Gabriel: Lord of Regrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

at Three Springs as a poor land steward?”
    “It’s… complicated, and delicate,” he said, not wanting to give her even that much.
    “And you can explain these complications?” Her tone was imperious, but he saw the veiled plea in her brown eyes.
    “I cannot. Not now.”
    She glanced down at where he still held her wrist. “You can let me go, Gabriel. I’ll not betray your secrets over the fish course. Nor will I leave.”
    He did let her go, appreciating the view of her retreat, even as he knew he’d just been poleaxed, blackmailed, and kicked into a ditch in the space of five minutes. This was what he deserved, in the peculiar coincidence of circumstances he found himself.
    But then a rare smile lit his features, for he recalled that in those same five minutes he’d also, however fleetingly, been kissed.

Two
    Polly stalked away from His Lordship Gabriel North Wendover Hesketh Whoever He Was, and then rounded on him and marched right back. Afternoon light gilded him from above, as if he were a saintly apparition and not a damnably dear and dark man. She went up on her toes and kissed his mouth this time, a deliberate, angry laying of her lips on his, a battle kiss, without tenderness or artifice.
    “That,” she informed him, “is a kiss of parting, as in I’m parting from you, not from your household.”
    She whirled off again, feeling better for allowing herself a small display of temper, but by the time she’d gotten to her room, the anger had burned off, leaving hurt and bewilderment.
    And shame.
    Shame because of course the Marquess of Hesketh would not have a romantic interest in an itinerant artist, or in the former cook from Three Springs. In his way, Gabriel had been honorable, for he’d refused to enjoy the full measure of the liberties Polly had offered him.
    Flung at him, more like.
    Just as she’d flung herself at her sister’s husband all those years ago, a stupid girl, flattered by Reynard’s Gallic flirtation and a mature man’s manipulative interest. Dear God, would she never learn discernment when it came to men?
    She’d been dreaming of Egyptian treasures on display in the Louvre one moment, opened her eyes in the next, and told herself she was still dreaming. Right before her knelt Gabriel North, whom she hadn’t seen or heard from for weeks, looking concerned and dear, but rested for once. She had kissed him without thinking, without doing anything but giving in to the welling joy of seeing him again, apparition or flesh-and-blood man, and that kiss had been so sweet.
    And it hadn’t been a dream, but rather, a nightmare.
    For God help her, what of Allie? Polly cringed to think what North—no, Hesketh—would think of a woman who could bear a bastard child, then allow family to step in and raise the child for her. He wouldn’t understand, and he’d be particularly judgmental, because the child was dear to him.
    A more reasonable voice told her a man who’d pose for two years as a lowly steward might understand some subterfuge and misdirection, but that voice was drowned out by indignation that Gabriel had never really trusted her, and worry that he could make good on his insistence she abandon her first commission.
    Which she would not do.
    She’d plead a headache at dinner, write to her sister, Sara, and pray for inspiration to strike. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would do for now—because it was all she had.
    ***
    “Margie!” Aaron called to his wife over the tattoo of her gelding’s hooves, while he took a moment to admire the picture she made. The woman could sit a horse, any horse, and the beasts seemed to wait for her cues and commands. Unwittingly, his mind took off in a spree of lusty associations involving him naked on his back under her. When he called her name again, it was with greater impatience.
    “My lord?” She brought her mount down to the walk, looking elegant, composed, and a trifle flushed. Aaron shifted his gelding alongside hers, and peered