Lord Scandal (18 page)

Whatever is keeping Lord St. A——in Town? This must be quite the first hunt season he's missed since he was breeched.

Tête-à-Tête, 3 November 1789

Imogen burrowed into Gabriel's side, burying her face between his chest and the blankets. It was freezing in the room, and in a few minutes the clock would strike five and he would crawl out of her bed and return to his own room as he did every morning.

She had no idea how he did it; years and years of playing the rake most likely. If it had been up to her to leave, they'd have been caught immediately.

Not able to sleep any longer, she cracked an eye and peeked up at him. He was wide awake and staring out at the dark room with a thoughtful expression on his face. She nipped his chest and slid up against him slightly so that her head fell naturally into the hollow of his shoulder.

“Morning,” she said, yawning and turning her head up so she could look at him.

“Morning, love,” he replied almost absently. “I was just thinking…”

“About what?” she asked, not really paying too much attention. His hand had slipped down to cup her breast and his thumb was slowly circling her nipple.

“About where we go from here.” Imogen stiffened and he looked down at her sharply, his expression serious. “We all leave here in two days. You to return to Barton Court, and me to town.”

“That's not worth thinking about,” Imogen said, trying to keep her tone light, dismissive even. Pretending a nonchalance she was far from feeling. “That's what happens at the end of a house party; everyone goes home.”

He frowned and shook his head slightly. “That's not what I mean.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “And what's more, you know it.”

Imogen rolled over and sat up, keeping her back to him. This discussion was going in directions she wasn't prepared to go. “Don't, Gabriel.”

“Don't what, my silly nymph? Don't think about tomorrow, or the next day—”

“Or the day after that,” she interrupted. “Yes. Exactly. Don't.”

Gabriel gave an exasperated little snort. “I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, love, but I've been thinking a lot further ahead than that.”

Imogen twisted around and looked at him, his amused expression only heightening her disquiet. “I can't, Gabriel. I wish I could, but I can't.”

“Can't what?” His eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled. “I haven't asked you anything yet.”

“This is one thing,” she replied doggedly, suddenly numb to the core. “An affair is one thing,” she qualified. “But I can't be anyone's mistress. Not now, not ever. I can't. You have to see that. George, your other friends…”

“You certainly can't be. George would skin me alive, and the rest of the boys would hunt me down and force me to put a bullet in them one by one.” He gave a strange little laugh, and looked at her very intently. “But you could be my wife.”

“Your wife?” The pit in her stomach turned icy. Her brother's angry florid face swam before her eyes. Robert would ruin them both if pushed. If he felt he had to. She couldn't risk that. Couldn't risk pushing him so far.

“My wife,” he reiterated. “People do get married all the time you know. Even people like me.”

“Not to people like me, they don't.”

“What are you—”

“Absolutely not,” she insisted, crawling out of bed and struggling impatiently into her wrapper.

She'd never expected him to ask her to be his wife. She could already hear the gossip such a union would incite, and she simply wasn't prepared for the ruckus her family would kick up. And neither was Gabriel.

Standing before the cold fireplace, she shivered and suppressed a half hysterical sob. This was not supposed to be happening. Why couldn't he have just let things be?

She'd been prepared since they'd met for him to offer her carte blanche, and she'd known her answer would be no. It had to be no. But marriage? She wanted to say yes. Her heart had leapt, and her pulse had quickened, but just as quickly all the reasons such an answer was impossible rushed to the fore.

It simply wasn't fair for him to put her in such an untenable situation.

Confused and caught out, Gabriel climbed out after her and came up behind her. His skin prickled with the cold, but he ignored it. He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.

“Why, ‘Absolutely not'?”

Imogen hiccupped and tried to step away from him. He tightened his grip. “You must—I can't—Don't be…” She broke into outright sobs and he turned her around to face him.

He cupped her face, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “I'll ask again, love. Why absolutely not?” She wasn't making any damn sense.

Imogen stared up at him, her eyes continuing to well up, until he gave her a little shake.

“I can't,” she finally choked out. “It's crazy to think it would work between us. That our families would allow it to work, even if we did. It would be an exercise in misery.”

“Misery? That's all you see when I ask you to be my wife? Damn it, Imogen. I'm offering you something I've never offered any woman; something I thought never
to
offer.”

“Don't.” She dropped her head, obviously unwilling to even look him in the eye.

“You repeat yourself.” He dropped his hands from her. “And I've no wish to listen to the same nonsense a second time.”

He turned on his heel and stomped out, pausing only to grab his dressing gown, and to snag the key from her side of the door. He slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the mirror on the wall of his dressing room and locked the door behind him.

He took several deep breaths, his back resting against the cold wood of the door. He had to get out of here.

There was simply no way humanly possible that he was going to be able to sit down to breakfast with her. He'd end up shaking her until her teeth rattled in her head; stupid, stubborn woman.

He was yanking on his boots when his valet appeared, armed with a pot of coffee and a freshly ironed shirt.

“Sir—?” Rodgers was clearly thrown to find him already up and nearly dressed.

“I'll be leaving immediately.” Gabriel stood and glanced about the room, looking to see if he'd forgotten anything. “I've left a note on the dresser for Lady Somercote. See that she gets it.”

“Of course, sir.”

With a nod, Gabriel snatched up his heavy riding coat, his hat and gloves, and was out the door before his man could ask any questions. He had to get out now. Before he went crawling back into Imogen's room, begging her to reconsider. Before he strangled her. Before he started such a fight with his nymph that he raised the whole house.

His nymph.

He snorted and shook his head as he crossed the cobbled yard and made for the stable block. He supposed he'd have to stop thinking of her as such, impossible as that might be.

 

When Imogen did not appear at breakfast George went upstairs in search of her. As she walked down the hall she encountered a footman bearing a small trunk, followed by Gabriel's valet. He had a glossy dressing case in his hand.

He stopped when he saw her, and then bowed and extended a folded pieced of foolscap. “Mr. Angelstone asked me to give you this before he left, my lady.”

“Left?” George's eyes widened with surprise. This could not be good. She'd known when Imogen had absented herself from breakfast that something was afoot, but she'd been hoping it was something good.

“Yes, my lady. Mr. Angelstone left for town before seven.”

“Well…thank you, Rodgers.” He bowed again and George opened the note and read it while he disappeared down the hall. It didn't tell her anything more than his man had; just that he'd left for town that morning, and he begged her to make his excuses to Lord Glendower.

Suddenly deeply concerned, George hurried down the hall and knocked on Imogen's door. There was no doubt possible that whatever was going on concerned them both, and George was only too well able to imagine what Gabriel could have done to precipitate things.

There was no answer from Imogen's room, so she tried the handle, only to find it locked. “Imogen?” she called, knocking again. “It's George. Open up.”

After a moment she heard the lock snick, and when she tried the door again it swung open. Imogen, still in her wrapper, was shuffling back towards the bed. George watched as her friend climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over her ears.

“Imogen?”

“Go away,” Imogen said, her voice muffled by the blankets.

“You and Gabriel have a fight?” George sat down on the bed.

“Not a fight,” Imogen mumbled, pulling the blankets over her head.

“You're lying in bed like you're dying of consumption, and he left in a pelter at an ungodly hour, and you expect me to believe you didn't have a fight?”

Imogen peeked out and George could see that her friend's eyes were swollen and bloodshot. “Not a fight. He—He…” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “He asked me to marry him.”

“Marry him?”

She'd thought he'd come around to it eventually, but not this soon. In any case, it certainly did not seem like something to cause such havoc and consternation. George patted Imogen on the back like she were a child, her brain whirling.

Gabriel had proposed, and Imogen had obviously turned him down. Interesting. Very, very interesting. This would take some sorting.

St. A——missing entirely and the Angelstone Turk departing early…Lady S——must be losing her allure.

Tête-à-Tête, 17 November 1789

“Going to purchase a new set of dueling pistols?”

“I'm not sure yet.” Gabriel ignored the sudden arrival of St. Audley and Layton. He'd been testing pistols for the better part of three hours, and he had no intention of stopping just because George's hounds had tracked him down.

He fired again, breathing in the acrid smoke, enjoying the foul smell of sulfur and salt-peter. The way it blocked everything out, if only for a moment.

“Well, why don't you think about it over breakfast?” St. Audley picked up one of the pistols he'd been trying and examined it more closely. “I'm famished, and the air in here smells like hell itself.”

“I rather like it,” Gabriel replied, firing again. “Besides, I'm not hungry.”

“Well I am,” Layton said. “And I could use a drink.”

“I do need a drink,” Gabriel agreed, laying the pistol he'd just fired aside.

He needed a lot of drinks. He'd done his best not to be sober since he'd left Winsham Court, and he'd been fairly successful. In his more lucid moments he recognized he was making a cake of himself, so he tried to make sure such episodes of clarity occurred as infrequently as possible.

When he was drunk, he was blissfully numb. When he was sober, he was painfully aware of his nymph's absence, stung by her rejection; unable to stop turning it over and over in his head.

No woman had ever had the power to hurt him, and he was finding that escape was the only answer. He couldn't sleep because she haunted his dreams. He couldn't eat because food turned to ash in his mouth and was impossible to swallow. Couldn't whore, because they were a pale shadow of the woman he wanted. All he could do was drink. Drink and gamble. God only knew how much money he'd lost in the last month. He certainly didn't; nor did he care.

Gabriel allowed his friends to steer him out of the gallery. They hit the sidewalk outside and Gabriel flinched and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. “So, George set you two on me?”

“Don't be an ass, Brimstone.” Layton gave him a shove and started walking.

“My cousin then?”

“I believe Lady Morpeth did give me a message for you.” St. Audley fell into step beside him. “She told me to tell you to quit making such a spectacle of yourself.”

Gabriel glared, and stumbled over a loose cobble in the street as they crossed Piccadilly. The dandy-trap spurted muck and water up onto his hose. He cursed and shook his foot. “You can tell my lovely cousin to mind her own bloody business.”

“I shall tell her no such thing,” St. Audley protested. “Come on, let's get that drink, you could obviously use a bit of the hair of the dog, not to mention a shave and a clean shirt.”

Gabriel went along tame enough. A drink was exactly what he wanted, and while he'd rather have it on his own, at one of the numerous gaming hells that enjoyed his patronage, he'd settle for White's. It was easier than fighting. Layton and St. Audley might be two of the more easygoing members of their circle, but they were as tenacious as terriers with a rat cornered in a wall.

 

George watched her friend as she intently applied herself to her needlework. Imogen was working on a christening gown. She'd begun the day they'd returned from Winsham Court, and she was nearly done now. The fine white cambric was almost completely covered in complicated white on white tambor work, based on the jacket one of Ivo's great-grandfathers wore in a portrait. Imogen didn't seem to do anything but sew, play the pianoforte, and go for fast rides across the countryside.

She had refused to discuss what had transpired between her and Gabriel, telling George nothing further than she had the morning Gabriel had fled the Court. George hated it that her friends were making each other miserable, and her mind had been busy trying to find a way to bring about a reconciliation. But if she couldn't get Imogen to confide in her, her only option was to corner Gabriel, and that was a slightly more complicated undertaking. Especially if what Victoria had written was true, and Gabriel was busy drinking himself to death and gambling away his fortune as quickly as he could roll a die or turn a card.

He was going to respond like a wounded bear.

Perhaps a trip to town was in order? But first she should write Helen Perripoint. A soiree at Helen's would be the perfect excuse for them all to take a trip to town, and unlike a larger function, Imogen could hardly decline to attend an event being held by one of her oldest friends.

Leaving Imogen to enjoy the company of her tambor frame, George took herself off to the library and penned a quick note to Helen and another to Victoria. She was going to need all the help she could get if she was going to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.