Page 6 of A Bride By Morning
Gabriel’s gaze turned to ice.
And now they would have only each other for company until their next turn.
As Lydia approached, Gabriel tensed. He recovered with a polite nod. “Miss Cecil,” he said in a voice as smooth as honey.
It was apparent that he intended to say nothing else. Instead, he calmly watched the others play across the lawn. “That’s all you have to tell me?” she said, quieting her voice. As distant as they were, she did not wish the others to hear or witness her misery. Frankly, Lydia longed to shout at him.
Seven years she’d waited for him because he’d asked.
Seven. Years.
By the time she realized what a fool she’d been, her marriage prospects were as empty as a tundra. And like a tundra, she had gained a reputation for frigidity.
Because of him.
“I don’t see what else I could add,” he replied coolly, watching as the others took their turns. No doubt eager for his own so he could depart her company and never speak to her again.
Lydia shook. Shards of glass pushed through her bloodstream.
Somehow, she knew that he would not react to her anger. That such emotion from her would only send him further adrift. He was like a boat that had become unmoored, and she was powerless to stop it. All she could do was watch in despair as a storm took him away from her.
“Look at me,” she said softly. There it was, the tightening of his hand on the mallet. Knuckles turning white. The first rupture in his shield. “Look at me, Gabriel.”
When he did, it jarred her down to her bones. His facade had fractured, and in its place was an emotionless gaze she didn’t understand. Who was this man? What had he done with Gabriel? It was as if he’d gone away and died, and this person was nothing more than an impostor—a walking corpse wearing the skin of her childhood friend.
“Lord Montgomery,” he corrected in a voice she didn’t recognize.
“You’ve always been Gabriel to me.”
“And now I’m Gabriel to no one.” He made a soft noise. “Come, Miss Cecil. We knew each other so long ago, it’s hardly worth considering. We were children.”
All at once, Lydia grew angry. Now she didn’t care who heard her. “We were not children when you made me promise to wait for you,” she said, motioning with her mallet for emphasis. “We were not children when you wrote me letters telling me to keep waiting. Letters I kept even when you stopped writing.”
Oh, his facade had crumbled now. That easy smile he’d kept for the others had long since been dashed against the rocks. His boat was deserted and left in ruins, with nothing remaining except splinters that cut her. “Listen to me, you curse of a girl,” he said, in a voice as cold as that storm. “The letters stopped for a reason. It ought to be abundantly clear that I feel nothing for you. I’m certainly not going to fucking marry you.”
Lydia’s breath seized in her lungs. “Then I want all my letters back,” she whispered. She wanted her words returned to her and erased as if she had never written them. All those years of her life she’d wasted. So many hours and years she had cried over him.
Gabriel straightened, nodding at the others shouting that it was his turn. “I have no letters to return to you,” he said coldly. “I threw them out with the rubbish.”
Then he fished his ball out of the thorns and, with a hard swing of his mallet, he knocked it across the lawn.
And he walked away from her.
Lydia’s hands fisted in her ballgown as a rough breath shuddered out of her. She had tried to forget his words, to heal the wound he had made in her heart. But try as she might, that place in her chest remained sliced open and festering, her most vital organ carelessly thrown aside. And she had nothing left to give to another man.
But she still had herself. She still had Aunt Francis.
Little by little, Lydia could gather herself: one breath at a time, like the ones she took behind that divan, in the quiet study that was not her own. Moments she could use to mend herself.
But just as her breathing had begun to slow, she heard the door of the study open and shut. Slow footsteps thudded quietly across the carpet, coming closer to the divan.
Lydia froze, every thought in her head gone in an instant. What would she do if Lord Coningsby found her there? What would she do if—
But it wasn’t Lord Coningsby who went to the desk.
It was Gabriel St. Clair.
A bitter laugh almost bubbled in her throat. Of course, it would be him, the moment she had composed herself enough to reenter that ballroom.Of course. But what was he doing in Lord Coningsby’s study? Was he seeking a quiet space? Like her?
