Read Online Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel by Heather Snow - Free Book Online

temples that had not been there before. His brown eyes had always been shuttered, but they were stonier now. Still, he was the same man. Troubled, certainly, but the same.
    Penelope reached out and curved her fingers under his chin, lifting his face to hers. “I want you to listen to me,” she said, and her pulse shot up as his eyes locked with hers. She released him now that she had his full attention. “From the day we first met, I’d always thought you to be an exemplary man. In fact, I would not have believed my opinion of you could rise any higher.”
    He broke eye contact, clearly disbelieving her. She was losing him.
    So she reached down and snatched his hands, squeezing them. “But I would have been wrong, Gabriel,” she insisted.
    His gaze snapped back to hers.
    “I cannot imagine anything more terrifying than what you are living through. And yet you haven’t given up. You are a fighter. I can see it in your eyes.”
    And she could. Anger lurked in their golden brown depths, as did fear and sorrow. But so did determination. It lit them from within.
    “I cannot know what it is like to suffer as you do. I cannot know if we’ll meet success. But I do know that as long as you are still fighting, I won’t give up either. I swear it,” she vowed.
    They stood there, holding hands, locked in a silent communication that she doubted either of them consciously understood. But she sensed his resistance crumbling.
    “It’s not polite for ladies to swear,” he said softly.
    “Dash politeness.”
    One corner of his mouth turned up. “Indeed.” He extracted his hands from her grip. “And dash my family and the Lord Chancellor, as well, I suppose.”
    “Double dash them,” she agreed.
    He nodded. “All right, Pen. You win.”
    Not an overly optimistic agreement, but she would take it. Because for some absurd reason, enough hope soared in her chest for the both of them.
    She only prayed those hopes weren’t what ended up dashed.

Chapter Four
    T he click of a key echoed loudly in the room, followed by the metallic churning of tumblers giving way and the muffled clang of bars swinging open just outside his door. Gabriel came to his feet as his eyes fixed on the rectangle of paneled wood, the last barrier that separated his “parlor” from the rest of Vickering Place.
    His heart kicked in his chest in what could only be anticipation. He’d spent half the night alternately praying for Penelope to come to her senses and not show this morning and the other half willing her to keep her vow. Now he would find out which contrary wish had been granted.
    She sailed through the opening door and Gabriel’s shoulders relaxed as he released a breath. She’d come. Foolish chit. And yet Penelope smiled so widely that even he couldn’t help but feel optimistic in the glow of it.
    “Good morning, Gabriel.” She stopped a scant two feet in front of him, the hem of her dark cloak swirling slightly around her legs. The crisp scent of a winter morning reached his nose, carried in on her fur-collared manteau. He breathed in automatically, as if his senses craved the sharp contrast from the stuffy staleness of his rooms.
    She peered around his shoulder to the table where he’d been sitting. “Oh, good. I see you’ve breakfasted.”
    He blinked at her, and the stirrings of a smile tickled his mouth. “Ah, yes.” Then a thought arrested the grin before it could form. “Why? Are you planning some horrid treatment for which I’ll need fortification?”
    The corners of her eyes turned down, and her nose scrunched up in a sympathetic wince. “I’m afraid so.”
    “In that case, I wish I hadn’t eaten that second helping of sausages,” he grumbled as said extra serving turned over in his stomach.
    “Never fear, my lord,” she murmured softly. “’Twill be over in a trice.”
    Gabriel’s breath caught. Did Penelope know those were the very same words she said to settle him before their first dance so long ago?
    Or was