by Shirl Henke
“You are certain this grieving father has no ulterior designs on the young woman?” he asked, his tone dubious.
“M’lord, cynicism ill becomes you. Of course I had him thoroughly investigated before allowing him to meet Lorna. She is a virgin and will remain so until her new father proudly bestows her on a worthy suitor. Strange, perhaps, but true.”
“M’lady, I am beginning to believe that strange is your milieu.”
Amber laughed. “Come now. I have a staff meeting to conduct.”
Chapter Nine
Amber dealt with the near disaster quickly, learning that a new guard had seen they were one sword short and took it upon himself to substitute his own for the “play.” After dismissing everyone else, she gave him a good tongue-lashing and exacted a promise never to tamper with Boxer’s equipment again. She was certain the sergeant major would administer an even more vigorous verbal flogging and watch the youth closely in the future.
Alone at last, she paced in her bedroom. Should she ring for Bonnie and prepare for midnight? She knew it was folly for Gabrielle to go to him after what had transpired in the woods. But she could think of no excuse that would not make him suspicious. The nervy ache in her heart unsettled her even more than the base physical craving to feel his hands on her body once again. No, she reminded herself, not her body. Gabrielle’s body.
The two must forever be separated if she was to retain her soul and her sanity. Gabrielle had so little time before her Rob left. Somehow that was even more difficult to bear.
As Rob lay alone in the darkness awaiting Gaby, thoughts about the farce played out earlier in the evening spun in his mind. If he had never come to this place of fantasies, he would not be faced with the dilemma confronting him. He desired two women he could never have, yet seemed destined to marry a woman who no longer held the slightest appeal.
The hidden door opened softly and his troubling reverie faded when he smelled the soft scent of Gaby, his lady of darkness. He felt her slip into the bed with him and stretch silently alongside him. He caressed her flat belly, slowly moving up to her breasts while he nibbled soft kisses over her shoulder to her throat. “I feel your pulse racing, Gaby,” he murmured.
“I…I have missed you, my heart,” she said in French, turning into his embrace like the petals of a flower opening to the sun. If only they could be together in the light! But that would never be. “Please love me, Rob, love me.”
Was there a desperate plea in her voice? He could not be certain, but his confidence had grown greatly during the past weeks of instruction. He raised himself over her and placed his weight on his elbows as he lowered his mouth to hers, feeling her legs open as his knee pressed against the insides of her silky thighs. This was so beautiful, so natural…so glorious. How could he ever feel this way with another woman?
But you must. He firmly reminded himself of that fact, then pushed the sad thought to the back of his mind while he rained swift, light kisses over Gaby’s delicate face. Butterfly wings! He no longer had to remind himself to go slowly, to restrain his passion and wait for her body to send its sweet signals to his. She did not take long.
She kissed him back with searing intensity, opening her mouth, letting her tongue duel with his. Her hips arched in invitation. Suddenly he wanted to prolong the moment, to lose himself in Gaby’s yielding body until his confusion over Fantasia, his future marriage, all else was forgotten. After teasing her ear with his tongue and nipping the lobe with his teeth, he murmured, “We have all night. Let us take our time…”
He feasted upon her smooth firm flesh, moving his mouth down to her breasts, taking one nubby tip between his lips and suckling, then moving to the other. He loved hearing her little moans, feeling her nails digging into his back. She allowed him free access to her naked flesh. A wildly erotic idea formed in his mind, something he would never dare do with a wife…but with his passionate Gaby…
Somehow he knew that she would accept it. She would accept anything he did. Her passion was real, not feigned. It had nothing to do with her position in the House of Dreams, any more than it did with the money he paid for his “lessons.” This was honest pleasure mutually shared. Why not explore it to the fullest?
This is your only opportunity!
He trailed soft, wet kisses down her belly, pausing to tease her navel with the tip of his tongue. Then he slid down on the big bed, cradling her hips with his hands. The kisses moved lower yet until he was nuzzling her mound and kissing the sensitive skin on the insides of her thighs. Ever so slowly he centered his quest, searching for that vital place where a woman’s magic was seated. His hand had found it. Now his tongue did the same, ever so delicately.
Gabrielle had heard the courtesans speak of this, but she never imagined her Rob would dare to experiment this way. She should stop him—this was nothing he would ever do with his baroness! She felt duty-bound to stop him…But I am not Verity Chivins! Still, she shoved him away, whispering raggedly, “No, you must not—this is very wicked…ah…ooh!” Gabrielle knew the battle of conscience was lost…she was lost, drowning in a sea of unimagined bliss.
Rob felt her hands push him away at first, then quickly stop. He paused only an instant as her halfhearted refusal turned to whimpering pleasure. Then she dug her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer, urging him to continue. He found the pulsing little bud and laved it as she arched and moaned with exquisite excitement.
Her hands tugged almost painfully at his scalp, but he was unaware of it, completely caught up in the wonder of making love so unselfishly. He felt an overwhelming combination of joy and power…power in giving freely and in knowing that his gift would not be refused but accepted with equal fervor.
Gabrielle lost all sense of time and place, aware only of Rob and the ecstasy he gave her. All too soon the now familiar contractions began and she sobbed, desperate for the culmination, yet at the same time wanting this bliss never to end. When it finally crested, she cried out his name and clamped her thighs against his head.
After her body collapsed back on the bed, replete, Rob planted a light kiss on the soft curls of her mound, then slid up to lie beside her. “Sometimes wickedness can be very good, do you not agree, my sweet Gaby?”
“I have never…”
“Neither have I,” he murmured. “But it seemed like a good idea when I thought of it.”
“You know it was…how much I enjoyed it…but my Rob, I have left you unsatisfied. I will—”
“No, you will lie back,” he ordered when she reached for his pulsing staff that pressed against her hip.
When he removed her hand and rolled on top of her, she said, “You have become quite the bossy one, eh? Now that the naughty student teaches his teacher, he gets—how do you English say it—too big for his breeches.”
Rob could not contain his laughter. “Gaby, when I am with you I am always too big for my breeches.” She pounded on his back with her fists, sputtering in indignation until he said, “Now, dear heart, unclench those little weapons. After all, my naughtiness is all your fault. You have given me the gift of confidence.”
“Perhaps, but God or Satan has given you the gift of arrogance, my wicked angel,” she retorted.
Rob heard the hint of laughter in her voice as he began kissing her. She responded, opening her thighs to him. It felt so right to laugh and talk amid caresses, but soon their passions flared beyond words. At her urging, he slid into the wet heat of her body and slowly stroked until she again writhed and arched, saying, “Now, my heart, my Rob, come away with me now!”
He let go, plunging deeply, harder and faster as her sheath contracted around him. The sun, the moon, and all the planets collided in one blinding explosion of pure light. The entire universe shattered. He rolled onto his back, holding her so that she lay on top of him while they fought to regain their breath.
Gabrielle pressed her face against his throat, half afraid that he would feel the wetness of her tears. She could never make him stay, but how co
uld she bear to let him go? Pushing the bittersweet pain away, she pressed soft kisses on his neck and combed her fingers through the crisp hair on his chest. Swallowing for courage, she said, “You have become the very best of lovers and now you reverse our roles. You teach me…although it began the other way.”
“What I did, making love to you that way…I was not certain at first…”
She kissed the corner of his mouth and whispered, “Why did you do something that you cannot do with…a wife? Was it because of who I am, where we are?”
“No, you are my sweet and innocent Gaby. Life has not been kind to you, and the fault is not your own. Never think of where we are when we make love, or feel any guilt because you are not ‘a wife.’”
The way he said the word wife so disdainfully filled her with curiosity. Not for the first time, she wondered why he had come to the House of Dreams to be instructed in making love. He was beautiful of face and body, also of soul. His instincts were to be gentle, to please a woman, not simply to satisfy his own desires. He was a rarity among men—that much she had learned from Grace and many of the women in this place.
Swallowing for the courage, she asked, “Why did you feel you could not please a wife?” Rob remained silent. “Oh, I have no right to ask such a thing! Please say that you will forgive me, my heart.”
He stroked her hair as he replied to the question. “Because I did not please my wife.”
“You have been married, then?” She was taken aback. How had Dyer missed this vital fact! “Oh, if you do not wish to speak of it, I will understand.”
“Perhaps it’s best if I do,” he replied thoughtfully, still stroking her hair. “You see, I was the son of a second son. My father’s elder brother held the title and had two heirs. My father was a priest. I grew up expecting to follow in his footsteps. During my first year in seminary, my family was approached by hers to arrange our marriage. She was the daughter of a baronet. I was but eighteen and as virginal as Credelia, who was a year my junior.
“Still, the marriage should have worked. My parents had a similar arrangement made for them and they were devoted to each other. I have three sisters, married and quite content. I expected to assume my father’s position in our parish upon ordination, and to raise a family of my own…”
This explained much about his life that she had not known. “What happened with this Credelia?” The question seemed to ask itself. Gabrielle knew the fault could not have been his and she was angry.
“She could not abide my touch,” he replied bitterly.
“How could such a thing be? Did she love another?”
“No. We courted briefly. She seemed very much in agreement with the match, a pleasant and pretty girl. There was no other man. What I learned in the months following our marriage was that she enjoyed attention, but holding hands and receiving bouquets of spring flowers were the extent of it.”
“Girlish things,” Gabrielle said softly.
“She was seventeen.”
“Many girls are wed younger than that,” she said, repressing a shudder of remembrance.
“The fault may have been mine. No, not ‘may have.’ It was my fault! I—I was nervous on our wedding night. Clumsy. When kisses and cajoling failed, I tried to remove the barriers of night garments, starting with my own. She became hysterical. She pulled her night rail tightly around her body like a shield and rolled away, huddled in a ball of misery in the darkness. I put my nightshirt back on and tried to fall asleep while she sobbed on the opposite side of the bed.
“In the morning she asked that we no longer sleep together. I thought that if I gave her time to grow used to living under the same roof with me…” He sighed. “After several weeks, I explained that her duty as a wife was to allow me to be a husband. I returned to her bed.”
“So she did her duty,” Gabrielle said, feeling unutterably sad for Rob.
“She lay stiffly beneath me. I…I could feel her revulsion every time I touched her. After a few months, she locked her bedroom door and told me she would kill herself if I ever…” His voice faded away.
Somehow she felt certain the spoiled child he had married had not killed herself. Gabrielle caressed his cheek. “Did you divorce her then?” she asked softly.
“No, that would have broken my parents’ hearts and created a scandal. Since I felt increasingly ill suited for a life in the church, I bought a commission and went to the Peninsula, which you already know.”
“Your wife, what became of her?” she asked guardedly.
“Two months after I left she died falling down a flight of stairs. The accident was caused by an overdose of laudanum. Apparently, she was reeling drunk on the vile stuff. I did not learn until I returned that she was with child.”
His flat tone of voice masked what she knew must be unbearable anguish. No wonder he felt inadequate as a lover. A boy raised in a religious household wed to a girl who detested his touch and sought refuge in drugs. “Credelia was too selfish to intentionally kill herself.”
“Perhaps if I had not run away to war. If I had stayed and tried—”
“No!” she interrupted angrily. “You are not to blame. She killed your child. You are the one who was wronged, my heart,” she said, holding him, offering the comfort of a loving embrace. “I have heard of women such as this…unnatural ones who shrink from any man. Sometimes it is because they have been treated cruelly as children.”
“No, Credelia was beloved by her parents. Her father was a wealthy landowner who lavished everything on his wife and children. She was given whatever she wanted.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “My father was taken aback when hers approached him. Why would the daughter of a baronet wish to marry the son of a poor priest?”
Gabrielle thought she knew the answer. “Because she had seen you and thought you were splendid to look upon. She asked her father for you just as she would ask for a new dress or a fancy carriage.” His hum of agreement told her that she had guessed correctly. “She wanted a handsome husband, but she did not want to be a wife.”
“That was long ago, best forgotten. I have never dared to tell anyone what I have shared with you. I am sorry for unburdening myself this way.”
“You have not placed a burden on me. I am humbled by your trust and will never betray it.”
He kissed her brow, then her cheeks and the tip of her nose. “I know that, Gaby.”
His soft words cut like a knife. Gaby. She had betrayed him already with her deception. Who am I? Gaby…or Fantasia? Or Amber, whose husband is very much alive?
When his kisses grew more heated again, she pushed the confusing thoughts to the back of her mind and returned his passion with a hungry despair. Soon he would be gone forever, but tonight…tonight belonged to them.
Northumberland, Wolf’s Gate Castle
Eastham cursed and smashed his hand on the table as Edgar Hull stood rigidly in front of him. “You are an incompetent imbecile!” he railed. “You have hired a kidnapper who could do the job no better than your own pitiful attempt a decade ago.”
“The fellow’s a Bow Street Runner.”
“Who, you now say, requires more money. Do you believe I can shake it off trees for you to live the high life in London?”
“It’s not for me. I have to pay for information.” The main point of enduring the ugly confrontation was to extract more of the ready from the clutch-fisted marquess. He did enjoy the vices of the Great Wen and was, by damn, owed a little pleasure in exchange for the abuse Eastham heaped upon him, not to mention the long ride back to this wretchedly bleak place.
“If you have paid this runner so well, why has he failed so abysmally?”
“How was he to know that the harlot was armed and could shoot? Or that she would have a rendezvous with one of her patrons? Fancy-looking toff, he was. Bold as brass, too.”
The marquess turned his back on Hull, stroking his chin as he considered what to do next. Shooting a runner while on horseback sounded quite like that damnable hussy he had
married. She had always been far too coming for a proper female. Then another thought occurred to him. “We may be able to use this ‘fancy-looking toff’ to bait a trap for her if she spends time with him outside her filthy bordello. Have you any idea who he is?”
“I didn’t recognize him,” Hull lied. He had not even seen the man, only heard Cresswel describe the incident while his wound was being dressed. At the thunderous look on the marquess’s face, he quickly added, “But I will find out his identity. Cressy owes me a favor. Him being a runner and all, he’ll be able to do it.”
“See that he does, posthaste!”
Hull only prayed that Alan Cresswel survived the ugly gash the bullet had torn across his side so that he could collect his favor.
Amber had never seen Grace behaving so nervously. She had been working on account ledgers that morning, trying not to think of Rob, when her mentor knocked and said she had brought coffee and freshly baked crumpets with Cook’s strawberry jam. While she closed her book and removed the inkwell, Amber watched Grace fuss, setting the tray on the small table by the window. She poured two cups of a rich black brew and handed one to Amber.
Knowing that Grace far preferred tea, Amber considered remarking on it, then decided it might be wiser to simply wait and see what her old friend wanted. She accepted the cup and took a sip. “Heavenly. Thank you.”
Grace took a sip and swallowed manfully, then tried not to grimace. Lud, how she detested coffee! But she knew if she waited for Cook to steep tea, she would lose her courage. “Now,” she began, “er, do have some jam on that crumpet before it gets cold.”
Amber sighed. “Grace, dear friend, why is it that I think you have a concern that is far more important than a cooling crumpet?” Please do not let her ask me anything about Rob!