“What are you smiling about?” Her eyes narrowed.
“Come, now, Olivia. Tell me what the matter is.” He released her arm in the hope that she wouldn’t take off running.
He was in no mood to go chasing after this alluring piece of muslin, but dash it all, he would if necessary.
Best not to examine why.
“We are friends, are we not?” His question only seemed to anger her further.
“The kind of friends who kiss one another? Oh, but wait. You are also the kind of friend who goes hot and cold whenever it’s most convenient for you. I can do just fine without friends like that.”
He should have known that her mood would have had something to do with his boorish behavior the last time they’d been together. He’d just been so frustrated by all of it. His cock, hell, his heart and his head––all of them seemed to be waging a war with his emotions for this chit.
And then the guards at the mine had informed him that Crawford was cutting corners in regard to safety matters.
Damn Stanton for putting him in this situation. Only, he couldn’t really blame his friend. Gabriel had offered to stay, after all.
The only bright spot in the middle of all of this had been Olivia.
Lovely-eyed Livvy.
Only he was beginning to believe she had become more of a complication than he’d initially anticipated.
Not a complication. A lovely, enticing young woman that, if he wasn’t careful, could land one hell of a blow to his heart.
“I’m sorry.” There was nothing else that he could say. “Won’t you forgive me? Again?” Had she ever forgiven him for all his other transgressions? “Might we try to be friends again?”
But she was shaking her head. “I can no longer go gallivanting off alone with you. My…” She turned her head away, and he didn’t quite catch what she had said.
In listening to her mumbling, an alarm bell sounded in his mind when he thought he’d deciphered something that sounded alarmingly close to the word ‘fiancé.’
“Pardon me?”
“Although my father doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, I believe that my fiancé would not appreciate me being alone with another unmarried gentleman, even at the adamant assertion that said gentleman is nothing more to me than a friend.”
“Fiancé, Olivia?”
Again, with that little lift of her chin. “Mr. Smith has proposed today, and I have accepted.”
“I fail to come calling for three days and you betroth yourself to him?”
“It’s none of your concern.”
He rather felt as though she’d slapped him. Or kneed him. Because she spoke the truth. What right did he have to interfere in her life? He’d offered her nothing, despite compromising her horribly.
The truth always hit harder than mere insults.
If she wanted to tie herself to a life of hard labor, who the hell was he to advise her against it?
Anger, unlike anything he’d known in years, threatened to unleash itself onto her tiny blonde self. “You’re a fool, Olivia,” he bit out.
Fists at her side, she glared up at him, fire in those brilliant eyes of hers. “You speak as though my future is as full of promise as yours. Not only are you a male but a gentleman! An earl! I wish that for one moment you could step into my shoes and know the life of a woman, a flawed woman. Perhaps then you might understand what it’s like to be set aside—by my father, my mother—I know Louella has the best of intentions but it’s only right that she devotes herself to Stanton and soon she’ll…” Olivia turned away from him. “And now I sound like a self-pitying thankless harpy. Please, Gabriel. I can’t bear it.”
“Because I am certain to set you aside as well.” The words tasted like bile as they left his mouth.
She didn’t answer right away. And then she swiped a hand at her eyes and nodded. “Yes.” The word emerged on a harsh whisper.
Gabriel stepped forward and dropped his hands upon her shoulder. “God, Olivia. Don’t do this!” He turned her around to face him, but she kept her gaze focused on his chin.
