A Gentleman Never Tells(18)
His brain could not fool his body. If he ever got close enough to her again to put his hands around her lovely neck, he was much more likely to slowly caress the hollow of her throat where the beat of her pulse raced, or draw lazy circular patterns with his fingertips on that exquisitely soft skin behind her ear, than he was to try to strangle her.
Over the years and through his many travels, Brent had had many women seek his attention, but he was quite sure this morning was the first time he’d ever had such an intriguing young lady walk up to him and kiss him as Lady Gabrielle had. She had been soft, exhilarating, and heavenly. She’d smelled like spring’s first rose, and she had been utterly enchanting by first taking him to task over his tone with Prissy and then by surprising the hell out of him with her seduction.
But what was she thinking? She was a duke’s daughter! She must know that set her apart from most young ladies. Or perhaps, because she was a duke’s daughter, she felt free to behave as she wished with no thoughts of consequences, knowing her father would make everything right for her.
Even without her being engaged to another man, what she did was sheer madness, and he’d allowed it, even welcomed it. But he never would have touched her—well, he liked to tell himself that anyway—if he’d known she was promised to another. Years ago, when Brent found out about his mother’s affair with Sir Randolph Gibson, the man who had fathered her twin sons, he vowed never to touch a married or betrothed lady. He had firsthand knowledge of the havoc that kind of affair could bring. And he had kept that vow until this morning, when Lady Gabrielle seduced him with her seemingly innocent and extremely tempting undertaking.
That he hadn’t immediately caught on to what she was up to irritated the devil out of him. At the time, he had been far more interested in her sweet kisses and the way she felt in his arms than he was about the reason she was so free with her affections. Young ladies out to snare him into matrimony weren’t unfamiliar terrain for him. More than one had tried a number of tactics, tricks, and offers to lure him into marriage; but so far, he’d managed to elude them all. One thing was sure, if he made it out of this misfortune with his freedom intact, he’d make damn sure he never got caught unawares by another scheming lady ever again.
But Lady Gabrielle’s antics were second to a more important worry at the moment. He couldn’t do anything about that situation until he met with the duke. The disappearance of his mother’s cherished pet was a bigger concern, because Prissy could be hurt.
Brent never realized how big that damn park was until he started walking it, looking around trees, under bushes, and along the shoreline of the Serpentine for Prissy. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, he’d stopped everyone he passed and asked if they had seen a small, long-haired, ivory-colored dog with a red braided collar and leash.
No one had seen her.
It was as if she’d disappeared into thin air.
He wouldn’t allow himself to consider the possibility that Prissy had met her demise by a wild animal of some kind. His hope was that, because the park was so big, they were continuously missing each other’s paths, or that, perhaps, her leash had caught on a rock or become entangled in some bushes and bound her, and she was still waiting to be found, freed, and fed.
Brent walked to his bedchamber window and looked out over the small garden at the back of his rented town house. Most members of the peerage owned their own homes in London, but Brent’s father had sold their home in Mayfair years ago. Though he didn’t like the idea, Brent would have to consider the idea of buying a place if his brothers’ business venture worked out and they settled in London. He supposed he could understand their wanting to move back to England, because he certainly didn’t want to entertain the idea of living in any other country. And his brothers now understood why their father wanted them to make their home across the seas.
With any luck, by the time he made it to the duke’s house, he would discover that all had been worked out with Lady Gabrielle’s fiancé, and the wedding would take place next week as planned. He would happily swear to the duke he would never breathe a word about what happened in the park and, of course, he wouldn’t anyway. However, the earl’s son might want to keep a close watch on his new bride. She obviously liked to slip out of her bed in the early hours of morning and prowl.
One of the reasons Brent had come to London was to find a wife. His intentions had been to look over a bevy of different young ladies before deciding which one should bear his name and his children. He certainly didn’t like the idea of being deceptively snared by one, no matter how tempting she was.