Bride for a Night(116)

“Women can be quite foolish when it comes to men, but Sophia is too sophisticated to have risked her heart if she did not believe you considered her as more than a bed partner.”

“It no longer matters.” He abruptly set aside the enamel box, restlessly pacing toward the window that offered a view of the street shrouded in the heavy silence that came just before dawn. “She is returning to Paris in a few hours.”

She studied his tense profile. “Not if you ask her to stay.”

“I did.” He turned to meet her steady gaze. “She does not appreciate your presence in my home.”

Talia made a strangled sound, wondering if he were being deliberately obtuse.

“Of course she does not.” Talia planted her hands on her hips. “Do you have no feelings for her whatsoever?”

He stiffened, almost as if he were offended by her question. Ridiculous man. Then, narrowing his eyes, he smiled in cold amusement.

“Ah, very clever.”

“Clever?”

He folded his arms over his chest. “You hope that if you can rouse my loyalty to Sophia that I will agree to release you and appease her jealousy.”

It was, of course, precisely what she desired, but Talia was not stupid enough to admit as much. Jacques was not certain his desire for Sophia was greater than his overpowering need to avenge his father’s death.

“Am I not allowed to feel sympathy for a woman who is being abandoned by the man she was silly enough to trust?” she asked instead. “I do, after all, have some experience with that kind of disappointment.”

A surprising fury darkened his eyes. “Do not compare me to Harry Richardson.”

“Then be a better man than he.”

Her challenging words rang through the air as he studied her with an odd expression.

“You are not the wounded child who first set foot in Devonshire.”

A faint smile curved her lips as she recalled her arrival at Carrick Park. She had truly felt like a child who was being unfairly punished. She had been lost and alone and unable to contemplate a future that promised any happiness.

Now she could only be thankful that she was no longer that timid girl who allowed others to determine her worth. She had discovered a strength within herself.

A strength that did not depend on others’ opinions.

“No. That child has thankfully matured into a woman,” she agreed. “And a wife.”

His lips tightened. “The Countess of Ashcombe?”

“That is merely a title.” She shrugged. “I shall always be Talia.”

“Thank God,” he growled. “You are too fine a female to be wasted upon the aristocracy.”

About to inform him that when she spoke of becoming Gabriel’s wife that it had nothing to do with her rise to nobility, Talia bit off her words as she caught sight of a wooden panel sliding open across the room.

At first she thought it must have been a trick of the flickering firelight, but she realized the paneling had truly shifted to reveal a passageway beyond. And that there was the outline of a male form in the shadowed darkness.

A scream rose to her throat. God almighty, was there a soldier attempting to sneak into her private rooms? Or was it some savage off the streets?

Thankfully the scream remained lodged in her throat as the intruder shifted just enough that she could recognize the elegant features and golden hair. Gabriel? Good…lord.


Her mouth snapped shut as he lifted a slender finger to his lips and silently slid the paneling closed, hiding him and the passageway from prying eyes.