“Yes, but he probably owed them money,” one of the other men scoffed. “So it makes perfect sense.”
“Indeed, it does,” the first man sighed.
“Give me names.” Gabriel increased his bet.
And then he received those names, and he chased them into the bowels of London’s underworld.
He lost days to that chase, unable to bear seeing his wife lying injured in her bed.
Everything was agonizing, and the only thing that pushed him onward was Letitia’s voice, reminding him that he had not done enough, that he had not been fast enough.
This time, he swore he would not rest. Not until he had found the culprit who had almost gotten his wife killed.
Sibyl’s recovery was smooth enough; two weeks had passed, with her remaining in bed upon Gabriel’s insistence, until she was fully in the clear.
By the end of the second week, her concussion had well cleared up, and the ache in her ribs had, according to her, faded into a low throb.
“I miss you,” she told him one day when he stayed in Stonehelm House long enough to sit at her bedside, his jaw tight with guilt.
You did not protect her enough.
The words rang in his head, loud and jarring.
“Gabriel?” Her exasperated tone finally snapped him back into focus.
You need to be out there, looking for who did it.
“Please stop ignoring me.” Sibyl’s plea once again snapped him back to the present. “I miss you. I miss walking around the estate, and I miss holding my daughter. Why won’t you even look at me properly?”
Gabriel’s eyes cut to her, but forcing himself to look at her in such a state only heightened his need to chase and investigate.
“Sibyl, I?—”
“Do not give me excuses,” she told him firmly. “Something is going on, and you will not tell me. Why are you shutting me out again?”
Tell her.Tell her that you are haunted by the need for vengeance again and that you cannot ignore it. You cannot stop like you did last time. You need to keep going, keep?—
“Are you boxing again?” Her voice was quiet.
Gabriel shook his head.
“I hate that you are pushing me away,” she muttered, shifting to turn her back on him, like she felt he was doing to her. And he was, but it was for her own good. “I thought we were… I thought we were in a better place.”
“Sibyl.” No further words came. No explanation, not even an apology, and he hated himself for it. In the end, all he said was, “I must go out.”
“Of course you must.” She sighed, the noise choked, as if she were holding back tears.
Gabriel reached for her shoulder, only to be shrugged off. His hand clenched into a fist, and it remained so until he was out the door, mounted on his horse, and on the way to his next lead.
Nicholas visited Sibyl at the end of the second week, and Gabriel watched as he handed her flowers.
Distantly, he was aware that he had not bought her flowers. No, he was trying to do much more than that, but Sibyl’s face lit up at the gift, and an ugly thing twisted deep inside him as she embraced Nicholas.
“Do not move too much,” he warned quietly.
But Sibyl only scowled at him before hugging Nicholas tighter.
“Thank you, Nicholas,” she said. “It is nice thatsomeonethought to do this.”
