“You are my enemy.”
“Never.” Without warning he leaned down to brush his lips over her cheek, then taking her hand he placed it on his arm and firmly led her down the gallery. “Come, ma petite. Allow me to prove just how…friendly I can be.”
One week later
DUSK HAD FALLEN over the French countryside as Gabriel halted near the abandoned conservatory and studied the palace spread before him.
His gaze barely noted the imposing building that loomed over the countryside with rigid grandeur. He concentrated instead on the handful of soldiers lazily patrolling the grounds before shifting to the formal gardens where he could see the shadowy form of a lone woman walking through broken statues.
“Talia,” he breathed, sinking to his knees as a violent sense of relief slammed through him.
The man at his side shifted forward, moving with surprising grace considering his large bulk.
“Are you certain?” Hugo demanded.
Gabriel turned to send his friend a sour glance.
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It hadn’t been his choice to have Hugo travel with him to France.
In fact, he had done everything but horsewhip the aggravating man to keep him from following him.
Unfortunately, Hugo was nothing if not tenacious and, ignoring Gabriel’s commands, insults and threats of violence, he had stubbornly arrived at Carrick Park mere hours after Gabriel and then had refused to leave his side.
In the end, Gabriel had been too anxious to begin his search for Talia to battle with his friend. While Hugo made himself useful by carefully interviewing the servants to discover if they could offer any useful information, Gabriel had scoured the countryside.
Thank God the local tenants were devoted to the young Countess of Ashcombe. The moment the alarm had been raised at her failure to return for supper, they had spread throughout the neighborhood to find their beloved Talia. Within hours they had found two strangers who were staying at a local posting inn, each of them carrying far too much money for innocent travelers.
They had held the pair captive at the local gaol, where the magistrate had struggled to prevent the more bloodthirsty citizens from taking matters into their own hands.
Gabriel had found himself struggling to suppress his own bloodlust as he had questioned the insolent creatures, and it was Hugo who had prevented him from choking the life from the bastards when they had grudgingly revealed the truth of Jack Gerard and the fact he had taken Talia to his lair in France.
As it was, he’d managed to crack the ribs of one of the traitorous cowards and knocked the teeth from the other before Hugo had managed to pull him off.
By the next morning Gabriel had been on his private yacht, headed toward the coast of France with Hugo grimly at his side.
“It has been some time, but I am capable of recognizing my wife, Hugo,” he assured his companion.
Hugo narrowed his golden eyes. “She does not appear to be a prisoner.”
Gabriel swallowed a curse. This was precisely the reason that he had attempted to keep his friend from joining him on this quest, despite the knowledge he could have no more skilled or loyal companion.
“Looks can often be deceiving,” he muttered.
“In that we are in perfect agreement.” Hugo tensed as a soldier strolled along the flagstone path, passing close enough to the conservatory that they could catch the scent of his cigar. Hugo grabbed Gabriel’s arm and tugged him toward the back of the building, his expression hard.
“Dammit, Ashcombe, we cannot linger here. The French soldiers might be as ignorant as they are incompetent, but they will eventually stumble across us. Besides, neither of us is as young as we used to be. Crouching in the bushes is damned uncomfortable.”
Hugo grimaced as he glanced down at his ruined breeches covered in mud and his once glossy boots that were now scratched from the past hour of tromping through the thick forest surrounding the palace. Gabriel was equally rumpled, his jade coat ripped in several places and his cravat wrinkled from the late-summer heat. Even his hair was mussed and the stubble on his jaw revealed he was twelve hours past the need for a shave. A considerable change from the elegant image he was always careful to portray to society.
“I have no intention of leaving here without Talia,” he growled.
Hugo shook his head. “Do not be a fool, Ashcombe.”
“There is nothing foolish in rescuing my wife from the bastard who kidnapped her.”
“You cannot simply charge into that nest of vipers,” his friend persisted. “You would be shot before you ever reached the gardens.”
Gabriel made a sound of impatience. He’d already accepted that he could not reach Talia.#p#分页标题#e#