“Then you are…?” she said, dazed.
“Gabriel Langley.”
Gabriel, the boy who’d scratched how much he hated sums on his desk. That Gabriel. She’d been close to the truth when she thought he might be Priscilla’s son—he was her nephew. There were so many thoughts crowding into her head she struggled to find the right words.
“The letter I am carrying doesn’t have anything to do with you or your father.”
His eyebrows came down. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me or not, it is the truth. My letter is not your mother’s letter.”
“Then why did you refuse to give it to me?”
“I thought you were under instructions from Appleby to retrieve it, that he’d learned I had it and he meant to destroy it. And me, too,
probably.”
He said nothing, watching her, trying to decide whether to believe her. Antoinette knew the signs; she was struggling through the same questions herself.
“How can I believe you?” she whispered.
“Because you know it’s true,” he said urgently. “Think, Antoinette.”
She was thinking. Carefully she relived the last few weeks, seeing it from his side and from hers. Could they have been so mistaken about each other, so stupidly, stubbornly blind? If only they’d trusted each other from the beginning.
“If you’d trusted me,” he said, reading her mind, “then this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Trusted you?” she retorted. “The first time I saw you, Mr. Langley, you were holding up my coach with pistols!”
“It was playacting.”
“But I didn’t know that! Later on I realized—or at least I thought—you’d been sent by Lord Appleby and that everyone at Wexmoor Manor was in league against me. I was completely alone and friendless and in enemy territory.”
His eyes narrowed. “Darling, you’ll have me sobbing in a moment.”
Someone cleared her throat and they both looked up. A waitress had arrived to serve them. Antoinette asked for lemonade and Gabriel requested distilled water—the Crystal Palace supplied water to all who asked, free of charge.
When the waitress was gone he reclaimed Antoinette’s hand. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let go.
“Everyone thinks we’re lovers having a tiff,” he teased.
“Stop it.”
His eyes turned serious as they gazed intently into hers.
“I wanted to tell you the truth. Several times I began to tell you but for some reason it always went wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for forcing your way into my bedchamber?” she retorted, her color high.
His mouth curled up in his wicked smile. “No, not for that.”
“You tried to make me tell you where the letter was by…by physically assaulting me.”
“I wouldn’t call it that, darling. Besides, you assaulted me, if I remember correctly.” He frowned. “How did you manage that if you’re the respectable young lady you claim to be?”
She didn’t want to answer him, but she could tell he wouldn’t stop until she did. “There were some books in the library.”
“Books?”