Notorious (Rebels of the Ton #1) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,33
two women desperately wished for children, but he’d never felt right about being a father to a child he could not claim.
She disentangled herself from his arms and moved off his lap. “But what of this duel?” she asked, wiping her eyes with a scrap of lace that mysteriously appeared, before reclining against the plush velvet cushions that spilled over the settee. “It is to be swords, I hope?”
“Hmm?” he asked, hoping his vague response would communicate his unwillingness to discuss the situation.
She shook her head, her lips pursed. “Very well, I see the way it is—it is man’s business and you will not discuss it.”
Gabriel smiled.
“But at least tell me one thing.”
He raised his eyebrows, unwilling to promise an answer before he knew the question.
“Please tell me you are not going to kill him, my love.”
He chuckled and took her hands, bringing them to his lips. “You never know—I might.”
Her mouth puckered into a disapproving moue. “But then you would be forced to flee to the Continent.”
He kissed each of her knuckles. “I could live out my life as a card sharp.”
“But you do not like cards.”
“Then perhaps I might have to make my way seducing the bored wives of wealthy men and living off their largesse.”
“Mmmm, yes—a cicisbeo. Now that I can see you doing.” Her full lips curved, and she brought their linked hands to her mouth, where her tongue darted out, licking the sensitive skin between his fingers.
Gabriel’s cock sprang to life at the suggestive gesture and he groaned. “You could make a dead man hard, Giselle.”
She laughed. “Come, Gabriel, you are hardly dead—just betrothed.” She lowered their clasped hands to her lap. He drank in her voluptuous beauty, which masked a sharp intelligence and wicked imagination, before dropping his head against the plush velvet headrest of the settee, closing his eyes as the image of his wife-to-be elbowed her way into his mind.
Giselle fiddled with their joined hands, brushing the sensitive skin on the back of his hand against her silk-covered thighs in a most distracting manner. “I have not seen this Miss Drusilla Clare; is she so ill-favored? Or is it that your affections are with Miss Kittridge?”
Drusilla Clare’s intelligent gray eyes, frowning lips, and generous bosom clothed in an unflattering gown flashed into his mind.
“She is an attractive young woman,” he said, realizing he spoke the truth only after he’d uttered the words. He ignored Giselle’s second question entirely. Miss Kittridge—and whatever there might have been—was no longer a subject he cared to think about. Had he loved her? He did not believe so. But perhaps he could have grown to love her. He had certainly lusted for her—had envisioned bedding her. But that was true about many women.
“Is she stupid—this Miss Clare?” Giselle’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“No, she is very clever.” Perhaps too clever.
Giselle brushed her lips over his knuckles yet again, her hot breath making his groin ache. “And she is rich, no?”
“Yes, she is very wealthy.” Gabriel had learned only a few hours earlier just how wealthy his new wife was.
“Mon dieu, Gabriel! I would marry her myself, if she would have me.”
He laughed. “Yes, Miss Clare is attractive, intelligent, and possessed of great wealth, Giselle. It is not the lady herself I have trouble with,” he lied, hardly wanting to cast aspersions on his wife-to-be. At least not anywhere but in the privacy of his own mind. “It is the institution of marriage I was hoping to avoid.”
She made a dismissive sound. “What a fib. You’ve been considering marriage—both Maria and I have heard people talk of you and the Kitten.”
“You never mentioned it,” he said, wishing to avoid the subject.
“Not around you.”
“Ah, so that’s how it is. I’m the one who is left out in the cold. I always suspected as much.”
Her eyelids lowered and her mouth curved into a wicked smile. “Maria and I would never leave you out in the cold.”
Gabriel tried to ignore the swelling brought on by her suggestive stare. He didn’t have time for such things today, no matter how much he might need such things.
He turned the subject. “Anything you heard—about any young lady—was just idle speculation by gossips. Trust me, I had no plans to marry anytime soon.”
“You men—you are all the same, behaving as if marriage is an appointment with the gibbet. I expected more from you.”
“Lord, Giselle, you sound just like my mother.”
“I will take that as a compliment—I understand she is a remarkable woman.”