Page 23 of A Bride By Morning
Now his emotions were too discordant. It was as if he were untethered from the earth, spinning erratically as he waited for gravity to propel him down again.
But Lydia’s power over his existence defied physics. She had upended him.
After his proposal, Mrs. Calloway and Lady Forsyth left in a flurry of skirts and delighted giggles to circulate the gossip at their next at-home visit. Lady Derby, meanwhile, had pressed Lydia on Gabriel’s unexpected proposal. Lydia had demurely lowered her eyes. The falsehood that they’d anticipated their vows left her in a stammer, which Gabriel knew suggested a discontent with lying but just as easily passed for apprehension.
Not to be outdone, Gabriel performed the adoration of a gentleman who wished to wed the childhood friend who held his heart. Of course, that satisfaction was entirely fictional—intended only to conceal his unease.
But desire?That,he did not have to fabricate. During Lady Derby’s questioning, he’d let his eyes rest on Lydia with the heat that had consumed him since their first confrontation in Lord Coningsby’s study. Their brief kisses had only reignited him; his icy walls thawed when his lips touched hers. His final vestiges of control were all that prevented him from pushing her onto the settee, lifting her skirts, and sinking his fingers into her pussy.
He wanted to know what she looked like when she came.
His thoughts must have been obvious, for Lady Derby had cleared her throat and promptly agreed that a speedy wedding would be best.
After leaving Lydia to make preparations with her aunt, Gabriel had returned to his house with those lurid fantasies still fresh in his mind. In the solitude of his bedchamber, he’d leaned against the wall for balance. Lydia’s kiss flickered through his mind again. He was helpless against the surge of thoughts that envisioned just what she could do with those lips. With a frustrated noise, he unfastened his trousers, took out his cock, and pumped it with a hand as he thought about fucking her. The rough, animal sound he’d made as he climaxed was a moment of honesty for himself alone. A reminder that he could not be tender with her—what he imagined was pure fantasy.
He would never allow himself to consummate their pretend marriage.
News of Gabriel and Lydia’s betrothal circulated from sitting rooms to ballrooms in the days that followed. It wasn’t every day, after all, that a spinster became affianced to an earl who was the catch of the season. And for a wedding performed in such haste? For that reason alone, an undercurrent of suspicion tarnished the news. Whispers speculated on the number of months before a child emerged from their impulsive union.
Lady Derby attempted to ameliorate that conjecture with a love story of two friends from childhood who diverged and finally reunited. She declared they were simply overeager to begin their lives together after so many years apart.
Gabriel’s shoulders tensed as he stood before the vicar in the parlor of his home, with only Wentworth and Lady Derby as witnesses. Lady Derby dabbed at her eyes, cheeks glistening with tears before Gabriel and Lydia had even exchanged their vows.
Lydia entered the room.
Gabriel’s breath caught. A peculiar sense of weightlessness suffused through his body as she came to stand beside him. He lost all sense of gravity when she was near, of his place in the world.
But if he ever envisioned a wife for himself, that woman always held Lydia’s face. Even when she inhabited his periphery in a ballroom, a memorial to the future he could have lived if only he had not been so quick to leave England. She was always the wife he wanted and couldn’t have.
And now, she was the wife he didn’t deserve.
You’re my plague,he thought as he stared down at her.A symptom of how far I’ve fallen.
Lydia was pale. Her skin nearly matched the modest white lace gown that she had selected from her existing wardrobe; they’d had no time for her to procure a suitable wedding dress.
Her hand trembled when she placed it in his.
Look at me,he thought. But her lashes remained lowered, concealing her sentiments from his view. Gabriel wanted to know what she was feeling. If she dreaded this marriage. If she went into it with the knowledge that he could never be the husband she chose ten years ago.
A husband who could love her. Who wasn’t skilled only in breaking people. Who wouldn’t put her life at risk.
After speaking his prayer, the vicar added, “I’m required to ask anyone present who knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry to declare it now.”
Lydia’s lashes rose. Her attention fixed on Gabriel with an almost fierce intensity. Her eyes were the edge of a blade set between them. She, too, had the aim of an assassin.
For a moment, Gabriel wondered if she would object. He had been the one to pledge her a future and leave her dejected on his doorstep. He had been the one to destroy her chance at marriage with a gentleman who would have suited her better.
Now she was marrying a bastard and a killer who was beneath her in every way.
But she lifted her chin and said nothing. Even as Gabriel spoke his vows, Lydia’s gaze remained as unyielding and steady as steel.
When it was her turn, Lydia’s voice was as firm as her regard. Perhaps they ought to have performed some desire or affection for Lady Derby’s sake, but one peek at that corner of the parlor confirmed it unnecessary. Lydia’s aunt maintained the misty smile of a proud guardian who adored her ward. She did not notice that Gabriel and Lydia stared at each other like they were forming a reluctant truce from opposing ends of a battlefield.
I’m going to ruin you,Gabriel thought to himself as Lydia spoke the final lines of her vows. Their future was now as inevitable as death.And I think you’re going to ruin me.
As if she read his thoughts, her lips flattened, and she looked away.
And the vicar proclaimed them husband and wife.
