Page 37 of A Bride By Morning
“We were all quite surprised by your sudden nuptials,” Lady Arundell continued. “Why, many of us didn’t even know you were courting.”
Gabriel’s smile remained in place, but Lydia felt his hand constrict around hers. A harshness entered his regard. How had she not seen it before, in the years since his return to England? Perhaps, like everyone else, she had been too blinded by his beautiful features to notice.
“My dear wife and I were friends in our youth,” he said easily. His voice did not indicate the minor flaws she’d noticed in his performance. “Weren’t we, Lady Montgomery?”
“Since I was five,” Lydia said, relieved that she could give an honest response. She wondered if Gabriel intentionally made that comment to spare her from lying. “My aunt, Lady Derby, maintains a residence nearby in East Clandon. I grew up there.”
“And we reconnected quite by accident,” Gabriel continued. He let his gaze linger on her, every sinful thought evident in his slow perusal. His beautiful smile held a hint of wickedness that Lydia supposed was calculated to convince Lady Arundell that theirs was not a marriage of convenience. “And I shamed myself for letting her get away once. I wouldn’t do it again.”
The matron fanned herself. “Oh. Oh, my. I had no idea.”
A blush rose in Lydia’s cheeks at his hot stare. If he kept it, he’d set the room ablaze.
She was spared the moment of discomfiture when someone called her name across the room. Caroline Stafford, the Duchess of Hastings, hurried over.
Lydia smiled in welcome. “Your Grace, how lovely to see you.”
“You infuriating girl,” Caroline said, laughing as she took Lydia’s hands in greeting. “Imagine my surprise when I saw your wedding announcement in the broadsheet.” The duchess glanced over at Gabriel. “And you? Not even a note, coz?Neitherof you invited me?”
“I was just about to relate our quick nuptials to Lady Arundell,” Gabriel said smoothly. His smile for his cousin was genuine; it softened around the edges. To Lydia, it was even more beautiful. “I didn’t wish to risk Lady Montgomery wedding another gentleman, or worse: turning me down.”
Lady Arundell laughed as though the very notion was absurd.
Lydia’s mood dimmed somewhat, because it was. Certainly, she was pleasant to look at, but her age and lack of fortune had long ago guaranteed her limited prospects. “Forgive my husband,” she said lightly. “I believe he might have indulged in a quick libation before our arrival.”
His tender regard was so convincing, she almost believed it. “It was a whiskey, and you’re utterly enchanting.”
Lydia forced a smile to Lady Arundell and the Duchess of Hastings. “See? He’s lost his senses.”
Caroline glanced between them, her polite expression darkening with an understandable touch of suspicion. She had, after all, helped Lydia solve Gabriel’s mysterious cryptogram, and—mere days later—Lydia married him and departed the city.
“Well, I think it’s wonderful,” Caroline said. “I love when my favorite people marry each other. Monty, will you allow me to steal Lydia for a moment? I’d like to catch up before the aria begins.”
“Of course,” Gabriel said. He pressed a quick kiss to Lydia’s knuckles. “Don’t speak too long, Lady Montgomery.”
Lydia comprehended his implied message: any details she gave Caroline were to be kept to a minimum.
Lydia followed the duchess into a quieter alcove of the foyer, where Caroline’s face turned serious. “What’s happened?” she asked without preamble.
Lydia tried to keep her expression neutral. The other woman was perceptive and clever, and her sharp regard saw too much. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Carline’s gaze probed hers. “Don’t avoid the question,” she said calmly. “Days ago, you visited me with Monty’s cryptogram. Now I’ve discovered that you hastily married, and he whisked you away to Meadowcroft without even a letter of explanation.”
Lydia curled her fingers into her palm. A part of her longed to tell Caroline everything, but the secret of Gabriel’s past was not hers to share. Now it was one they carried together. “I can’t tell you,” she said in a low voice. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”
The duchess was the closest thing Lydia had to a friend; Caroline had been there for her when everyone else in society shunned or ignored her. To every other person at the Arundells’, Lydia was a curiosity. She was a spinster of seven-and-twenty who wedded their most eligible bachelor. How had she succeeded where the most beautiful debutantes of the season had failed? Why her? Whythatone?
And the answer to their question was simple: duty and deception. She was not the remarkable anomaly to the rules they’d invented.
Caroline must have noticed Lydia’s uncertainty. She gave a soft sigh. “Just tell me you are safe.”
“I’m safe,” Lydia confirmed. “That’s one thing you need not worry about with Gabriel.” Lydia paused, noting for the first time that the duchess seemed more weary than usual. There were smudges of blue beneath her eyes. “Areyouwell?”
The other woman glanced at the people around them, her composure less steady than before. “Is it noticeable that I’m not?”
“No. You just seem a bit fatigued. What’s the matter?”
Caroline’s lips twisted. “My husband is in London. And with Julian’s other apartments being let until the end of the season, he’ll be staying at Hastings House until the current session of Parliament convenes.”
