The Defiant Mistress

Frances acknowledged Edward Beresford’s gratitude with a modest smile and a quiet word of thanks, but she continued her conversation with Minshull. She had changed her gown since that morning. The blue dress had been very becoming to her fair beauty, but the primrose silk taffeta revealed even more of her charms. The wide neckline showed off to perfection the graceful curve of her shoulders. It was trimmed all about with a broad lace collar more than six inches deep. A length of such fine, wide lace would have been expensive. Who was the man who had paid for the silk gown and costly lace she wore with such self-assurance? And why was she no longer with him?

‘Amazing coincidence, meeting Mrs Quenell again in Venice,’ the Ambassador remarked cheerfully.

‘What?’ Gabriel stared at the Ambassador. ‘You knew her before?’

‘Who? What?’ Sir Walter looked confused by Gabriel’s sharp question. ‘Not me!’ he exclaimed, his expression clearing. ‘I meant you, my lord.’ He laughed. ‘Must have been quite a surprise for both of you. Mrs Quenell was telling me.’

‘Telling you?’ Gabriel looked at Frances through narrowed eyes. She was even more brazen than he’d supposed. Perhaps it was time to call her bluff. ‘Indeed, yes. We were acquainted years ago,’ he said coldly. ‘But so long ago I confess I’ve forgotten the details. Perhaps you would be kind enough to remind me… Mrs Quenell.’

Her naturally fair skin grew even paler as he watched. He saw her swallow, then she looked directly at him. In that instant her eyes were the eyes of the girl he’d loved eight years ago—filled with hurt and confusion. Her unguarded blue gaze found an unexpected chink in his armour-plating of cold disdain. He looked away first, shaken by memories he’d tried so hard to destroy.

‘Of course. Your reunion this morning was cut short when you met one of your merchant acquaintances,’ said the Ambassador. ‘A very inopportune interruption.’

Gabriel realised the whole table had fallen silent. A quick sideways glance informed him that everyone was waiting more or less openly to hear about his previous friendship with Frances. He should have known his behaviour that morning would arouse curiosity.

‘Mrs Quenell,’ he challenged her, his voice deadly soft. ‘Your memory is obviously so much clearer than mine. Please. Remind me of our last meeting.’

The occasion when she’d laughed and consigned him to a ditch. He stared at her, daring her to admit her perfidious behaviour. As he watched, she summoned a smile to her lips that didn’t reach her eyes.

‘I fear I don’t remember our last meeting, my lord,’ she replied lightly. ‘But I do recall our first.’

‘Really? I made more impression on you at the beginning of our acquaintance than I did at the end? What a damning indictment of my address.’ He paused briefly. ‘But I believe I am harder to overlook now,’ he concluded, a diamond-hard edge to his voice.

‘You certainly appear grander than you did when serving behind the counter in the silk mercer’s,’ Frances snapped. ‘I vow, when I first saw you this morning decked out in velvet and lace, I scarcely recognised you.’

Further down the table Gabriel heard a gasp. Behind his back he was known as the Merchant Marquis, but very few men had the gall to call him that to his face.

Frances’s sharp response brought a feral smile to his lips—while at the same moment he felt the barest lessening of tension in his muscles. He remembered her occasional hot temper. So that at least had been real—even if everything else had been an act.

He recalled their first meeting in Sir Thomas Parfitt’s mercer’s shop. It was pure accident Gabriel had been present when Frances came in to make a purchase. Even as a young apprentice he had been employed in Parfitt’s warehouses, not in the shop on Cheapside. But as soon as he’d seen Frances he’d stepped forward to serve her—much to the amusement of Lady Parfitt, who kept the shop for her husband. And then he’d followed Frances home, just so he could arrange another, accidental meeting with her. God, what a young fool he’d been.

‘We both seem to have improved our condition in life,’ he said, his eyes on the wide fall of expensive lace about her shoulders.

‘You have certainly changed,’ she retorted. ‘Whether it is an improvement remains to be seen.’

The chaplain gasped. Someone lower down the table laughed and quickly converted it to a cough. A gleam of satisfaction suddenly appeared in Roger Minshull’s eyes. He moved so that he presented a subtle, but unmistakable shoulder to Gabriel and engaged Frances once more in conversation.

Athena barely heard a word Minshull said to her. She had forgotten her resolution to keep the uncomfortably attentive secretary at a distance because all her attention was focused on Gabriel. Her face ached with the effort of preserving an untroubled expression. She could feel Gabriel’s hard gaze upon her. He’d left her in no doubt of his contempt. His silent hostility threatened to suffocate her. They were separated by the width of the table, but every tiny movement of his powerful body flicked across her raw nerves. She forced herself to smile at Minshull while her thoughts whirled frantically this way and that. Why had Gabriel turned against her?

She forced herself to eat a little of the feast laid on partly in her honour, but the last mouthful stuck in her throat. She struggled to swallow. A wild image of choking to death at the Ambassador’s table danced in her mind. Her fingers closed desperately around her goblet. The wine helped. She took several sips, then set the goblet down. She dare not cloud her wits with the heady liquid.

She risked a fleeting glance at Gabriel. His amber eyes widened briefly when they encountered hers, then narrowed warningly. Athena felt the jolt of a sizzling connection between them. Her breath caught in her throat. Shaken, she ripped her eyes away from him, picked up her goblet with trembling fingers and put it to her lips. She closed her eyes as she drank, taking temporary refuge in the illusion that she could hide behind the goblet.

But there was no escape. Minshull was already asking her a question about the convent at Bruges. She composed herself to reply, astonished that her voice sounded so calm.

What had happened to Gabriel? She remembered so clearly the day they’d met. He had not been hard and angry then. He’d been tall and handsome and full of open-hearted vigour. From the second she’d entered the mercer’s shop her eyes had been drawn to him. When he’d stepped forward to serve her she’d been so overwhelmed that at first she’d forgotten what she wanted to buy. At last she remembered and stammered out her request, feeling foolish and embarrassed. But by then she’d seen the admiration and interest in his eyes. She was used to men looking at her with lust-filled intent—she’d fled from her childhood home to escape just such a man—but Gabriel’s male admiration didn’t repulse her. The fluttering of nervous excitement he aroused within her had been entirely pleasurable.

He still drew all her attention. He was more handsome and compelling than ever. She wished she could look at him to her heart’s content. Trace every change time had wrought upon him. From the corner of her eye she could see his hand lying upon the table. It was the same hand that had touched her so long ago. Yet it seemed somehow different. It was familiar in all its lineaments, but it almost seemed like the hand of a stranger.

‘What a lucky circumstance that you already know his lordship, Mrs Quenell,’ said the Ambassador suddenly. ‘It is so much more comfortable to travel with an old friend rather than a stranger,’ he continued.

His comment nearly destroyed the remnants of Athena’s composure. She’d been so overwhelmed by the shock of seeing Gabriel again she had forgotten he was to escort her back to England. She instinctively shied away from the prospect.

‘As to that, we have not yet discussed arrangements,’ she hurried into speech. ‘As I mentioned, his lordship met an acquaintance before we had a chance to do so. It may not be convenient—’

‘I am sure we can come to an arrangement that will be mutually satisfactory,’ Gabriel interrupted, a dark, enigmatic note in his voice.

Athena’s eyes snapped to his face. He tilted his head to look directly into hers. For several seconds she forgot to breathe.

‘If the arrangement is not to your liking we can make alternative travel plans for you, Mrs Quenell,’ said Minshull. ‘I will deal with it first thing in the morning.’

Gabriel turned almost lazily to look at the secretary. ‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ he said, his words a devastating command, not an assurance.

It seemed to Athena that she was not the only person holding her breath as she waited for Minshull to respond. There was no other conversation at the table. Gabriel held everyone’s attention.

‘I… I… Mrs Quenell?’ The red-faced secretary turned towards her.

‘Thank you for your kindness, Mr Minshull,’ she said, trying to give him a dignified way to back away from the confrontation. ‘But I have barely been in Venice a day. I’m not yet sure myself what arrangements I wish to make. You may be sure I’ll call upon you for help if I need to do so.’

‘Yes. Yes. Of course. At any time,’ he said.

A brief, cold smile curved Gabriel’s lips at the secretary’s words. Then he turned to say something to the Ambassador, quite clearly dismissing Minshull from his attention.

The meal continued. Athena longed to escape to the privacy of her chamber, but she knew that if she did so it would arouse even more curiosity among the Ambassador’s household. So she smiled and nodded and exchanged inconsequential remarks until Sir Walter suddenly declared a desire to dance.

The table was moved, chairs placed against the walls of the portego and a trio of musicians struck up a lively tune. As the only two women present, Athena and Rachel Beresford were obliged to dance every measure. Athena guessed from the fixed smile on the younger woman’s face that she was as uncomfortable with the situation as Athena. Rachel wanted to be alone with her husband. Failing that, she wanted to dance with her husband. But since Edward Beresford’s career depended on the Ambassador’s goodwill, neither he nor his wife had any choice but to acquiesce to Sir Walter’s pleasure.

Athena had never in her life danced in public. She had never had occasion to do so. She gritted her teeth, tried to watch Rachel whenever she could, and did her best to move through the steps without making a total fool of herself.

Gabriel didn’t invite either woman to dance. At first he leant against the wall and watched, his gaze inscrutable. Athena took care not to glance in his direction, though her consciousness of his scrutiny made her feel flustered and clumsy. After half an hour she became aware of a sudden absence. She looked around and discovered that Gabriel had disappeared.

His departure left her with a sense of an anticlimax. It also seemed to lead to an increased exuberance in the mood of everyone else. The impromptu ball became more boisterous. At last Edward Beresford pleaded weariness on behalf of his wife after her long journey and they left the chamber.

Athena found herself alone among a crowd of increasingly inebriated gentlemen. Without Gabriel’s brooding presence several of them, most notably Roger Minshull, became more familiar in their advances. Gabriel’s treatment of her had undermined her status in the men’s eyes. The previous day they had been inclined to treat her as if her years in the convent had given her the untouchable sanctity of a nun. This evening they were more prone to cross those invisible boundaries.

Athena knew she couldn’t afford to linger. Even though she might have to endure no more than a lewd question or two about her past friendship with Gabriel, and perhaps an inappropriately intimate caress, any sign that she was complacent about such treatment would quickly undermine her reputation and her status.

She paid the Ambassador several graceful compliments about the dinner and the subsequent entertainment he had arranged and left the portego as speedily as good manners would allow. After the last exchange of courtesies with a persistent Minshull, she escaped on to the external staircase.

The cool night air felt like balm on her overheated face. The friendly darkness was a relief after the strain of maintaining her public composure for so long. She paused for a moment to enjoy the pleasure of being alone. A burst of laughter from the portego prompted her to climb a few steps to avoid any possibility of one of the revellers noticing her and perhaps deciding to join her on the privacy of the stairs.

She walked up another few steps.

Suddenly all her senses screamed a warning. She hadn’t seen or heard anything, but a dark shape swooped on her from the shadows. Strong arms wrapped around her in an unbreakable hold. Her heart thudded so loudly she hardly heard his soft-voiced command to be quiet, but she didn’t need to hear his voice to know it was Gabriel. Even in the darkness she recognised his familiar, once-beloved scent, and the feel of his hard body close to hers.

He swept her off her feet and carried her down the stairs. Athena thought of struggling, but their discovery was more likely to cause her embarrassment than result in her rescue. Besides, despite his undisguised hostility towards her, she knew Gabriel would never hurt her. And she had questions for him. As soon as they were alone she wanted some answers.

A few moments later she found herself once more seated in Gabriel’s gondola. This time the curtains were drawn, enclosing her in a black velvet cocoon lit only by a single lantern. Gabriel swiftly joined her. His tall, broad-shouldered frame made the small cabin seem even smaller.