Wicked Deception (34 page)

She hurriedly left the gardens by the
gate, careful to close it behind her. She drew her dark cloak up
around her face as she slipped away in the darkness. She walked
back to the residence, stole back in through the rear
window.

The house was dark. She cursed as she
bumped into walls as she made her way through without a candle to
aid her. It was several minutes when her eyes adjusted and she
crept up the stairs quietly. She knew the house would be packed up
soon. She must leave tomorrow.

It wouldn’t be good for her to be found
here. Nicholas would be looking for her. It was just a matter of
time before it occurred to him to check his empty house. It was the
most unlikely place any would think to look for her and the first
one he would think of.

Lilly dare not stay another night. She
thought of the rooms where he’d caught her and chuckled, knowing it
was far better than seeking public accommodations. Every inn within
a fifty mile radius would be checked. She was clever enough to know
how to stay dead, even if Nicholas wasn’t.

~ ~ ~

“
You’re being ridiculous,”
Gabriel told her as Catherine confronted him in his study. “It’s
out of the question for you to go home now.”

Catherine glared at him, disliking the
way he assumed to know what was best for her. They’d not had a real
conversation since she told him about Brionne and she refused to
stay here and endure his silence any longer. “You’re not my
guardian any longer, Gabriel. You don’t have any say in
this.”

Gabriel scowled at her, a normal
reaction to seeing her these days. He avoided her enough to tell
her he wasn’t close to forgiving her and Nicholas for deceiving
him.

“
I can’t force you to stay
but this threat might be very real,” he warned her and sat back in
his chair. “You dismissed Tieghan’s concerns before and your
servants paid the price. Do you want to risk your children
now?”

Her face crumpled, knowing he was
right. What was she doing? Fear was her only companion these days.
Knowing Dartmouth was caught and sitting in prison was hardly any
comfort. Still, she wouldn’t stay here. She learned he was seeking
a bride. Her staying here would cause undue gossip. She complicated
his life enough.

“
I’m going and that’s
final.”

Gabriel sat seething as she sat before
him. Those dark eyes met hers and she saw how he struggled to
maintain some civility towards her. She wanted him to rage and
shout at her for what she did. She welcomed it opposed to this icy
distance he placed between them now.

“
I will not allow Jaime and
Cullen to go. You’re welcome to leave the babies. If you won’t see
reason I can say nothing more.”

Catherine twisted her hands in her lap.
“There is no reason for me to stay here anymore. I leave in over a
month’s time. I think my presence causes you
discomfort.”

“
No more than mine causes
you, my dear,” he admitted with a mocking smile.

“
I’m sorry if what I told
you causes you pain, Gabriel,” she whispered and her eyes filled
with emotion. “I didn’t tell you to hurt you. You insisted we marry
and I felt you had a right to know everything.”

“
Better to have known that
four years ago, don’t you agree?” he asked and by his tone she knew
she made him angry.

Catherine shook her head. “It wouldn’t
have mattered. You see this all as some betrayal and act the
wounded one to the hilt.”

He snorted at her comment. “I have no
interest in arguing this. I asked you to be my wife and you refused
me. Leave it at that. You wished for me to get on with my life and
I’m. It might amuse you to know I can do no better than Lord Rudd’s
half-sister for a bride.”

“
You’re not serious?”
Catherine gaped at him. “You don’t intend to go through with
it?”

He glared at her. “Would you change
your mind and marry me?”

Catherine said nothing and he dismissed
her with a glance, his wounded gaze making her feel the guilt to
know she couldn’t give him what he wanted, not without his
forgiveness. She’d seen little sign of that, only more imperious
demands and ultimatums.

She wouldn’t marry him knowing he
refused to forgive her affair with Nicholas years ago, or the fact
her daughter was his child. That seemed to be the only thing he
couldn’t bring himself to do to get her to agree. They were at a
stalemate and she refused to give in. She wouldn’t be punished by
him for the rest of their lives.

She got up and left his study, feeling
his eyes boring into her back, wishing he would give up his pride
and admit it didn’t matter to him, that his feelings hadn’t
changed. He wouldn’t and she left, retreating to have the servants
pack for her and her children.

~ ~ ~

Lady Gillian Wingate arrived in London
with her maid and chaperone. She was dismayed to discover her
half-brother’s house deserted when they arrived. The solicitor met
them there at the steps and let them into the luxurious
townhouse.

The man was apologetic of no staff
being there to ready the house, but with her brother’s recent
death, there was little time. He said a staff of servants would
arrive in due order and the two women were shown inside. The
solicitor looked like he was hiding on the stoop to keep from being
seen from the street, looking mortified when she invited him in. He
left in all haste.

Gillian swallowed hard as she entered
her half-brother’s residence, disgusted by feeling a faint feeling
of fear even though she knew him to be dead. Francis couldn’t hurt
her now, as he had Eunice all those years before they were sent
away.

She had little choice but to come to
London now, as Lady Atwell and her husband were now her guardians.
She was rather miffed to find she wasn’t welcome to stay with them,
but expected to stay here.

Lady Atwell was rather vague in her
letter. She was suspicious when they arrived and the house wasn’t
ready for them. Her maid Imogene and she were forced to lug their
trunks up the winding mahogany staircase unaided. Between them,
they managed it.

Gillian sighed once Imogene was
unpacking her belongings and putting them away in the bureau and
armoire in a room she declared suitable for her mistress. She took
the opportunity to inspect her new home.

She gazed at the richness of Francis’s
home with disdain. While he clearly had few qualms of paying for
his own indulgences these many years since he had inherited his
father’s title, he saw to little of her and Eunice’s
needs.

She stilled when she thought of her
sister. She’d not seen her since she wed Phillip years before and
was saddened she returned none of her letters. Perhaps Eunice
wanted to forget the past now that she was married? She was
saddened her sister drifted away, but she understood.

Her sister took the brunt of Francis’s
perversions and withdrew quite into herself during their childhood.
When their father died, her mother sent them away to live at a
convent school rather than allow them to live with her stepson,
knowing what he’d done to Eunice.

Eunice protected her from Francis. She
was guilt-ridden and forever grateful. Their mother died some years
later. They had always feared he would force them to return but he
hadn’t enforced his rights as their guardian.

When Eunice was eighteen, Francis
married her to Lord Dartmouth, an impoverished Earl. They were
married less than a year when the letters stopped. Gillian was sad
but she realized she’d become nothing but a reminder to her older
sister of the abuse she endured at Francis’s hands. She respected
her desire for privacy now, imagining her sister’s life to be
glorious as the Countess of Dartmouth, her life full with children
by now.

Gillian was forgotten by her
half-brother Francis, much to her relief. She’d always feared he
would marry her off as he had Eunice. She walked around the
residence and had to admit Francis spared little expense for his
own comforts.

She was still mystified why she was
ordered to London. Lady Atwell said little of anything in her
letter. She knew she would meet her guardian with Francis’s
solicitor on the morrow, but in the meantime, she was tired from
their long journey from the convent.

Gillian found the kitchens and made her
own tea. The servants would arrive on the morrow. Lady Atwell
arrived then to inform her of what was expected of her. She faced
the future with trepidation. She had just turned twenty.

It would be a year before she was of
legal age to make her own decisions. She dare not create any enmity
with her cousin’s wife until then or they had the means to make her
life miserable. She had the vaguest recollection of Lady Atwell and
her husband, remembering them from Eunice’s wedding.

She couldn’t remember whether they were
kind or not, for she’d been shipped back to the convent the day
after her sister’s wedding to Lord Dartmouth.

Her blue-green eyes filled with
loneliness to realize her cloistered life allowed for few friends.
The nuns were strict. She pretended to be meek, if only for their
benefit. Gillian was as temperamental as her bright, titian-red
hair implied and tried to be all the things Eunice was, but failed
miserably.

She was excited to leave what she
considered her prison, but was unhappy to find strangers now in
charge of her destiny with Francis dead. She wasn’t even privy to
how her brother died and the mystery surrounding his death
perplexed her.

When the water boiled upon the stove,
she made both herself and her maid a pot of tea and withdrew to her
room, in time to see Imogene finishing putting away her meager
belongings. All she and Imogene owned fit in the one
trunk.

Her brother was a Duke. Anyone would
have thought them paupers by the few luxuries she had in her
possession. Francis was bitter to be denied abusing his
half-sisters by his stepmother. His displeasure was felt over the
years. He grudgingly doled out as little as possible towards their
care.

Gillian knew from Eunice her dowry was
a generous one, what made Dartmouth offer for her in the first
place. She hoped to find her sister now that she was in London.
Perhaps Eunice could shed some light upon the mystery of their
brother’s death at last.

She viewed the morrow’s interview with
Lady Atwell with trepidation. Imogene left her to find if anything
remained in the kitchens for them to eat. She was disgusted they
hadn’t even any money to buy staples now that they arrived and
found her stomach growling as the maid investigated the
kitchens.

Gillian sighed, for going to bed hungry
was the least of her problems. She had the oddest notion she
wouldn’t be pleased with what she would learn at the interview
scheduled for midday.

Gabriel learned from Tieghan that
Catherine was safe and comfortable at home. He tried to fight the
urge to go after her, tell her what she wanted to hear. He
couldn’t. The pain of knowing her and Nicholas had a relationship
prior to her disappearance cut him too deeply.

He wished he could forgive it. It
wasn’t in him to do so. He was angry and wounded. All these years
he pined for her, blamed his friend for taking advantage of her.
Now he learned they played him falsely from the start.

Still, he would have married the mother
of his child. He still would. She demanded he forgive her first.
She wouldn’t live with his silence on the matter. After all he’d
been through to have her; he couldn’t say those words now. His
pride was such that he couldn’t capitulate on the past anymore,
even for her.

Catherine meant to leave him. The
thought of her following through on it made him toss and turn in
bed at night. He cursed her for doing this to him, rather wished
she would have taken such knowledge to the grave. She wouldn’t live
a lie anymore. While he understood her feelings; he couldn’t
either.

He would be lying to say he was pleased
to know he was never really first in her heart, maybe in the
beginning, but she’d clearly felt something for Nicholas too. That
put a whole new spin on it for him. His pride at being cuckolded by
them both kept him from taking what he always wanted
now.

No, he wanted her to atone for it. She
would not. Not one apology passed her lips over betraying him. She
didn’t regret it and wouldn’t lie and say she did. Maybe she was
comfortable loving two men, but he wasn’t comfortable knowing
it.

He wouldn’t see her again until the day
before her departure, when she arrived to spend time with their
child. His solicitor, Mr. Hines, arrived with a draft of his
betrothal agreement to Lady Gillian Wingate earlier.

Gabriel was mildly depressed when he
signed it, knowing to give it more thought than he had, would be
disastrous to his present state of mind. Signing it made the
decision to let Catherine go all the more final.

Gabriel had as little choice in this as
Lady Gillian. He told himself it was very much a business
arrangement and nothing more. He would be a very rich man if he wed
Rudd’s sister, but felt only disgust when he thought of
it.