Chapter 1 #3
“We did not become acquainted with those purposes in mind. There were never any intentions between us.” James glanced around, stepping back slightly from the archway.
It was dim and quieter in the hall behind them.
The air was cooler. Gabriel’s eyes were fixed on the half-masked face of his friend.
“But yes, it is what you are thinking. She has become very dear to me.”
“That did not take long at all to say.” Gabriel released the bird at last and extracted his hand from his pocket, digging into the other one for his snuff tin.
“What do you mean?”
“You could have told me earlier in the drawing room. You could have told me any number of weeks ago. What was the root of your hesitation?”
James looked down at the space between them. And for the first time in his life, Gabriel felt like the elder of the two men. “Quite frankly, I do not know what kept me silent so long on the matter of this engagement.”
“Do you mean to announce it soon?”
“I have asked her father for permission, and he has agreed and blessed us. My brother is content to see me settled, and his wife is also content with the arrangement. And Miss Warwick and I... Well, of course, we are happy too.”
Gabriel nodded. “Then I have nothing more to give you but my congratulations.”
James was silent a moment before looking up again. “It is not the worst thing for a man to take a woman into his company.”
“On that, we may agree,” Gabriel said darkly.
“Permanently.”
“Ah.”
“You are a strange fellow at the best of times, but tonight you are especially difficult to read,” James said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“It must be my age. Did you not know? All the Ashcrofts go mad eventually.”
“That cannot be true.”
“There is no evidence to the contrary for this generation or the last, so I stand by it.”
James looked displeased. “Will you make your speech now?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“It must be done eventually.”
“Yes, it must.”
Gabriel looked past James into the hall. The door to the terrace looked especially tempting.
“Five minutes is all I ask to rehearse,” Gabriel lied, already making for the door. “I am the youngest Duke of Hartmere there has ever been,” he recited from the speech he had worked on with James, and then went off script, “but I am also the most succinct. Thank you, and enjoy the party.”
James’s laugh was the last thing he heard before closing the terrace doors behind him.
Outside, the air was bitterly cold. It was too easy to forget how brutal English winters could be from the confines of a home.
Gabriel shivered and hastened down the steps to the garden.
He paused at the base and looked out over the grounds.
Hartmere House was located on the outskirts of Mayfair, where, in the late hours of the night, he could almost believe he was far away from the city.
It wasn’t nearly as quiet now. The house buzzed behind him, and the lawn crackled under the moonlight with frost.
He leaned on the stone sculpture beside him, covering his mouth with his hand as he turned his snuff box in his pocket with the other.
Thirty-one years old, he told himself. Does Aunt Elisabeth realize the significance of this age?
Did James? I am now more than twice as old as Marcus was when he died.
I never thought this could happen... And now that it has, what more of life is there left to live?
His eyes stung, and he blamed the cold, blinking hard. Again, his lashes beat against his too-tight mask like the wings of a bird. He reached up to remove it and had almost pried it off, but he heard someone approaching behind him. He dropped his hand to his side, turning instead.
At the top of the steps stood a woman. It was dark outside. He could barely see her face. She was masked like the rest of the guests. Her hands were balled at her sides like she intended to strike him.
“What...” he started to ask.
The woman raced down the steps so quickly she fell into his embrace. But this was not an accident. Her arms were around his neck, pulling him into her. She pushed her mouth against his mouth in a closed, violent kiss.
Gabriel’s stomach flipped, his body tight with shock and horror. And yet his hands were still on her back. He did not let her go. She was unfamiliar. He had never felt this way about this woman before. He worried he would never feel anything like her again.
He could not explain what happened next, why he pushed the kiss further and drew her into him rather than casting her away—why he pried open her cold and unyielding mouth and kissed her deeper.
Maybe it was because it was his birthday and that seemed impossible.
Or maybe it was this stranger and the inexplicable power she wielded over him.
Suddenly, the terrace doors opened behind them. The woman gasped, drawing back from him and tripping on the step behind her. Light from the hall spilled onto the terrace, illuminating her from behind. There was a wisp of red hair by her ears, something pink glittering at the edge of her mask...
And then there were her words, “Oh, heavens, no...” before she ran back toward the doors and disappeared inside.