Notorious (Rebels of the Ton #1) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,69
so, being the focus of the Kitten’s claws could not be enjoyable.
Gabriel laid a hand on her forearm. “Will you come help me select our supper, my dear?”
She flashed him a look of gratitude and anger mingled with fierce pride. But it was replaced in an instant by cool, imperturbable acceptance taking its place. “I should be pleased to.”
Gabriel took two plates from the hovering servant. “I will do the heavy lifting if you choose for us.”
“You trust me to select your food?”
“It is a weighty burden, I know. I trust you are up to the challenge?”
“You’d better behave, Mr. Marlington, or I’ll fill your plate with nothing but pilchards.”
Gabriel’s stared in mock horror. “God no—they can’t have such horrid things here, can they?” She laughed, as he was hoping she would. “Who the devil told you I loathed pilchards?” he asked, holding out both plates for lobster patties.
“Eva frightened you with one,” she said, placing two on each plate. “Several times, if I recall.”
“I take great offense at the word frighten, ma’am.”
“Oh?” She gestured to a platter of thin slices of ham, and he nodded. “And what word would you use, sir?”
“Menace, or perhaps brandish. Yes, definitely brandish.”
“One brandishes pilchards?” She was openly grinning as she put a cluster of purple grapes on each plate.
Gabriel nodded, transfixed: Lord, she was a bloody siren when she smiled.
He realized she was waiting for a response and gave her an exaggeratedly lofty look. “Yes, it is most assuredly brandishing. It is a little-known fact, but pilchards were at one time offered along with pistols and swords. Thankfully, that barbaric practice has been discontinued.”
She made a choking sound, the tongs she was holding shaking with her suppressed laughter.
Gabriel was foolishly pleased to have made such a serious woman laugh with his silliness. “Oh, please, some of those strawberries, Mrs. Marlington. Yes, that big one fits just nicely on my plate—no, no—do not try to take it for yourself.”
She laughed outright.
“I know that is what you were thinking, ma’am, and I must say I’m disappointed you would try to cheat your lord and master out of the finest bounty,” he chided.
She responded by piling a half-dozen more berries on his plate, and it was his turn to laugh. “Enough, enough—you’ve got me on my knees—I beg for mercy.”
They’d reached the end of the buffet, and she laid aside the serving fork and glanced up at him, her eyes glowing. “Hmm,” she said, her look arch. “You are not on your knees nor do you sound like you are begging, to me.”
He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Would you like to have me begging on my knees, Drusilla?”
Her cheeks blushed furiously, but she coolly retorted. “I know Miss Kittridge would. Preferably while crawling over burning coals.”
Gabriel laughed.
As he accompanied her back to their table, Gabriel felt a sense of hope for the first time since this debacle had started.
He realized that Drusilla’s dry playfulness must be one of the qualities Eva prized in his new wife. That shouldn’t have surprised him; after all, a mutual appreciation of the absurd was something that had drawn Gabriel and Eva together from the first time they’d met. It seemed Drusilla was a kindred spirit. Why was it that he’d taken so long to see this in her—her light, witty, and amusing side?
Unfortunately, her laughter had dissipated by the time they returned to the table.
The following half hour was filled with barbs so finely honed the average person would be unlikely to recognize them as such. Even so, the atmosphere at their table was underlaid with a tension even the witless Deveril and the other young couple could not fail to miss. As for Drusilla? How she kept her cool in the face of Lucy’s incessant attacks was a mystery. Gabriel soon realized Miss Kittridge was anything but a kitten. In fact, he would compare her to a tigress—one who’d been thwarted and did not relinquish her prey without a struggle.
Her behavior was not only astonishing, it was fatiguing and annoying. Just what did she hope to achieve by such a display? He was already married; making a spectacle of their prior attachment could only make Drusilla uncomfortable and embarrass him. What she ought to be doing was sitting with Visel and working her wiles on him. Which made him recall his sister.
While Lucy prodded and poked, Gabriel tried to keep an eye on the table where Eva sat with Visel and two of his cronies and