by Gabriel
“I promise. I will tell you if I’m troubled. Now, I beg you, Gabriel, love me, please.”
He sank into her, in gratitude and relief, and it was some moments before he was able to reason that simply asking her for what he needed might be a tactic worth considering in the future.
***
Tremaine, damn his industrious half-French, half-Scottish hide, was already up and about, and likely eluding Polly on purpose. She’d wanted to ask him if the snow was truly reason enough to delay his departure, because if it wasn’t…
She’d been up half the night, sketching her sleeping daughter, pacing, dreading the next day’s parting, and longing for Gabriel’s arms around her.
Gabriel, who wouldn’t understand even if she found the courage to tell him.
Gabriel, who’d extracted a terrible promise, one she couldn’t keep even as she’d learned how to beg in the darkness of the pantry.
She made a mental decision to find Tremaine before the day was out and to accept his proposal of marriage, really accept it. As a traveling artist, Polly could not have her daughter with her, but as the girl’s aunt, and married to Allie’s wealthy uncle, there would be enough of a connection to guarantee she could see Allie very often.
And with Tremaine, there wouldn’t be any lies and untruths; there would be mutual consideration and friendship.
He would also expect to bed her.
“I can’t think about that.” Polly tied her painting smock on. She couldn’t work on Aaron’s portrait, because the light wasn’t going to accommodate them on such a gloomy day, but she couldn’t not paint, either.
Not today, not with her emotions in such an uproar.
In the heated darkness of the pantry, something had come clear to her.
She didn’t simply care for Gabriel, she wasn’t merely fond of him, or sexually infatuated—not just sexually infatuated, that is. She didn’t even just love him.
She’d gone and fallen in love with him, head over heels, irrevocably, absolutely. He’d known, he’d known easily, without a word from her, what had her so upset, and he’d offered her what comfort he could. The comfort he offered was terribly tempting, and because she did love him, she had to stop matters from going any further. He’d hate her for leaving him, but he’d hate her worse did she allow them to become further entangled.
And Tremaine’s proposal was the perfect cudgel with which to beat Gabriel’s untoward affection for her into oblivion. Gabriel was pragmatic and deliberate. He’d comprehend the message clearly enough when she announced her engagement, and Tremaine would get them a special license, did she ask it of him.
She’d ask. She’d demand.
If that didn’t work, she’d beg. She was getting good at it.
***
Aaron poked his head into the library, then came into the room, closing the door behind him. “We’re off.”
“Gone to inspect fences?” Gabriel tossed down his pen and regarded his brother’s disgustingly cheerful countenance.
“The sleigh is hitched,” Aaron said. “St. Michael is coming with us because his niece batted her pretty dark eyes at him, and Marjorie is joining us, lest her mother use the snow as an excuse to come calling.”
Gabriel decided not to ruin his brother’s mood entirely. “Enjoy your outing, then. But, Aaron?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve asked Kettering to travel here at his convenience.”
“Kettering?” Aaron grimaced. “Rather like asking Old Scratch over for Yuletide, isn’t it?”
Beelzebub, at least. “I’ve had a few thoughts I need to run by him, but I’m not willing to go back up to Town to do it. For all the coin we pay him, he can take a little country air.” While Gabriel kept an eye on Polonaise, Allemande, dear Uncle Tremaine, Lady Hartle, and various others among the dramatis personae.
“I’ll not have Kettering interrogating Marjorie. I expect your support on that.”
“You have it,” Gabriel said, leaving his desk to build up the fire. “I don’t think it will come to that, in any case, but Kettering will respect your wishes.”
“See that he does.” Aaron took his leave, though as he attempted to shut the door behind him, Allie skipped into the room.
“Are you coming?”
“Coming where?” Gabriel straightened and saw the anticipation and glee on the child’s face. She should look like that more often. Her mother should look like that.
“We’re going out in the sleigh,” Allie announced. “I’ve been in a sleigh before, when we were in Vienna and I was little, but I don’t remember.”
“It’s great fun, though your cheeks can get very cold.”
“Not mine. Uncle will bundle me up.”
“You’re not taking your aunt?”
“She’s painting,” Allie said, her joy dimming visibly. “Not just sketching or doing a study. I offered to stay with her, but she said I should go and have fun.”
Which meant Allemande still had not confronted her mother. “Will you have fun without her?”
“Without you both,” Allie countered. “Aunt was working on something special, and I know how that goes. You forget even what time it is when that happens.”
She was trying to put a brave face on being rejected again by her mother, and Gabriel wanted to break things, pretty, delicate things that would make an unpretty, loud noise as they shattered.
“You could stay and keep me company,” he offered, knowing it was foolish. He and Allie weren’t playmates. She’d simply been lonely at Three Springs, and fond of animals. He was often around the animals…
“No thank you. You made those sweet rolls, didn’t you?”
“How do you know it was I?”
“Because you like nuts as much as I do. When we get back, may we have some sweet rolls together?”
A compromise, suggesting he wasn’t entirely outside her good graces. “We’ll do that, and put some nutmeg on our chocolate.”
Allie grinned. “And whipped cream. You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Then ’bye.” She grabbed him around the waist in a brief, tight hug, then skipped off, leaving a deafening silence in her wake.
What could Polonaise be working on that she’d deny herself time to enjoy her daughter?
He glanced at the clock, glanced at the pile of correspondence on his desk, and decided he’d go for two damned hours without bothering the woman. As thickly as the snow was falling, she’d be back in the kitchen, baking up some infernally delicious concoction before too much longer. He’d track her down there and force her to confess why she’d been crying when he’d come upon her first thing in the day.
On second thought, an hour ought to be long enough with his correspondence, then, if he had to, he’d lock her in the pantry, and himself too.
***
The image coming to life on the canvas was a study Polly had done before, in smaller versions, sketches, and even watercolors: Gabriel paused in the middle of tacking a shoe onto Soldier’s right front hoof. The horse nuzzled his master’s pocket for treats, while Gabriel, an affectionate smile tugging at his lips, scratched the beast’s neck.
In this version, Gabriel’s shirt gaped open, revealing a chest and abdomen rippling with muscle. His cuffs were turned back to the elbow, showing strongly muscled forearms dusted with soft, dark hair. The smile wasn’t coy or self-conscious, but rather, it was that sweet, almost-tender smile Polly had seen more of while here at Hesketh.
His hand on the horse’s neck communicated the same genuine regard for the animal, and in his other hand, he held a farrier’s hammer. The fingers curved around the handle conveyed strength and competence; those threaded through the horse’s mane spoke of kindness and an abiding respect for the animal.
Tears clogged Polly’s throat as she tried to get the highlights in Gabriel’s hair just right. He’d once said their lovemaking had something transcendent about it, but this image of him, one depicting a moment Polly had caught early in
their association, had something transcendent in it too. Allie had seen it and tried to copy the work from a slightly different angle.
But Allie had never seen the real image. When Polly had come upon Gabriel one summer morning in this unguarded pose, Polly had seen for the first time that Gabriel North—for all his growling and taciturn manners, for all his slavish devotion to work, for all his silences and mysteries—was lonely.
And that he loved.
She’d been helplessly attracted from that moment, jealous of the way he touched his horse, jealous of the patience he unfailingly showed Allie, jealous of the hot springs to which he surrendered his tired, healing body.
This was the moment I opened myself to heartbreak. She surveyed the canvas from a few feet back and realized she was crying.
Again. God help her.
“You may not sell that work to anyone but me, Polonaise.” Gabriel had stopped right inside the door, as if he knew he intruded on sacred, if sad, ground.
“You’ve taken to putting the footmen out of work?” She tried to wipe her cheeks surreptitiously, which was a wasted effort, of course. Gabriel set a tea tray down and passed her his handkerchief.
“Is it the subject that makes you cry, or the futility of trying to make it appealing? You make my horse look like an imp.”
“He is an imp, at least he is around you. You have the ability to make sensible beings toss common sense right out the window.”
“People who have had neither breakfast nor luncheon might be expected to part with their sense. Come eat, love. I can’t tarry with you here.”
“Eat.” She frowned at her work one last time then uncrossed her arms. “I can manage that.”
Gabriel took the tray to the seating area set up by the hearth. “It’s bloody cold up here, Polonaise. Might we not eat elsewhere?”
She wasn’t hungry and didn’t care where they ate. “The library?”
“Always toasty. You chose it for that reason?”
“And your work is there, not mine.”
He gestured toward the painting. “I’m serious about that. I want it, and you will not deny me.”
Of course she would not. “Why won’t I?”
“You did not seek the permission of the models. Or perhaps Soldier consented—his honor can be swayed with carrots—but mine cannot. Come along, else our tea will be cold.”
***
Gabriel could see Polonaise did not want to leave the chilly comfort of her studio, so he moved around behind her.
“This thing.” He studied the back of her smock. “It’s a puzzle in itself. How long have you had it?” And did she realize she was allowing him to undress her?
“Years.” The smock tied in the front, but the sashes came from around back, so Gabriel reached around her to untie it.
“And your hair.” He drew the apron away carefully, because it had a few fresh spatters of paint on it. “Is this your painting coiffure?”
Her hair was in a single, thick braid down her back.
“It is not. I was in a hurry this morning and didn’t pin it up tightly enough, and once I start to paint, I grow heedless.”
He came around the front of her, seeing a woman who was anything but heedless.
“You cried this morning, Polonaise, after we were together. Was I heedless of you?”
She shook her head and turned her back to him, only to have him slip his arms around her.
“You found pleasure.” And tears. He hated that she’d cried.
“I always do, with you.”
“But then the tears.” He buried his nose in her hair. “This is an alarming pattern, my love. It threatens my confidence.” She sank against him, eyes closed, her head against his shoulder. “Tell me, Polonaise.”
“You asked…” She turned in his arms and looped her hands behind his neck. “You said please.”
“And my attack of politesse moves you to tears?” He rested his chin against her temple and felt her giving up tension as he held her. Would she also give up the truth?
“It did.” She tilted her head up to smile at him. “Under the circumstances, manners from you are surpassingly rare.”
The smile was bright, beautiful, and utterly false. He had to kiss her lest he roar out his disappointment.
The way Polonaise kissed him back was not bright. It was dark, desperate, and utterly genuine, and Gabriel was soon gripping her tightly around her derriere and pulling her up against a burgeoning erection.
“You promised, Polonaise.” He growled this reminder into her ear, only to find her hand had tangled in his hair, angling his head, the better for her to kiss him senseless.
“Now, Gabriel.” She hooked a leg around his thigh and pulled. “I want you now and here and please…”
He raised his head and saw nothing approximating a bed, but there were chairs by the hearth, where it would be a little less chilly. He tugged her to the door, locked it, then led her to the hearth, unwilling to lose contact with her for even an instant.
“Your damned dress…” Her old-fashioned smock had no buttons or laces; it merely dropped over her head. If he took it off of her, she’d be shivering in no time.
He turned her and let her feel his erection against her backside.
“This isn’t elegant,” he whispered, “but it’s the best I can do on short notice.” He covered her breasts with both hands and felt the bolt of arousal go through her as she arched her backside against his cock and her breasts into his hands.
“I want you,” she panted. “Inside me. Don’t just…”
“You have me.” He bent forward and put her hands on either arm of a chair so he was covering her from behind. “Too many goddamned clothes…”
For all his voice was rough, his hands were careful as they lifted her skirts and tugged down her drawers. No wonder she could tolerate this freezing studio, she had Continental fashions to keep her warm. “Step,” he ordered, and she was left bare from the waist down, save for stockings and slippers. “Hold still.”
Something was wrong with his voice, a catch in his throat at the thought of such raw erotic pleasure with a woman he’d seen only by the light of dying late-night fires. He undid his falls, nearly ripping the buttons off; then he was over her again. He glided a hand up her leg, and with his fingers, found her intimate flesh.
Wet, warm, and though she went still, he could feel the need quivering through her. Need for him.
“Easy,” he whispered. “I’m right here.” His fingers traced her folds as he felt her sag against her arms. She made soft, low sounds of wanting as he stroked and teased, raising his own arousal as surely as he did hers.
“Not soon, Gabriel. Now, please now.”
“Now,” he agreed. She tried to move her hips, to find him, but he stilled her with his hands, bending his body over hers to graze his teeth against her nape. “Now and forever.”
He sank home in one slow, sweet glide. To be enveloped in her heat, to cover her and penetrate her, and feel her body rejoicing at their joining was… bliss.
“Move,” she pleaded, pushing back into him. “I need you to move.”
“And I need to move.” He straightened, widening his stance and steadying her hips between his hands. He went slowly at first, slowly and gloriously, wonderfully deep. He felt her come in the same rhythm, the contractions slow, tight, and endlessly pleasurable to him.
“Better?” He stroked a hand over her buttocks.
“More.”
“Always.” He gripped her hips and plunged in a single, powerfully hard thrust, then went still. While he let the shock of that pleasure reverberate through her, he bent over her and slid his hands along her belly, until they settled over her breasts. He began pulsing against her in the same tempo as he plied her nipples, and felt her body gathering toward another peak.
How often he brought her to fulfillment he could not have said, and for her part, Polonaise was not saying much of anything other than his name, and “Please.” While the tea gre
w cold and the fire burned down, she begged him to come with her.
He complied with her request—he always complied with her requests—and was left panting over her like a spent stallion, his face pressed to her hair even as his fingers stroked soothingly over her belly.
“Polonaise.” He found one of her hands and brought it to where their bodies joined. “Please, because I cannot be trusted to touch you again.”
She was to undo them—he always left that to her—but she hesitated and laced her fingers through his where he cupped her sex. He had the terrible thought that she believed this was the last time they’d be close like this, and of all places he’d chosen to join with her where she created her art.
“If we remain like this much longer, I’ll take you again, and I’ve already used you too well for that.”
“You don’t use me,” Polly said as she slipped them apart. “You please me, Gabriel. Always.”
He stayed over her, drew her skirts back down over her legs, and wrapped both arms around her middle. “I want that painting.”
“You shall have it. My gift to you.”
Gabriel kissed her neck. “St. Michael will howl.” And Gabriel would too, because it was a parting gift. He was sure of it.
“No, he will not.” Polly straightened, and he let her go, but only long enough for him to fish his handkerchief out of his pocket.
“Put your foot up on the chair.”
She complied, apparently trusting him in at least these most intimate logistics. He draped her skirt over her thigh and tucked the linen against her sex. “Hold that,” he directed, putting her hand over the handkerchief. He retrieved her drawers and folded them over the back of the chair. “You’ll need a soaking bath this afternoon.”
“I will.” She watched him, sorrow behind the languor in her eyes. “I’m surprised you didn’t go on the outing in the sleigh.”
“I’m awaiting my steward and my solicitor.” He busied himself, fussing with the fire, mostly so he would not have to stare at her in such a frankly sensual pose.
“You’re convinced George has a hand in your troubles?”
“No.” He crossed the room to unlock the door. That she could think of such matters now, now when his seed was still in her body, made him want to destroy the canvas she’d just completed. “Not in the sense you mean. Why didn’t you go have fun with Allie and the others?”