Bride for a Night

Harry took another swig. “Bastard.”

Gabriel’s hands twitched as he battled back the urge to grab his brother and shake some sense into him.

“I have attempted more than once to include you in the management of the estates, but you claimed to have no interest in such tedious business.”

“And devote my days to bowing and scraping to the Lord of the Manor like your other servants?” Harry drawled. “No, I thank you.”

“If it was my presence that was so abhorrent then there was nothing to prevent you from using your allowance to purchase your own estate.”

Harry snorted, bitterness hardening his expression as he recklessly tossed the whisky bottle into the fireplace.

“A tiny fiefdom of my very own while you rule half of England?”

“Christ.” Gabriel shook his head, recalling Talia’s perceptive speculation that Harry had resented Gabriel’s close relationship with their father. A sick sense of resignation settled in the pit of his gut. It was disturbing to realize that his brother’s antipathy had started at such an early age. “How did I not see this?”

“See what?”

“The childish jealousy that you have allowed to rot your soul.”

Harry hunched his shoulders, petulantly refusing to acknowledge his own culpability.

“How did you find me?” His lips twisted in a mocking taunt. “I know it could not have been those buffoons you sent after me. I managed to divert them before I ever reached Dover.”

“Jacques Gerard.”

Harry faltered at Gabriel’s smooth response. “Impossible, he would never…”

Gabriel stepped forward. Any hope that the French-woman had lied about his brother’s connection died a swift death at Harry’s stumbling words.

“He would never reveal that he is a French spy and that you are a traitor who betrayed your king and country for no other reason than pathetic greed?” Gabriel growled, pain ripping through him with stunning force.

Even prepared, he reeled from the impact of his brother’s betrayal.

“Absurd,” Harry blustered. “I do not know what the man has told you, but it is obvious he is attempting to turn you against me.”

Gabriel lifted a weary hand. “No. No more lies, Harry. I know the entire sordid story.”

Harry licked his lips, his expression guarded. No doubt his clever mind was already seeking the best means to slither out of trouble. Just as he had been doing his entire life.

“And of course, you would believe the word of a French scoundrel over your own brother?”

“Unfortunately you have proven you are no longer worthy of my trust.” Gabriel deliberately caught and held his brother’s gaze. “Or my respect.”

Something flickered deep in his brother’s eyes, but before Gabriel could fool himself into believing that it was regret, Harry was turning away with a shrug.

“I have survived without both for most of my life, I will no doubt continue to do just fine without them in the future.”

Gabriel studied his brother’s tense back. “Which begs the question of precisely how you do intend to survive? Jacques Gerard will not continue to support you now that your treachery has been exposed.”

“Perhaps I shall follow in your footsteps and wed an obscenely wealthy chit who has just climbed out of the gutter—” Harry’s words were cut off as Gabriel shoved him face-first into the wall. The younger man glared over his shoulder, unable to move with Gabriel pressed against his back. “What the hell?”

“You will never speak of my wife again, do you hear me?” Gabriel hissed.

Harry’s shock faded to smug amusement as he mistakenly assumed that Gabriel’s fury was at having been forced into wedding his younger brother’s cast-off fiancée.

“Do you know how I laughed when I heard you had been bullied into taking Dowdy Dobson as the Countess of Ashcombe?” he taunted. “For once my perfect brother has become the laughingstock of society.”

Gabriel muttered a curse, as disturbed by the hideous thought that Talia might even now have been wed to his brother as by the thought of Harry’s treachery.