Her Secret Lover (Aphrodite's Club 2)

And she’d told him. Once Appleby’s misbehavior reached royal ears, he would need to send his mistress away for a time. Aphrodite would see to it that his secretary whispered the name Wexmoor Manor in his ear. “Isolated and safe from the prying eyes of his enemies,” she mocked. “It will seem to him the perfect solution, and a little amusing joke, too, to be using your home, Gabriel.”

Gabriel sipped his brandy and stared into the fire. His wet clothing had begun to steam nicely, and he felt warm and sleepy on the outside, but inside the familiar brooding anger was bubbling away.

Appleby hated him. He had no doubt about that. His mother believed it was because he’d wanted his son with him, and if he couldn’t have that, then he’d hate him instead and punish them both. Aphrodite, on the other hand, believed Appleby knew Gabriel wasn’t his son after all, and that was why he hated him.

“You are a Langley through and through,” she declared. “Do not doubt it.”

He felt like a Langley. He desperately wanted to believe it. Whenever he began to doubt he felt his heart turn to lead. His grandfather John had believed he was a Langley and raised him to inherit Wexmoor Manor and love it as his own.

If he ever escaped the mess he was in, he’d do just that. Wexmoor would become his home, and he’d repair the crumbling stones and bring the rooms back to life. The garden would bloom again, and the old maze would be tamed. He’d live here content, happy, and never give Antoinette Dupre another thought.

But he knew in his heart he was lying.

He was a Langley, and the Langleys were notoriously attracted to dangerous women. His ancestor had fallen in love with the king’s mistress and married her, although it nearly ruined him, and now Gabriel was heading down a similar path.

And there was an inevitability about it, a sense of fate. As if he’d set his course on having Antoinette and nothing could now alter it.

Chapter 18

Two nights later Antoinette heard the soft click of the door in the darkness behind her, and smiled. She was standing by the window looking out at the clear night. The moon hung, half full, over the woods. She hadn’t been able to sleep. There were too many things to think about, too many doubts and questions, and a strange tingling happiness that had been with her ever since she found the cottage in the woods. And now here he was.

Her secret lover.

He slipped his arms about her waist and nuzzled her hair, as if enjoying her scent. She leaned back against him and wondered how it could be that she felt so comfortable in his arms. So safe. When had she forgotten that this man was her enemy?

“Antoinette,” he murmured, kissing the curve of her neck.

She felt the hard texture of his mask. “Can’t you take that off?” she whispered. “Does it matter if I see your face?”

He hesitated, and then she felt him shake his head. “Better not,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I think you understand more than you’re willing to admit.”

Well, what did that mean? Antoinette turned to ask, but he bent and kissed her instead, and the heat of his mouth and his body made her dizzy with her newly discovered need of him. Who would have thought she could so quickly become such a sensual woman? Or had this side of her nature always been there, waiting, hoping to be allowed out?

Perhaps the man kissing her was more important to her metamorphosis from staid miss to woman of the world than someone of her independent character wanted to believe. Her flesh tingled and her blood burned when she was in his arms. She melted and ached, but only he could soothe her heated body. And as for the soaring pleasure…it was beyond words.

Would she feel this way with someone else?

At the last moment her mind skittered away from the question. This was not an affair of the heart, she told herself. There was no question that she felt anything more than desire. And just as well, because this was Appleby’s man and she could not trust him. Not for one single moment.

He bent her over his arm, arching her neck and back, and rained kisses on her throat and bosom. Antoinette had the curious sensation that this had happened before, but the memory eluded her, until he said:

“The first time I ever saw you, you were being held like this.”

She pulled away from him. In the moonlight his face was still and his expression unreadable behind the mask. “You were there that night in Mayfair?” she whispered. “You were there!”

His smile had no humor in it. “Yes.”

She tried to force herself to think, to remember the faces of all the guests, but there were so many of them, and later events had driven most of her recollection of the evening from her mind. He could have been one of the gentleman in evening wear—he spoke like one—or was he one of the tribe of faceless servants that Appleby employed to run his house?

Something else occurred to Antoinette. After she’d rushed upstairs to rage and weep over Appleby’s perfidy and the destruction of her rep

utation, there had been an incident downstairs. Something had happened to Appleby, because the next morning his nose was reddened and bruised and his eyes bloodshot.

Someone had struck him.