A Gentleman Never Tells (22 page)

He looked at her with a curious sparkle in his eyes. “Yes, I can see I should have sent a note around. I must have caught you at a bad time. You look flustered.”

“Me? No.”

“Your cheeks are flushed and your lips pink and your hair is, well, perhaps I will just stop at that.”

She brushed a strand of hair away from her face and said, “Yes, perhaps that is best… Please sit down.”

He motioned for her to sit first, and she did, making sure she put her back against the pillow that covered the book.

He took the opposite end of the settee and said, “I had news I wanted to share with you, and I didn’t stop to think it might not be convenient to drop by.”

“No, really, this is a fine time. I was painting.” She pointed to the easel by the window.

He looked at the canvas that was half-painted dark blue and hid a smile behind clearing his throat. “Yes, that’s very nice. Shows talent.”

She started to explain it was a midnight sky but stopped herself. She had more important matters to deal with. If she was ever going to play the part of a mistress, she had to do it now, before she lost her nerve.

“What did you want to tell me?” she squeaked, then cleared her throat. “My lord,” she added, hoping she sounded sufficiently sultry.

Brent looked at her oddly. “Are you sure you are all right?”

“I’m fine,” she tried to coo. “Better than fine. How are you?”

He gave her a questioning look and said, “I heard that Lord Waldo’s dog was returned to him today.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news!” she blurted, every ounce of sultry evaporating into the room. “When? How?”

“Lord Waldo said a young man showed up at his door with the dog,” Brent said. “I talked at length with him about who found Tulip, and then I went to see Lord Snellingly. After talking with both of them, I’m fairly certain it must have been the same lad who found both dogs and, of course, both men had paid the young man handsomely.”

“That’s amazing the lad found both dogs,” she said.

“Quite, and I think it’s very curious, too.”

“Do you?” she said without really thinking about what she was saying. She was concentrating too hard on the shape of his ears and wondering how she was going to touch them.

“Yes, and I think I know who he is.”

Her gaze swept from Brent’s ears to his eyes. “You do? Who?”

“A young man named Godfrey,” he said. “He and his sisters travel Hyde Park each morning to deliver milk into Mayfair. I’m going to the park tomorrow morning and following him home.”

“You think he has Prissy?” she asked.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Brent said. “But he certainly knew how to find the other dogs, and now that I’ve heard Lady Windham’s prize-winning pet has gone missing, this has gotten to be more than just peculiar. Right now, Godfrey’s the only lead I have.”

“Tell me what time you will be in the park, and I will meet you there.”

Brent shook his head. “Oh, no, Gabrie. I must do this alone.”

Gabrielle took a deep breath and scooted down the settee closer to him. “But you said he had his sisters with him. I might be of some help if you need to talk to them.”

He seemed to consider her suggestion. “The girls do seem frightened of me.”

She swallowed past a dry throat, reached up, and went for an orb. With a trembling hand, she lightly traced his outer ear with her fingertips. Softly, she said, “Then it’s settled; I’ll come.”

His brow wrinkled into a frown and his lips set in a grim, or perhaps confused, line. The news of another dog returned to his master while he was still missing Prissy obviously had him tense.

“All right. I should think they’ll be back through the park between nine and ten o’clock, after making their deliveries, so we should meet at the west gate before nine just to make sure we don’t miss them.”

Gabrielle continued gently touching him, letting her fingers move to the back of his ear and then skimming down his neck to the top of his neckcloth and back up again to draw lazy circles on the smooth, warm skin behind his ear.

All of a sudden he grabbed her wrist, kissed the back of her hand, and said, “Gabrie, what are you doing?”

Her gaze met his and held. “Touching you,” she whispered.

There was a passage where it said a man liked for a mistress to straddle him and sit on his lap. That was a very daring thing to do, but maybe she should try that. It was certainly unladylike and would surely make him see that she knew how to do things she shouldn’t know. Besides, it would make it easier for her to fondle both ears at the same time.

Her breathing was labored. Her chest felt tight, but she was beyond thinking about anything but what she had to do. And she had to do it now. Rising from the settee, she quickly lifted her skirts and straddled his hips with her knees. His eyes widened, his hands grabbed her waist, and he groaned as she settled her bottom onto his lap.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he asked huskily.

She reached up and cupped both his ears with her hands and caressed them.

Looking deeply into his eyes, she countered, “Do you like that?”

His hands settled around her hips, and he pressed her harder onto his body. “Immensely, but do you know what would happen if your aunt came in and saw you sitting here on me like this?”

“She and my sister are out for the afternoon.”

“Thank God, but what about your servants?” he asked, his breaths coming faster and louder.

“There are only two in the house this afternoon and they know not to bother me when I’m painting.”

He leaned his head back against the settee. “You are not painting, Gabrie, you are seducing me, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.”

“Do you like it?” she said softly as she moved her hands across his broad chest. She bent and kissed the corner of his eye, letting her lips softly trail down to his cheek and over to the corner of his mouth. She felt his lower body move beneath her, and Gabrielle gasped at the wonderful sensations that flooded her body.

“Very much, too much,” he whispered huskily before pulling her to him so his lips could claim hers.

Her mouth clung to his in an eagerness she didn’t want to deny or control. His kisses were rough and demanding. His tongue probed deeply into her mouth over and over again, filling her with the sweet taste of his surrender. She yielded to his strength as he pressed his lower body up to hers time and time again. Fire shot to the area between her legs, and Gabrielle moaned as she wiggled against the hardness beneath his breeches.

His hands found the front opening of her day dress and he pulled it apart, dragging it and her shift off her shoulders, laying bare her breasts to his view. He covered one nipple with his mouth and the other breast with his hand. The wanton sensations crashing through her were staggering as she cupped his head to her breasts and moaned with sweet, satisfying pleasure.

Suddenly he tumbled her back onto the settee. Her back hit the sharp end of the book, and she cried out and flinched.

He jerked away. “Did I hurt you?”

Gabrielle froze. The book. “Ah, ah, no. I’m fine.”

“Something hurt you,” he said and reached behind her and found it.

Gabrielle gasped and grabbed for the book. But Brent was too fast for her.

She felt as if her blood ran cold as she fastened the front of her dress. “Let me have that,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“I-I, nothing,” she said, thinking quickly. “It’s just a book. Throw it down and kiss me, Brent.”

He still leaned over her, so she reached up and placed her lips to his. She felt him respond involuntarily and, for a moment, he melted into the kiss. She smiled against him.

All of a sudden he rolled away from her and rose from the settee. He opened the book as she lunged at him.

“No!”

He grasped her wrist as she grabbed for the book that he held just out of her reach. “I knew something must have been going on when you started touching me. Why don’t you want me to know what you are reading?”

He let go of her wrist and opened the book. Heat flamed in her cheeks as he read out loud,
The Art of Being a Most Pleasing Mistress
.

His brow wrinkled in surprise. “You were reading this?”

“No, no.” She blinked rapidly.

The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Yes, you were.”

How dare he be so amused by her horror? “All right, yes,” she said haughtily. “If you must know, I was reading it.”

He flipped through a few pages. “And what did you learn?”

If he could find her situation amusing, she would be damn if she’d be embarrassed about it. She lifted her shoulders and her chin. “I learned that men like to have their golden orbs rubbed when they are tense, so I was trying to please you by rubbing them.”

His smile turned into a wide grin. He nodded as if he understood, but when he saw she was not amused, he cleared his throat and said, “What exactly are my golden orbs, Gabrie?”

The look on his face could only be called predatory, heated. Primal. And she felt a decidedly inappropriate need to do more than fondle his orbs.

She pulled her shoulders back. “Your ears, of course.”

That heated look mixed with surprise before he burst out laughing.

Gabrielle huffed in exasperation. “Why are you laughing? You are being most unkind when all I was trying to do was please you.”

He faced her again, trying his best to contain himself. “You do please me, Gabrielle.”

“That is the real problem,” she blurted. “I have been trying to make myself unacceptable to you as a wife. I don’t want to please you. It says in this book a gentleman doesn’t like for his wife to do these things, like squeezing and fondling his golden orbs, but it is okay for his mistress to do it.”

Laughter was bright in his eyes and on his lips again, but he managed to say, “You want to be my mistress?”

“No, of course not,” she said, completely shocked by the suggestion. “I thought if I did something only a mistress knew how to do, you might be angry enough that you wouldn’t want to marry me.”

He chuckled low in his throat. “Oh, no, Gabrie, that is not going to happen.” He took the book and placed it back in her hands. “By all means, keep reading this and learn all you can. It will be my pleasure for you to show me all you have learned after we are married.”

Her shoulders dropped in defeat.

“And as far as the golden orbs you were reading about—they are not ears. You will learn exactly what they are on our wedding night.”

He turned and walked out.

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

—Mark Twain

Golden orbs!

Brent smiled and his body tightened every time he thought about his encounter with Gabrielle yesterday afternoon, and that was often. She had bewitched him. If she hadn’t been sitting on his lap, caressing his ears with such tenderness, tempting him with her kisses and touches, he would never have agreed for her to meet him in the park and come with him to follow Godfrey. It was really something he should be doing alone, but given the circumstances of what she had been doing at the time, how could he have denied her anything she wanted?

Brent chuckled to himself.
Golden orbs!

She was unbelievable! And oh, so tempting. After yesterday, he could hardly wait to make her his wife.

But his yearning for her was more than just his attraction to her. He loved not knowing what she was going to come up with next to try to get him to free her from the bond of marriage to him. He hoped her father returned soon so all the financial paperwork could be finalized. A few weeks ago, he would never have thought it, let alone admitted it, but now he could say fate chose well for him. He was besotted with Gabrielle. Thoughts of her smiling at him, laughing with him, and even being outraged by him played through his mind.

Oh, yes. He was very happy to be marrying her. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of her not belonging to him.

He heard a conveyance approaching and looked up to see Muggs driving up in a closed carriage. The man always looked wary of Brent, but there was no reason for him to. Brent wasn’t one to hold a grudge. Besides, the man had attacked him only after the duke had ordered him to.

When the carriage rolled to a stop, Brent took off his hat and walked over to open the door. He wanted to take hold of Gabrielle’s waist and swing her around as he helped her down, but since Muggs was already glaring at him, Brent politely took her hand and let her step down on her own. He started to shut the door, but Gabrielle touched his arm.

“I hope you don’t mind, my lord, but I brought Brutus with me.”

Yes, he did mind. He stepped close to her so Muggs wouldn’t hear everything he said. “Gabrie, this is not a good time to have him along.”

She stuck her hands in the black velvet muff she carried. “But, my lord, he looked so forlorn when I started to leave. You know how much he enjoys the park. I couldn’t say no to him.”

“We will be following two girls and a lad pulling a milk cart. What if he barks at a squirrel or another dog and tips the young man to the fact we are following them?”

She looked at him aghast. “You know Brutus doesn’t bark at squirrels,” she admonished. “He is very well behaved and he minds me instantly. I will not let him reveal to anyone what we are doing. So do not worry; he will not hamper our mission.”

He looked at her bright eyes and hopeful expression and knew he couldn’t deny her.

“All right,” he said and settled his hat back on his head. Reaching back into the carriage, he helped Brutus move his hind legs so he could step down. “Come on, boy, we don’t have much time. I don’t want to miss Godfrey.”

The sky was gray and the air chilly but not bitter as they walked to the area Brent had already picked out, where they could hide behind a stand of trees. He had a fairly good idea of which path Godfrey took each day, and it was simply a matter of waiting until he emerged from the park. All they had to do was stay out of his sight as they followed him. And Brent kept thinking it would have been a whole lot easier to do that without Gabrielle and Brutus.

Once they were seated behind the largest tree, Gabrie said, “Explain to me once again why you think Godfrey is the dog thief. I’m afraid I had my mind on other things when we were talking yesterday.”

Brent’s lower body stirred. “Gabrie, let’s not discuss right now what your mind was on yesterday.” He grinned. “But at another time, I’d be most interested in finding out what other things you learned from that book.”

Heightened color rose in her cheeks. “You have heard all you are going to hear from me about that book, Brent. I put it back where I found it, shoved the chest up against it, and I don’t intend to look at it ever again.”

“Pity,” he said and hid a chuckle behind his gloved hand and a cough. “Now, regarding your question about Godfrey, at first I didn’t think there was a connection, and I’m still not certain of my suspicions. Prissy and Tulip went missing in the park and Josephine in Snellingly’s neighborhood. But yesterday it dawned on me that Godfrey travels through both every day of the week. So I went to see Snellingly and Lord Waldo and asked about who had returned their dogs. They both gave the same description of a red-haired, strapping lad of about twelve to thirteen years of age. That fits Godfrey. It just seemed too much of a coincidence to me that he found both dogs. Especially now that Lady Windham’s dog is missing. I thought it might not be a bad idea to know where he lives and then to talk to him.”

“In case more dogs go missing and are mysteriously found and returned by him.”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

“But if he is the dog thief and returned their dogs, why wouldn’t he have returned Prissy first, since she was the first to go missing?”

Brent looked into her concerned eyes, and a calm feeling settled over him. “I don’t know the answer to that. I’m hoping to find out today.”

Brutus lifted his head and looked straight in front of him as if he heard something. A few seconds later, Brent heard the rumbling of wheels and rattle of milk cans.

“I hear the cart,” he said, peering around a tree. “Make sure Brutus remains quiet.”

“He will not make a sound,” Gabrielle assured him as she patted the dog’s head and rose on her knees to watch.

When Brent considered the lad and the two girls a safe distance ahead of them, he, Gabrielle, and Brutus rose and followed them. Godfrey was obviously well versed on where he was going and the shortest route to get across the city. Within a few minutes, he left the shopping district of London and was maneuvering his way across the back streets and through narrow alleys. Brent stopped trying to remember the route they were taking, deciding it would be best to hire a cab to take them back to Mayfair as soon as their mission was complete. It was easy to stay out of sight and keep up with Godfrey because of the rattle of milk cans and the squeaking of the cart’s wheels.

Occasionally the lad would stop and talk to someone, or he and the girls would wave to a passing rig or wagon, but they kept a steady pace of winding farther and farther into an area of town where Brent would have rather Gabrielle not be. But there was no going back now.

Brent often looked over at her. She and Brutus had no trouble keeping pace with him. And by the expressions on the faces of some of the people they passed, no one was going to come near them with Brutus walking between them.

Brent estimated they had been following Godfrey for a couple of hours when they came to a neighborhood of rundown tenant houses. The skies had turned dark and thunderous, but not a drop of rain had fallen. He knew better than to leave his house without an umbrella, but his mind had been too busy with other thoughts when he’d walked out the door. He hoped the rain would hold off until after he talked to Godfrey.

A few minutes later, Godfrey stopped in front of what looked to be a small barn. Brent heard him tell the girls to go on home and that he would put the cart away and wash the milk cans. The girls skipped a couple of houses down the street and disappeared.

Brent turned to Gabrielle and said, “You and Brutus stay here. I want to talk to Godfrey alone.”

“Talk to him?” she asked, taking her hand out of her muff and laying it on his chest.

He liked the warmth of her touch. “That’s why I followed him, Gabrie.”

“Isn’t that dangerous? I thought you just wanted to find out where he lived.”

Brent could see she was concerned. “I need to ask him a few questions. I want to talk to him about where he found the dogs. You and Brutus stay here, and don’t worry.”

Godfrey was coming back to the cart to get more cans when Brent was close enough to say to him, “Godfrey, I’d like a word with you.”

The lad looked up and saw Brent only a few feet away. He grabbed a can off the cart and threw it at Brent. Brent ducked and then sidestepped the tumbling can. The lad took off running.

“Stop!” Brent yelled and managed to get close enough to grab the back of Godfrey’s coat, stopping him. When the young man swung around, he surprised Brent with a fast, hard fist to the side of his mouth, snapping his head back. Brent’s hat flew off his head and he staggered. A moment later he heard Gabrielle yell, “Brutus, no!”

Brent struggled to regain his footing as Godfrey quickly bent low and rammed his shoulder into Brent’s stomach and pushed him backward. Brent stumbled over a milk can and fell to the ground. He grunted and looked up in time to see Brutus’s big front paws land on Godfrey’s chest and pummel him to the ground.

“Get him off me!” Godfrey screamed, trying to squirm away from the large dog, who growled, slobbered, and held him pinned to the ground with two saucer-sized paws. “Help me!”

“Stop fighting him, and he won’t hurt you,” Brent said, rolling to his feet. “Off! Brutus, get off!” The dog looked at Brent but didn’t move. “Off, Brutus,” he said and grabbed him by the neck scruff.

Panting, Brutus growled his complaint but hobbled off Godfrey.

Gabrielle ran up to them and dropped to her knees and hugged Brutus around his big shoulders and neck. When she looked up at him, Brent was surprised to see tears brimming in her eyes.

“He hasn’t been able to run for months,” she said with a tremulous smile. “I couldn’t stop him. He wanted to help you.”

A lump formed in Brent’s throat. “I know,” he said and tried to tell Gabrie with his eyes he understood what she was feeling. He knew what it took out of the old dog to help him. Brent patted the dog’s head with one hand and wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the other. Godfrey had hit him on the same side of the mouth as his previous injuries, and it hurt like hell. He looked around for his hat and spotted it flattened into the ground. Brent didn’t know if a can had rolled over it or if Brutus had stomped on it, but it was definitely ruined.

Brent looked at Godfrey, who was backing away from the dog. “Get him away from me,” Godfrey shouted again.

“First, tell me… where is my dog?”

“He’s standing right beside you,” Godfrey said, fear and fury flashing in his eyes.

“No, that’s her dog.” Brent pointed toward Gabrielle.

“What dog are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Godfrey. You know the small dog I’m talking about. I paid you to be on the lookout for my Pomeranian. I know you returned Lord Snellingly’s and Lord Waldo’s dogs, so where is mine?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Brent turned and saw one of Godfrey’s sisters standing a short distance away. The misting rain fell on her white mobcap and straight shoulders. Brent didn’t know when it had started to rain.

“You stay quiet, Emily,” Godfrey said. “You don’t have anything to say.”

The girl didn’t even look at her brother. “Just don’t let the big dog hurt him again, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Gabrielle rose to stand beside Brent and said, “Brutus didn’t hurt him and will not hurt him. He only wanted to stop Godfrey from running away. He’s big but a gentle dog.”

“Don’t say anything, Em,” Godfrey ordered. “This doesn’t involve you.”

The slender brown-eyed girl walked closer. “Yes, it does. We all took the dog that day. No one ever knew. It was easy to keep all the dogs quiet in the wagon. We just kept putting milk in a bowl for them. Your dog is inside the house with our mother.”

Relief washed through Brent like water rushing over stones in a brook. Prissy was alive.

Gabrielle grabbed his arm and squeezed it as she leaned against his side. “Thank God,” she whispered. “You’ve found her.”

“You can’t have her back,” Godfrey spat at him.

“We’ll see about that,” Brent muttered. He turned to the girl. “Where is your mother?”

“Wait, Brent,” Gabrielle said. “Why don’t you talk to him first and let him tell his story.”

Gabrielle had pulled the hood of her black velvet cloak over her bonnet, and looking at her, Brent saw the intriguing, gorgeous, and tempting young lady he met in the park weeks ago, who said to him,
“You talk softly to dogs just like you do to people.”

She pulled a handkerchief out of her muff and handed it to him. He looked from Godfrey to the girl, and then back to Gabrielle as he pressed her handkerchief to the corner of his mouth. He supposed with his adventures with Gabrielle, he was destined to lose his hats and have a cut lip.

Brent turned toward Godfrey and said, “Tell us why you took the dogs.”

The lad nervously wiped rain from his face, and Brent was reminded how young he was.

“It wasn’t my fault you lost her,” he said belligerently. “She was just wandering around in the park that morning when we were heading home. She started following us, so I put her in the wagon. We planned to take her back to the park the next day, but me mum thought I’d brought the dog home for her, and I couldn’t tell her I didn’t.”

“She’s sick,” the girl said.

“What is wrong with her?” Gabrielle asked.

The girl shrugged and shook her head.

“It don’t matter what’s wrong with her,” Godfrey said angrily. “She fell in love with that dog the moment she saw it. I couldn’t take it away from her.”

“What about the other dogs?” Gabrielle asked. “Why take them?”

Godfrey looked at Brent and pointed his finger at him. “He gave me money just to look for the dog and said there’d be more if I found it. I was thinking maybe other lords and gentlemen would pay me for finding their dogs, too. I took them so I could return them.”

“So you decided to start yourself a little business of stealing dogs,” Brent said, finding it difficult to feel sorry for the lad.

“We’re trying to get enough money to pay a doctor to come see our mum,” Emily said.