Page 64 of Tempting Fate
As if aware he’d stepped into a pile of excrement while wearing the wrong shoe, Raphael quickly did his best to cover his tracks. “Well, we’ve the papers,n’est-ce pas? New identities to keep the police and our enemies unaware of our existence. I’m Remy Severand, for example.”
“You still didn’t know?” Mercy’s mouth dropped open.
“I didn’t recognize him…” Felicity adjusted her spectacles, staring at him as if he’d become a stranger.
Or a monster.
“Well, look, he’s almost handsome now.” Raphael gripped both of his shoulders, standing before him to study the work he’d had done. “Christ, man, that Titus Conleith is a bloody genius.”
“Titus did this?” Felicity’s voice climbed an octave higher and a decibel louder. “He— he told me you haddied. That you’d been shot saving me.”
“I know.” The condemnation in her eyes felt like a nail in Gabriel’s coffin. One he was ready to craft right now and climb into, just to avoid that look of betrayal. “And every word Titus told you was the truth. He simply… omitted that I’d survived the ordeal.”
Mercy clutched her tighter. “Morley decided it was safer, darling, the fewer people who knew about Gabriel’s survival, for the time being. And when the information was deemed safe, our parents had that dreadful accident and everything was chaos. Right after that settled somewhat, Nora broke the news of her pregnancy and… well… Gabriel was supposed to have left the country by now.” She shot him a withering glare. “None of us knew his existence would mean a jot to you, nor that you would end up so scantily clad with him in the middle of the night.”
Felicity wrenched away from her sister, her fists balled tight and her face breaking out in a bloom of angry red. “I was theonlyone of you who didn’t know? You— my own twin sister! My closest confidant. You kept it from me?”
“Only to protect you,” Gabriel blurted, suddenly able to crawl out of the tar pit of guilt that’d nearly dragged him under.
She whirled on him. “I don’t needprotection.”
He pressed his lips closed, knowing that now wasn’t the time to disagree.
Her expression flattened as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I realize I hired you for your protectionphysically. But I don’t need to be protectedfrominformation, is what I meant.”
“But, Felicity.” Mercy stepped forward, her hands reaching out in a penitent gesture. “You’d just been through something so traumatizing. The fire at the Midnight Masquerade. Being shot at, kidnapped, and attacked. The subsequent head wound. We didn’t want to burden your delicate constitution with anything that might add to your fear.”
Gabriel wished she’d yell. That she’d lose her temper and throw things, berate and abuse them; it was what he deserved. Instead, her shoulders sagged and bitter tears sprang to her eyes.
“IknowI am always afraid,” she said in a voice all the more devastating for its softness. “But that doesn’t mean I cannot be brave. I fear the unknown most of all. It is a cruelty to keep me in the dark. I thought you knew that, Mercy.”
She whirled away from her sister before she had to endure an explanation or an apology, pinning Gabriel with her pain.
“I— I mourned you.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it. “I planted a flower for you in there, and tended it in your name. What a gullible, infantile fool you must think I am. A complete idiot.”
He stepped forward. “Felicity, I—”
“How did I not know? Where is your accent?”
Deflating, he decided that from there on out, he’d never again tell her a lie. “I practiced an English accent while I was recovering from all the surgeries… I couldn’t sound like myself if my identity were to change.”
She nodded as if she understood, though the look of pure misery threatened to crush him into the dirt before she covered her face with her hands in mortification. “We would have… You were going to… And I didn’t even know your real name.”
“Felicity…” He reached for her, but she shrank away.
“I can’t look at you. Atanyof you…” She shoved past him, fleeing into the house.
All three of them flinched as the door clicked shut. She’d not even slammed it. It wasn’t her way.
Something inside of Gabriel hollowed out. His life had been a slog through so much gore and horror and inhumanity. People had been afraid of him, spat at him, humiliated and reviled him.
But not until today had he ever felt small.
Raphael stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. “What are you doing here, Gabriel? With her?”
Mercy marched around to face them both, looking like a furious school mistress. “Are you lovers?” she demanded, her eyes sweeping over his state ofdishabille.
Gabriel was not in the habit of explaining himself, but in this case, he knew one was owed. “We are not lovers.”
