Page 110 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Wow! I’d like to see that,” Quinn breathed.

“It would be my plea­sure take you up in the moun­tains, where they are seen the most of­ten,” Gabriel said. “Can you ride a horse?”

“At a walk,” Quinn said.

Bren­dan stirred as though he wanted to say some­thing but sub­sided. Gabriel won­dered if Quinn’s fa­ther had been about to share a mem­ory.

“A walk is the safest speed on the moun­tain trails any­way,” Gabriel said be­fore open­ing a cab­i­net to take out three plates.

“What am I think­ing?” Quinn leaped out of her chair. “I’ll set the ta­ble.”

He handed her the plates as she raced around the kitchen is­land. Ac­tiv­ity would help dis­tract her from the weight sit­ting on her shoul­ders.

As she banged open draw­ers to yank out place­mats and nap­kins, he won­dered what was up­set­ting her so deeply. It wasn’t fear of Dupont, no mat­ter what her fa­ther had told them about the crim­i­nal. Quinn had meant it when she’d said she could han­dle her­self, even if Gabriel felt she was over­con­fi­dent.

Was it hav­ing her boss meet her fa­ther? Gabriel had the sense that the two men had un­der­stood each other well, de­spite the ten­sion be­tween them. And Mikel al­ready knew about what­ever trou­ble lived in Quinn’s past.

As Quinn re­turned to the kitchen for flat­ware, Gabriel reached for her wrist, plan­ning to pull her into him to slow her fre­netic pace. But she slid out of his grip and dodged around him to get to the drawer, her gaze fixed down­ward.

Pain lanced through Gabriel. Was his pres­ence caus­ing her dis­tress?

“Quinn.” He moved in front of her be­fore she could dash out of the kitchen area again. She lifted her head, and he reeled from the bleak­ness that dragged down the cor­ners of her mouth. “What is it?” he mur­mured. “How can I help?”

She shook her head. “It’s too late.” She sidestepped around him.

He would have to wait to find out what that meant.

“This is a lovely place,” Bren­dan said to no one in par­tic­u­lar. This time, he didn’t wait for an an­swer. In­stead, he launched into a col­or­ful and en­ter­tain­ing ac­count of his jour­ney by boat to Cal­eva. He even man­aged to sur­prise a snort of laugh­ter from Quinn when he ad­mit­ted that he shouldn’t have eaten a large meal prior to board­ing since the seas got quite rough.

That en­cour­aged him to re­late an­other story about his trav­els. Gabriel en­joyed the man, even though he didn’t be­lieve half of what Bren­dan said. Quinn’s fa­ther was a mas­ter racon­teur, ex­ert­ing him­self to win a re­sponse from his daugh­ter, who seemed to be de­ter­mined not to re­spond.

As Gabriel car­ried the steam­ing chicken and pota­toes to the ta­ble, he stopped abruptly. Was he as blind to his own fa­ther’s at­tempts to com­mu­ni­cate as Quinn was to hers? Quinn had said as much, but Gabriel had dis­missed her com­ments as po­lite kind­ness.

“Gabriel? You can put the pans down here. There are triv­ets.”

Quinn’s voice snapped him back into mo­tion. He slid the pans onto the ta­ble and lifted the lids. “Pollo con ajillo and patatas bravas, two Span­ish clas­sics, cour­tesy of Marta.”

Bren­dan rubbed his hands to­gether in an­tic­i­pa­tion. “A pollo in the pot is bet­ter than a salmon in the sea.” He grinned. “And I can eat to my heart’s con­tent since I have a soft bed on dry land wait­ing for me af­ter din­ner.”

“How do you know it’s not a bed of nails?” Quinn asked.

Bren­dan sighed. “Ah, Quin­nie, can we call a truce for now? I’ll be out of your hair be­fore you know it.”

Quinn looked down at her folded nap­kin as a flush climbed her cheeks. “Fine. No nails in the bed.”

Bren­dan lifted his whiskey glass. “Bless us with good food, the gift of gab, and hearty laugh­ter.”

“Buen prove­cho,” Gabriel said as he passed a filled plate to Quinn.

As the meal pro­gressed, Bren­dan wove a rib­bon of words that wrapped around Quinn and drew her into the con­ver­sa­tion. Her mono­syl­la­bles be­came full sen­tences, and by dessert, she even laughed at Bren­dan’s sal­lies. The man could prob­a­bly charm a Cal­e­van dragon out of its bur­row.

Re­lief whis­pered through Gabriel as Quinn re­laxed, helped by the wine he kept re­fill­ing her glass with. It was good to see her lips quirk into a sar­cas­tic smile and her eyes spark with their usual keen in­tel­li­gence.

When Quinn ex­cused her­self for a visit to the bath­room, Bren­dan leaned to­ward Gabriel and low­ered his voice. “I ap­pre­ci­ate your sup­port­ing Quinn tonight. You’re a good lad, and you ob­vi­ously care about her.”

An un­ex­pected grat­i­fi­ca­tion warmed Gabriel. How­ever prob­lem­atic Bren­dan was, he was still the fa­ther of the woman Gabriel loved. “She is an ex­tra­or­di­nary per­son,” Gabriel said.

“In­deed, she is.” Pride swelled Bren­dan’s voice. He leaned even closer. “Could you find a way to give us a few min­utes alone? There’s a pri­vate mat­ter I need to ad­dress. I prom­ise it won’t up­set her.”

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