Rebecca leaned over, terrified to touch it, and read. “Murder afoot in Vauxhall—there have been no leads on the late baron’s killer.” Relief filled her. Huntley was alive but where was he? Anger swept through her again for her friend.
Disgust rippled over her.Men.
Gabby was adventurous and spontaneous. Similar traits Rebecca knew she herself possessed with one glaring difference. Rebecca didn’t trust men to look out for women, even if they proclaimed to care for them. It boggled her mind how men would not be able to carry on their legacies without women. Men, in her opinion, considered women expendable. If a woman should expire by whatever means, he had only to replace her with another. Rebecca had seen it time and again, from the time she was a child. From her own father no less.
Gabriella leaned forward and picked up the other periodical the butler had supplied and flipped to the gossip column. “I take it you aren’t thrilled to be marrying my brother?”
“Of course, I’m not thrilled.” How could Rebecca explain her feelings for Sebastian to anyone when she couldn’t explain them to herself. The thought of belonging to someone as a piece of property sickened her. Left her choking for air as if she had been cast in some medieval hole in the ground, walled in stone with no windows. With no means of escape. “Society’s rules for women are appalling and… and outdated,” she said on a choked huff. “This is the 1800s, for the sake of heaven. I vow someday I will flout every outrageous rule and laugh in their faces.”
Gabby stopped, her expression one of amused curiosity. “Whose?”
Rebecca was on a rant now. Her hand slashed the air. “Those who wear their corsets so tightly—men and women—that the circulation to their brains is cut off.”
“Hmm.”
“How is it,” she asked her friend, “that women are granted so few rights and choices, yet we are the ones who bring these blasted aristocrats into the world?” The fury roaring through her lauded with helplessness was also a source of comfort and familiarity. “My father has never forced me to choose a husband. But a duke snaps his fingers, and in an instant—”
“Dear heavens,” Gabby breathed, “you’re in love with Sebastian.”
Heat flooded Rebecca that started at her toes and moved through her body like a fire ignited at the base of a dry tree. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, turning her gaze out the window, mortified at the very word. “I haven’t known him long enough to know whether or not to discern such a thing.” She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word out loud.
“You’ve known one another for a decade,” Gabby said gently.
“Not in the ways it’s important,” Rebecca said with a patience on the verge of collapsing. Love turned women into brainless idiots. Something she could not say aloud for fear of insulting her dearest friend in the whole world.
“I always thought the two of you belonged together.”
“As exhibited by that push in my back seven years ago.” Rebecca told her with a heartfelt glare.
Gabby grabbed her hand. “What’s troubling you, Rebecca? I’ve never seen you like this.”
Rebecca jerked her hand from Gabby’s. She stood and went across the room to the windows again. “Isn’t it enough that I’d set my course not to marry?”
“No. Don’t you want to marry him?”
Rebecca faced her stunned. “I can’t believe you, more than anyone, would ask me such a thing.”
“Well, yes, but I happen to believe you and Sebastian are an ideal match.”
“I’ll admit I like him.” And she did. “But marriage?” Rebecca didn’t wait on an answer. “Nothing anyone says matters at this point. Once the duchess saw me in dishabille, any choice I had in the in the matter was sealed. I am well and truly stuck.”
Gabby’s face dropped. “I wished for a happy ending for at least one of us.”
Rebecca’s forehead touched the window. “I know,” she said. “But spending the entirety of my life with someone who cannot love or respect me?” She was horrified to feel a sting of tears behind her eyes. She’d cried more in the last two days than she had in her whole life combined. Which made no sense at all. Shenevercried.
Gabby’s arm was suddenly around her even as panic spread through her limbs. She had the unwavering feeling that she was falling in love with Sebastian. A duke did not care for a sick person. He could easily have turned her care over to Serena. But he didn’t, choosing to care for her himself. That said something. “Maybe I should go to Scotland.”
“Scotland sounds ideal,” Gabby said glumly. “I don’t wish to… to follow through on… on what I told you before.”
“With Shuffle-arse?”
“No.” Her smile was sheepish. “That would open the door to more trouble than I’m willing to risk. Right now leastways.”
Relief hit Rebecca with shocking force. She turned to Gabby and hugged her. “I’m so glad, darling.”
“I suppose I’m growing up. No more stable boys, no more picking locks. Goodness, I’m becoming downright turgid. What a horrifying thought.” Gabby moved away and went back to the settee, sat down, and picked up one of the papers. She gasped.
“What is it?”
