Page 28

O h, poorly done, Gabrielle .

She ought not to have blurted out the truth like that, but…well, when Cassian had said those words her heart had leapt…and then immediately sunk. How could he love her—how could he possibly love her?—if she’d been lying to him all this time?

“You cannot love Gabby Butcombe,” she repeated into the semi-darkness, knowing this would ruin everything. “Because that is not me.”

Cassian, who had frozen beneath her, now sat up abruptly taking her with him. Leaving her in the middle of the bed, he swung his legs to the side. “Where’s yer bathing room?”

The change in topic had her frowning. “My what? Why ?”

“Because I need to bathe, and ye’re covered in my seed, and I suspect we have enough to say to one another that we’ll want some light. ”

“Or perhaps it is easier to confess in the darkness,” she whispered.

He ignored her, or seemed to.

Utterly naked, Cassian reached over to turn up the lamp, and when he turned his hands were on his hips, seemingly unaffected by his nudity. After what they’d just shared, Gabby lifted her chin and shifted to face him, ready for his response to her confession.

And it would surely not be good.

Instead of speaking, though, he bent down, cupped her face in his hands—just as he’d done before he’d entered her—and kissed her. Gently, slowly…lovingly.

Gabby Butcombe, I think I love ye.

And when he broke away, Cassian pressed his forehead to hers. “Neither of us have been fully truthful, eh, lass? But that doesnae change the way I feel about ye.”

“It should,” she whispered.

“Aye, but it doesnae. I’ve been lying to ye this whole time too, after all.”

Gabby swallowed, swinging her legs over the side of the bed as he scooped up her purple robe to toss her direction. As she struggled into it, she watched him maneuver his prosthetic through his trouser leg, then button them at his waist.

“Is this…” she finally hazarded. “Is this about your last mission?” Was he finally going to tell her the truth?

He met her eyes, and she saw determination in those bright depths. “I trust ye, Gabby whoever-ye-are.” Then he winced. “Unless the Butcombe was yer real name, and Gabby is false?”

She had to stifle a grin as she stood. “No, my name is Gabby—well, Gabrielle. Well, not really, I suppose, but…”

How to explain?

And then she couldn’t worry about explaining, because Cassian had stepped up and lifted her in his arms.

“Cassian!” she gasped, throwing her arms around his neck. “What are you—put me down!”

“Why?” he grunted, turning toward the door. “Ye dinnae think I’m strong enough to carry ye?”

“I think you are still unstable on your feet, and if you tip forward, we will both crash down and you will squash me to jam!”

By this time they were in the corridor, and he merely grunted at the possibility. “Then ye best cease yer squirming, lass, lest ye overbalance me and we pitch to our squashitude.”

“That is not a word,” she muttered, but she did stop wriggling. After a few moments, during which she told herself she was allowed to breathe without throwing off Cassian’s careful gait, she ventured, “And where are we going?”

“My chambers have a private bathing room,” he announced curtly as he turned down a corridor. “And luckily nae stairs between here and there. I dinnae think I could manage stairs.”

A private bathing room sounded lovely. Gabby was accustomed to one at Exingham House, and had found her ablutions to be a tad rushed here at Inverlochy .

Still, in response to the stairs comment, she had to huff, “I am not that heavy.”

“Nay, but I am that clumsy?—”

Cassian bit off the end of the sentence and suddenly pivoted, turning his back against the wall and lowering her legs.

At first, she thought she had become too heavy for him, but he moved to put her between his shoulder and the wall as she heard what he had: feminine giggles coming from the chamber they were about to pass by.

“Oh la, Sir Richard, we mustn’t!” The voice was higher pitched than Gabby had heard, with a strong Liverpudlian accent. “What will your wife say?”

Gabby sucked in a breath, her hand clamping around Cassian’s upper arm as realization dawned. She felt him relax as he processed there was no danger, but the expression he turned to her was as shocked as her own must be.

Then came Sir Dickie’s laughter. “Slow down, you minx! I’ll catch you yet?—”

“Oh, sir, no, I’m just a humble maid!”

“That means you belong to me, girl. Come back here!”

Oh dear, oh dear . Gabby realized her breaths were coming too quickly, and she watched the muscles around Cassian’s eyes tighten in disappointment. All this time, she’d thought Sir Dickie to be very much in love with his wife…at least, their constant bedsport had made it seem that way.

But to unwillingly discover he acted that way with other women too?

Gabby frowned, her estimation of their host lowering by quite a few notches .

There was the sound of something breaking in the sitting room, then running feet.

“I’ll take that from your wages you harlot,” called out Sir Dickie. “Or you could make it up to me with your pretty little mouth!”

“Oh, no sir, I can’t afford it,” came the maid’s breathless reply, getting closer. “I’ll have to use my mouth on you again and again.”

Cassian pressed back against her and Gabby glanced frantically about. There was nowhere for them to hide. By the sounds of her steps, the maid was going to come barreling out of this room and they would be standing here like statues.

Maybe she’d turn left instead of right?

“When I catch you, you’ll be on your knees, girl!”

“Oh, woe is me,” came the high-pitched voice with the north-east English accent as the poor harassed maid reached the doorway. “Oh, my virtue will never recover— Oh , hello, Cassian.”

Gabby had to assume Cassian was staring the same as she was, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Lady Zilphia to confirm.

The older woman had managed to shove her plumpness into a maid’s uniform that left little to the imagination—especially with her breasts practically spilling from the top—complete with an apron and what appeared to be an ornamental feather duster.

And now her cheeks were flushing bright pink as she patted at her graying hair beneath her mop cap .

“Where are you, you wicked girl—” Sir Dickie was saying as he rounded the corner and slammed into her back, wrapping his arms lovingly around her middle. “Gotcha!”

“Dickie, love, stop it!” Lady Zilphia said in her normal voice, slapping at his arm. “We have…um…”

“Hello,” Cassian said entirely too blandly. “We were just out for…for a midnight stroll.”

Gabby clutched the edges of her silk robe together—knowing perfectly well that she was naked beneath it—and tried to pretend that it was completely normal to be carried through the corridors of Inverlochy Castle by a half-naked man.

Well, actually, if Dickie and Zilphia make a habit of this role-playing, perhaps it is completely normal …

Lady Zilphia, still blushing furiously, had sighed and sagged against her husband. “Oh goodness—well, Dickie and I—sometimes we like to play a little game?—”

“Say nae more, Aunt Zilphia.” Cassian held up his palm. “Yer business is yer own, as I think ye’ll agree is the same for us.”

“Quite right,” boomed Sir Dickie, even as his wife smiled happily.

Then he winked at Gabby in what she thought was supposed to be a lewd manner.

“Glad to see my heir knows how to have a fun time with a doctor’s pretty sister, eh?

I guess I can’t turn the man out tomorrow for his sad incompetence if you’re busy enjoying Miss Gabby’s company, eh? ”

Oh Lord .

She felt Cassian stiffen and was afraid he was about to come to her defense.

At this moment, all she wanted to do was get out of here .

So she slid her hand down his arm to twine her fingers through his, and smiled brightly as she made her own attempt at Lady Zilphia’s Liverpudlian accent.

“Oh aye, Sir Dickie. Doing my best to ensure my brother ain’t dismissed and… and all that.”

Perhaps the wrong thing to say, judging from the widening of Lady Zilphia’s eyes—had she heard the faint teasing in Gabby’s tone?—Sir Dickie’s laughter, and Cassian’s faint growl. But he nodded curtly and yanked her into motion as he stomped down the corridor.

Gabby, feeling quite cheeky, turned to waggle her fingers at the other couple.

“I cannae believe ye’d—” he began, but when the door to his suite shut behind them, Cassian shook his head. “Aye, I can believe ye would say something like that. Gabby—whoever ye are…” He turned to wrap his arms around her middle. “If ye’re fooking me just so yer brother?—”

Her laughter interrupted him as she pressed upward to kiss him. “It was cruel of me to mock Sir Dickie’s narrow-minded assumption.”

“He didnae really mean it,” Cassian grumbled.

“No, he likely did not. His mind was clearly on punishing a certain maid at that moment.”

Cassian’s lips slowly curled as he remembered the thoroughly awkward encounter. And when she began to chuckle, he joined her.

But when his laughter subsided, one side of his mouth curled ruefully as he stared down at her. “Who are ye? Ye’re no’ really Gabby?”

“I am. Well, I have been Gabby since I was ten years old.” She pressed her cheek against Cassian’s shoulder to tell the story.

This, at least, was an easy story to tell, since her family still teased her about her name at times.

“My brother and I were raised mainly by a series of miserable schoolmistresses, then miserable governesses. I decided the name my mother gave me—she was an actress, quite bohemian, who decided we would ruin her career and so made us our father’s problem, until he drank himself to death at a ridiculously young age… what was I saying?”

Cassian’s huff of amusement ruffled her hair. “The name she gave ye.”

“Was quite horrible. When our uncle—our father’s younger brother—finally inherited from our truly evil grandfather, well…we became his problem.”