"You ride like the devil. There's no need to stop you-you'd be in no danger."
"Ah, but if there was something dangerous in my path-if, for instance, I'd jumped a fence into a field with an enraged bull. Wouldn't you come racing to save me?"
The look he shot her was disgusted-disgusted she'd even asked. "Of course I would." After a moment, he added more softly, "You know I would."
She inclined her head, a very odd knot of emotion in her stomach; as children, he'd always been the first to interpose himself between her and any danger. "Yes-and that's precisely what I mean about the way you're suffocating the twins."
Deliberately, she fell silent. She sensed his reluctance; it poured from him in waves. He didn't want to hear her theory, didn't want to canvass the possibility that he, his brother, and his cousins might be wrong, might be overreacting. Because if he did, he'd have to rein in his Cynster protectiveness, and that, she well knew, was very hard to do.
Eventually, he shot her a far from encouraging glance. "Why suffocating?"
She looked away, across the sea of heads. "Because you won't let them spread their wings. Rather than letting them ride wild, stepping in only if they're threatened, you're making sure they're not threatened in the first place by ensuring they never ride at all." He opened his mouth; she held up a placating hand. "A perfectly valid approach in other contexts, but in this arena, it means you're blocking off all chance of their learning to ride-all chance of their succeeding. Well"-she gestured across the room-"just look at them." She couldn't see them, but he could. "They may be surrounded by ten gentlemen-"
"Twenty."
"How ever many!" Her terse tone had him meeting her gaze. "Can't you see they're the wrong men?"
Gabriel looked at the teeming masses around the twins, and tried to tell himself he couldn't see it at all.
"Can you seriously imagine any of those innocuous gentlemen married to the twins? Or is it more accurate to say you-all of you-have been carefully avoiding imagining the twins married at all?"
She was li
ke his conscience, whispering in his ear. Like his conscience, he couldn't ignore her. "I'll think about it," he growled, unwilling to even meet her eyes. All he would see was the truth, his own truth reflected back at him.
He dragged in a breath, chest swelling against the usual constriction, the constriction he always felt when around her. Lord, she made him uncomfortable. Even now, when they weren't tearing strips off each other but having what was, for them, a rational discussion, his insides felt scored, like claws had dragged down from his throat over his chest, then locked about his heart, his gut.
She'd shaken him, too. Again. Why the devil had she looked at him like that-eyes wide with what!-when he'd backed her against the wall? The sight had rocked him; even now, his skin was prickling just because she was close.
His impulse, as always, was to verbally lash at her, to drive her away even though, if she was in the same room, he would compulsively head for her side. Stupid. He wished he could tell himself that he disliked her, but he didn't. He never had. Keeping his gaze from her ridiculous cap-the sight would assuredly set him off-he drew in another breath, scanning the nearer guests, about to bow and excuse himself-
He narrowed his eyes. "What the devil…?"
The muttered question went unanswered as Lord Coleburn, Mr. Henry Simpkins and Lord Falworth, all smiling easily, strolled up.
"There you are, my dear lady." Falworth swept Alathea an elegant bow.
"We thought you might need rescuing," Henry Simpkins stated, his gaze sweeping over Gabriel before coming to rest on Alathea's face. "From the crush, don't you know?"
"It is indeed horrendous," Alathea smoothly returned. She waited for Gabriel to excuse himself and move on; instead, he remained planted like an oak at her side. With Wellington immediately to her left, she couldn't escape; her would-be cavaliers were forced to deploy themselves in a semicircle before her and Gabriel. As if they were on trial. Heaving an inward sigh, she introduced him, quite sure the others would know him at least by reputation.
That last became rapidly apparent. By dint of various subtle quips, Coleburn, Simpkins, and Falworth all made it plain they thought Gabriel would find better entertainment elsewhere. Alathea was not at all surprised when he shrugged their suggestions aside, looking for all the world as if he was fighting a yawn. He probably was. She certainly was. If she'd wanted to stand by the wall and converse with a gaggle of gentlemen, Coleburn, Simpkins, and Falworth would not have been her choice. She would rather converse with the Devil himself, presently on her right; at least, with him, she was never in danger of mentally drifting away and losing track of the conversation.
Despite the lack of stimulation, she was distinctly relieved that Gabriel did not decide to enliven proceedings by surgically dissecting Simpkins, who seemed intent on putting himself first in line with his studied and not-quite-nonchalant quips. Lady Castlereagh would not appreciate blood on her ballroom floor.
"And so Mrs. Dalrymple insisted we ride on, but the oxer at the end of the fourth field forced her to retire. Well"-Falworth spread his hands-"what could I do? We had to do a Brummel and take refuge in a nearby farmhouse."
The other gentlemen seemed mildly intrigued by Falworth's description of his aborted outing with the Cottesmore. All except Gabriel, who was doing a remarkable imitation of a marble statue. An utterly meaningless smile on her lips, Alathea inwardly sighed and let Falworth's words flow past her.
Beyond their little circle, a tall gentleman, as tall as Gabriel, strolled nonchalantly by. His idle gaze passed over them, then halted. He stopped, noting Gabriel, then his gaze slid back to her.
The gentleman smiled; Alathea nearly blinked. Charming did as charming was, but this was something rather more. Her lips had curved in reply before she'd even thought. The gentleman's smile deepened; he inclined his head. His gaze on her face, he approached with the same easy, loose-limbed prowl that characterized the Cynsters and, Alathea surmised, certain of their peers.
Gabriel's reaction was immediate and intense. Alathea barely had time to consider the why before the wherefore was bowing before her.
"Chillingworth, my dear. I don't believe we've met." Gracefully straightening, he flicked a glance at Gabriel. "But I'm sure I can prevail upon Cynster here to do the honors."
Gabriel let his silence stretch until it was just this side of insulting before grudgingly saying, "Lady Alathea Morwellan-Chillingworth, earl of."