It occurred to Lucy, unwillingly, that he had lost his elder brother when Gabriel lost his father.She wondered if they had been close.
“It was up to me to ensure that we held the line,” Lord Roman continued, still in that cold, controlled way that made Lucy want to throw something at him to provoke a human reaction.“To ensure that the Duke of Thornecliff was prepared to carry on our family’s name and legacy.Not that I succeeded.”
Lord Roman looked at Gabriel, and the expression on his face made Lucy want to put her body between the two men as a shield.Lord Roman gazed at his nephew as though Gabriel was his own, personal tragedy.
“You are my life’s greatest failure,” Roman said, quiet and devastating, and Lucy felt the full-body flinch that tore through Gabriel.
“How dare you?”she said, her voice trembling dangerously.“If there is something about the way Gabriel lives his life that you don’t like, you have no one to blame but yourself.You are the one who taught him he had no worth outside of the title of Duke of Thornecliff—and you are the one who taught him that eventhatwouldn’t be enough to save him.Wasn’t enough to make you care enough for him to save his life when he was taken by kidnappers.You set him on this path, and you have no right to stand there and look down your nose at anything Gabriel has done to survive a life without the smallest hint of love.”
“Love.”Lord Roman sneered the word, his mouth curled into a wolf snarl of frustrated rage.“I suppose that’s what you call it when you indulge my nephew’s worst impulses and keep his disastrous secrets.”
“What secrets?”Gabriel said, his voice hoarse and cracking with emotion.“It can’t be a surprise to you that my childhood was devoid of love.”
An odd spasm crossed Lord Roman’s face.He paused.“Not that, I meant secrets like?—”
But Gabriel was still speaking.“I may not remember everything, but I remember my childhood.I thought it was normal, the way you spoke to Dom and me as though we were miniature adults, with an adult’s understanding of the world.I thought it was normal to be expected to do everything perfectly, and to punish myself for falling short, over and over again, until I would have done anything—anything—for a word of approval from you.”
Lucy clutched at Gabriel’s hand.His body was a rigid line of tension at her side as they stared at Lord Roman, whose demeanor had hardened to rough-hewn granite.
“If it hadn’t been for Farthingdale,” Gabriel finished, “there wouldn’t have been an ounce of softness in our lives at all.And I thought that was normal, and that you loved us in your own way—but the uncle I thought loved me, the uncle of my memories, would never have left me to sit, chained in the dark, for months.The uncle I thought loved me would never come here to try to shatter the best thing in my life.”
He gazed down at Lucy, and she met his look with a tremulous smile.
Lord Roman’s voice lashed like a whip over Lucy.“She hasn’t told you, has she.”
Lucy’s insides shriveled.How could he know about the faux betrothal?
“It’s not a question,” Lord Roman went on implacably.“I know she has not.But you need to hear the truth, and I need you to believe it, though it comes from me, because you are in danger.”
Danger?Lucy’s head jerked around.In danger of what—marrying a woman Gabriel had never intended to wed?
“What do you mean?”Gabriel seemed as confused as she.“Lucy?What is he talking about?”
Lucy thought she was ready for whatever explosive secret Lord Roman was about to detonate in the sitting room.But she could never have predicted he was about to say, “She hasn’t told you yet about your nighttime activities.”
Gabriel looked appalled at the turn the conversation had taken.“Uncle, please.I’ve been made aware that I’ve become something of a scoundrel, but I hardly think Lucy would be the one to know the full extent of it, or to discuss it with me.I realize you’re disappointed in how I’ve turned out, but I’m surprised at you bringing it up in front of her.”
“That’s not what I—” Roman broke off, exasperated.A terrible sensation of dread gripped Lucy’s middle.“I don’t mean the whoring and gambling and all the rest of it, though it is certainly behavior that is beneath the dignity of the Duke of Thornecliff, or should be.I mean your other nighttime activities.The even more illicit ones.”
OhGod, Lucy realized blankly.This wasn’t about the false engagement at all.This was about?—
Lord Roman cleared his throat and squared his shoulders.“For the past seven years, you have gone out, dressed in black and masked, to rob coaches and carriages along the Bath Road.You are a highwayman.The Gentle Rogue.And this woman you propose to make duchess has known all along yet hasn’t mentioned a word about it to you.I think it would be prudent to discoverwhy.”
* * *
Gabriel’s head was throbbing with pain, like a dagger was being shoved slowly into his left temple.
“Say that again,” he demanded.“What are you saying?Lucy, what is he saying?”
He turned to her, the one still point in his swiftly revolving universe, and found her blinking tears out of her eyes as she gazed up at him.
Distress radiated from her, hands wringing, mouth downturned, her blue eyes swimming.
It must be true.
“Well.Fuck me,” Gabriel said.He sat down abruptly on the sofa.His legs hadn’t given out, he told himself.He just felt like sitting, that was all.“So, I’m a highwayman.”
And he started to laugh.Through slitted eyes, he saw Lucy and Uncle Roman exchange dismayed looks, and it only made him laugh harder.
