Page 151 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Gabriel tilted his head back to look at the light­en­ing sky. “She says that she loves me. Then she says that is why she can’t stay with me. She sees me as some kind of no­ble knight with un­tar­nished ar­mor. She thinks her past will drag me down off my white horse.” He low­ered his head. “But, Papa, she is the one who gave me back my mu­sic. She is the one who told me I could be a duke and a mu­si­cian. She al­ways saw me as more than my ti­tle, and yet that is what drives her away.”

“Some­times be­ing royal over­shad­ows the rest of your life,” Lorenzo said.

Af­ter a mo­ment’s de­bate, Gabriel met his fa­ther’s eyes again. “She didn’t do it. The cryp­tocur­rency scam. She took the blame to save her fa­ther from a long prison sen­tence.”

“Luis told me,” Lorenzo said.

Out­rage gripped Gabriel. “You and Tío Luis knew?”

“I was not pleased that you were in­volved with a con­victed crim­i­nal,” Lorenzo said. “Luis thought it would ease my con­cerns if I un­der­stood Quinn’s his­tory.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I should have been the first to know it.” Gabriel slapped his hand against his thigh.

“Did you not want Quinn to trust you with her truth?” His fa­ther’s voice was gen­tle.

Gabriel’s anger de­flated like a bal­loon pricked by a pin. “Yes. Of course. I just—” He ran his fin­gers through his damp hair in frus­tra­tion. “It seems strange to be the last one in­formed. My apolo­gies, señor.”

“You owe me no apolo­gies, hijo mío.” His fa­ther was silent a mo­ment be­fore he said, “I am sure you told Quinn that the royal fam­ily has weath­ered far worse scan­dals than a mi­nor prison sen­tence. Not to men­tion that she has paid her debt to so­ci­ety. The me­dia loves a story of a crim­i­nal turn­ing her life around and suc­ceed­ing.”

Gabriel sighed. “She be­lieves that the me­dia will dig deeper and dis­cover the truth, so she is pro­tect­ing her fa­ther as well as us.”

Lorenzo dis­missed Quinn’s con­cern with a flick of his fin­gers. “She does not un­der­stand how pow­er­ful Luis is. I’m not sure even you do.”

Gabriel heard the near wor­ship in his fa­ther’s voice. Lorenzo had never be­grudged his brother the throne.

“Luis will make any charges against Quinn’s fa­ther dis­ap­pear,” Lorenzo con­tin­ued.

“She re­fuses to ask Tío Luis to help her fa­ther be­cause she feels the cause is not an hon­or­able one. She thinks she would be drag­ging our fam­ily down into the mud.”

“Quinn is a very prin­ci­pled woman. It’s ad­mirable,” Lorenzo said.

“It’s damned frus­trat­ing.” But his fa­ther was right. Quinn’s code of honor was com­mend­able, es­pe­cially given who her only par­ent was. Her iron­clad loy­alty was one of the many things he loved about her.

“There is a strange du­al­ity in our ex­is­tence.” Lorenzo’s tone was med­i­ta­tive. “We must al­ways be con­scious of the pub­lic gaze on us, yet we live highly priv­i­leged lives. We are con­strained but also pro­tected in a way we aren’t fully con­scious of. Quinn does not grasp that she would be en­folded in that pro­tec­tion, no mat­ter what the me­dia un­cov­ers. She ex­pects to be bat­tered and bruised.”

“That’s what I want to do. Pro­tect her. She has fought through so much en­tirely alone. But how do I con­vince her of that?” Gabriel asked as a spark of hope awak­ened in his heart.

“I am not the right per­son to give you ad­vice on that,” Lorenzo said with a sad shake of his head. “But you should not give up try­ing. Do not let pride or de­spair cause you to quit.”

Pride and de­spair—two emo­tions Gabriel knew he was prey to. His fa­ther un­der­stood him bet­ter than he be­lieved.

“I say that be­cause I have let those pas­sions con­trol me too of­ten,” Lorenzo added with a gri­mace. “A warn­ing not to fol­low in my foot­steps.”

Much as he tried to dis­tance him­self, Gabriel was his fa­ther’s son af­ter all. “A warn­ing I ap­pre­ci­ate and will take to heart. Gra­cias, Papa.” He gave a lit­tle bow to Lorenzo, a gen­uine ges­ture of re­spect.

“And now per­haps we have sweated enough,” his fa­ther said, pulling a snowy hand­ker­chief from his pocket to wipe his face.

“Yes, I have a phone call to make, and I’m not sure my phone wouldn’t slip from my fin­gers.” Gabriel ges­tured for his fa­ther to go ahead of him be­tween the rows of lilies. He was go­ing to tell Mikel to in­sist that Quinn come to the din­ner with Odette af­ter all, the first step in his cam­paign to win her back. “By the way, Papa, how did you know I was here at the lily fields?”

“I didn’t,” his fa­ther said over his shoul­der. “You are not the only one who comes here seek­ing so­lace.”

Chap­ter 35

Quinn watched fields of cows and sheep whip past the win­dows of the sedan on the way to din­ner at Finca de Bruma. She hoped she had worn the right thing. Since she hadn’t had Gabriel to con­sult with about her wardrobe, she had copied the out­fit she’d worn to din­ner at the palace, ex­cept in dif­fer­ent col­ors. Her trousers were navy. Her silk blouse was pale blue. Same black high-heeled pumps. Same loose waves of hair around her shoul­ders.

Mikel had wanted her to ride to Finca de Bruma with Gabriel be­cause that’s what lovers would do. Quinn had re­quested a re­prieve from forty min­utes of be­ing alone with Gabriel. Her boss had searched her face and then agreed.

Gabriel had been driven out that morn­ing—Mikel wasn’t let­ting any­one drive them­selves any­where right now—on the pre­text that his par­ents felt it was safer out in the coun­try.

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