The Complete Regency Surrender Collection. Louise Allen

of the vase scattered around him.

      She surveyed his still form cautiously. ‘You don’t think he is dead, do you? I find I am not bloodthirsty enough to kill him.’

      All the bones in Gabriel’s body disintegrated.

      She was alive.

      She was safe.

      And she was staring at him, waiting for an answer.

      Stepping closer to the motionless Frenchman, Gabriel could see what she had done to impede him. There, embedded in his thigh, sparkled a brooch encrusted with diamonds. He poked his foot into the man’s side. ‘He is still breathing. Do you need a moment?’ Gabriel certainly felt like he did. ‘Perhaps you should sit down.’

      She brushed her shaking hands against her skirt, cleaning off the remnants of the porcelain vase. ‘Do not concern yourself with me. Tell me what we do now.’

      We? Gabriel marvelled at her fortitude. He placed his pistol back under his coat. ‘We are not doing anything. You are going to return home and I will see that he is taken into custody.’

      ‘You would not have been able to subdue him without me.’

      That was a bit of an overstatement, but Gabriel thought it best to let her feel as she did. The first time one captured a criminal it was heady stuff.

      ‘You are not sending me home while you see this through,’ she continued.

      She was too stubborn for her own good. Kneeling down before her, Gabriel reached under her skirt and tore a strip off the bottom of her chemise.

      She slapped his hand away. ‘Was the destruction of this gown with the wine not sufficient enough that you felt a need to attack the rest of my wardrobe as well?’

      Stepping over to Janvier, Gabriel rolled him over with his boot, brought the man’s hands behind his back, and twisted the linen around his hands. ‘It’s prudent to ensure he will not get away should he wake up.’

      Olivia crossed her arms. ‘What do we do with him?’

      ‘Ordinarily I would have Bow Street hold him. But I will not take the chance he has a sympathiser there. I know of a place to take him for now.’

      ‘Richmond?’ She didn’t even wait for him to reply, as if the answer was a foregone conclusion. ‘How did you know Janvier was planning on killing Prinny tonight?’

      They were perilously close to a topic he had never wanted to discuss with her. ‘I received intelligence that led me to believe it was what he planned.’

      ‘So you arrived here to stop him.’

      ‘No, I had no idea where he lived. The plan was to stop him at the theatre.’

      ‘You expect me to believe you intended to give up capturing a man who wanted Prinny dead to come after me?’

      ‘I did come after you. Why you decided to come here is your tale to tell and you will tell me, Olivia.’

      ‘Janvier was to join us tonight to see Mrs Siddons. Since I would no longer be attending the performance, I came here to give him the tokens to our box.’

      Prinny’s assassin would have been sitting with them, mere feet from his intended target. Gabriel pushed his thumb against the bridge of his nose. ‘I was going to impersonate Prinny tonight, but I needed to come after you so someone else has taken my place. There are people throughout the theatre looking for Janvier.’

      ‘You will notify them the vile beast has been captured?’

      ‘I will, but I doubt I will use those exact words. I will go myself to inform them once I have Janvier secure.’

      Stepping closer to him, she rested her hands on her hips as if her small stature could intimidate him into agreeing to what she wanted. ‘I will go with you.’

      How she could try his patience. At least she was speaking to him. As he’d raced through the street of Mayfair to find her, he wasn’t certain he could convince her to see him, let alone speak with him. It was time to tread carefully.

      He rubbed his forehead and stared at the unconscious Comte. ‘Why are you not hysterical? I believe most women, if a knife were held to their throats, would be a shaking, sobbing mess. But you appear to be unaffected.’

      ‘I have had a horrid day! I am too angry at this moment to even consider crying!’

      She’d saved herself and Prinny by smashing that piece of porcelain over Janvier’s head. If she wasn’t his wife, he would think of recruiting her. ‘Very well, you will go with me to Richmond. I will take Homer and you will follow in your coach. In light of this evening’s events and your actions you have every right to see this through to the end. However, I need your word that whomever you see me converse with, you will forget their identities by morning. Trusting people is not in my nature. I need to know I can trust you.’

      ‘You’re speaking of trust? Oh, that is almost too much to bear,’ she sputtered. He waited for her to agree to his condition and she must have realised he would not be taking her anywhere until she gave him her promise. ‘You have my word. Now, how do we get his unconscious form out of here without anyone seeing?’

      ‘Help me empty one of the trunks in the entrance hall, then go fetch your coachman. We will strap him to the roof of your carriage in the trunk and take him to my safe house in Richmond. He will be held there under guard until his trial. By my estimates, he will swing in less than a week.’

      * * *

      Once Janvier was secure in Richmond, Gabriel needed to inform those at the theatre the Frenchman had been apprehended. Of course Olivia wasn’t content to return home while he did that and with more coaxing on her part he let her accompany him. Strangely enough, the idea of sharing this with her was no longer terrifying.

      They had not spoken one word to each other since they had left Richmond and as her carriage rolled to a stop in front of the theatre Gabriel glanced at his wife, who sat silently across from him staring out the window.

      He rubbed the stone of his ring through his leather glove. ‘Remember, you are to tell no one what you see tonight. Trusting you with this is harder for me than you realise, Olivia. I need you to promise that you will not tell even Victoria.’

      ‘I understand and have already given you my word. Shall we go in now?’

      Gabriel opened the carriage door and jumped down onto the pavement. Without pulling down the step he reached into the carriage, grabbed Olivia by the waist and lowered her to the wet ground.

      * * *

      Olivia discovered it wasn’t easy to keep her cloak closed to hide the disastrous state of her gown when Gabriel took it upon himself to lift her out of her carriage. Thankfully the rain had stopped. However, the puddles that shone in the light from the windows proved a nuisance as they navigated their way along the pavement to the door of the theatre. Heads turned as they made their way inside.

      This should have been a triumphant moment. This should have been the beginning of a new life together. Instead, their arrival together was a sham.

      ‘This changes nothing between us,’ she whispered to Gabriel, lest he need clarification of her feelings for him. ‘I am here with you to see this through, not because I have any intention of resuming an amiable marriage with you.’

      ‘The world does not need to know that at the moment. Our appearance together should be believable, so I suggest you smile as if you are genuinely happy to be on my arm.’

      It would be a cold day in hell before she was ever happy to be with him again. Pulling from her years of experience disguising her feelings for him when they were in public, Olivia flashed him a pleasant smile. It must have been believable, because he gave a slight nod of his head and grinned at her with that annoying heart-melting smile of his.

      The confines of the theatre amplified the buzzing around them, as happy voices greeted friends and