Regency Rogues Omnibus (9 page)

All of the gifts spoke of heady sensuality and Gabriella shivered in anticipation of wearing it all for Drummond. Only he would know that she wore no underclothing, only he would know that his diamonds circled her ankle, and only he would know that his passion pearl abraded her intimately with each movement. It was all of it, every bit of it, akin to a never before realized dream come alive and now that she knew the reality of the dream, she would have wished for it her entire life.

“I did wish for it,” she murmured, spreading her fingers over the black velvet material. “Only, I never realized just how much I missed by the betrayal.”

That was what she always called it in her mind, ‘the betrayal,’ her father’s and her husband’s. However, it had been so many years ago, and she had tried so hard to forget . . . and forgive, even believing that she had done so, until now, faced with all that she might have had in her life, but lost all those years ago.

“But, I must not think of that now,” she exclaimed as she stood and went to the armoire to throw open its doors. There she found the inner closet filled with new dresses, shoes, cloaks, and a chocolate colored mink wrap that fell to the tops of her toes when she wrapped it around herself.

“Carpe diem,” Gabriella whispered. “I must think only of my joy for the moment and not dwell in the past. The past is gone and I shall find another secret to give Drummond, because he cares for me after all these years. Even without knowing the truth about what really happened to our love so long ago.”

It was best. She need not redeem herself in Drummond’s eyes. He cared for the woman she was now with as much passion as he had in their youth. Perhaps in years to come, if they found their comfort together as she knew they must, she would tell him then of her secret . . . of the betrayal. Then, they could laugh together about all they did have and find relief that the betrayal had not doomed them forever.

Gabriella nibbled her bottom lip in concentration and spoke hesitantly aloud, her conviction. “I will gladly be Drummond’s mistress.” Then, she twirled in a pirouette with the mink flaring about her ankles, as she exclaimed again more firmly. “I will seize my joy no matter what the circumstances!”

Chapter Fifteen

An hour later, Gabriella was bathed with her hair done in a winsome, provocative chignon that allowed loose tendrils of her auburn hair to brush her nape and temples. She appeared at the top of the staircase, wearing the black velvet gown with an orchid pinned boldly to the material sloping over her left breast.

She had been aware of raised voices seeming to come from the entryway as she approached the top of the staircase. She paused at the top to look down and investigate, seeing Drummond’s young butler standing before the partially opened front door. A door which he appeared to be trying to close against an unseen force that she could not identify from her angle. Nonetheless, Gabriella watched the young butler’s failed attempt, and then the door came crashing open with a resounding thud.

“I want my wife, now!” Thundered a man’s heated voice just before her husband Reginald, shoved his way into the meridian and green-marbled foray. “Where is she?” Reginald continued to shout with his thin face mottling to vivid red.

Gabriella could only imagine that this was the most strenuous exertion her erstwhile husband Reginald had put forth in years as it appeared lately that he could only roust himself enough to gamble and wench, as he called it. Gabriella watched Reginald gaze lift suddenly to where she was standing, and she faltered a half-step backward at the earnest look of loathing that appeared in his hazel-brown eyes.

“You are to come with me immediately, Gabriella! I am rescinding this transaction,” Reginald spat, as he reached inside his dark grey overcoat and withdrew a small packet, which he tossed onto the marbled flooring at his feet, echoing a plat sound through the foray. “And-,” Reginald snapped turning to the butler, “You may inform Lord Kittridge that there is his money returned with interest!”

“But why?” Gabriella gasped incredulously.

“Because, madame-,” Drummond responded, completely surprising Gabriella, because she had been so riveted by her husband that she had not seen Drummond entering the foray. Drummond did look, she noticed immediately, resplendently masculine in his brown cutaway jacket and thigh-molding, buff-colored hunting britches as well as his polished Hessian boots. In fact, compared to Reginald with his wispy and receding hairline, Drummond was a sleek male lion to Reginald’s rather pallid lamb.

“His mistress has left him,” Drummond continued to say. “Claiming, I believe, that she was mistaken in the parentage of her child after all was said and done.” Drummond paused with a steely-eyed gaze directed at Reginald. “A slight oversight, it seems, simply cleared for all when the Prince Regent himself has come forward to claim the unborn bastard child as his very own. Quite a boon for the young lady, I am told,” Drummond finished with a lethal smile.

“How could you possibly know that?” Reginald raged. “And, it is lies! All lies! I say the bitch-!”

Reginald was choked to a stop, because Drummond grabbed him with a stranglehold by the cravat, as Drummond stated in a controlled, but menacing voice. “You will not speak foully in my lady’s presence.”

“Y-Your lady,” Reginald sputtered, grappling his hands around Drummond’s wrists in a useless attempt to remove the hand strangling him. “Your whore,” Reginald finally managed to wheeze.

“Why you!” Drummond hissed whipping his arm backward in obvious motion for a punch.

Gabriella thought impulsively, that she really should allow Drummond to punch Reginald, right before she exclaimed, “Drummond, please don’t!”

Gabriella watched Drummond uncoil very slowly as if he were using immense willpower not to carry through with his intended and righteous, but she considered secretly thrilled, passionate violence on her behalf. To have so much control over such a powerfully made man, affected Gabriella’s insides to quiver in excitement, as she further watched Drummond loosening his hold about Reginald’s neck and step backward. Then, Drummond swung his gaze to hers with a penetrating gray-colored charge making even the top of her breasts flush beneath its positively virile quality.

“I defer to you, my lady,” Drummond responded intently. “For the moment. However, should Lord St. John continue in this manner, no matter how overset he is beneath his life’s travails, I reserve the right to throw him bodily from our home, madame.”

“Of course, Drummond,” Gabriella murmured with a demur sinking of her dark eyelashes as she proceeded to take a step forward in an action that would take her down the first step.

“I would prefer, madame, that you remain where you are for the moment,” Drummond said, stopping Gabriella’s movement. “Standing beside Lord Hawkenge,” he continued to add.

Gabriella looked over and upward in surprise to see Lord Hawkenge standing beside her with a solemn expression on his golden tanned features. Lord Hawkenge sketched a slight nod of his head murmuring, “My lady,” in a quietly resonate voice, and Gabriella nodded in return. She was surprised that she felt not the least bit embarrassed in his presence, but rather grateful for his support at her side.

“And, I would prefer that she come with me, this moment,” Reginald spouted. “Before I am forced to bring the magistrate here to legally withdraw her!” Reginald twisted his ruined cravat into more of a tangle. “As it is, Kittridge, you can expect me to file charges against you, for bodily injury! Now, I want my wife back!”

“How interesting,” Drummond replied.

Gabriella moved to interrupt them with her more important question, which had not yet been answered. “But, please, Reginald, you must really tell me why. Why is it that you suddenly wish me to return?”

A strange event transpired then, for Reginald appeared, for all the world, as if he might have just at that moment swallowed a frog . . . whole. He blurted, “Because I love you!” Then, he paused and seemed to work his mouth around some more difficult words, before spewing rapidly. “And I cannot live without you!”

Once this difficulty appeared passed him, he straightened and tugged on the bottom of his yellow and royal blue diamond vest. An atrocious setting, Gabriella thought as she listened incredulously to him say, “There now I have said it, let us go home.”

Gabriella turned her gaze to Drummond in bewilderment and found Drummond’s calm assurance, before he said quietly and seeming to her alone. “I could venture to expound, my lady.”

Gabriella nodded in confusion, certain of only one thing in this calamity and that was Drummond. My how it warmed her inside to feel such unshakable unity with another person. This was how a man and woman who were meant to be together should feel, Gabriella realized, as she said, “Please, Drummond.”

“I really do not see why-,” Reginald began, only to be cut short by Drummond’s piercing gaze and further words.

“Silence!”

Reginald was left with his mouth hung open, as Drummond continued, “I really cannot abide your attempts at bullying. However, we shall all be quit of this soon enough. Now to answer my precious lady’s question of the proverbial why. Why would the husband who so disreputably sold his wife to another man, in a shamefully public forum, I might add, now show himself upon the very doorstep of the man he blatantly sold her to? Now decrying his renewed bouts of love for the lady, in the most emotionally frigid attempts, to which I have ever been a witness.”

“I say!” Reginald sputtered.

Drummond held up his hand in a silencing gesture and continued, “Because it seems, madame, that Lord St. John finds himself in a most untenable situation. It appears that he did not tend to his business as a peer of his station ought to do. Therefore, he has misplaced or perhaps had wholly forgotten that it is you who now carry the fortunes of your estate. Not one farthing of his much smaller entitlement is left any longer. We would assume gambling has expired this amount and all that he holds now, but may not touch, is through legal marriage to you.”

“It was you then,” Reginald exploded as Gabriella took hold of Lord Hawkenge’s supporting hand. “I should have known!” Reginald continued to sputter in fury. “It could only have been you, Kittridge, who set them on me!”

“Set who?” Gabriella whispered. But, Drummond apparently heard her, because he answered.

“The attorneys for the Lyndfall estate. Quite enormous holdings, I am given to understand. I, however, did not set them upon you as you so put it, St. John. It was unnecessary, as the gossip over your low-bred treatment of your genteel lady-wife has spread like wild fire upon a parched land.”

“They have even refused me entrance to my club,” Reginald whined suddenly. “All those turncoats who made boisterous claims of supporting my cause, who encouraged me to be the first to rid themselves of-. Oh, um, well . . . they turned coat, every one of them. My god, Gabriella, your attorneys are threatening to throw me off our Lyndfall estate if you do not show yourself by my side as soon as possible . . . so that we, ah, can show the world that we have reconciled.” Reginald began muttering then, tugging at his short overcoat sleeves, just before he blurted, “And, I should, I would, forgive your infidelity beside all of our happy years together!”

Gabriella sniffled into the white linen handkerchief that Lord Hawkenge had so graciously offered her, because she had been tearing silently ever since she had completely understood Reginald’s motive for coming here, superstitiously to fetch her back to him. However, at his last words, she grew quite faint, but thankfully Lord Hawkenge steadied her, as she said weakly, “Drummond, I understand nothing of these estate concerns, but I cannot listen to any more of this-.”

“Me!” Reginald yelled, interrupting her. “You will speak to me, not this-this-!”

“Oh my,” Gabriella gasped, thinking that she really was going to faint, when strong arms came around her, lifting her up off her feet. To her horrible embarrassment, she began to cry in earnest right into the corduroy fabric of Lord Hawkenge’s hunting jacket.

It was then she heard Drummond say, “Enough, St. John, there will be no more talk!”

While Reginald was beginning to rant heavily, Drummond called up to Lord Hawkenge, “Wyndham, take her to our rooms.”

“Your rooms!” Reginald shouted. “Kittridge, I shall kill you . . . and, Gabriella, you bitch, I should never have let your father convince me to bed you that night!”

Gabriella heard the men scuffling as Lord Hawkenge carried her away, she did however, catch Reginald’s last horrible shout of words.

“My God, he even gave me the key! Did you know that, Gabriella?! Your father gave me the key!”

“Oh my dear,” Gabriella whispered tearfully into Lord Hawkenge’s broad shoulder right before she truly did faint.

Chapter Sixteen

Drummond paced outside his bedchamber door gnawing on the end of a cigar gone cold, in his agitation. Damnation, he cursed silently, he usually had more control than this. He never bowed to visceral instincts such as outward displays of fury or extreme agitation.

His gaze swept over the five Archangels standing with him in the hallway, each attempting to ignore the visual display of his unsettled pacing as they faced him. Gabriella was recovering from her faint in the room behind him, with Matilda’s ministrations. He was left with the damning last words of Lord St. John ringing in his mind. Just barely hinting to him of some terrible event in history, of which he was totally clueless. But by god, he would know now!