He could not believe she was close enough to touch. That he could simply reach out and…
No. He curled his hands at his sides.
He would never. Hands such as his would stain her.
His gaze touched her everywhere, though, cataloguing every delectable detail. The ridge of her corset beneath her fitted, solemn blouse. The arousing disarray of her hastily knotted hair. The careful set of her slim shoulders and the soft sway of her hips.
Blood no longer flowed through his veins, there was no room for it. He was a beast overwhelmed by so many opposing forces, he could barely contain himself.
A fury coursed through him so white and hot, it threatened to singe his flesh from the inside out. She’d bruises on her delicate wrists. A man had dared to grab her, imprison her. Frighten her.
A dead man, if he had anything to say about it.
Sheer befuddlement followed on the heels of said rage, as he tried to examine just how he’d found himself ambling after her on the lush, blue Egyptian carpets of Cresthaven Place, admiring her shape. He tried his utmost to pay attention to the tour, but he had a rudimentary familiarization with the layout. The rest was merely decoration where he was concerned.
When she was near, how could he admire anything else?
Christ, how was this happening?
Only moments ago, he’d been lurking in the archway that led from the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the garden. Possibly his last before he left for the other side of the world.
The glimpse had been granted as she scurried from her glasshouse, that little pot cradled in her hands. He’d ducked into the shadows as she’d reached the courtyard door. Cautious of being sighted, he turned to go, grappling with a yawning sense of loss.
One moment he was cataloguing his final vision of her. The sheen of her hair, the heightened color of her full lower lip as it emerged from between her teeth. The elegant arch of her neck, at the base of which little fair wisps formed tight ringlets in the humidity of the hothouse.
And the next moment… she’d bounced off his back like an adorable beam of sunlight.
Gabriel had been speechless as he turned to see her gaping over at him. Even rumpled in a soiled apron and a streak of dirt dashed across one pale cheek, she was unutterably lovely.
Ethereal.
He’d been frozen with the fear that she’d recognize him. Even though he looked nothing like himself— nothing like the monster who’d terrified her a year prior. He’d spent the past several months perfecting an English accent. He’d allowed his hair to grow out for the first time in decades.
But he had other identifiable characteristics.
His height and breadth, for one. The depth of his voice. The color of his eyes. And a myriad of scars, albeit less severe ones, that still marred his features.
Felicity’s eyes, blue as the Mediterranean, had glimmered with worry for him rather than approbation. She’d asked if she’d hurt him, and it was all he could do not to laugh.
Gabriel couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed.
It astonished him that she’d offered him the position while he bumbled around like a demented buffoon.
She couldn’t possibly understand the effect she had on him. Didn’t realize that her apology had been the first he’d received from someone not bleeding and/or about to die.
Nor that she was the first woman to ever reach for him of her own accord, let alone tug at his arm.
While he’d struggled to process that monumental occasion, she’d invited him into her parlor, and into her employ, before he’d quite understood what was going on.
He could choke on the bitter irony of the entire bloody situation.
After he and Raphael were reported to have died in a fire, Gabriel had lurked about Cresthaven Place for several months as he recovered from his multiple surgeries, telling himself he wasn’t watching Felicity, but guarding her. He feared that Marco Villanueve, the man he had betrayed before he’d faked his death, would come to harm her, if only to get his revenge.
Gabriel had lied to himself for a while, convincing himself he was only looking after family. Raphael had married her twin, after all.
But he couldn’t deny how hungry he was for a mere peek at her. For the barest glimpse of her golden hair as she swept from a carriage to her home. For the sound of her voice as she replied to a greeting from a neighbor.
As it happened, Marco Villanueve had disappeared from the face of the planet months ago. Everyone assumed him dead, run afoul of the underworld.
Cresthaven had been quiet and safe since her parents’ deaths, as callers outside of the family were not allowed during mourning. Not to mention, Felicity had always been surrounded and protected by loved ones.
And so, after a long year, Gabriel could no longer put off fulfilling his promise to join his brother.
He’d lingered in the darkness too long, feeling a one-sided companionship when her lamp would go on at all hours. Knowing she couldn’t sleep either, that dreams were not a safe place for her troubled mind. Wishing to hold and soothe her.
Wishing she would do the same.
On his favorite nights, she would pull the drapes aside and gaze out into the dark as if searching for something.
In his more pitiful moments, he’d fancy that something was him.
Just as Gabriel had promised to give up the deviant and obsessive proclivity of guarding her, of watching her…
She’d been attacked.
Whoever said irony was humorous could fuck right off.
Well, there was no chance he’d leave now, not until he made certain her world was safe once more.
Though, he’d help get her a husband over his own dead body.
Granted, to her he’d been dead nigh on a year now. And he had to remain that way, to keep her safe. Safe from his past. From his enemies. From his sins and his crimes and his consuming, nigh demonic need.
Her brother-in-law, Chief Inspector Carlton Morley, had cautioned that if he caught Gabriel in London again, there would be no saving him from the noose.
Yes, he was bloody well aware he played a dangerous game venturing into her life.
Into her home.
This would be a treacherous lie.
Good thing he was used to danger. That he could think of no better death than one spent in service of her life.
But not before he lethally and efficiently dismantled anyone who threatened her.
Was he a violent man, she’d asked.
He was violence personified.
Which was why he could never be the man for her.
No, she’d marry a lord who could keep her cosseted in the society in which she’d been born. Who could offer her a name and a pedigree and all the gentility bred into the upper class.
Gentility he never even hoped to possess.
“You shouldn’t have invited me in,” he muttered as he followed her up the grand staircase. He would have protected her no matter whom she selected to employ. And as he watched her rear sway at eye level, he began to fear that spending any time in her company was a perilous mistake.
“Why do you say that?” she asked over her shoulder.
He cast about for an answer, not meaning to have spoken his thoughts aloud. “You haven’t seen my references. Nor my skills. Your decision was hasty. I could be terrible at my job.”
She snorted a little. “It’s rather worse than that; I haven’t even seen your face. But I believe you know what you’re about, and that you are not the sort of man who would look for a position he could not fill. Besides, I imagine that your mere presence would prove a discouragement to trouble. Should anyone come at you, they’d break like waves on the rocks.”