Page 35 of Lily and the Duke
Instead of answering him, Lily began to sob harder, and she could feel the heat of those tears cascading down her cheeks.
Gabriel’s heart ached at the sight of Lily’s tears and the sound of her sobs.
Accompanied by yet more indecision on his part.
Instinct,need, said he should take Lily into his arms and comfort her.
Caution as to whether or nothemight have done something to be the cause of her tears warned him against deepening her distress by being overly familiar with her when she did not wish him to be.
Followed immediately by the realization of how fucking arrogant it was of him to even think he could possibly be to blame for Lily’s distress. Just because he was obsessed with her, knew himself to be deeply in love with her, did not mean she felt the same way about him.
He had offered to show her physical pleasure, she had accepted, and since then they had shared their mutual desire for each other several times. But during none of them had Lily so much as hinted that she might be falling in love with him, as Hellsmere had suggested she might be.
But his need to hold her, to comfort her, overrode those feelings of caution as he now pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him. “Whoever has dared to hurt you, caused you to cry, I will make their life a living hell!” he vowed fiercely as he gently cupped the back of her head to hold her against his chest.
She sobbed harder, shattering and not merely breaking Gabriel’s heart, even as her slender arms clung tightly about his waist.
“Lily, speak to me,” he pleaded seconds later when he could not stand the sound of her sobs a moment longer. “For God’s sake, speak to me.” He forced himself to speak less demandingly.
“Where have you been?” she wanted to know.
He frowned at this being her first coherent comment. “Chloe had some sort of catastrophe with the hem of her gown, which delayed our departure from St. Albans House,” he rasped, remembering his impatient pacing in the entrance hall of thehouse earlier as he waited downstairs for his daughter to reappear. His gaze narrowed on Lily’s appearance. “Is that your own new gown?” She looked absolutely beautiful in the blue silk.
“Yes. Thank you. It is one of the reasons I felt your absence so keenly this evening.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to show it to you. To thank you for it. But then when you did not arrive after all, I realized how futile our…friendship is.”
He winced. “I have explained my tardiness.”
Lily gave an impatient shake of her head. “I was not only referring to your absence this evening when I asked where you have been. I am also questioning your silence for the past two days and nights since we were together in your study.”
His brows rose. “I have been involved in a…private investigation on behalf of the Prince Regent.” This afternoon, he had successfully proven the innocence of one of the last two cabinet ministers requiring that investigation. “I have also been attempting to rent or purchase a residence where the two of us might meet in private in future.”
“Oh.”
“I should not have been so late this evening if Chloe had not refused to simply change into another gown and instead insisted we all must wait while her maid made the necessary repairs on the one she was wearing,” he explained irritably, when he was never irritable or impatient with his daughter.
“Chloe alone is the reason for your late arrival this evening?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “What other reason could there be?”
Lily drew in several shuddering breaths before finally looking up at him. “I thought— I feared— You have not contacted me since—since we were last together.”
“I thought it best for your reputation not to do so until I had something substantial to tell you. Besides, I knew that Chloe would tell her friends that I intended to accompany her here this evening.”
Lily gave a shake of her head, her cheeks pale in the moonlight. “I do not believe I am the strong and independent woman you must have thought me to be when you made your offer of sharing the knowledge of physical pleasure with me. That I had thought myself to be,” she added shakily. “Because, sadly, I am proving not to be that woman at all. And if you are to punish anyone for my tears, then it must be yourself.”
Gabriel drew in a sharp breath and his arms dropped to his sides as he stepped back. “Iam responsible for making you cry?”
“Yes,” Lily choked. “I cannot go on like this, Gabriel. I simply cannot.”
“I do not understand.”
She clasped her hands tightly together in front of her. “I wish I could be as casual about these things as you gentlemen all appear so able to be, but… But I am simply not capable of turning my emotions on and off at will.”
Gabriel blinked. “It is your belief that I do not have feelings for you?”
