Gaby suppressed a snort of unladylike amusement as George puffed out his own not-very-impressive chest. ‘I do not think that gentlemen should reveal so much flesh, do you, Aunt?’

  ‘Certainly not. You may appear the most magnificent pasha while remaining decently clad, George.’ He subsided sulkily. ‘Naturally I have procured an invitation for you, Gabrielle. You can partner George. I will co-ordinate the costumes.’

  ‘It is most thoughtful of you, Aunt, but if Gray is attending then I would not want to appear to be the partner of another gentleman.’

  ‘If he is there. I have scarcely seen him and he hardly seems very attentive, given that the pair of you maintain you have an attachment.’

  ‘We do have an attachment, as you put it, Aunt. And surely George will attend with Miss Henderson?’

  ‘Blasted poet,’ George muttered. ‘Long-haired prancing ninny.’

  ‘Language, George. The ungrateful chit has got herself betrothed to Lucian Fairweather. You must have seen him—blond curls worn too long, a languishing manner, a perfect profile—of which he is well aware—and far too much money for his own good.’

  ‘Which he spends on calfskin editions of his blo—confounded poems,’ George snapped. ‘He certainly does not need her dowry.’

  ‘I am so sorry, George,’ Gaby said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep her expression suitably serious. ‘I do hope your affections were not deeply engaged.’

  ‘She was never the right bride for him,’ her aunt said when George glowered sulkily. ‘If only you were not involved with Gray, my dear.’

  Well, that is frank speaking at last!

  ‘I thought you were fond of your godson?’

  ‘I am, of course I am. But—’ Aunt Henrietta fixed an expression of deep concern on her face. ‘There is no getting around the fact that he would be a most unsatisfactory husband, fond as I am of him. His poor wife.’ She sighed.

  ‘I know all about Portia.’

  ‘You do? But he never speaks of her.’

  ‘I am his betrothed,’ Gaby pointed out.

  ‘Oh. And he has been single again for so long—he is a terrible rake, you know.’

  ‘I have seen nothing of such behaviour.’

  Except that a man does not learn to kiss, to make love, like that from having one unsympathetic wife and a lot of book study. Not that I have to worry about his habits for much longer...

  ‘Naturally a maiden lady would not know about it and he is intelligent enough to pull the wool over your eyes.’

  Gaby ran a range of retorts over in her mind. Poppycock seemed the most restrained. ‘I am not a virgin and I have been his lover’ was the frankest and most likely to send Aunt into strong hysterics. It had best be poppycock.

  ‘Lord Leybourne, my lady,’ the butler announced before she could say anything.

  ‘Good afternoon, Godmama. George. Gabrielle, my love. I thought you might be here.’

  My love. She smiled up as him as he bent over and dropped a kiss on her cheek. She only had to move her head a trifle and his lips would meet hers. Gabrielle stayed quite still and breathed in the heady scent of lemon verbena, starched linen and warm Gray.

  ‘Love you,’ he murmured.

  ‘No,’ she whispered back. ‘Stop play-acting.’ He had moved so that his back was to the others, giving them a moment of precarious privacy.

  Don’t do this to me, not when I have to face people.

  Gray straightened, his eyes still intent on hers with a message she could not read. Dared not read. Warning to maintain the pretence or a plea for belief?

  ‘No, you do not,’ she said again.

  Please don’t love me. Please don’t make this any harder.

  Did he think that a declaration of love was all it would take to change her mind, make her surrender?

  ‘I wish you could trust me,’ Gray said, his smile quite gone. Then he turned. ‘Thank you, no, Godmama, I am not in need of a cup of tea. I have been looking for Gabrielle to see if she has a card for Lady Terrington’s ball.’

  ‘Aunt has kindly procured one for me. Will you be attending also, Gray?’

  ‘Of course. My valet is assembling my costume even as we speak, which is why I have hastened round to ensure that we are in harmony, Gabrielle.’

  ‘How do you know the theme?’ Aunt Henrietta demanded indignantly.

  ‘As soon as Tompkins discovered that it was the prestige event for this time of year he set about identifying sources in the Terrington household. A good valet is about more than well-polished boots.’

  ‘What are you going as?’ Gaby asked before George, who was scowling at his own Hessians, could speak.

  ‘One of the sultan’s Varangian guards. I thought perhaps you could be a lady from the harem.’

  ‘The harem? Most unsuitable,’ Aunt protested.

  ‘The harem is the women’s quarters within a household,’ Gray said with more patience than Gaby was feeling. ‘It implies no impropriety, rather the opposite, in fact, Godmama.’ He ignored her disbelieving snort and turned back to Gaby. ‘A friend of mine was in the diplomatic mission to Constantinople a few years ago and brought back a number of garments and trinkets for his wife and daughters. I called on him earlier and they are very happy to lend you the makings of an outfit, Gabrielle, if you go round to see them.’

  ‘How kind. When would it be convenient to call, do you think?’ Say now.

  ‘Now,’ Gray said obligingly. ‘If that would suit.’

  ‘But I was going to dress you, Gabrielle,’ her aunt interjected. ‘I want to make certain that your costume is perfectly proper.’

  ‘It is very kind of you, Aunt. But if these ladies have the genuine costumes it would save you both time and cost and I would not want to put you to any inconvenience or expense for the world.’

  They escaped eventually, out into a faint drizzle that dampened the air and made the pavement shine with wetness. ‘The fine weather has gone. Autumn is well and truly here,’ Gray said as he helped her into the vehicle waiting at the kerb. ‘It is a good thing that Godmama has not realised it is raining or she’d never let you go off in something so scandalous as a closed carriage.’

  ‘She was trying to convince me that you are a hopeless rake. George’s little romance, the one with the promising dowry attached, has evaporated. Miss Henderson has fixed her heart on a wealthy poet.’ Gaby tried to breathe evenly as Gray settled beside her and reached up to rap on the roof. She could not, must not, let him affect her so. It was over, however much he might call her his love.

  ‘I take it you are not tempted by George’s few charms?’

  ‘No. My affections are fixed on an utterly impossible rakehell earl,’ Gaby said as lightly as she could. Let him think she was teasing, she thought in the split second before she was in his arms and being comprehensively, deliciously, kissed.

  ‘We must not, you know we must not.’ She gasped the moment he set her free. They were both breathing hard, she realised, both of them leaning back against the squabs side by side. Only their fingers touched. It felt like their entire bodies.

  ‘I am not made of stone,’ Gray said. ‘Nor, I’ll have you know, am I a rakehell.’

  ‘I know you are not. I’m not made of stone either.’

  His hand opened and curled around hers, strong and sure—and as powerless as she was in the face of circumstance. ‘Wishing it was otherwise will not help and I am not Alexander the Great, or any other hero of antiquity, to solve this conundrum.’

  ‘Not all puzzles have a solution,’ Gaby said. ‘And this is not one you can slash through with an axe, not without causing endless damage.’

  ‘This ball will be magical, a fantasy out of time, out of place. We will dance every dance, cause a scandal, have a memory to hold. You can be so alarmed at the scandal in the cold light of day that you can use it as an excuse for Godmama when you break off the engagement and go back to Portugal.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Yes to the alarm or yes to the dances?’

  ‘To the dances, of course. But perhaps not every one—you have to live in London after I have gone, after all. Just the waltzes, don’t you think? That would be shocking enough. But how is your little boy? I would have asked at once, but I did not think you would want to hear Aunt’s opinions on childrearing in general, the treatment of head injuries or all the things you are undoubtedly doing wrong because of not taking her advice earlier.’

  ‘He is doing even better than he was when I wrote to thank you for your note and the toys you sent for the children. Jamie is flourishing, the doctors are all in agreement that he is perfectly well, although he may never recall the hours leading up to the accident. Joanna is happy now her twin is no longer sick and Mama is completely ignoring my pleas for her to rest and is cutting a swathe through every fashionable establishment in London, every art exhibition and all the intellectual salons to which her contacts can give her the entrée. She says she feels ten years younger and I live in dread of some silver-haired charmer marrying her out of hand.’

  ‘I am so glad.’ She dared do no more than squeeze his hand. ‘You must have been frantic with worry.’

  ‘When he opened his eyes and said, “Papa, what are you doing here?” I thought I would never ask for anything else, ever again, the relief was so great. I’m an ungrateful devil still to yearn after something I cannot have.’

  ‘Gray, I—’

  ‘Gabrielle, you do not have to apologise. Never that. It is exactly the same as it would be for me if someone told me that on marriage I lost total control of Winfell, of all the estates, of my seat in the House of Lords, that everything would become the possession of my wife. It would not matter how much I loved her, I would be losing total control of something that was at the core of who I was, why I was. There are very few women, other than monarchs, who face what you face in terms of what they surrender on marriage.’

  ‘You are too understanding,’ she said, piqued. ‘Could you not rant and rave a little?’

  He became very still and suddenly she was aware of how big he was, how powerful. ‘You think me understanding? You think that simply because I have enough intelligence to see what the problem is for you and sufficient empathy to sympathise, that I feel civilised about this? Resigned, perhaps?’

  She had propped her umbrella against the seat between them. Gray picked it up in both hands and bent it—metal struts, strong malacca handle—until it snapped. ‘I want to break things, hit things,’ he said through clenched teeth and hurled the limp, ruined thing on to the seat in front of them to lie like a broken bird.

  Gaby gasped and he turned on the seat to face her. No, he is not feeling civilised. Not resigned.

  ‘I could smash this carriage,’ Gray said in that dangerous voice. ‘I could swear and I could rant and, my God, I could rave. I could have you sobbing, terrified, distressed.’ He leaned forward sharply so his face was too close to hers for Gaby to focus. ‘Is that what you want? Is that what it would take for you to believe that I care? Is that what it would take for you to trust what I say?’

  Gaby shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘No, she says. What about this?’ Gray’s hands closed on her shoulders.

  The kiss was hard and dangerous. There was anger that made her tremble, even as she kissed him back as fiercely. She should have been afraid, but there was despair there, tenderness there, an emotion that made his hands shake with something that was not rage.

  He let her go at last and she fell back, hating herself for stripping that control from him.

  ‘Anger breaks things,’ he said after a while, into silence that had grown thick with unspoken words, feelings. ‘It does not bend them to our will.’

  ‘Only this will not bend, only break, whatever we do,’ she said sadly.

  ‘We have arrived. I will take you in and introduce you to the Gibsons and send the carriage round to the mews to take you home when you have finished. I will buy you a new umbrella.’

  And a new heart?

  The carriage halted. Gaby straightened her hat, ordered her breathing into submission and found a social smile.

  Gray, it seemed, had been doing much the same. ‘I look forward to meeting my exotic lady of the harem,’ he said lightly as he helped her out.

  ‘And I my valiant guard,’ she returned in the same tone. It was that or burst into tears.

  Gray lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Who would die for you, my lady.’ He was not smiling.

  * * *

  ‘I am not at all certain that is decent.’ Aunt Henrietta, who was draped in enough silk brocade to upholster an entire suite of furniture in the Prince Regent’s Carlton House, studied Gaby’s costume with apparent alarm.

  ‘Nothing is actually transparent, Aunt.’ She had shed her evening cloak into the hands of a maid in the ladies’ retiring room and Lady Orford was seeing the ensemble for the first time.

  It had taken over a week, and the work of Gaby’s favourite modiste to convert the diaphanous silks and gauzes Mrs Gibson and her daughters had pressed on her into something that looked authentic without being utterly scandalous and without damaging the original garments.

  ‘Yes, but it looks as though it ought to be. And it clings.’

  Gaby was rather enjoying having a bosom that merited the name rather than the modest curves that the fashions of the day revealed. The tight little bodice lifted and compressed and presented every inch to maximum advantage and contrasted with the filmy layers of silken skirts that flirted around her ankles—her bare ankles above frivolous little sandals with bells on them.

  ‘I do have a veil,’ she offered.

  ‘Ha! That little scrap? All it does is dangle across the lower part of your face from ear to ear and blow about in the breeze, just like that apology for a head covering does.’

  ‘All the ladies will be similarly dressed, Aunt. And besides, everyone is staring at the footmen and their chests.’

  Her aunt gave a muted shriek, but Gaby was not surprised that she stopped protesting and led the way out. The footmen’s costumes—fortunately for the poor men’s blushes—were not as racy as they had sounded. The edges of the waistcoats were caught together in the front so that no—whisper it—nipples were on show, much as giggling young ladies might crane their necks. However, a fine array of muscular arms and broad shoulders were revealed and the baggy trousers tucked into soft kid boots were undoubtedly dashing.

  But not as dashing as the apparition who appeared in front of her. ‘My lady, I am sent to protect you.’

  Oh, yes. It was Gray, his hair allowed to go its own way, only restrained by a narrow leather band around his brow. He had apparently not shaved the day before and dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and chin. A leather jerkin with short sleeves covered his torso and upper arms—more or less—and he wore leather breeches with high boots. There was a curved sword in his belt and a predatory smile that turned her knees to jelly.

  Who is going to protect me from you? she wondered, ignoring Aunt Henrietta’s gasp of outrage.

  ‘Thank you, Sir Knight.’ She left, her hand on his arm, without a glance behind. This was an evening for magic, an evening of fantasy that would have to stand for all the reality she could not have and could only dream of when duty and responsibility and the satisfaction of creating liquid enchantment from grapes failed to keep the regrets at bay.

  They missed the first dance by walking around admiring some costumes, laughing discreetly at others—the number of fat pashas was incredible, only matched by the number of ladies who should never have attempted filmy silk veiling.

  ‘It was no exaggeration to say that Lady Terrington creates a fairyland,’ Gaby said. Her half veil might be a total failure at concealing her identity, but it gave her the courage to ignore the curious and speculative looks they were attracting. Exquisite shades of pierced metal covered the lights throwing patterns of stars and crescents across the walls and ceiling. The colours were rich and strong, the draperies concealing and revealing alcoves and little set pieces of a fountain, or a statue half-covered in green climbers, a couch with bowls of fruit set around it, a pool with golden fish flickering in the limpid depths.

  ‘The first set is over, the next is waltzes,’ Gray said. ‘Mine, I believe.’

  ‘As you are frightening away any man who approaches me to ask for a dance, I have no choice,’ Gaby said, mock severely.

  Gray frowned at her, an impressive sight with his dark shadow of beard and his primitive clothing. ‘No, you have no choice.’ His voice was a growl and she surrendered easily as he led her out on to the floor.

  They had never danced together before and beginning with a waltz was disturbingly like being in Gray’s arms and making love. There was only flimsy silk between her and the bare skin of his forearms and nothing between her lips and the notch at the base of his throat, exposed by the slashed neckline of his leather shirt. If she leaned forward just a little, she could kiss him there. He smelled of male, her male. Mine.

  Nor were the rhythms of the dance any help in maintaining her composure. She knew the basics and had a good musical sense, so she could manage the steps even though the waltz was not much danced in the company she kept in Portugal. But Gray was obviously an experienced dancer and her head whirled as he spun her round, the rise and swooping fall of the dance creating a dizzying sensuality that swept through her until it was all she could do to stop herself moving closer, pressing her lips to that tempting area of skin.

  Chapter Twenty

  When the music stopped and the dancers all finally swept to a halt Gaby had to hold on to Gray’s forearms to steady herself. ‘I need to sit down.’

  ‘Dizzy?’ Gray took her from the floor and into an alcove where they could watch the guests making ready for the next dance in the set.

  ‘We have never danced before and it was rather overwhelming. I wanted to kiss your throat,’ she whispered. ‘That is a very provoking costume.’