His Favorite Mistress (36 page)

An echoing reverberation sounded from the front hall, followed by a confluence of voices.
What in the devil?
he wondered, laying the letter aside. Rising to his feet, he went to investigate.

A flurry of movement was taking place in the main foyer, the front door standing open as a pair of unfamiliar footmen carried a heavy trunk down the stairs, another set of men outside in the street loading a stack of bandboxes into a wagon. A black barouche waited just behind.

Tony stared at the scene, fists set at his hips. “What is all this?”

An unsettled-looking Crump appeared near his side. “I was just about to find you, Your Grace. It would seem Her Grace is—”

“Yes?” Tony demanded, his brows descended. “Her Grace is what?”

“Leaving,” remarked Gabriella from where she stood on the landing above.

Glancing up, Tony took in the sight of her, noting how attractive she looked in a gown of scarlet kerseymere and a warm woolen pelisse. As he watched, she glided easily down the staircase as though she were contemplating nothing more involved than an afternoon excursion to Bond Street.

“What do you mean,
leaving
?” He gave her a fresh glower and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I am taking my belongings and relocating to a new address. That is what I mean.”

“If you are planning to return to your friend, you can forget the idea,” he restored in a dismissive tone.

She pulled on her gloves. “Actually I am going across Town. Bloomsbury Square to be exact.”

“Running off to Rafe and Julianna then, are you?”

“No, I have my own residence now, though it will indeed be located across the square from my uncle and aunt.”

His arms fell to his side. “Across the square? How did you—
Lily!
Is she behind this scheme?”

“No. She merely agreed to help me by offering the use of her townhouse. The
scheme
is all my doing. Now, I believe my new footmen have finished loading my belongings. I will bid you good day, Your Grace.”

He shot out a hand and took hold of her arm. “You’ll do nothing of the kind. You,” he ordered, shifting to speak to one of the unfamiliar servants. “Take those things out of that wagon and bring them straight back into the house.
Now!
”

“If any of you obey him,” Gabriella called, “I will sack you on the spot. Those trunks stay right where they are.”

The men paused for a moment, then remained where they stood, her belongings untouched inside the wagon.

Pressure built inside Tony’s veins as if his blood had suddenly turned to lava. “Come with me,” he told her.

Gabriella paused, then gave a shrug and accompanied him to his study. Not that he gave her a great deal of choice considering his hand was wrapped like a vise around her arm. The moment he closed the door behind them, however, he released her, worried what he might do otherwise. “Now,” he demanded, locking his arms across his chest. “Why don’t you tell me what all this nonsense is about?”

“It’s not nonsense. I have decided to relocate to my own establishment.”

“Your place is here in this house as my wife. You’re being foolish and immature and acting once again on impulse.”

Her spine grew straight. “I am doing nothing of the sort. I have thought this through and am simply facing facts. Our marriage, if you wish to call it that, is little more now than a sham. Our living arrangements are far from congenial and I, for one, have no wish to continue living here under a constant state of acrimony.”

“Your decision, madam, not mine. You are the one who began this state of warfare. And you are the one who can end it.”

Her lower lip trembled faintly, then she continued. “By what? Pretending to be your obedient little bride until you decide you’ve had enough of me? Well, I am not that much of a liar.”

A sudden chill washed through him. “So, you want a separation? Well, I suppose it would have come to that at one point or another, so why not now? Fine, if you wish to leave, then leave. You may, of course, forward your expenses here to me for payment. I will see your debtors satisfied.”

She linked her hands. “Thank you. Though I had intended to do so anyway.”

He shot her a look, his eyes narrowed.

She gazed back, a sudden hesitation in her stance, a sadness in her expression. “Tony, I—”

Abruptly he’d had all he could take. “You what?” he charged. “You said you wanted to leave, Gabriella, then leave!”
Yes, go,
he thought.
Please go. Leave before I do something crazy like scoop you up in my arms and lock you away somewhere in the house where you can never get away from me again.

Her lips trembled again. “Good-bye, Tony.”

“Good day, Your Grace.”

Her violet eyes sparkling with tears, she turned and fled the room.

He gave a savage curse, then went to the window, watching until her coach and the wagon containing her belongings drove away down the street.

“Exactly how many of those have you had?” Rafe Pendragon asked Tony a week later as he dropped down into one of the armchairs across from where Tony sat in Brooks’s Club.

Tony tossed him a hard glance over the top of his whisky tumbler. “Apparently not enough, since I’m still capable of conversing with you.” Catching the eye of a passing waiter, Tony signaled for a refill, downing what was left in his glass before setting it aside.

“You’ll only end up with an aching head, you know,” Rafe advised.

Better that my head aches,
Tony thought,
than other parts of me.
“It’s my head,” he said. “I’ll do with it as I choose.”

Rafe shrugged. “Fair enough. I’ve drowned my sorrows often enough in times past to have no right to criticize.”

Tony lifted the new glass the waiter set next to him. “This isn’t from sorrow, but from celebration. I’m as good as a bachelor again, don’t you know.” He swallowed a draught, letting the alcohol do its work. “So, is your new neighbor all moved in?” he demanded in a sarcastic tone.

“Gabriella, you mean?” Rafe paused to accept his own drink. “Yes, she’s settled into Lily’s old townhouse with a minimum of fuss. Julianna has been taking the children over to see her every day.” He paused and leaned forward slightly. “Look, Tony, about this situation between the two of you. I—”

“Really don’t need to say anything,” Tony interrupted. “You’re her uncle and I can appreciate that you may have your concerns. However, I would ask you to stay out of it. This matter is between Gabriella and me. She may not be living under my roof at present, but she is still my wife and I would thank you to recall that fact, as a friend.”

Rafe took a sip of his brandy. “Well, as a friend, I will respect your wishes. As her uncle, I hope the two of you can work out an amicable solution to this very public difficulty. The whole Town is abuzz and half the Ton isn’t even back from their country homes yet. Already every other word people say is about the Duke and Duchess of Wyvern—their hasty marriage and even hastier separation. The Society columns are full of little else.”

“Luckily, I don’t read the Society columns,” Tony drawled, his fingers tightening against his whisky tumbler before he raised the glass and tossed back another mouthful. “And you may inform your niece that she can return to her rightful home any time she likes. The decision to leave was entirely her own.”

“Maybe you could talk—”

“I’m done talking.” He set his empty glass aside with a thump. “Now, is there some other topic on which we might converse?”

Rafe paused, then gave a nod of concession.

“Hello, there. What are you both debating with such serious expressions on your faces?” Ethan asked as he joined them a minute later.

Tony glared. “Something other than my wife’s current choice of accommodation. Although now that you’re here, I do have something else to say on the subject.”

Ethan shot a glance toward the entrance. “Perhaps I ought to be going—”

“No, have a seat,” Tony demanded, gesturing toward an empty chair.

“Now, look Tony—” he began, sinking down onto the cushion.

“Don’t ‘now look Tony’ me. What do you mean by letting your wife give
my
wife use of your Bloomsbury Square townhouse?”

“I don’t
let
her do anything. Believe me, she has a mind of her own and she uses it. If she’d asked for my opinion first, I would have told her to stay out of things—”

“Exactly!” Tony agreed.

“But she didn’t. She just offered the house. And Gabriella accepted.”

“Well, you should have told her to
un
-offer it and advise Gabriella to forget her idiotic notions about moving out. You really should exercise better control over your wife, Vessey.”

“Oh, like you do, Wyvern?” Ethan shot back, accepting a glass of port from the waiter, who also paused to replenish Rafe and Tony’s drinks.

“Touché,” Tony said, saluting the remark before swallowing nearly all the fresh whisky in his tumbler.

“Tony, I’m sorry about your troubles with Gabriella, truly I am.” Ethan took a swallow of his wine. “But there is nothing I can do about it—not unless I’d like to start ‘batching’ it again myself when I put down my foot and Lily tells me to find my own new quarters. She’s none too happy with you these days as it is.”

Tony’s forehead creased. “Oh? And what have I done?”

“Gabriella told Lily and Julianna pretty much everything about the conversation she overheard that day. Lily…um…thinks you should reexamine your feelings.”

“I don’t need to reexamine anything. And I’m entitled to my feelings whatever they may be.”

“True. Although I might question why you’re drinking all that alcohol if your emotions aren’t engaged.”

Tony thrust out a pugnacious finger. “She ran away to Shropshire, has moved out and taken up residence in your wife’s townhouse, and has—according to Rafe’s report on the scandal sheets—made the pair of us the most titillating
on-dit
of the new social season. I believe I am entitled to have a few drams.”

Ethan and Rafe exchanged looks. “Well, when you put it that way,” Ethan conceded.

“What’s more,” Tony said, swallowing the rest of his drink, “while she’s off across Town in her new house, I suppose she expects me to continue honoring my vow of fidelity. Well, maybe I shouldn’t. And don’t bristle up about it, Rafe. You’d feel the same if Julianna was doing what Gabriella is.”

Rafe nodded. “Indeed, I suspect I might. As for discussing such a topic in any further detail, though, I believe I will stay out as you requested me to do. Now, shall we move on to a less volatile subject? Horses, perhaps?”

Ethan agreed with obvious relief, while Tony sipped more whisky and let his friends carry the conversation. As much as it galled him to admit—and in spite of everything Gabriella had done—he still desired her.

At night, he was barely able to sleep, his mind and body consumed with thoughts of her. During the day, she preyed upon him as well, interfering with his work and keeping him from carrying out the most mundane activity without having some memory or thought of her flit through his head. Ethan had suggested that Tony missed her on an emotional level…well, he didn’t.
No, not at all,
he assured himself. He was quite able to entertain himself intellectually without any assistance from Gabriella.

Yet physically, he was forced to concede that he craved her—needed her with a hunger that was nearly driving him mad. He’d been without her now for weeks. Their last time together had been that night at Rosemeade before she’d run off, and the abstinence was beginning to wear very thin.

What I ought to do,
he mused as he sipped more spirits,
is go over there to her new townhouse and demand my rights.
As he’d told Rafe, Gabriella may have left him, but that didn’t make her any less his wife. Maybe they were separated, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped having needs—needs that required attention! And she could damned well attend to them, or else he might have no choice except to seek out the company of other women. Except he didn’t want any other woman—he wanted Gabriella.
And by God, I’m going to have her!
he decided.

Setting down his tumbler with enough force to splash liquor over his fingers, he surged to his feet. Or rather he tried to, finding himself back in his chair seconds later, the room whirling around him, Ethan and Rafe both shooting him looks.

Lord, I’m foxed,
he realized.
Maybe going over to her townhouse today isn’t such a good idea, after all.
In his current state of inebriation, he’d likely end up saying or doing something he would come to regret. And if he did manage to get in her bed, chances were good he’d pass out before he finished exercising his marital rights. He might be drunk, but he had enough sense left to realize he’d be better off sobering up before he paid a call on Gabriella. He’d go home now and soak his head. But come tomorrow…well, things were going to change.

Chapter Twenty

G
ABRIELLA STRIPPED A
feather off an old hat she had decided to refurbish, the new lace and ribbons she and Lily had selected at the millinery yesterday waiting in a small brown paper sack nearby. Under normal circumstances, she would have enjoyed the project, but lately nothing seemed to make her happy, despite a concerted effort on her part to try to be.