Notorious (Rebels of the Ton #1) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,13

feel as if he were seven years old. And then she made it worse. She reached up and cupped his face in both hands. His mother was an exceptionally small woman and had to stand on her tiptoes.

“Oh, Jibril, how did this happen?” She asked the question in Berber, the language of his father’s people, which just went to show how upset she was. They’d not spoken Berber since their days in Oran.

“The same way this kind of thing always happens, Mother.” Gabriel answered in English, not wishing to have to repeat the entire conversation a second time for the benefit of his stepfather.

She released him and spun on her heel, marching to her husband, acres of emerald silk dressing gown billowing behind her like the wake from a very small ship.

“You must do something, Adam—say something to Visel’s family. Is he not the Duke of Tyndale’s heir?” She stopped beside the marquess’s chair and rubbed her hip against his hand, which lay on the upholstered arm.

Gabriel quickly looked away from their point of contact. His mother was an expert when it came to manipulating the seemingly unmanipulable Marquess of Exley, and no weapon was beneath her—especially not her body.

The marquess took his wife’s hand and raised it to his mouth, the lingering kiss causing Gabriel’s mother to sway closer.

Good. God.

Gabriel cleared his throat, and they both turned his way, their pupils huge, as if he’d interrupted them in some kind of drug-induced pre-rutting daze.

The marquess was the first to recover his wits. “You’d better sit, darling. Over there.” He pointed to another chair when it appeared his wife might crawl into his lap.

Gabriel’s ears became hot at the marquess’s endearment. But at least his mother sat. Exley turned to him again, his face no longer indulgent but hard and dangerous. “What happened?”

“I didn’t instigate this duel, my lord. Visel did when he molested a defenseless woman and then challenged me.” Gabriel hesitated, considering his next words. “He’s been goading me for months—almost as if he is obsessed with me.” He felt like a fool for saying that, but it didn’t make it any less true. “I have no idea why, but I have the feeling we would have met each other one way or another.”

The marquess’s eyelids dropped to half-mast. “I see.”

Lady Exley shook her head. “But, my love—”

Exley directed a deceptively mild look at Gabriel’s mother, but it was enough. She sucked in a breath and bit her lower lip. The only other person who’d been able to silence her so quickly was Gabriel’s father, the sultan. But everyone had obeyed his father, and for obvious reasons: Sultan Hassan had exercised complete and uncompromising authority over all his subjects.

Gabriel wondered what threat the marquess held over his wife? Knowing the two of them, it was probably something physical and revolting. Gabriel hastily put all thoughts of his mother and her husband and their private business from his mind.

The marquess studied him as if he were an insect on a pin. And not a prepossessing one, either. “You could have done nothing less tonight,” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

Gabriel began to smile.

“At least not once your sister and Miss Clare had been allowed to wander from the ballroom, unaccompanied.”

Gabriel’s smile died before it could reach full maturity; his stepfather was correct. If he’d been paying attention, he would have accompanied them or at least located their chaperone. He certainly should have gone searching for them far earlier.

“It is my fault, Adam,” his mother said. “I noticed Mrs. Peel looking unwell the last few times I saw her, but Cousin Rebecca needed to go to my aunt’s and could not chaperone the girls, and I, of course—” She waved a hand over her bulging midriff.

“Blame does not matter now, Mother.”

She smiled at Gabriel but the expression was sad and strained. “You are correct, Jibril. It does not matter.” His mother was the only person who still used the Arab form of Gabriel, and the sound of his once-familiar name left an ache in his chest.

Lord Exley cleared his throat. “I understand the rumor is that you were meeting Miss Clare, and Visel interrupted you?”

Gabriel had to laugh; the ton was bloody amazing. Even before they’d made it to the foyer at Abingdon House, Gabriel had heard the rumors flying.

“While we know that is not the truth, it does not signify—the truth never matters.” The marquess’s wry tone reminded Gabriel that Lord Exley knew about the power of rumors from