Page 15 of A Bride By Morning
Lydia gasped as Mikhail went slack against her. She frantically wrestled with the hand still holding a blade, forcing it away from her exposed throat. The weight of the corpse buckled Lydia’s knees. As she struggled to get out from beneath the body, she heard the revolting crunch of fists and flesh colliding as Gabriel combated the other men.
With a soft grunt, Lydia rolled the corpse off her. She scrambled away to witness Gabriel shove his blade into the second man’s gut. Lydia pressed a hand to her mouth as her vision swam. She dimly registered the third assailant making the wise choice to escape, his boots pounding down the garden path away from the fountain.
Gabriel hesitated. His head swung around as he took in one corpse, then the other. And then . . .
Her.
Their eyes met.
Gabriel went still, and Lydia became aware of the blood splattered across her face and bodice. Of the stains that tarnished her delicate silk dress. Gabriel was in marginally better shape—his black evening jacket likely hid stains worse than hers—but the blood on his knuckles was prominent even in the low light of the garden torches.
And he still held that dripping knife.
There was nothing of the boy she knew in his countenance. Nothing at all. She hardly recognized this stranger whose body seemed created for brutality. He wasn’t any different from the blade in his hand, forged for the same terrible purpose.
Gabriel approached Lydia slowly, kneeling beside her. But when he reached for her, she couldn’t help but flinch. His fingers curled into his palm. “Are you hurt?” he asked curtly.
She shook her head, dazed. Unable to speak. All she could do was stare mutely as the last ten years rearranged in her mind, as she finally tumbled from the edge of the dark precipice.Spy, she’d thought. But then her attention snagged again on the knife in his grip, and she almost laughed at her stupidity. His position, after all, would not officially exist, would it?
Assassin.
Gabriel set the blade aside. “Lydia.” His voice was quiet. It almost sounded like the man she knew, some hint of a plea in the three syllables of her name.
“Don’t apologize to me.” Her words were collected, calmer than she truly felt. She couldn’t have an apology from him. Not now. Not tonight. Not when all her memories of him lay at the bottom of an abyss like a heap of broken glass.
Gabriel gave a nod, concentrating on her blood-splattered skin. With a soft noise, he turned to the fountain and plunged his hands in the water to clean them off. Then Gabriel withdrew a kerchief from his pocket and soaked it. He reached for Lydia once more, his movements deliberate, as if waiting for her to retreat again. When she didn’t, he began wiping the blood from her face.
“You’re sure he didn’t hurt you?” he asked.
“I don’t—” Lydia cleared her throat. “I don’t think so.”
He wordlessly resumed his ministrations, his touch gentle. Even his countenance had softened, as if he comprehended the questions that troubled her. The thoughts that threatened her already tattered composure. If she looked just past his shoulder, she’d see one of the dead men—
“Keep your eyes on me,” he ordered her, his voice quiet.
But that did little to help. This man could be tender one moment and a killer the next. The hand that scrubbed her so carefully could wield a blade with brutal efficiency. He stabbed a man as easily as cleaning the proof of his violence from her skin.
What happened to you?Lydia wanted to ask him.What happened to the boy I knew after every letter I sent went unanswered?
His face hardened imperceptibly, as if he heard her questions.Don’t ask,his expression said.Do not ask me those things. You will not like the explanation I give you.Those answers were as forbidden to her as his heart.
Lydia swallowed all her inquiries. She was silent as he dropped his kerchief to her neck and slid it across the skin there. She hoped he couldn’t feel her pulse through the cloth, but perhaps it didn’t matter. Her chest rose and fell in agitation. She couldn’t get her breath to settle. Every moment she spent in the garden close to the men he killed only threatened her equanimity. Her very construction was crumbling.
“You’ll have to use your shawl to cover the blood on your dress,” he said, passing her the fabric she’d discarded on the bench earlier, along with her gloves.
With trembling hands, she managed to don her gloves and set the shawl around her shoulders, clutching the delicate fabric to the front of her dress. “What about . . . the men?”
The corpses,she couldn’t say.
Her voice was rough; she could barely get in air. How was he so calm? He had killed two men, and it hardly fazed him.
“Let me worry about them,” he said shortly.
Lydia pressed her lips together as Gabriel helped her stand. If he killed with such skill, he likely dealt with bodies often. That awareness sent a stabbing pain through Lydia. She had faced off with him earlier, so confident in her suspicions. And in mere minutes, he’d forced her to reevaluate everything.
Including if she’d ever truly known him at all.
His lips set in a grim line as if Lydia inscribed her every thought on her skin. Perhaps she had.
