Did I? No. Not exactly. Not with him. Not even with Gabe. Not with anyone. What did I want? I wanted a small cottage where I could raise Isabelle in peace. A way to earn a living without selling my body. “I want respect.”
“I can’t marry you.”
This conversation was ridiculous. “I didn’t ask.”
He pulled open a drawer. “Then it’s time for you to leave.”
I stiffened, surprised. He was tossing me out?
I had a baby to think about. I had no family. No one. Shite. I would have to beg. “Mr. McKinnon, sir, please…”
“Here.” He rounded his desk and handed me a folded piece of paper. “Pack your things, go to this woman. She’ll be able to offer you a position.”
Numb, I took the piece of paper. An address for a dress shop. “You’re….you’re helping me procure a position with a seamstress?”
He returned to his windows, his back to me. I could read nothing in his features, nor the lines of his shoulders. He was so bloody hard to understand. “Just go.”
I hesitated, confused. I hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t expected any of it. I had the strange feeling I didn’t know him at all. He had as much money as any lord or lady. He could be friends with anyone. Have just about any woman. Why did he want me? I looked around his cold, quiet study and wondered…wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was lonely. “Mr. McKinnon, I—”
“Go. I have somewhere to be.”
I felt I should say something, anything, but what? With heavy feet, I made my way toward the door. He wanted a mistress, or so he claimed, but maybe he wanted more. I paused at the door. When I turned to look at his broad back, I felt only the stirrings of compassion and gratitude. I felt no attraction. He did not challenge me as Gabe had. He did not stir my blood.
I couldn’t help him. He’d saved me, but I couldn’t give him what he wanted without destroying myself in return. I wouldn’t do that again. Not for anyone. “Thank you, Sir.”
He didn’t respond.
I turned and left.
****
Gabriel
“Smashing success, Lord Chambers.”
I bit back my sigh as I glanced at the man who had sidled up next to me, his face flushed with drink. Was his face ever not flushed from drink? “Beckett, you don’t have to call me Lord Chambers. Not when it seems as if my father is going to make a full recovery.”
Unfortunately.
I took a champagne flute from a passing tray.
“Right. Of course.” He grinned, a toothy grin. He looked like a lazy gray cat who had become some spoiled lady’s pet. “However,” he wiggled his gray brows in a thoroughly obnoxious way. “There is that courtesy title.”
Patience, Gabe, patience.
Beckett had a ship I was desperate to buy. Trade to the orient could triple my income. How I despised having to endure morons like him. But life was a never-ending game of chess for those who wished to rule.
“Heard about your engagement. Congratulations.”
I frowned. Did it seem warm? At least the windows were thrown wide, allowing a cool autumn breeze inside. “Yes, well, not everything you hear is truth.”
“I see.” His brows drew together as he tried to understand my meaning. “Well now, I did also read it in the papers.”
Fuck.
The papers? She wouldn’t have. “When?”
“Why, just last Tuesday, my lord. Did you not know?”
His dark beady eyes were much too keen. I downed my champagne and shoved the empty glass into the man’s hand. Of course she had put it in the papers. I turned to leave, in no mood to chat. “Good evening, Beckett.”
“Oh, well, yes, of course, my…”
I shoved my way through the crowds. Oppressive. Stale. The large ballroom was filled with an abundance of hothouse flowers, body sweat and cologne. I needed a moment to gather myself. But even as I slipped into the shadows along the perimeter, I could feel them watching me, their gazes burning into my back, tracking me like I was a fox and it was hunting season. Eager for gossip.
“Well played, Mother, well played,” I muttered under my breath.
Every passing face was a reminder of how much I despised the pretense. Curious gazes. Gossiping idiots. But this is what I’d wanted, right? Resisting the urge to pull at my cravat, I merged into the shadows and the perimeter of the ballroom. I’d always felt more at ease along the outskirts, looking in. But then I didn’t truly belong, did I? And no matter how hard I