Page 35 of A Bride By Morning
“Decline.” His answer came without hesitation.
A twinge went through Lydia as the walls of Meadowcroft grew smaller. She couldn’t travel outside of them without his company.
“And the Arundells invited us to a gathering two days hence,” she added. “Mr. And Mrs. Crombie were forced to cancel due to a family emergency, and we’ve been asked to fill their chairs. Their estate isn’t far, and they’ve invited an opera singer from Italy to perform for Lady Arundell’s birthday.”
“Polite decline,” Gabriel said, his attention on the carpet at her feet. “With a gift.”
Lydia removed the cloth from his face and set it again in the cold water. “We’ve invitations piling up.” She couldn’t help the acerbity that entered her voice.
“Then I’ll have my secretary respond,” he said curtly, “if you find them too tedious.”
She made an annoyed sound as she wrung out the cloth and pressed it to the other side of his face, where smaller bruises lined his jaw. “That’s not my point,” she said. “Surely you comprehend how we must appear to theton. Their most admired and near-unobtainable bachelor married a spinster. We were never seen courting. Your proposal came unexpectedly in the middle of tea, we wed three days later, and then you whisked us off to Meadowcroft that very afternoon. One of these items would be enough to court gossip; the combination of the five has lit London on fire.”
“How melodramatic,” he said dryly.
“Gabriel.” She raised his face so that his eyes met hers. “I have managed to send letters pacifying my aunt by assuring her that we are happily enjoying our honeymoon. But even she’s sent missives asking questions about our abrupt wedding and your subsequent decision to hide us from all of society. Understand?”
Gabriel tipped his head back. “In nine months, it won’t matter. Unless you care about what society thinks.”
Lydia let out a soft breath as she stared down at him. His face was, she realized, perfect for a liar. His features distracted from his words; they were constructed to conceal secrets. In nature, beauty was a lure. A trap for prey. He learned that skill so well that perhaps he forgot some people existed outside of his falsehoods.
“How easy it must be for you not to care,” she murmured, tossing the cloth into the basin. Then she coasted her fingertips across the handsome terrain of his face. “You’ve only ever had their admiration. When they speak of us in London, you’re the one above reproach. Instead, they wonder what a spinster like me must have done to trap you. Poor, poor Lord Montgomery, yet another victim of a woman’s artifice. He could have married anyone, and now he’s stuck with that frigid bitch.”
Gabriel’s eyes flared hot. In a moment, he had Lydia rolled beneath him, his muscular body covering hers. Then his lips came down hard against her own, his kiss fierce. With a helpless moan, Lydia returned his touch with equal ferocity. He was impossible to resist.
Then he dragged his lips from hers, panting. “I’ve never wanted anyone else,” he said to her, grazing his teeth softly down the line of her jaw. “Do you understand me? Not in Vienna or Zürich. Not in Kabul or Moscow. Not in England. I just wanted you.” He gave a ragged exhale as he pressed his forehead to hers. “But I do not, and will not, ever deserve you.” Then, before she could reply, he rolled off her and helped her to her feet. He nudged her to the connecting door. “We’ll attend Lady Arundell’s birthday gathering. Now go back to bed, Lydia.”
In the solitude of her room, Lydia touched her lips. Her armor against him was beginning to crack.
15
Two days later, Lydia and Gabriel left for the Arundells’ gathering.
It had taken a housemaid over two hours to ready Lydia; she had wanted to make a suitable impression for her first outing as the Countess of Montgomery. Though she’d had no time to order fresh attire in the short days since her marriage, her wardrobe for the season had gone mainly unworn.
So she selected the loveliest garment in her collection: a pale blue silk gown embellished with lace that displayed her figure to its best advantage. The maid had carefully prepared Lydia’s hair into an elegant twist decorated with jeweled hair combs. The emeralds she wore at her neck and wrists were a gift bestowed by Lady Derby when Lydia turned one-and-twenty. Lydia hoped having something of her aunt’s would give her more courage, but the sentiment diminished the farther they journeyed from Meadowfield.
It was dark as the carriage rounded the drive to Thornfield House, an hour from Surrey. Husband and wife had spent that hour in relative silence as Lydia fiddled nervously with the emeralds at her wrist.
The carriage pulled to a stop, and the footman opened the door. Gabriel didn’t even look at him. “Give us a moment,” he said, to Lydia’s surprise.
The door immediately shut.
The very air within the shaded interior of the carriage filled with expectation as Lydia waited for Gabriel to explain his sudden desire for privacy. Those last few days, he had again become as remote as the farthest reaches of the earth. Entire continents might have divided them. He’d hardly spoken to her since his return from London, and last night, she’d listened to him pace his bedchamber, crossing the long line of his room, over and over. She wondered what preoccupied him at night. If it was Medvedev, or perhaps the future of their marriage he fretted over.
His thoughts were not forthcoming, not even when he was about to play the role of the ideal husband. The flickering torches outside the carriage provided enough light to illuminate his features as he stared at her, his expression as unfathomable as the spaces between stars.
Then Gabriel stunned her by reaching out and settling his hands over hers. Lydia had been fidgeting again with her emerald bracelet. “You’re nervous,” he said, his voice gentle.
Lydia studied their hands, wishing their skin was not separated by layers of gloves. When she touched him, he did not seem so remote. He became real. “Am I that obvious?”
His lip twisted in a ghost of a smile. “If you tug at that bracelet any harder, you’re going to break it.” His lashes lowered, and he lifted her wrist to study the glittering gems. “It would be a shame, I think. You seemed so delighted when Lady Derby gifted it to you.”
The shock of his words made Lydia’s body go still. “You read that letter?”
Something flickered across his features, and his hand tightened over hers. “It made its way to me,” he said. “So I read it.”
“You never responded.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You hadn’t written to me in over a year by then. I requested that the Home Office forward it to you but never heard anything back.”
