“You’re hurt,” Gabriel says. Lizabeth merely stares at him.
“Mademoiselle Morgan, your cheek.”
She shakes her head, coming back to attention. She brushes her fingers along her cheek, wincing when she makes contact with a wet gash underneath her left eye. Her hand comes back smeared with blood. “Oh.”
Gabriel dismounts, ties the horse to a nearby tree, and rushes to her side. “Mademoiselle Morgan, what happened? If you’re seriously injured—”
“I’m not. I-I’m all right.”
Gabriel looks at her, eyebrows raised. “Are you certain? I heard your scream.”
“I was attacked by a man who wanted my jewels,” Lizabeth explains. Gabriel stiffens, and she adds, “But after we fou—I mean, after he took my sapphire bracelet, he left. Everything is fine.”
His eyes travel to her body, presumably searching for further injury, and a blush blooms across her cheeks. One of her shoes had fallen off in the scuffle, and the red satin of her remaining one is marred and dirtied with mud. Her saffron dress is littered with snags, and there is a gaping hole in her laced sleeve. She doesn’t even want to think about her hair, or the dirt covering her entire back. Surely, she looks half deranged.
Gabriel kneels down and reaches out to her injured cheek. “May I?”
She blinks back her surprise. “Oh. Of course.”
Though she prepares herself for the touch, Lizabeth still jumps when Gabriel’s fingers graze her skin.
“Sorry.” He yanks his hand back. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s all right,” Lizabeth says, not daring to admit the reason she jumped had nothing to do with her pain and everything to do with being alone with a member of the opposite sex for the first time in her life.
Lizabeth flinches again when Gabriel touches her cheek for a second time, but he keeps his hand on her face, his gaze unwavering as he examines her cut.
Gabriel’s fingers are warm, and his touch is gentle, his steady breaths the only sound that permeates the night air. Now that Lizabeth has been in his presence multiple times, it’s laughable how she assumed he and Jean de Coligny would be anything alike. Though the two are best friends, Jean reminds Lizabeth of the hottest part of a fire—beautiful and bright but quick to burn. Gabriel, on the other hand, is like the breeze on a summer night, silently bringing warmth while asking for nothing in return.
“Do you know who could have attacked me?” Lizabeth asks, desperately needing a distraction from the feel of Gabriel’s fingers on her skin.
“A footpad, I would guess. The woods are crawling with them.”
Gabriel frowns at her cheek and glances down to his cloak. Using the knife Lizabeth snatched up earlier, he shears away a small section of velvet and brings the bit of cloth up to her face, holding it against her wound. She looks at the knife in horror. It isn’t customary for ladies to walk around carrying knives, and being alone in the forest has likely raised enough suspicions as it is.
“The man dropped that on accident before he went back into the forest,” she blurts. “It isn’t mine.”
A smile flashes across Gabriel’s face, but it’s gone before Lizabeth can even be certain it was there at all. “I didn’t think it was.”
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L'Ange de la Mort (The Art of Revolution #1)
Historical Fiction{Wattys 2018 Winner - The Contemporaries} Versailles, France 1789: Where the only things more prevalent than opulence and wealth, are secrets. At the dawn of the French Revolution, Paris is divided. In the glittering palace of Versailles, courtiers...
