sent a rider to intercept him with an invitation to the ball. He’s traveling in stages so he can arrive in time. I ought to speak with your father, of course. But I’m not patient enough to wait for correspondence from India.”
She fell away from him, frowning. “You did all this without asking me first?”
Gabe was so taken aback, so unprepared for her displeasure, he needed time to search for words. “I planned it as a surprise. A happy one, I thought. If we marry—”
“When we marry.”
He wreathed his arms about her waist and drew her close. “When we marry, I insist on doing it in the proper fashion, with your family’s blessing. A lengthy engagement, a grand wedding.”
“I don’t need a grand wedding.”
“I need you to have one. I’m the Duke of Ruin. If we rush to the altar in a slapdash manner, everyone will believe I compromised you in an effort to steal your dowry. Or even to purposely bring your family low and drag an aristocrat’s title through the gutters where I was born. We’ll never avoid rumor entirely, but speaking with your brother before announcing a betrothal is the least I can do.”
She touched a hand to her temple. “I understand that you had good motives. I just wish you’d warned me.”
“I didn’t want you to worry. I’ve taken care of everything.”
“I won’t do this. I cannot do this.” The dance card shook in her white-knuckled grip. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me. Because right now, it feels like you’re making excuses. Hiding yourself again. Or perhaps hiding me.” A sick feeling came over him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re ashamed.”
“No. Never. How could you think such a thing?”
“I’m good enough to fuck in an alleyway, but you don’t want to be seen with me in public. Much less introduce me to your family. Is that it?” He took the dance card and held it before her face. “This is important. Unless people see that you have alternatives, they’ll never believe you wanted me.”
I won’t believe you wanted me.
Gabe needed to be certain that she didn’t see him as an escape—an easy way to avoid her rightful place in society. Or worse yet, as a last resort. She had options, and she deserved to know that before throwing them all away on him.
“Curse you, Gabriel. You are astonishingly self-absorbed.” She dashed away a tear with an impatient swipe of her wrist. “I know it must be difficult to imagine, but sometimes I do have a thought or feeling that isn’t about you.”
“Then share it with me.”
“I’ve never shared it with anyone. And even though I want to, I—” Her voice broke. She looked away, eyes red and welling with tears. “It’s not that easy.”
Gabe passed a hand over his face. She was right. He was being a self-absorbed jackass.
He drew a deep, slow breath, easing out from under the instinctive, defensive anger that had become as natural to him as breathing. In the past, that fire had kept him warm at night when the ground frosted beneath his bare feet. It had filled his belly when he hadn’t eaten so much as a crust in days. It was the force that kept him pushing forward, struggling against the full weight of a world designed to hold him back.
That anger had been his companion when he didn’t have a friend in the world.
But he wasn’t alone anymore.
With Penny in his life, everything was different. He had to be different. If she was in danger, she was his to guard. If she was hurting, she was his to protect.
He drew her close, murmuring clumsy apologies in her ear. Taking her by the shoulders, he guided her to a divan, where they settled side by side.
“Tell me.”
Tell me, he said.
Penny’s heart clenched like a fist. Did she dare? Unburdening herself of those memories meant unpacking them from their strongbox, dragging their ugliness into the light. She’d avoided it for so long, hoping that someday the time would feel right to confide in someone.
Now she understood that the time would never feel right. There could be no feeling right about things that were so very wrong. No, there would never be a right time to share the memories. But there could be a right person to tell.
And the right person was here, holding her in his arms.
“When I was a girl, my father had a friend. Mr. Lambert.” The name tasted foul on her lips, so she rushed on. “At the end of each summer, he came to visit. He and Father would go hunting, shooting. The usual autumn sport, you know.”
He nodded, waiting for her to go on.
“And ever since I was a young girl, he’d … Well, he’d always made a favorite of me.”
Penny could see it now, looking back, how early he’d started gaining her trust. Whenever he visited, he brought her lavish presents and demanded only a kiss in return. He’d given her attention at times when she felt overlooked, left out of Bradford and Timothy’s games. The year she was learning her letters, he would pat his knee in invitation and she would go run to sit on his lap. Come, poppet. Show me how well you read.
And when he held her a bit tighter than she would have liked, or placed his hand beneath her skirt to stroke her leg, Penny didn’t complain. She adored him.
“I looked forward to his visits more than I looked forward to my birthday, or Christmas. He always made me feel special.”
Gabriel quietly took her hand in his.
“He passed me sweetmeats beneath the table, when Mother would have said no. He read to me from books of frightening tales that my nursemaid would never allow. But the treats had to be our secret, he said. I mustn’t tell a soul, or my parents would be quite cross.”
Penny became very good at keeping secrets.
It was the autumn she’d just turned ten when he began to touch her.
“The weather was miserable that year. The rain made sporting impossible most days. While everyone else was reading or doing needlework, Mr. Lambert proposed a new secret. Dancing lessons.”
They met in the great hall on dark, rainy afternoons. Just the two of them. He showed her how a gentleman would bow to her, kiss her hand. Most important, she must carry herself as a lady. He showed her how to hold her body straight and corrected her posture with his hands. At first, he merely skimmed a touch down her body, from shoulders to hips. But then it grew worse. And worse. Gentlemen touched ladies in such a manner, he said.
Looking back, his ploy was so obvious. Like any girl of her age, Penny had been eager to grow up, chafing at her parents’ restrictions. Lambert knew it,
