He’d lived in a mansion not far from here for several odd years, but he took his meals alone in his chamber or in the library, and would have plucked the eyes out of anyone who dared disturb him.

  How novel it was to use a dining room for its intended purpose. To appreciate centuries-old tapestries and priceless works of art illuminated by decorative lamps, crystal chandeliers no one bothered to light for such a small affair, and candelabras surrounded by fragrant garlands of fresh flowers.

  Though he’d hesitated at the idea of sharing their meal, he found he enjoyed sitting at a long table across from the lively Mrs. Winterton as she chattered and exclaimed with Felicity over an abundance of swiftly altering subjects.

  Their voices were a pleasant melody over the low hum of arousal vibrating through him, and while the women were distracted by their conversation, he could contemplate her.

  He couldn’t tell exactly what he’d expected when she’d drifted close to examine his features. Recognition, maybe? Or worse, fear. Disgust. Regret. Dismissal.

  He’d been surprised— delighted, e
ven— to receive none of that.

  But when the air had shifted around them. When her pupils had dilated, and her lips parted as she stared at his own mouth…

  He could have been knocked over with a feather.

  Her proximity inflamed him as nothing else ever had, but surely he imagined that flare of interest behind the innocence of her gaze.

  It was difficult to decipher, as she hadn’t looked at him since.

  When the soup course appeared in front of him, he plucked up what he knew to be the soup spoon, but didn’t allow himself to partake until he could make a study of how the ladies conducted themselves.

  He was, at least, clever enough to mimic their manners.

  Across from him, Mrs. Winterton, now dressed in lilac silk, sans honey, dipped her spoon into her bowl and brought it to her lips, just so.

  He dipped his own spoon in the same fashion, surreptitiously glancing over at Felicity, who frowned down into the liquid. She waited until the footmen had disappeared before wrinkling her nose. “Oh dear… Mrs. Bullock has made her fish stew.”

  Gabriel paused with a bite half to his mouth. “Is something wrong with it?”

  “I cannot stomach it, I’m afraid.” She pushed it away from her.

  “Really?” Mrs. Winterton regarded her as if she were mad. “It’s one of my favorite dishes. I mean, how could you hate anything that is half cream and salted with bacon?”

  Felicity glanced around. “Here, have my portion,” she offered to her companion.

  “No, I have my own, and I’m not about to get on Cook’s bad side.”

  “Quickly,” Felicity pressed. “Before the footmen are back. Just pour it into your bowl. I don’t want it getting to her that I didn’t eat it, either. She’s so proud of the dish. But last time, I could hardly keep it down.”

  “Very well. Quick, quick!” She slid her bowl closer to Felicity’s and let her combine their portions before tucking into it with relish.

  “What will you eat?” Gabriel queried, with a frown of his own.

  “Oh, there’s plenty of this fresh bread and a shank of braised lamb for the next course.”

  “And a rum pudding,” said Mrs. Winterton after an appreciative swallow. “Do you enjoy the stew?”

  He hated fish, but knew better than to say so. “I’ll eat mostly anything,” he answered, but returned the spoon to the bowl.

  “I confess I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Severand.” Mrs. Winterton dabbed at the corner of her mouth. “We were all unspeakably distressed when poor Miss Felicity was accosted.”

  “We needn’t speak of that,” Felicity said tightly, fiddling with the black ribbon at her throat. “Now that Mr. Severand is here, we have little to concern ourselves with on that regard.”

  Before they dropped the conversation, he wanted to make one thing clear. “Miss Goode, I must insist you go nowhere without me, is that understood?”

  “Are you in the habit of ordering all your employers about?” Mrs. Winterton gave a saucy toss of her hair as she tightened the grip on her knife. “Or just the females? Let us not forget you are speaking to a baron’s daughter.”

  “Emmaline, really!” Felicity’s words conveyed less censure than mortification. Her cheeks were flaming the most adorable shade of peach. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere without him.”

  Winterton’s eyes were… well… wintry as she glared over at him. “Yes, but he needn’t be in the habit of issuing you commands. You are not the subordinate here.”

  Gabriel wiped his lips, slowly manufacturing a reply to the bold woman.

  “You are right, of course, Mrs. Winterton.”

  At that, her mouth dropped all the way open. So he turned to Felicity.

  “Forgive me, Miss Goode. I was not bred gently, and I am used to giving, rather than taking, directives. I do not possess pretty manners and am often too blunt in my speech. I will do my best to curtail this in your employ. My only aim is to keep you safe.”

  As he finished, he noticed that Felicity’s eyes sparkled over at him like brilliant sapphires. Pleasure nigh glowed from her golden complexion.

  “I did not engage you for pretty manners, Mr. Severand, but I do appreciate your respect. That being said, please speak freely in my presence; Lord knows I’m used to it with family like mine.”

  “Thank you.”

  He’d pleased her, and her satisfaction was a radiant sight to behold.

  “Is everything all right with your family, Mrs. Winterton?” Felicity queried, slathering a soft cheese on a piece of bread and sinking her straight, pearly teeth into it.

  Gabriel took a swallow of his excellent wine to wet a mouth gone dry.

  Why did everything she did entice him so?

  Why did the thought of her biting down on his flesh make him painfully hard beneath the table?

  That was no great mystery…

  “’Twas no great matter when all was said and done,” Felicity’s companion answered, seemingly preoccupied by her enjoyment of the soup. “It was almost a waste of time for me to visit. It seemed my younger sister had a spot of trouble, but she’d sorted it before I arrived. I only stayed long enough to kiss them all and catch the next train. It was frightfully tedious.”

  Gabriel noted that she’d never mentioned just what that trouble happened to be. Mrs. Winterton was a woman with an open, disarming face, and a heart better guarded than Buckingham Palace.

  “I am sorry you are separated from your siblings.” Felicity patted her arm. “I’ve always been lucky to have mine close by until… well, my parents’ deaths changed a great deal, and now it seems we’re scattered to the wind.”

  “Were you very close with your parents?” Gabriel ventured to ask.

  She shook her head, rearranging the linen on her lap. “I was— am— the youngest in a disappointing line of girls. So, while they did their duty by me as their child, my parents were not wont to foster close relationships. Least of all with me.”

  “But your father left you everything.” He blurted his thought aloud, then clamped his lips together, wishing he could rip his own tongue out.

  She made a helpless gesture, as if the fact stymied her every bit as it did a stranger. “My father was first and foremost a businessman. Indeed, he was one of the few noblemen that noted the decline in landed estates early on. He used my mother’s dowry to purchase a shipping company that he ruthlessly built into an empire. At first, the idle aristocracy jeered at and mocked him for becoming a tradesman. But then he became so obscenely wealthy, our family rubbed shoulders with the upper echelon of the ton, dining with earls and marquesses who were grudgingly glad to add my father to their ranks. Better one of their own than the upstart merchant men gaining social and political power these days.”

  Gabriel knew all this, of course; he’d used criminal means to exploit said shipping company for his smuggling enterprise a few years back. It was that decision that led him to where he sat today.

  “Any idea why he left it all to you?”

  She nodded. “He so much as said so in the amendment to his will. After Nora’s disastrous marriage to a viscount, she ended up with an orphaned stable boy. Granted, Titus had become the most celebrated doctor in the empire, but that didn’t matter to Father. A murder occurred at Pru’s wedding, and she was first arrested for it, and then ended up wed to the chief inspector on the case. And then Mercy…” She sighed, glancing down at her lap. “There is not enough time for that story.”

  He did his best not to wince at the rueful note in her voice as she continued. “My father wrote that he’d always appreciated my sense of duty. That he believed me the last hope to save the face of the Goode name. He and my mother were so shattered by the scandals wrought by my sisters, he ran away from England. Nothing was quite the same after they left.”

  “You miss them?” He couldn’t imagine why.

  “I barely knew my mother, and I admired my father, but no, I do not miss his influence in my life. He was a hard man, critical an
d tempestuous, and his presence caused me no end of distress. He and my mother were devout in their faith. Zealots, some called them. He allowed us no joy or ease or freedom, and, if I’m honest, I’ve come to appreciate those things in his absence.”

  She blinked a little, her features arranging into a mask of worry. “How terrible of me to speak of the dead thus. You must think me a monster.”

  He caught her gaze and held it. “I know monsters. You are not one.”

  Mrs. Winterton cleared her throat, and Felicity started, seeming to have forgotten her presence just as much as he had.

  Schooling an uncomfortable look from her features, Emmaline visibly pushed a brightness into her eyes. “I did retrieve your gown and your haberdashery for tomorrow night,” she said, making an obvious appeal for a change of subject. “It’s as stunning as I thought it might be for your debut back into society.”

  “How kind of you, Emmaline.” Felicity beamed a smile at her that had too many teeth.

  “And Mr. Severand will be joining us?” Winterton lifted an eyebrow in his direction.

  “He will.”

  “Do you dance, sir?” She tucked into her soup, sipping it whilst looking at him with rapt attention, as if more than vaguely interested in the answer.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  She made a dismissive noise before turning back to Felicity. “Do not forget you have a stroll in the park with Lord Bainbridge before luncheon.”

  Felicity put a palm to her forehead. “Oh, that’s right. I think he means to declare some intentions before the ball… I haven’t any idea what to say.”

  Winterton’s wide mouth shouldn’t have been comely on anyone, but when she smirked like she did, with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, Gabriel could appreciate how her features were arranged. They didn’t touch the perfection of Felicity’s, of course, but most men would find her handsome, he imagined.

  “Let Bainbridge talk about himself,” she advised with a bitter edge to her voice. “That’s what men most prefer anyways. They’ll think you have the most delightful personality so long as you have none at all.”

  Felicity gave an unladylike snort and a giggle, then tucked her lips together, casting him a conciliatory glance. “Forgive us, Mr. Severand, for maligning your sex. Emmaline is endlessly unkind.”