Page 19 of A Bride By Morning
Stupid, stupid girl.
“Lydia, darling?” Lady Derby’s calm voice jolted Lydia from her thoughts.
“Mmm?” Lydia raised her head and found the three older women staring back at her. “Did you ask something, aunt?”
“Mrs. Calloway asked how you’re enjoying the season. Twice.”
The blobs of Lydia’s needlepoint flowers mocked her. Like her failure to answer questions by rote, they were a reminder that her life was in tatters. It occurred to Lydia that appearances held power: these matrons would only think of her as a distracted girl, not one who was fraying at the seams. They would never know the thoughts that troubled her.
Lydia swallowed. “Quite well. Thank you for asking, my lady,” she murmured.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Lady Forsyth said. “My daughter requires a chaperone for the Viscountess of Firth’s ball Monday next. I’m otherwise engaged for the evening. Miss Cecil, would you mind accompanying her in my stead?”
Lydia’s grip on her needlepoint tightened. At seven and twenty, she was now old enough to serve as a debutante’s chaperone. They simply accepted that Lydia would never marry, and the destiny of unwed ladies was often left uncertain. They were put in the care of other relatives or took work as companions and governesses. And once Lady Derby passed . . .
Lydia would have no one. The role Lady Forsyth proposed was to be her fate.
Lydia gazed down the long years of her existence with a new perspective. This was the future carelessly left to her by a man who spoke lies too smoothly ever to trust again.
Wait for me.
“Lydia?” Aunt Francis prompted when she didn’t respond. “Is that agreeable to you?”
Lydia uncurled her fingers from the needlepoint hoop. “Of course,” she said, forcing a warm smile. “I would be happy to accompany dear Violet.”
The matrons beamed. A pulse of guilt went through Lydia. There she was, resenting the future they offered out of kindness. The only one open to her as an unmarried lady with no talents other than the deportment she’d learned from childhood. Now those same aptitudes confined her to one existence. One path.
The only one Gabriel had left her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.
Lady Derby’s butler arrived at the doorway. “My lady,” he said, presenting her with a silver plate that carried a single card. “You have a gentleman caller.”
Gabriel.
Gooseflesh broke out across Lydia’s skin. So he’d come, after all.
Lady Forsyth straightened. “A gentleman?” she asked with an eagerness of a hound scenting fresh blood during a hunt. It wasn’t often that a gentleman appeared during at-home visits, and Lady Forsyth had a second daughter to marry off.
Lady Derby glanced at the card. She froze and cast Lydia an unreadable look. Lydia knew what that unspoken message conveyed: Lady Derby was torn between etiquette that dictated she not turn Gabriel away in front of her friends and loyalty to a niece who’d had her heart broken.
Lydia gave her aunt a slight nod. She might as well get this over with.
“Send him in,” Lady Derby said to the butler calmly. As he left to do her bidding, Lady Derby told the other matrons, “It’s Lord Montgomery. I’ve known him since he was a boy.”
The other ladies sat up with delighted interest. Gabriel, after all, was considered one of the season’s great catches. With his handsome looks and exceptional fortune, many debutantes were vying to become his countess.
Lydia, meanwhile, set her needlepoint in her lap to conceal her trembling hands. Gabriel’s timing was spectacularly unfortunate. She could hardly think of a worse moment to show up on her doorstep and justify murder than during an at-home visit with society matrons.
As Lydia agonized over how he planned to explain his appearanceandspeak to her without rousing gossip, Gabriel breezed into the room. He was impeccably dressed in a coal-colored suit perfectly tailored to his trim physique. A body she now knew was both beautiful and lethal. Never had she considered his musculature in terms of a weapon. But his was honed and balanced as a dagger.
Gabriel’s dark auburn hair gleamed in the afternoon sunlight that shined through the bay windows. His charming smile held enough wickedness to make Lady Forsyth and Mrs. Calloway blush and titter.
It was an astonishing transformation. Lydia almost respected the skill of his duplicity, that he could don this role as easily as those fine clothes. He shed the assassin beneath as soon as the sun came up.
He killed two men only a few nights ago, Lydia reminded herself. And yet, nothing of regret showed on his face.
Gabriel’s attention fell on her. Lydia didn’t return his smile, and his expression dampened imperceptibly. Had she not been looking for it, she might have missed it.
