A Secret Love (Cynster 5)

She-the countess-was going to have to see him again.

Alathea frowned. "I need to tell him about the captain."

What happened at the Burlington would not happen again. That had simply been an opportunistic event, a combination of location, opportunity, and elation-and her weakness-that he'd sensed, seen, and seized.

She'd let him seize. She wouldn't, she swore, be so weak this time. Be so easily swept off her feet and onto a bed.

No. But it was senseless to take any chances.

"I can't risk another meeting in daylight."

"Why not? He can't see your face even then, not if you wear that mask under your veil."

"True. But he'll look more closely, and there'll be enough of my face showing…"

He might guess. He'd seen her at close quarters frequently enough in the past weeks. His powers of observation were acute when he concentrated, and after their last meeting at the Burlington, she was quite sure he'd be concentrating on the countess. Especially if she proved intent on keeping him at a polite distance.

Yet distance, polite or otherwise, was imperative.

"I've got to meet with him again." Frowning, she drummed her fingers on the dressing table. If she could devise a meeting where opportunity was lacking, so he got no chance to seize anything at all, she'd be safe.

"A letter for you, m'lord-er, sir." With a flourish, Chance placed the silver salver he'd taken to wielding at every opportunity on the breakfast table at Gabriel's right.

"Thank you, Chance." Setting aside his coffee mug, Gabriel picked up the folded sheet of heavy white parchment and looked for the letter knife.

"Oh-ah!" Chance jigged and searched his pockets. "Here." He brandished a small rusty knife. "I'll do it."

"No, Chance, that's quite all right." Gabriel held on to the note. "I can manage."

"Right-ho." Swiping up the salver, Chance departed.

Gabriel broke the seal with his thumbnail. Lips thinning, he opened the note.

He'd been expecting it for the last four days. He was more than a trifle aggrieved that the countess had taken so long to summon him to another meeting. The delay lay like a blot on his record, an adverse reflection on his skill. At least the note had finally come.

He scanned the few lines within, then rolled his eyes to the ceiling. A carriage!

He sighed. Well, she had been a virgin, so what could he expect? She was plainly a novice at arranging lovers' trysts.

Chapter 11

It was a moonless night. The wind soughed and sighed in the trees lining the carriage drive close by the Stanhope Gate. Waiting impatiently in the shadows, Gabriel resisted the urge to shake his head.

Midnight at the Stanhope Gate was only a marginal improvement on three o'clock in the porch of St. Georges. The countess had been reading too many gothic novels. In this case, she'd either forgotten that the park gates were locked at sunset, or was counting on him exercising his peculiar talents on the padlock that had secured the wrought iron gates. He'd done so and left the gates wide. It wasn't unheard of for an open gate to be forgotten.

At least there wasn't any mist, only layers of shadows spreading over the parkland, shifting and drifting with the wind. There was just enough light to see by, to make out shapes but not their detail.

In the distance, a bell tolled, the first note in the midnight chorus. He listened as the other belltowers joined in, then the count was done, and the last note died into the brooding night. Silence returned, and settled.

The rattle of a carriage wheel was his first intimation that his wait was at an end. There were carriages aplenty rolling around Mayfair, but they were far enough away to ignore. The steady rattle continued, punctuated by the clop of hooves, then the small black carriage, lamps unlit, rolled between the gate posts into the gloom of the park.

Gabriel stepped onto the verge. The coachman redirected his horses; the carriage slowed and halted. Gabriel opened the door and climbed into a darkness even denser than had prevailed in the bedchamber at the Burlington.

He sat and

felt leather beneath him, and sensed a warm presence beside him.

"Mr. Cynster."