He didn’t slow his long strides until they were well away from the choking cloud of smoke and ash. As Samantha sucked in her first breath of the crisp night air, she began to cough—a hoarse, agonizing sound torn from deep in her chest. Dropping to his knees in a bed of damp leaves, Gabriel cradled her across his lap. Her cheek was warm beneath his hand, but there was no way for him to determine its color. Dying a little with each of her tortured breaths, he waited for the bitter spasm to pass.
Something cold and wet nudged his arm. Gabriel’s seeking hand closed in Sam’s fur. He gently kneaded the collie’s body, trying to soothe its violent trembling. “You’re the best dog in the world, Sam,” he said, his own teeth chattering with reaction. “As soon as we get back to the house, I’m giving you every last one of my boots. Hell, I’ll even buy you your own pair if you want.”
When Samantha’s eyes fluttered open, she found Gabriel hovering over her, his face taut with worry. Even scarred and streaked with soot, it was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
“I saw you,” she croaked, reaching up to tenderly swipe a smudge of soot from his cheek. “Smiling down at me in the sunlight right before everything went dark.”
He tried to smile then, but some other emotion contorted his mouth. He buried his face in her hair, holding her as if he’d never let her go. Samantha moaned softly at how right it felt to be in his arms again.
“Are you hurt?” He lowered her back to his lap, frantically running his hands over her arms and legs. “Did you break anything? Are you burned anywhere?”
“Don’t think so.” She shook her head, then winced as the motion sent a stabbing pain shooting down her neck. “But my head aches.”
“Mine, too,” he admitted with a rueful laugh.
For the first time, Samantha noticed the bloody gash on his left temple. “Oh!” she rasped, hot tears filling her eyes as she realized how close she had come to losing him. “Looking for you. Bats st-startled me. Dropped the lamp. My fault.”
His eyes sparkled down at her from the dappled shadows. “I suppose we’ll just have to take the cost of the stable out of your wages, then, won’t we? It’ll probably take you several years of service to pay off your debt to me.”
“How did you find me?” she asked, both her breath and her words beginning to come easier.
“I had a little help.”
Following his nod, Samantha lifted her head to find Sam curled up in a nest of leaves a few feet away, still sniffing nervously at the air. His coat was matted with soot and scorched black in places.
“You told me he might be the saving of me someday,” Gabriel said. “You were right.”
“He could have been the death of you!” Balling up her fist, Samantha hit him weakly on the shoulder. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that the blind are not to go rushing into burning buildings?”
“I suppose now you’re going to scold me for being such an idiot.”
She shook her head fiercely, ignoring the resulting pain. “Not an idiot. A hero.” The tears spilled from her eyes as she reached up to stroke his cheek, the jagged length of his scar. “My hero.”
Swallowing hard, he captured her hand in his, bringing her fingertips to his lips. “Ah, but you’re the hero, my dear. With a captain half as fierce as you beneath his command, Nelson could have driven Napoleon all the way back to Paris.”
“Why would you say such a silly thing? I was defeated by a rotten ladder and a roost of bats.”
“I was speaking of a more formidable opponent. My mother.”
Samantha blinked up at him, realization slowly dawning. “You heard?”
“Every magnificent word. It was all I could do not to demand an encore.”
Something about Gabriel’s expression was stealing Samantha’s breath away in an entirely different manner. She’d seen him look mocking and sarcastic and irritated and amused at her expense, but she’d never seen him look quite so… resolved.
“It’s very ill-mannered to lurk outside of windows and eavesdrop, you know,” she pointed out. “Even when you’re blind.”
He shook his head. “I knew I couldn’t avoid that scold forever. Have I ever told you how very much I admire you, Miss Wickersham?”
A nervous laugh escaped her. “I should say not. Nor is it necessary. I’m quite content with my own regard. I have no need or desire to be admired.”
His hand brushed her hair. “What about adored? Would you care to be adored?”
Her heart was beginning to thunder in her chest. Perhaps she had spoken too soon. Perhaps she was mortally wounded after all. “Most certainly not! Only foolish young girls with their empty heads stuffed with all sorts of romantic notions yearn for that sort of attention.”
“Just what do you yearn for… Samantha?” Before she could rebuke him for using her Christian name, his warm palm found the curve of her cheek. “Isn’t there something you want so badly that it makes you ache?” His thumb grazed the fullness of her lips, lips that were aching for his kiss.
“You,” she whispered helplessly, curling her hand around his nape and drawing his mouth down to hers.
Despite the mingled taste of soot and tears, it was the sweetest kiss Samantha had ever known. Gabriel held nothing back. As he wrapped his arms around her, his tongue swept through her mouth, igniting a fire even more consuming than the one they had just escaped. To taste its flames, Samantha would willingly risk being scorched to cinders.
He laid her back on the bed of leaves, moving over her like the shadow of a dream. She closed her eyes, only too eager to join him in the darkness.
Dragging his mouth away from hers, he kissed and nuzzled his way down the sensitive column of her throat, inhaling deeply as if she smelled of the most potent perfume instead of lemons and smoke. “I can’t believe I almost lost you,” he said hoarsely, flowering his lips against the pulse that beat at the side of her throat.
She clung to his broad shoulders, adrift in a delicious sea of sensation. “I’m sure Beckwith could have hired another nurse. Perhaps he could have even persuaded the widow Hawkins to come back and look after you.”
Gabriel shuddered against her throat, but she couldn’t tell if it was from laughter or horror. “Bite your tongue, woman.” He lifted his head, a devilish sparkle lighting his eyes. “Or better yet, let me do it.”
As his mouth slanted over hers again, Samantha boldly gave him every opportunity. He dragged one honeyed kiss after another from her lips until she was breathless with longing and he was panting with need. She was hardly aware when his hips began to move against hers in a dance even more provocative than the one they had shared in the ballroom.
But there was no ignoring the waves of pleasure that began to fan out from her lower body. She gasped into his mouth as he rubbed himself against the aching mound between her legs. It was both shocking and thrilling to finally feel that part of him she’d seen so clearly outlined beneath his breeches, to know exactly what he wanted to do to her with it.
Her knees fell apart beneath her skirt. His hand cupped her there, seeking to reach her through the thick layers of wool and linen.
Samantha moaned and writhed beneath his rough petting, stunned by how shameless she’d become, how hot she burned for the caress of his fingers against her bare flesh. When he withdrew his hand, she wanted to cry out with disappointment. But then she felt it slide beneath her skirt. His fingers glided over the wool of her stocking and past her garter to the silky flesh of her inner thigh with a tender urgency she could not resist.
When she felt his fingertips graze the curls between her thighs, Samantha buried her face against his throat, seized by a sudden and unbearable shyness.
His touch was no longer rough, but exquisitely tender. His fingers licked at her swollen flesh like living flames, melting her every misgiving in a heated rush of nectar.
Gabriel groaned. “I knew if I could just get under those demure skirts of yours, I could prove you weren’t made of ice. Melt for me, angel,” h
e whispered, ravishing her ear with his tongue even as he slipped his longest finger deep into that honeyed softness.
She moaned as her body shuddered helplessly around the probing thickness of his finger, a wanton thing no longer under her control. She had always known he had the reputation of being a skilled lover, but she hadn’t realized that he would know her body better than she did, that he would be capable of focusing solely on her pleasure to the exclusion of his own.
The cost of his restraint was betrayed by the ragged rasp of his breathing, the rigid length of flesh pressed against her thigh.
He added another finger to his exploration, gently stretching her, spreading her, even as the pad of his thumb brushed back and forth over the rigid nubbin of flesh at the crux of her damp curls, teasing it to throbbing delight.
His deft fingers continued to pleasure her until she was writhing and whimpering, nearly incoherent with a need she had never known she possessed. A wave of dark bliss swelled over her head. As it broke, sending a primal ecstasy spilling through her body in a relentless tide, he kissed her hard, capturing her broken cry in his mouth.
His kiss slowly gentled, as if seeking to soothe the delicious aftershocks that wracked her body.
“I’m so sorry!” she gasped when she could finally speak.
Gabriel smoothed a sweat-dampened tendril of hair from her brow. “What for?”
“I didn’t mean to be so selfish.”
He chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I enjoyed that nearly as much as you did.”
“You did?”
He nodded.
Emboldened by his confession, Samantha reached between them and stroked the unabated length of his desire through the buttery doeskin of his breeches. “Then you’ll probably enjoy this even more.”
Gabriel sucked in a taut breath. “I’m sure I would,” he said, forced to bite off each word from between his clenched teeth, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to wait until later.”
“Why?”
He deposited a tender kiss on her pouting lips. “Because we’re about to have uninvited company.”
Still half dazed with pleasure, Samantha sat up in his arms, only to hear the sound of something large and clumsy crashing through the underbrush.
Gabriel managed to jerk down her skirt just as Beckwith came bursting out of the woods, with Peter and Phillip right behind him.
“Thank heavens you’re all right, my lord!” the butler exclaimed, waving his lantern over the two of them. “When we saw that the barn had collapsed, we feared the worst.”
“Sweet Christ, Beckwith!” Gabriel threw up a hand, shying away. “Would you get that blasted light out of my eyes? You’re blinding me!”
A dumbfounded silence fell over the clearing as they all, including Gabriel, realized what he had just said.
Chapter Seventeen
My darling Cecily,
If you won’t allow me to seduce you, then you’re leaving me with no other choice…
“Does she have to be here?” the marchioness of Thornwood asked, shooting Samantha a withering glare.
Samantha would have liked nothing more than to escape the crowded study. It was torture to sit there on the edge of her straight-backed chair with her face so composed when her heart was being ripped in two, torn between hope and despair.
Before she could rise and murmur her excuses, Gabriel said firmly, “She most certainly does. She is my nurse, you know.” Although he couldn’t turn his head in her direction, the warmth in his voice assured her that she was far more than that to him.
He was sitting in front of a baize-covered card table, his head strapped into some sort of iron device provided by Dr. Richard Gilby, the only physician who had dared to offer him the smallest inkling of hope that his vision might return. The short man with his kind eyes and neatly trimmed side-whiskers hadn’t uttered one word of complaint at being rousted from his bed in the middle of the night by the marquess of Thornwood, who had been rousted from his bed by a jabbering Beckwith. The physician had simply gathered up several devices that looked more like medieval torture devices than instruments of healing and set out for Fairchild Park with the rest of Gabriel’s family.
Although the sun had risen several hours ago, Eugenia and Valerie still dozed at opposite ends of a brocaded sofa. A bright-eyed Honoria hovered behind the doctor, eagerly studying every instrument he drew from his bag. The marquess paced in front of the fire, walking stick in hand, while his wife sat in one of the massive wing chairs that flanked the hearth as if it were a throne, her hands plucking nervously at her handkerchief.
Samantha could not quite bring herself to meet the woman’s disapproving gaze. Although she had washed the soot from her skin and hair and changed into a fresh gown, there was nothing she could do to scrub away the indelible memory of Gabriel’s touch and the shattering pleasure it had brought her.
“Aha!” the doctor barked, making them all jump.
His knowing nods and cryptic harrumphs were beginning to wear on their nerves. Although he had the most at stake, only Gabriel seemed content to wait until the man had finished his examination before he started demanding answers. Sam was the only one in the room who seemed less concerned by the unusual proceedings. The collie was curled up on the hearth rug, gnawing on a shiny riding boot.
The marquess thumped his cane on the floor, his florid face shiny with sweat. “What is it, man? Have you discovered something?”
Ignoring him, Dr. Gilby whirled around and snapped his fingers toward the windows. “Close the curtains again. Immediately.”
Both Beckwith and Mrs. Philpot rushed to comply, nearly tripping over each other’s feet. Although the rest of the servants had been banned from the room, Samantha had seen Peter and Phillip’s heads bob past the mullioned windows more than once in the past hour.
The gloom that descended with the curtains gave her a welcome respite. At least she could study Gabriel without trying to hide the yearning in her eyes. Now that she no longer had her spectacles to shield them, she felt as if her every emotion was on parade.
Dr. Gilby attached an enormous magnifying glass to the front of the iron headpiece. As he held a flickering candle in front of it, Honoria stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder.
“What do you see now?” he asked Gabriel.
“Moving shadows? Shapes?” Gabriel shook his head, his eyes narrowing as he struggled to concentrate. “To be honest, not much of anything.”
“Excellent,” the doctor pronounced, handing the candle to Honoria.
He removed the shade from the oil lamp at his elbow, then brought the lamp quickly toward Gabriel’s face. Gabriel visibly flinched.
“What about now?”
Gabriel turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look directly at the lamp. “A ball of flame, so bright I can hardly bear to look at it.”
It was impossible to tell if Dr. Gilby’s gusty sigh boded happiness or disaster. He unbuckled the device from Gabriel’s head, then turned and waved his arms at the windows like a maestro who had just finished conducting the performance of his career. “You may open the curtains.”
As Beckwith and Mrs. Philpot swept back the heavy drapes, sunlight flooded the drawing room. Samantha studied her folded hands, afraid to look at Gabriel.
The marquess took his wife’s fluttering hand in his and squeezed it tight. Even Eugenia and Valerie stirred themselves, gazing at the doctor with hopeful green eyes that were nearly identical to their brother’s.
But it was Gabriel who broke the tense silence. “Why the sudden change, Doctor? Before last night, I couldn’t make any sort of distinction between light and shadow.”
Tucking the iron device back in his bag, Dr. Gilby shook his head. “We may never know. I suspect the sharp blow to the head dislodged a clot of blood that could have taken months to dissolve on its own, if indeed it ever did.”
Gabriel gingerly fingered the gash on his temple. “I should have ordered my butler to whack me over the head with one of m
y walking sticks a long time ago.”
Samantha wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and press a tender kiss to that wound he had earned on her behalf.
She had no right to touch him, but she could ask the one question that hung unspoken in the air. The question everyone else was too afraid to ask.
“Will he see again?”
The doctor patted Gabriel on the shoulder, his blue eyes twinkling. “It may be a few days or a few weeks before your mind is able to make out more than shadows and shapes, son, but I have every reason to believe that you’re going to make a full recovery.”
Samantha clapped a hand to her mouth to catch an involuntary sob.
Letting out a joyful whoop, Honoria threw her arms around Gabriel’s neck. The rest of his family crowded around him—Eugenia, Valerie, and his mother smothering him in their perfumed embraces while his father clapped him heartily on the back. Even Sam jumped up to join the happy fray, adding his shrill bark to the merry burst of chatter and laughter.
Samantha glanced over to find Mrs. Philpot in Beckwith’s arms, her narrow back shaking with emotion. As the butler met Samantha’s gaze over the housekeeper’s shoulder, she would have almost sworn she saw a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes.
She rose and slipped from the room, knowing she no longer had any place there. She mounted the stairs to the second floor, keeping her chin high and her spine straight in case any of the other servants were watching. Finally reaching the refuge of her bedchamber, she closed and bolted the door behind her.
Keeping a hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her sobs, she slid down the door, a sharp pang of mingled joy and grief bending her almost double. Even as the tears began to spill over the back of her hand, she could not have said if she was crying for Gabriel or for herself.
Samantha sat on the edge of the bed in her night-dress, methodically braiding her hair. That was all she’d been doing since barricading herself in her bedchamber that morning—going through the motions of living. When Mrs. Philpot had sent Elsie up with a supper tray, she had dutifully eaten every spoonful of the hearty kale soup, although she wanted nothing more than to pour it out the window. If she could just keep living one moment at a time, then perhaps she wouldn’t have to face the future.
Yours Until Dawn Page 18