He shook his head. Even after he had discovered his love for her, he could not bring himself to let her go. He sat straighter in his seat. What if he didn’t have to? What if he could have Mary for the rest of his life? Would she not be saferwithhim than without him? Two trained spies were certainly better than one.
What a fool he’d been. Using Hydra’s family as an example of why he shouldnotbe with Mary was faulty logic. Hydra was the only spy in his family, and he carried the burden of protecting them all. Marywasa spy; Gabe shouldn’t have to worry about her, at all. Hell, even his reaction to Mary when she’d engaged in combat withbloodyBoxton had been faulty. She was right; she’d fought the devil off and was already in control before Gabe had shown up.
His instinct to protect her had reared its head and controlled his words and actions. He’d been a confounded arse to the woman.
Indeed. If Mary was, at this very moment, carrying their child it would behove him to lay claim to her and their unborn bairn.
A gleeful smile tugged at his soot-smudged lips and his heart began to gallop. A bairn.Theirbairn, born to them in wedlock…
Colin shifted in his seat across from him, drawing Gabe’s gaze.
“I mean te wed Mary,” Gabe softly blurted.
The words felt remarkably freeing to say aloud.
“My felicitations.” Colin inclined his head. “Does Mary know this?”
Gabe exhaled on a silent laugh. “No. But now tha’ I ken she shares my feelings, I fully intend te ask.”
The air was still between them as the carriage rolled over the cobblestoned streets of London. Gabe watched his friend with a gimlet eye. Something was off about him.
“Why did yereallycome te see Mary today, Colin?” Gabe asked quietly.
Colin gazed out the window, his jaw tightening. There was several moments of silence before the tension in Colin’s shoulders released and he sighed. “It’s Isobel.”
Awareness dawned, and an odd flood of simultaneous emotions rushed through him. He was relieved that the visit had nothing to do with Mary, but was concerned for his friend’s sister.
“Is she well?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t bloody well know! The woman has completely closed herself off. I worry about her, Gabe. She has always been ill at ease with our Spanish heritage—most particularly because she resembles our father more than I. But despite my efforts, I have not been able to speak to her about this most recent bout of melancholy. I’d hoped to seek Mary’s help, perhaps send the women on a shopping trip. Lace and bonnets and so forth.”
“I am certain tha’ Mary would be amenable te a shopping trip.”
Colin rested his elbow on the window’s frame and rubbed fretfully at his lips with the backs of his fingers. “I hope it will help her.”
Gabe turned his gaze out the window. “Act lively, Colin. We’ve arrived.”
The carriage carefully rolled to a halt and rocked gently as Mary climbed down from her perch.
The door swung open, a gust of cool night air wafting in.
Mary clucked her tongue, and deepened her voice, “Come along, men. Time is wasting away.”
Biting back a smile of mirth, Gabe followed Colin out of the carriage. Mary had tethered the horses to the post of a nearby building, nearly three streets from the Crowned Pig’s Grunt.
Silently, the three of them walked, keeping to the shadows of the nearby buildings. When they were but one street away from the rendezvous point, Mary halted, forcing them to follow suit.
She spun around and uttered under her breath, “Recall your roles, men.”
Indeed. Their intent this evening was to appear to be intoxicated men stumbling from tavern to tavern searching for women, drink, and song.
Mary turned back around and lurched forward, mumbling something incoherent to herself. She was most definitely a believably drunken lad. Gabe wrapped an arm about Colin’s shoulders and the two stumbled together toward their goal.
The sign for the Crowned Pig’s Grunt came up beside them and Gabe loudly slurred, “Thish looks likey good ‘un!”
With a drunken nod, Mary tripped through the door, landing on all fours inside. The tavern was packed to the gills and every eye turned to stare at her. She rose ineptly from her awkward position, patted clumsily at her clothes, gazing through glazed, squinting eyes at the crowd.
The combined stench of foul, sweating bodies, fetid liquor, salty ocean water, and stale piss assailed his nostrils. Gabe fought the urge to grimace and squeeze his nose shut. Instead, he turned a bleary eye on the tavern’s patrons; most appeared to be sailors.
