Page 18 of A Bride By Morning
In an instant, Gabriel’s control further unraveled, the structure of sand collapsing at the slightest contact. “No.”
Wentworth raised his hands in a gesture of supplication. “If you have another idea, let me hear it. I’m impatient to know your alternative for getting an unchaperoned lady to the country, where you intend to keep her indefinitely under your protection.”
Gabriel turned abruptly and set his hands against the window frame. He gazed sightlessly out at the gaslamps across the square as his thoughts whirled. His wolf paced through his mind, impatient to smash through the already-fracturing barricades of ice. He had not given himself over to the beast in too long. The violence of his time in Moscow was marked beneath his skin, and the only way to endure it—to regain his fragmented control—was to hit something or fuck someone.
When it came to the second choice, there was nothing but brutal desire. Gabriel had only kissed Lydia once, and he’d been ready to rip off that pretty pink dress. Set his teeth to her skin. Bite her. Make her his. Bend her over and fuck her against the bench of the fountain until his mind purged itself of her.
Instead, he’d shown her the first choice. He’d killed two men and ruined that pretty pink dress just the same.
Behind him, Wentworth rose from his desk with a long exhale. “Listen,” he said at Gabriel’s silence. “I assume you care about this woman in your own way. So let me offer you some advice: if anything happens to her, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Gabriel curled his fingers into the window frame, his shoulders tensing. Beneath his shirt, he could still feel the damp blood he’d had no time to wash adequately. It was his fault those men were in that garden. His fault that Mikhail had held a knife to Lydia’s throat. His fault Lydia’s memory of her childhood friend was destroyed.
“Are you speaking of Lydia now or your wife?” Gabriel asked.
Wentworth made a soft noise. “You don’t have to like my opinion, Monty. If you think coming home to find your Miss Cecil bleeding and dead at the base of the stairs is something you can live with, then disregard me.”
Gabriel couldn’t help but imagine Wentworth arriving home to find Mrs. Wentworth stabbed a dozen times. Searching for the culprit and finding nothing. If someone butchered Lydia, Gabriel would hunt that person to the ends of the earth. He wouldn’t stop until he located them, tore them apart, buried them beneath the dirt where they would never be found.
He also knew that he could never be the husband she deserved. But there was little help for it now—his fate was directly tied to hers.
And she’d pay the price.
Gabriel shut his eyes. “I’ll seek permission for a special license. Make sure the archbishop complies.”
8
Lydia ordinarily enjoyed Lady Derby’s afternoon visits with the other matrons.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, her aunt’s house in Mayfair became a hive of activity as ladies stopped in to socialize before proceeding to their next destination. Each time allowed Lydia to converse without the intrusion of ballroom noise, surrounded by the comforts of her home.
But that day, the laughter and calm normality in the sitting room did not soothe her nerves; it irritated her. The established ritual left Lydia restless. How could she be expected to sit there and chat about the season while her entire life was unraveling? While everything shethoughtshe understood turned out to be false? A deception?
Her envy flared at their oblivion; Lydia’s mind, after all, was a tempest. She longed to return to her bedchamber and pace the length of its room, an activity better suited to her turmoil.
She’d heard no word from Gabriel in three days.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. Lydia ought to have grown used to the perpetual reticence from his little corner of the world.I’ll call on you,was an easy falsehood for a man. And from one who masqueraded as a gentleman while operating as an assassin, it was effortless.
With each passing hour and day that he failed to appear, the dismay over witnessing Gabriel kill two men shifted to a surge of fury that vibrated across Lydia’s skin. A short message would have been better than this intolerable silence. At its bare minimum, an apology consisted of two words that ought to have been easy to pen. Even liars knew how to say,I’m sorry, whether true or false.
But there she was, enduring Gabriel’s taciturnity once more. The dereliction that said more than words what he thought of her. After so many years, it shouldn’t have ached like a blow to the chest. Maybe time had corroded Lydia’s armor. Or possibly his kiss had fractured it, introduced faults in the construction she’d foolishly believed robust steel.
She’d been so stupid.
“But perhaps Lydia and I will visit Cornwall at the end of the season,” Lady Derby said, momentarily pulling Lydia from her angry thoughts. “I do love the coast. I haven’t been there since before Lord Derby’s passing.”
“Quite lovely,” Lady Forsyth replied.
“Just so,” Mrs. Calloway agreed.
The former then discussed her daughter, who planned to honeymoon on the coast after marrying her duke.
At that point, Lydia made the wise decision to ignore their discussion. Mental images of a serene coastline and festive weddings did not suit her temper. If she was to visit the cliffs of Cornwall, let it be during a storm, when the waves battered the earth with a violence that better satisfied her.
Lydia set her jaw and stared down at her needlepoint. The flowers more closely resembled amorphous blobs—they, at least, matched the turbulence of her thoughts. She didn’t know how to navigate the ordinariness of her life now that Gabriel had rearranged her entire reality. Even an activity as routine as needlepoint—something to keep her hands occupied—confounded Lydia. She was as unbalanced in that drawing room as she would be on the towering sea cliffs of Cornwall during a squall. Her life with Gabriel needed to be reexamined. Held up to the light and amended. She could no longer count on her memories of him, her whole childhood in Surrey.
As her past crumbled to ruin, Lydia was forced to calmly sew while the source of her misfortune wandered the city, oblivious to his part in shattering her. Gabriel’s influence was no different than his kiss in the Brome’s garden: it was a punishment for Lydia’s idiocy.
