Except, he wasn’t.This man was always at the core, though his experiences had clearly influenced the way he presented himself to the world.
But Lucy could already tell that getting to know Gabriel, this version of him, was going to alter everything she thought and felt about the man.
God.When he told her she had to be honest with him, that he trusted her… Every time she thought of it, her stomach tied itself in knots anew.
What am I doing?she wondered, not for the first or even hundredth time.
But the only way out was through, so she said, “What do you want to hear about?We won the war with France.King George died finally, poor man, and the Prince Regent acceded to the throne.”
“Not that sort of thing.”Gabriel shook his head, the gold of his hair glinting in the dim light that leaked in around the edges of the heavy velvet curtains.“I want to know about you.”
Lucy’s throat felt dry and scratchy.Clearing it, she poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on his nightstand and took a long drink.
“I’m not terribly interesting,” she tried, but the look Gabriel gave her was so chiding, so mock-disappointed, Lucy had to laugh.“All right, fine,” she grumbled, pulling her feet up onto the seat of the chair so she could wrap her arms around her raised knees.“But you already knew quite a lot about me—if you want a new tidbit, I’m going to need to think for a moment.”
Gabriel obediently lay back against the pillows, his glittering black gaze never leaving her face.Lucy became aware of the silence between them, more comfortable than she would have imagined, punctuated only by the sounds of London traffic rumbling through Grosvenor Square outside his window, and the little domestic noises of life at Ashbourn House carrying on within.
“Is it all right that we’re alone in here?”he asked suddenly.“Your brother is clearly protective of you; I don’t wish to cause problems between you.”
“Nathaniel is not my keeper,” Lucy said firmly, “and anyway, the door to the hallway is open.Proper enough, considering you’re a bedridden invalid.”
He quirked a brow, mischief dimpling one of his lean cheeks.“Your brother is right to be wary.I’d have to be dead not to want you.”
Abruptly, the air between them felt thick and warm, crackling with tension.Lucy licked her lips, and his eyes dropped to track the movement like a predator tracking prey.
Avid, her writer’s brain supplied.It was the perfect word.He looked avid.
Feeling overheated and breathless, Lucy held his stare and blurted out the first thing that sprang to mind.“I told you we began as enemies, but that’s not the whole story.What I never told you before—and I can’t believe I’m about to tell you now—is that I was infatuated with you before I even met you.”
Where was her composure?Where was her steely determination to make this man pay for the wrongs he’d done her?
But as she watched his handsome face light up with a wicked grin, Lucy couldn’t help feeling that this version of this man didn’t deserve her animosity.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” he said with relish.“Tell me everything!”
“I was a very foolish, silly, ignorant girl,” Lucy said sternly, unable to entirely conquer her own urge to smile.“And I was obsessed with reading the gossip columns.At the time, I felt quite…isolated, I suppose, within my own family.My parents were deeply, wildly in love, with each other and with life at the center of London’s social whirl.My mother is not considered at all respectable by the Haute Ton, I should mention—she was a nursemaid when she married my father.”
She watched him closely to see how he would react to that, unwilling to admit to herself that her palms felt a bit clammy with nerves.
“A duke who married his son’s nanny.”Gabriel’s brows climbed his high forehead.“Yes, I can imagine the jealous biddies of Polite Society didn’t care for that.”
“They didnotcare for it,” Lucy confirmed, relaxing a bit at his tone, which was free of judgment and censure.“Nor did they care for my sister, Gemma, and me, as the issue of that scandalously unequal union.Gemma is five years older than I am, so she was out in society while I was still in the schoolroom.Our parents were very popular, however, in the less rarified circles of society.They spent most of their evenings out and about, at parties and balls and entertainments of all sorts.And then when she came out, Gemma was gone every night, too—and there was I, stuck at home in my pigtails and short skirts, waiting for my life to begin.That’s how it started, my obsession with the gossip columns.”
“You wanted to know what your family was doing, when they left you behind.”
The wealth of understanding in his deep voice gave Lucy a queer feeling in her middle.“Gemma seemed to live the most glamorous, exciting life, and the only way I could be a part of it was to follow her exploits in the broadsheets.She ran in some very fast circles, indeed—she was part of your set, in fact.”
Gabriel frowned a bit.“My set?My set is the scandalous, fast set?”
Lucy paused.“Does that surprise you?”
“My uncle, who raised me—he has exceedingly high standards,” he mused, a far-off look in his eye.“And he sets his expectations of us to match what he thinks we’re capable of.What can have happened between us that would make me rebel so openly against Uncle Roman’s ideals?”
“I don’t know, but if your uncle raised you to be an upstanding member of society, you defied his expectations rather thoroughly,” Lucy informed him frankly.“Were I to give you a stack of newspapers to catch up on the notable events of the past decade, you would find the scandal sheets positivelyrifewith your escapades.And I devoured them all.I scoured every broadsheet for your name; I couldn’t wait to find out what you’d been up to week after week.”
“What sorts of things?”Gabriel sounded interested, but Lucy could see that he still didn’t entirely believe her.
“You once played a prank on the previous Marchioness of Huntingdon that involved engaging upward of fifty separate modistes to show up at her townhouse bearing outlandish gowns they swore she had ordered.There was the most outrageous row about it; at one point, they clogged the street in front of the townhouse so badly that traffic was stopped in Berkeley Square for three hours.Fifty dressmakers milling about, waving dress patterns and half-finished garments, shouting for payment.”
