“Oh, ah . . .” The valet’s protest died on his lips as he caught the marquis’ set expression. He bowed. “As you wish, my Lord. If you or Lord Gabriel should need anything . . .”
“I shall send for you.” He followed the valet to the door, and closed it behind him. Turning, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and viewed the only thing visible to him—his brother’s back. “We need to talk, Gabriel.”
“Bugger off,” Gabriel muttered from beneath the pillows.
Mouth tightening, he moved forward and yanked the pillow off Gabriel’s head, tossing it across the room where it landed with a soft thud. “I am not in the mood for your insubordination today!”
Gabriel opened bloodshot eyes, glaring. “Damn you! I’m not one of your toadeaters! Leave me alone! God. My head is pounding!”
“You’ll not get any sympathy from me.” Yet Alec felt a thrill of alarm as he eyed his brother’s ashen complexion. Christ, was he actually ill?
“Did I seek it?” Gabriel muttered angrily, rolling onto his back and scrubbing a hand over his unshaven face. He pushed himself into a sitting position then, groaning, he leaned forward to put his throbbing head in his hands. “Hell’s teeth. You smell of horse.” When the insult didn’t elicit any response, he asked sullenly, “What do you want, Sutcliffe?”
Alec spied several empty bottles on the nearby table. “You’re drinking yourself into an early grave. For God’s sake, why? Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“’Tis none of your damn business what I do.”
“It is if you hurt that girl.”
Gabriel’s head came up and he stared at Alec for two seconds before his gaze slid away.
Alec’s nerves tightened, aware that his brother didn’t issue a denial. “Miss Donovan said you and Harcourt left the castle last Sunday for the King’s Head. You went to Hawkings’s cockfight.”
“What of it?”
“You and Harcourt were at the cockfight until you returned to the castle?”
“I don’t answer to you, Sutcliffe.”
“You bloody well will answer to someone. I want to know if you and Harcourt were in each other’s company all night.”
“I’m not Harcourt’s keeper,” Gabriel muttered.
“So you were not with Harcourt all evening?”
“Devil take it, stop quizzing me!” Gathering the sheet around his hips, Gabriel surged to his feet. He was trembling. Their eyes met briefly, and again Alec felt a whisper of dread at what he saw in his brother’s gaze. Anger, yes. But also fear. Then Gabriel looked away. Frustration knotted Alec’s stomach. Again he wondered when Gabriel had begun to regard him as the enemy. What had happened to him? What had Emily done?
“Leave me alone, Sutcliffe.”
“Just tell me if you stayed at the cockfight.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Gabriel shot back. Holding on to the sheet, he moved toward the dressing room.
“God help you, Gabriel,” Alec said, as his brother opened the door. “God help you if you had anything to do with that girl’s death!”
For just a second, Gabriel stilled. Then without a backward glance, he stumbled forward, shutting the door behind him with a snap.
Alec stared at the wooden panel as anger and fear rose up inside him. What the hell was going on? He wanted to follow his brother, to demand an answer to that question—to shake some bloody sense into him.
Tension bunched the muscles along his shoulders as he stood in indecision. He reached for the doorknob of the dressing room’s door, but at the last moment, he dropped his arm and pivoted toward the other door.
Coward, he thought and shook his head in self-disgust. He’d leave Gabriel alone for now. There were other ways of getting to the truth. If he wanted the truth. And that, he realized, was the problem. He wasn’t entirely sure that he did.
Gabriel heard the outer door click shut. The relief that coursed through him had him sagging against the wall. He hadn’t been entirely certain that Sutcliffe wouldn’t force his way into the dressing room to hound him.
He couldn’t handle it. Not now. Not when his stomach burned like acid and his head pounded so hard it felt as though it would split in two. Passing a shaking hand over his face, he stumbled to the chaise lounge in the corner of the room, collapsing onto the cushions.
Who the hell was Sutcliffe, anyway, to come into his room and treat him in such a way? Sutcliffe, who had left and never looked back, who never once wondered about Gabriel’s life, Gabriel’s happiness. Anger and self-pity welled up inside him.
God help you, Gabriel, if you had anything to do with that girl’s death.
Alec’s words echoed in his mind, sending shudders through him. He put his throbbing head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut to block it out.
Pretty brown eyes, dark hair tumbling down her back. Alive.
He jerked upright, opening his eyes. The vision was his imagination, nothing more. He wiped a trembling hand against his mouth. He needed a drink. That would ease his suffering.