She yanked her arm away, keenly aware of the appearance, and directly faced him. “Then what? You’ll have someone slit my throat?”
He leaned in. “Lady Huntley,” he said on a resigned sigh, a sigh that couldn’t completely disguise his iniquity. “As my wife’s sister, I feel duty bound to warn you that you are flirting with danger.”
But for the crush, Gabby would have snatched up her skirts and dashed out the terrace doors into the cold and damp night air. Anything to escape this man, his bitterness, his malevolence. It rose off him in waves. How did her sister stand him?
Huntley appeared as if she’d conjured him from thin air. “What is this about danger, Stanford?” He took Gabby’s hand, who was thrilled by his proprietary manner for once. “My wife is a hazard I can attest to, but surely she is no danger to you.” His words came out deadly soft.
Gabby could have kissed Huntley right there. In front of everyone, from Lady Ingleby, the ton’s most notorious gossip, to Sebastian, her staid duke of a brother who never hesitated in taking the lowliest offender or highest of the instep to task.
Two highpoint flags of dark red stained Stanford’s cheeks. “Huntley. My pardons. Lady Huntley.” He gave a stiff shallow bow then stalked away.
Gabby snuck a glance at her husband and wanted to flee all over again. She wasn’t so fortunate.
“A waltz, my lady. How perfectly convenient,” Huntley murmured, his lips twisting she didn’t dare mistake for amusement. He swung her into the throng of dancers so quickly, it left her breathless, and unable to converse. A reprieve to be sure, but the music ended too soon for her comfort.
She and Huntley exited the floor with the others. She was stuck. He would demand answers and his pursuit would be relentless.
Or, not, she thought, spotting her other sister, and dashed over, with Huntley in tow. “Claire, how delightful to see you.” Gabby air-kissed each side of her face.
Huntley, ever the gentleman—though how no one saw the dark threat he represented that amazed her—bowed over Claire’s gloved hand. “Lady Beaumont.”
“Where’s Beaumont, Claire?” Gabby asked her.
“The card room, of course.” The edge in her voice, rippled over Gabby. Were both her sisters’ marriages doomed to failure? Perhaps a curse had been cast over the House of Ryleigh. She nixed that notion. One had only to look at Sebastian and Rebecca to know such thought held no water.
Only Rebecca just walked up, fire in her eyes. Oh, no.
“I seem to have torn my hem,” the duchess said pointedly. Code words for we must talk now.
“Of course,” Gabby said. “I shall accompany you to the ladies retiring room.”
Back up the stairs, they hurried. “What is it?” Gabby asked her.
“Your husband is a gossipmonger. He told Ryleigh all about Hope Street.”
“But you said Sebastian was willing to help.”
“Yes, but not without laying out a long list of his own conditions.” Rebecca looked fit to be tied.
“Like what?”
“Like not being allowed to assist a woman of the evening should the need arise.” Fury emanated off her in waves.
“I’m sure you’re overreacting, darling.” She patted Rebecca’s hand. “Don’t you worry about Sebastian. I’ll give him a piece of my mind he won’t forget.”
“No, you won’t. I can handle my own husband,” she growled, sounding nothing like a reigning duchess.
~~~
Huntley sat in the seat across from Gabby with his arms folded across his chest, his nostrils flaring. The air in the carriage was thick with fraught emotion. Gabriella could pluck them out like apples from a tree: indifference struck her first. But accepting his apathy at face value would be a grave mistake. No. Such indifference masked something far more visceral—rage? Frustration? Fear, for her?
“You might as well say what you are thinking,” she said, determined to have this out in privacy where the servants couldn’t overhear.
“As you wish.” His glacial tone iced the blood flowing through her to near freezing.
She’d read counts of soldiers dying from such conditions during the war in Russia. Unable to repress a shudder, she huddled deeper within her cloak and prepared for the worst.
“What exactly was Stanford referring to when he accused you of flirting with danger? I’ll have the truth, Gabriella.” There was no give in his voice.
