Notorious (Rebels of the Ton #1) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,60

was not waiting in the foyer.

Maria chuckled as Gabriel picked up his hat and gloves. “You’d better make haste as the young master sounds short-tempered. Where will you take him?”

Gabriel pulled on his gloves. “It seems like a nice day for an ice, don’t you think?”

Chapter 12

Drusilla had a lot of time alone to think.

First she paid a brief visit to her Aunt Vi, who was staying in the old house for a few weeks to supervise the dismantling of the household before the property was offered for sale. Drusilla had tried to convince her to move with them to the new town house, but the older woman had been adamant.

“You are a newly married couple, Drusilla; you need some time together,” her far-too-thin aunt said when Drusilla issued the invitation. “Besides, now that you have a husband to escort you, I believe I will rest for the remainder of the Season and retire early to Bath. You know Maisie has invited me to stay the summer with her and her niece. It shall be pleasant.”

Maisie was a distant cousin whom Violet had always been close to, and her niece was a girl not yet out of the schoolroom. No doubt her aunt would enjoy Bath’s more gentle entertainments, which only the young and old seemed to truly relish.

After leaving her aunt she considered paying a call on Eva, but her friend’s furious, hurt face flashed in her mind’s eye, so she left that visit for tomorrow—or maybe even the day after. Besides, she would see Eva at the Renwick ball tonight.

Thinking about the ball made her think about her clothing—a pastime she rarely engaged in. But she was no longer an unwed wallflower; she was the wife of a handsome, sought-after man. It behooved her at least not to shame him when she went out in public. A dress flashed into her head—it was a gown she knew had been made and then not been paid for. She’d seen it at Maison d’Hortense when she’d gone with Eva to pick up a new white muslin to replace a dress her friend had ruined with some food item or other.

“You should buy that,” Eva had told her when she’d noticed Drusilla eyeing it.

The gown was a deep shade of teal, an unusual blue-green silk that had made her fingers twitch to touch it. She loved colors and fine fabrics, but she tended to order more serviceable clothing. It wasn’t only her academic reservations concerning finery, but also the fact so many people had nothing—why did she need a hundred gowns that she would wear only once? And so she wore her simple gowns many times. She kept the minimum in her dressing room, giving away an old gown whenever she bought another and keeping her selection of clothing sparse. Sparse enough to drive her maid to distraction. But now . . . didn’t she have some duty to her husband? A duty to not always appear the dowd?

Oh, she was so weak; she was just lying to herself. All she wanted was to make him see her—not as an object of pity he’d needed to rescue, but as a desirable woman.

A new dress is hardly likely to do that. You will not be different—only the dress.

Drusilla did not want to become a different woman, but she wouldn’t mind looking like a more attractive one. Surely there was no sin in wanting to make the most of the gifts one had?

Perhaps the gown was still available?

* * *

Fletcher had just finished with Drusilla’s hair and was securing her small pearl drop earrings when the door to her dressing room opened and Gabriel entered. Drusilla had to pull her eyes away from his powerful body, which she had often imagined bestride some stallion charging through a desert, but which also looked every bit as natural in stark white-and-black evening clothing, his hair glowing like a banked fire.

He met her gaze in the mirror and smiled. “Good evening, Drusilla.” His eyes drifted to Fletcher, who was fiddling with something in her jewelry case.

“You may go, Fletcher. And you needn’t wait up tonight.”

The maid left without a word, her cheeks flaming.

Gabriel came to stand behind her, their gazes locked.

“This is a new gown, I think? Or at least I have not seen it before.” His expression was one of surprise and it immediately put her on the defensive—but not as much as his admission that he might have noticed what gowns she wore, which