Almost A Spinster (16 page)

“Father,” she said softly. “Lord Windsworth.”

“Hello, child,” her father said, motioning her in. He cast a side glance at Gabriel. “Lord Windsworth and I were just discussing you.”

“Oh, yes,” Felicity said quietly and her gaze held Gabriel’s with a hint of… accusation? Why did that emotion darken her gaze again? Hadn’t they moved passed all that? “I’m sure you were. May I beg a favor of you, Father?”

The older man stepped forward and caught his daughter’s hands. Kindness and love lined his face, along with a hint of regret. Gabriel knew why. Her father would probably go to his grave wishing he could have spared her the humiliation she suffered because of Gabriel’s family. He found himself hoping that he could form a bond with this man after his marriage. Perhaps through a friendship and mutual affection for Felicity, they could each help ease the pain of the other’s past.

“I wonder if you would fetch me a drink? I’m feeling a bit-” She threw another glance Gabriel’s way. “-a bit tired. I would like to sit for a moment.”

Gabriel tilted his head. Despite Felicity’s statement, she didn’t look pale or tired. She looked… emotional. But he nodded. “Of course.”

Her father slipped from the room, leaving the door open a hair. But as soon as his form disappeared from view, Felicity stepped back and pushed the door shut. When she turned to face Gabriel, the emotions she’d been cloaking became clear.

She was angry. She was hurt. And she blamed him for both, though he had no idea what could change her feelings toward him in such a short span of time.

He nodded. “I
know
something is wrong.”

“How?” She tilted her head. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. All he wanted to do was touch her arm, comfort her, but her body language told him in no uncertain terms that she would not allow it.

“I can see it in the tightness around your eyes,” he began warily. “The way your mouth is turned down, not just in anger, but with pain. And your shoulders are set back, the way they are when you’re trying to act as if you’re strong, but are actually feeling weak.”

Those same shoulders suddenly slumped, as if his words had deflated her ability to pretend. Her eyes sparkled with sudden tears, which she turned away to hide from him.

“My goodness, Gabriel, you do know me well, don’t you?” she whispered.

That should have been a compliment, but it sounded like a curse. He nodded, taking the chance to edge toward her. “Yes, I do. I’ve watched you, I’ve listened to you. I want to know you, Felicity. A husband
should
know his wife.”

That made her shoulders roll even further forward in defeat. “And what of a wife? Should she not know her husband equally well?”

He wrinkled his brow. This felt like such a trap. “You know me. You know my motives, my past. My shames. And we will grow to learn even more about each other the longer we are together.”

She turned on him suddenly. “But what about the secrets you conceal, Gabriel? How will I ever come to know those things?”

His lips thinned into a line and he reached forward to catch her shoulders. She gasped at the contact and began to pull back, but he held her steady.

“Enough games. What is it you have to say?”

Blue eyes darkened to stormy seas as she snapped, “You dare talk to me about games when this entire ‘courtship’ was a game! And the prize at the end was not me. No, it was my fifty-thousand pound dowry. The one that will help pull you from the financial straits your brother and father caused for your family. When did you plan to tell me? Or did you intend to continue lying until you’d secured your position by making me your wife and claiming my body so I couldn’t leave?”

#

Felicity was surprised by how much confronting Gabriel hurt. Every word seemed to make the pain grow, and when he touched her it exploded, making her snap out hurtful words she wished she could take back. They revealed too much about her heart.

The one that loved the man before her.

And the fact that she suddenly realized she’d fallen in love with Gabriel made the situation so much worse.

His fingers tightened on her upper arms and he stared down at her with eyes flashing with… anger. He was angry? After he’d been caught in a lie, he dared to be upset that she was challenging him about the truth?

“I have endured everything you’ve put me through, Felicity. From the outright rudeness to the attempts to put me off to the denial of your feelings. I have endured those things because I understood their source, I understood your embarrassment and fear and anger. And also because I admired your strength and eventually, I came to care for you. But this is enough. I will not stand idly by and allow you to malign me about my intentions. Not after everything we have gone through.”

She blinked. She’d never seen Gabriel like this: his eyes alive with fire, his lips trembling with outrage, and beneath the anger, a hurt coming to the surface.

A hurt she had caused and foolishly longed to sooth. She fought that inclination.

“So you deny that you came to me with hopes of obtaining the dowry that my father has promised?” she asked, her voice cracking.

He shrugged. “I told you once that I do not lie and I meant that. Yes, when I first heard of the fact that my brother ruined you, I came to you with two intentions. One was to make right what he had done. But the fact that you had such a large dowry certainly did not deter me from my quest. My father wrecked my family’s name and our fortune with his vices. And it is as much my duty to repair that as it was to make you whole. A marriage is as good a way to do such a thing as anything else.”

She winced and pulled away from his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go. He held tight. If anything, he pulled her even closer, close enough that his heat curled around her and woke sinful desires in her own body.

“You may sometimes behave foolishly, especially when you are frightened,” he said and didn’t allow her to interrupt when she gasped in outrage. “But you are not stupid. Certainly you know your father raised the amount of your dowry in the hopes it would bring more men to you for you to choose from. Did you not receive offers before mine?”

She pressed her hands against his chest and gave a push. Finally, Gabriel looked down at his hands, gripping her arms. His face paled and he released her gently.

Felicity paced away, her body trembling from his touch while her mind screamed in pain at his words. Such confusing emotions collided and set her off balance entirely.

She smoothed her skirts, wishing she could so easily smooth away her emotions. Then she turned on him and prayed she looked cool and unaffected.

“Yes, I have received offers. Plenty of offers before yours.” She added the last to hurt him, but her sneer didn’t even seem to register.

He charged forward a step and Felicity’s body reacted against her will at the sight of this normally controlled man losing control in the face of her anger and refusal.

“Then why do you hate me for starting out with the same reasoning, Felicity? Why do you shun me and judge me for the very same thing?”

She moved forward now, driven to her own brink and wanting to lash out. “Because I never wanted
them
to care!”

Her hand came up to cover her lips the second the words were spoken. Had she just admitted that?

Her eyes met his and she backed away step by step, retreating from the kindness, the gentleness, the surprise and joy that she saw in his stare.

When he spoke, his voice was calmer and more gentle. “I didn’t tell you about my financial position because I wasn’t proud of what my family was. And ultimately, to be honest with you, I forgot about your dowry. I forgot about the past. I forgot about making things ‘right’. I forgot about everything except for you.”

Felicity stared, as shocked by his admission that she had become such a part of his life as she had been by her own.

He reached for her, catching the hand she still held to her lips and drawing it toward his heart. When he pressed her fingers to his chest, she felt the steady, sure beat of his pulse.

“So take your blasted dowry, Felicity.” He smiled just a little. “Give it away for all I care. Donate it to that Widows and Orphans Society that is all the rage. Or spend it all on slippers and ridiculously expensive hat pins. Whatever pleases you. I’ll happily remake my own fortune.” His smile fell and his dark eyes grew serious. “But whatever you do with it, don’t use the money against me. Don’t make it an excuse. If you don’t love me, if you cannot ever come to love me, than simply state it now and I will cease all my pursuits.”

Felicity blinked up at him. “Do you-do you want my love?”

He seemed surprised that she would ask such a thing. His eyes went wide and the steady beat of his heart suddenly doubled. “I do. But I am not selfish. I ask for nothing I do not freely offer myself.” He pressed her hand more firmly against his chest. “My heart, Felicity. My soul. My life. My future. Do you want those things? For all the joy and heartbreak they may bring? You must be certain of me and of yourself. Because as much as I adore you, I cannot spend the rest of my life with you constantly questioning and accusing me.”

Felicity blinked. His words brought shame rushing toward her. She had been so unfair to this man from the very beginning. She had judged him. She had railed against him. She had denied him. And she had always kept some little part of herself from fully trusting him.

And yet, through it all, he had been nothing but kind to her.

As she stared up into his eyes, she knew what she would say. And she knew she would spend the rest of her life making all those things up to him. She’d spend the rest of her life loving him.

“I love you, Gabriel. I did not want to, but it happened. And if you offer me your heart, then I take that precious gift. And I swear to you that I will spend the rest of my days endeavoring to deserve it. And to deserve you.”

“Felicity, Felicity,” Gabriel whispered as his mouth moved toward hers. “You deserve already every happy ending I will give you and more.”

A Woman Scorned

Chapter One

1823

In the sparkling social sphere of the
ton
, some girls had been born to play piano for everyone else’s pleasure. To stand to the side of the dance floor and watch while others spun around, laughing flirtatiously. To observe the faces of gentlemen fall, ever so slightly, when they were assigned as their escorts into a dinner or garden.

Despite being the daughter of a Duke, Lady Madeline Reynolds had always been one of those girls.

She was aware of it. In fact, she had become quite resigned to it during the seven long years since her coming out. She hadn’t really minded being a wallflower. She had a few close friends and pursuits that had nothing to do with the opposite sex. And her parents adored her. There would be no union thrust upon her, though she couldn’t pretend to be unaware that her entire family worried she would end a lonely maiden aunt, being traded back and forth between her two brothers and their future families.

Still, she had accepted that a great passion or a sweeping romance or even a little flutter of connection was out of her reach.

Or at least she had until she had a brief glimpse of what a life of something more would have been like.

When David Langston had swept her into a whirlwind courtship just two years before, she had thought, for just a fleeting moment, that she had met her match, her mate. And when he offered for her hand, she was beside herself with happiness. Enough so that she had been able to ignore the nagging feeling in her stomach that something was amiss with David.

If she hadn’t ignored that sinking sensation, she might have been more prepared when her father broke the engagement after discovering David was asking another girl, Jane Davenport, to be his mistress. And the final insult was that David was going to pay to keep his potential lover with
Madeline’s
dowry.

“You deserve more, duck,” her father had said, as gently and patiently and kindly as he always spoke to her. “I had to break the engagement on your behalf.”

And, of course, being a sensible girl, Maddie agreed. But nothing had been the same for her since. The scandal had been overwhelming and she had gone into seclusion for the remainder of that Season. The next had been nearly as bad. People whispered and clucked their tongues in sympathy behind her back. Whatever small pleasure Madeline had taken in the balls and parties and teas, and it was very small pleasure indeed, was gone. Lost forever, along with that piece of her heart that had secretly hoped for the happily ever after of her favorite fairy tales.