Page 50 of The Lady's Forbidden Marquess
Her laugh vibrated through his waistcoat.“A very badly written one, I hope.”
“The worst,” he repeated, and some of the terror eased.
He drew back just enough to see her face—those clever, fearless eyes—and kissed her.
Once.Twice.A third time, slow and deliberate, tasting her gasp, feeling her fingers clutch his coat as though she feared he might vanish.
The door crashed open.
“What in the blazes—”
They sprang apart like guilty children.
A tall, sun-browned man filled the doorway, eyes blazing.Edwin.Of course it would be Edwin, returned at the precise moment to make Gabriel’s life a farce.
Edwin’s gaze raked over them.“Take your hands off my sister and remove yourself before I throw you out bodily.”
Gabriel lifted both palms.“Edwin—”
“I said go to hell.”
Peregrine’s voice cracked like a whip.“Edwin!When did you even arrive?”
Henley strode in at that moment, tugging off his gloves.“Edwin—Hawthorne, I—” He took in the scene and closed his eyes briefly.“Good Lord.”
Edwin rounded on him.“You allowed this rake to compromise our sister while I was gone?”
“Compromiseis excessive,” Henley began, then rubbed his neck.“Would you calm down?”
“He had his tongue down her throat!”Edwin retorted sharply.
“He most certainly did not,” Peregrine snapped, cheeks scarlet.
Henley pinched the bridge of his nose.“Hawthorne offered for her this morning.You are creating an issue where no issue exists.”
The silence was so complete Gabriel heard the clock tick twice.
Edwin’s face went white, then furious red.“You permitted a notorious libertine to court Peregrine?I’m gone for a few months, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.”
Gabriel watched as Henley’s demeanor locked down, as if he was ready to battle but choosing words rather than fists.“I permitted the man who loves her to court her honorably,” Henley shot back.
Lady Devon’s voice floated in, thin with alarm.“Why is everyone shouting in my parlor?Henley, my maid said something urgent—”
She appeared, took one look at Peregrine’s swollen lips and Gabriel’s disheveled cravat, and arrived—inevitably—at the worst possible conclusion.
“Dear heavens.She is with child.”
And folded to the carpet in a rustle of puce silk.
Chaos erupted.
Peregrine dropped to her knees, fanning her mother with a handkerchief.
Henley bellowed, “She is not increasing!”Edwin roared something about honor and horsewhips.
Gabriel, astonishingly, discovered he still possessed a shred of sanity.He bit back a slight grin at the mayhem around him and decided one of them had to be reasonable.
He knelt, loosened Lady Devon’s stays with the efficiency of a man who had revived more than one overset female in his misspent youth, and snapped, “Brandy.”
