‘Have you been here before?’ he asked, breaking the silence.
‘To the house? Yes, but not out into the garden. George likes to stop by at least once a week.’
‘So you’ve been enjoying Town?’
‘Immensely. I was afraid I wouldn’t, but…’ she trailed off, biting her lip, not sure how to put into the words all the reservations she’d been prey to. Not sure what there was to say…afraid something wholly inappropriate would bubble up.
‘But George and my cousin have worked a miracle, and you find yourself welcomed back into the hallowed halls of the ton?’
‘I don’t know if welcomed is quite the right word, but certainly tolerated. At least in certain parts of it.’
‘From what I’ve seen over the past weeks, I would think welcomed would be a mild term.’
Imogen smiled, and tightened her grip on his arm. He was right. Mostly she had been welcomed back, if not with open arms, then with nothing worse than cool smiles. And she’d been enjoying herself. After years of telling herself she didn’t really miss town life, she could now admit that she had missed it terribly. Missed what her life should have been.
‘I’ll allow you to use whatever term you like then. For I have been having a very fine time. And while I’ve not been greeted with rounds of hallelujahs by my old set, I find the one I’m part of now infinitely superior.’
‘Stodgy politicians no longer to your liking?’ he asked with a conspiratorial grin.
Imogen glanced up at him curiously. Was that supposed to be a veiled reference to her former husband? If it was, she still agreed with it. ‘No, thank heavens. If looks could have killed I’d have expired on the spot the moment Mr Pitt caught sight of me. So it’s just as well I now prefer the sporting set.’
‘We are a good lot, aren’t we?’
Unable not to laugh, Imogen readily agreed. They were indeed a good lot. They had no shame whatsoever, and if the consequences of their actions occasionally damned them, then so be it. Their own stood by them, and whatever indiscretions they might commit were eventually forgotten by the ton, displaced by fresher scandal.
Perhaps she’d been wrong about life with Gabriel being a misery. He was accepted nearly everywhere, and she’d been warmly included in many things which only months ago she would have expected to have been forever barred from attending. And her brother had utterly failed to descend upon her and haul her away to the hulks waiting on the Thames. In fact, he’d written out of the blue to say her mother’s pearls had been found and she shouldn’t worry for a moment about them. She’d tucked the proof of her innocence away in case she needed it at some future point.
Maybe Gabriel had been right about their being able to marry without risking society’s censure. She’d never be a political hostess again, but Gabriel didn’t aspire to a seat in the House of Commons as far as she could tell, so that needn’t be a consideration.
He hadn’t come near her in weeks, not even to pay a morning call, or stand up with her at a ball, but she was fairly certain he’d been under orders. The sudden cessation of all attentions had been too dramatic.
That small act alone had spoken volumes to her. He understood her dilemma; whether or not he’d liked it, or agreed with it, he understood.
Walking together in companionable silence through the back corner of the garden, he helped her down the steps to a small lower terrace with a high hedge screening it from the house. He dropped her arm and sat down on one of the benches there, then pulled her into his lap.
Without so much as a word he cupped the back of her head with one hand and set his mouth to hers, kissing her with all the pent up passion of the frustrating weeks they’d spent apart. He kissed her until her toes curled, and her breath was coming in ragged gasps; until she couldn’t think at all, her whole concentration was simply upon him. His tongue and lips plundering her mouth in a decadent assault. When he broke away, he nudged her back from him so that she was still in his lap, but not right against his chest.
‘So, nymph? Are you done torturing me?’
‘Torturing you? You’re the one kissing me, not the other way round.’ She leaned in to kiss him again, but he held her off.
He raised his brows questioningly, and she bit her lip again. Gabriel shifted her off his lap, placing her on the bench beside him. ‘I’ve asked you before, love. Are you ready to give me a different answer?’
Imogen smiled tremulously and nodded her head. If he was asking what she thought he was asking, then her answer was definitely yes.
‘Is that a ‘yes’, love?’ She nodded again, and he looked at her more seriously still, his dark, foreign eyes holding hers in a steady gaze. ‘I want to hear you say it, Imogen. Will you marry me?’
‘Oh, yes, Gabriel. Please?’ Her smile grew larger, more impish. ‘But not here, not a big wedding in Town. Just our friends?’
‘The chapel at Winsham Court? When everyone has retired there for Christmas?’
‘That would be perfect. Do you think Lady Glendower would agree to it?’
‘I think she’d hunt us both down and skin us alive were we to do anything else.’
Chapter Thirty
All of London is agog…word is the Duke of A—— has lost his prized filly in a game of cards. Can it be true?
Tête-à-Tête, 15 December 1789
‘…nothing more than a whore. I was lucky to have found out before she presented me with a child I would have been duped into accepting as my heir.’
The man’s voice carried
