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Gray lay in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling mouldings made mysterious by shadows.
He had children here, estates and obligations here. A seat in the House of Lords. Responsibilities. Many people would say that one of those was to find a suitable bride who would get on with his mother, love his children, support him socially and politically.
But that was not going to happen. His record as a husband had convinced him that he should not try again and Gabrielle Frost was simply impossible. Except as a lover. Perhaps after a week or two they would have worked this mutual desire out of their systems. He could only hope so, he felt he had enough regrets about women as it was.
Chapter Thirteen
‘This one,’ Gaby announced, turning a slow circle in the little drawing room of the house halfway up Half Moon Street.
‘Are you sure?’ Gray queried. ‘The property in Charles Street has been redecorated more recently and the St James’s Place one is larger and we still haven’t seen the one near Grosvenor Square.’
‘This is close to Green Park. The street is quiet and the house has a good feel to it. There is a pleasant sitting room and bedchamber for Jane and one for me, and the dining room and this drawing room are quite adequate for any entertaining I might do. The domestic quarters are good, too, which will help in attracting suitable staff.’
‘If you are sure? The rent, I have to admit, is reasonable and Hotchkiss says the landlord will be flexible about how long you take it for. Property is in demand in the area and he will have no trouble reletting it if you decide to leave at short notice. I’ll send him a note now.’ He took a notebook from his pocket, scribbled a few lines and folded it. ‘Are you ready to look at the apartments?’
‘Yes.’ This was what she had been dreading, she thought as she followed him out to where his groom waited with the phaeton. Gray obviously thought that taking an apartment would be a discreet way of conducting an affaire and he was right. Only she now had to tell him that she did not want one. Or, rather, that she did, but her conscience would not allow it. He might very well ask why her inconvenient conscience had not informed her of this at the first kiss, by the second caress. A very fair question, she supposed.
The groom took the note, handed the reins over to Gray and walked briskly off down the street. He had even thought of that, she thought gloomily, finding that she did not have the courage to tell him while he was concentrating on the traffic.
They went through Berkeley Square, crossed Bond Street and drew up outside a house in a quiet backstreet. ‘Veil,’ Gray murmured before he gestured to a crossing sweeper, handed him sixpence to hold the horses and promised him the same when they came out.
The lad grinned, bit the coin, pocketed it and went to stand at the horses’ heads, holding the reins firmly. ‘Dun this afore, guv’nor, they’ll be all right wiv me. Prime pair of prads.’
Gaby allowed herself to be helped down and followed Gray up to the front door. The landlady had obviously been expecting them, a key was handed over and the woman retreated back into her downstairs front parlour without any attempt to look at Gaby, for which she was truly grateful.
They climbed one flight of stairs in silence, then Gray unlocked the right-hand door on the landing and held it for her to walk through to a sitting room with a view of the street. ‘Gray—’
‘Not bad,’ he said after a swift glance round, turned back, caught her up in his arms and gave her a rapid, hard kiss, then let her go. He opened another door. ‘Ah, the bedchamber. Very pleasant, what do you think?’
‘Gray.’ She stayed where she was in the middle of the sitting room.
‘What is wrong?’ He turned back, then closed the bedchamber door. ‘The landlady appears discreet, the place seems very clean and respectable.’
‘I can’t do this. I realised last night.’ She braced herself for his reaction.
‘By this I assume you mean have an affaire? A rather sudden change of mind. Is it something I have done? Or not done?’ He was very clearly not pleased, but he was hanging on to his temper, which was a relief. She realised her knees were not quite steady and her mouth was dry.
‘No. It is nothing you have said or done, or not said, not done. I want to be your lover, but I cannot, not with a clear conscience, and I realised it last night when I thought it through without a haze of desire consuming me. Gray, the reason I came to London was that I need to find a father for my child, a man who will agree to surrender it to me without making any claims. Someone I can trust to vanish and allow me to return to Portugal as a widow, raise the child respectably.
‘I cannot begin an affaire with you, then just stop and coldly go looking for another man for that purpose. It would not be right, not fair to you. And I don’t think I could bear it, it will be hard enough as it is.’
She had expected an explosion or a lecture or disgust. Possibly, probably, all three. Instead Gray looked at her, that steady frown on his face, and seemed simply to study her. After a moment he asked, ‘You are in the market for a stud?’
‘I am looking for a man I can trust not to blackmail me,’ she said, her tongue stiff in her mouth. ‘An intelligent man. A decent man without any ties. I realise this may be an impossible quest.’
‘So you lied to me when you told me that you were coming to London to allow any tension between you and your neighbours, the MacFarlanes, to cool. You intended to find a father for your child all along.’ One hand rested, clenched, on the door frame of the bedchamber. He was angry, she saw clearly. Angry and hurt.
‘That was a partial reason. It makes sense. If I return, apparently married and widowed, everyone who knows about the MacFarlanes’ schemes will assume I acted on the rebound from that discovery.’
Gray lifted his fist an inch, thumped it once against the door frame, then walked away to the window. ‘The tenderness of your conscience is at odds with your prowess as a schemer, it seems.’
‘If my parents taught me anything, it was to listen to my conscience and be guided by it,’ she said bleakly, to his back. ‘I allowed my feelings for you to overcome that. It was tender enough when I considered how I must be honest with this man—if I ever find him—but, somehow, desire was not so easy to resist as it should be.’
‘And that is what you feel for me? Desire?’
‘And liking and, I had hoped, friendship. But that is a forlorn hope now, I can see that.’ It was more than the loss of friendship that was tearing at her, making this so hard and bitter.
I could love him. Perhaps I already do and I have deceived him and wounded him and he deserved none of that.
