Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(57)

Robert took her gently but firmly by the arm. “We need to leave, Abby.”

No! Not again.

She managed a jerky nod and tugged her arm free of Robert’s hold; her toes flexed within the soles of her slippers, as she was filled with a restive need to run and keep running until she’d escaped the all too familiar disdain.

Beatrice’s brow furrowed. “Leave? Why we’ve only just—”

“Beatrice,” the duke’s single, harshly uttered word silenced Beatrice. He looked to Geoffrey. “Tomorrow, then.”

Her uncle was mad. Tears flooded her eyes, and Geoffrey’s face blurred before her. With his value for propriety and honor, Geoffrey would sooner send her to the devil than see her to the altar. She swayed on her feet, the room dipped and spun like her youngest brother’s wood whip top that he’d played with over and over.

Geoffrey cursed and reached for her. He caught her against him, even as outraged gasps escaped the lords and ladies around the ballroom.

She tilted her head back, and gazed at him through the blasted moisture that filled her eyes. “Please, don’t.” Because if you continue to hold me, I’ll dissolve into a puddle of shame and despair at your feet.

His square jaw tensed as he scraped a frantic gaze over her person, tightening his hold upon her. “Abigail, what is it?” The faint thread of panic that underlined his words sent guilt spiraling, until it filled every corner of her body. In mere moments, the look of gentle concern and caring would die to be replaced with revulsion. She’d braved the scorn of her American compatriots, and been mocked and ridiculed as an American interloper in British Society…she could not stand to bear witness to the moment all affection went out of his eyes.

“I…I…” She shook her head…

“We have to leave. Now.” The duke bit out.

Robert disentangled Abigail’s forearm from Geoffrey’s grip and with determined steps, guided her through the sea of taunting sneers, and leering gentlemen. Bile climbed up her throat, and she fought the urge to keep from casting the accounts of her stomach upon the ballroom floor.

She shot one last parting glance over her shoulder.

Geoffrey remained where she’d left him, legs planted wide, his focus trained on her.

Abigail jerked her attention forward, thinking how so very close she’d been to being happy. Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. What a fool she’d been.

Again.





A gentleman should not allow himself to be bated by a dishonorable gentleman.

4th Viscount Redbrooke



20

Geoffrey stared after Abigail. A bolt of lightning broke the night sky, and splashed bluish light across the ballroom floor; it cast sinister shadows about the room that danced along the walls and vibrant fabrics of the waltzing ladies. The distant rumble of thunder shook the panes of the floor-length windows. As he stared at Abigail’s swiftly retreating figure, ominous darkness that accompanied a turbulent rainstorm filled him.

Then she looked back at him.

His breath froze at the agonized despair that bled from her eyes.

A viselike pressure squeezed his heart. Christ. What had happened to wreak such a transformation about the smiling, spirited beauty who’d captured his heart?

Geoffrey blinked. The chatter of Lord and Lady Ainsworth’s guests blended with the outside rain, in a loud hum, that slowed his thoughts.

He loved her.

A jolt when through him. He, who’d sworn to never turn himself over to the uncertain, volatile emotion which had destroyed his family, had gone and fallen in love with Abigail. The staggering realization threatened to bring him to his knees.

His body remained immobile. With her keen wit, and ability to laugh, she’d entered his life and upended his well-ordered world. She made him yearn for a life filled with laughter…and he wanted that life with her.

He grinned, knowing he must look like a lack-wit to Society’s leading peers who studied him as though he were a Drury Lane Theatre act. At one time he’d been the same manner of snide, pompous bastards who’d found fault in her merely for the origins of her birth. It had taken Abigail to show him the kind of man he’d been, and made him aspire to more.

He’d not make apologies for having fallen in love with Abigail Stone.

“I hope you are happy with what you’ve done,” his mother hissed.

Geoffrey started. “Mother…”

“Wipe that foolish smile off your face,” she snapped. “We have to leave. Immediately.”

Another rumble of thunder shook the room.

There it was again, the looming sense of calamity that flared and pulsed with a life energy. He remembered Abigail’s hasty departure, the panic in her eyes, his mother’s enraged eyes… “What is it?” he asked, quietly.

“Not here. Waxham has already had the carriage summoned for us,” she said from the corner of her mouth.

A sniggering laugh caught Geoffrey’s attention, and his frown deepened.

“Now, Geoffrey.” His mother barked the command like a colonel giving orders to his troops.

Only, Lord Carmichael stepped into Geoffrey’s path.

Carmichael’s wide smile revealed an uneven row of rotten, yellow-stained teeth. The overwhelming scent of garlic threatened to bowl Geoffrey over. Then his eyes fell to Lord Carmichael’s hands clasped in front of his cumbersome belly. A thin haze of red rage clouded his vision as he remembered the moment he’d come upon Abigail with this fiend’s gnarled hands pawing at her person.