Chapter 22 #2
I stared at Kennen, and out of the corner of my eye could see Ferris do the same. I nodded slowly, elation and pride coiling. “Very well, Kennen. Thank you.” Even if he couldn’t talk sense to Ferris, the shock of him trying was sure to keep Ferris silent for at least a few minutes.
Besides, maybe Kennen would be the one to get through to him. “I believe I shall retire. I’ll send the carriage back.”
Kennen nodded. Ferris still looked flabbergasted, his long face even longer with his jaw dropped so far.
I turned and walked outside, bypassing the well-wishers, the gossip hounds, the suitors.
It wasn’t that the suitors weren’t acceptable.
There were even a few young men on Ferris’s list who would make solid, respectable husbands.
But none of them were Gabriel. None of them were mine. He was. And I was going to let him know it.
I gave the driver the direction, ignoring his look, or the fact that he might tell someone that he hadn’t dropped me off at home. The carriage moved. The wheels rolled forward. Hooves clomped. Closer and closer.
I stepped from the carriage as soon as it stopped. “Go back to the ball. I will be fine.” I pressed a coin into his hand, then turned. The carriage rolled off behind me. I would have to hire a hack if this didn’t work.
But it was going to work. I’d make it work.
I straightened my shoulders and marched up the walk.
The brass ring in the lion’s mouth glimmered in the faint light of the gas lamps. Fierce yellow eyes surveyed me from above the loop, questioning my nerve. My trembling fingers curled around the cold metal and rapped it against the plate.
A large man answered the door, the light this time allowing me to see it was truly a butler, austere, but with the look of a man who could hold himself in a fight.
His eyes traveled over my cloak, my shoes, my face, my hair.
Chimes rang in the hall, clocking the time as eleven in the evening.
Too late to be calling, by any stretch of protocol.
“Yes?”
“I need to speak to Master Noble.” This time my voice was strong, calm.
“Lady Winters, I presume?”
I blinked. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Lady Winters, but Master Noble is out for the evening.” He looked behind me. “I’ll have the carriage see you home.”
Disappointment, sharp and deep, hit. “I see. Thank you.”
A different carriage from any I had ridden in previously escorted me back to my rented town house. Out with another somewhere in the city—escorting a new client perhaps?
I swallowed.
I entered and greeted our new butler. Penny, the only servant we had rehired, passed me in the hall, her eyes unfocused and dreamy. I shook my head. A good worker but still a mite daft.
The door to my room was shut. I opened it and slipped inside, heading for my dressing table.
Penny had been prompt in lighting the lamps.
I peeled off my gloves and reached to my nape to unclasp the necklace there.
Movement in the looking glass caused me to go motionless as I examined the image reflected.
It explained Penny’s behavior and the lamps.
I let the necklace fall to the table and walked back to the door, closing it softly and sealing us inside. I leaned against the door, my hands splayed on the wood behind me.
Gabriel was sitting on my bed, papers spread in a terrible mess around him, leaning back against a pile of my pillows, looking wonderful, even with the dark creases under his eyes.
“Marietta.”
“Gabriel. This is my bedroom, you did know.”
“I confess I’ve been here before.”
A tingle shot through me, very different from the last time he was in my room, the night our partnership had begun.
“How did you get in?”
“I bribed your servants.”
“Well, that will hardly do. And here I thought you had hired us some respectable ones.”
He unfolded from his position and rose slowly, hitching his hip and shoulder against one of the bed poster poles and crossing his arms. “I bribed them doubly, so they would say nothing to your brothers or anyone else, should I stay for five minutes or five hours.” Emotion flashed, and I caught the vulnerability he tried so desperately to hide.
“I suppose they are only as respectable as the man hiring them. Perhaps you should have checked his references.”
He looked delicious. Hair falling into his ever watchful eyes.
“Perhaps I still should. A full, thorough search.”
He smiled. A full stretch of sensual lips—palpable relief combined with a predatory upward curl.
“That would be best. Tea?” He pointed to a service on my side table. He had obviously made himself right at home.
“No.” I walked toward him, picking the pins out of my hair as I went. “I’ve had plenty of tea.”
“You were supposed to be at the Smithertons’ for at least another hour.”
I arched a brow back. “You are keeping track of my appointments?”
“Of course.”
“You say it as if it’s obvious. Why would you keep track of such a thing?”
He arched a brow. “I value my research.”
“And what has it told you about me lately?”
“You have a number of offers. Good ones. Your brother is even hoping for a high lord.”
“He is. I met him tonight.”
Something passed across his eyes. Jealousy. My heart beat faster.
“I have looked into Plufield’s affairs,” he said, fingers tapping on one crossed arm.
“He is not a bad choice, all things considered. Lucian was prowling a dinner affair and met the high lord. He commented that he was nice enough. My reports say the same. Moderate consumer of spirits and gambling. Plenty of money to keep you in style. The ladies report that he is not hard on the eyes. One of your others—Ratching, is it?—is also a decent choice.”
I stopped a foot in front of him. “Yes. Both decent choices.”
“Whom will you choose?”
I took another step. “Who do you think I should choose?”
“Ah, but that is not my decision to make.”
I closed the last six inches and tilted my head up. “I’m asking your opinion, is all.”
His fingers curled into white knuckles. Yes. “And I’m not giving my opinion to you.”
I pushed flush against him, eyelids dropping to half-mast, his arms automatically falling and allowing closer contact. “Then I suppose I should determine my favorite with a kiss?”
He crushed his lips to mine, and I eagerly returned the assault.
“I’ve missed you,” he said against my mouth.
I pulled away an inch. “I’ve missed you too. I worried about y—”
He kissed me again. “I know. Talk later.”
He turned and pushed me down on the bed, crumpling papers beneath me as I leaned back on my elbows.
“I’ll never find anything in that pile again,” he said, his voice rasping as if he’d run ten miles as he continued to kiss me. He pushed against me, hard and delicious, and I pushed back, wanting the heat.
“You can’t find—” I arched back as he freed a breast and sucked the tip. “—anything in those piles anyway, admit it.”
“Never.”
He lifted my skirts, the layers of material ballooning and bunching around and between us.
He stroked a finger along me, unerringly finding the exact spots that made me writhe against him, sneaking a fingertip inside, on the path my body had already made.
His body aligned with mine and my throat caught.
Fingers threaded through my hair and brilliant green eyes met mine. I looked in his eyes and read the honesty reflected. Desire, caution, love.
The question.
“I don’t want any of the others.”
“They could give you the life you deserve.”
“No.” I shook my head. “They will give me anything but.”
“I’m the son of a butler and drift dancer, Marietta. Hardly someone that—”
I put my finger to his lips. “I love you.” I felt the shock jolt through him, and barely kept hold of myself as the movement thrust him inside me another inch. “Love is what none of the others could give me,” I said breathlessly. “I know you do not desire marriage. I don’t expect—”
His finger echoed mine, stroking my lip. “I never said that. I worded myself very carefully. I wanted to give you a clean chance to do as you wanted.”
“I want you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely.”
He smiled. A smile full of charm and roguish intent. He turned my wrist in his hand.
“Then perhaps we can modify this into a more permanent mark.” He pressed his lips to it. “One with a matching set on mine.”
My pulse raced even as the happy light in his eyes made my heart soar. And then he was all the way inside of me and without looking away from each other we were moving together, magic joining, and cresting over the edge.
He pushed the papers from the bed, scattered leaves gently settling on the hardwood below. He held me to him like a warm blanket and I clung back.
“You do realize,” he said lightly, “that once I commit to something, you’ll never be rid of me?”
“I’m counting on it.”
“Excellent.” He traced the stars on my skin. “Now about those vows to sin…”