Page 13 of A Bride By Morning
Was she meeting a man in the garden? Gabriel had been so focused on what he recalled of her social unease that he hadn’t considered the possibility she might wish for the company of a lover.
The mere notion of another man touching her only further congealed the ice in Gabriel’s veins. “Were you waiting for someone?”
Her lips thinned as she reached for her discarded gloves. “If I was?”
He’d demand to know why the fucking fool was meeting her in darkened gardens instead of marrying her. Because he’d made that particular mistake once and regretted it ever since.
“Tell me.” He wanted to know the idiot by name.
“And now you demand answers. Such strange behavior for a man who sought to avoid me since returning to England three years ago.” At his silence, Lydia made a soft noise and tapped her gloves against her dress. “If you must know, I came to be alone.”
Relief alleviated the tension from his shoulders. Gabriel didn’t like it. “You shouldn’t be out in the dark.”
Her laugh was brittle. “You ought to reconsider your concerns, Lord Montgomery,” Lydia said. “I might think you care.”
I do,he wanted to say.I care far too much.
That old consideration for her welfare had him edging closer. “Come. I’ll escort you safely back to the ballroom.”
“No.” Lydia’s gaze met his. “Why did you follow me? Somehow, I don’t think it was to scold me for my solitude.”
Gabriel straightened as he recalled Wentworth’s words.Clean up your mess.
He didn’t have time to worry over Lydia’s reputation. Not with Medvedev in London. Wentworth’s men might even have him in custody by now, and if they did, Gabriel wanted to be there. The Russian could implicate the rest of the Syndicate, which had only grown in the three years since Gabriel left Moscow. Even London had its own faction of the crime ring.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention what you saw in Coningsby’s study to anyone,” he said briskly. “Even better, forget you saw me in there, and I’ll do the same for you.”
Lydia was silent as she studied him. Her eyes were more penetrating than Wentworth’s; such acuity in a mere look was a skill, after all. She might have made an excellent operative, keen observer that she was.
Lydia inclined her head in a silent nod.
Good.That done, Gabriel pivoted to leave the gardens, but her voice rang out behind him. “But only if you tell me who Bear is.”
He froze, then slowly turned to face her. The look on Lydia’s face was as triumphant as a battlefield goddess, his valkyrie with her flaming sword. The very sight of her threatened his balance. How had the girl he left behind so many years ago become this woman with a voice like fine whiskey and a smile like a knife’s edge? Whowasshe?
“You solved my cryptogram,” he said stiffly.
“I did.” Lydia smiled and leaned back. “So, who is Bear?”
Gabriel drew closer. Lydia’s smile faded as he kneeled and set his hands to the bench on either side of her. She had yet to learn her lesson. She could not treat him like the boy from Surrey. He might be a wolf, but he was far from the only monster he knew.
“Listen to me,” he said, in a voice as hard as steel. “Forget that message. Forget you ever saw that name. Do both, and you can go back to your aunt’s charming little townhouse in Mayfair and sleep soundly tonight. But do not play games with me when you don’t even know the rules.”
Gabriel ought to have recalled that while he was no longer the boy from Surrey, she was not the girl he knew, either.
Her gaze matched his as she leaned forward within the cage of his arms, rendering a silent challenge. “Tell me the rules, then,” she said. “I’m a quick study.”
He was close enough to feel her heat. Close enough that they breathed the same air. Gabriel’s eyes dropped to her lips as desire shot through him like an arrow.
“You curse of a girl,” he whispered the moment before his lips met hers.
6
Lydia went still as Gabriel’s lips pressed to hers.
But it was not the slow kiss of a man striving to seduce her. Instead, it was a punishment, a reprimand for her earlier question. Gabriel leaned over her, pushing her back against the bench as he plundered her mouth like a conquering force. His tongue swept against hers and rendered her breathless.
But Gabriel ought to have remembered that Lydia would not be intimidated by anyone, certainly not him. She was not a little girl to be shown a lesson. She might not comprehend his rules, but she could devise her own.
