Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel Read Online Free Page A

him, least of all her.
    Was she ready to be faced with the stuff of her nightmares?
    Penelope swallowed hard. Yes. Because Gabriel was still alive, still able to be saved. Whatever she must do, she would do it, if only as penance for what she
hadn’t
been able to do for Michael.
    Penelope stepped into the room, at least as far as she could before shock stilled her feet. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” she whispered, amazed she could push even those three short words through the sudden tightness of her throat. “Gabriel?”
    For a brief second, Penelope wondered if
she
were the mad one. Because what she was seeing couldn’t possibly be real.
    Gabriel—a very
naked
Gabriel, she couldn’t help but note with widening eyes—was cornered in the far side of the room, nearly trapped by two attendants who steadily approached him. With a strength and quickness that didn’t seem human, Gabriel lashed out to his left and snagged the corner of a heavily carved rococo chaise longue with one hand, pulling it toward him as if it weighed nothing. A high-pitched screech grated as the wooden legs dragged in screaming protest across the floor. He angled it on the diagonal in front of him, effectively creating a barricade from the grasping attendants.
    “Curse you, you devils,” Gabriel rasped in a scratchy voice that pricked at Penelope’s heart.
    The stark fear in his eyes turned that prick into a full-fledged pierce. Poor Gabriel was looking at the men as if he truly saw them as the demons he called them.
    “I am burning alive already. Does that not satisfy your thirst for revenge?” he cried, muscles and tendons straining against the skin of his neck.
    Penelope could only watch in horror as Gabriel snatched a pitcher of water from a nearby sideboard and tipped it back. He gulped noisily, not seeming to notice that most of the water missed his mouth, running down his unclothed skin in dripping rivulets that pooled on the floor at his bared feet. Penelope’s gaze followed the trail of liquid as it traversed lean muscle, over his chest, where tiny droplets clung to the dark hair there, down his stomach to . . .
    Dear God, he truly was completely nude—
    A blur of black linen blocked Penelope’s view as Mr. Allen stepped in front of her. “My lady, I must insist you leave this instant—”
    An explosion of glass shattered against marble, jerking both of their attention back to the drama unfolding in the corner. Gabriel had smashed the empty pitcher against the floor, and shards of crystal skittered in all directions.
    Well, she’d be hanged before she allowed Mr. Allen to toss her out of the room. She took advantage of the distraction to dart farther into the parlor so that the director would have to choose between bodily removing her or helping his staff members to contain Gabriel.
    Allen shot her a dark look over his shoulder but moved towards the fracas. She thought to offer her assistance, but there was little she could do with Gabriel when he was in the grips of full-blown mania.
    “Ah, Christ,” Gabriel groaned. “Am I to have no relief?” Water glistened on his skin as he glared accusingly at the men who were slowly skirting either side of his barricade, crystal grinding beneath their boots. “If
your
thirst cannot be quenched, then neither shall mine be? Is that the way of it?”
    “My lord,” Allen said soothingly, raising his hands as he advanced on the chaise longue from the center. “You know we never deny you sustenance.”
    “Trickery!” Gabriel accused. “Water that does nothing to wet the throat. Clothing that burns.” He scratched at his arms, and Penelope winced at the white lines that appeared on otherwise swarthy skin. Was that why Gabriel had shed his clothes? Because they’d irritated his skin?
    What madness
was
this? She’d never seen anything like it.
    Penelope held her breath as the attendants and Mr. Allen closed in on her cousin-by-marriage, a man on either side with the director