"Why is he doing this?" Brianna asked herself. "And why does he seem to think that by kissing me, I'll simply see everything his way?"
"You've not seen your reflection of late, have you?"
She spun around to see an old woman watching her from an open doorway. "Why do you say that?"
"Old Celine was as beautiful as you be once. Men fell at my feet," the woman explained.
Brianna thought back to the reflection that had greeted her this morning. Nothing special as far as she was concerned...russet colored hair, fair skin and dark eyes. Brianna hoped that Gabriel didn't see her the way this old woman was suggesting. "In his line of...work, I would be a distraction. I won't see something happen to him and live with knowing I caused it."
"Is your man already married?"
"No."
"Are you promised to another?"
Brianna silently shook her head.
"Has he threatened to send you to a convent?"
"Heavens no." Brianna's voice was soft and her mind filled with a conversation in which she had told Gabriel; quite boldly, in fact; that marriage or going into a convent were the only options open for a woman. And that she wanted nothing to do with either.
"Then what is it he's asking of you?"
"He wants me to leave the city with him when he goes." But it was so much more than that.
"It sounds to me like he's offering marriage, child. Think on his offer." With those words, she pushed the door closed. The old woman was right. Gabriel was offering her marriage...according to him, they were already married. But at what cost to him? He might as well as have closed the cage door behind her now. Lost in her thoughts, Brianna never saw the dark form that shadowed her.
That dark form was standing in her path when she turned a corner. Startled, she gasped when she found her wrist manacled in an iron grip. And then she recognized that dark form. Gabriel had found her.
"What would you have done if I were a man come to steal your virtue, Brianna?" he demanded, trapping her other wrist when she made to slap him. "What will you do now?" By this time he nearly had her cornered.
"Leave me alone," she panted, fighting to free herself.
"Naughty girl," he tisked when she brought her knee up in an attempt to catch him in the groin. Neatly pinning her leg to the side with his own, Gabriel continued. "Not here."
