Page 6 of Notorious

The thought sent heat flaring through her body. Her entire body. She looked away. God save her if he ever had any idea of just how fascinating she found him. Or at least his person. No, that was not true. She found all of him too interesting. Which was unfortunate. If it had been only his appearance, she would have gotten past her obsession quickly. But he was also clever and funny and brave and mysterious and something else for which she had no word—but which made her tingle all over when she was around him. What woman could resist such a combination?

What she felt for him was something she kept deeply buried: a secret so mortifying she’d never even exhumed it and taken a look at it herself.

Couples began assembling for the next set, and Gabriel glanced around.

“Where has Mrs. Peel gone?” he asked, surveying the room for Drusilla’s aunt, who was acting as their chaperone tonight.

“She didn’t feel well and has gone to the retiring room to rest,” Drusilla said.

His full lips thinned. “You two should not be here alone, unsupervised.”

Drusilla bristled at his chiding, but Eva smacked him on the arm with her fan. “We’re not toddlers, Gabe. Besides, we aren’t alone: we’re with you.”

Gabriel shook his head at his sister but let the subject drop. Instead he asked, “And what are you both doing over here in the corner?”

Drusilla called him Gabriel in the privacy of her own mind. And why not? After the way she’d treated him these past five years, it was unlikely he would ever invite her to use his Christian name in real life.

“We like it here,” Eva said.

He frowned down at his tiny stepsister. “You shan’t meet any nice young men if you hide in the back.”

“Lord, Gabe, you sound just like Mama: nice young men indeed. You should know better. You’re the only nice young man within spitting distance.”

His gaze flickered ceilingward, as if rendered speechless by his sister’s vulgarism.

“Besides,” Eva continued, either undeterred or unaware of her stepbrother’s reaction. “Dru and I have already met every young man in London—nice or otherwise.” She gestured to the aisle of empty space around them with her fan, which Drusilla noticed no longer closed properly. “And they can see where we are perfectly well if they are interested in dancing.” All three of them looked across the room toward the clutch of men Gabriel had passed—several of whom were looking in their direction, but not—Drusilla was sure—with any interest in dancing.

Eva was right. The young men of the ton had no interest in either of them. They shunned Eva because of her long-dead mother. And they ostracized Drusilla for philosophical reasons: her philosophies, to be precise.

While Dru didn’t have a shocking family secret or keep two mistresses in the same house, she was just as notorious in her own way. It wasn’t just the prison break she’d inadvertently funded, but her views on marriage and the rights of women that had relegated her to the fringes of society. Not even her considerable wealth could lure suitors.

The young men weren’t staring at Drusilla and Eva, but Gabriel.

Lord Visel, in particular, seemed to be watching him. Women might swoon over Gabriel Marlington, but a good number of men seemed to dislike him. Drusilla could only imagine it was jealousy or envy that elicited such animus.

Eva elbowed him in the side again. “Now that you’re here, Gabe, you can dance with Dru.”

If Drusilla hadn’t been staring at Gabriel like a condemned woman eyeing her last meal, she might have missed the lightning-fast expression of irritation that crossed his handsome features. But she was watching and she did see it. And when he cut her a quick glance, she could see that he knew she had seen it. And she wanted to kill her well-intentioned friend.

“Er, but what about your gown?” Gabriel said lamely. “Doesn’t it need mending?”

Drusilla snatched her friend’s arm before Eva did something even more humiliating, like beg Gabriel to dance with her.

“Yes, Eva, your gown. We must go and fix it.”

Eva’s sudden flush said she realized she’d been too impulsive. She glanced from Drusilla’s mortified expression to her brother’s wooden one. “You’ll be here when we return, Gabe?”

“I’ll be here. With Mrs. Peel temporarily out of commission, it appears I am your chaperone as well as your companion.” The smile he gave his stepsister was warm and protective. And then his green eyes flickered past Drusilla as if she wasn’t even there and settled on the lovely Lucinda Kittridge.

Chapter 2

Gabriel watched the two girls head toward the door leading from the ballroom to the ladies retiring room. Should he follow them to ensure they weren’t meddled with? He shrugged the foolish thought away. Who the devil would meddle with them inside a room bursting with women? The retiring room was probably the safest place in the house for two young girls—safe, at least, when it came to their virtue. Not that a roomful of women was necessarily safe. Gabriel had grown up around mostly women and knew they could be just as dangerous—more dangerous, really—than most men.

He considered the matter of their absent chaperone, Mrs. Peel, his eyes sweeping over the clutch of nearby matrons He did not recognize any of his mother’s acquaintances or he would have approached them and asked for help. Although the marchioness had told him his chaperoning duties were ornamental, Gabriel couldn’t help his concern. In Oran his half sisters had never been allowed outside the palace without proper covering. But here?

Gabriel glanced around the room at the various necklines. He was still shocked at the dresses women would permit their eighteen-year-old daughters to wear. The English aristocracy seemed to have no trouble sending their daughters out into public half-dressed despite their puritanical attitudes toward sex and sexuality.

Well, there was little he could do about the situation tonight. He would seek out his mother tomorrow and raise the subject of Mrs. Peel, who was quite an elderly woman and had appeared to feel out of sorts often this past month. He believed the two girls required a more robust chaperone, but he could hardly suggest that to Miss Clare as Mrs. Peel was her aunt.