Bride for a Night(40)

Thank God the local tenants were devoted to the young Countess of Ashcombe. The moment the alarm had been raised at her failure to return for supper, they had spread throughout the neighborhood to find their beloved Talia. Within hours they had found two strangers who were staying at a local posting inn, each of them carrying far too much money for innocent travelers.

They had held the pair captive at the local gaol, where the magistrate had struggled to prevent the more bloodthirsty citizens from taking matters into their own hands.

Gabriel had found himself struggling to suppress his own bloodlust as he had questioned the insolent creatures, and it was Hugo who had prevented him from choking the life from the bastards when they had grudgingly revealed the truth of Jack Gerard and the fact he had taken Talia to his lair in France.

As it was, he’d managed to crack the ribs of one of the traitorous cowards and knocked the teeth from the other before Hugo had managed to pull him off.

By the next morning Gabriel had been on his private yacht, headed toward the coast of France with Hugo grimly at his side.

“It has been some time, but I am capable of recognizing my wife, Hugo,” he assured his companion.

Hugo narrowed his golden eyes. “She does not appear to be a prisoner.”

Gabriel swallowed a curse. This was precisely the reason that he had attempted to keep his friend from joining him on this quest, despite the knowledge he could have no more skilled or loyal companion.

“Looks can often be deceiving,” he muttered.

“In that we are in perfect agreement.” Hugo tensed as a soldier strolled along the flagstone path, passing close enough to the conservatory that they could catch the scent of his cigar. Hugo grabbed Gabriel’s arm and tugged him toward the back of the building, his expression hard.

“Dammit, Ashcombe, we cannot linger here. The French soldiers might be as ignorant as they are incompetent, but they will eventually stumble across us. Besides, neither of us is as young as we used to be. Crouching in the bushes is damned uncomfortable.”

Hugo grimaced as he glanced down at his ruined breeches covered in mud and his once glossy boots that were now scratched from the past hour of tromping through the thick forest surrounding the palace. Gabriel was equally rumpled, his jade coat ripped in several places and his cravat wrinkled from the late-summer heat. Even his hair was mussed and the stubble on his jaw revealed he was twelve hours past the need for a shave. A considerable change from the elegant image he was always careful to portray to society.

“I have no intention of leaving here without Talia,” he growled.

Hugo shook his head. “Do not be a fool, Ashcombe.”

“There is nothing foolish in rescuing my wife from the bastard who kidnapped her.”

“You cannot simply charge into that nest of vipers,” his friend persisted. “You would be shot before you ever reached the gardens.”


Gabriel made a sound of impatience. He’d already accepted that he could not reach Talia.

Not yet.

“There will be no charging.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“Once it grows darker I will be able to slip past the guards and find her.”

Hugo’s fingers dug into Gabriel’s arm with a punishing grip. “No.”

“This is not open to debate, Hugo.”

“I will not allow you to commit suicide for a woman who is not worth—”

Gabriel barely realized he was moving before he had his friend pinned to the back of the conservatory. The savage fear that had haunted him since discovering Talia’s absence was finally boiling over.