“It’s not you,” he said, hearing admiration in his own voice.It could never be you. “I suspect they’re wondering why a man who despises deceit would want to watchThe Tragedy of Julius Caesar.”
“Let them wonder.” She turned from the audience and looked at him, her gaze an unexpected shield. “They don’t know you as I do. How could they when you hide your true self behind a forbidding facade?”
“Do I detect a compliment, Olivia?”
“Gabriel, you’re the finest man I know.”
His chest tightened. He was used to harsh opinions, not honest praise. Even so, it meant more coming from her.
“I doubt you know many.”
“You’re the finest I’ve ever known.”
The words breached his armour.
She saw him. No one ever had.
“Yours is the only opinion that matters.”
The lights dimmed. In the pit below, the orchestra raised their instruments and launched into a rousing overture. The curtains parted, and the play began, theIdes of Marchmentioned three times in the second scene.
While she listened to every word spoken on stage, he kept hearing hers. It was all he could do to keep his mind on the play, not the woman beside him, her praise an echo he couldn’t silence. Nothing in his life had ever landed so quietly, yet struck so deep.
They sat in silence as the actors spoke of omens and unrest, of fire raining from the sky, of a lion seen prowling near the Capitol, of men claiming they had walked in flames and felt no harm. Olivia leant forward slightly, her gloved hand resting lightly on Gabriel’s leg, not entirely by accident but enough to draw his attention.
She did not move it.
Nor did he.
Thunder cracked from the stage, part of the storm inAct II, yet the sound tore through his composure as though it were real.
In an instant, he was no longer in the theatre. He was ten years old, hearing his parents argue in the drawing room against the call of distant thunder.
“Someone has forced the lock on my desk drawer,” his father had said, suspicion coating every syllable.
“I suppose you think it was me,” his mother replied, her voice colder than a winter’s chill.
“Who else skulks about in the dark, scheming against me?”
“You really are quite pathetic.”
“Leave if you cannot abide my company.”
“And abandon my son?”
“You don’t give a damn about the boy. He’s nothing more than a pawn to you. A weapon to use against me.”
“To you, he’s merely an heir.”
Distrust had poisoned the house long before it destroyed it.
Years later, during a raging storm, he had confronted his mother in the great hall. His father had already been in the ground for six months, taking Gabriel’s respect with him. She had glared at him, giving her usual list of demands.
“You must choose, Mother. Your son or your lover.” He’d known the answer before the words left his lips. “Your position or your disreputable friends.”
She left that night. No word. No warning.
Thunder rumbled again from the stage, the theatrical clash of cymbals echoing through the auditorium. Olivia’s hand remained on his leg, a gentle pressure that anchored him to the present. She turned, just enough to let him know she saw him. Not the marquess. The man. Her man.
