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"Really?" Psyche asked,
her voice faint.
              "I can't quite grasp the
memory, but it will come to me. In the meantime, don't risk your whole heart,
my girl. He's a bit too smooth for my taste, marquis or not."
              "It's not a matter of heart–"
Psyche began, then stopped, appalled that she had been about to contradict her
whole concocted tale of love at first sight.
              "No, you just want to escape
Percy, which is easy to understand," Aunt Sophie agreed, her tone
matter-of-fact. "No one could fault you for that, no woman, at least. But
tread carefully, or you might find that your escape is more dangerous than the
fate you wish to flee from."
              Psyche nodded, too dazed by the
old woman's perception to try to argue. And Aunt Sophie would not have
listened, anyhow. Psyche could only pray Uncle Wilfred was not so perceptive.
              She was almost relieved when the
men rejoined them, and she waited impatiently till she had the chance to pull
her supposed fiancé aside for a moment of private conversation.
              "Now–" She guided
Gabriel toward one of the tall, slightly recessed windows on the pretext of
pointing out the shadowy garden outside. "What else do you want?"
               Gabriel's lips curled into a lazy
smile. He looked her up and down, then reached for her hand, which she gave him
reluctantly, glancing past him to the relatives who were bound to be watching
the newly-betrothed couple.
              As he kissed her fingers, Psyche
tried to repress an instinctive quiver. Her heart beating fast, she backed
deeper into the window niche, instinctively seeking to put more space between
them.
              "My dear, this is hardly the
place to tell you. I'm afraid your maidenly blushes–"
              "Oh, don't try to gull
me," she snapped, then to her annoyance, realized that she was indeed
blushing, caught using a cant term of which her aunts would not approve. "You
know what I mean. How much more do you want? How much money? I warn you, my
funds are limited and you're not getting a ha'penny more out of me."
              Gabriel glanced at her proper but
well-cut silk gown, at the pearl ear drops that dangled from her neatly-formed
ears, the single strand of exquisite pearls that circled her white throat. He
did not have to voice his skepticism.
              She bit her lip and looked away. "I
have money, but it's tied up in a ridiculous Trust. Not until I am engaged will
I have access to my own funds; Uncle Wilfred dribbles out my allowance as if I
were still twelve years old. And I need more money!"
              "Indeed." Gabriel
remembered the thin man in the cheap evening dress at the back of the theater,
the man whom he had knocked into a heap just before the carriage had appeared. The
pieces were falling into place.
              In another moment, it was all
blindingly clear. This was not a case of an arranged marriage, nor a suitor
whose embarrassing last-minute flight she was trying to cover up. He had even
wondered if she might be with child. There was not, had never been, any marquis–she
had made the whole thing up!
              Gabriel gazed down at her with
renewed respect. "What an ingenious fraud," he said, his tone
admiring. "How on God's earth did you expect to pull off such a pinchbeck
plot?"
              She stood still, momentarily stunned
into silence. He admired her plan? Admiration was the last thing she deserved
for this outrageous, deceitful, unconventional scheme. What sort of man was he?
              While he was obviously no stranger
to deceit or depravity, if his dinner tales were true, this sort of business
was the antithesis of all that Psyche was and hoped to be. Why, it revealed a
disregard for convention that was exactly like something her parents . . . she
quashed that thought and conjured up a mental image of