Chapter Eighteen
Gabriel peeked through the curtains as he watched Pere escape back to the ballroom after their deliciously private moment together.
She paused, smoothed her skirt, and walked confidently into the ballroom, the gentle sway of her hips and the curve of her shoulder burning through him as he watched, held captive by each nuance.
When she disappeared from view through the small sliver of the curtain’s opening, he stepped back, leaning against the cold stone of the window’s alcove.
Closing his eyes, he thought through the past few moments.
God help me, I am lost. If he’d been uncertain of her feelings, he was no longer in the dark.
For that, he was thankful, but it now presented a new path, with new obstacles.
One question answered now opened the door for a million more, but he’d welcome each one, because they all pointed toward something he’d never dared dream of—a future.
For a moment, his heart stuttered, as he remembered his mother, his father, their pain, but Lady Peregrine wasn’t cut from the same cloth, no.
A dark chuckle vibrated through him as he considered that any unfaithful behavior would likely result in bloodshed—his.
But that brought into sharp focus the truth that her heart was worthy of his fidelity, and fragile, so it was upon his honor to keep it safe.
He would rather die than wound her the way his father had been wounded.
As much as he regretted and despised his mother’s actions, he must use them as a caution to not repeat those same decisions.
He opened his eyes and counted to one hundred before peeking through the curtains, and finding the hall vacant, took his leave of the private haven.
As he walked into the bright ballroom, his eye found her immediately, as if her soul were calling his.
He offered her a nod and grin before taking a wide, circular route to where she waited with Henley.
As he thought the name, it gave him pause. Henley. He needed to talk with Henley soon; he owed it to him. But first, he needed to truly speak with Lady Peregrine, because it was her decision. Her future. And please, God, let that future have a new name. His.
He forced his powerful thoughts to the back of his mind; they would have their moment later.
But now, with the ton watching and with Henley and Anna standing guard, he had a different part to play, and it was its own form of protection.
He would play the friend, and it was true—however it was only part of the story.
Odd that, he’d never really quite considered it.
He’d been so cynical of women for so long, he’d never considered that one could be a friend.
They were partners in seduction, in pleasure, not in life.
Furthermore, he hadn’t realized how friendship could truly be the gateway for love, and now, on the other side of that gate, he couldn’t believe how blind he had been.
Life always made more sense after the fact, and this was certainly one of those cases.
As his eyes met those of Lady Peregrine again, her eyebrow rising in a gentle test, he decided that friendship was far more dangerous than seduction.
Because it wasn’t a temporary delight of the body.
No. It was an ownership of another’s soul, and he was a willing captive.
He wandered with purpose toward Pere, and consequently Henley and Lady Anna, where they lingered beneath the musician’s gallery.
He nodded to Henley, but it was Lady Anna who regarded him suspiciously, but not with caution, just amusement.
At least he knew he had her approval. But his attention was quickly commanded by Lady Peregrine, her expression alight with daring interest and a hint of challenge.
“You look suspiciously pleased with yourself, Lord Hawthorne,” Lady Pere murmured when he took up a position beside her.
Her voice was low enough that only he and Anna, who blessedly pretended sudden fascination with her fan, could hear.
“Do I?” He let his expression turn lazy, wicked. “Perhaps I am merely enjoying the sight of you attempting not to smile at me. It is a valiant effort, but the corners of your mouth are traitors.”
Anna snorted softly, closing her fan and spearing him with a suspicious grin. “Careful, Pere. He’s in rare form tonight.”
“I had noticed,” Pere replied, eyes never leaving his. “Though I suspect rare form is his natural state. Like a peacock that has learned sarcasm.”
Hawthorne laughed—actually laughed—drawing a few curious glances. “A peacock, my lady? I was aiming for dangerous wolf, perhaps a touch mysterious.”
“You overshot,” she said, deadpan. “You landed squarely on absurdly pleased with yourself.”
“Absurdly pleased is still pleased,” he countered, stepping just close enough that the scent of her—something like rain on roses—wrapped around him. “And I find I rather like being pleased in your company.”
Her cheeks warmed, but she did not look away. “Flattery, my lord?” For a second, her gaze flickered beside him, likely checking to see if Anna overheard his words.
He cared not but understood her impulse to check.
“Honesty,” he said softly. “I find it suits you far better than flirtation ever did me.”
Anna cleared her throat with theatrical delicacy. “I believe I hear my mother summoning me from across the room. With her mind.” Anna grinned unrepentantly and departed, leaving her loosely chaperoned by her brother a few steps away and in a conversation with another gentleman.
Peregrine tilted her head. “You frightened her away.”
I hope I did, he thought. Aloud, he said, “She is made of sterner stuff than that. She merely recognizes when two people need to stop pretending they are only friends,”
“Perhaps she is quicker to notice things that her sister-in-law…” he baited, alluding to their earlier conversation, where Pere admitted to not noticing the budding romance between her best friend and Henley.
Pere narrowed her eyes playfully at his words, then glanced down, her expression shifting as she glanced up to him once more. Something flickered in her eyes—hope, fear, both.
“And are we?” she asked quietly. “Only friends?”
No. Never again only that. He wanted to say it. Wanted to drop to one knee here in the crush and damn the consequences.
Instead, he brushed an invisible speck from her sleeve, letting his fingers linger against the silk a heartbeat too long.
“I think we are whatever we decide to be, Lady Peregrine. And I have decided I should very much like to be a great deal more.” He spoke so lowly, he almost wondered if she heard him.
Confessions were made for privacy, and this was certainly not private. However, the words must be said; his heart demanded it.
Her breath caught. For one shining moment, the ballroom fell away, and there was only the two of them suspended in candlelight and possibility.
Then the orchestra struck up a country dance, the spell cracked, and as dancers exchanged places on the ballroom floor, he backed away a few steps to ward off suspicious eyes.
He met her gaze and mouthed the word Later. This was not the time or place, and he wanted their conversation to not be limited to whispers and words that could be possibly overheard.
Pere nodded once, her expression understanding and resolute.
Then, unable to resist one flirtation with danger, he stepped forward, grasped her hand, and kissed the air above it. “Soon. And yet not nearly soon enough.”
He watched as her tongue darted out to lick her lips as she studied his, and the power of it sent a thrill of desire entirely inappropriate for a crowded ballroom deeply through him, searing his soul.
“Until then, my lord,” she whispered.
“Tomorrow?”
“If I must wait that long,” she teased, her full lips taunting him.
“Then we shall both be impatient till then.” He released her hand, and stepped back, needing distance so that he wouldn’t do anything impulsive.
The rest of the night passed in a blur of polite smiles and careful distance. He danced with debutantes he barely saw, bowed to dowagers he barely heard, all while his gaze tracked her across the room like a compass needle seeking north.
It was near the end, when the chandeliers were being snuffed and yawns poorly hidden behind gloved hands, that he saw her.
Lady Devon—Peregrine’s mother—standing far too close to a tall, silver-haired gentleman near the card room. The man’s hand rested possessively at the small of her back. His profile sharp, aristocratic, unmistakable.
Lord Carver.
The name slammed into Hawthorne like a fist to the sternum.
The same Lord Carver who had been his mother’s lover.
The same man who had smiled across his father’s dinner table while plotting to destroy his family.
The same man whose whispered promises had driven a blade through a marriage and left a boy to pick up the pieces of a shattered father.
His vision narrowed to a tunnel. Blood roared in his ears. He felt his hands curl into fists so tight the knuckles sang.
Not here. Not now. Not near her.
But Lady Devon laughed at something Carver murmured, her hand brushing the lapel of his coat with easy intimacy, and the sight was a match to dry tinder.
Every old wound tore open at once. His father’s hollow eyes, his mother’s careless cruelty, the years of guarding his heart behind ice and cynicism because some sins echoed down bloodlines whether one wished it or not.
Henley must be told. The thought arrived with the force of a commandment. His closest friend—practically his brother—was on the verge of aligning his house with a family that harbored the very poison that had killed Hawthorne’s own.
But how to tell him without sounding like a madman nursing a decade-old grudge?
Worse—Peregrine. She must be told. She must be protected.
Yet the idea of laying such ugliness at her feet before he had offered for her—before he had secured the right to shield her—felt unbearable.
If he warned her now, she would think he acted only from spite, or jealousy, or some petty need to break her family apart. She might never trust his heart again.
Offer first. Secure her first. Then tell her—gently, carefully—and stand with her against whatever storm followed.
But what if Carver had already sunk his hooks into Lady Devon so deeply the scandal would drown them all? What if waiting even one more day gave the man time to—God forbid—seduce Peregrine’s mother into something irreversible?
His chest felt flayed open, raw and bleeding. He could not lose her now. Not when he had only just found her.
Across the room, Peregrine glanced up, caught his eye, and smiled—small, quizzical, worried. She had seen the change in him; of course she had. She saw everything.
He forced his fists to unclench, gave a nod in return that he prayed looked reassuring.
Tomorrow, he vowed silently, the words carving themselves into his bones. Tomorrow he would ask for her hand. Tomorrow he would tell Henley. Tomorrow he would burn the past to ash if that was what it took to keep her safe.
But tonight, Lord Carver’s hand was still on Lady Devon’s waist, and the ghosts of old betrayals howled around Hawthorne like a winter wind, and for the first time in years, he was terrified that history was about to repeat itself after all.