Page 21 of A Bride By Morning
“Then take him to the Blue Room,” Lady Derby said. “And return to us in precisely fifteen minutes. No longer.”
“Of course,” Gabriel said politely. He rose to his feet and bowed to the matrons.
Lydia led him down the hall to the Blue Room, shutting the door so the servants wouldn’t overhear. She whirled on him. “Are you out of your bloody mind?”
Gabriel leaned against the slim writing desk in the corner of the room, all charm now absent. Here was his honest face—the one that possessed the calm focus of a killer. Now that she’d seen the truth behind his deception, she wondered how people believed it. Didn’t they notice the way his muscles tensed like a predator? That his stare held the same danger as a loaded pistol?
“I’m certain some will say that I am,” he said, his weapon-like stare on her. He looked so fierce now.
Lydia gripped the doorframe behind her for balance; his presence threatened her entire equilibrium. The crumbling brick of her foundations continued their calamitous toppling. “The women in that room think you’re here to propose,” she said through her teeth. “Not to explain yourself after assassinating two men at Lady Brome’s ball.”
Gabriel’s lip twitched. “I’m aware of what happened. I was there.”
Lydia scowled. “I had to throw my gown out with the rubbish and tell my maid that a rosebush tore it beyond mending. Now I’ll have to give my aunt a credible excuse in precisely thirteen minutes.”
His hand trailed across the surface of the desk. “Poor, poor Lydia,” he murmured. “You’ll just have to learn to lie, won’t you?”
The fury in her chest burned as hot as a dying star. Lydia pushed off the door and strode over to him. Their chests were almost touching as she said, “Listen to me,Lord Montgomery.” She spat the title like an insult. “This might be a game to you, but it isn’t to me. This is mylife.”
His features gentled slightly. “You mistake me.” She went still as he reached for her, sliding fingertips across her cheekbone. He watched the motion with an almost confounded look. “I don’t think of your life as a game,” he murmured. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”
Lydia hated the feelings those words awoke in her. How they doused her wrath like rain over a forest fire. She wasn’t ready to lose her anger yet. She couldn’t abandon it, not after ten years. Not in minutes.
“Then tell me who Bear is,” she said softly.
Gabriel’s lips flattened, and he dropped his hand. “Bear is the codename for Boris Medvedev, the leader of an international crime ring called the Syndicate. Aside from engaging in illegal smuggling with a high human cost, they target and assassinate foreign diplomats for a price. My superior in Kabul was one of them.”
Lydia’s breath caught. “Kabul was when you stopped responding to my letters.”
He gave a curt nod. “I was tasked with infiltrating the Syndicate in Moscow, reporting on their movements, and eventually assassinating Medvedev and his inner circle. They knew me as Alexei Borislov Zhelyabov.”
Lydia’s vision wavered. “How long were you in Moscow?”
Gabriel was as severe as volcanic rock. “Four years. When my father and brother died, I returned to England and terminated my employment.” His expression turned bitter. “Not that I excelled at being a diplomat. If I wasn’t killing to maintain my cover, I did so with the authorization of Her Majesty.”
Lydia’s entire world tilted. All those years she had spent thinking he had ignored her, that her letters had gone unanswered because he’d decided he didn’t want her. And this was the answer. The secret behind Lord Montgomery’s much-lauded smile dripped with blood. He was a sheep unbuttoning its fleece to reveal a ravenous wolf.
Lydia swallowed. “And you failed to assassinate this Medvedev?”
A muscle in Gabriel’s jaw twitched. “I put a blade through his skull. It seems he survived it.”
She wondered if he had given her that gruesome detail on purpose. It seemed almost intentional, a subtle rebuke for her ever thinking he was harmless. Forever looking at him and picturing the boy she had grown up with.
“Then he’s come for revenge.” Lydia’s voice trembled. His revelations left her unsteady.
He dipped his head in a nod. “Dimitri managed to escape the Brome’s garden. By now, Medvedev knows about the noblewoman I was seen kissing. When he looks into our background, he’ll discover our past as friends.”
A memory of that kiss eclipsed Lydia’s jumbled thoughts. Not his attempts at control, or hers at wresting it away—but the moment after, when that kiss shifted. When it came to represent ten years of longing. Ten years of separation.
She wished it hadn’t been their first. That she’d dared to kiss him all those years ago before he’d left and become someone she hardly recognized.
As if he read her thoughts, Gabriel’s face softened. He studied her with something akin to bewilderment, as if she were a mystery he was trying to decipher.
If Lydia let herself read too much into that, she would forget herself. She had to guard her heart. He broke it too easily. “You think I’m in danger,” she said, attempting to gather herself again.
“I don’t have any living family,” Gabriel said, still examining her with that quiet intensity. “So yes, I think he’ll use you. He’d use anyone I might care for.”
“Then I appreciate you sending someone to watch over me.” Lydia glanced at the clock. They didn’t have long now. “I’ll think of an excuse for my aunt and the other matrons.”
