Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1) by M.L. Desir Read Free Book Online

ilk?”
    Gabriel nodded, well aware Nathaniel had set one of his traps. Their arguments were oftentimes like fencing matches with quick jabs and fast retreats before lunging in to feign a strike in order to catch the other off guard. He could feel another touché coming, and he sensed he wouldn’t be the one calling it.
    “If that’s the case, then you should be dead,” Nathaniel said. “Your demands may be obnoxious and self-defeating, but you are still their only hope. I find no error in that.”
    “Their hope,” Gabriel replied bitterly. “You contradict. You confuse. You once told me that I wasn’t the Prince of your fairy tale, and now you say I’m humanity’s only hope.” He threw his head back, laughing hard and long before cutting it off with a curse under his breath.
    “That Prince is merely symbolic. You’re better than that Prince. You’re what this world needs.”
    “What this world needs, eh?” he echoed matteroffactly. “And what would that be?”
    Nathaniel’s pale blue eyes were tinged with a cold sadness. He sighed. “Well, Gabriel,” he whispered, “that’s your choice, isn’t it?”
    A popping noise, like a wine cork being pulled from its bottle, broke the silence. Michel, Genevieve, and Adele reverted to their young, beautiful, and ignorant selves. Gabriel sank back to the floor, perplexed and a little shaken.
    “Monsieur Lennox,” Michel called, “does our chatter bore you?”
    Gabriel shook his head and mumbled an apology. His host’s and his other guests’ eyes were fixed on him. He glanced at Nathaniel, who sat with a wide grin, his eyes like crescents.
    “Tell me, Monsieur Lennox,” Michel went on, “do you like poetry?”
    “Certainly,” Gabriel replied, “but I’m partial to those of the British vein.” He smiled then, but he knew that it hadn’t reached his eyes. He couldn’t shake the image of Michel, haggard and old.
    Michel laughed, his fingertips brushing at his lips. “My wife is a lover of verses and the like. Genevieve, recite a poem.”
    She arose, all grace and loveliness. She curtsied low to Gabriel and recited the first few lines, a poem Gabriel had heard before. They painted an image of a woman mourning her lover who had been buried under a willow tree. The words rose from his heart and he recited it with her:
    “Black his cryne as the winter night, White his rode as the summer snow, Red his face as the morning light, Cold he lies in the grave below: My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree .” Gabriel paused, tilting his head to the side. “Chatterton’s ‘Song from Aella.’”
    “You, too, are fond of Chatterton, monsieur?” Genevieve asked.
    “I suppose I am.”
    “Good. Then we’re similar creatures.”
    “Come to think of it,” Adele said, “he rather resembles Milais’s Chatterton. Don’t you think so, Genevieve?”
    Gabriel caught Genevieve’s quick, furtive glance. He reasoned that she couldn’t look at him long, unless she wanted to give herself away. How ironic that her actions screamed the obvious: I want you, Gabriel.
    She sighed. Blood rushed from her face to her throat. “There are striking similarities between them.” Her eyes moved swiftly to her husband, whose face wore an expression as blank as Gabriel had made his own. “But,” she added, “Monsieur Lennox is ten times more beautiful than the deceased poet.”
    A smile lit up on Michel’s face, which made the woman frown.
    Gabriel’s mouth curved into a small smile. Hmm. Not what she had expected.
    Michel stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “My wife is quite the flatterer. A lot like Aphrodite who instigated a war.” With the same brilliant smile, he turned to her.
    Gabriel saw a dark twinkling in Michel’s eyes, but as soon as he observed it, it died away. What could it have meant? Jealousy? Anger? Amusement?
    If the look meant the latter, Gabriel figured that Genevieve had underestimated her