Bride for a Night(91)

Gabriel lifted a weary hand. “No. No more lies, Harry. I know the entire sordid story.”

Harry licked his lips, his expression guarded. No doubt his clever mind was already seeking the best means to slither out of trouble. Just as he had been doing his entire life.

“And of course, you would believe the word of a French scoundrel over your own brother?”

“Unfortunately you have proven you are no longer worthy of my trust.” Gabriel deliberately caught and held his brother’s gaze. “Or my respect.”

Something flickered deep in his brother’s eyes, but before Gabriel could fool himself into believing that it was regret, Harry was turning away with a shrug.

“I have survived without both for most of my life, I will no doubt continue to do just fine without them in the future.”

Gabriel studied his brother’s tense back. “Which begs the question of precisely how you do intend to survive? Jacques Gerard will not continue to support you now that your treachery has been exposed.”

“Perhaps I shall follow in your footsteps and wed an obscenely wealthy chit who has just climbed out of the gutter—” Harry’s words were cut off as Gabriel shoved him face-first into the wall. The younger man glared over his shoulder, unable to move with Gabriel pressed against his back. “What the hell?”

“You will never speak of my wife again, do you hear me?” Gabriel hissed.

Harry’s shock faded to smug amusement as he mistakenly assumed that Gabriel’s fury was at having been forced into wedding his younger brother’s cast-off fiancée.


“Do you know how I laughed when I heard you had been bullied into taking Dowdy Dobson as the Countess of Ashcombe?” he taunted. “For once my perfect brother has become the laughingstock of society.”

Gabriel muttered a curse, as disturbed by the hideous thought that Talia might even now have been wed to his brother as by the thought of Harry’s treachery.

Christ, he could not have endured having her so near and yet forever out of his reach.

“You know nothing,” he said.

“Tell me, Gabriel, do you often have Silas join you and mother for dinner at that mausoleum of a townhouse? Or has he been condemned to the country with your ridiculous wife?” Harry laughed at his own joke. “Fitting if you had lodged him in the barn. He is a pig of a man who isn’t fit to polish the boots of a true gentleman.”

Gabriel made a sound of distaste. “And yet you were willing to steal his hard-earned money.”

“It is what he deserves for daring to believe he could force his nasty presence among his betters.”

The very fact that Gabriel had been equally condemning of Silas Dobson only increased his annoyance. With a low hiss, Gabriel stepped away from his brother, watching with a jaundiced gaze as Harry slowly turned to face him.

“You are not only a coward, Harry, but you are a fool,” he snapped.

The younger man lifted a hand to straighten his cravat, his expression sardonic.

“No, on this occasion it is you who are the fool. Not even your lofty position can bear the shame of possessing an awkward lump of a wife who—” This time Gabriel made no effort to restrain his temper. With one smooth motion his fist connected with Harry’s jaw, smacking him back against the wall with a satisfying force. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Harry pressed a hand to his bruised jaw, staring at Gabriel in disbelief. “Damn you. You knocked a tooth loose.”

Gabriel narrowed his gaze. “The next occasion you speak of my wife I will break your damned neck.”