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"She’ll never take you while you’re drinking," Gabe said

Rafe squinted at hi about?"

"Lady Maitland Ih "She doesn’t want me, you fool She wants you Couldn’t you tell from the way she looked at you?"

"She looked at me with some desire," Gabe said with his usual scholarly objectivity

Rafe considered fratricide

"But she looks at you with rage, and I judge that the stronger emotion"

"You’re a fool She’d never take me"

"Why?"

"Worthless," Rafe said shortly "If I were Peter, it ht be different You reat felloas He kept the estate going, you know Even when he was a hting, which was often, he was the only one who could speak to both of them He was… rather wonderful"

"Ah"

"Naturally, Peter never drank to excess"

"It must have been difficult to follow in his footsteps," Gabe said

Rafe laughed shortly "I think ’s breakfast of the business, and he was right I ers clenched on his glass "Though that’s less hters in the care of a person he’d met only once? If he hadn’t taken a ride on a half-broken stallion, all four of the Essexes would still be safely living in Scotland"

And if that were the case, he added silently to hiue on so him as her daily pasti at Gabe with desire, she’d be interested in trying out his rod soon Or the performance thereof

Gabe had finished his apple "I expect Brydone thought to live forever It’s a common human condition"

Rafe felt the opposite himself, but the subject didn’t interest hi the lines of an ethical argument would stop her She and Mayne had probably spent every free moment on the trip to Scotland in the bedchamber Of course Mayne had lied to hien’s bed No sane man would do that

What’s more, Gabe was eminently sane A touch of ice slid down his neck Gabe would presuen’s eminently available charms

"She’s not as composed as she appears," he said abruptly "She truly loved Maitland, you know They weren’t h for disillusioninning to peel another apple

"A bounder Passionate about his horseflesh and little else A er He lost his life when he rode a horse that his jockey had refused to ht he could win the race Instead he smashed his head into a post before his wife’s very eyes"

"Poor Lady Maitland"

"She chose hirowl "She came into this house already in love with that excuse for a man She sat at this table and stared at hiht fro at!"

He raised his head and stared unbelievingly at Gabe "You wouldn’t countenance it if you’d e idiot was hardly to be found throughout England And he was engaged at the ti She simply marched over to his house--well, rode, actually--and before we knew it, she’d eloped with thethe apple before him