They’d thrown so much at Jack. Were they asking too much of him? There was the crux of the matter. Gaby knew that if Jack couldn’t sell the painting, he would have no choice but to marry Cynthia or another wealthy heiress.
“You would have to marry well to fight for your estate.”
Her heart wrenched when he pulled his hand from her grasp. His vivid blue-green eyes were shuttered. It was all Gabriella could do to hold back her tears.
The painting had been his ace in the hole, but now he’d have to go through with marrying Cynthia. If she returned home, then he could move forward with his plans. Her presence was only complicating his life. Gaby couldn’t do that. She loved him too much.
“I think we have given Lord Langsford a great deal to think about.” Gabriella stood on wobbly legs. “I have a lot to do tomorrow morning and must be up at the crack of dawn. I bid you all goodnight.” She walked to the door and opened it without a backward glance.
“Gaby, wait,” Emily said.
But Gaby couldn’t wait. She had to get out of there. She closed the door behind her and ran to the only place where anything made sense to her. She would not allow Jack or the others to see the tears that blinded her.
The reality had hit her like a sucker punch from behind. If she returned to her life in the future, she would never see Jack again, and her heart broke as the truth sank in. She would be reunited with her family, and that would give her solace, but she would never see Jack again and would have to live with that for the rest of her life. A life doing what she loved and making other people happy, but a life bereft of her own happiness. She would spend it as an outsider watching happy couples holding hands and exchanging kisses, watching mothers holding their babies and taking their children to the park or shopping for school clothes.
Her long, exhausting days at the restaurant would end with her returning to an empty apartment with no one to talk to, no one that loved her—and without the only man she’d ever loved. She’d foolishly wanted Jack to declare in front of her friends that he didn’t want her to leave, that he needed her. That he didn’t care about the painting or fighting for his title or estate. That he loved her and couldn’t imagine living his life without her.
But he’d said nothing. And she’d said nothing. And whatever hope she had was crushed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maremma, Italy
October 20, 1902
She’s gone.
Gabriella had rushed out before he’d even had a chance to process everything. He needed to find her. Needed to speak to her in private.
Jack jumped up and, with a quick goodnight, ran from the room. He rushed down the hall, hoping she was in his bedchamber, but his room was empty.Damn!He’d known her less than a week, yet she’d changed his life forever.
Robert Burns said it well:The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
He ran up the back stairs to the servants’ quarters and barged into her room, but her chamber was empty.
And then it hit him. Gaby would seek refuge in the place that gave her comfort—the kitchen. The dwelling place of the kitchen goddess.
Jack rushed back down the stairs, his heart pounding as he neared the kitchen. The aroma of last night’s dinner, its pungent spices and seasonings, fragranced the air. In his mind, those scents were as erotic as a rare perfume because those were the scents that lingered on her skin, the scents that drove him mad with desire.
The woodburning cooking ranges had cooled and wouldn’t be lit until early morning, when Angelina would rise at dawn and bake the day’s bread. There was an eeriness to being in a dark, empty kitchen where the heat and bustle of the day were dormant. But this was Gaby’s place, where her creativity took wing.
He scanned the room, worried she wouldn’t be there, but then he spotted a shadow moving along the far wall. He took a few steps closer and saw her sitting on a bench beneath a shelf stacked with aprons and towels. Stilled by the silence and not wanting to approach without invitation, he waited, hoping she would acknowledge him.
“A part of me wants to go home, back to my family,” she finally said. “I know they must be suffering deeply because of my disappearance. My heart hurts just thinking about it.”
His body tensed at her words. So, it had come to this. She missed her family and her life and couldn’t bear it.
“But my heart hurts thinking about leaving here, too.”
Jack’s breath caught, and he took a few more steps toward her. Her heart hurt about leaving. Then that meant that a part of her wanted to stay. She wanted to stay even though he’d offered her no reason to do so. She might consider giving up her family and her life in the future for nothing more than the chance to be his mistress.
For that was what he’d offered her. What he’d thoughtlessly offered her. And he hadn’t revised that offer. In her view, he still felt that way. And in light of the very real, very tangible issue of his finances, she would have no reason to think otherwise.
He would have to give up the painting so that Iris and Marco could be together and the contessa’s reign of evil would end. In Gaby’s mind, he’d have to marry Cynthia or another heiress in order to fight for his birthright.
Jack swallowed the lump in his throat. No wonder she was torn. No wonder she’d had such a difficult time telling him the truth. No wonder she’d run off. No wonder she was here, hiding in the kitchen.
All he’d offered her was the great honor of being his mistress and bearing him bastard children. Even thinking of that word made it hard for him to swallow. How could he not have seen the insult to her dignity? A million questions filled his mind, and he nearly laughed, thinking of how he’d wasted so much time already. If he began asking her right now all the things he wished to know about her life, there would not be enough years remaining in their lives to answer them all.
