‘Misery? That’s all you see when I ask you to be my wife? Damn it, Imogen. I’m offering you something I’ve never offered any woman; something I thought never to offer.’
‘Don’t.’ She dropped her head, obviously unwilling to even look him in the eye.
‘You repeat yourself.’ He dropped his hands from her. ‘And I’ve no wish to listen to the same nonsense a second time.’
He turned on his heel and stomped out, pausing only to grab his dressing gown, and snag his slippers from where he’d kicked them off the night before as he made his way to her bed. He slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the mirror on the wall of his dressing room.
He took several deep breaths, his back resting against the cold wood of the door. He had to get out of here.
There was simply no way humanly possible that he was going to be able to sit down to breakfast with her. He’d end up shaking her until her teeth rattled in her head; stupid, stubborn woman.
He was yanking on his boots when his valet appeared, armed with a pot of coffee and a freshly ironed shirt.
‘Sir—?’ Rodgers was clearly thrown to find him already up and nearly dressed.
‘I’ll be leaving immediately.’ Gabriel stood and glanced about the room, looking to see if he’d forgotten anything. ‘I’ve left a note on the dresser for Lady Somercote. See that she gets it.’
‘Of course, sir.’
With a nod, Gabriel snatched up his heavy riding coat, his hat and gloves, and was out the door before his man could ask any questions. He had to get out now. Before he went crawling back into Imogen’s room, begging her to reconsider. Before he strangled her. Before he started such a fight with his nymph that he raised the whole house.
His nymph.
He snorted and shook his head as he crossed the cobbled yard and made for the stable block. He supposed he’d have to stop thinking of her as such, impossible as that might be.
When Imogen did not appear at breakfast George went upstairs in search of her. As she walked down the hall she encountered a footman bearing a small trunk, followed by Gabriel’s valet. He had a glossy dressing case in his hand.
He stopped when he saw her, and then bowed and extended a folded pieced of foolscap. ‘Mr Angelstone asked me to give you this before he left, my lady.’
‘Left?’ George’s eyes widened with surprise. This could not be good. She’d known when Imogen had absented herself from breakfast that something was afoot, but she’d been hoping it was something good.
‘Yes, my lady. Mr Angelstone left for town before seven.’
‘Well…thank you, Rodgers.’ He bowed again and George opened the note and read it while he disappeared down the hall. It didn’t tell her anything more than his man had; just that he’d left for Town that morning, and he begged her to make his excuses to Lord Glendower.
Suddenly deeply concerned, George hurried down the hall and knocked on Imogen’s door. There was no doubt possible that whatever was going on concerned them both, and George was only too well able to imagine what Gabriel could have done to precipitate things.
There was no answer. ‘Imogen?’ she called, knocking again. ‘It’s George.’ After a moment she threw caution to the wind and pushed her way in. Imogen, still in her wrapper, was curled up in bed, the covers up over her ears.
‘Imogen?’
‘Go away,’ Imogen said, her voice muffled by the blankets.
‘You and Gabriel have a fight?’ George sat down on the bed.
‘Not a fight,’ Imogen mumbled, pulling the blankets over her head.
‘You’re lying in bed like you’re dying of consumption, and he left in a pelter at an ungodly hour, and you expect me to believe you didn’t have a fight?’
Imogen peeked out and George could see that her friend’s eyes were swollen and bloodshot. ‘Not a fight. He—He…’ She sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘He asked me to marry him.’
‘Marry him?’
George blinked. She’d thought he’d come around to it eventually, but not this soon. In any case, it certainly did not seem like something to cause such havoc and consternation. George patted Imogen on the back like she were a child, her brain whirling.
Gabriel had proposed and Imogen had obviously turned him down. Interesting. Very, very interesting. This would take some sorting. And tea. Lots and lots of tea.
Chapter Twenty-Four
St A—— missing entirely and the Angelstone Turk departing early…Lady S—— must be losing her allure.
Tête-à-Tête, 17 November 1789
‘Going to purchase a new set of duelling pistols?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’ Gabriel ignored the sudden arrival of St Audley and Layton. He’d been testing pistols for the better part of three hours, and he had no intention of stopping just because George’s hounds had tracked him down.
He fired again, breathing in the acrid smoke, enjoying the foul smell of sulphur and salt-peter. The way it blocked everything out, if only for a moment.
‘Well, why don’t you think about it over breakfast?’ St Audley picked up one of the pistols he’d been trying and examined it more closely. ‘I’m famished, and the air in here smells like hell itself.’
‘I rather like it,’ Gabriel replied, firing again. ‘Besides, I’m not hungry.’
‘Well I am,’ Layton said. ‘And I could use a drink.’
‘I do need a drink,’ Gabriel agreed, laying the pistol he’d just fired aside.
He needed a lot of drinks. He’d done his best not to be sober since he’d left Winsham Court, and he’d been fairly successful. In his more lucid moments he recognized he was making a cake of himself, so he tried to make sure such episodes of clarity occurred as infrequently as possible.
When he was drunk, he was blissfully numb. When he was sober, he was painfully aware of his nymph’s absence, stung by her rejection; unable to stop
