Chapter 4 #2
“You must know, I was quite disappointed with the delay in our meeting because I fully intended to conduct my own interview prior to this engagement. However, Mr. Goodman seemed so reluctant to allow me to meet you, and now I must consider why.”
Of course, Gabriel knew why. Philip had put off their meeting—at Gabe’s request. He had been sorely afraid that Margaret would recognize him, but he wasn’t about to confess as much.
“I thought, perhaps, it might be because you were a bit of a toad,” she announced, and Gabriel nearly choked over the disclosure, though, evidently, she mistook the reason for his coughing fit, because she asked, “Mightn’t you have believed the same had I been so disinclined to show my face?”
Gabriel hid his grin with a hand, leaning back into the shadows of the coach.
“I see,” he said soberly, and gave the impression he was thinking about her question while he recovered his composure.
“Yes. Perhaps, I might have,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he dared to ask, “And did you find me a toad, after all?”
She lifted both brows. “Well, sir, I won’t be ill over my breakfast, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Once again, Gabriel nearly choked on his laughter. Still bold enough to speak her mind. He hoped she would never temper her sarcasm or lose that brilliant sass.
“And nevertheless, you did not answer my question,” she snapped, and her tone remained sober, despite his mirth. “What do you want, Mr. Morgan?”
“What do I want?”
“Yes, sir.”
“‘Tis simple enough,” Gabriel said. “You need my name. I need yours.”
The look on her face remained skeptical. “And you require nothing more?”
Gabriel shrugged, certain she didn’t wish to hear the truth.
It was becoming clear to him that what he truly hoped for had little to do with influence or money.
And it was only now, forced to acknowledge her question, if only to himself, that he realized as much.
In fact, what he hoped for went even beyond his growing desire for her.
What he hoped for, in truth, was to put an end to this everlasting numbness that had settled itself into his very soul. Desire. Titillation. He wanted to feel.
He couldn’t be trite enough to suppose that their parting thirteen years ago had, all by its lonesome, put the ague into his soul, but it certainly would have been a catalyst. He had become a cynic and a bit of a Cassandra, searching for the dark underbelly of every circumstance.
His chosen profession didn’t help. He witnessed the very dregs of society, and it brought him low every day.
Did he think perhaps that rekindling an innocent affection could lift him from the doldrums?
“Mr. Morgan?”
Gabriel shook himself free of his reverie. “Isn’t it enough?” he asked, and when she still didn’t seem appeased, he said, “Indeed, I stand to benefit greatly from your family’s reputation.”
Finally, satisfied with his answer, she settled back into her seat, then peered out the carriage window. But, of course, that was a lie, and with every mile they traveled, it became less and less the truth.
At his leisure, Gabriel studied the grown-up Maggie in profile.
She had become such a stunning beauty, with her high cheeks and too kissable lips.
And that wit—sharp as ever. Her hair was deceptively dark in the confines of the dimly lit coach, but Gabriel knew only too well the way it looked when the sun played on its unbound length.
He could spy her face at intervals by flashes of moonlight.
And, after a while, she laid her head back against the bouncing coach and studied him under cover of shadow.
She stared. At his mouth, he believed, and God save him.
It was all he could do not to pull her into his arms and kiss her sweet, pouting lips as he’d longed to do from the first. Only one thing now kept him from reaching out, cupping her face into his hands, and tasting the depths of her mouth.
It was the simple fact that it wasn’t her body he wished to win, but her heart.
He’d been prepared to follow her dictates to the letter, but he was no longer convinced that was propitious.
Not for him, and not for her. Although perhaps he should, he wouldn’t feel the least bit of compunction over what he now resolved to do…
A passionless marriage would only drive Maggie deeper behind that cold facade she wore all-too easily, and watching her now, he was blindsided by the undeniable truth: He loved her—as inconceivable as it might be.
And he would employ every advantage to win her, beginning with the complexities of a wedding kiss.
“You know… I believe I’ve changed my mind,” he said gently.
Margaret blinked over the pronouncement and Gabriel had the almost irrepressible urge to reach out and lift her chin, and then to lean forward across the short expanse between them and offer his lips.
He longed to slide his tongue across the seam of her mouth, slip inside to trace her satiny white teeth.
He needed to drink so deeply of the sweet elixir of her mouth, and never, ever to stop…
“What do you mean, changed your mind?”
Margaret’s heart thumped as she awaited an explanation. And while she waited, she noticed Gabriel didn’t bother to arise from his reclined position—so rude!
His manners were atrocious, and it didn’t matter that half the men she’d encountered were equally self-involved and dismissive. For some reason, his rudeness grated on her all the more—perhaps because she was about to bind herself to him inextricably. His gaze was unreadable through the shadows.
“I do have one requirement of my own.”
She lifted her chin, repeating the word. “Requirement?”
“A perfectly harmless one,” he reassured. “But a requirement, even so.”
Capital! Margaret thought, her hackles rising. She’d taken such care not to call her own such demands requirements, rather concerns, and perhaps it was all a matter of mincing words, but he clearly felt no such obligation to finesse his own.
He likely wanted more money. That’s what they all wanted—money. And, of course, the cad would wait until they had scant-few hours remaining—so was that his plan all along? Wait until he had her boxed into a corner and then make unreasonable demands?
But then another thought occurred to her: Was this why Philip was in such a tizzy? Did he realize what this man intended?
Her sarcasm couldn’t have been more evident. “What requirement?”
His teeth flashed white. “Well, you see, it occurred to me… just now... as you were ogling my mouth—”
Margaret gasped. “Sirrah! I was not ogling your mouth!”
“—That I should very much like to kiss you... and yes… I do believe you were ogling, Lady Margaret. To ogle is to gawp, and you were most certainly gawping.”
Horrified, Margaret inhaled sharply. She had, in fact, been staring, but she couldn’t very well admit such a thing.
She withdrew trembling fingers from her lips, forcing her gaze to meet his, only to discover that they were twinkling with an unsettlingly familiar light. “How dare you make such a rude demand!”
One brow lifted. “Rude? Because I long to kiss my bride?”
Margaret’s heart began to hammer in earnest. Bride? Was she blushing? Her face felt mortifyingly hot. Sweet lord—he wished to kiss her? The thought left her reeling. “You take this too far, sir. And no.” she said, shaking her head. “The answer is no. You are in no position to make demands.”
“But, of course, I am,” he answered easily. “You need me.”
Margaret glared at the other occupant of her coach, his posture entirely disrespectful, and his request even more so, but, yes, it was true; she did need him. And yet, she was far too angry right now, and much too offended by his impertinence to concede that fact.
For just one infuriating moment, she had the inclination to pound on the roof of the carriage and demand the driver take her home and cast this man off on the side of the road.
But, really, there wasn’t time enough for theatrics.
One way or the other, she was on her way to Gretna Green with this…
miscreant… whose arrogance she couldn’t abide.
Margaret continued to glower at him, unsettled by their scandalous exchange.
“Mr. Morgan. You should have spoken up long before now to voice your unreasonable demand—as any gentleman might have done.”
“Oh?” He cocked his head at her. “I’m sorry. Did Mr. Goodman mislead you? I thought you required a commoner? Everyone knows we commoners have no couth.”
“Yes, but—”
“Regardless, I don’t find it unreasonable in the least to wish to kiss my bride.”
“But sir… I am not your bride.”
“Of course, you are—or will be—as soon as we reach Gretna Green.”
Flustered now, Margaret straightened in her seat. She didn’t know any other way to address this issue than to speak candidly. “We are both quite aware that this is a marriage of convenience, sirrah. A kiss is only reasonable between lovers, and we are not lovers—nor shall we ever be.”
“I see,” he said, and managed to appear a scant injured by her vehemence—how dare he make her feel like a shrew for having to point out the facts. He exhaled deeply. “Apologies, madam. Your beauty blinded me, and I somehow forgot.”
He straightened in his seat, stretching out his long legs before him, his tone hardly matching the nature of his words. “Thank you for reminding me,” he said. “But, in any case, I see now that the prospect distresses you, so, please forgive my rudeness.”
He thought her beauty blinding?
She didn’t want his inappropriate compliment to distract her from her anger, but it did. “It does not distress me,” she countered, her cheeks burning with chagrin. “I merely find your approach distasteful, Mr. Morgan.”
“Do you?”
“I do,” she replied fiercely.
“I only wonder what you’re afraid of?”
It was a gauntlet cast at her feet. One Margaret couldn’t ignore.
Truth be told, she had never considered herself so fetching that any man should long to kiss her.
The simple fact that he did, appealed to her, despite her mortification.
And, really, he wasn’t any sort of toad.
She smiled, though her composure had not returned, and said with more aplomb than she felt, “Mr. Morgan…”
“Gabriel.”
“Mr. Morgan,” she persisted. “I am most assuredly not afraid of a kiss.”
“Of course not,” he said. “But, please, do call me Gabriel,” he suggested.
“After all, we are soon to be wed. What will the parson think if he should hear you speak to me so formally? After all, if we are not wedding for love—as must be the only case for a midnight wedding—mightn’t he wonder if you come to him compromised? ”
Margaret furrowed her brow. “Compromised?”
“In other words, with child,” he explained more crudely.
Margaret frowned. Why did she feel he was baiting her? There was no mistaking the glitter of amusement in his bright blue eyes, and her flush crept higher with that realization. She was doubly unsettled to find her gaze returning to his lips…
Just a kiss, he’d claimed.
As it was, it would seem they were eloping—and why would anyone do so, unless they were…
well, as he’d said, compromised? So often these weddings in Gretna Green were just the opposite case as hers.
They were oft times compromised, as he’d so brashly claimed, and more often than not, they flew into such a union at the detriment of their good fortunes.
However, Mr. Morgan himself had tightened the language in their contract to be sure that she was insulated from gossip, although she really did not care what anyone thought.
If she did, she might never have issued such a contract in the first place, and it was perhaps the talk of the ton already.
But after all was said and done, she couldn’t seem to help herself; why should she say no?
Indeed, what was she afraid of? He was going to be her husband, as he’d said—what harm could come from a simple kiss?
At any rate, it wasn’t as though she needed to be in love with a man simply to kiss him, she reasoned.
And she wasn’t. Of course, she wasn’t. How could she be?
In fact, Maggie wasn’t even sure she believed in love.
If one couldn’t touch it, or smell it, or see it, then one couldn’t be sure it even existed.
“Very well,” Margaret relented. “One kiss... no more... after we’re wed—for the sake of the parson. ”
“For the sake of the parson,” he said.
“Indeed,” Margaret agreed, and his lips curved into a slow grin, looking too much like the little boy who’d coaxed the mouse from the cat’s jaws, and she suddenly wanted to take it all back.
She wouldn’t, however.
For better, or worse, she owed the cad a kiss, and with their business concluded, she lapsed into silence for the rest of the journey, wondering how it was that he’d managed to make her agree to such a scandalous proposal.