Bride for a Night

“It has been some time, but I am capable of recognizing my wife, Hugo,” he assured his companion.

Hugo narrowed his golden eyes. “She does not appear to be a prisoner.”

Gabriel swallowed a curse. This was precisely the reason that he had attempted to keep his friend from joining him on this quest, despite the knowledge he could have no more skilled or loyal companion.

“Looks can often be deceiving,” he muttered.

“In that we are in perfect agreement.” Hugo tensed as a soldier strolled along the flagstone path, passing close enough to the conservatory that they could catch the scent of his cigar. Hugo grabbed Gabriel’s arm and tugged him toward the back of the building, his expression hard.

“Dammit, Ashcombe, we cannot linger here. The French soldiers might be as ignorant as they are incompetent, but they will eventually stumble across us. Besides, neither of us is as young as we used to be. Crouching in the bushes is damned uncomfortable.”

Hugo grimaced as he glanced down at his ruined breeches covered in mud and his once glossy boots that were now scratched from the past hour of tromping through the thick forest surrounding the palace. Gabriel was equally rumpled, his jade coat ripped in several places and his cravat wrinkled from the late-summer heat. Even his hair was mussed and the stubble on his jaw revealed he was twelve hours past the need for a shave. A considerable change from the elegant image he was always careful to portray to society.

“I have no intention of leaving here without Talia,” he growled.

Hugo shook his head. “Do not be a fool, Ashcombe.”

“There is nothing foolish in rescuing my wife from the bastard who kidnapped her.”

“You cannot simply charge into that nest of vipers,” his friend persisted. “You would be shot before you ever reached the gardens.”

Gabriel made a sound of impatience. He’d already accepted that he could not reach Talia.

Not yet.

“There will be no charging.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“Once it grows darker I will be able to slip past the guards and find her.”

Hugo’s fingers dug into Gabriel’s arm with a punishing grip. “No.”

“This is not open to debate, Hugo.”

“I will not allow you to commit suicide for a woman who is not worth—”

Gabriel barely realized he was moving before he had his friend pinned to the back of the conservatory. The savage fear that had haunted him since discovering Talia’s absence was finally boiling over.

Christ. He’d been through hell imagining the various horrors that his bride might have endured. And now, being able to catch a glimpse of her in the distance, and yet knowing she was still out of reach, was torture.

“I warned you when you insisted on joining me that I would not endure insults to my wife,” he seethed.

Predictably Hugo refused to give ground. The damnable man was one of the few whom Gabriel could not intimidate.

Which was no doubt the reason he was one of Gabriel’s rare friends.

“And I will not willingly allow my friend to walk into danger,” Hugo said between clenched teeth. “I have too few of them as it is.”

With an effort, Gabriel regained command of his frayed temper, releasing Hugo and taking a jerky step backward.

“There will be little danger.”

“Little danger?” Hugo scowled, waving a hand toward the distant gardens. “Perhaps you failed to notice the battalion of French soldiers milling about the palace?”

Gabriel shrugged, catching sight of two soldiers leaning against a broken fountain and flirting with a buxom maid.

“It is obvious that they are more interested in their entertainment than in keeping watch.”