The Lady Forfeits by Carole Mortimer

meeting Diana, Gabriel had come to realise that the last thing that he desired in a wife was subservience or obedience. When he had told Osbourne and Blackstone a week or so ago of his plans to marry, Gabriel had assured them both that his marriage was a matter of obligation and expediency. Firstly, because he needed a wife, and, secondly, because of a sense of obligation to the Copeland sisters, because they had all been left without provision for their future when their father had died so unexpectedly. As such, subservience and obedience in his future wife had seemed the least that Gabriel could expect.
    Having glimpsed the fire hidden beneath Diana’s cool exterior yesterday, Gabriel knew that in their marriage bed, at least, he required neither of those things!
    ‘My lord…?’ Diana gave him a searching glance as the silence between them lengthened uncomfortably.
    Had she said too much? Been too frank about her character? But surely it was better for him to know the worst of her before they embarked on a marriage together, rather than learn of it after the event?
    She had certainly believed so. But perhaps she had been a little too honest? ‘I could perhaps attempt to…quell, some of my more independent inclinations.’
    ‘There is no need to do so on my account, I assure you,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye before turning to dismiss the attentive Soames, waiting until the butler had left the room before continuing. ‘Diana, I had expected to be bored, at the very least, in any marriage I undertook; it is something of a relief to know that will not, after all, be the case.’
    Her eyes widened. ‘You do not think it preferable to wait and perhaps marry a woman whom you love?’
    ‘Love?’ He managed to convey a wealth of loathing in that single word.
    ‘You do not believe in the emotion?’ she asked cautiously.
    His top lip curled back disdainfully. ‘My dear Diana, I have discovered that love comes in many guises—and all of them false.’
    She could perhaps understand Gabriel’s cynicism towards the emotion when he had been so completely ostracised after being falsely accused of taking advantage of an innocent young lady. Had he loved the young lady before she had played him false?
    Yes, Diana could sympathise with him—possibly even shared his cynicism towards love. Malcolm Castle had certainly made nonsense of that emotion when he’dprofessed to still love Diana, but had every intention of marrying another woman!
    She sighed. ‘Perhaps you are right and a marriage such as ours, based on nothing so tenuous and fickle as love, but on common sense and honesty instead, is for the best.’
    Gabriel frowned as he heard the heaviness in Diana’s tone. One and twenty was very young for such a beautiful young lady to have formed such a pragmatic view on love and marriage. But perhaps, with the experience of her parents’ marriage, and her young man’s recent abandonment of her, she was perfectly justified in forming that opinion. After all, Gabriel had been but twenty years old himself when he learnt that hard lesson.
    ‘Which is not to say…’ he stood up slowly to move around the table to take Diana’s hand in his before pulling her effortlessly to her feet ‘…there will not be other…compensations in our marriage to make up for that lack of love.’
    She blinked up at him as she obviously realised it was his intention to kiss her once again. ‘I—my lord, it is only nine o’clock in the morning!’
    Gabriel threw back his head and laughed. ‘I trust, my dear, you are not about to put time limitations on when and where I may make love to you?’
    Not at all. Indeed, she would dare anyone to put limitations on a man such as Gabriel Faulkner. It was only that his behaviour now deviated drastically from her Aunt Humphries’s description of what marriage would be like.
    Her aunt had led her to believe that it was usual for a husband and wife to go about their daily lives separately—for