“Nothing, just talking,” Nathanial said quickly.
“It’s not nothing. You’re intimidating Daniel because I talked to him, aren’t you? For the love of God, he had his niece and nephew with him. What on earth did you think would happen?” Agitation had her hands clenching. She shot him a quick look, then returned her gaze to her brothers.
“Since when is he Daniel? Why is he not Mr. Dillinger?” Lord Raine growled, sending Daniel a fierce look. He matched that look with a snarl of his own. Abby, he would not look at, because it made him feel raw. The first woman he’d shown a genuine interest in, and she was not who he’d believed her to be.
What the hell had a woman of her class been doing in the Duck and Goose? He almost winced at what they had done together. The time they’d spent together talking, and yes, he’d kissed her. Her brothers would certainly have had every right to be upset and angered by her behavior… and his. Every right to meet him in a field at dawn!
“I am not allowed to call a man by his first name?” Abby shrieked, making every man present wince.
“If you will let me explain,” Daniel intervened before the Deville siblings continued, as surely they would. Because if they were like his family, an argument was a family occupation. “I met your sister in the park several days ago with my sister-in-law, Lady Althea Dillinger.” He may be angry over her deception, furious actually, but he wasn’t throwing her to this pack of wolves across from him. Thea had told him a little of how they watched over and protected her, and it couldn’t be an easy existence. “My sister introduced your sister as Abby.”
“You didn’t tell us that,” Lord Raine accused her.
“I don’t tell you everyone I meet!”
Had everything they’d shared been false? Had it been a game for her? That thought made him feel ill. He’d met women like that, and he’d never have believed she could be one of them.
“Just as you don’t tell me every woman you meet, and I say the word ‘woman’ loosely!”
“Do you know, I almost feel sorry for them,” Will whispered. “Thea can still take me to task, making me feel like a boy in short pants.”
“Don’t talk that way, and in public,” Michael rebuked her.
Daniel looked at Abby and saw the hopeless rage and frustration she was feeling. Tears were in her eyes. As if sensing him, she turned to look his way. Their eyes caught and held, and it was she who pulled away. Guilt, he thought. Good, he hoped it sat heavy on her shoulders. He was certainly suffering.
He’d thought her special, thought that maybe he’d found a woman he wanted in his life. He was wrong. Abby, or Lady Abigail Deville, would never be anything to him.
“I c-can’t do this anymore,” she said. Her fists were clenched, and tears now fell down her cheeks.
It took all of Daniel’s willpower not to go to her. Instead he stood there, surrounded by the men who would take a punch for him. Men he respected and who right at that moment, he was glad stood at his back.
“I’m sorry.” She looked his way again, and Daniel kept his expression blank. “F-for everything.” She turned and ran with her brothers on her heels.
“That was entertaining,” Oliver said, clapping a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
“I had heard from Livvy they were overprotective of their sister, but not to what degree. My guess is, she’s going to make them very sorry about that,” Will said.
They walked back along the path while Daniel grappled with what he now knew. Lady Abigail Deville was his Abby, or had been. She was nothing to him now.
“Care to tell me what the deal is with you and Lady Abigail Deville?”
“There is nothing, and I only just met her,” Daniel said to his brother.
“I know you well enough to see that is not true.”
“You don’t know everything about me,” he said before he’d given the words some thought.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Every morning when he dressed, he had a constant reminder of what had happened to his life when this man had left their family home to fight for his survival in London. And every morning he told himself not to resent what he saw. Not to let the anger that he’d kept locked away inside surface.
His brother was a good man, a fair one. What had happened was not his fault. And yet it was.
“Leave it, Oliver.” Now was not the time for this. He was angry, and the emotion churning inside him was not conducive to rational conversation. “We will never discuss it as there is nothing to discuss.”
He felt his brother’s eyes on him, but Daniel simply focused on the path ahead and breathing. Abby was nothing to him, he reminded himself. He’d thought her nice, but now he would think of her no more.
“We need toffee and fudge, because we didn’t get to punch anyone,” Will drawled.
Amen to that.
Chapter 9
Abby’s hands trembled as she closed and locked the door to her bedroom. She’d run from the park and onto the street knowing her brothers were on her heels, desperate to leave behind the look on Daniel’s face. The anger that told her he’d never forgive her perfidy.
Panic had forced her to do what her brothers always told her not to. She’d hailed a passing hackney, leaving her companion behind, and fled.
A quick glance out the window had confirmed her brothers were indeed following, and the looks on their faces suggested there was about to be hell to pay for her actions.
Abby didn’t care. Nothing seemed to matter except that Daniel was furious with
