A Secret Love (34 page)

“And even if we do find him, he may not help.”

Gabriel made no reply. A moment later, the musicians laid bow to string. They both turned toward the dais as the crowd resettled for the next piece. A lilting air, it filled the room with a hauntingly sweet melody. Alathea watched the musicians, letting their art sweep her away, temporarily soothing her fears. Gabriel watched her. The short piece ended; applause rolled through the room. Alathea contributed her share, then sighed and turned to him.

“I'd forgotten you like music.”

Her expression turned wry. “To my mind, it's one of the few charms of the capital—to be able to hear the most talented musicians.”

Gabriel merely nodded. His gaze went past her, and abruptly sharpened. “Damn! That harpy's actually going to throw her daughter at me.”

Looking around, Alathea beheld their hostess bearing down on them, a beaming smile on her face, her pale, clearly reticent daughter in tow. “Well, you are here, after all. She probably sees it as encouragement.”

The sound Gabriel made was derisive.

Alathea arched a brow at him. “Shall I leave you to your fate?”

“Don't you dare. That poor girl always loses her tongue about me. God knows why. Conversing with her is worse than pulling teeth.”

Alathea smiled as she turned to greet Lady Hendricks. Gabriel appropriated her hand and placed it on his sleeve, thereby denying her ladyship any chance of whisking her off and leaving him alone with her daughter. Lady Hendricks accepted the situation with a puzzled look, settling for gushing over his presence before retreating, leaving her daughter with them. Alathea, who was acquainted with Miss Hendricks, took pity on all concerned and kept the conversation rolling, never straying from any but the most mundane subjects.

After one warning glance from her, Gabriel behaved himself, consenting to chat with debonair charm. When the musicians next took to the dais and, under Gabriel's direction, they parted from Miss Hendricks, the young lady was actually smiling. Gliding through the room on Gabriel's arm, Alathea felt sure Lady Hendricks would be pleased enough to forget her earlier puzzlement.

“Esher and Carstairs are sitting with your sisters.” Gabriel shot her a look as they passed out of the music room. “How's that coming along?”

“Very well.” Halting in the foyer, Alathea drew her hand from his sleeve and turned to look back into the room. “Inside two weeks, I should think.” Then she glanced at Gabriel, her expression growing serious. “Have you . . . heard anything about either of them?”

“No.” He scanned her face. “I've already checked—they're exactly as they appear. Both are wealthy enough to marry as they choose, and in both cases their respective families should be more than content with their securing an earl's daughters as their brides.”

“Thank heavens. I'd started to wonder if it was all too good to be true. I never imagined they'd both go off so easily.” She looked back at her sisters. “This Season has proved far more felicitous than anyone could have expected.”

His gaze on her face, on the delicate line of her jaw, Gabriel slowly nodded. He hesitated, then touched her arm. “Au revoir.” Stepping past her, he left the house.

He found her in the park the following afternoon, a willowy vision in pale green. The fine fabric of her gown clung to her hips, swaying evocatively as she trailed in the wake of her sisters and, unfortunately, his. Esher and Carstairs were once more in attendance; Gabriel resigned himself to speaking to both in the next few days regarding their intentions. A subtle prod wouldn't hurt.

His gaze fastened on Alathea. Lengthening his stride, he closed the distance between them. She whirled as he caught up with her. Surprise and awareness flared in her eyes, then she caught herself and inclined her head graciously. “Have you heard anything?”

Taking her hand, an action that now seemed normal, even called for, Gabriel anchored it on his sleeve and drew her to stroll beside him. “No. Nothing more.”

“Oh.”

He felt her questioning glance. She wanted to know what had brought him here. “I thought you might be interested in the details Montague has put together.”

The distraction served; she not only followed his account, but posed a few shrewd questions on the Company's projected costs. He nodded. “I'll get Montague to check—”

“Alathea! Such a pleasant surprise!”

The exclamation brought them up short; absorbed in their discussion, they had not been looking about them. Gabriel muttered a curse as his gaze fell on the countess of Lewes, approaching with her brother, Lord Montgomery.

Alathea smiled. “Cecile! How lovely to see you.”

Suppressing a frown, Gabriel exchanged a terse nod with Montgomery. They both waited with feigned patience while the ladies exchanged far more detailed greetings. From references the countess made, Gabriel gathered she and Alathea were contemporaries; their acquaintance dated from Alathea's aborted Season eleven years before. From Montgomery's smug expression, Gabriel surmised his lordship imagined his sister's connection would put him on a closer, more personal footing with Alathea.

“And Mr. Cynster!” The countess turned to him with an arch smile.

“Madam.” Gabriel accepted the hand she offered him, bowed easily, and released her. Alathea's fingers slid from his sleeve. Without looking, he caught her hand, enclosing it within his grasp. She stilled. He could all but hear her wondering what he was about.

“Perhaps,” the countess continued, ignoring the byplay, “we could stroll together?”

Alathea smiled. “Indeed—why not?”

Gabriel pinched her fingers, then made a great show of tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. She shot him a sharp glance, then turned to Lord Montgomery. “Is your mother well?”

Feeling distinctly unsocial, Gabriel turned to the countess. “How's Helmsley these days?”

The countess colored and slid around his wicked question. She paid him back by describing her offspring and their illnesses, a subject guaranteed to send any sane gentleman fleeing. Gabriel mentally gritted his teeth and refused to yield. As they strolled on, he noticed that Alathea kept her gaze fixed on Lord Montgomery, paying no attention whatever to all the gory details about the countess's three children. Knowing her as he did, knowing how closely she'd been involved with the care of her stepsiblings, he at first found that odd. Then they reached the Serpentine and he glanced at her face.

She kept it averted; he couldn't see her eyes. He could see the underlying stiffness in her features. Smoothly, he turned to the countess. “Do you plan to attend Lady Richmond's gala?”

The abruptness of the question made the countess pause, but she took to the new topic with alacrity. With a query here and there, he kept her engrossed in the social whirl, well away from the subject of children. His awareness centered on Alathea, he sensed the gradual easing of her tension. She had, indeed, given up a lot to save her stepfamily, far more than she would willingly let anyone know.

“I say! Lady Alathea!”

“My dear lady!”

“Countess, do introduce me.”

A bevy of five gentlemen, including Lord Coleburn, Mr. Simpkins and Lord Falworth, swept up to them from behind; if Gabriel had been able to see them, they wouldn't have managed it, but now he and Alathea were caught.

Alathea sensed his increasing irritation. She glanced at him; he was regarding Lord Falworth with an impassive expression and a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Don't you think so, Lady Alathea?”

“Oh—yes.” Recalling Falworth's question, she quickly amended, “But only in the company of close friends.”

Dealing with her would-be suitors while knowing Gabriel was considering annihilating one or all of them played havoc with her normally unassailable nerves. Her relief was quite genuine when he closed his hand over hers, still tucked in his elbow, and halted.

“I'm afraid,” he purred, at his most urbane, “that we must shepherd Lady Alathea's sisters and mine back to our mothers' carriages. You'll have to excuse us.”

That last was said with enough underlying command to convince even Lord Montgomery that bowing and making extravagant adieus was the better part of valor.

Gabriel drew her ruthlessly away. He caught his sister Heather's eye and with one brotherly gesture redirected the group now well ahead of them back toward the avenue.

Side by side, strolling easily, their long legs a match for each other, they brought up the rear. Alathea sighed with relief.

Gabriel shot her a dark glance. “You could try to discourage them.”

“I haven't encouraged them in the first place!”

They walked on in silence. As they neared the point where Serena's and Celia's carriages would come into view, Alathea slowed, expecting Gabriel to make his excuses and leave her. He tightened his hold on her hand and drew her on.

She looked at him in amazement. He cast her an irritated glance. “I'm not escorting them.” His nod indicated the four girls and Esher and Carstairs ahead of them. “I'm escorting
you.
”

“I don't
need
escorting.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

His expression grimly resolute, that was all he deigned to say. Alathea was too surprised that he'd risk alerting his mother to any particularity between them to marshal any argument, and then they were within sight of the carriages.

With an inward sigh, she kept pace beside him. “This is not going to make things any easier, you know.”

She thought he wasn't going to reply, but just before they reached his mother's carriage where Serena and Celia sat in matronly splendor, he murmured, “We left ‘easy' behind long ago.”

Then they were at the carriage, joining with the girls and Esher and Carstairs. Over the heads, Gabriel fielded a glance from Celia; Alathea, watching closely, could interpret with ease—Celia wanted to know why he was there. Gabriel returned her gaze impassively with a slight lifting of his shoulders, giving Celia to understand he'd simply come upon them and walked them back. Nothing particular at all. His performance was so smooth, if she hadn't known better, Alathea would have believed that, too. Gabriel nodded and Celia smiled, waving him away.

He turned to her—their gazes met. In the folds of her gown their fingers brushed. With a brief nod, he turned and strode away.

Alathea watched him go, a frown in her eyes, an increasingly insistent question revolving in her mind.

T
hat question was answered two nights later. The Duchess of Richmond's gala was one of the highlights of the Season. The Richmonds' house on the river was thrown open; everyone who was anyone attended. Alathea arrived relatively early with Serena, Mary, and Alice. Her father, out to dinner with friends, would look in later. Leaving Serena on a
chaise
with Lady Arbuthnot and Celia Cynster, Alathea hovered until the circle about Mary and Alice was established, Esher and Carstairs to the fore, then headed for a quiet nook by the wall.

Her attempt at self-effacement was frustrated by Lord Falworth, who spotted her in the crowd. Seconds later, her “court” closed in.

To Alathea's relief, not five minutes passed before Chillingworth joined them. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, the earl settled by her side, displacing Falworth, who sulkily shifted back. As large as Gabriel, Chillingworth had a similar effect on her admirers; challenged, they exerted themselves to converse intelligently.

By the time the orchestra struck up for the first dance, Alathea was feeling in considerable charity with the earl, very ready to grant him her hand. He did not, however, solicit it, calmly standing back while Lord Montgomery begged the honor. With no excuse ready, Alathea was forced to accede to his lordship's fervent plea but as the dance was a cotillion, she was spared most of his pompous declarations.

When at the end of the dance Lord Montgomery returned her to her circle, she was somewhat surprised to discover Chillingworth patiently waiting. Her gratitude bloomed anew as under his direction, the conversation remained lighthearted and general. Then the musicians struck up a waltz, and she realized why the earl was waiting.

The look in his eyes as he bowed before her was flatteringly intent. “If you would do me the honor, my dear?” Alathea hesitated, another large gentlemen very clear in her mind. She looked up—and found him watching her, waiting to see what she would do, ready to step in and claim her if she didn't fall in with his decree. His intent reached her clearly as the circle of her admirers, noticing him, parted like the Red Sea.

Tamping down a spurt of rebelliousness, accepting she dared not bait Gabriel in his present mood, she glanced at Chillingworth. “I'm afraid, my lord, that I'm already promised. To Mr. Cynster.”

That last was redundant; Chillingworth's gaze had fastened on Gabriel's face. Primitive challenge flashed between them, then Chillingworth bowed. “My loss, my dear, but only a temporary one. There'll be many more waltzes tonight.” Even more than his words, his tone signalled his intention.