“Wherein … a kiss.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised at all, not considering everything he knew about her, but he was, all the same. It was too far removed from any kiss he had ever known not to feel like he’d been thrown into hot water with no warning. Her lips were soft and sweet and gentle against his, and too many emotions slammed into him all at once. She should not be here. She should not be with him.

Worthless piece of nothing, disgrace to the name, weak, you’re weak, Gabriel.

Anger struck at him all at once, the desire to shock her, to scare her so badly that she’d never bother him again. He’d found a way to cope with his life, a monotonous daily existence with one goal only in sight, destroying his cousin. He could live with that, deal with that, but now she was going to try her utmost to tie him in knots. Well, damn that, and damn her. So this time, he kissed her back.

His kiss was neither soft nor sweet, and certainly not gentle. He pushed her against the wall, forcing her mouth open as though he would devour her. His hands moved over her, falling to the soft swell of her behind, cupping and kneading hard as he pulled her against him. If she really wanted to be ruined, why the hell shouldn’t he oblige, after all? Desire and revulsion crashed over him, the heated longing to take her to the cold, stone floor and lose himself in her warmth, vying against the need to let her go, to let her run from him … while she still could.

He let her go.

Gabriel stepped away from her, turning his back and wiping his mouth on his sleeve as though she disgusted him, though the only revulsion he felt was for himself.

“You’ve got what you wanted, Miss Holbrook,” he spat, sounding vicious and angry. “I suggest you go now before I take more than you’re willing to give me.”

He waited for the weeping to begin, the pitiful cries swearing he was a monster and she hated him, and was therefore somewhat wrong-footed when a perfectly collected voice spoke to him.

“Did you enjoy Tom Jones?”

Gabriel swung around, not quite sure if he was outraged that she wasn’t outraged or … or what?

“What? No! I mean … Yes, but I only read a little,” he began, seeing her mouth quirk with amusement and feeling his temper rise higher. “Damn you, never mind the bloody book!” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling as though Miss Holbrook was purposely trying to undermine what little hold on his sanity remained. “Why aren’t you running back to your blasted sister, crying your eyes out?” he demanded, sounding ridiculously indignant that she hadn’t. “Did you not care that I just ravished you in a nasty damp grotto, of all places?”

Crecy pursed her lips as though she was giving the question her full attention before giving him an apologetic smile. “Actually,” she said, sounding a little rueful. “I was rather hoping you’d do it again.”

Gabriel gaped at her for a moment as the desire to do as she’d asked warred with self-preservation. In the end, he threw up his hands, turning and going to walk away before changing his mind at the last moment and grabbing at her, his hands cupping her face and lifting it to meet his lips.

He was rather less harsh this time, though that wasn’t what he’d intended. He’d intended to repeat his violent kiss, and then some. Yet the moment his lips had touched hers again, his anger had left him, and the desire to kiss her properly, deeply, had won out over everything else.

He felt her small hands sliding up his neck, felt the soft swell of her breasts pressing against his chest as he pulled her flush against him. She was all heated eagerness, pliant in his arms, and for the first time, he seriously considered taking her back to Damerel with him and teaching her everything she was apparently so eager to learn. God, but she felt good, too good, too sweet, too innocent … What the devil was he playing at?

He let her go, refusing to regret it, and tried hard not to allow her glowing cheeks and swollen lips have any effect on him. He looked away, knowing the vision of her flushed and dishevelled from his kiss was going to haunt him for the rest of his days, and regretted ever leaving the hotel at all. He should have let her freeze. Her breath fluttered against his mouth, desire burning so brightly in her eyes that it shook him.

“Go home, Miss Holbrook,” he said, sounding a little unsteady and forcing himself to move away, feeling as though everything he’d ever clung to for sanity had just been rocked, the foundations still trembling with aftershocks. “For the love of God, go home and stay away from me.”

“I can’t do that, Gabriel.”

Gabriel closed his eyes. There was something in her voice that told him she meant to make him care, and if he stayed here a moment longer, he had no idea what would happen. He had to get away from her. So he turned on his heel and left.

***

“Madam Chalon really is a genius, isn’t she?”

Violette’s excited chatter washed over her as Belle replied with a smile, nodding in complete agreement as she looked Crecy over with approval. Crecy gave the large feather in her bonnet a tweak and grinned at her before leaning back against the squabs of the carriage.

“Indeed, she is,” her sister said, with a laugh, her voice warm, though Crecy could see there was worry in her eyes. No doubt wondering how Edward was going to react to her impromptu flight to Bath. Privately, Crecy thought he’d been well-served and that it had been the exact right thing to do, but she didn’t doubt Belle was feeling a little trepidation at the idea of facing him again. She could well understand it.

Faced with an angry Gabriel in that dark grotto in Sydney Gardens, Crecy had almost lost her nerve, too, but she hadn’t. She smiled, turning her head to hide it as she looked out of the window. The countryside rolled past as the carriage bore them back to Longwold and she watched tiny, fragile flakes of snow flit about on the icy breeze. It wasn’t cold enough to settle, but the hot brick beneath her feet had long since grown cold, and Crecy longed for a warm fire to sit beside. As that was a good hour away yet, she returned her attention to Gabriel, and more importantly his kiss.

Warmth flooded her to her toes and she bit her lip to smother a grin, lest her sister notice and question her on it. My word, though … what a kiss it had been. The first time, he’d been angry with her, angry that she had taken what she wanted without it being bestowed on her. Women were not supposed to act in such a way, after all, it was wanton and lascivious. Crecy shrugged, wondering why women’s emotions were supposed to be so far removed from what men felt. Why create a body that was capable of such passions and desires and then spend every waking moment repressing them? Obviously, some decorum was called for, nothing would get done if the world turned into some Bacchanalian orgy - she was forced to cough at this point to smother the burst of laughter that bubbled up unbidden as she imagined voicing the idea to Gabriel. Belle gave her a curious look, but carried on talking to Violette, too used to Crecy’s odd ways to comment. But nonetheless, why should such feelings be ignored and shut away, as if it was in some way shameful? What shame was there in loving another human being and wanting to touch them?

Crecy sighed, knowing she was completely out of step, and that even Belle would be shocked if she voiced such opinions. Instead, she closed her eyes and relived the moments with Gabriel all over again. His hold on her had been fierce, his arms far harder and stronger than she had imagined beneath the heavy overcoat he wore. She had slid her hands over his chest, feeling the curve and cut of powerful muscle beneath her touch. Desire pooled deep inside of her, hot and needy as she wondered what his skin would have felt like if she’d dared slip her hands under his clothes. Oh, God, the longing to do so, to touch him again, was an ache beneath her skin, a longing so profound that she could taste it. The second time he had kissed her, that had been different. He had been different. He’d wanted to run, wanted to be angry, but in the end, he’d been neither. He’d given in and kissed her because he wanted to, and she shivered with pleasure as she relived the warmth of his mouth, the slide of his tongue over hers. Crecy swallowed, her mouth dry, longing to see him again.

She’d known she wouldn’t see him again in Bath. Though she had hoped and visited both the gardens and the bookshop just in case, there had been no sign of him. But that was all right. He needed a little time to get used to the idea of her. She understood that and would not force him. Not yet.

***

Gabriel ran his hand over the cold stone of the wolf’s head, his thumb moving back and forward over the throat, raised to howl at some distant moon. It was soothing, somehow, and he regretted not having taken it to Bath with him. If he’d had it, he might have been saved from some of the most ridiculous decisions in his entire life.

He gritted his teeth and concentrated on the feel of the cool stone, slate, in fact, long since rubbed smooth after years of wear. It was too heavy to slip into a pocket, sadly, though it was a satisfying weight in his hand, tactile. It had become a kind of talisman, and this a routine that calmed him when his temper rose to dangerous heights.

The irony of the fact that the young lady who was the cause of much of his ire had given him the stone as a birthday gift some years ago did not escape him. There had been a gift every year on the eighteenth of April, without fail. He had received a bird skull - with buttons for eyes and a garish combination of coloured feathers stuck on in a somewhat haphazard fashion, a piece of glitzy pyrite or fool’s gold, a drawing of an exceedingly ugly dog with three legs, a rather dubious poem about a dead parrot, and all manner of things that anyone else would have thought revolting and utterly bizarre. That Gabriel had carefully stored every one in a drawer, arranged by year and placed with his usual precision, only showed the depths of his own idiocy.

At first, the letters and the gifts had irritated the hell out of him. What in God’s name was the strange child up to, writing to him in the first place? But he figured that she would soon grow tired of such a one-sided game and give it up. Except the letters came each month, without fail, and little by little, he found he was amused by them and the bright, if rather twisted, mind that created them. They were original and funny and touched upon a life that was quite clearly anything but easy.

The years passed and Gabriel discovered a grudging admiration for the girl who would not be primped and moulded into a sweet little débutante. Instead, she was stubborn and wilful and strange and … well, downright peculiar at times, but Lord, who was he to judge? As the years turned, so the letters changed, using him as some kind of sounding board for all of her vexations and frustrations. He knew well her desire to learn medicine so that she could be an animal doctor, he knew that she hated her aunt, did not mourn the death of her father, and loved her sister with a devotion that was positively nauseating if laudable for one of her sex.

He knew she wanted to learn every detail of each dark and dreadful thing he had done in his life, just who had he blackmailed, had he really driven Lord Ruth to suicide, had he fought a duel and killed a man as they said he had? She was far too curious about his visits to houses of ill repute - were the ladies free to live as they wanted, to say and do just what they liked? – she’d asked with a disturbingly wistful tone. She wanted to know if he was truly responsible for trying to shoot his cousin, even though he hadn’t pulled the trigger himself. In this, he had noted the first sense of chastisement and that she could not condone his actions, no matter how he hated his cousin. For Aubrey Russell had been shot by accident and nearly died in that ill-fated affair. But in the end, she had decided that he was not guilty of this crime at all, and had so convinced herself of his innocence that she begged him to say something to stem the rumours of his murderous command.

“It makes me furious to hear them condemn you without an ounce of proof, without any witness or demand that you account for your actions. No, they are happy enough to point the finger at you, but God forbid they confront you with it. Not one of them has the nerve to face you, Gabriel.”

He snorted, turning the cool slate in his hand, over and over as he glanced at the clock. One more minute and the fellow would be late; his temper began to rise again, and he turned the wolf’s head faster in his hand.

Gabriel got to his feet, replacing the chair so that it was exactly parallel with the desk, checking that the lamp, his pen, the black leather ledger, his diary, and the neat stack of correspondence that awaited his attention were all straight and parallel to each other. He kept the wolf in his hand, holding it in a firm grasp as he stalked to the door and wrenched it open.

“Where the hell is he?” he barked, just as Piper opened the door to the man in question. Paul Chambers was a tall, heavyset-looking fellow with strong shoulders on him, but he blanched at the sound of Gabriel’s anger.

“Forgive me, my lord,” he said, snatching the cap from his head and looking as though he was sweating. “I rode like the blazes to get ‘ere on time. I’m only a minute or two late.”

Gabriel swung the door to his study open without another word, and the fellow scurried through.

“Well?” he snapped, closing the door and stalking into the room behind him.

Paul cleared his throat, looking deeply uneasy, and Gabriel’s stomach clenched.

“It’s true, Lord DeMorte, Lord Winterbourne was married about a week ago.”

Gabriel swallowed, panic rising in his throat. If Edward was married, then there might be a child, an heir to the marquisate. If that happened, everything was lost. There would be no peace for him, not ever, not in this lifetime. He was at least somewhat relieved to discover that there were limits to his depravity and that even he would baulk at the idea of killing an infant. His cousin was a grown man and he’d face him in a duel if only he could provoke him badly enough, but cold-blooded murder, no. Not even to silence his father’s voice.

“Who is she?” he demanded, hearing the tremor in his voice and clearing his throat lest the fellow should believe he was troubled by the idea.

“I couldn’t discover that, a closed-lipped lot, they are, up at the big ‘ouse,” he said, earning himself a look of disdain from Gabriel. “She’s a nobody, though, that I do know.”

Gabriel snorted, indicating that in his opinion the man knew nothing at all about anything.

“What I mean to say is … she ain’t no lady someone. Not from some grand family.” The man’s face became thoughtful and he shook his head. “Reckon there might be somethin’ being hushed up, you ask me,” he added.

“I am asking you, dammit!” Gabriel shouted, making the fellow jump out of his skin and flush, his sallow cheeks growing hot. “I pay you for information and this is all you get me? I could likely have discovered more from the scandal sheets.”

“Ah, but you couldn’t, my lord,” the fellow objected, shaking his head and unwisely holding a hand out to stop Gabriel saying anything more. “Cause it weren’t announced yet and no one up there will say a word about it, so …”

“Get out!” Gabriel stalked to the door and wrenched it open once more. “Get out and don’t come back until you have something to say.”

He slammed the door behind the fellow and kicked it for good measure, breathing heavily as the urge to go back out and throttle the fool crept up on him. He held the wolf’s head tightly, breathing steadily in and out and trying to calm himself. With a muttered curse, he tried to stall the need to return to his desk and check that everything was still as he’d left it.

“Of course it is, of course it is,” he muttered, feeling anxiety crawling up and down his spine all the same. Oh God, Edward was married. He was married and now he’d have a son and Gabriel was lost. He’d never have another moment’s peace. The peace and calm that he longed for, hoped for, it was slipping away from him and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Worthless, pathetic worm. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment; you ought never have been born.

Unable to resist any longer, Gabriel returned to the desk, checking each item in turn before moving around the room, correcting every single thing he came across until everything was as he needed it to be. The wolf’s head was still clutched in his left hand and his thumb moved over the throat, up and down, up and down as his breathing steadied.

God, he had to get out of here.