“Have you tried the mackerel, my love?”Caroline asked, placing a fond hand on her jabbering husband’s forearm.“I think you’ll enjoy it.”
At the other end of the table, Uncle Roman dabbed at his lips with a white linen napkin.“Lady Lucy has nothing to fear from me, so long as I remain convinced that she has my nephew’s best interests at heart.”
Gabriel turned to stone, his fist clenched around the stem of his water goblet.This, again.He’d thought they’d laid his uncle’s concerns about Lucy to rest when it became clear she wasn’t working with Sir Colin to bring down The Gentle Rogue.
“You can have nothing to say about my marriage,” Gabriel reminded his uncle coolly, forcing his muscles to unclench.“It’s been many years since I needed your permission to do anything at all.”
“Yes.And look how well that’s turned out.”Roman arched a brow.
“I must say,” Sir Colin murmured, making every head at the table swivel in his direction, “I am quite surprised to see you in attendance, Lord Roman.Almost as surprised as I am to be here myself.Have you indeed reconciled with your nephew, at long last?”
Gabriel clenched his jaw as his uncle met his gaze down the length of the table.
“Nothing brings a family together like a wedding,” Uncle Roman replied with an ironic twist to his lips.
“I assure you, I’m not at all nervous about meeting Lord Roman,” Lucy interjected, a little too loudly.A high flush rode her cheekbones; she looked ready to stab someone with her fish knife.“And while I would be happy to facilitate a return to cordial relations between my husband-to-be and his family, I would hope that said family wouldn’t require the excuse of a wedding to own up to their past mistakes and vow to do better by him in the future!”
Sir Colin’s eyes darted back and forth between Lucy and Uncle Roman as though he was watching a bout between two circling pugilists.They were certainly giving him a good show to go along with his dinner.
Gabriel knew he ought to step in.This wasn’t part of the plan, an undignified family squabble at the dinner table in front of the embarrassed Drakes and a very interested Sir Colin.But he took a moment to savor the warm feeling of Lucy glaring at Uncle Roman with her fish knife in hand, like an avenging Valkyrie brandishing a sword of flame.
She had such spirit, such fire in her.
Men twice her size quailed in the face of Lord Roman de Vere’s displeasure, but not Lucy.No one in Gabriel’s life had ever stood up to Uncle Roman for Gabriel’s sake.It made him want to pick her up from her seat, carry her out of the room, and ravish her on the spot.
But someone here needed to stick to the plan, rather than getting caught up in the complex undercurrents of emotion swirling around this table.
“Our wedding will be a joyous occasion,” Gabriel said with finality, giving his uncle a cool smile that warmed when he turned it on a still-fuming Lucy.“As for me, I am more interested in the future than the past.”
“That’s lucky,” Fitz remarked, “as you’ve forgotten most of your past.”
“Indeed.”Gabriel toasted his friend, and he only meant it a bit sardonically.“Perhaps that makes the past easier to let go of.”
“Maybe you’d get your memories back,” Lucy said sharply, throwing her napkin down beside her plate, “if some people were willing to face them with you, and explain what really happened all those years ago.”
At the other end of the table, Uncle Roman didn’t move a muscle, but somehow all the energy in the room seemed to bend toward him as though he was drawing it into himself.
“I agree with my nephew,” he said, impassive as a judge handing down a sentence.“The future is all that matters.And I will do whatever it takes to ensure Thornecliff’s future.”
“A future without me in it, you mean,” Lucy cried, standing up from the table so quickly that she upset her wineglass.Claret splashed across her plate, soaking into the white linen tablecloth like blood.
“That’s enough, uncle,” Gabriel snapped, reaching for Lucy with a concerned hand that she shook off gently.
“It certainly is enough,” she said lowly, mortification tugging her mouth into an unhappy curve.“I must make my apologies, everyone.I’m afraid I’m not…feeling very well.”
“Let me walk you up,” Gabriel began, starting up from his seat, but Lucy waved him off.She truly did look unwell, pale and trembling as she apologized to the footman who’d hurried over to clean up the spilled wine.
“No, no, I’ll be quite all right,” she protested, “I only need to rest.Please don’t break up the party on my account.”
“I’ll accompany you,” said Caroline.And perhaps due to her forthright, no-nonsense manner as she folded her napkin and stood up, Lucy simply nodded.The two women left the dining room arm in arm.
Some party, Gabriel thought bleakly as they all resettled themselves silently around the table and waited for the footmen to remove the first course and bring in the second.He would’ve given anything to toss Sir Colinandhis uncle out on their ears so he could follow Lucy up to her bedchamber and make sure she rested.
Or make her feel better in some other way.
But that wasn’t possible, because it would ruin all their plans and the entire purpose of holding this infernal dinner party in the first place.
Gabriel had to sit there, under the flat, unblinking stare of Sir Colin Semple, so that when reports of The Gentle Rogue’s latest robbery arrived, the agent of the Crown himself would be Gabriel’s alibi.
