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asked, covering
her hand. “Gabriel is helping me.”
    “ You and Gabriel had a plan
to catch Lilly. Do you remember how that worked out?” she reminded
him, seeing him flinch when they recalled the assassins sent after
her repeatedly. “You can’t win this, my love. You must let it
go.”
    “ I’ll send you and the
children into hiding and we’ll get him, Catherine,” Nicholas said
in determination, his blue eyes filled with resolve.
    Catherine sighed and her shoulders
sagged. She looked out over Dunleavy, tears blinding her gaze. Just
when she thought they would have peace in their lives; there was
this. She looked over at him, her face filled with dread at being
parted from him.
    “ I’ll do whatever you say,
my love,” she said softly and he grabbed her and brought her to his
chest, his hand sliding into her long hair. He tilted her face up
and kissed her, looking down at her with a trace of wickedness in
his eyes.
    “ While I’m here playing
husband; you can surely make our time together memorable, my
sweet,” he whispered into her ear, his warm breath tickling her
ear. She giggled and pulled him down to her lips and sighed as
their eyes met.
    “ I’m due to have our child
any day and you wish to play husband? It would seem to me, all that
playing is what got me into this condition,” she said and he smiled
and kissed her knuckles, his eyes filled with love.
    “ That was merely practice,
my love,” he replied in a seductive voice, his eyes darkening as
they met hers. “We’ve yet to play seriously.” He stood up then,
drawing her up, a questioning look in his eyes. “Does our daughter
still wake early or am I to wait until bedtime to show you how much
I’ve missed you?”
    She giggled as they walked back to the
manor, hand in hand. She’d already told the nurse to keep the
children occupied that morning on her way down to see her husband.
He reached down and plucked a flower from a bush they passed. She
accepted one of her mother’s precious roses, smiled as his eyes met
hers, shivering with the look of longing in his eyes.

Chapter Three
     
    Gabriel scowled as he realized his
plans to go to Amberley were stalled by problems. He’d meant to go
there after Lillianne’s trial, thinking of enjoying the peace and
sighed in disappointment. A never ending stream of troubles plagued
his other estates and now Nicholas unleashed a powder keg in his
lap. Bloody hell, he’d gone too long without a woman
too.
    He thought of Catherine and refused to
give into his melancholy to know she could never be his. She loved
her husband. The woman he once held in his arms and cherished like
no other was gone, ripped away from him by his conniving wife. The
past haunted him daily when she came to the residence to visit
their three year-old son.
    Giles called her Mama and went to her
over him. It pleased him to have her there. He found himself
waiting for her, watching the mantle clock until her coach arrived
each day. He knew this love he had for her was absurd in light of
her marriage to Nicholas. Still, in the cold recesses of his heart,
he was warmed to see the growing light of awareness in those green
eyes.
    She was remembering more each day,
though he knew she’d never speak of it. They danced around
discussing the past. He wooed her in other ways, telling her
amusing stories about their son’s babyhood that she missed. They
walked in the gardens and went on picnics with their child. He knew
it tortured Nicholas and he enjoyed tormenting his friend and
rival.
    Late at night the memories of them
together frustrated him, making him get up and seek solace in his
brandy. Constance failed to dispel his desire for Catherine
anymore. She was growing to be an obsession he couldn’t rid himself
of. No other woman appealed to him. She’d ruined him for
another.
    Depression made his dark eyes close
briefly from the loneliness he felt. He knew it was pointless to
harbor such feelings for her now. It was time that he