Wicked Deception (23 page)

Catherine was grateful all the children
were napping when Gabriel arrived later unannounced. Devlin had
taken Tieghan to the boxing saloon to spar with the man. Tulley and
Martha were arguing in the kitchen.

Catherine met his sorrowful look as he
arrived at the salon with a little smile that cut him like nothing
else. She felt tears threaten as she stood, noticing how angry he
looked these days. Her heart went out to him, knowing he’d always
watched after Nicholas, even knowing he didn’t have to. She saw his
guilt, became angry he would punish himself for what none of them
could have foreseen.

“
How you do like to blame
yourself for everything, don’t you, Gabriel?”

He came to stand before her, his eyes
filled with pain at her words. “I’m glad to see you have come out
of your room.”

“
I had help, I fear,” she
remarked and smiled at her Uncle’s methods.

“
You look much improved,” he
noted, his dark eyes drinking in her beauty.

“
I haven’t changed my mind
if that is why you’re here,” she replied, green eyes filled with a
surprising strength in them. “I can’t think of leaving my house. I
won’t run and hide from Lord Rudd and the others. I will wait for
them to come for me.”

“
That hardly makes me feel
better, Catherine!” he snapped so coldly she was taken aback. This
wasn’t the Gabriel she knew at all, but the legendary arch angel
incarnate. Her heart clenched at seeing it. “I will kill them all
before I allow that. I swear to God Nicholas will be
avenged.”

“
If you think to avenge him
you will find only more pain,” she whispered softly, her eyes
filling with tears. “It will not bring him back to me! You mustn’t
do what I see in your eyes, for I couldn’t bear for the same to
happen to you. You must think of our son.”

“
Had he told you anything at
all before this happened?” Gabriel asked brusquely, ignoring her
words, his dark eyes scanning her lovely face.

“
I knew he was still after
Rudd and the others but we didn’t speak of it.”

“
Catherine, they had him
killed and I can’t ignore the fact they may be after you now,”
Gabriel snapped in frustration and raked a hand through his golden
locks, glaring at her. “You must relent and have the children moved
to my home or one of my estates. Even with Nicholas dead, they
would fear what he might have told you.”

“
They must feel safe their
secrets are protected now, Gabriel. But we both know you will not
let the matter rest, will you?” she asked accusingly. She turned
away from him, her green eyes filled with anger. “You will shake
your stick at them as well until they go after you. Tell me what
words you would have me use for our son when he asks why his father
was so determined to get himself killed?”

“
It will not come to that!”
he countered with a scowl. “You forget I’m one of them. I’m not as
easy to be gotten rid of as Nicholas was. They are unaware I know
what they are up too. I can punish them for what they have done to
you, Catherine.”

“
I no longer need you to be
my champion, Gabriel,” she pointed out and smiled, her confidant
demeanor making him take notice right away. She was still grieving,
wearing her widow’s weeds and pain for all to see, but she was
hardly the devastated woman he had imagined in his worst dreams
since learning of his friend’s death. “I will survive this, as
surely as I have survived everything else that has befallen me. It
is not revenge I seek, but peace. It brings me to another matter I
wish to discuss with you.”

“
What is it?”

“
I’m leaving for St. Bart’s
and I wish to have an agreement drawn up between us in regard to
Giles. He is my son too, Gabriel. I deserve to know him, and he me.
We will split the year until he is in school. It is more than
fair.”

Gabriel was stunned to hear the news
she was leaving. The air went out of him when she calmly informed
him she would be closing the house up and going back to St. Bart’s
as soon as all could be arranged.

He listened to her outline a plan to
share Giles until he was of an age, and smiled sadly. Even with
Nicholas and Lillianne no longer between them, she didn’t consider
staying to try and recapture what they once had. Thinking of
Nicholas made him angry at his own selfish thoughts.

“
It seems as though you have
planned everything for yourself, Catherine,” he remarked in a
pained voice. “I regret you losing him. I regret you can’t see
anything for us beyond your pain. I would marry you if you stay, my
love. We can have all we once were denied. How can you just leave
me now?”

“
My husband asked nothing of
me all these years, Gabriel,” she replied, knowing her rejection
stung. “I will not marry you. A part of me will always love you but
what we had was over long ago, don’t you see? I remembered how I
felt the day I left you. I knew some part of you could never
forgive me for what I agreed to do then; the things I did because I
felt I had no choice. I’m not the same woman I was
then.”

“
I’m not the same man I was
then either, Catherine,” he argued, hurt flaring in his dark eyes.
“I could forgive anything to be with you now. Just believe in me as
you once did.”

“
Could you really?” she
challenged, her green eyes filled with determination. “Could you
forgive knowing Nicholas and I were lovers then?”

Gabriel stared at her in stunned anger.
“What? When? Why are you saying this, Catherine?”

“
Because it’s the truth,”
she said calmly, her eyes meeting his with a trace of sadness. “He
followed me to Edward’s office, only it wasn’t Edward I saw when I
got there. I knew I was trapped in Lilly’s plans and I ran. He
followed me that day. He gave me a choice, tell you everything and
walk away, or come to his bed and take his money.”

Gabriel glared at her, his eyes turning
black. “That explains the money you left behind to pay your debt
when you disappeared.”

She nodded and bit her lip, unable to
bear his condemning stare. “I couldn’t bear to have you look at me
as you are right now.”

Gabriel laughed harshly and rolled his
eyes. “So you went to my friend’s bed? I do thank you for thinking
so much for my feelings then, Catherine.”

She gasped and her eyes flashed in
anger. “I loved you! I knew what you would think, as you’re
thinking now! Lilly thought of everything, Gabriel. I knew you
would despise me. I did what I did to spare you knowing the truth.
I planned to leave by then and go back to Dunleavy
Hall.”

“
Why do you tell me this
now?” he demanded in outrage, black eyes glowing in fury. “Why
now?”

“
I will not live a lie
anymore, Gabriel, even for you,” she informed him sorrowfully,
tears brightening her gaze. “I loved you enough to sleep with a
thousand men to keep your love then! I knew you would never feel
the same for me if you knew what I was doing for Lilly.”

“
We have already determined
why you did what you did, Catherine,” Gabriel snapped and glared at
her. “You might have come to me in the beginning, given me some
benefit of the doubt. I accept that you couldn’t. How long did you
go to Nicholas behind my back? How long did you betray
me?”

“
It was just the one time,”
she whispered and saw his look of raw fury. “He came to me later
and asked me to run away with him and give up all I was doing. By
then I decided I was unworthy of the both of you.”

Gabriel raked a trembling hand through
his hair, eyes filled with anger. “How do you expect me to feel
about this Catherine?”

“
I won’t live my life with
this deceit anymore,” she said and drew in a trembling breath. “I
wanted to tell you the truth, but Nicholas said you would never
forgive it and keep my son from me.”

“
How right he was!” Gabriel
snarled and rubbed his eyes. “Back then I might have done so. I can
see why you would keep it from me.”

“
I didn’t tell you to hurt
you, Gabriel.”

“
Why did you tell me this,
Catherine? It’s been four years. I can’t hold it against you now
considering the circumstances. My wife did try to kill you. I think
that trumps lies and unfaithfulness, don’t you agree?”

“
I bring it up to confess to
you that Giles has a sister,” she informed him. “I had twins the
night Giles was taken from me by Lilly. She gave my daughter away.
Tieghan and Chumley found her before Lilly was arrested. I believe
you have met my daughter. You and everyone else think she is
Nicholas’s bastard.”

He gaped at her now, unable to respond
to what she was telling him. “But…how? How is this possible? Giles
is my son! One has only to look at him to see that!”

“
One only has but to look at
my daughter to know Nicholas is hers,” she said calmly, seeing the
horror in his expression, satisfied she was right in how he would
react. The anger wasn’t far behind.

“
You kept this from me all
this time?”

“
I loved you more than
anything then, Gabriel,” she replied and her heart broke at his
devastated look. “But I loved him too, though I wouldn’t admit it.
I left because I knew we had no future if you discovered what I was
doing for Lilly. I didn’t even know who fathered my child then. I
was confused and that is when Lilly’s men took me. I was leaving
the both of you. I made my choice that day.”

“
How could you do this to
me?” he demanded angrily and wanted to shake her. “I have loved you
as I have loved no other in my life, or ever will. You tell me it
was all a lie now?”

“
I knew I would lose your
love and I couldn’t bear it,” she explained, cringing from his
cold, furious expression. “Don’t you see, Gabriel? You could have
never loved me the same had you known of that then. Nicholas
accepted everything just to have me. He might not have liked it,
but he loved me enough to disregard all of this. Can you say the
same and still want to marry me?”

Gabriel looked like he was punched in
the stomach. He looked at Catherine as if seeing her for the first
time. She saw his hurt and disillusionment and knew telling him the
truth had set him free at last. The bitterness in his expression
told her she was right all along. She would have lost him
anyway.

“
How you could keep this
from me?” he whispered with a taut expression. She flinched from
the pain in his eyes. “You never even gave me the chance to accept
anything, Catherine. You assumed I would turn away from you in
disgust and toss you out of my life. It tells me you didn’t know me
at all, then or now.”

Catherine watched Gabriel turn on his
heel and leave the salon without a backward glance. Her heart broke
for the second time that year to hear the front door slam. The
shattered look in his eyes told her more than words. Gabriel would
never forgive what she and Nicholas had done. He might have excused
her working with Lilly, but his pride refused to let him accept the
rest.

It was done. She should have felt
relief to have unloaded the burden she carried this last year. It
didn’t. She knew she told him the truth to push him away, to keep
him from insisting they marry. The last thing she could do is marry
him without his knowing the truth.

Pain filled her to know that some
things were beyond his forgiveness. Gabriel would never forgive
her. She saw it in his eyes. His pride was leveled with her news.
All these years he thought Nicholas had stolen her from him when
she was vulnerable. Knowing she had given herself to Nicholas long
before the bullet erased them both from her mind, very much
destroyed whatever illusions he had.

“
Well done, lass.” Devlin
stood in the doorway, his green eyes meeting hers with sadness in
them. “Ye did the right thing.”

“
Why do I feel like my heart
has just been cut out?” she demanded, tears now falling freely. “I
know it was the right thing to do in telling him the truth, but it
hurts to know we would have never had a chance had he known it
then.”

“
Cat, he has a point,” her
Uncle pointed out. “Ye never gave the man a chance to find out if
he could see past what ye done. I think ye misjudged the man from
the start.”

Catherine suffered to know she hurt
Gabriel. She longed to go to him and explain, but she knew he
needed time to accept all she told him. She wept and slid into a
chair. Her Uncle came into the salon and sat with her.

“
He wanted to marry me,
Uncle,” she told him bitterly and wiped at her tears. “He said he
loves me and can forgive anything to be with me. We both saw him
leave as soon as he learned the truth.”

Devlin knew Lord Iverleigh would be
back when he licked his wounds. He might not like hearing the
truth, but if he loved his niece he would hear it before he went
any further with his insistence they marry. Catherine wanted no
secrets to ruin her life one day. She had already seen what they
did up until now.

“
Ye did right, Cat,” he told
her and shook his head. “The man deserved to know. If he can live
with it, ye have my blessing. If he can’t, ye were better off with
Nicholas and you know that now.”