Page 64 of A Figure of Love

Would it never end?

∞∞∞

Gareth was tired of waiting. And what was the point, anyhow? For whatever reason, he felt sure she was awake and wishing to speak with him, perhaps even as badly as he wished to speak with her.

He pushed back the bedding and donned his robe and slippers, his body already responding to thoughts of finding her in the kitchen, alone.

He smiled to himself as he left his room, not realizing he’d forgotten to bring a candle in his haste to see her. His smiled widened—perhaps he was overcoming his fear of the dark at the same time he was overcoming his fear of women?

He turned the corner that led to the long hall and froze in his tracks. It was Bardot, and he was leaving Serena’s room, dressed in his banyan and slippers, his hair standing out in all directions. He took a step toward his door and then turned back, as if beckoned. He smiled and leaned into the doorway just enough to take hold of Serena and deposit a smacking kiss. Chuckling in a way that made Gareth want to smash his skull, he turned and swaggered across the hall to his room and went inside. Not until his door was closed did Gareth hear her door click shut, as if she’d not been able to tear her eyes away from him until the very end.

Gareth could not have said how long he stood rooted to the plush carpet as his mind, like a well-oiled piece of machinery, ran through the possibilities. It was always ill-advised to jump to conclusions. Perhaps Bardot had suffered a headache and had gone to his cousin for a powder? But a man would not intrude on a woman—even a relation—at such an hour. Bardot would have rung for a servant. Gareth knew his valet, Chalmers, kept every remedy known to man at hand. That was the duty of a personal servant.

Besides, it was impossible to deny that he’d not come from her room like a man with an aching head; he’d looked like a man who’d come from his lover’s bed, mussed and wearing a dressing gown.

And then there was that kiss, and that swagger.

When one removed the improbable, one was left with the most likely answer.

The unease he’d felt from the moment he’d met Bardot began to shift and take a different form. Gareth might go through life missing out on its subtleties, but if there was one thing he knew about, it was men who made their livelihoods by manipulating and cheating others. After all, such men had taken his youth and innocence and made him what he was today.

So, Dec had been right. She was not at all what she seemed: the eccentric widow of a duke’s son. No, she was a woman forced to make her way using her talents and wits. Her acknowledgement of Featherstone first—a shyster, albeit a clumsy one—and now Bardot, a slightly less obvious criminal—was no coincidence. She was involved with these men and he could only guess that plucking him was at the heart of it.

It took him a moment to recognize the alien emotion that seized him. His breathing—regular only an instant before—grew rough and rapid, as if he’d been running. His heart pounded percussively in his chest, which suddenly felt very hollow. And a hard, cold ball of something formed in the pit of his stomach.

Gareth was angry. No, this was cold, murderous fury—an emotion he’d not felt since the night he and Dec had escaped from the home. The thought momentarily diverted him from the rage blooming inside him. Nineteen years ago his rage had been as sharp and as deadly as an arrow, directed at the man who’d used and exploited and terrorized him for years.

But tonight?

Her face rose up in his mind with the clarity of an oil portrait. He saw her as she’d been this afternoon, when she’d taken him inside her body not once, but twice. She’d smiled at him as if . . . as if it had been him, Gareth Lockheart, that she’d wanted, not his money. Him.

And tonight she had taken another man—her real lover—into her room, into her body.

Gareth hated Etienne Bardot for having what he’d hoped to make his. And he hated Serena Lombard—a woman who’d toyed with him as easily and heartlessly as a cat played with a mouse. And she had done so with a deceptive sweetness that made him want to smash every stick of furniture in the entire house.

But the white, hot core of his hatred? That he saved for himself, for the fool who’d convinced himself that people were not all the same. He hated the idiotically optimistic voice in his head that had caused him to strike his best friend when the man had only been trying to save him from humiliation, pain, and disappointment.

Gareth’s first impulse was to march down the hallway, fling her door open, and discharge her this very night.

But then he remembered the boy.

She might be a virtuosa manipulator and fraud, but there was no ten-year-old boy in existence who could behave with as much innocence and sweetness as Oliver.

Gareth swallowed his hot rage, unwilling to stoop to her level and inflict pain on somebody who’d done nothing to deserve it.

His forte had always been patience, inhuman concentration, and a relentless drive to solve any problem that faced him. He would plot, plan, and wait until he had a punishment that would fit the crime. And then he would exact his revenge.

Chapter Sixteen

Gareth had already gone to the work site when Serena woke the next morning. When she asked a servant about Etienne, she learned her ‘cousin’ had left at first light.

She’d not really expected him to comply without a struggle, but no doubt he’d been eager to take the necklace to whomever he used to fence his stolen goods. Serena had picked at her breakfast, her mind sifting through the issue of the Dover trip until she thought she’d go mad. There was no way around it—nobody she could send in her stead. Oh, it was not her responsibility, except it was, if she could do anything that would stop it. Every step the authorities took toward Etienne was a step toward her, too. She’d bluffed him when she told him she would confess the truth. No, her plan was different. At the end of the month she would receive her first quarter payment. It would be enough to get her, Oliver, and Nounou to Paris. Once there, she could look for commissions. There were people who would remember Favel and her father and they would give her work. It would be little things at first, but she would be able to keep them fed and housed with the money from this job.

She gave up trying to eat and went to find Oliver. They were to walk over together, since Nounou had no interest in gathering for what she called “foolishness.”

Oliver was practically leaping out of his skin and didn’t complain even when she told him he could not take the dogs with him.

“I believe there will be a lot of people and they will end up underfoot. Besides, you don’t want to have to look after them and miss all the excitement?”