Chapter Thirty-Six
Gideon did not like the look of the man speaking with his wife. He’d observed him while in the queue, noted that he’d seemed particularly keen on speaking to Gwen, going so far as to allow two women behind him to precede him to the counter when Amelia freed up to help them with their purchases.
The arrival of Emily had forced Gideon to look away. By the time he glanced back, the dandily dressed man stood before Gwen. He did not care for the look of the man. Not his manner of dress, nor his overly coiffed hair, nor his intense study of Gwen. His wife.
“I do not believe you have heard a word I’ve said, Gideon Devereux, and after I made a special effort to seek you out today.”
With reluctance, Gideon tore his gaze off of Gwen and the foppish gentleman. He was almost certain the two knew each other. One of the stakeholders, perhaps? Somehow, he did not think so.
“I apologize, Emily. I assumed you came here to see your new benefactor and realized he was here with his wife. Is there something I can help you with?”
Her lips curved in a semblance of a smile he had likely once found alluring. “Brice told you of his proposition, did he?”
“Of course. We are old friends.”
Her expression turned sour, as if she sucked on a lemon rind. “And you gave him your blessing without a moment’s hesitation,” she stated, rather than asked.
Gideon’s attention shifted back to Gwen. She and the unknown dandy had moved off to have a private discussion, it seemed. Seeing the two of them together caused an unfamiliar sensation inside him. A distinct burning. Very unpleasant.
Not wishing to be discourteous, he once again regarded Emily. He really did not understand where this was coming from. Granted, she had not wanted the split, but she had not fallen apart like so many women at the conclusion of the affair, touting what was essentially a sexual interlude, as love.
He lowered his voice. “Emily, you and I spent an enjoyable period of time together, but that time came to its predictable end, as we both knew it would. I harbor no ill will toward you. Indeed, I wish you only happiness, and would like to think the sentiment is mutual. If Brice, despite his married status, is whom you choose to take your enjoyment with…” His words drifted off and he spread his arms wide.
A smirk tugged at her lips. “I had forgotten your moralistic notions concerning married persons forming liaisons.”
Gideon saw no reason to defend his preference, so he said nothing.
She sighed. “I had hoped hearing I had accepted Brice as a replacement might spur you to reconsider. It seems you’re quite taken with your little bluestocking wife. But I know you, Gideon. It’s only a matter of time before you grow bored. Sir, are you listening?”
“Yes, yes. Tell me, Emily, do you know that man, speaking with my wife?” Gideon ignored her snort of amusement. He knew he was making a spectacle of himself in her eyes, and didn’t much care.
She shifted to stand beside Gideon to study Gwen and her companion. “Your wife certainly knows how to draw a man’s attention. What is her secret, I wonder?”
Gideon slanted her an annoyed look. “Do you recognize him or not?”
“That man is none other than Mr. Steven Landry. Relatively new on the scene, he moves in the best circles thanks to his renown as one of today’s leading poets, and his looks, of course.”
Blood rushed in his ears and a crunching noise sounded. This was the man who had accosted Gwen while a guest under her roof. The man whom her husband had not rebuked. The man who, even now, held one of Gwen’s hands in his after having snatched it like a greedy little beggar.
Gideon realized he was grinding his teeth and on the verge of making a full-on scene. With effort he banked the rage flooding him.
“I never thought I’d see the day,” Emily murmured, all trace of humor gone from her tone.
As he watched, Gwen pulled free of Landry’s grasp, turned her back on him, and, head held high, marched to her table of booklets, not giving the bastard poet a second look. Gideon smiled a cold smile. Good girl.
Landry gazed after her, like a wolf eyeing a mutton chop. Then, he appeared to remember himself. He tugged at his waistcoat and started, Gideon guessed, toward the exit.
“Emily, I have one small favor to ask.” He turned to look back at his former mistress.
She arched her dark brows in query.
“I would appreciate it if you do not go out of your way to upset my wife. I believe she suspects who you are, thanks in no small part to you having introduced yourself to her.”
Emily huffed out a disbelieving laugh before giving him a pitying look. “Careful, Gideon.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means laying down your heart for someone, something rumors about you say you have never done, can have nasty consequences, such as finding it trampled underfoot. Tell me, does she know?”
“Know what?”
“That she has you by the nose?”
“I have no more time for this, Emily. Kindly, excuse me.”
She tugged her gloves tight, her lips pinched. “By all means. In any case, it is past time for me to take my leave.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you out,” Gideon said and gestured for her to precede him.
As they made their way to the front doors, he saw Landry slip through the exit and turn right.
He smiled inwardly. He would not get off that easily.
Lady Harriet conveyed Gwen home following the event at Margaret’s bookshop. She was grateful she had made the arrangement, and that she had not planned for Gideon to collect her.
For that matter, she thanked the heavens she was not sharing a carriage with Amelia, for the sole reason she did not think she could hide her crushed spirits from the woman.
Not after she’d witnessed Gwen searching the room for Gideon following her brief conversation with Mr. Landry and found him, as well as Mrs. Trent, no longer on premises.
There could be no doubt the two had left together.
The moment she entered the town house, her stomach tightened into a fist. She could not bear the idea of coming face-to-face with Gideon after his humiliating betrayal.
Higgins appeared in the foyer to help her from her pelisse. “Mr. Devereux bid me inform you that he is in his den.”
So he had returned home following his tryst? Gwen forced a bright smile. “Thank you, Mr. Higgins. I shall be in my workroom.”
If the aged butler thought her dismissal of what was tantamount to an invitation, odd, he gave no outward indication. “Very good, madam.”
She marched up the stairs, fuming. The nerve of the man, expecting her to jump to at the snap of his fingers after he’d spent the afternoon dallying with his mistress.
She entered the converted bedchamber, head held high. Then, in a great rush, the misery she’d held at bay the last several hours under a veneer of faux cheer, burst to the fore. She fell against the closed door, pressing a fist to her mouth to staunch the sob that wanted to escape.
Her eyes fell on the desk before the window. It was…different. Confusion blotted out her pain in a flash. Someone had removed the plain wooden writing desk and chair she’d borrowed from the library and replaced it with appeared to be a new set.
On wobbly legs she moved toward it. The rich mahogany surface of the desktop gleamed under the light of the oil lamps someone had turned up in her absence.
The edges of the desk, its legs, and the legs of the matching, cushioned chair boasted beautiful scrollwork, both ornate and elegantly understated.
Multifaceted crystal knobs crowned the drawers beneath the desktop and glinted like diamonds.
The scent of lemon oil as she neared the addition to her atelier, as Gideon called it, teased her nostrils.
Bemused, she pulled out the chair. It rolled on silent castor wheels. She sank onto the plush blue-velvet-covered cushion.
He’d done this. He’d taken it upon himself to procure this beautiful set for her.
A fat tear coursed down her cheek and she scrubbed it away, moved by his kindness despite her better judgment.
Then she spotted her pile of correspondence.
One unopened missive sat atop the stack.
She recognized the writing, of course, having received far too many notices from the sender at this point.
She reached for it and thumbed off the stakeholders’ solicitor’s wax seal.
It was almost a relief to have something to occupy her mind besides the conflicting messages Gideon’s action sent.
His kindnesses. His attentions to her person.
The way he made her feel seen and cared for and safe.
His ongoing affair with his mistress, which he’d seen fit to keep from her only to rub her nose in it before her closest friends and the public at large. But what had she expected? She’d gotten married not to have a husband—faithful or otherwise—but to procure the publishing company.
And so, she scanned the note. Then, barely able to believe her eyes, scanned it again.
They couldn’t possibly make such a demand of her.
Could they? If so, if she’d been so foolish as to allow such a giant loophole, she deserved the end result—that she would almost certainly have to renounce ownership.
She would not operate her beloved publishing house under such constraints.
She stared out the window at Gideon’s pristine gardens, almost numb. In a matter of hours, all her dreams seemed to crumble at her feet.
A knock sounded at the door. A moment later, she heard the door swing open and then close.
“You didn’t come find me,” Gideon said from behind her. “I had wanted to surprise you.”
“I was surprised,” she said weakly, not looking at him.
He said nothing for a long moment. “Do you not like it? I can…” His words drifted off.
She turned the chair to face him. Whatever he saw in her face had him moving on swift feet toward her. “Gwen, what is it? What’s wrong?”
He stuttered to a halt when she lifted her arm to ward him off. She could not stomach his touch. Not after he’d been with another mere hours ago.
He stared at her, thick brows furrowed over his magnificent eyes, and she rose to her feet. She never had liked being loomed over.
“Gwen?”
“Allow me to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to stop by Margaret’s bookshop. I would have thanked you earlier,” she said, her voice stilted, “had you not left.”
“I apologize for leaving without saying goodbye. Something”—he paused to scratch the side of his nose, and Gwen noticed a thick, white bandage wrapped around his knuckles—“unexpected came up.”
Like happening upon his mistress unexpectedly. She glared at him, but couldn’t quell the impulse to ask about his apparent injury. “May I ask what happened to your hand, sir?”
He made a dismissive sound in his throat. “Madam, what is wrong? You do not seem yourself. May I assume this odd mood concerns something that occurred today—in the bookshop?”
She sucked in a breath, hardly able to comprehend his cruelty. Evidently he wanted things out in the open. Perhaps this was his ill-conceived plan to finally establish the parameters of their marriage. Fine. “I witnessed you and your mistress consorting. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
He blinked, and his lips parted, his expression so taken aback, she could only conclude this was not the conversation he’d anticipated.
“I beg your pardon? Do you refer to Emily?”
So now she was Emily. Gwen almost bared her teeth. Instead, to her mortification, a sob sounded in her throat. She turned away from him, clutching the edges of her beautiful new desk.
Gideon moved to her on silent feet. He grasped her shoulders and pivoted her to face him. “Madam, I do not know what you think you saw, but I assure you I consorted with no one. I ended things with her upon my return to England.”
She searched his face, as his words penetrated. A tiny ember of hope ignited within her. But she had to be sure. “I saw you, sir. You were talking with her, and then you were both gone. What was I to think?”
He swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his hands tightened on her. “What were you to think,” he aped. “That the sight of you, the mere thought of you, makes me burn? You, Gwen, and no one else. You doubt that?”
“Where did you go, if not with her?”
His jaw tensed. “As it happens, I needed to have words with someone else—about you.”
She blinked up at him. “About me?”
He slid his palms up and down her arms, stoking an intense longing to be held by him despite her need for answers. “I dealt with him, Gwen. You will not be bothered by him again.”
She cocked her head. “Him?”
He arched a brow, his expression clearly flabbergasted. “Landry?”
Steven Landry. Dear Heaven. She had all but forgotten about seeing him thanks to her turmoil over Gideon.
“I did not care for how he looked at you, nor did seeing the two of you in close conversation sit well with me. I made a point to discover his identity and, when he left, followed him in order that I might share my observations—and some advice.”
“What happened?” She took his bandaged hand between both of hers. “This?”
His voice roughened. “I pointed out he’d been lucky once by the sheer fact your first husband had not called him out.
I assured him, if he dared approach my wife again, he would find his luck had run out.
I might have…broken his nose. Even so, he got off easy.
I wanted to kill him. If comes ’round again, I can’t swear I won’t. ”
She should be appalled. She should chastise him for his foolish behavior. Instead, profound relief at having been wrong about where he’d gone and with whom flooded her, leaving her almost dizzy. “Why?” she demanded, her heart in her throat.
His expression grew instantly guarded. “Why? You are my wife, Gwen. I will protect you, always.”
Always. A tremulous smile pulled at her mouth as hope flamed to life in her chest. But hope was not enough. She must know the true extent of his feelings for her. She could not go through this turmoil again.
“Is that the only reason, Gideon?” she prodded gently. “Because I am your wife?”
He shot her a look of suspicion, then a seductive smile flickered over his mouth. “What else? Do you like your gift?”
“I love it,” she said, honestly.
“Good.” He moved into her, then leaned forward to plant his hands on the desk on either side of her hips, bracketing her in.
Her insides shivered with need.
Gideon drew his mouth to one ear, nuzzling her. “I want to strip you naked, nibble my way down your belly, lick your—”
Calling on all her will, she pushed against his hard chest. “No.”
He stumbled back, eyes clouding briefly with hurt. Then his expression went carefully neutral. “You are tired. You have had a long day.”
“It is not that, Gideon. I wish to speak with you, and I will not be dissuaded. Not this time.”