That was when the other sensation had made itself felt, like an intent gaze fixed directly between her shoulder blades. Its very intensity was what finally identified its source.
When Chillingworth gallantly returned her to the spot beside Wellington's bust, she was smiling and quietly simmering.
One look at Gabriel's face, into his hard hazel eyes, and her temper surged. She'd successfully reached through his armor to prick him about the twins; he was paying her back by watching her instead, simply to discompose her. Sliding into the space beside him, she muttered, "Don't you have anything better to do?"
He looked at her blankly. "No."
It was impossible to shift him, so there he stayed; by the end of the evening, she was ready to commit murder. But in the carriage home, she had to bottle up her spleen and listen encouragingly to Mary and Alice prattle happily of their doings. To her considerable satisfaction, both had found their feet and were attracting the right sort of attention. As they left the carriage and climbed the steps to the front door, Alathea exchanged a speculative glance with Serena. Their campaign was progressing well.
She was doing less well. By the time she gained her room and Nellie had shut the door behind her, she felt like a human volcano.
"One of these days," she informed Nellie through clenched teeth, "he's going to come up to me when I have a dangerous weapon in my hands, and then I'll end in the Tower, and it'll all be his fault!"
"The Tower?" Nellie was totally confused.
"Imprisoned for murdering him!" Alathea let the reins of her temper fly free. "You should have seen him! You can't imagine!" She fell to pacing before the hearth. "He was more impossible than even I would have believed, even for him. Just because I told him-and convinced him, too-that he was wrong to so suffocate the twins, he left off suffocating them, and suffocated me, instead!"
"Suffocated…?"
"Watched over me as if I was his sister! Tried to menace and chase away any entertaining gentleman." She swung about, her skirts shushing furiously. "At least he didn't succeed with Chillingworth, thank God! But all through supper-!" Words failed her; she threw a rapier-edged glance at the door. "I have never felt so much like a bone with a large dog, teeth-bared, standing over me. And you should have seen his performance over the second waltz! I'd already danced the first with Chillingworth, and saw no reason why I shouldn't indulge him with the second as well-he is nicely tall, which is such a blessing in a waltz-but Gabriel behaved like a… a bloody archbishop! You'd have thought he'd never waltzed with a lady himself in his life!"
Arms folded, she paced on. "It wasn't as if he wanted to waltz with me himself-oh, no! He's never waltzed with me in his life! He just wanted to be difficult! And he's so hard to counter! I sincerely commisserate with the twins, and can only be glad if I've shaken him to his senses over them."
She scowled. "Except that he now seems focused on me." She pondered that, then shrugged. "Presumably he was only doing it for tonight, just to pay me back. Whatever, I've had quite enough of the arrogant ways of Mr. Gabriel Cynster."
"Who?"
Alathea plonked herself down on the stool before her dressing table. "Rupert. Gabriel's his nickname."
Nellie let down her hair and started brushing it. Alathea let the familiar, rhythmic tug-and-release soothe her. Her mind reverted to the problem that had earlier consumed her, the problem she'd largely forgotten in the heat engendered by Gabriel's behavior in the ballroom.
When she'd been Alathea Morwellan.
That had been bad enough. His behavior when she was the countess seemed even further beyond her control.
"This has gone on long enough-I need to take charge."
"You do?"
"Hmm. All very well for him to take the reins, but that's clearly too dangerous. It's my problem-he's my knight-I summoned him. He's going to have to learn to do my bidding, not the other way about. I'm going to have to make that point plain."
She-the countess-was going to have to see him again.
Alathea frowned. "I need to tell him about the captain."
What happened at the Burlington would not happen again. That had simply been an opportunistic event, a combination of location, opportunity, and elation-and her weakness-that he'd sensed, seen, and seized.
She'd let him seize. She wouldn't, she swore, be so weak this time. Be so easily swept off her feet and onto a bed.
No. But it was senseless to take any chances.
"I can't risk another meeting in daylight."
"Why not? He can't see your face even then, not if you wear that mask under your veil."
"True. But he'll look more closely, and there'll be enough of my face showing…"
He might guess. He'd seen her at close quarters frequently enough in the past weeks. His powers of observation were acute when he concentrated, and after their last meeting at the Burlington, she was quite sure he'd be concentrating on the countess. Especially if she proved intent on keeping him at a polite distance.
Yet distance, polite or otherwise, was imperative.
"I've got to meet with him again." Frowning, she drummed her fingers on the dressing table. If she could devise a meeting where opportunity was lacking, so he got no chance to seize anything at all, she'd be safe.
"A letter for you, m'lord-er, sir." With a flourish, Chance placed the silver salver he'd taken to wielding at every opportunity on the breakfast table at Gabriel's right.
"Thank you, Chance." Setting aside his coffee mug, Gabriel picked up the folded sheet of heavy white parchment and looked for the letter knife.
"Oh-ah!" Chance jigged and searched his pockets. "Here." He brandished a small rusty knife. "I'll do it."
"No, Chance, that's quite all right." Gabriel held on to the note. "I can manage."
"Right-ho." Swiping up the salver, Chance departed.
Gabriel broke the seal with his thumbnail. Lips thinning, he opened the note.
He'd been expecting it for the last four days. He was more than a trifle aggrieved that the countess had taken so long to summon him to another meeting. The delay lay like a blot on his record, an adverse reflection on his skill. At least the note had finally come.
He scanned the few lines within, then rolled his eyes to the ceiling. A carriage!
He sighed. Well, she had been a virgin, so what could he expect? She was plainly a novice at arranging lovers' trysts.
Chapter 11
It was a moonless night. The wind soughed and sighed in the trees lining the carriage drive close by the Stanhope Gate. Waiting impatiently in the shadows, Gabriel resisted the urge to shake his head.
Midnight at the Stanhope Gate was only a marginal improvement on three o'clock in the porch of St. Georges. The countess had been reading too many gothic novels. In this case, she'd either forgotten that the park gates were locked at sunset, or was counting on him exercising his peculiar talents on the padlock that had secured the wrought iron gates. He'd done so and left the gates wide. It wasn't unheard of for an open gate to be forgotten.
At least there wasn't any mist, only layers of shadows spreading over the parkland, shifting and drifting with the wind. There was just enough light to see by, to make out shapes but not their detail.
In the distance, a bell tolled, the first note in the midnight chorus. He listened as the other belltowers joined in, then the count was done, and the last note died into the brooding night. Silence returned, and settled.
The rattle of a carriage wheel was his first intimation that his wait was at an end. There were carriages aplenty rolling around Mayfair, but they were far enough away to ignore. The steady rattle continued, punctuated by the clop of hooves, then the small black carriage, lamps unlit, rolled between the gate posts into the gloom of the park.
Gabriel stepped onto the verge. The coachman redirected his horses; the carriage slowed and halted. Gabriel opened the door and climbed into a darkness even denser than had prevailed in the bedchamber at the Burlington.
He sat and
felt leather beneath him, and sensed a warm presence beside him.
"Mr. Cynster."
Gabriel grinned into the dark. "Countess."
She gasped as she landed in his lap. It took only an instant for his fingers to find her veil, and then his lips were on hers.
It was a searing kiss-he made sure of that. A kiss to steal her wits, to make her senses reel. A kiss to light her fires, and his.
Her lips softened the instant his firmed; they parted the second he traced their contours. She melted in his arms as he grew more rigid; he didn't lift his head until she was dazed and dizzy, too breathless to utter the words her whirling mind couldn't begin to form.
He hesitated only a moment, their heated breaths mingling in the dark, the rhythm of their breathing already fragmented. He sensed her yearning, sensed the swollen, parted, hungry lips less than an inch from his.
Closing the distance, he sealed her fate. And his.
This time, however, he was determined to remain in control, to orchestrate their play until the very end. He'd plotted and planned and fantasized. After he'd had his wicked way with her and treated her to the full spectrum of sensations an experienced lover could evoke, he would wager his hard-won reputation that she wouldn't wait days to return to him.
His lips on hers, he quickly dispensed with her cloak and set her veil fully back. Drawing back from their kiss, he let his fingertips linger over the delicate skin of her forehead, the arch of her brows, the sweep of her cheeks. Her jaw was firm and finely wrought, her throat long, slender… elegant.
At the base of her throat, her pulse beat hotly. The scooped neckline of her gown revealed the upper swells of her full breasts. His fingers traced; his memories strengthened. Need burgeoned.
Her breath shivered on his lips; she quivered in his arms.
"Your coachman. What instructions did you give?"
She drew in a shaky breath; he sensed her struggle to think. "I told him to drive slowly around the avenue… until we'd finished our meeting."
"Perfect." Reaching up, he rapped on the carriage roof. A second later, the carriage lurched, then ponderously rolled forward.
She straightened. "I-"
Her breath caught on a hitch as, lowering his arm, he closed his hand possessively about one breast. He kneaded and she shuddered. Nudging her head up, he took her lips again, and set himself to cast her wits to the wind.
It wasn't difficult; she put up no resistance to speak of. She seemed a natural in this sphere, a deeply sensual woman, her consciousness surrendering willingly to the moment, to the physical thrill, the sexual excitement, the indescribable delight of give and take.
At first, it was he who took and she who gave, then he mentally drew back, inwardly reasserted control, then deliberately embarked on his script, his carefully plotted plan to bind her to him with sensual chains.
His lips on hers, he reached for her laces.
Divesting her of her gown was no great feat, not to one of his extensive experience. But he accomplished the deed slowly, savoring every inch of her curves as he exposed them, much to her shivering delight.
Not that she was cold. Thick curtains sealed the carriage windows. With their heated bodies enclosed within the small space, she would be in no danger of taking a chill despite the totality of his plans. That was just as well as, with her warm weight across his thighs, her luscious curves filling his arms and her hungry lips under his, he was in no state to rework them. Tonight, fate was on his side.
Lifting her, he eased the soft gown past her hips, then set her down, the bare backs of her thighs, exposed beneath her short chemise, in direct contact with his trousers. Through their kiss, he sensed the heightening of her tension. He set out to heighten it some more.
Deepening the kiss, he held her steady, one arm about her. Closing his hand on her bare thigh, he brushed her gown down by caressing her long limbs, first down one leg, then the other. Swiping up the gown, he tossed it on the seat beside him, and caught her foot. He slipped her shoe off, surprised to note its weight. As he dispensed with the other, he realized the heels were high. Skimming his hand up one leg, he located her garter, a few inches above her knee.
He toyed with the band. On? Or off? He reviewed his plan. Her lips shifted under his; she struggled to draw breath, to surface from the fog of desire in which he was deliberately shrouding her. He stilled her with a searching, ravishing kiss, and quickly rolled her stockings down and off, sending them to join her gown.
Leaving her clad only in her silk chemise.
He drew her to him, deeper into his embrace; tipping her head back, he plundered her mouth. She responded ardently, caught up in the hot tangle of their tongues, the melding of their lips.
His quick fingers slipped the tiny buttons closing her chemise free, all the way to her navel. The instant the last slipped its mooring, he closed his fist in the fine garment; pulling back from the kiss, he drew the chemise up and over her head in one movement.
"Oh!" She grasped, not the chemise, but her veil.
His steadying hand now on bare skin, he grinned into the dark. Discarding the chemise, he reached for her face, touching gently, then framing her jaw. "Your veil's still there." That was part of his plan, having her totally naked except for that damned veil.
Her hands fluttered; the fingers of one touched the back of his hand as he drew her face nearer. He touched her lips with his tongue and they parted; he surged in, then retreated, settling to nibble, tantalize, tease… until she shifted on his thighs, trying to press her own demands, unsure what those demands should be.
He knew. Urging her hands, her arms, over his shoulders, he drew her around. Clasping one bare calf, savoring the smooth skin, he drew the limb up, lifting that leg over his thighs as he turned her, then released her, leaving her, blissfully naked but for her veil, sitting astride his long thighs.
Oh, yes. Before she had time to even try to think, he reached for her face with both hands, holding her steady for an incendiary kiss, one that left them both gasping, chests heaving, bodies heated and urgent. Hers had softened; his had hardened. Their panting breaths mingled. He slid his fingers under the back of her veil, finding the pins that anchored her hair. As they rained on the floor, their lips met again. Heat welled, swelled, grew.
Her hair cascaded down her back, long strands curling on her shoulders. He kissed her long and hard, then drew back.
She tried to lean closer, to follow his lips with hers, but he closed his hands about her shoulders. "No." Even though he couldn't see, could only feel with his senses at full stretch, he knew she was dazed, wanting but not yet frantic, her wits disengaged but her senses still aware. "Not yet."
They'd only just begun.
"Sit still, and concentrate on what you feel."
She shuddered lightly, but did as he asked. He hadn't expected an argument-she was far beyond that-yet he went slowly; he had no intention of overwhelming her-not yet.
Curving his hands about her shoulders, he trailed his fingers lightly down, over the long sweeps of her arms, over her elbows and forearms, down to her wrists, then slid his fingertips along her palms, drawing them out across her fingers. Fingertip to fingertip, he held her arms out from her sides, then let them fall.
She was mesmerized; he knew that as he reached out again, and touched her breasts. They were already swollen, the peaks hard, begging for his attention. For long, heated moments he touched only with the pads of his fingers, listening as her breathing grew increasingly ragged. Then, leaning forward, he cupped one warm mound in his hand and took the peak into his mouth.
A cry died in her throat; her body arched convulsively. He suckled, one hand closing on her knee, the other lifting her flesh to his lips. When that nipple was aching and throbbing, he changed hands and tortured the other.
Her head fell back, her hair a gossamer curtain, its end brushing her hips, her bare bottom and his knees. Her spine bowed, every nerve drew taut; like the master he was, he let them tighten, and tigh
ten, until she couldn't breathe, until she quivered, as fragile as spun glass, then he released her breast and leaned back.
He sensed the huge, shaky breath she drew in. Leaving his hand on her knee, more to reassure than to hold her, he gave her only a moment of surcease, then lifted his hand again.
To her ribs, tracing the fine skin over the smooth bones, then trailing his fingertips down to her waist. Releasing her knee, he closed both hands about her waist, circling her almost completely. Splaying his fingers over the supple muscles in her back, he touched, stroked, caressed.
She eased a little; his lips curving in a smile she couldn't see, he let his hands slide to caress her derriere, then sent them smoothly gliding over her flanks. And away.
For one instant, he left her there, posed on his knees in her naked glory. Then he reached out and touched her again.
He splayed his hand over her taut stomach. She shuddered, but her spine was so rigid she only swayed slightly, then tensed even more as he gently kneaded. She caught her breath on a sob. "I-"
"Don't talk." He waited a heartbeat, then added, "Just feel."
He waited until her senses refocused, then removed his hand. Clasping her knees, he slid his hands up, fingers gliding over the long, taut muscles of her outer thighs, his thumbs grazing the quivering inner faces. At the tops of her thighs, he ran his thumbs over and up, following the creases between thigh and torso outward. Then he removed his hands again.
Again he waited, leaving her quivering expectantly in the dark. Then, with one hand, he reached out again.
And touched her between her widespread thighs.
Her breath shook; she quaked.
"Shh."
He traced the swollen folds, exposed and open to him. He suspected she hadn't realized, modestly shrouded by the dark.
She realized now; she reached out-he felt her fingers brush his sleeve.
"No. Leave your hands at your sides."
She didn't immediately obey, but as he continued to caress her, the slow, steady stroking reassured her, and she let her arms fall.
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