Bride for a Night(58)

“I merely speak the truth.”

“My wife is above reproach and if you think to say otherwise you will regret—”

“My lord,” she interrupted with brittle impatience. “I would never be so mad as to question the Countess of Ashcombe’s honor, but you must realize that she is precisely the sort of female to stir Jacques’s most protective instincts.”

Against his will, Gabriel found himself hesitating. He wanted to dismiss her words as a trick, but how could he? There was only one reason that the Frenchman had brought Talia to this palace and treated her as a welcome guest rather than a prisoner.

He wanted her for himself.

White-hot fury exploded through him.

“She belongs to me.”

“You have an odd means of claiming her,” Sophia said, her voice edged with annoyance. “I am not entirely certain why you chose to abandon your young and beautiful bride in the countryside. It was highly irresponsible and destined to rouse the primitive desires of every man the neighborhood over to rush to her rescue.”

He scowled, ignoring the unpleasant realization that she had a point.

“I did not abandon her.”

“She was alone and vulnerable, an irresistible target for a man who worships the memory of his father.”

He feverishly paced across the cellar, his heart giving a strange lurch at the thought of his wife feeling alone and vulnerable while he had been in London, pompously wallowing in his self-righteousness.

“What does his father have to do with Talia?”

“The previous Monsieur Gerard was willing to die to protect his wife from the cruelty of a villainous nobleman. How could Jacques not be eager to charge to the rescue of a damsel in distress?”

Gabriel snorted. “The bastard did not charge to the rescue. He kidnapped her and now is holding her prisoner.”

“In his mind he is the hero rescuing her from you, the evil blackguard threatening to destroy her life,” Sophia ruthlessly pressed.

Male possession clawed through him. Talia was his. And he would kill any man who thought otherwise.

“I assume that you have a purpose in seeking me out?” he seethed.

Her dark eyes smoldered with barely suppressed emotion as she stepped from the wall.

“I wish your wife to disappear from France and I believe you are the gentleman to accomplish the delicate task.”

“I would, of course, be delighted to return my wife to our home in England, but perhaps you might have noticed I am currently being held captive.” He waved a hand toward the door. “Unless you have magically made the guards disappear?”

“Non, but I am willing to distract them while you escape.”

He studied her with blatant suspicion. “Why?”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Pardon?”

“Why would you assist me?”

“I have told you, I desire the countess to be taken far away from France.”

“Mere jealousy would not compel you to betray your lover, and certainly not your country.”

A tragic smile curved her lips as she stood proudly beneath his accusing gaze. “You understand nothing of women if you are unaware that we will sacrifice everything for love.”

A pang of envy—or was it longing?—briefly pierced his heart before he angrily dismissed the sensation.

Love was nothing more than a pretty illusion that females used to disguise their primitive passions. Couples were drawn together by lust, by power or by wealth. It had nothing to do with rosebuds and moonbeams.

“Actually I understand enough of women to be suspicious when a beautiful female simply appears, offering precisely what I most desire,” he said and sneered. “There is always a price to be paid. Usually one I have no wish to pay.”