by Gabriel
“I have always liked your scent,” she said.
“You came here to discuss my scent?”
She gave a tired sigh, and Aaron felt a stab of remorse. He was forever tossing barbs at her, because it was the only way he knew to keep his emotional distance.
And here he’d gone and pulled her into his lap.
“Mama is going to try to set our marriage aside.”
“We can assume that much,” Aaron replied, and in order that he didn’t clutch her to him in an obvious display of need, he stroked his hand down over her unbound hair. “Your hair has more red in it than I suspected.”
“Firelight does that. I don’t want to marry your brother, Aaron.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“He’s a good man, and he’s different from when he left two years ago, more human, but still…”
“You can’t stomach the thought of bedding him now?”
“Do we have to be specific?”
“Maybe it’s the scandal you can’t stomach,” Aaron suggested. “Gabriel doesn’t seem to mind the thought of scandal.”
Marjorie shuddered, and perhaps, just perhaps, her hand tightened its grip on his waistcoat. “He’d marry me then? He said he wouldn’t want to, and I might have the dower house and a stipend.”
“At least,” Aaron said, but because he’d discouraged Gabriel from bringing up this topic, the plan was news to him. “Would you like that, Marjorie, to be free of the Wendover men altogether?”
She shook her head.
“Still want your title, do you? I’d be the heir, at least until Gabriel took a wife and got down to business. We’d have the courtesy titles.”
“It isn’t the blasted title.” She muttered the words against his chest.
“So what is it you want, Wife?” He bent low, his lips near her ear, and inhaled a tormenting whiff of flowers, soap, and female warmth.
“You,” she whispered. “Aaron, I want you.”
***
Gabriel headed directly for the library, and realized for once his back did not hurt; nor did it ache or twinge or throb. His muscles weren’t even particularly tight, which was odd, because bad weather usually wreaked havoc.
Anticipation was a wonderful salve, he concluded as he reached the library, only to find his quarry… nowhere to be seen.
His first inclination was to spread himself out on the sofa and lie in wait, because Polonaise was no doubt up in her room, shedding clothes and lingering over her ablutions in preparation for their evening encounter.
His second inclination was to see to himself, because waiting for her was going to make him ache in places other than his back, and he wanted to have as much patience as she needed.
He set those two thoughts firmly aside and went up to the guest wing on the second floor. The light under Polly’s door confirmed her whereabouts, because she’d neither waste candles nor risk fire by leaving them unattended.
“Come in.”
She looked startled when Gabriel stepped into the room and closed—and locked—the door behind him.
“I thought you were the maid, bringing extra wood.”
Gabriel eyed the wood box and the lady sitting in her nightgown and robe on the hearth rug before the fire. “You have plenty of wood, though maybe you were building up the fire for me?”
“Hardly. Tonight isn’t a good time, Gabriel. If you’d please leave?” She rose to turn down the covers and run the warmer over the sheets, a brittleness to her movements.
“You’re tired,” he suggested, “and those letters put you out of sorts.”
“I am tired.” She even ran the warmer over the pillows, something Gabriel had never thought to do. “And the letters did put me out of sorts, but it isn’t only that. You’ll have to come back some other time.”
“And give you days to man your battlements?” Gabriel advanced into the room, which at least qualified as cozy. “I think not, Polonaise.”
“I’m not manning anything.” She put the warmer back on the hearth. “It’s just…” She didn’t back away as he moved toward her, but he thought she might have muttered an oath as his arms came around her.
“Your menses, right?” He rested his chin on her crown and held her gently. At Three Springs, he’d known her biological schedule, and not because she’d ever discuss such a thing with him.
“Not my… not that. I am tired, and flirting with a headache. It happens when I paint for too long or sketch too much. I suspect I need spectacles, and I know I need you to leave.” She tried to slip free a moment later, but he held her fast. “Gabriel?”
“I am not accustomed to taking orders,” Gabriel said, “even though we are in your bedroom, and if I were to take orders anywhere, it would be here.”
“Idle promises.”
“Word of a Wendover,” he intoned solemnly; then he patted her backside. “Pain makes everybody cross.” How the nuns would laugh, to know he was quoting them.
“I wish suffering for my art didn’t mean a throbbing at the base of my skull.”
“I never did understand why suffering was a prerequisite for making something pretty.” Gabriel fished carefully through her hair for pins—there were a deuced lot of them—then sank his fingers onto her scalp and massaged gently.
“That feels… divine.”
“Hmm.” He kept at it a few more minutes then left off in self-defense. She was all but purring in his arms, and the feel of her silky, fragrant hair sliding through his fingers brought to mind images of it down around her hips while they—
“I’ll be going up to Town next week,” Gabriel heard himself say. “With Aaron, and you ladies are to stick close to the house when we leave.” This was what he’d come to her room to tell her—among other things.
“Right now, I would promise you nigh anything if you’d just keep doing what you’re doing.” Her voice sounded wonderfully sleepy.
“Lowering, that.” Gabriel resisted the urge to sweep all her hair aside and kiss her nape—strictly in the interests of making her feel better. “One prefers such sentiments from beautiful women under other circumstances.”
“Bother, you.”
“Right.” He did steal the kiss then. “Cross. I almost forgot. Shall I braid you up?”
“One braid. Over my left shoulder tonight.”
“You alternate?”
“It’s like riding sidesaddle. If she can afford the extra equipment, and the extra habits, a lady alternates sides to prevent herself from getting uneven.”
“God forbid a lady’s fundament should be anything other than perfectly symmetrical. Not that I’d remark such a thing, ever.”
“You’d notice. You men.”
“And enjoy the noticing.” Though he hadn’t noticed any lady’s fundament since he’d noticed hers. He steered her over to the vanity stool and kept his lips to himself long enough to do her braid, as ordered, but then he rested his hands on her shoulders and had a minor orgy of kissing over her neck, shoulders, nape, and jaw.
When his lady was sighing softly, her head cradled on her arms, Gabriel desisted. “Time for bed, Polonaise.”
“You are bossy, Gabriel Wendover.” She rose and untied her wrapper as she scolded him.
He brushed her hands aside. “Allow me.”
“I’m not a child.” She spoiled the effect of that pronouncement by yawning as widely as any child, and standing docilely while he divested her of her robe. Perhaps she truly was tired, but Gabriel suspected she also sought to draw out the pursuit phase of their dallying, and in this… she was wise.
Damnably wise, given the magnitude of the issues unresolved between them.
“Into bed.”
She complied, sending him only one half-hearted peevish look over her shoulder as she did. “Good night.”
“Hardly.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged off his boots and stockings, then started on his cravat.
“Sir, what are you about?”
“You’ve never seen a man undress before
? Suppose that reflects badly on me.”
“I’ve watched you undress,” Polly said, settling back against her pillows. “At the springs and the pond. I was shameless.”
“Note the erroneous use of the past tense. Did you spy on Beck as well?”
Polly smiled sweetly. “Sara caught him once, by the cistern. I wasn’t so fortunate, but what could he possibly have to interest me?”
“You are a naughty woman.” Gabriel pulled his shirt over his head, grateful for the low light. Polly had seen his scar on occasion, but he didn’t have to force the issue.
“You like that I’m naughty.”
“Adore you for it.” His hands went to his falls, and he paused when he saw Polly was watching those hands.
“Your scar continues to fade,” she said. “Or maybe it’s that you’re not in the sun of late, and your skin is not as dark.”
“I’ve a Portuguese grandmother, hence the Mediterranean cast to my skin. Move over, my love.”
He shucked out of his breeches and drawers in one motion while Polly remained right where she was, frankly eyeing his half-aroused cock.
“You wanted to look earlier, but the circumstances didn’t allow me to indulge you.”
Her brows flew up, and she bit her lip, suggesting he’d found one way to silence her, at least temporarily.
“You know you want to, naughty lady, and I live to serve you.” When he wasn’t sending her away or leaving her side without explanations.
“Right.” She bounced off the other side of the bed, all traces of fatigue gone, and lit a branch of no less than six candles.
“Will that be enough?”
“Broad light of day would be better,” she muttered, not catching his sarcasm.
He scooted back to lie against her pillows. “Touch gently, particularly my stones.”
“You didn’t touch yourself gently.” Polly hopped back onto the bed. “Yesterday in the library, you were quite brisk with yourself.”
Gabriel steeled himself to be inspected. “Sometimes, gentle touches arouse, not so gentle touches sustain the arousal, and ungentle touches can consummate the pleasure.”
Polly put the candles on the night table, while Gabriel considered the erotic potential of hot wax.
“Touch my bubbies the way you were going at your self yesterday, and I’ll ungently deter you.”
“So you say.” His arousal was fading at Polly’s matter-of-fact demeanor, but then she drew her fingers over him, standing him up, and lust came roaring back on a big, fast horse. “Do your worst.”
Her worst was considerable.
Gabriel hadn’t been tortured in Spain, but his wound had been fierce and his recuperation painful. He’d learned to set his mind apart from his body, to separate his awareness of pain from his awareness of all else. All his mental discipline was useless when Polly leaned close to his cock and wrapped her fingers around him.
“You’re larger than the models I worked with in Italy. Quite a bit larger.”
“I’m taller too.” Gabriel tried to sound nonchalant. She fiddled with his foreskin, which was retracting the longer she touched him and the harder he grew.
“What does this feel like?”
“Polonaise, will you leave me no dignity?”
“You left me none. You are fastidious, but you must miss your hot springs.”
“I do. Do you miss spying on me as I stripped to the skin?”
“Oh, very much.” She leaned in, and because Gabriel had once more closed his eyes, he wasn’t prepared for the sensation of her tongue sliding up the length of him.
“There will be no more of that.” He sank a hand into her hair to ensure it.
“Coward.” She nuzzled the base of his shaft, and Gabriel’s hold relaxed because he’d made his point—hadn’t he? “I won’t bite, unless you ask it of me.”
The words sounded familiar, though he could barely comprehend them. “I forget you came of age on the Continent. What was I thinking?”
She fondled his sac in reply. “I like these. They are so soft and strange.”
“So vulnerable, you mean. Are you quite finished? I intended this to be a visual inspection.”
“I am not finished.” She stroked him with her tongue again. “I like the taste of you.”
“No doubt you’re comparing me to cardamom, and zest of orange, concocting some fricassee with my name on it.”
“Hush.” She licked him all over, leisurely, and finished with a little suck on the end. “You’d be a dessert.”
“God in heaven.” His hand in her hair became… guiding. “I’m aspiring to be drizzled with chocolate glaze.”
It didn’t take her long, not long at all, to learn the coordination of her hand around his shaft and her mouth on the head of his cock. He forced himself to move his hips only minutely and slowly, so she could properly torment him for a quiet eternity. When she was drawing firmly on that spot just under the tip, and fire was boiling out from the base of Gabriel’s spine, he tried to tug her away.
“Love, I want to finish,” he rasped. “Need to.”
“Hnn.” She got her mouth back on him, and God help him, he arched his back, just once, feeling the drag of her lips and the tight glove of her fingers and the sheer, pounding bliss of all she was doing to him, and it was too much.
“Goddamn it, Polonaise…” His whisper was harsh, guttural, and drenched in erotic pleasure. He might have said her name again, more than once, as he gave in to the sensations swamping him. This wasn’t intercourse, but it was still his Polonaise, and it was more intense pleasure than one man could sanely bear.
“You… are… a… menace.” Fraught moments later, he was still whispering, trying to catch his breath in the aftermath of a bodily cataclysm, his hand in her hair, her head pillowed low on his stomach, and her fingers still wrapped around him. “You can let go.”
“Hush.” She swiped her tongue over the head of his cock, and he felt it from his toes to the ends of his hair. “I won’t hurt you.”
“No more,” he managed. “I mean it.”
She subsided onto his stomach and nuzzled him, a sense of smugness radiating from her.
“You’re pleased with yourself,” he accused, stroking his hand over her hair.
“Are you complaining?”
“Yes.” He tried to sit up, but Polly stayed where she was, her head against his belly. “You aren’t supposed to be so… accommodating, Polonaise. Not in such intimate particulars.”
“I’m supposed to tease and withhold and play stupid games?”
“You’re supposed to leave me a little something to work for,” he suggested. “And as to that…”
“Yes?” She turned loose of him and rolled over to stare up at him, her gaze trying to hide a hint of uncertainty.
“I loved it,” he said simply. “I adore you, and I love that you’re so generous and curious and bold. I don’t deserve it. I came here thinking to dally, yes, but when you’re tired and uncertain, I’m the one who’s supposed to be spoiling you.”
“You aren’t truly upset?”
“Yes, I’m truly upset.” What the hell was he saying? He grabbed a handkerchief from the night table and shoved it at her to use on her fingers. “No, I’m not, but I will be if you don’t let me hold you.”
“We can’t…” She pushed up, frowning right back at him.
Gabriel snatched the linen from her, swabbed at his belly, then pitched the handkerchief to the floor. “Hang we can’t.” He pulled her to him and settled down on his side, so he was spooned around her. “We won’t, though, because you deserve perfection, and I can’t offer it tonight.”
“Because you’ve used up your powder and shot.”
“Because you’re tired and not inclined to dispense any further favors, which is likely the only reason I will live to see the morning. You are not, however, supposed to know about making a naughty dessert of my intimate person.”
“I have ever been fond of sweets.” She rubbed
her cheek against his biceps. “Perhaps I’ll have seconds. This naughtiness is the only thing I’ve seen render you speechless.”
“Witless,” he corrected her. “I recall babbling the entire time.”
“Details.”
“Cross, despite being capable of great generosity,” he concluded when she tucked his hand against her middle. “Onto your belly, that I might be generous too.”
He stroked his hand over the elegant architecture of her back, let it wander into her hair, and down over the lush curve of her derriere, paying special attention to the base of her skull.
“I hate that you hurt.” And he didn’t refer to only an inchoate headache. “How long ago were you told you were barren?”
“I was young. It was most of a decade ago.”
“And were you examined by a physician or just a midwife?”
“Midwife, and she knew what she was about. You don’t have to do that, you know.”
Yes, he did. He had to cherish her every way she would allow it. “You like it, and I’m on reconnaissance for when I have my revenge on you.”
“I’m aquiver with fear.”
“One senses your abject terror.” He kissed her again, a glancing buss to her cheek. “Go to sleep, love.”
“You too,” she murmured, scooting closer.
“You want me to stay, Polonaise?”
“Hmm.”
“Beg pardon?”
She said something more, which sounded like the single word “forever,” though Gabriel knew that couldn’t possibly have been what she’d meant.
***
“What does that mean, Margie? You want me?” Aaron’s voice didn’t shake but his hand nearly did as it swept slowly down her hair.
“Mama will try to see me wed to your brother.” She shuddered beneath his hand. “I can’t bear it, and you mustn’t allow it.”
“If she succeeds in invalidating our marriage,” Aaron surmised, “you will be forced back into Gabriel’s arms, so to speak. You’d have me spare you that?”
“Of course I want to be spared that,” she wailed softly. “He’s a stranger to me, and you’re… you’re my husband.”
“A stranger to you? You were engaged to him for fifteen years, weren’t you? And from the circumstances apparent when you wed me, you and Gabriel were cordial enough.”