She understood why he had put the width of the table between them. If she touched him, if he touched her, her resolution would go up like smoke. But she could not talk to him like this. She came round the table until she was just out of reach and tried to make her tone more reasonable, less fraught with tension. ‘My idea of finding a father for a child is impossible—you were quite right about that. I intend staying in London for perhaps another month, six weeks. Jane has commitments, interests. I will shop and visit the theatre and galleries. Then I will return home and research my family connections. Perhaps somewhere I can find a suitable successor with Frost blood in their veins.’
‘And if this is not simply desire and liking? What if I am in love with you?’ he asked, a proud man driven to laying his feelings, his heart perhaps, at her mercy.
As I am with you? He felt desire and liking, yes. Emotions a lover and a friend would feel. But it was not enough. Hearts did not break, it seemed. Not with a crack and a splintering noise, at least. They just ached with a bruise that would never heal. ‘Then I am sorry. I never tried to set lures or to attach you. I never intended for you to have feelings for me.’
‘I know. If there is fault in this, it is mine,’ Gray said with a rueful twist of his lips that Gaby did not mistake for humour.
‘It is no one’s fault. We played with fire and it seems we are both a trifle scorched.’
‘I should, in all honour, marry you.’
Yes, that would prick his conscience as a gentleman. ‘You haven’t ruined me, I was not a virgin, some innocent you seduced. If I had been, then, yes, I agree, you are honour-bound to offer marriage. But I was not.’ He had nothing to say to that, it seemed. ‘We can manage some pretext to end our betrothal a week before I leave. I do not trust Aunt Henrietta not to promptly matchmake again, whatever she says about George’s attachment to Miss Henderson.’
‘Gabrielle—’ He broke off, reached for her hand and lifted it to her lips. ‘I cannot—we cannot—continue as lovers.’
‘I know.’ She intended to sound firm and definite. It was not as though she disagreed with him. ‘It would be too difficult to separate emotions and desire, would it not?’
‘Your emotions are engaged?’ Gray held on to her hand and pulled her closer. ‘Gabrielle?’ His hand was warm and when her fingers instinctively closed around his she could feel his pulse beating strongly. Last night, his heart had beaten over hers as they made love.
‘I desire you. I like you.’ You are breaking my heart. ‘I want to be your lover still and I know I should not. I would be an impossible wife for you and marriage is not for me. I cannot afford to allow my emotions free rein, to wonder What if?’
Chapter Seventeen
He might as well be battering his head against the wall for all the good this was doing, Gray thought. Whatever it was that Gabrielle felt for him, and perhaps it was only self-delusion that he thought she felt more than she was admitting, it was clearly insufficient to compensate for the legal penalties of marriage.
Gray released her hand. Their fingers seemed to cling of their own accord for a second, then she was moving away from him, tension in every lovely line of her back, in the way she held her head. Yes, Gabrielle felt more than just desire and she was hurting, perhaps as much as he was.
What did he want? Surely he could not wish to love when he could not have her? No more than he could not wish her to love him, because it would hurt her.
What could he do? He could not change the law for her and even if she trusted him enough to believe that he would leave all the power over Frost’s in her hands, that still left the little matter of geography. He could not move his estates or hers closer together or drain the Bay of Biscay. If he had been a younger son he would not be tied to estates and responsibilities, to the House of Lords and thousands of acres, hundreds of lives. But he was not a younger son.
‘I cannot blame you,’ he said, as she reached the door. She stopped. She did not turn, but at least she was listening to him. ‘I wish I could. I wish I could call you unwomanly and foolishly independent and make this all your fault. But I cannot. I admire what you do, what you have. I understand why you cannot surrender it into a husband’s hands any more than I could hand unconditional control of my estates to a wife.’
‘Thank you,’ Gabrielle said. Her head was bent, baring the vulnerable pale nape of her neck. He wanted to touch it, to kiss it, somehow soothe himself with the taste of her. ‘I believe you.’ She reached for the door handle and he thought that was her last word. Then, as she went through, she said, ‘That makes it worse.’
Gray stared at the closing door. How could his understanding make it worse for her? Unless...unless she felt more than just the desire and liking she admitted to and sensing that she could trust him only made refusing him harder. He gave her a few minutes, then went out to the hall, retrieved his hat and gloves from the expressionless footman he had tipped to hide him, and left.
The choice in front of him was stark, he thought, as he walked up the slight slope towards Curzon Street. He could try and suppress his feelings, not examine them, not try and puzzle out if this was love. Then he could meet Gabrielle in social settings, act sufficiently well to keep his godmother at bay until it was time for them to stage their falling-out. Gabrielle would return to Portugal and he would do his best to forget her.
And unicorns will dance in Grosvenor Square.
Or he could admit that this was more than lust, more than liking, discover if he could love.
And then I can drive myself to distraction trying to find a solution to an insoluble conundrum and end up with a broken heart.
A broken heart? he sneered at himself, turning right into Curzon Street. Broken hearts were for romantic girls and long-haired poets, not adult male aristocrats. A high brick wall loomed on his right and he realised he was at Berkeley Square. Where was he going? What he felt like doing was beating the hell out of someone or something, and the civilised outlet for that desire was to continue along to Old Bond Street and Gentleman Jackson’s establishment. He could find someone to spar with or, if he was in luck, the Gentleman himself might take him on.
On the other hand, Dover Street and Manton’s, the gunsmith, were closer. He could go to their shooting gallery, relieve his feelings with some target practice and possibly look at their latest guns.
Which is probably the equivalent of a lady deciding to buy a new bonnet when she’s upset, he thought grimly. I should be at home harassing the staff about making up the rooms for Mama and the children or interviewing doctors.
These feelings were the very devil, distracting him from what was reality, what he could—and should—be doing.
He turned on his heel and found himself confronting a solid six-foot male obstructing the pavement. With a muttered apology he s
idestepped and the man put out a hand to stop him. Giles.
‘Hey, it’s me, Gray. What the devil’s the matter with you? You look like a man who’s lost a sovereign and found a groat.’ The man in front of him frowned. ‘Oh, hell—they said when I called just now that Jamie was going to be all right. They aren’t just putting a brave face on it, are they?’