Reckless (40 page)

"Yes, yes, I am sorry."

"I do not believe you are sorry enough." The redhead picked up the pace of the whip, making a fair amount of noise in the process.

The man on the bed groaned in rising ecstasy.

Gabriel tossed several notes down onto the dressing table and indicated the wardrobe. The redhead glanced at the money and nodded. She did not pause in her task. The whip sang and the man groaned in a rousing crescendo of sound as Gabriel quietly opened the wardrobe.

Phoebe forgot all about the bizarre sight she was witnessing when she saw the array of spectacular dresses in the wardrobe. She stared in awe at the brilliantly colored gowns.

"Choose one," Gabriel mouthed silently.

It was an impossible choice. Phoebe loved them all. But with Gabriel standing there looking so impatient, she knew she could not hesitate. She grabbed a brilliant crimson satinet gown and tugged it on over her head.

The groans of the man on the bed grew louder and more impassioned. Gabriel reached into the top of the wardrobe and removed a curly blond wig. He shoved it down on top of Phoebe's head. She found herself gazing up at him through a veil of blond ringlets.

The redhead nodded toward a drawer built into the wardrobe. Gabriel followed her gaze and pulled it open. He picked up a black lace mask and handed it to Phoebe. She donned it quickly.

Gabriel took her hand, nodded his thanks to the hardworking courtesan, and silently opened the door. The man on the bed gave a warbling cry of satisfaction just as Phoebe and Gabriel stepped out into the hall.

They nearly collided with a portly gentleman who lurched into their path. Phoebe stared at him through her mask, stunned to realize she recognized him. It was Lord Prudstone, a cheerful, grandfatherly sort who had occasionally chatted with her at various soirees.

Prudstone gave a start when he saw Gabriel; then he grinned knowingly and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Here, now, Wylde. Didn't expect to see you here so soon after the nuptials. Don't tell me married life has gotten boring already."

"I was just leaving," Gabriel said.

"And taking some of the merchandise with you, I see?" Prudstone chuckled as his gaze rested appreciatively on the extremely low neckline of Phoebe's crimson gown.

"Special arrangements with the management." Gabriel's voice held a^ poorly concealed edge that could have cut glass. "You must excuse us, Prudstone. We're in something of a hurry."

"Off you go, my little lovebirds. Enjoy yourselves." Prudstone wove his way back down the hall, waving merrily.

Gabriel practically dragged Phoebe toward the back stairs. He slammed open the door and hurried her down the darkened steps.

"Good heavens, Gabriel," Phoebe whispered, "that was Lord Prudstone."

"I know."

"How date he assume you would come to a place like this. You're a married man."

"I know. Believe me, I know. I have never been so aware of that fact as I am tonight. Christ, Phoebe, you gave me a scare. Watch out for the body at the bottom of the steps."

"Body?" Phoebe tried to come to a halt, but Gabriel tugged her ever downward. "There's a dead man somewhere on these steps?"

"He's unconscious, not dead. He was guarding the back steps."

"I see." Phoebe swallowed. "You rendered him unconscious, I take it?"

"No, I asked him if he'd care to play a hand of whist," Gabriel said in a voice that indicated he was at the end of his patience. "Where the hell do you think I got the key to your room? Move, Phoebe."

Phoebe moved.

Five minutes later they were safe inside an anonymous hackney carriage. Stinton was on the box, handling the reins. Gabriel did not speak on the journey home.

When they reached the town house, he snatched off Phoebe's blond wig and tossed aside her mask. In the light provided by the carriage lamps his eyes were unreadable.

"You are to go straight upstairs to your bedchamber," he said. "I shall be up shortly. I must speak with Stinton and then I shall have a few things to discuss with you."

He stood on the town house steps and gave Stinton his orders. "Try to find Baxter. If you do find him, stay with him, but don't let him know you're around. Whatever you do, don't lose him."

"Aye, m'lord. I'll do me best." Stinton, still perched on the hackney box, tipped his hat respectfully. "I'm right glad the little lady is safe. Got plenty of bottom, she has, if ye don't mind my sayin' so."

Gabriel winced at the slang but forbore to give Stinton another lecture. There was no time. "I shall tell her ladyship you have great admiration for her courage," he said dryly.

"Yes, sir, plenty of bottom. Just like I said. Don't meet many ladies of her stamp in my business." Stinton slapped the reins lightly and the carriage rolled off down the street.

Gabriel went back inside the house, closed the door, and took the stairs two at a time to' the upper level. His mind was whirling and his body was still pulsing with tension. He strode down the hall to Phoebe's bedchamber door and then paused, his hand on the knob. He realized he was not quite certain what to say to her.

She had chosen him.

As long as he lived he would never forget that moment when he had found Phoebe dangling from a rope of bedsheets, suspended between the two men who wanted her.

She had chosen him.

The realization roared through him like fire. He had never even told her that he loved her, let alone admitted to her that he trusted her. Yet she had chosen him, trusted him, not her golden-haired Lancelot.

Gabriel twisted the knob, opened the door, and walked softly into the room. He stopped short when he saw Phoebe standing in front of her dressing mirror. She was admiring herself in the gaudy crimson dress he had purchased for her from a whore.

"Gabriel, thank you so much for this gown. I always sensed that I could wear red, even though Meredith insisted it would be awful on me." Phoebe whirled around, her eyes alight with excitement. "I cannot wait to wear it to a soiree. I vow there will not be another woman dressed in such a fashion."

"I think that's a reasonably safe assumption." Gabriel smiled slightly as he took a close look at the gown. The cheap, shiny, crimson material was so bright it lit up the room. Deep ruffles edged the scalloped hem, which exposed far too much of Phoebe's legs. Huge black lace flowers that barely concealed her nipples decorated the exceedingly low neckline.

"I wonder if that redheaded woman at the Velvet Hell would give me the name of her dressmaker," Phoebe mused. She turned back to the mirror to adjust the tiny sleeves of the gown.

"We'll never know, because you are most certainly not going to ask her." Gabriel reached out and caught hold of her shoulders. He swung her back around to face him. "Phoebe, tell me everything that happened tonight. I know it was Alice who had you kidnapped. What did she say to you?"

Phoebe hesitated. "She was going to hold me for ransom."

"She wanted money?"

"No. She wants The Lady in the Tower."

"Good God, why?" Gabriel asked.

"Because Neil wants it and she will do anything to get revenge on him. He did not keep his promise to marry her, you see. He left her in hell while he went off to the South Seas. She will never forgive him."

"Damnation," Gabriel whispered, trying to sort it all out. "There have been two people, not one, after the book all this time."

"So it appears."

"It was probably Baxter who searched my town house library before our marriage." He searched her face. "Why in God's name were you climbing down those sheets into Baxter's arms?"

"1 was trying to escape. I didn't know he was in the alley until I had started down the side of the wall. Gabriel, what is this all about?"

"Revenge, I think. But there's something more. Something to do with that damned book." Gabriel forced himself to take his hands off Phoebe's bare shoulders. He paced across the room to the window.

"It always comes back to The Lady in the Tower, doesn't it?"

"The thing is," Gabriel said, thoroughly frustrated, "the book simply isn't all that valuable. It's not worth this kind of trouble."

Phoebe considered that for a moment. "Perhaps it's time we took a closer look at it."

He glanced around sharply. "Why? There's nothing unusual about it."

"Nevertheless, I think we should look at it again."

"Very well."

Phoebe crossed the room and took The Lady in the Tower from the bottom drawer of her wardrobe.

Gabriel watched as she put the book on the table and leaned over to examine it closely. Candlelight gleamed on her dark hair and lit her intelligent face. Even in a whore's red dress she looked like a lady. There was an innate, womanly nobility about her that no gown or circumstance could alter. This was a woman a man could trust with his life and his honor.

And she had chosen him.

"Gabriel, there truly is something different about this book."

He frowned. "You said it was the very one you gave to Baxter."

"It is, but something has been done to it. I believe the binding has been restitched in places. See? Some of it look's new."

Gabriel examined the thickly padded leather covers. "It was not this way when you gave it to Lancelot?"

Phoebe wrinkled her nose. "Don't call him that. And to answer your question, no, it was not this way. The stitching was uniformly old when I gave it to Neil."

"Perhaps we had better have a look beneath the leather."

Gabriel took a small penknife from Phoebe's escritoire and carefully slit the newly stitched leather. He watched intently as Phoebe lifted one edge. She peeled it back slowly to reveal soft, white cotton.

"What on earth?" Phoebe cautiously lifted aside the cotton.

Gabriel saw the gleam of dark moonlight, diamonds, and gold, and knew at once what he was looking at. "Ah, yes. I wondered what had become of it."

"What is it?" Phoebe asked in amazement.

"A necklace I had made up in Canton using some very special pearls." Gabriel lifted the glittering thing out of the book. "With any luck there will be a matching bracelet, a brooch, and a set of earrings."

"It's beautiful." Phoebe stared at the gems. "But I have never seen pearls of that color before."

"They're very rare. It took me years to collect this many of this quality." He held the necklace close to the candle flame. The diamonds sparkled with an inner fire, but the pearls glowed with a mysterious dark light. It was like looking into an endless midnight sky.

"I thought at first they were black pearls," Phoebe observed. "But they are not black at all. It's almost impossible to describe the color. They are some fantastic combination of silver and green and deep blue."

"Dark moonlight."

"Dark moonlight," Phoebe repeated in wonder. "Yes, that's a perfect description." She fingered one gently. "How extraordinary."

Gabriel looked down at her candlelit skin. "They will look magnificent on you."

She looked up quickly. "This necklace truly belongs to you?"

He nodded. "It did once upon a time. Baxter took it when he attacked one of my ships."

"And now you have it back," Phoebe said with satisfaction.

He shook his head. "No. You found it, my sweet. As of now it belongs to you."

Phoebe stared at him, obviously flustered. "You cannot mean to give me such a gift."

"But I do mean to give it to you."

"But Gabriel—"

"You must indulge me, Phoebe. I have given you very little thus far in our marriage."

"That's not true," she sputtered. "Not true at all. Why, just this evening you bought me this beautiful gown."

Gabriel looked at the awful gown and started to laugh.

"I fail to see what is so amusing about this, my lord."

Gabriel laughed harder. A fierce joy crashed through him as he gazed at Phoebe in her cheap, gaudy dress. She looked so incredibly lovely, he thought. Like a princess out of a medieval legend. Her eyes were huge and luminous and her mouth promised a passion that he knew belonged only to him. She was his.

"Gabriel, are you laughing at me?"

He sobered quickly. "No, my sweet. Never that. The necklace is yours, Phoebe. I had it made for the woman I would someday marry."

"The fiancée who betrayed you in the islands?" she asked suspiciously.

He wondered who had told her about Honora. Anthony, most likely. "At the time I had it fashioned, I was not engaged. I did not know whom I would marry," Gabriel said honestly. "I wanted to have a suitable necklace to give my future wife, just as I wanted a suitable motto for my descendants."

"So you invented the family jewels, just as you did the family motto." She glanced at the necklace and then back at him. "I'm certain you mean well, as usual, but I do not want such a spectacular gift from you."

"Why not?" He took a step toward her and stopped when she retreated an equal distance. "I can afford it."