Ann Lethbridge - The Regency Season - Passionate Promises - The Duke's Daring Debutante / Return of the Prodigal Gilvry

As they reached the bottom step, both men stepped forward, Gabe to take Nicky’s arm, his eyes awash with his love as he gazed at his wife, and Freddy to present her with a small posy in a silver holder. The flowers matched those in her hair, but these were real. She took the offering with a curtsey. ‘Thank you. How clever of you to find exactly the right shade.’

An expression flashed across his face and if it hadn’t been impossible she might have thought he was pleased. ‘Lady Mooreshead offered her aid.’

Disappointment flickered to life. No doubt Nicky had arranged the whole thing. ‘Thank you, Nicky.’

Her sister gave her an odd look. ‘I merely informed His Grace of the colour. No more.’

Gabe was frowning at them as if he sensed something wrong. Minette brought the posy to her nose. ‘They are perfect.’

Freddy leaned forward and kissed her cheek, a brief hot brush of his lips across her skin. ‘You are welcome,’ he said silkily.

As she met his blue-black gaze she had the impression of heat flaring in their depths. An act for the benefit of others? Or something more?

Coolly, deliberately, he set her away. ‘I believe it is time we left.’

* * *

As the carriage rocked through the night, Freddy relaxed against the squabs and contemplated the woman he was to marry. Lovely. Beautiful. The words didn’t do justice to the vision he’d witnessed walking down the stairs of Gabe’s townhouse. Freddy didn’t have the words to express what he had felt inside him. She was, of course, both of those things, but she was so much more. Warmth. Light. Joy. And there was also darkness. A shadow that lingered around her as if waiting to blanket her inner glow.

If only she would trust him enough to tell him what caused those shadows. To let him help overcome her dragons. But then again, he didn’t have the right to her trust. They might be getting married, but they would never be a husband and a wife in the truest sense.

It was his cross to bear.

How he had managed to hide the jolt of lightning that had coursed through his blood the moment his lips had touched her silky skin, he wasn’t sure. He was still reeling from the effects of their other physical contacts. His body wanted her. Hungered for her. And now she was his. Or would be soon.

He didn’t deserve her. In the years since he had been Gabe’s apprentice, he’d washed his hands in so much blood he’d become insensitive to death and destruction. He’d become a tool for the use of his country. Of Sceptre in particular. Weeding out spies and traitors without fear or favour. It was his role. His purpose. He needed it or he’d be nothing.

And now he was to be a husband to a young woman who, while stubborn and reckless, had always seemed to embody what was right and good with the world. The world of youthful hope for the future. A world in which he’d never belonged. She’d always looked at him in a way that made him think she could see right into his darkness. His unworthiness. No wonder she talked of crying off as soon as the dust settled. A kiss in the dark with a dangerous man in the hope of bending him to her will was one thing, but marriage to such a man was a very different matter.

It was too late for second thoughts.

Honour required that he offer marriage. Honour required that he see it through no matter what. At least he had that much honour left.

The glow of the streetlights flickered across her face, her expression changing with each pass of the light so that it was like watching a disjointed progression of thoughts. Thoughts he could only guess at.

His task was clear. He had to make her want to marry him. Use her passionate nature against her reason. Woo her. Blind her to his faults. Once they were wed, she could do as she pleased.

He realised his hands had curled into tight fists. Anger. Frustration. Regret. So much emotion, when he usually experienced none. Minette made him feel too much. And feelings hurt. He relaxed his hands, glad of the deep shadows inside the carriage.

‘How on earth did you manage to extract an invitation from Lady Craddock?’ Nicky asked her husband. ‘I know she didn’t plan to invite us, because the invitations went out weeks ago and we didn’t receive one.’

‘Craddock belongs to my club,’ Gabe said. His teeth flashed white with a smile. ‘I put him in the way of a good investment.’

‘I wager Lady Craddock was none too pleased,’ Freddy said. The Craddocks, like Sparshott, were part of his mother’s clique. They and their high-stickler friends saw themselves as the most important in the land because their roots went far back in the annals of England. Above even the royal house of Hanover, which had thrown its full support behind Mooreshead on the occasion of his marriage to a woman who could have been considered an enemy.

‘Let us hope she is too well bred to show her displeasure,’ Gabe said, and there was something dangerously protective in his tone. He’d proved before he wouldn’t tolerate any insult to his wife. A word in the right quarters could be very damaging to even the wealthiest family, when power was their preferred form of currency.

‘Dommage,’ Minette said. ‘We will dance and talk with our friends. No one will care what the stuffy Craddocks think. Indeed, they will wish they were part of our circle, if they have any sense at all.’

Nicky laughed.

Amused despite his better judgement, Freddy mentally shook his head. Spirit. That was the indefinable quality of Minette. The spirit of a goddess of war.

And that was what made her so damned dangerous.

* * *

Freddy didn’t dance. Ever. And everyone knew it.

Minette wasn’t sure if he didn’t because of his lameness, or because he didn’t want to. His leg, whatever was wrong with it, didn’t stop him from doing anything else, even if he did have a bit of a limp. She’d seen him walk across the deck of a pitching ship without losing his balance or stumbling. She’d seen him play cricket on the lawns at Meak the first summer she’d arrived in England. Then he’d stopped visiting.

He worked for Sceptre, a secret organisation that carried on the war with Napoleon in the dark world of espionage. She wasn’t supposed to know about it, but she’d been there the day Nicky and Gabe had been carted off to appear before the head of the organisation. To Nicky’s everlasting gratitude, Gabe had been relieved from active duty. Freddy continued to serve. No one said he did, but there could be no other explanation for why he had disappeared from their lives.

And neither Nicky nor Gabe had ever commented on his absence. It had been as if they had forgotten he existed. Until she’d gone to find him and they’d ended up engaged to be married. She still didn’t quite believe she was betrothed. In some ways it was a dream come true. He was a handsome, if aloof, man to whom she had been instantly attracted. Had he shown interest all those years before, she would have been tempted.

Tonight, he had encouraged her to dance every dance with any young man who asked, including Granby, who seemed to have recovered from his funk. She was dancing with him now, while her gaze sought out a very different man. A man so cold that sometimes she thought he would chill her to the bone with a look.

The music came to a close, and Granby walked her back to Nicky, seated among the matrons and chaperones, no doubt having grown tired of standing.

‘May I fetch you some refreshment, Miss Rideau? Or you, Lady Mooreshead?’ Granby asked.

‘I would love some lemonade,’ Minette answered.

‘Not for me,’ Nicky said.

When the young man was out of hearing, Minette scanned the room. ‘Where is Freddy?’

‘He and Gabe went to the card room.’