Lily and the Duke (Regency Spinsters Alliance #1)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

“Are you even listening to me, St. Albans?”

Gabriel pulled himself out of his reverie. Not because George, the Prince Regent’s question had made him feel guilty for his inattentiveness to their discussion. No, his startled reaction was because of the painful kick his friend, Lucien Lyons, the Duke of Hellsmere, and seated across from him at the table, had given to Gabriel’s now bruised shin.

Arranging this hasty meeting was the reason Hellsmere had been called to attend the Prince Regent earlier today and so had been unable to join Gabriel for luncheon at their club. Hellsmere had come to St. Albans House to explain later that afternoon, and also to inform Gabriel of this meeting the moment he was able to do so.

There were nine gentlemen seated at the long rectangular table. Prinny resided at the head of it, of course, the other eight men seated four either side. A group of gentlemen Prinny had brought together during the years of the war against Napoleon.

They were gentlemen whom Prinny trusted implicitly and liked to call his own private army. All the men gathered here had connections both here and in France, and so were able to gather information that was of paramount importance, during the years of battle to subdue Napoleon’s despotic reign and since.

The Prince Regent had seen no reason, despite the Corsican having now been incarcerated for a second time, to disband that army of powerful gentlemen. Indeed, their strategic places in Society had become even more necessary when there were still French spies, abroad and at home, who were intent upon causing unrest and freeing their emperor before restoring him to his despotic rule.

“Of course I am listening to you, Your Majesty.” Gabriel gave his full attention to the Prince Regent. “You have stated your belief that there is a French spy amongst the members Salisbury’s government.”

“Possibly several of them,” Prinny confirmed.

Gabriel knew that their Regent took a great interest in his government, sometimes too much so for certain ministers’ comfort.

Admittedly, Prinny could sometimes be a little…paranoid, regarding the possibility of there being spies in England, near or far from him. But it was a paranoia which was perhaps understandable when several members of Society had already been proven to be colluding with the rebellious section of the French people who wished to have the king removed and their emperor returned to them.

“Then we must discuss what is to be done about it,” Gabriel stated firmly.

The next hour was spent doing exactly that, most importantly dividing up the investigation into Salisbury’s cabinet ministers between the eight gentlemen attending the Prince Regent.

The meeting ended with an agreement for the nine gentlemen to meet up again in a week’s time to discuss any progress made. Unless one of them attained crucial information on the subject in the meantime, in which case they would reconvene earlier.

“Bit of a witch hunt, don’t you think?” Hellsmere prompted as the two men walked out to their waiting carriages.

They had been at school together from the age of eight, their friendship having continued through Gabriel’s brief and ultimately tragic marriage. It had endured in the years since.

Gabriel shrugged. “Prinny thinks it worth investigating, so that is what we shall do.”

The other man eyed him curiously. “I did not ask before, but can that pretty young lady I saw leaving St. Albans House earlier possibly have been Lady Lily Tremayne?”

Gabriel stiffened, both at the question and the fact that Hellsmere knew exactly who she was. “She is a friend of Chloe’s.”

“Really?” Hellsmere mused. “Because when I arrived, your butler informed me that Chloe was out and only you were at home.”

Gabriel’s nostrils flared. “Chloe had been in the house earlier with a group of her friends, but then had to rush away to an engagement with her seamstress,” he defended, at the same time that he resented feeling forced into making the explanation at all. “I believe Lady Tremayne was merely gathering up some papers before she also took her leave.”

“Hm.” Hellsmere’s frown was speculative. “Then why were her cheeks flushed and her eyes overbright and slightly unfocused, when she nodded acknowledgment of me before hurrying from the house as if the devil were at her heels?”

Gabriel scowled at being referred to as the devil. “How the hell should I know?”

“You are very tense today, as well as inattentive.” The other man continued to study him. “Is Lady Tremayne—”

“You will cease questioning me in regard to that young lady,” Gabriel snapped.

“That particular young lady?”

“Yes!” he bit out from between clenched teeth.

“Why?”

“Because I believe you would like, as would I, our friendship to continue.” Gabriel was angrier than he could remember having been for some time.

Not because Hellsmere had commented on the way Lily looked when she left him earlier.

No, the reason Gabriel was angry was because Hellsmere was daring to speak of Lily at all.

Warning him that he was already well on his way to feeling a proprietary claim on that young lady. An intensity of emotion which Gabriel instinctively knew he would not have the strength to quell every time he saw or was with her.

It was a galling admission for a man who, since that unfortunate incident twenty-two years ago, had prided himself on the strength of control he held over himself and his emotions.

Good God, Lily had not even been born twenty-two years ago!

“We will talk on every subject but Lady Tremayne whilst we enjoy an early supper, which you will be paying for,” he now told the other man.

“Oh, I will, will I?” Hellsmere sounded amused.

Gabriel nodded. “Your cancelation of our luncheon is why I have forgotten to eat today. Which, in turn, is no doubt also the reason for my current lack of either attention or good humor.”

“Then it is a pity you did not take a nibble out of Miss Tremayne when you had the opportunity to do so,” the other man taunted. “Or perhaps you did, and having found her to be sour, that is now the reason for your bad humor?”

Gabriel narrowed his lids. “I have warned you once against talking of Lady Tremayne. I shall not warn you again.”

Hellsmere continued to study him for several long seconds before nodding in abrupt acceptance of Gabriel’s decree. “But please bear in mind I reserve the right to return to the subject of Lily Tremayne if I consider it to be of further interest.”

“It will not be,” Gabriel stated with more conviction than truth.

He had only kissed Lily once, but even so, he knew that all his years of rigid control and self-denial had begun to be stripped away from him.

Gabriel could not allow his emotions to become so raw and exposed again.

Which meant he must, for both their sakes, avoid being alone in Lily’s company again.

A decision which did not console him in the way it was intended to do.

Nor did it stop him from giving the necessary instructions to Jacobson to make arrangements for the two of them to leave London tomorrow. One of the ministers Gabriel was to investigate had not returned to the city as yet due to his wife’s illness, but that did not mean Gabriel would not visit that gentleman on his estate.

Lily sat alone beside the fire in her bedchamber at Truro House later that afternoon, still slightly dazed over what had happened earlier.

Beginning with her unexpected meeting with, and then the inappropriate conversation, with Gabriel Lord.

Followed by him kissing her.

It had been an intensely erotic kiss, one that had stripped away any fa?ade or belief of him being the cold and aloof Duke of St. Albans. It had instead revealed a man possessed of the deepest of sexual passions. The physical evidence of which had been evident in the throbbing length of his arousal as it pressed insistently into Lily’s abdomen.

She would not previously have believed St. Albans to be capable of feeling such a depth of emotions, and she doubted others in Society would have thought it possible either.

Most especially not toward someone like Lily, so much younger than him and not dazzlingly beautiful as so many of the other ladies in Society were.

But there had been no mistaking the hunger in Gabriel’s kiss. Or, despite Lily’s lack of experience in such matters, the evidence of Gabriel’s aroused and heated cock.

A very long and very thickly aroused and heated cock.

Lily felt a quivering down the length of her spine just imagining touching that throbbing length.

Her thighs clenched together merely thinking of that heat pushing and then thrusting deep inside her moist and welcoming channel.

Dear God, she was now aroused again only from thinking about it!

Her breasts were swollen, the nipples plump and aching, and between her thighs was once again both hot and wet.

“Why are you sitting here daydreaming when you should be dressing for the Chelseas’ ball this evening?” a familiar waspish voice demanded.

Lily turned to look at her mother standing in the open doorway.

The countess was still beautiful, with her fair hair and blue eyes, but it was a beauty tempered by dissatisfaction with her lot in life.

Lily wondered if her mother had ever known, even at the beginning of her marriage to the earl, a fraction of the passion Gabriel had awakened in Lily earlier today.

Somehow, Lily doubted it.

Even if there had been an initial affection between her mother and father, it no longer existed all these years of marriage later. Perhaps it had when the children—two sons and two daughters —had been young. But Lily very much doubted it had survived her mother knowing of the many mistresses the earl had taken over the years. Indeed, Lily knew that it had not, and that for her mother, at least, their marriage was now one of duty and tolerance only.

Which was exactly why Lily balked at ever entering into such an arrangement herself and had gone so far as to make an agreement on the subject with five of her close friends.

An agreement Gabriel Lord had no doubt thought to shatter earlier with his passionate kisses.

Lily had no intention of being so easily swayed from her purpose. Indeed, she was filled with fresh resolve on the matter as she rose to her feet. “I shall do so now,” she assured her mother with a warm smile.

There was no reason for her to think Gabriel would be at the ball this evening. In fact, as it was well-known in Society how much the duke hated attending social events, the opposite was more likely to be true.

Chloe had an elderly great-aunt who, although she didn’t live in the St. Albans household, always acted as chaperone when Chloe attended social engagements without her father.

No doubt that would be the case at this evening’s ball too.

It was.

Worse, Lily learned from Chloe, it was St. Albans’s intention to leave London the following morning, accompanied by his secretary, the duke having business needing his attention in the country.

Chloe had obviously been displeased with her father for leaving when the Season had barely begun. Even more so when he had not stated when he would return.

Lily’s emotions were less straightforward.

On the one hand, she was relieved she would not have to face the duke again so soon after the two of them had kissed.

On the other, she ached to see and be with him again. To be kissed by him again. To do more than kiss.

She doubted Gabriel would feel that same hunger. Obviously, he did not, if he intended to leave London on business with no word, even to his daughter, of when he would return.