Chapter 14

Tessa released a frustrated sigh and glanced over her shoulder.

There, not five feet away, stood Gabriel, head canted as he regarded her with an inquisitive glimmer in his eyes.

To follow her instinct and chase after Julian would only spark inquisitiveness into a full-on inquisition.

Which wouldn't do.

"How are you finding your newfound position as the most popular duke in the ton, brother?" she asked. That should set him back on his heels a bit and dampen any embers of curiosity that might be tempted into conflagration.

He snorted, as she'd known he would. "Expensive."

A responding snort sounded from her. They ran one of the most exclusive gaming hells in London together; they understood precisely how expensive it was to entertain these people.

Without stating their intention, they moved to a quiet stretch of unoccupied wall and stole a few moments to assess the room and its general mood and any needs that might be arising—as they did every night at The Archangel. It was second nature. The ton, as they'd learned over the years, needed a watchful eye kept on it.

On the dancing floor, Viveca swept past in the arms of her partner, followed five seconds later by Saskia. Tessa knew without having to glance at her brother that his eyes followed, too.

"But anything for them," she said.

"Anything," he agreed.

It had been sixteen years since their parents perished within six months of one another—and sixteen years since Tessa and Gabriel had stepped into their roles of de facto parents at the ages of nine and eight, respectively. Somehow, through sheer grit, determination, fear, and audacity, they'd kept the family intact. Life in London held sharp, jagged edges at every turn and one slip was all it took to sever the tie that bound a family and send them sprawling in every direction. Even at the age of nine, Tessa had known that much.

So, they'd done anything to provide a roof over their heads and scraps of food for their table. It was a role neither she nor Gabriel had ever resented. Life had been too busy for such pettiness and instinct too strong. Anything for each other became the mantra that drove them forward. It was simply what one did for those one loved.

Anything.

Unbidden, Julian stole into the thought and she wondered if he'd ever had anyone feel thusly about him. Had anyone ever been willing to do anything for him?

From what she knew of his past, she suspected an answer she wouldn't much like.

And yet…He held himself away from any such relationship.

I don't court ladies.

What drove his desire to be utterly alone?

To be…lonely?

For that had become clear to her.

Julian was lonely.

By his choice.

Why?

"You, erm," began Gabriel. He looked suddenly out of his depth as he cast about for a way to finish the sentence he'd begun.

"What about me?" she asked. Sisters could demand such answers from brothers.

"You look…," he began again.

She supposed an additional word—a verb, no less—was progress. "I look…?"

"You look…lovely."

A sudden flare of heat blossomed through Tessa, and she knew high spots of color stained her cheekbones. "Erm," she began. "Thank you," she finished with an uncomfortable clearing of her throat.

It was the dress, she understood. Feminine and silky, it pointed out features of her body that her customary mode of dress hid. Take her skin, for example. Before tonight, no one in this room had known that she had a small pink mole on the underside of her upper arm, just above the reach of silk gloves.

Another flare of heat pulsed through her.

Well, one other person had known.

Julian.

He'd even dusted it with a feather before pressing his mouth to it.

The heat pooled deeper, low in her body, within that place she'd become all too familiar with since Julian had charged into her life and rendered it insatiable.

Unable not to, her gaze flicked across the room, her heart in her throat, though she knew she wouldn't find him.

"I saw you dancing," said Gabriel.

"Oh?" She tried for breezy—and failed.

"I didn't know you could dance."

"I couldn't until a few days ago." When Gabriel waited for more information, she continued, "I dropped by St. James's Square during Saskia and Viveca's dancing lesson one afternoon."

"Ah."

"And Mrs. Fairfax insisted I take part."

"She's a difficult person to refuse."

"Indeed." Difficult was an understatement. Impossible, more accurately fit. Tessa lifted resigned hands. "And that's how I know the waltz."

Gabriel's gaze landed on the side of her face. He had more to say, and he wanted to gauge her reaction when he spoke his next words. "With the Marquess of Ormonde."

"He asked," she said on a shrug.

Actually, he hadn't.

But Gabriel didn't need to know that.

"The two of you looked as if you'd, erm…"

And here was her ever cool, ever composed brother stumbling over his words again.

That could be no good thing.

Gabriel was as clear-minded a person as one was ever likely to meet.

Gabriel didn't stumble over his words.

Tessa kept her gaze trained directly before her, as if riveted by the twirling pairs of couples gliding past.

"Well," Gabriel continued, as if seeing no way forward but through, "it looked as if you'd waltzed before."

Oh, the snort that wanted release.

It looked as if you'd waltzed before.

That was certainly one way of putting it.

If Gabriel only knew.

Which he wouldn't.

Not ever.

She turned to tell her brother to mind his own affairs, but the scold went stodgy in her mouth. Gabriel was no longer looking at her, but at the dancing floor, his eyebrows digging deep trenches into his forehead.

An alarm bell clanged through Tessa. "Is it Saskia?"

She wouldn't put it past that sister to call a lordling a nodcock for his vacuous stupidity in the middle of the dancing floor and incite a minor scandal.

When Gabriel didn't answer, she asked more urgently, "Is it Viveca?"

She wouldn't put it past their other sister to do the same, except that vacuous lordling likely wouldn't know it until he was lying in bed later.

And here she'd thought Saskia and Viveca's introduction into society was an unmitigated success. In fact, she expected dozens of invitations to society gatherings to flood into the St. James's mansion by dawn, with a few proposals of marriage thrown in, too.

No. That didn't explain the scowl on Gabriel's face.

She followed the direction of his thunderous gaze, and now it was her brow furrowing. Her brother was tracking a single couple around the dancing floor.

That young whelp, the Earl of Wrexford, and…the Duchess of Acaster.

"A surprising couple, to say the least," she said, delicately testing the temperature of the water.

"It's simply a dance, Tessa."

The words and their tone were dismissive, caustic even, but the glare in Gabriel's eyes revealed they were a lie. Her brother was feeling anything but dismissive of Wrexford and the duchess as a couple.

"Someone should tell Wrexford as much," said Tessa, unable to resist poking her brother.

Gabriel's jaw clenched. Recent experience had taught Tessa that only a woman could provoke such a reaction in a man.

And she had her answer without even having asked a question.

The Duchess of Acaster was that woman for Gabriel.

Interesting.

Of a sudden, Wrexford pulled the duchess to a stop in the center of the dancing floor and fell to one knee. Foreboding traced through Tessa. Beside her, Gabriel went still—too still. She wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"I cannot live another day without you," Wrexford all but shouted to the rafters as if he were both proposing marriage and performing on a Drury Lane stage. "Will you…Will you consent to be my bride?"

A shocked breath of a laugh escaped Tessa. Gabriel, however, reacted not at all, his eyes trained on the duchess. He was clearly willing an answer from her.

Tessa's sense of foreboding went from a trace to a solid object. She suspected the answer her brother willed from the duchess, but she wasn't sure that was the answer the duchess would give.

"Yes," said the duchess, ghostly pale, the answer emerging breathy and unaccompanied by a smile. To Tessa's eye, the woman looked as if she'd just signed her own death warrant.

A strangled sound emerged from Gabriel's throat.

That a goddess like the Duchess of Acaster would join her life to a man like Wrexford—not that he was a bad man—defied belief. But then, he was an earl and a future marquess and exceedingly wealthy, and she was a beauty and penniless from what Tessa had pieced together and in possession of a brain in that beautiful head of hers.

Tessa supposed the logic of her acceptance only followed.

Except to Gabriel, it seemed, as a battalion of emotions marched behind his eyes. He appeared to be having trouble working out the solution that was all too clear to Tessa.

"Gabriel," she said, laying a hand on his arm, "are you all right?"

He pivoted and blinked, as if surprised to find her standing there. He nodded slowly, as if a solution to an equation of his own was only now arriving to him. "It will be," he said, still nodding. "It will be," he repeated, each word composed of a more solid substance than the last.

And with that, he shook off her hand and crossed the room, doggedly skirting the crowd that was pressing toward the center of the room to congratulate the ton's newest and most improbable affianced couple. Then he passed through the open French doors leading onto the terrace and vanished from sight, leaving Tessa on her own and no small amount bewildered.

What in the blazes was that all about?

Actually, she suspected the answer to the what, but the answers to the when and how were as elusive as her brother.

Blasted frustrating man.

Like all men, it would seem.

And speaking of men who frustrated…

For the thousandth time tonight, she scanned the ballroom, on the lookout for the broadest pair of shoulders.

Still, Julian wasn't here.

Annoyance sparked through her.

She had unfinished business with that blasted frustrating man.

Unerringly, her feet pointed in the direction of the card room. That was, of course, where he would be—tucked away in his safe, all-male domain.

She snorted.

Well, tonight, it wasn't safe from this female.

If he thought he could simply leg it and be rid of her and her inconvenient questions, he hadn't learned a single thing about her.

At the threshold to the card room, she paused and took in the scene. Five tables arranged with different games at play, those gentlemen not engaged in play standing about and socializing. Her eye glided past the scene she beheld every night at The Archangel and found her quarry exactly where she'd expected—shoulder propped against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, idly conversing and watching.

It struck Tessa there was a reason she'd found him so easily, for this was how she usually found him at The Archangel—watching…set apart.

A hot blush threatened to stain her cheeks as another scenario presented itself in her mind where he liked to set himself apart…and watch.

As quick as she could question it, she intuited all the whys.

Why he watched…Why he set himself apart…Why he ran…

For safety.

Within those actions he sought shelter.

His gaze lifted, and the storm within his eyes, directed squarely at her, betrayed his studied indolence.

But what she didn't see within those summer-blue depths was surprise.

He'd known she would follow.

The realization set a warm frisson pulsing through her.

He did know her, after all.

And she liked it.

She wanted to be known by him.

And, perhaps, from somewhere within his solitary shelter, he wanted to be known by her.

Except he didn't know how to let himself.

Right.

Without another staying thought, she strode through the room and collected more than a few lifted eyebrows along the way. Most of these gentlemen knew her as the dragon of The Archangel, anyway. Why not burnish her reputation a bit?

As for Julian, he watched her approach with subtle wariness.

Good.

A woman on a mission, she shouldered her way through the gentlemen gathered round and planted herself squarely before the Marquess of Ormonde, golden lord of the ton. Eyebrows would have to be scraped off the ceiling come morning.

Whirring chatter and low whistles sawed through the air—a woman…in the card room!

Julian, alone, remained utterly composed.

And it was his unrelenting composure that gave him away.