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“Lord Porter,” Gabriel inclined his head.“Pleased to meet you.”
Her father bowed. “It’s my pleasure, Your Grace.”
Anxiously, Anastasia stood by as the two spoke, and then, her mother entered the room. After her father introduced her, Gabriel smiled. “Now I know where Ana gains her beauty from.”
“Oh, you’re certainly a charmer,” her mother laughed. “It will not work on me, but keep trying, Your Grace.”
A footman came with a pillow bearing a bouquet of pink carnations, which Gabriel handed to her mother, and a box holding a bottle of aged wine, which he gifted her father.
“Château Margaux!” Simon exclaimed, “Seventeen eighty-four? Your Grace, this is certainly too much!”
“Nonsense,” Gabriel shook his head. “It is the least I can do. Please, accept them.”
When the gifts were set aside, Anastasia met Gabriel’s eyes, and she cocked a brow; he smirked. Aunt Elizabeth came into the room, fixing her turban while Margaret came behind in a flowing maroon gown.
“The table is ready for us,” her aunt nodded. “Please, let us adjourn to the dining room.”
Gabriel extended his arm, and Anastasia took it as he led her into the room; he pulled her seat out and seated himself across from her. He had an easy smile on his face, his gaze locked on hers for just a moment, sending her a bolstering look of strength, courage, and determination. Anastasia could barely take a breath, feeling the butterflies beginning to flutter in her stomach, and she lifted her chin.
A procession of liveried footmen entered the room and placed bowls of soup in front of them, and with the still twisting of her stomach, Ana waited for the others to begin eating before she dared to lift her own spoon.
While her aunt sat at the head of the table in polite conversation, things slightly stifled until her father decided to grab the bull by the horns.
Simon wiped his mouth and set his spoon aside. “So, if you would mind me getting the uncomfortable topic out of the way, Your Grace, please tell me about your engagement with my dear Ana.”
Anastasia’s hand was shaking so much, she almost dropped the spoon and spilled the asparagus soup down her gown. “It’s only a courtship now, papa.”
“She’s right, Porter,” Gabriel replied. “No one is rushing anything and Anastasia…” She had her gaze fixed on him, seeing how he turned his head to glance at her, and immediately her cheeks flushed with of heat and the feelings she had for him. “…and she has the power to break the courtship at any time.”
Theodora frowned. “And why would she do so?”
An icy sensation ran down her spine while Gabriel sipped his water then sat back in his chair, cocking one elbow on the chairs’ arm and gave her mother a steady look—one that did not settle Anastasia’s nerves at all.
“Because, My Lady, I have a reputation around town,” Gabriel replied. “They call me the Eternal Bachelor because I have never courted or been engaged before.”
Simon added, “And what about the rumors of you being a lothario?”
Anastasia felt ill, her stomach churned with unease, and something tasted bitter at the back of her throat. This was it—this was when her father would ban him from seeing her. She could barely look up, but Gabriel seemed unfazed.
“There is that too. I have not hidden anything of my past from Anastasia, and she has all the power to end it if she feels it is too much.”
Suddenly, she felt ever pair of eyes on her, and notching her head up, Anastasia steadily replied, “I do not.”
A soft silence dampened the room before her father said, “Well, that’s that, I suppose?”
“Itis?” Margaret gasped from her place at her mother side.
“Yes,” Simon replied, while fixing his spectacles. “I know it sounds odd, but we trust Ana’s judgment. She is very perceptive and astute for her age. Her mother and I have never known her to not look before she leaps.”
Meeting Gabriel’s eyes again, Anastasia managed to hold in a giggle when he winked. The tension in her spine fled, and she decided that perhaps, just perhaps, this dinner would go well.
Two hours later when dessert plates were swept away and dinner ended, Gabriel declined an invitation to stay for brandy, saying he had an early morning the next day.
Anastasia followed him to the foyer, and there he took her hand, kissed it, then leaned into her ear, “Pardon me for not saying it before, but you look breathtaking this evening.”
“Thank you for being forthright with my father,” she murmured. “He respected you for it.”
With a curt nod, he donned his hat. “Come to my home tomorrow evening.”
