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“As you wish.”
Upon reaching their destination, not a single spot was left open for them to park the carriage, and they had to go two street downs.
“Can’t you do something to stop this congestion?” David asked.
“Sadly, that is not how the ducal office works,” Gabriel replied as they walked from the small lane to the main road—only to come across Anastasia and her friend Miss Thompson heading, he hoped, to the same jewelers.
While David’s gaze was trained on Miss Thompson, Gabriel only had eyes for Anastasia, who was garbed in a simple high-waisted, pale-blue gown; it was rather plain, but it flattered her figure and revealed her sensual curves that he ached to smooth his hand over.
Her brown hair was caught up in a riot of curls, and a simple flower he suspected she plucked from her aunt’s garden was tucked artfully between the strands. When their gaze met, an odd hitch lurched in his heart.
She curtsied. “Your Grace. Back from your duties, I see. I don’t want to overstep, but I hope you had some time to step away from work and unwind.”
If only you knew.
“I’ve had my moments,” Gabriel replied after bowing. “My I ask, where are you heading?”
“My cousin has asked us to retrieve some jewelry for her, and Victoria and I decided to make a day of it,” Anastasia replied. “I assume you and Lord Gladhame are doing the same?”
“Actually, Gladhame commandeered me on my way home, and like the Samaritan I am, I let him,” Gabriel replied.
Her lips twitched. “You have my sympathies.”
“It happens that we are heading the same way,” Gabriel replied. “May we accompany you?”
“I don’t see why not.” She pivoted on her heel to see Miss Thompson and David in a blistering battle of glaring at each other. Behind them stood a darkly suited maid and Lady Crescentwood, who was looking at the two, profoundly amused. “Please, tell my aunt, and we shall go.”
With a curt nod, Gabriel passed the two and leveled a warning look to David then went to the Dowager. They didn’t speak long, and after he asked permission to escort Anastasia and her friend to the jewelers, the Dowager gave her yes, and they headed off.
Holding the door for them, Gabriel joined them when the Dowager went to a salesperson, and David went to another. Gabriel stood beside Anastasia as her gaze roamed over the jewels. “How have you been?”
She eyed him. “At the moment, very perplexed with where to store the bouquets I get every morning from your estate,” she replied. “I am contemplating planting a garden with them, a garden of paradoxes.”
“Why?” he lifted a brow.
“That is all the messages in the flowers tell me.” She meandered to a display where a bust held a majestic necklace.
Made in a unique design, the necklace had a gentle V shape with five faceted emerald beads on both sides and a luminous diamond in the center, all connected with silver-gold strands that radiated from the diamond like the sun’s rays.
“You must admit,” Anastasia added, “you are frank but mercurial. You entertain a lot but keep company with a few. Your life is open, but the truth of it is a secret. You care deeply, but love is a myth.”
“These are not paradoxes, Miss Porter, but wisdom,” he said archly. “One must not lay all your cards on the table so to speak. The less anyone knows about you, the more you lower the chances of getting hurt or ambushed.”
She stared at him with a lengthy determined silence then tilted her head just so, eyes contemplative—and if Gabriel wanted to admit—sympathetic. Then, she uttered a few words that almost took his legs from under him.
“Does it not get exhausting to be on your guard all the while? Is it not tiresome to reject the hundred on the chance the one will hurt you while the other ninety-nine will not?”
Stunned, he gave himself precious—and telling— seconds to regroup.
“In my position, it is a little more than one, my dear,” he replied quietly.
Anastasia sensed he needed a reprieve, so she turned to the necklace, her lips curving a little. “How glorious is this? I can only conjecture that it is worth more than half of my father’s assets combined.”
Gabriel felt a profound desire to see it on her neck, and moreover, if she were going to play the part of his duchess, at least she should look the part, he reasoned. “Please, humor me and turn around.”
Anastasia brows met in question, but she did as he asked, and Gabriel reached out to lift the necklace from the bust. As his fingers touched it, horrified stares, gasps, and strangled cries came from the attendants around him, but frankly, he didn’t care. He planned to buy the damned thing anyway. They could speak to him about it later, but he dared one of them to stop him.
Resting it around her neck, he felt every eye in the room on them but chose to focus on the soft lavender scent wafting from her hair. Deftly, Gabriel secured the diamond-studded clasp at the back of her neck— with the room so silent a single breath sounded like a hurricane—and pulled away. “Please, take a look,” he murmured.
