So that was what he’d wanted? To earn enough so he could hide away?
“I never wanted to be the Angel of Death,” he said fiercely. “But once I was, I was damned well going to make it pay.”
His gaze shot to her, vulnerable in its agony, and his voice fell to a ragged whisper. “I told myself I was honoring Roger’s memory. That every time I won, I did it for him, to make up for the fact that he could never race again as he so loved to do. But I suppose you could see that as just my excuse for getting to do what
I
loved to do.”
“Roger did love to race,” she said softly. “It wasn’t a bad way to honor his memory.”
Guilt mingled with anger in his gaze. “You don’t really believe that.”
“I believe his death has tortured you more than I realized.” Clearly she and Poppy hadn’t been the only ones suffering. “It’s been seven years, Gabriel. It’s time that you put it behind you. But before you can do that—before either of us can—you have to tell me the truth.”
He tensed.
Virginia gathered her courage. “I’ve heard Poppy’s secondhand version, and I’ve heard the rumors, but I’ve never heard the truth from your lips. So why don’t you tell me what really happened the night of the wager and the day of Roger’s death?”
His eyes turned bleak and hopeless.
She wanted to draw him back from whatever place he was retreating to, but she couldn’t.
This
Gabriel, the one who stood cold and unmoving, was the Angel of Death. And she refused to let him intimidate her. “Tell me the truth. Who initially laid down the challenge: you or Roger?”
“You don’t want the truth,” he said in a remote voice. “You’re merely looking for a reason to refuse my suit.”
“I don’t need a reason for that. What I need is a reason to accept it.”
“There’s no answer to your question that will make you happy,” he snapped. “If I say that I made the challenge, you’ll be angry at me. If I say that he laid it down you’ll be angry at him, and then you’ll resent me for destroying your perfect image of your brother.”
“That’s not true,” she said steadily.
“You know in your heart that it is. I can’t win.” He stepped nearer and lowered his voice. “If we’re to make this courtship work, our only choice is to put the past behind us. We have to stop discussing what happened that night—who was at fault, what could have been done differently.”
She shook her head. “That’s not our only choice.”
“It’s the only one I’ll accept.”
“Gabriel—”
“I won’t talk about that night!” he ground out. “Not now, not ever. And if you can’t accept that, then you leave me no choice but to withdraw my suit.”
A week ago, she would have told him to take his suit and trot back to Ealing with it. But a week ago, she hadn’t come to know him.
Yes, he could be reckless and wild, but he could also be responsible. He worked hard, he fit seamlessly into life at the farm when Poppy would let him, and he made her want to have a future. A real future, not one dependent upon Pierce’s largesse or Poppy’s prospects for a long life.
Most of all, he understood her as no one else did. He spoke to the restlessness inside her. And though her mind told her that should be the least of her reasons for accepting his suit, her heart and her body told her something different.
If only he’d proved to be as obnoxious and coldhearted as she’d assumed. But at the farm he’d worked tirelessly without calling attention to his accomplishments. He joked with the grooms and laughed in the face of Poppy’s displeasure, but she saw now that it was only a mask, only a way to hide the deep unhappiness in his soul.
Unfortunately, that deep unhappiness could easily poison them both if it continued.
“I don’t know if I
can
accept your refusal to talk about that race,” she said. “I don’t even know if I should.”
“Fine.” He squared his shoulders as if against a blow. “I hereby declare that you’ve met the terms of our wager. You need not go on with it.”
When he turned as if to leave the clearing, she called out, “At least give me time to think about it.”
He halted. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
Perhaps not now. But if he could come to trust her, to let her into his heart . . .
His heart?
Was that what she wanted? Gabriel’s heart?
If it was, she was mad. He had his heart locked in the past. Bringing it to the future might take a herculean effort. It might break her own heart.
But the chance at having him for her own might be worth the risk. If she could endure looking into his secrets. And without knowing what they were, she didn’t know if she could.
She walked up behind him to lay her hand on his arm. “Come back on Monday. That will give me a chance to consider what I want to do. All right?”
He gazed down at her hand, then up into her face. Hope warred with wariness in his eyes. “You’re a very stubborn woman,” he ventured.
“Strange words, coming from a man who has honed his own stubbornness to a fine point,” she teased.
His expression softened. “True.”
She glanced up at the sky. “And speaking of the perennially stubborn, we had best return or Poppy will ban you from the farm forever.”
When she started to walk off, Gabriel snagged her about the waist and pulled her close for a heady kiss that rivaled the sunset for brilliance. For a moment she just let him have his way. It was so sweet to be in his arms once more, so easy to forget that his desire for intimacy didn’t stretch beyond the physical.
Only when he had her reeling did he let her go. “There,” he said, his gaze hot on her. “That should give you something to consider while you’re thinking about whether to accept my suit.”
Then he sauntered off toward the road as if he hadn’t just kissed her into obliviousness.
Lord help her, she was in a world of trouble. The man already had her so captivated that she didn’t know which way was up. The only way she could come out of this with her heart intact was to shore up her defenses. And she feared it might already be too late for that.
Chapter Fourteen
I
t was still fairly early in the morning when Gabe rode away from Marsbury House the next day. Lyons had invited him and Wheaton to stay for breakfast, but though Gabe knew it made him appear boorish, he’d refused. He couldn’t stand one more of the duke’s jokes.
Because the unfathomable had happened. He’d lost. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost a race.
And he’d injured himself in the process, though not badly. He’d followed Wheaton under a tree, and a branch that Wheaton had pushed past had swung back into him with such force it had sliced into his head. The wound was superficial, but it looked a fright—dried blood and matted hair. Gran and the girls would fuss if they saw it.
Still, his wound didn’t concern him nearly as much as the fact that he’d lost a hundred pounds. Damn it to blazes. If he’d won, that money would easily have paid for entering Flying Jane in the St. Leger Stakes.
Virginia’s voice sounded in his head:
If, if,
if!
That sounds like a great many ifs.
Blasted woman. She was the reason he’d lost. Normally before he raced, a cold calm came over him that allowed him to concentrate on winning, on blotting out the dangers. But today that calm had deserted him, thanks to the thoughts that had churned in his mind ever since yesterday’s encounter with the wench.
He’d slept badly, spending half of last night wishing he’d never embarked upon this idea to court her, and the other half thinking about how she’d accused him of building his reputation upon Roger’s back.
He’d never dreamed she might look at it like that. Enhancing his reputation had never been his intention. But once she’d said those words, he’d felt compelled to refute her accusation, and soon she’d been digging things up out of the grave where he’d kept them buried for years.
A curse escaped him. Why couldn’t she let Roger’s death stay in the past? And how the blazes was he going to make her stop asking her damned questions?
He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know. If he even hinted at the truth, she would refuse to have anything to do with him again. He had some chance of winning her if she didn’t know, but no chance at all if she did.
And why should he expose himself like that to her or her grandfather or anyone? Let the past remain in the past. That was best for them all.
But what if he couldn’t make Virginia see that? What if she refused to marry him?
Then he’d find someone else.
He groaned as he settled his horse into a trot. He didn’t
want
anybody else. He didn’t want a demure society chit who tittered behind her fan and said one thing while meaning another. He wanted the sunny-natured vixen who saw to everyone’s needs with a brightness that sweetened even the sourest souls on her staff. He wanted the woman whose cheery words calmed the servants, heartened her grandfather, and made Gabe ache—to taste and touch her again, to have her in his arms sighing her pleasure.
He might as well admit it—he couldn’t think straight for wanting her. Now he knew exactly how the damned studs felt when they scented the mares in heat. All she’d had to do in the past week was slide one of her smiles at him, and his blood rose. The thought of her giving up on him now . . .
No, he wouldn’t allow it. He had to make her see that the past didn’t matter. That they could start afresh. But he wasn’t going to do it by racing every idiot who challenged him.
He scowled as Oliver’s words drifted into his mind:
She lost her brother in a race. She won’t want to risk marrying a man she could lose in one, wager or no wager.
Blast it all. She worried about him, incredibly enough. But he couldn’t stop the racing until Celia married. What if he and his siblings lost their inheritance? He’d need money and he knew no other way than by racing.
Unless he joined forces with her grandfather. He could be what Roger had been groomed to be before his death—the general’s right-hand man. If he was going to marry the general’s granddaughter anyway . . .
He sighed. At the moment, that was a big if. Besides, he refused to spend his time and energy building up a stud farm that Devonmont would inherit. He needed his own income. And that meant racing.
Virginia would just have to learn to accept it, that’s all.
He reached the turn that led toward Ealing and reined in. He ought to go home. But then he’d have to tell his blasted family about losing the race. He’d have to endure his idiot brothers’ jokes about it. Then there was the gash on his head. He could try to sneak in and keep his hat on until he could clean his wound, but his family always turned up in the most unlikely places, and they would find his refusal to take off his hat suspicious. The last thing he needed was a bunch of females chiding him for a paltry gash on the head.
Besides, the general had wanted his help with taking the yearlings to market. It might not be too late to catch them. He’d rather help the general than deal with his family’s questions about the race. The man probably wouldn’t even bring it up—he’d be too preoccupied with other concerns.
Virginia wouldn’t have a chance to ask him about it, either, since he’d be with the general dealing with the livestock. Outside, he’d have no reason to remove his hat, so she wouldn’t know he’d hurt himself.
And he’d get to see her. Not that seeing her had anything to do with his desire to ride over to Waverly Farm. That was just incidental.
He snorted as he turned his horse toward Waverly Farm. Incidental, right. He’d better watch himself. He was becoming besotted, and that wouldn’t do. If she guessed it, she would try to wrap him about her finger, and next thing he knew, she’d be commanding him to stop racing.
Still, he couldn’t keep his heart from pounding as he approached the farm half an hour later. The place looked deserted. No one was in the stable, not even the grooms, and the general was nowhere to be seen. Blast it all, he’d missed them.
But perhaps he could catch up to them on the road. One of the house servants might know which one they’d taken.
Dismounting, he tied his horse off and strode up to the door. He knocked. No answer. He knocked again, and was about to turn away when he heard a muffled response from inside.
When the door swung open, however, it wasn’t one of the maids or the footman standing there. It was Virginia.
He sucked in a breath. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, and she wore nothing but a night rail with a thin cotton wrapper over it. Clearly he’d awakened her.
She rubbed sleep from her eyes. “I thought you had a race.”
“I did. It’s over.”
“So soon?”
“Soon? It’s past nine, sweetheart, and we raced at dawn.”
“Oh. I just got to bed a few hours ago. Molly’s sick. That’s why I didn’t go to the fair—someone had to stay and take care of her.” She blinked. “Wait, it’s past nine? I’ve got to give her more barley water. With her fever, she needs plenty of it.” She headed down the hall to the kitchen.
He entered and closed the door behind him, then followed her into the kitchen. “Is there no one here to help you with her?”
“Poppy had to take everyone to the fair. She and I were both supposed to go, but with us staying here, he needed whoever could attend him.” She thrust a glass into his hand. “Hold this.”
He watched as she filled a bowl with vinegar, but when she went to take the glass from him, he murmured, “I’ll carry it for you.”
With a nod, she hurried up the servants’ stairs. He followed.
Molly’s room was on the top floor. It was small but neat, with a cozy rug on the floor and a decent dresser. The windows were open, which made the summer heat bearable. Molly slept in the bed, snoring loudly.
Virginia set the glass on the tiny table beside the bed, then laid the back of her hand against Molly’s forehead. “Thank heaven, her fever seems to have broken. I won’t wake her. I’ll just leave the barley water here.”
Taking the bowl from him, she began to sprinkle vinegar around the room.
“What are you doing?” he asked.