Hard green eyes watched her. His lips tightened, and for a moment she thought he would hold her there. “As you wish. Take the carriage. I will see you in an hour.”
She bobbed her head and hurried away, her feet following her immediate need for flight instead of the more careful need to allay suspicion.
She saw Gabriel watching her as the carriage lurched forward. The carriage where they had…She shook her head, pulling her fingers from the soft cushions, the velvety blanket. She couldn’t read his eyes from here, but his demeanor was dark. Accusatory. Murderous. Not like the lover he had been. A changeling. A seducer who always got his way.
It hadn’t been Jacob Worley in Anastasia Rasen’s house. It had been someone else. And Gabriel had been winded from running. Running from where?
An inkling of suspicion edged with terror seeped through her.
The carriage moved along the street. The horses seemed interested in a Sunday jaunt rather than getting her to the house in the speed she desired. She considered exiting and running ahead, but the horses were moving just fast enough to dissuade her.
She might need fresh running legs before the afternoon was over.
The carriage pulled in front of the house and she bolted from it before the horses came to a complete stop. The driver yelled something, but she just waved a hand and fumbled with the front door. It took three attempts of shoving her key into the lock before she finally managed to turn it. She flew up the stairs to his room and grasped blindly beneath the chest. There.
She scraped the journal across the floor and flipped it open.
January 2nd, 1813. L.D., C.F., J.M., A.F., T.R., and I have taken it upon ourselves to indulge in some fun. We have formed a club.
C.F. Celeste Fomme. A.F. Amanda Forester. J.M. Anastasia’s journal had mentioned a Jane and Mr. Moreton. Jane Moreton. Anastasia? There was no A.R. She looked the initials over again and stopped. T.R. She had heard someone call Anastasia RasenTasiabefore. T.R.
All of the murdered women were part of this club and prominently mentioned in the journal Gabriel had been trying to keep her from. The journal he went dark over every time he caught her reading. He had reacted almost violently when she had read the part when they had found their favorite, the man of incomparable beauty with the gorgeous eyes—
The book slipped from her hands…
Gabriel. Archangel. Avenger.…and slammed against the floor.
Chapter 16
Her heart stopped beating. She knew it did, for the house was entirely still. Nothing moving. Nothing making a sound. Not even her own heart.
How could—
What had—
This couldn’t be happening—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Marietta twirled on the hardwood and whacked her elbow into the chest. The staccato of raps echoed from the foyer.
What if it was Gabriel? Her pulse jumped, her heart kicking back into a full gallop. The pain in her elbow numbed as her breath grew short and her head grew light.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
No. Gabriel would simply walk in on cat feet. He could have murdered her where she sat, with her back to the door. She pushed off of the hardwood and gingerly walked through the doorway and into the hall. Her hand clutched the banister as the stairs rose to view and she stepped on a creaky board that echoed her distress. Who would knock at the door?
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Mrs. Rosaire and Clarisse had keys. Jeremy seemed to possess one as well. And the servants from his Mayfair home—she had heard the one say he’d forgotten the key, so assuredly any of them would be able to enter.
Perhaps it was Jacob Worley come to murder her after causing her to separate from Gabriel. No, that didn’t make sense. It hadn’t been he in Anastasia’s house—he didn’t have the right build. And apart from that, he could have dispatched her in the alley. Besides, whether Jacob Worley was innocent or not, Gabriel…Gabriel had every reason to kill those women.
He had been telling the truth about knowing the participants in the journal.And then lied afterward, when he said he was testing her. She had thought him deliberately provocative, instead of playing some twisted game with her.
She hadn’t seen his eyes. He had looked away when he said he didn’t know the women in the club. That should have told her the truth right there.
Would you feel betrayed? Have you fallen for me,Marietta?
