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‘Nothing.’ Gray shifted suddenly, leaning forward and taking her hands. ‘Why, Gabrielle, do you think I do not believe you?’
‘You certainly sound like the counsel for the prosecution! Have you any idea how your voice drips icicles?’
‘Damn it, I am trying to get the facts straight, to see if there is any weakness in your defences we may need to strengthen. It sounds as though no one suspects anything and there is nothing that could connect him with you that evening. Certainly if his movements were not known, then no one is likely to have calculated that he went into the river from your property.’
‘You do believe me?’ It was an effort to keep her voice steady, but not, it seemed, a very successful one.
‘Gabrielle, darling. Of course I believe you.’ Gray pulled her into his arms. ‘Hell. Are you crying?’
‘No.’ She managed not to sniffle into his shirt front. ‘I’ve never spoken of it with anyone but Laurent. I didn’t expect it to affect me so...’
Breathe. You are not going to weep all over him. Breathe.
‘You seem so strong, so decisive, that I did not think how my questions must have affected you,’ Gray said, his voice soft. He seemed to have his cheek against her hair, which was soothing, although the thud of his heart against her chest was anything but calming. ‘I was trying to be logical, methodical.’
‘You sound very much the senior army officer sometimes, especially when I cannot see your face,’ Gaby confessed, burrowing a little closer.
‘I’ve been an officer virtually all my adult life. You must forgive me if it takes a little time to change, become a civilian. Gabrielle—what are you doing?’
‘Smelling you,’ she confessed, her response rather muffled with her nose among the folds of his neckcloth.
‘I had a bath before dinner,’ Gray protested.
‘I know. You smell of lemons and spice and starch and warm man.’
‘And you smell of jasmine and rosemary and warm woman. It is somewhat arousing.’
‘I can tell.’ She was sitting across his thighs, after all, and not everything she could feel was muscle.
‘The sooner we find you a house, the better.’ His voice was a husky growl now.
She stayed still, aware of how unfair it was to push his self-control so far. ‘You think I am safe now from any questions about Norwood?’
‘I am certain of it. If anyone had seen something, suspected it and had wanted to betray you, they would have done so long a
go.’ His arms tightened around her. ‘I can see now why you are so very resistant to the thought of marriage.’
‘The fear of fortune hunters?’ Gaby sat up, then moved carefully to sit next to him, bracing herself against Gray’s shoulder as the carriage lurched. He seemed reluctant to let her go, but one of them had to move or they would spend the night driving round and round London and, tempting though that might be, it was hardly sensible. And she supposed that being sensible was the right thing, although it was hard just now to recall why.
‘No, it is not that, not the complete truth. I was not hiding anything when I told you why I do not wish to marry. It is not because of Norwood,’ she assured the shadowy figure opposite her. ‘Not every man who would want to marry me for what I have would be a venal as he was. But whoever it was, as a married woman I would lose control of everything that is mine, that I and my family have built. It would not matter whether I married a rich man or a poor man, a man who loved me or a fortune hunter, the effect would be the same.’
‘Would it not be worth it if you loved him in return?’ Gray asked. ‘What if Laurent came back, had not been killed, after all? We are at peace now. Would you marry him?’
‘I... No.’ Where had that come from, that certainty?
‘You loved him.’
‘I had strong feelings for him, although perhaps they were not love. I would never have become his lover if I had not cared for him, but I do not think I would love him now.’ The certainty was unsettling. ‘I think we would have grown too far apart.’ Gaby tried to work out why she was suddenly so definite. ‘We were young and in the strangest of situations, a world away from normality. I was grieving and he, I am sure, was homesick and exhausted by fighting. We were right for each other then. But not now, not for ever.’
Not now when she wanted something else from a man, something...more? But Laurent had been brave and gallant and kind. What more could she want? Other than to make love with the man before her. The man who had interrogated her with such cool insistence and yet who promised her his silence and his understanding, promised her safety.
‘I think I want to go back to the hotel now. I am so tired all of a sudden.’
‘Confession tends to be exhausting, don’t you find? A letting-go of a tension that has been held a long time.’ Gray reached up and banged on the roof of the carriage and it slowed, turned.
‘What have you to confess?’ Gaby found she had the energy to tease a little.
‘Youthful idiocy,’ he said after a moment. ‘Then poor judgement followed by misguided gallantry followed by an inability to... Never mind, that is in the past now.’
