Page 90 of Notorious

He offered his arm once her second glove was on. “I wasn’t aware we had a barouche,” he said, leading her down the front steps to a rather magnificent equipage.

Her hand tightened on his arm. “I hope you don’t mind that I had it brought over, but it was my father’s and I just thought—”

“Lord, what an ogre you must think me. Of course I don’t mind using your father’s barouche.” He motioned away the waiting footman and helped her into the carriage. Fletcher hovered a few steps away, uncertain. Gabriel smiled down at her. “You too, Fletcher.” He held out a hand, and the rather homely, narrow-faced woman blushed just as fierily as her mistress at the small courtesy. “You sit beside Mrs. Marlington, Fletcher. I’ll take back-facing.”

“Where to, sir?” a footman Gabriel did not recognize asked before he shut the door.

“I’ll disembark with the ladies; I need no special stop.”

“So,” he said, after he’d settled himself in the seat. “How is your aunt feeling?” he asked his wife.

“She is doing much better this past week.”

“And did you convince her to pay us a visit before she leaves town?”

“Yes, she will stay with us for three nights before she departs for Bath.”

“Excellent. I look forward to having her in our household.” He could see his words pleased her. “Buying anything special today?”

“A few books I’ve ordered have come in and I’m going to try on some gowns Fletcher believes might suit.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows leaped. “New gowns?” he said with a playful smile. “Perhaps I should join you—I can act as your cicisbeo.”

The maid choked back a laugh and even his stern wife smiled. “I’m sure you have better things to occupy your time.”

Gabriel realized, suddenly, that he would actually like to spend some time with her doing something domestic. Although they’d been together often in the week and a half since establishing their tenuous truce, they were rarely alone.

Besides, he was not to see Samir today or tomorrow as Giselle and Maria had taken him out of the city to visit one of their many friends from France. The friend in question had a little boy who was Samir’s age. They’d invited Gabriel, but he knew they would rather reminisce and gossip without a man in attendance.

“I’m at liberty today and would join you.” He hesitated at her wide-eyed reaction. “That is, if you do not mind?”

“Oh,” she said faintly, glancing down at her hands, which were gripping her reticule in a death hold. “That would be very . . . nice.”

* * *

Drusilla sneaked a look over the top of the book she was considering purchasing. Gabriel sat in one of the chairs reading, his hat balanced elegantly on one knee, his cane propped against the chair. Why had he decided to join her? He’d been treating her like a stranger—a polite stranger—ever since the night she’d told him the truth about Rowland.

Every night she’d wondered if he’d come to her, and every night she’d been hurt and disappointed. Why? Why was he avoiding her? Was this the way it would be from now on? Had he gone back to his mistresses? She’d heard him return near dawn several mornings and had been seized with a mad, furious desire to burst into his rooms and demand where he’d been.

But then she’d wondered if she really wanted to know. Or was her imagination even worse? A man and two women . . . The thought was enough to drive her mad with jealousy. And something else: a tingling sensation between her thighs, a heaviness in her hips, a low, insistent pulsing inside her. In that place he had woken and now ignored.

She had gone so far as to leap out of bed and storm toward his door a few times, but then she’d stopped, her body throbbing. No. She could not demean herself so—she refused to beg.

And now here he was: Drusilla allowed her eyes to wander from his highly polished Hessians over his pantaloons and come to a rest on his magnificent torso. Why was he accompanying her on her daily errands as if it were the most natural thing in the world? Just what did he want from her?

He looked up and caught her staring. His gorgeous face creased into a smile, and he closed his book and stood. Drusilla took control of her rampaging thoughts and assumed a cool expression.

He held up Waverley. “Have you read this?”

“I do not read much fiction.”

“Ah, only improving tracts?”

She shut her book and showed him the spine, a biography of Leonardo. “No, not only improving tracts.”

He grinned. “I stand corrected.” He reached out, and she handed him her book. “Here, let me buy this for you, to make up for my ignorant comment.”

“Oh, you needn’t.”