Velvet

Chapter 4

"It's been a long time since I've heard that sound," Miles observed to Simon as they entered the drawing room after dinner.

Simon needed no expansion of the remark. The deep, warm sound of Nathaniel Praed's laughter seemed to fill the" corners of the long, high-ceilinged room. He was leaning over the back of Gabrielle's chair; her head was tilted upward, turned against the taffeta cushions as she spoke to him. Whatever she was saying seemed to be amusing his lordship mightily.

"He says she's trouble," Miles continued thoughtfully. "But I'm getting the impression the gentleman doth protest too much."

"Does it surprise you, my friend?" Simon chuckled. "If I weren't happily leg-shackled to Georgie, I could almost be tempted myself."

"Not I," Miles said. "Gabby's too much of an enfant terrible for me. A man would never know whether he was on his head or his heels with her. She's got the devil's own sense of humor, always mocking. Half the time I don't know whether she's serious or not."

"But one would never be bored," Simon commented. "Perhaps that's what Nathaniel needs."

"Perhaps." Miles took snuff with an indolent flick of his wrist. "It certainly won't hurt him to cross swords with someone who can give as good as she gets. A lesson in humility might be the saving of him. Gabby's not one to be intimidated by Nathaniel's particular brand of arrogance."

Simon laughed. "She has more than her own share of imperiousness-much as I love her. Maybe they'll take each other down a peg or two."

"Well, it'll certainly be an interesting spectator sport. Let's suggest a game of whist. I'd dearly love to see them partner each other."

They sauntered over to the engrossed pair and Miles said cheerfully, "Gabby… Nathaniel.. you have to rescue us from certain disaster. Lady Alsop and Colonel Beamish are looking for another pair to make up a whist table. If you don't agree to play with us. Georgie will volunteer us the minute she looks in our direction."

Gabrielle examined Lord Praed with an air of speculation that was as mischievously inviting as it was challenging. "How well do you play, sir?"

"Well enough, ma'am," he responded without a blink of an eyelid. "But I might ask you the same question."

"I play as well as I hunt," she asserted glibly.

"But not, I trust, as recklessly."

"I take no unnecessary risks."

"You'll have to forgive me if I doubt that." His eyes held hers and that charmed circle enclosed them again.

Simon cleared his throat. "I can vouch for Gabby's cardplay, Nathaniel. She's not a conservative bidder, certainly, but she'll not leave you in the lurch."

"No," Gabrielle agreed with a sweet smile at her prospective partner. "I am an utterly reliable partner, Lord Praed. In whist as in other things. Perhaps it's time I proved it to you."

Nathaniel's head waswhirling, his scalp tight, as if he were in the gripof a fever. And perhaps he was, he thought distantly. The woman was drawing them both to the brink of the devil'sown inferno. Somehow he had to keep from toppling in. He looked for the cold, formal response so much a habit with him.

Fot a moment nothing would come to his lips, and he knew he was smiling and his eyes were warm. Gabrielle's crooked smile and dark eyes hung like the moon in a mist before his rapt gaze, wisps of dark red hair escaping from the diamond comb. She was scarlet and black-she was trouble. Helen's soft features came suddenly to his rescue-the liquid eyes, the tentative expressions, the gentle hand.

"I'm not in the mood for cards," he said, his voice clipped, his eyes now cold and harsh. "I must ask you to forgive me, madame, I couldn't do you justice as a partner." He bowed and turned away, walking with undue haste to the drawing room door.

Simon sighed. "For a minute there I thought I spied the old Nathaniel."

"The old Nathaniel?" Gabrielle's eyebrows quirked.

"I told you this morning that he lost his wife in childbirth," Miles reminded her with a touch of his earlier stiffness.

"We all have tragedies," Gabrielle said quietly, and to the surprise of both men for once there was no mockery in her voice. Her eyes were dark pools of unhappiness, and then it was gone. "Well, if Lord Praed won't play, you must find me another partner."

She smiled in her usual fashion and took Simon's arm as they went into the cardroom.

Nathaniel lay fully dressed on his bed, listening to the voices from below, the strains of dance music asa few couples took the floor in an impromptu country dance. He'd left instructions with the stables that his postchaise be at the front door at five o'clock, well before dawn. Now all he had to do was get through the night and he'd be on his way to Hampshire and sate from the devil's inferno embodied in a pair of charcoal eyes.

After a while the noise died down and he heard the called good nights as his fellow guests made their way to bed. He undressed and tried to sleep. But all the usual tricks he used to bring about oblivion when he was keyed up failed him. When the handful of gravel flew through the open window and rattled on the polished wooden floor, he understood what he'd been waiting for.

To question the inevitable was an exercise in futility. He relit his beside candle, then got up, shrugged into his dressing gown, and went to the window. Gabrielle de Beaucaire stood on the pathway below, hands on her hips, her head thrown back as she looked up at his window, every line of her body both a question and an invitation.

Nathaniel leaned out into the moon-washed night. He said nothing, merely crooked a finger at the still figure. For the batest moment she seemed to hesitate, then she was swarming up the creeper, hand over hand, toes searching for a foothold, gripping where they could. Leaning his elbows on the broad sill, he watched her progress, trying to conceal his anxiety from himself.

When her head came level with the windowsill, he reached for her, taking her strongly beneath the arms and lifting her bodily through the window.

Gabrielle was so surprised at this evidence of more than ordinary strength in a man whose physique indicated wiriness and agility rather than muscle power that she made no sound until her feet made firm contact with the bedroom floor and she was released.

Then she drew breath and brushed the hair away from her forehead, offering him a small smile.

"I was a little scared of the climb tonight. But one shouldn't give in to fear, should one?"

He regarded her, unsmiling. "And temptation?" he inquired softly. "What of temptation, Gabrielle?"

"Ah." She put her head on one side, considering. "Resisting temptation is a different matter. A matter best left to individual consciences, I believe, according to circumstance."

"Yes," he said, still softly. What reason did he have for resisting this temptation just this once? He'd be away from there in a few short hours, away from Gabrielle de Beaucaire, and he'd never see her again. She wanted this as much as he did. This was an ephemeral temptation, not one that need be resisted.

His hands went to the buttons of her shirt. In leisurely fashion, one by one, they came undone. Gabrielle stood motionless under the purposeful unfastening, although her blood flowed swiftly and her heart was beating fast.

Lifting and turning her wrists, he unfastened the tiny pearl buttons before pulling the shirt-sleeves off her arms. He tossed the shirt aside and stood looking at her, bared to the waist in the moonlight. She held still for the long, unhurried scrutiny, her skin prickling, her nipples lifting and hardening with the cool breeze from the window.

He held the generous swell of her breasts in the palms of his hands, his thumb flicking the nipples, his eyes holding hers before he lowered his head and drew his tongue in a slow, easy stroke first over the right breast and then over the left. It was a caress so full of promise that Gabrielle caught her breath, but she obeyed the unspoken rule of silence that held them both.

In the same silence Nathaniel caught her waist and lifted her onto the windowsill before pulling off her boots and stockings in turn. Slowly, he unfastened the waistband of her britches, lifted her down again, and pushed the garment off her hips. Then, smiling, he hitched her back onto the cold stone windowsill and pulled the britches clear of her feet.

Gabrielle shivered, but it was not with cold, although the stone was hard and chill beneath her bottom and thighs as she sat naked in the window.

Nathaniel lifted her with the ease of before, cradled her in his arms, and carried her to the bed, laying her gently on the rumpled coverlet.

"Why do you keep carrying me around?" she inquired, her voice sounding strange as the intense silence was at last broken. She tried for a lightly amused tone, but there was a quiver in her voice that spoke of much more than amusement.

Nathaniel stood looking down at her as she lay on the bed, vulnerable in her nakedness. Her limbs were long and straight as hazel wands, and the generous curve of hip and bosom surprised and delighted him. Clothed, her height masked the richness of her body. "I suppose because it makes you more manageable," he said. "Or at least it gives me that illusion."

"And you need me to be manageable?"

"I have my share of masculine pride." A glimmer of self-mockery touched his eyes, and it was as if the harsh, isolated coldness he so often evinced belonged to a different man. He threw off his dressing gown and came down on the bed beside her.

"I'd never have believed it," Gabrielle murmured, brushing her fingertips over his chest. "Such a modest and unassuming man, I thought you were."

Nathaniel chuckled, flinging a leg over her thighs, drawing her close against the warmth of his body. "I must have been too delicate in my approach. I've never had dealings with a devil woman before."

They both knew the banter was a delaying tactic, a last-ditch attempt to bridle the heady swirl of passion wrapping tight around them.

Gabrielle closed her eyes, and the scent of his skin filled the air around her. She inhaled greedily, her hands running over his back, learning the curve of hip and buttock, the swell and ripple of muscle, the knobs of his spine. She palmed his scalp, her fingers twisting in the crisp, wavy thatch.

Nathaniel felt the press of her breasts against his chest, the tautness of her erect nipples as he tasted the sweetness of her mouth with a questing tongue. His need rose hard and urgent, eclipsing all else but the immediacy of desire. With a soft moan of assenting urgency Gabrielle moved against his rising flesh, her thighs tightening as she held him in the warm furrow of her body, the earthy words of uninhibited passion on her lips, whispering against his mouth.

"I want you," he said with low-voiced ferocity, his palms flattening against the insides of her thighs, opening her. He touched her heated core and she cried out.

"Come into me, love, now."

Despite her fervent imperative, he tried to hold back, to keep control for both of them, knowing that delay could only enhance their pleasure, afraid also that he might make an error of judgment if he yielded to hasty need, and knowing with aching certainty that this loving was going to be unique and must not be jeopardized by rash, unvarnished lust.

He gazed down at her as she sprawled beneath him in wanton abandon, her hips lifting unconsciously, her thighs parted, a sheen of moisture on the satiny inner slopes glistening in the soft glow of the bedside candle. Her tongue touched her lips and she repeated the demand. "Now,Nathaniel."

He was lost, irretrievably. With a shuddering breath he came over her, sliding his hands beneath her to lift her to meet his surging entry into the moist and welcoming sheath. With each deep thrust he probed her body and her eyes held his, a glow of wonder in the charcoal depths as she gloried in the presence of his flesh within her own.

There was a brief moment of awareness when she touched his lips with her finger and whispered, "You will be careful?"

"Of course," he responded simply.

A slow smile spread over her face and her eyes widened as the wondrous pleasure built deep, the strong rhythm of his body in hers becoming a part of her self.

And at the last, she chuckled, an exultant little sound of pure pleasure that drew an answering ripple of delighted amusement from Nathaniel. And then the coil burst asunder and for a magical instant they existed as one flesh before, with a wrenching sense of loss, Nathaniel kept his promise; but she held him tightly against her, her legs wrapped around his hips, her heels pressing into his buttocks as if he were still within her body as his throbbing climax tossed aim on the sea of ultimate sensation until he fell forward, lying beached upon her, and her arms fell back, her legs flung wide around him in the formlessness of fulfillment.

After a minute he made a supreme effort and rolled onto the bed beside her. His hand stroked the damp skin of her belly, his face buried in the curve of her neck. Gabrielle lifted one hand and let it fall heavily across his back in an attempt to return the languid caress of gratitude and acknowledgment.

"Wild one," Nathaniel murmured finally, his breath warm on her neck. "That was indecently fast. I like to take my time, not tumble headlong into ecstasy."

"We both had a powerful thirst to slake," Gabrielle replied with a somewhat complacent smile. "Next time we can take our time."

Nathaniel turned his head toward the window. The moon swung in the black sky and the stars were as bright as ever. Dawn was an eternity away, an eternity in which to indulge temptation.

"Then perhaps we should start next time now," he murmured, hitching himself on an elbow, feasting his eyes on her body, taking in every inch now that lust's driving power was curbed.

Her skin was milk-white and smooth, stretched taut over her rib cage, curving into the concave hollow of her belly. He lowered his head to dip his tongue into the delicate thimble of her navel, his fingers twisting in the silky dark red fleece at the apex of her thighs.

Gabrielle stretched luxuriously beneath the caressing hand that with a sure and easy touch drew her up from the torpid depths of satiation, rekindling the ashes of arousal.

"No, lie still," he commanded when she attempted to reciprocate his play. "I want to explore you, to find out what pleases you. I want your body to speak to me."

"It's very eloquent at the moment," she whispered, arching catlike beneath his touch, more than willing to offer herself to such skilled and knowing handling, postponing her own game of intimate discovery.

Nathaniel played with her, reveling in the supreme responsiveness that enabled him to bring her again and again to the brink of joyous extinction. Their voices mingled in murmured delight and sometimes surprise as the night wore on and the erotic voyage took unexpected turns.

Gabrielle felt that every inch of her skin had been charted, every crevice of her body become known to the man who loved with such exquisite sensitivity. He knew the lobes of her ears, the bones of her ankles, the two dimpled indentations in the small of her back, the spaces between her toes, each and every fingernail. Finally he yielded his own body and she learned him with the same thoroughness, recognizing dimly that such a knowledge forged links between two people that could not easily be broken.

The final fusion was a dreamlike joining of two separate entities who no longer acknowledged their individuality. They rose and fell together in slow cadences and his skin was hers as hers was his, and his flesh pressed against her womb, an inextricable part of her essence.

They lay together, recovering their separateness, as the stars began to fade and, with the coming of dawn, Nathaniel dragged himself free from the woods of enchantment. It was time to return to the real world of dark dangers and mired secrets. Time, too, to don the mantle of fatherhood for a while, however uncomfortable a garment it was.

He'd not made love since Helen's pregnancy had so enervated her that she could barely raise her head from the chaise longue-he wouldn't dignify subsequent hasty satisfactions of bodily need with the term lovemaking-and not once tonight had he thought of Helen. The realization struck like a sliver of ice through his warm lethargy, his peaceful contemplation of the rich, sensuous interlude he'd shared with the long, sinuous, creamy form lying beside him.

How could he not have thought of the woman who would be living now if he hadn't yielded with such incontinence to his body's urgencies? Helen had miscarried three times before she carried Jake to full term and gave her life for the child's. And yet he hadn't thought to be careful. He'd expected her to be a wife to him and the mother of his children, and she hadn't said otherwise. But then, Helen was not a woman to say a man nay-to renege on what she believed were her obligations. Knowing that, he should have thought, should have understood, should have made the decision for both of them. Instead…

The woman beside him shifted on the mattress, turning her head to look at him. Dark red ringlets pooled on the white lawn pillow, a rich ruddy stain, like Helen's blood flowing unstoppably from her body until she was drained, lifeless, bloodless.

"Something's the matter," Gabrielle said directly, sitting up. "What is it, Nathaniel?"

It wasn't her fault. She'd offered temptation, but he had chosen to yield to it. He hung on to the thought grimly until the fierce need to strike out at her, to punish her for his own self-indulgence was blunted enough for him to speak if not warmly at least without overt hostility.

"The night is done," he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, stretching and yawning. "It's time you returned to your own bed before the household begins moving around."

Gabrielle regarded him for a moment through narrowed eyes. Whatever was troubling him ran deep. She'd shared enough of the man's spirit tonight to recognize that. But even such sharing didn't permit prying, and besides, she had no wish to pry. She had one object and only one where Nathaniel Praed was concerned. If an explosion of bodily joy came along as an extra, then all well and good. But the closeness had to stop there. There could be nothing more.

"You're right," she assented. "It's getting light. Perhaps I'd better leave by the window to be on the safe side."

"What safe side?" he scoffed. "You'll leave by that window over my dead body."

Gabrielle put her head on one side in the engaging and frequently infuriating way she had. "Now, that seems a little extreme, sir. An unnecessary sacrifice, surely."

His lips twitched. "Witch! Put your clothes on and leave by the door." He picked up her clothes. "Catch."

The garments flew toward her: shirt, britches, stockings, and boots. Gabrielle snatched them from the air with an instinctive accuracy, and Nathaniel enjoyed the supple play of her body as she stretched and bent in reactive rhythm. And then he remembered Helen again. He wanted to look away as Gabrielle pulled on her britches, buttoned her shirt, but he couldn't. His eyes were fixed wide as if someone had wedged sticks beneath his eyelids.

But to his relief, Gabrielle showed no signs of lingering once she was dressed. She showed none of the softness of the night either, not even offering a farewell kiss before going to the door.

"Sleep well, Lord Praed. I promise I won't disturb you at the breakfast table this morning."

Her laugh had the old mockery in it as she closed the door behind her.

With a speed akin to desperation, Nathaniel began to dress, throwing his few belongings into a portmanteau before hurrying down the stairs and outside to his waiting postchaise.

Gabrielle encountered a maidservant struggling with a scuttle of coal as she turned into the corridor to her own bedchamber. She offered a cheerful good morning, but the girl, tongue-tied, stared wide-eyed at the dawn apparition in britches and shirt.

Shrugging, Gabrielle went on her way. The girl was presumably a very lowly member of the household staff and wouldn't know the names of the Vanbrughs' guests even if she was inclined to gossip. Not that it mattered one way or the other. No servant would be able to guess in whose bed the Comtesse de Beaucaire had passed the night.

She gained her own room without further incident. The neatly turned down bed awaited her, mute evidence of where she had not spent the night. A sheet of paper on the plumped virgin pillow caught her attention immediately. She picked it up. Georgie's spidery writing weaved untidily over the paper:

Gabby, where are you? Or can I guess? Perhaps I won't try. Just to alert you: Simon says Lord Praed has ordered his carriage for dawn. Apparently he's decided his business here is over and he won't even stay for breakfast! He's such a rude man, Gabby, I can't see what you see in him. But then, there's no accounting for taste, is there? I don't know if you want to know his plans, but just in case… Sleep well!!

Gabrielle scrunched the paper in her fist, staring out of the window at the rapidly brightening day. He'd said nothing about leaving. Was he still going? After such a night, could he simply get up and leave without a word of explanation or even farewell as if those glorious hours had never happened?

She remembered the way the shadows had returned to his face just before they'd parted. His eyes had become brown stones again. And she knew he was capable of walking away from an ephemeral erotic encounter without a backward glance.

But she couldn't allow that. The seduction of Nathaniel Praed had to go much deeper than one mutually enjoyable night. She was still as far as ever from persuading him to accept her into the service… and as far as ever from avenging Guillaume's death.

With swift efficiency she began to move around the room, packing a cloakbag with necessities-her riding habit, clean linen, several day dresses. Evening gowns and her jewel casket would not be necessary; she couldn't carry them anyway. It would help, of course, if she knew where he was going. She tossed her hairbrushes and toothpowder on top of the contents of the bag, swung a dark velvet hooded cloak around her shoulders, dropped an ivory-mounted pistol and a black loo mask into the deep pocket, and drew on her gloves, picked up her whip and the bag, and headed for the door.

"Merde!"She couldn't go without a word to Georgie. Dragging off her gloves again, she went to the secretaire, found paper and quill, and scrawled a few words of oblique explanation. Her cousin would read between the lines and would send on the rest of her belongings once Gabrielle knew where she was going.

Taking the note, she left the room and hurried down the corridor. Outside Georgie's room she folded the paper carefully and slipped it beneath the door, where Georgie's maid would see it when she awoke her mistress in a few hours time.

Gabrielle ran down the stairs and out of the front door, noticing that it was already unlocked. Presumably, Lord Praed, damn his eyes, had wasted no time in making his departure. She hurried to the stables, her cloak snapping around her ankles with her long stride. She'd have to borrow one of Simon's horses, but he wouldn't mind.

A groom was sweeping the stableyard as she strode in. "Saddle Major for me," she ordered. "Do you know which direction Lord Praed took?"

"Not off 'and, milady," the lad said, tugging his forelock. "But I reckon as 'ow Bert will." He hurried into the stable block and a minute later the head groom emerged.

"Major's got a swollen fetlock, my lady. You'd best take Thunderer," he stated as he came over to her. He knew Lord Vanbrugh's stable was available to the countess without question, and her present unconventional dress came as no surprise to a man who'd known her since childhood and knew her fondness for the freedom of early morning rides astride.

"I may need to keep him for a few days, Bert. Lord Vanbrugh won't need to ride him himself?"

"Don't reckon so, my lady. 'Is lordship's got the new geldin' to try out."

Gabrielle nodded. "Do you know which direction Lord Praed's chaise took? I have an urgent message for him."

"The driver said they was goin' into ‘Ampshire, my lady. To 'is lordship's estate. Reckon they'd take the Crawley road."

Gabrielle frowned, picturing the route. "How long ago did they leave?"

" 'Alf an hour, ma'am. The chaise was ready at five, but 'is lordship didn't come fer it until 'alf five."

“I see."

The lad brought Thunderer, saddled, into the stableyard and Bert gave Gabrielle a leg up. She settled in the saddle, waiting while Bert adjusted the stirrup leathers for her and fastened her bag behind her. If the head groom thought there was anything strange about the countess's unheralded crack-of-dawn departure, unaccompanied and dressed as she was, he kept it to himself and behaved as if this were just another of her lone early morning excursions to be over by breakfast time.

Gabrielle trotted Thunderer out of the stableyard and down the long driveway to the road. The Crawley road lay to the left, and if she cut across country, she could join it about five miles along, where, if she remembered aright, there was a small stand of poplar trees beside the road. It would be perfect for what she had in mind. At a good gallop across the fields, Thunderer would gain on the slower road-bound chaise with ease.

Her crooked little smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she imagined Lord Praed's surprise. He would probably be enraged, of course, but unless she had read him wrong, and after such a night how could she have, he would find her unorthodox approach ultimately irresistible.