Lord Savage by Mia Gabriel

Author:Mia Gabriel
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466835467
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

EIGHT

Savage’s hand closed firmly over my fingers, making it clear that I would be leaving the dining room with him. Not that I’d object; I’d no wish to stay with the others, either, with the prospect of being alone again with Savage before me.

He led me swiftly from the dining room and up the stairs toward his rooms. His stride was so long and determined that I was breathless with hurrying, half running in my heeled slippers to keep pace with him across the polished floors and thick carpets and past the curtseying parlor maids and bowing footmen.

He offered no explanation of his haste, no apology for his earlier behavior, not even any small talk. He didn’t so much as look down at me at his side. His expression was dark and implacable, offering nothing, with his thoughts turned inward and away from the rest of the world, including me. I’d already realized that his reticence wasn’t part of the Game, part of playing the role of a master, but instead was part of him. I recognized it for what it was, because it was part of me as well. I’d been alone with him all of the last night and day, and had done wicked, shameless, wonderful things with him that would once have made me blush, and yet I still knew next to nothing of him as a man.

Nothing. And that, I did know, was exactly as he wished it to be.

As my father would have said, Savage kept his cards close to his vest. It was an excellent attribute for a poker player, but the very devil of a challenge for me now.

But I couldn’t think of it, or him, like that. I needed to focus not on what he wasn’t sharing with me but on what he was, which was exactly the sort of reckless passion and excitement that I’d left New York to experience. I couldn’t think of Savage like the ordinary gentlemen I’d known, who had ordinary families and homes and occupations. He’d already made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t like that. I couldn’t think of a future with him beyond Wrenton Manor and the Game, which had brought us together, or beyond the seven nights that were all I was guaranteed to have with him.

I knew all this because, although I might be inexperienced with men, I wasn’t a fool. And yet, when at last Barry shut the bedroom door and Savage and I were finally alone together, I still said the one thing to him that I shouldn’t have, simply because I was too polite to keep silent.

“Thank you, Savage,” I said to his back as he poured himself a glass of brandy. “Thank you for stopping Mr. Henery when he became too—too forward.”

He didn’t answer, sipping the brandy in silence. Because the day had been warm, the bedroom windows remained open, and the yellow flames of the candles around them danced and jumped on their wicks, casting uneasy shadows across the walls that seemed to mirror the evening’s mood.

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