The Lady Forfeits. Carole Mortimer

of that hardness that throbbed between his thighs.

      Gabriel began to draw the kiss to a close as he sensed Diana’s rising panic at the intimacy, knowing by the shyness of her responses that the fool who had passed her over had never even bothered to so much as kiss her properly, let alone introduce her to physical pleasure.

      He looked down at her beneath hooded lids, having firmly assured himself of his own willingness to introduce her to every physical pleasure imaginable, before allowing his arms to drop from about the slenderness of her waist. He stepped away from her, his expression deliberately unreadable. ‘Perhaps now would be the appropriate time to tell you that you did not ask me the correct question a few minutes ago when you were asking me for details of that past scandal.’

      She blinked up at her, her cheeks still flushed. ‘No?’

      Gabriel’s expression was grim. ‘No.’

      She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘Then what should I have asked you?’

      ‘Whether I have ever been accused of taking a young girl’s innocence and then refusing to marry her when she found herself with child?’

      Diana’s throat moved convulsively as she swallowed, knowing that her cheeks were no longer flushed, but deathly pale. ‘And have you been accused of that?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ His teeth showed in a humourless smile.

      She knew a brief moment’s panic, the blood pounding in her veins, the palms of her hands suddenly damp inside her gloves, her legs feeling slightly shaky. There was no possibility of her, or of any decent woman, marrying a man so unfeeling, so without honour—No, wait one moment, she told herself sternly. Gabriel had said he’d been accused of such a heinous crime; he had not admitted to being guilty of it …

      She looked up at him searchingly. His was a hard and implacable face, the face of a man who would not suffer fools gladly. Those midnight-blue eyes were equally as cold and unyielding. But it was not a sly or malicious face—more one that defied anyone to ever question him or his actions. As he was now daring her to do?

      She drew in a shaky breath. ‘You said you were accused of it, not that you were guilty.’

      Those dark eyes narrowed. ‘I did say that, yes,’ he allowed softly.

      ‘And so are you indeed innocent of that crime?’

      Gabriel gave a small, appreciative smile. Not a single member of his family had bothered to ask him that question eight years ago, choosing instead to believe Jennifer Lindsay’s version of events.

      His friends Osbourne and Blackstone had not bothered to ask it either, but that was because they both knew him too well to believe he could ever behave in so ungentlemanly a fashion if he were indeed truly guilty of taking a young woman’s innocence.

      That Diana Copeland, a young woman he had only just met—moreover, a young woman Gabriel had deliberately kissed with passion rather than with any consideration for her own innocence—should have asked that question was beyond belief.

      Gabriel looked her straight in the eye. ‘I am.’ His gaze narrowed to steely slits as she continued to frown. ‘Having asked and been answered, you are now doubting my word on the subject?’

      ‘Not at all.’ She shook her head. ‘I just—What could this young girl, any young girl, possibly hope to gain by telling such a monstrous lie?’

      ‘As an only child I was heir to my father’s fortune and lands,’ Gabriel explained.

       ‘Was …?’

      His mouth firmed. ‘That fortune and lands were instead left completely in my mother’s care on my father’s death six years ago. Fortunately I was not left destitute as my grandfather’s estate had been left in trust and could not be taken away from me.’

      ‘And this young girl’s lies are the reason your family and society treated you so harshly all those years ago?’ she pressed.

      ‘Yes,’ he grated.

      She gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Then I can only imagine it must have been a doubly bitter pill to swallow when you knew yourself to be innocent of the crime.’

      ‘You only have my word for that,’ he pointed out grimly.

      ‘And is your word to be doubted?’ she asked delicately, eyeing him quizzically.

      Gabriel frowned. ‘My dear Diana, if I truly were the man almost everyone believes me to be, then I could simply be lying again when I say, no, it is not.’

      She smiled gently. ‘I do not believe so. You are a man, I think, who would tell the truth and—excuse me—to the devil with what anyone else chooses to believe!’

      Yes, he was. He had always been so, and this past eight years had only deepened that resolve. But, again, it was surprising that this woman already knew him well enough to have realised and accepted that …

      ‘And the—the young girl,’ she spoke hesitantly. ‘What became of her?’

      His mouth tightened. ‘My father paid another man to marry her.’

      ‘And the babe?’

      That nerve pulsed once again in Gabriel’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘Lost before it was even born.’

      Diana’s expression was pained. ‘How very sad.’

      ‘Knowing all of this, are you still of the opinion you wish to become my countess?’ he asked her directly.

      Her cheeks were pale, her hair in slight disarray from their kisses, but there was still that familiar light of resolve in those sky-blue eyes. ‘You are no more responsible for what people may wrongly choose to believe of you than I can be held accountable for my mother having left her husband and three daughters.’

      Gabriel’s mouth quirked. ‘The announcement of a betrothal between the two of us would certainly give society much to talk about!’

      She smiled a little sadly. ‘No doubt. Perhaps, if you hope to become reconciled to society you should not, after all, contemplate taking one of Harriet Copeland’s daughters as your countess?’

      Gabriel’s expression hardened. ‘I have absolutely no interest in becoming reconciled to society, or in having society be reconciled to me. Nor do I care what any of them may choose to think of me or the woman I take as my countess.’

      ‘Then we are in agreement?’ Diana held her breath as she waited for his answer.

      ‘I will have the announcement of our betrothal appear in the newspapers as soon as is possible.’ He gave a sharp inclination of his arrogant head.

      This was what Diana had wanted, what she knew was necessary to salvage her own pride after Malcolm’s defection, and to encourage her sisters to return home. Yet the reality of being betrothed to the hard and unyielding Lord Gabriel Faulkner, a man beset with a past scandal that rivalled even that of Diana’s mother—worse, a man who had kissed her with such passion only minutes ago—caused her to inwardly tremble.

      Whether that trembling was caused by apprehension or anticipation she was as yet unsure …

       Chapter Three

      ‘I am seriously starting to doubt that your Aunt Humphries exists,’ Gabriel commented drily the following morning as he and Diana sat together in the small dining room, eating their breakfast attended by the quietly efficient Soames.

      The previous afternoon had been taken up with various visits to the newspaper offices, the Westbourne lawyer, William Johnston, and to an old comrade in connection with Dominic Vaughn’s disappearance into the country. But Gabriel had returned home in time to change for dinner before joining Diana downstairs. Only Diana. Mrs Humphries had sent her apologies. Those same apologies had been sent down again in regard to breakfast this morning.

      Diana