Alathea saw him coming, and had to fight down an urge to screech at her sisters-what had they done! She'd seen him walk through the gates of the Inn and pause. Her attention locked on him, she'd assured herself that he wouldn't notice her in the shadows, that there was no reason for her heart to gallop, for her nerves to twitch.
He'd remained safely ignorant of her presence-she'd been surprised he'd acted so swiftly on the countess's behalf. That was, she presumed, why he was here-if she'd known, she would never have risked coming. Having him find her anywhere near any location he would associate with the countess had formed no part of her careful plans. She needed to keep her two personas completely distinct, especially near him.
As he'd walked along the street, cane swinging, broad shoulders square, sunlight had gleamed on his chestnut hair, gilding the lightly curling locks. Her thoughts had slowed, halted-she'd completely forgotten Mary and Alice were with her.
They'd seen him and called-now there was no escape. As he crossed the grass toward them, she drew in a breath, lifted her chin, tightened her fists about her parasol's handle-and tried to quell her panic.
He couldn't recognize lips he'd kissed but not seen, could he?
/> Smiling easily, Gabriel strode into the trees' shadows. As he neared, Mary and Alice stopped jigging and contented themselves with beaming; only then, with his eyes adjusting and with their dancing parasols no longer distracting him, did he see the lady standing behind them.
Alathea.
His stride almost faltered.
She stood straight and tall, silently contained, her parasol held at precisely the correct angle to protect her fine skin from the sun. Not, of course, waving at him.
Masking his reaction-the powerful jolt that shook him whenever he saw her unexpectedly and the prickling sensation that followed-he continued his advance. She watched him with her usual cool regard, her customary challenge-a haughty watchfulness that never failed to get his goat.
Forcing his gaze from her, he smiled and greeted Mary and Alice, veritable pictures in mull muslin. He made them laugh by bowing extravagantly over their hands.
"We were utterly amazed to see you!" Mary said.
"We've been to the park twice," Alice confided, "but that was earlier than this. You probably weren't about."
Refraining from replying that he rarely inhabited the park, at least not during the fashionable hours, he fought to keep his gaze on them. "I knew you were coming to town, but I hadn't realized you were here." He'd last met them in January, at a party given by his mother at his family home, Quiverstone Manor in Somerset. Morwellan Park and the Manor shared a long boundary; the combined lands and the nearby Quantock Hills had been his childhood stamping ground-his, his brother Lucifer's, and Alathea's.
With easy familiarity, he complimented both girls, fielding their questions, displaying his suave London persona to their evident delight. Yet while he distracted them with trivialities, his attention remained riveted on the cool presence a few feet away. Why that should be so was an abiding mystery-Mary and Alice were effervescent delights. Alathea in contrast was cool, composed, still-in some peculiar way, a lodestone for his senses. The girls were as bubbling, tumbling streams, while Alathea was a deep pool of peace, calm, and something else he'd never succeeded in denning. He was intensely aware of her, as she was of him; he was acutely conscious they had not exchanged greetings.
They never did. Not really.
Steeling himself, he lifted his gaze from Mary's and Alice's faces and looked at Alathea. At her hair. But she was wearing a bonnet-he couldn't tell whether she was also wearing one of her ridiculous caps, or one of those foolish scraps of lace she'd started placing about her top knot. She probably was concealing some such frippery nonsense, but he couldn't comment unless he saw it. Lips thinning, he lowered his gaze until his eyes met hers. "I hadn't realized you were in London."
He was speaking directly to her, specifically of her, his tone quite different from when he'd spoken to the girls.
Her lashes flickered; her grip on her parasol tightened. "Good afternoon, Rupert. It is a lovely day. We came up to town a week ago."
He stiffened.
Alathea sensed it. Her stomach knotted with panic, she looked at Mary and Alice and forced herself to smile serenely. "The girls will be making their come-outs shortly."
After a fractional hesitation, he followed her lead. "Indeed?" Turning back to Mary and Alice, he quizzed them on their plans.
Alathea tried to breathe evenly, tried to hold her sudden lightheadedness at bay. She refused to let her gaze slide his way. She knew his face as well as her own-the large, heavily hooded eyes, the mobile lips given to wry quirks, the classic planes of nose and forehead, the uncompromisingly square chin. He was tall enough to see over her head-one of the few who could do so. He was strong enough to subdue her if he wished, and ruthless enough to do it. There was nothing about him physically that she didn't already know, nothing to set such a sharp edge to her usual tension.
Nothing beyond the fact that she'd seen him last night in the porch of St. Georges, while he hadn't seen her.
The memory of his lips covering hers, of the beguiling touch of his fingers beneath her chin, locked her lungs, tightened her nerves, set her senses leaping. Her lips tingled.
"Our ball will be in three weeks," Mary was telling him. "You'll be invited, of course."
"Will you come?" Alice asked.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world." His gaze flicked to Alathea's face, then he looked back at the girls.
Gabriel knew exactly how a cat with its fur rubbed the wrong way felt-precisely how he always felt near Alathea. How she did it he did not know; he didn't even know if she had to do anything-it simply seemed his inevitable reaction to her. He'd react, and she'd snap back. The air between them would crackle. It had started when they were children and had grown more intense with the years.
He kept his gaze on the girls, ruthlessly stifling the urge to turn to Alathea. "But what are you doing here?"