Ascension by A.S. Fenichel Read Free Book Online

His legs stretched out in front of him as if he was a man at perfect leisure. If it had not been four o’clock in the morning, the sight might have been quite normal. He was still in his evening clothes, though his cravat lay loose around his neck and his trousers had wrinkled.
    “I thought we had agreed you would call tomorrow, my lord.” She kept her voice even in spite of her racing heart and tight throat.
    “I could not wait so long to see my beloved.” It might have been the first time he did not stand in her presence.
    Belinda trudged up the terrace steps and sat next to him.
    “Gabriel, I’m too tired to fight with you tonight. Can you just call tomorrow and we will talk?” The entire evening weighed her down. The ball seemed a lifetime ago. And now, here he was again, in her garden and he would demand explanations.
    His tone lightened. “I really just wished to see that you arrived home safely.”
    “Of course, I’m safe.”
    “You say that as if it is a given.”
    “It is.”
    He sat up straight, his stare intensified, and he took her face in his calloused fingers. “I wish that were true. I wish you were honest with me. You leave your close friend’s ball early and disappear, not returning home for hours and then you tell me you were never in any danger.”
    “I am fine, Gabriel. You need not worry over me. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.” She hated that she caused him pain. Hadn’t she released him from his responsibilities earlier at the ball?
    He dropped his hands and spoke as if he’d read her thoughts. “I suppose that I should not care, Bella, but I do. I suppose that after what you said this evening, I should walk away from you and find another woman to spend my life with.”
    Her heart traveled up and lodged firmly in her throat. “You should.”
    He examined her from her head to her muddy boots. “If only it were as simple for me to forget about you as it seems to be for you to have abandoned your feelings for me. Perhaps you never had the same depth of feeling for me.”
    She saw her way out. All she had to do was tell him she’d never loved him, and she would be rid of Lord Gabriel forever. She should do it. It would save them both a great deal of trouble and pain. It was one thing to lie about what she did and where she’d gone. But this? “That is not true. My feelings run just as deep.”
    His eyes widened. “Then why would you wish to end our engagement?”
    Her limbs had become heavy sacks of sand, which she could no longer carry anymore. Even sitting up straight stretched her resources. “I thought we could talk about this in the light of day, after a good night’s sleep.”
    He shrugged. “I thought you would go straight home after the ball. Yet I find you in the garden, your boots covered in mud and your hair felled from its earlier state of grace. I cannot stop myself from wanting answers again. Since I know full well that you are not going to tell me what you did tonight or whom you were with, I think you should at least tell me why you have decided to toss me over.”
    He spoke softly and his expression remained calm, but the anger in his voice lay just under the surface. She’d known him long enough to hear it simmering there.
    “I’m tired Gabriel. I do not know what you want me to say.”
    His eyes softened when he looked at her. He was a magician who had her under his spell and she couldn’t look away. “I want to know why, with so little remorse, you are ending an arrangement that when made was the greatest joy in my life? I seem to recall, you were quite happy too the day we signed the contract.”
    “I have changed.” Belinda’s heart clenched painfully. Perhaps this is what people meant by a broken heart. She wanted to run into the house and put off this conversation for as long as possible. She wanted to, but she couldn’t.
    “I can see that, but it is not an answer. You have said that you still harbor feelings for me, yet you wish