Gabriel’s gaze was distant, as if he saw it all again. “When it became apparent where we were headed, I had a moment of sanity. I knew that the course in Turnham Green was too dangerous; I’d seen other men get hurt running it.”
He swallowed convulsively. “But we’d already dragged Lyons from his bed to judge the outcome of the race, and I wasn’t about to back out of it in front of them both. Better to kill myself than do that, right?” His voice turned icy, remote. “Better to kill my best friend.”
“You didn’t kill him, Gabriel,” she said softly, unable to take any more.
“Are you sure?” His eyes glittered at her. “Because I’m not. Your grandfather says I got him drunk and bullied him into running the race—and that’s very possible. I might have goaded him into it. I might have called him a coward. I might even have threatened him. We’ll
never
know.
”
He came up to her, his face as dead and cold as his tone. “But we know one thing for sure. I was too proud to admit that I didn’t remember. I was too arrogant to back out, or even just let my best friend win. Because when I raced, then by God, I had to win, even if it meant . . .”
His breath caught in his throat. “So there’s my character for you. The general is right, Virginia. I don’t deserve you.”
“I don’t believe that,” she whispered.
He stared her down. “Don’t you? Then why did you press so hard to make me bare my soul? And don’t say it was for your grandfather. We both know it was for you, so
you
could know if I was a man of ‘good character.’ Because you never were quite sure.”
Was that true? Had it been
her
need all along that had brought them to this terrible place?
His breathing was rough. “No matter who made the wager, your brother died because I was too full of myself to stop the race, too eager for glory to let him win. Do you really think you’ll ever be able to forget that? Or forgive me for it?”
For a moment, an image flashed into her mind—of Roger laid out in his bedchamber, unnaturally still. Gabriel could have stopped the race, but he hadn’t.
Then again, Roger could have stopped it, too.
But if he hadn’t realized that Gabriel didn’t remember . . .
“That’s what I thought,” he said coldly when she didn’t answer. “At least now that you have the facts, you can hate me with good reason.”
He pushed past her, headed for the door. “Wait!” Her mind whirled with everything he’d revealed. “Where are you going?”
Though he paused in the doorway, he refused to look at her. “Where I always go to forget what I
do
remember.” He glanced at her grandfather. “Tell Devonmont to take good care of her.”
Then he strode out the door.
“Gabriel!” She headed after him, but Poppy caught her by the arm. “Let me go!” she protested, struggling.
Lord Jarret said, “I’ll fetch him back,” and hurried out.
“Leave it be, lambkin,” Poppy said. “I told you what Roger said that night: ‘If a man agrees to a wager while he’s in his cups, is there any gentlemanly way he can get out of it?’ Clearly your brother didn’t want to make that wager, and Lord Gabriel pushed him into it.”
“He isn’t like that,” Mrs. Plumtree protested.
Virginia agreed. The Gabriel she knew would never bully anyone into anything. She might not be sure what had happened that night, but one thing she
was
sure of—Gabriel was no more culpable than Roger.
Mrs. Plumtree glowered at Poppy. “You’ve made up your mind that Gabe’s some monster, based solely on some words said by your grandson. For all you know, he was lying. You’re so blinded by your anger that you can’t see beyond your bias.”
“And what about
your
bias?” Poppy growled.
“It was an
accident,
” Mrs. Plumtree said. “A tragic, stupid accident. Gabriel didn’t set out to murder your grandson. He behaved as foolish young men often do, yes. But it was Roger who rousted him out of bed, Roger who got them to the race course. Think about that when you start accusing my grandson.”
Mrs. Plumtree’s words seemed to stun Poppy. She had a point. If Gabriel were to be believed—and Virginia knew in her heart that he wouldn’t lie—then Roger had been the one to push the matter.
More importantly, it had happened seven years ago. And no matter what Gabriel thought, it didn’t change the fact that she loved him.
I don’t deserve you.
She’d been a fool to let him believe even for one moment that he wasn’t worthy of her. Believe he wasn’t worthy of love. “I have to talk to Gabriel.”
Just then, Lord Jarret came back in. “He’s gone, I’m afraid. He was saddling a horse when I entered the stable, and he told me to leave him be. I tried to talk to him, but he just leaped into the saddle and rode out.”
“To go where?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Lord Jarret said, his eyes full of sympathy.
“He’ll return eventually,” Mrs. Plumtree said. “He always does.”
“He’s done this before?” Virginia asked.
“A few times, when he gets morose over Roger’s death. He goes off God knows where, and the next thing we know, he’s agreeing to another fool race.”
She’d lost him. She’d let him leave here hating himself, and now she’d lost him. She hadn’t even told him she loved him! “Why is he so obsessed with racing? He says it’s for the money, but I’d swear it’s more than that.”
Sadness filled Mrs. Plumtree’s features. “It’s his way of shielding himself from his fear that he might end up like Roger and his parents, dead before his time.”
I don’t want to be left in the ground to rot before my time. But I don’t know how to stop it from happening.
Yet there was something else there, too. Something she was missing. Something more.
“Let’s go home,” Poppy said softly. “No point in remaining here. If you must speak to the man, I’ll bring you back tomorrow. But you need sleep.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said firmly. “Not until Gabriel returns.”
“Your grandfather is right, you need sleep,” Mrs. Plumtree surprised her by saying. “But you can do that here. We have plenty of room.”
Poppy stared at Mrs. Plumtree. “If she stays, I stay.”
“That can be arranged.” Mrs. Plumtree’s steady gaze made Poppy flush. “Your granddaughter isn’t the only one who needs sleep, I daresay.”
It shocked her when he said, “All right. We’ll stay the night. But if he hasn’t returned by morning . . .”
“We’ll handle that when it happens,” Mrs. Plumtree said firmly. She glanced at Lord Jarret.
He nodded. “I’ll find him, Miss Waverly, don’t you worry.”
“Thank you,” she murmured through the lump in her throat. They were being so kind. Lord Jarret had just returned from a long trip; the last thing he probably wished to do was go hunting for his brother.
As Lord Jarret left, Mrs. Plumtree guided them down the hall. “Halstead Hall has an entire private apartment you can use,” she said. “It was built to accommodate a foreign prince and his wife in the seventeenth century.”
Virginia scarcely listened, remembering Gabriel’s parting words.
Tell Devonmont to take good care of her.
He meant to turn his back on her, after everything they’d said and meant to each other. How could he?
In a daze of pain, she entered the massive suite with two bedrooms and a sitting room as large as the dining room at Waverly Farm. Mrs. Plumtree ordered servants about, getting fires going and dust cloths removed in such a short time that soon Virginia and Poppy were left alone.
When she made no move toward her bedchamber, Poppy came up to her with a worried look. “Go to bed, lambkin. I’m sure the scoundrel will return soon.”
She shook her head. “I can’t sleep. Not until I know he’s safe.”
“He’ll be fine,” Poppy said, an edge in his voice. “Besides, this might be just as well. Now you can reconsider the possibility of you and Pierce—”
“I am not going to marry Pierce!” she cried, unable to take it anymore. “I’m in love with Gabriel!”
Poppy blinked. “In love? You barely know the man. Surely you’re not foolish enough to believe that a marriage can be built on kisses and flattery and soft words.”
“Is it foolish to want to be treated like a desirable woman for once, and not like a cog in the wheel of the farm?” she choked out. When Poppy looked stricken, she released a ragged breath. “Can’t you understand? Gabriel sees all of me—not just the efficient parts. He sees the woman who wants to be thought pretty and receive flowers, who wants to dance, who wants to feel something more than just relief that the foal who got loose didn’t trample the turnips.”
Her voice fell. “At least he did until I pushed him into talking about the past. Now all he can see is his guilt. And he thinks that’s all I can see, too.”
Was he out there even now, searching for some new challenge to blot the heartache from his mind, some new race in his ongoing battle with death?
I cheat Death. It’s what I do.
And suddenly she understood.
He’d said it as a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. It explained everything—the racing, the recklessness, the times when he’d withdrawn and become that cold, frightening person she thought of as the real Angel of Death.
She prayed that she got the chance to make
him
understand. Because until he did, they could never marry. And she couldn’t bear the thought of that.
Chapter Twenty
M
ust. Beat. Roger.
The chant from Gabe’s dream haunted him. So did the image of Roger lying with his neck broken as Lyons ran toward them and Gabe fought to rein in the horses.
With a scowl, Gabe gulped some ale. He had to put that image from his mind. Had to find that perfect state of blessed numbness, of cold calm, that he felt when he was racing. He didn’t usually seek it in drink, but tonight if it took half the liquor in London, he was going to drive the memories from his mind. He gave a bitter laugh as he stared into his tankard. The irony didn’t escape him.
“You’re devilishly hard to find,” Jarret said from behind him. “I’ve been scouring the stews for hours.”
Damn it.
“Well, you found me. Now go away.”
He gulped more ale. He had to be drunker than this to deal with his brother.
Jarret moved the tankard away from him. “You’d think you’d have learned by now that this won’t help.”
True, but tonight he was desperate. He dragged the tankard back. “Get your own damned ale. Or better yet, leave.”
“You should have stayed to see everything out. She wanted you to stay.”
“Yes, I could tell by the way she asked me not to leave.” Why was he even talking to Jarret? It wouldn’t change anything.
“You didn’t give her a chance.”
He cursed under his breath. He’d seen the confusion in her face, the shock as he’d told her the truth. Perhaps she would have forgiven him, perhaps not. He couldn’t stay around to find out. Leaving meant he didn’t have to watch the light die in her eyes as she realized what he truly was. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“Of course it would have mattered. She’s in love with you.”
The words seared a path through the encroaching numbness, sparking a tiny hope in the glacier of Gabe’s heart. “She told you that?”
Jarret paused. “She didn’t have to. I saw it in her face.”
The hope winked out. “You saw what you wanted to see. I saw a woman who’d finally got the truth she’d been clamoring for and didn’t like it.”
He lifted the tankard to drink, but it was empty. He held the tankard out to a nearby tavern maid. “Another!” She bustled off to refill it.
“You barely gave Miss Waverly the chance to take it all in,” Jarret snapped. “What did you expect?”
“I expected . . .” What? That once he bared his soul for her, the pain would stop? That was naïve.
It would never stop—not even if she could forgive him for what had happened. Her brother would still be dead. And he would still be the reckless wretch who had put him in the grave.
“I got exactly what I expected,” he lied.
“So you’re going to punish her for her momentary lapse by abandoning her?” Jarret asked.
“Punish her?” Gabe scowled at him. “I’m doing her a favor. I was an idiot to think we could marry. There’s too much of the past between us.”
“She seems willing to work through it.”
“Then she’s a fool. She deserves a man who’s worthy of her. And I’m not that man.” The tankard was set down in front of him, and he grabbed it up. He needed not to feel. It used to be so easy—he just found some race to run and became the Angel of Death. Why couldn’t he do that anymore? All he wanted was to sink into the numbness, let it surround him like the grave . . .
“But Miss Waverly isn’t likely to get a more worthy man in her present situation, is she?” Jarret said coolly.
“She’s got her cousin,” he ground out, though the very thought made his fingers itch to throttle the man. “He’ll marry her.”
“She doesn’t want Devonmont. God only knows why, but she wants
you.
”
Judging from how his pulse leapt at those words, he hadn’t yet consumed enough liquor. “She doesn’t know what she wants. And anyway, she’ll be better off with him than me.”
Jarret snorted. “You are such a damned coward.”
When that sparked his temper, he cursed. Where was the numbness? “Watch it, big brother. The last man who called me that got his teeth knocked down his throat.”
“Yes, you’re brave when it counts the least. You’re perfectly happy to race any idiot who challenges you, but God forbid you should admit that you need Virginia. That you might even love her. It’s easier to turn tail and run.”
Gabe stiffened. “Not easier. Better for her. I can’t give her what she wants.”
“What? Some sort of penance for racing her brother? She doesn’t want that. She wants you to open your heart to her, to trust her with it. And that scares the hell out of you.”
Gabe drank deeply, fighting to ignore the truth in Jarret’s words.
“Believe me, I understand,” Jarret continued. “I’ve been in your place. So have Oliver and Minerva. We’ve all spent the last nineteen years protecting our hearts, because we know how awful it feels to be abandoned by those we love most. It has made us slow to trust. But until you can trust someone with your heart, you’ll only be half living. Loving someone and being loved is worth any risk.”