Page 11 of Lily and the Duke
“Really?” Hellsmere mused. “Because when I arrived, your butler informed me that Chloe was out and only you were at home.”
Gabriel’s nostrils flared. “Chloe had been in the house earlier with a group of her friends, but then had to rush away to an engagement with her seamstress,” he defended, at the same time that he resented feeling forced into making the explanation at all. “I believe Lady Tremayne was merely gathering up some papers before she also took her leave.”
“Hm.” Hellsmere’s frown was speculative. “Then why were her cheeks flushed and her eyes overbright and slightly unfocused, when she nodded acknowledgment of me before hurrying from the house as if the devil were at her heels?”
Gabriel scowled at being referred to as the devil. “How the hell should I know?”
“You are very tense today, as well as inattentive.” The other man continued to study him. “Is Lady Tremayne—”
“You will cease questioning me in regard to that young lady,” Gabriel snapped.
“Thatparticularyoung lady?”
“Yes!” he bit out from between clenched teeth.
“Why?”
“Because I believe you would like, as would I, our friendship to continue.” Gabriel was angrier than he could remember having been for some time.
Not because Hellsmere had commented on the way Lily looked when she left him earlier.
No, the reason Gabriel was angry was because Hellsmere was daring to speak of Lily at all.
Warning him that he was already well on his way to feeling a proprietary claim on that young lady. An intensity of emotion which Gabriel instinctively knew he would not have the strength to quell every time he saw or was with her.
It was a galling admission for a man who, since that unfortunate incident twenty-two years ago, had prided himself on the strength of control he held over himself and his emotions.
Good God, Lily had not even been born twenty-two years ago!
“We will talk on every subject but Lady Tremayne whilst we enjoy an early supper, which you will be paying for,” he now told the other man.
“Oh, I will, will I?” Hellsmere sounded amused.
Gabriel nodded. “Your cancelation of our luncheon is why I have forgotten to eat today. Which, in turn, is no doubt also the reason for my current lack of either attention or good humor.”
“Then it is a pity you did not take a nibble out of Miss Tremayne when you had the opportunity to do so,” the other man taunted. “Or perhaps you did, and having found her to be sour, that is now the reason for your bad humor?”
Gabriel narrowed his lids. “I have warned you once against talking of Lady Tremayne. I shall not warn you again.”
Hellsmere continued to study him for several long seconds before nodding in abrupt acceptance of Gabriel’s decree. “But please bear in mind I reserve the right to return to the subject of Lily Tremayne if I consider it to be of further interest.”
“It will not be,” Gabriel stated with more conviction than truth.
He had only kissed Lily once, but even so, he knew that all his years of rigid control and self-denial had begun to be stripped away from him.
Gabriel could not allow his emotions to become so raw and exposed again.
Which meant he must, for both their sakes, avoid being alone in Lily’s company again.
A decision which did not console him in the way it was intended to do.
Nor did it stop him from giving the necessary instructions to Jacobson to make arrangements for the two of them to leave London tomorrow. One of the ministers Gabriel was to investigate had not returned to the city as yet due to his wife’s illness, but that did not mean Gabriel would not visit that gentleman on his estate.
Lily sat alone beside the fire in her bedchamber at Truro House later that afternoon, still slightly dazed over what had happened earlier.
Beginning with her unexpected meeting with, and then the inappropriate conversation, with Gabriel Lord.
Followed by himkissingher.
