Page 49 of The Duchess Debt

“I’m going to ride out after His Grace. Please tell the grooms to saddle a horse for me and send my maid up to my room.”

“Yes, miss.”

She grabbed up her skirt and ran upstairs to her room to change.

Half an hour later, she pulled her mare to a stop on the little rise overlooking the south pasturelands and scanned her eyes across the landscape. The morning was warm and bright, without a cloud in the sky, and from this vantage point, she could see far beyond the estate’s southernmost reaches and into the rolling hills clinging to the distant horizon. A sense of freedom swept over her and sent her heart pounding.

No wonder Gabe loved living here, surrounded by such beautiful and open countryside. Marriage to Clarissa must have felt like a prison. This place must have been his only escape.

Her eyes landed on his horse, tied at the edge of the field where Gabe was repairing a short stone wall that had seen better days under William the Conqueror. She smiled as she watched him lift the heavy stones and put them into place, then smack his gloved hand against each one to lodge it securely into place. That was Gabe, all right, always preferring to work off his anger and frustration rather than let it seethe. If she let him, she suspected, he would most likely wall off the entire pasture by dinner.

She gently urged her horse forward and trotted down the rise and across the field. She stopped beside the wall and smiled down at him as she reached to pat her mare’s neck, but she couldn’t help the way her breath caught at the sight of him.

He was disheveled, looking nothing at all like a distinguished duke. His redingote lay discarded over the wall a few feet away, along with his waistcoat, leaving him scandalously half-dressed with his braces hanging down around his hips and muscular thighs visible against the tight-fitted breeches. His neck was bare, his cravat nowhere in sight, and his hair-roughened forearms exposed from shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and dampened his hair, curling it against his bare nape. Her mouth inexplicably turned dry, and she tightened her gloves on the reins to check the sudden flare of desire to touch him, althoughshe was torn whether to brush her fingers through his damp hair or over the shirt that clung wet with perspiration along his spine.

Good Lord, she’d never seen him look so masculine and rugged before, and the sight stirred a warm longing between her thighs.

Gabe placed a large rock into a gap in the wall, then twisted it into place before looking up at her. He wiped his dirtied forearm across his brow and blew out an exerted breath, signaling the tiring hard work he had completed since dawn. Slowly, he approached her horse.

“What brings you out here this early?” He fussed with her mare’s bridle. “You should still be in bed at his hour.”

“I wanted to talk to you.” Her hand stilled against the mare’s neck. “I ran into Adam this morning as he was returning home from the tavern.”

His eyes darted to hers. “He said something inappropriate to you?”

Many things.But she ignored his question and instead asked, “What happened between the two of you yesterday? What did you say to each other?”

His mouth twisted wryly at her bluntness, drawing her attention to the faint glistening of perspiration covering his face, including above his upper lip. Would he taste like man and salt if she dared to lean down and kiss him?

Delaying his answer, he trailed his gaze over her, from her tall black beaver hat down to the tips of her boots poking out from beneath the yards of skirt. “Nice habit. It looks lovely on you.”

Thatwas a dodge, if ever she’d heard one. “I’m glad you think so. I had to trade a ball gown for it in order to remain under our agreed-upon dress allowance for my trousseau.” She arched an eyebrow, letting the biting sarcasm of her tease work to replace the primal urge she felt to slip down into this arms andenvelope herself in the taste and scent of him. “I hope you still find it comely when I have to wear it to the London theatre.”

“As long as you don’t ride away at intermission,” he teased, yet the forced smile he gave her was more haunted than humorous.

Cold dread filled her chest, quenching the aching heat she’d felt at the first sight of him. Whatever was said between the two Cavanaugh men must have been decidedly awful for him to tease her like this. But couldn’t allow him to avoid her questions. So she repeated, a bit softer this time, “What happened, Gabe?”

Blowing out a hard breath, he turned away just far enough to squint into the sun at the horizon and admitted, “Adam threatened to blackmail me.”

She held her breath and listened silently as he told her what had passed between them, and all the while he fussed with her mare’s bridle so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with her. She didn’t blame him, most likely too ashamed of Adam’s behavior. Or too furious.

“What will you do?” Helena felt the same shame and fury. She had always known Adam could pass for Satan himself, but with his return, truly, all hell had broken loose.

“I think I’ve convinced him to forget his plan,” he finished. “Right now, I have him believing that the world would care nothing about Alice’s illegitimacy, and I’m hoping he continues to believe it, stays for our wedding, and then leaves before the first breakfast course is served. Most likely, he’s hoping I’ll be generous and increase his allowance before he goes if he behaves himself and remembers the importance of family.”

Helena knew better. Adam cared nothing for the plight of his family, or he wouldn’t have skipped off to India in the first place and sent no word for five years, not even to let them know he was alive…or returning to Grangely Park. “And if he doesn’t?”When he doesn’t?she could have said, since it was only a matterof time until Adam did something idiotic. “If he attempts to blackmail you again, what will you do?”

He shrugged a shoulder.

She took no comfort in the dismissive gesture. “I know you, Gabe.” Better than anyone else in the world, including his brother and aunt. “You won’t let your family be dragged into scandal, not after…” Her voice choked off.

“Not after all the scandal Clarissa committed?” he finished for her, released the bridle, and stepped back with a shake of his head. “What choice will I have but to give him what he wants? I have to protect my family and new wife, my reputation, the dukedom—”

“And Alice,” she reminded him quietly. “She’s the only innocent in all of this.”

“And Alice,” he repeated. “I’ll give him the money in return for his silence, then kick him out of Grangely on his arse.” He met her gaze. “But it also means I’ll never see my brother again. We were never close, but now…” He shook his head, not dismissingly—fatalistically. “I know what decision I would make.”

A decision he neverwantedto make, she knew.