by Sara Bennett
“I want you,” he groaned, and she felt something substantial prod her lower back.
Was that…? Could that be…? She froze. Antoinette might be a spinster and an innocent, but she thought she knew what that was. Her breath caught in her throat; she tried to find her voice and protest, but only a squeak came out. He brushed the pulse in her throat with his fingers, pausing briefly, before running his hand downward over the bodice of her nightgown.
Antoinette knew he was searching her again, looking for the letter. But that didn’t explain the evidence of his passion, still hard against her. Perhaps he couldn’t help that. Perhaps it was an automatic reaction? She knew so little about men and their ways.
The two top buttons of her nightdress were undone. He slipped his hand inside and cupped her breast, caressing her in a way that seemed to imply he meant business.
“Let me show you what you’re missing,” he rasped.
Later she knew this was when she should have stopped him. A scream, a slap, anything to drive him away. That she didn’t was a confusing mystery. Instead she heard herself say, “You know nothing about me.”
Her voice was husky, barely audible. His touch was doing things to her, surprising things. Her breast seemed to swell, her nipple to harden and ache, and even stranger, there seemed to be a connection between her breast and the intimate place between her thighs, because the more he caressed her, the more that place throbbed and burned.
“I know your skin is like silk,” he answered her statement. “I know the swell of your breast.” His fingers slid down farther, moving from one breast to the other. Suddenly he sat down in an armchair, taking her with him, and she found herself planted on his lap.
She knew she had to stop him. Her lips formed the words, but as he gently tugged on her nipple with his fingers, she found herself groaning instead, her throat aching. Something inside her was building, and although it was new and frightening, still she wanted to know what it was and how it would end. She wanted to experience this feeling.
“I am no man’s plaything,” she said, when she’d caught her breath.
“Who said I was playing?” he murmured. And yet that was exactly what he was doing, teasing her, taking away her ability to think. He turned her, placing her sideways across his knees, and bent his head, and she felt his mouth, hot and wet, close over the thin cloth of her nightgown and the breast beneath. Her nipple ached unbearably, and yet the heat of his mouth didn’t seem to soothe it. She twisted, gasping.
Again she opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but he was sucking on her nipple again, tugging the turgid flesh, and the aching tension between her legs began to grow in intensity. She arched her back, her fingers tangled in his hair. He cupped her other breast in his hand, stroking and squeezing. Her muscles trembled weakly, her breathing was little more than gasps. Something was happening to her, as if she were aboard a runaway horse with no way to…to…
“Stop!”
Finally she got the word out, but it was too late. Muscles she didn’t know she had were contracting, clenching, and a great sunburst of pleasure exploded inside her.
When she came back to her body again, it was with a wonderful sense of languor, as if all the strength had been siphoned from her. He was kissing her neck, his lips moving slowly to the line of her jaw, tickling and soothing at the same time.
“You’re wonderfully sensitive, sparrow,” he said. “Or I’m bloody good at lovemaking. Let’s try again.” He brushed his fingers over her breast once more, then blew warm breath on the damp cloth. She shivered violently.
Oh, he was dangerous. This was dangerous.
Antoinette knew for the sake of her safety and sanity, she must escape him.
She twisted out of his grip and stood up on shaky legs. Her solution was to drive him, and the danger he represented, away from her. Far away. Eager words tumbled over themselves.
“I have Lord Appleby, one of the richest men in England, and he gives me everything I want. Why would I want anything to do with you?”
She saw the gleam of his eyes as he looked up at her, the hiss of exhaling breath. Too late Antoinette realized that instead of driving him away, she had thrown him a challenge.
Gabriel knew that what she was saying might well be true, but he didn’t believe her. Even if she refused to accept it yet, he knew the truth. He could give her the sort of pleasure Appleby, with all his wealth, was incapable of giving her. He’d just proven it.
He pulled her back into his arms. She was trembling with anger and passion, and the ache in his groin redoubled. The only way to relieve himself of the pain was to bury himself deep inside her, and he wasn’t going to do that tonight, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t show her what she was missing.
Gabriel’s mouth closed on hers in a deep kiss. He felt her stiffen, as if she was intending to resist, and then almost immediately she melted against him, her arms encircling his neck and drawing him down.
She made his head swim. What had begun as a plan to seduce her and steal the letter from her was no longer so clear-cut. He wanted her. The seduction had taken on a life and importance all its own.
And he knew now that she wanted him. He’d brought her to her peak simply by touching her and kissing her breasts. Her soft lips clung and she made a little sound, half moan and half purr.
Perhaps he could take her now, he thought dizzily, his need making away with his wits. Why not? A woman like this wouldn’t expect to be wooed or courted. She was Appleby’s mistress, and had probably lived a life less than respectable. She wouldn’t expect gentle treatment.
He lifted her, drawing her thighs around his hips, feeling his hardness pressing against the place he was dying to get inside. He cupped her bottom, arching against her, his body rigid with pleasure.
But he’d misjudged her.
The flat of her hand struck his cheek, hard enough to sting, and then she was pummeling him with her closed fists, struggling in his arms. He let her go, and as soon as her feet touched the floor she was gone. The door opened and she was running across the hall and up the stairs. Briefly her scantily clad body was silhouetted against the lamp before she vanished toward her room.
Chapter 6
Weakly, his legs barely holding him up, Gabriel leaned against the doorjamb. He could still feel her clasped in his arms, the intimate heat of her so close to where he most wanted it. He’d never desired a woman this much. Did she feel the same? God, Gabriel hoped so, because he didn’t want to be in this on his own. The woman was a witch, with the ability to drive him to madness with a single glance.
He turned back into the parlor and poured himself another drink. His mood changed, the complications of his situation becoming clear. Anyone who would give herself to a man like Rudyard Appleby, he reminded himself, must be beyond contempt. His lip curled. Contempt, that was what he should feel for her. Did the fact that he’d kissed her and fallen under her spell even for a moment make him contemptible, too?
There was a history of male Langleys making fools of themselves over unsuitable women. One of Gabriel’s ancestors had brought home a bride, a king’s castoff, another man’s mistress, and suffered for it. Such women must have an irresistible allure for Langley heirs, Gabriel thought, and he was simply following family tradition.
The thing was, he didn’t trust himself.
Ever since he’d learned that Lord Appleby had stolen Wexmoor Manor, Gabriel had felt as if the brake that had always ensured a measure of restraint, even in his most hotheaded moments, was finally gone. He became reckless and frustrated, and he wanted to get to Appleby. Antoinette Dupre just happened to be standing in his way.
He took another mouthful of brandy and sat down in the chair where a moment ago he’d brought Appleby’s mistress to a spectacular climax. Had Appleby ever achieved that? Simply by caressing her breasts? From her reaction he didn’t think so.
Gabriel closed his eyes. Appleby. His thoughts began to slip backward to when he’d first learned the truth, a
nd he found himself reliving probably the worst night of his life.
Gabriel’s world came crashing down on the evening he visited his father in the Albion Hotel in Bond Street. Sir Adam Langley had arrived from the country and sent for his son, and Gabriel, expecting a fatherly chat and the usual warnings about changing his carefree bachelor ways, turned up without the slightest inkling that this was the point when life as he knew it as a wealthy young gentleman was about to come to an abrupt end.
“But Wexmoor Manor is mine! You know it was always meant to be mine. My grandfather…your father promised it to me. I spent most of my childhood there. I grew up there. He only left it to you because when he died I was not yet twenty-one, but it was always meant to be held in trust for me.”
“You’re not the only one to be disappointed,” Sir Adam spoke in a sharp voice, sounding unlike himself. An invalid for many years, he looked even frailer than usual, and his hands were shaking as he reached for the glass of peppermint tonic, placed at his side.
“Disappointed!” Gabriel repeated furiously. “Surely that’s an understatement? Wexmoor Manor is mine. I refuse to give it up to anyone, especially a man I don’t even know!”
Sir Adam drank slowly, as if he was biding his time. Some of the tonic spilled onto his fashionable waistcoat, but he didn’t seem to notice as he finally set the glass down. Gabriel and his father had never been close; he’d been far closer to his grandfather, Sir John, and it was from him that Gabriel had learned his love of the manor. Sir Adam preferred his Somerset property, inherited from his maternal side.
Occasionally Gabriel had wondered why his father and he were near-strangers, but many of his peers had similar lives, and he’d put it down to being sent away to school at eight years old. But now here was his father looking at him not with indifference but with actual distaste and dislike.
It struck him to the heart.
“This isn’t just about you. I have lost my share of Aphrodite’s Club as well,” Sir Adam said irritably.
“Aphrodite’s Club?” Gabriel frowned. “But what about Marietta? You promised her your share of the club, you and Aphrodite.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“I’m trying to understand. I’m certain I can—”
“What? Fix everything?” Adam’s eyes were blazing, his fingers white on the arms of his chair. “You’re as arrogant as Appleby, but then that’s hardly surprising.”
He stopped, his chest swiftly rising and falling, and suddenly he appeared guilty, as if he’d said too much. He looked away, fiddling with the signet ring on his little finger.
“I need to rest. We will speak tomorrow.”
“No, Father, we will speak now.” Gabriel refused to leave. “Explain to me how such a thing could happen? How you could lose Wexmoor Manor and Aphrodite’s Club as if they were mere buttons from your waistcoat? This man who now owns them—Lord Appleby? Does he have some hold over you?”
Sir Adam managed a humorless laugh. “If only you knew.”
“Father—”
“Frankly I’m surprised you’re acting like this. Since you reached your majority you’ve shown no signs of settling down at Wexmoor Manor. The house and grounds are in a mess, and I can’t manage them and the Somerset house. My father expected you to take up the reins when you turned twenty-one, and that was four years ago. He saw you as the bright hope, said you’d go far. Farther than me, anyway.”
There was something in his voice. Gabriel recognized it, could hardly believe it. “You were jealous. Because my grandfather was closer to me than you.”
The truth made for an uncomfortable silence. “It was my own fault,” Adam admitted dully. “I pushed you away. I was never able to put the doubts from my mind.”
“Doubts? What doubts?”
“Gabriel, enough.”
“No, I want to know. If you’re doubting my attachment for Wexmoor Manor, then you’re wrong. I have plans to restore the manor to its glory days. Grandfather left me some shares in the Great Northern Railway, and I’ve been busy reinvesting the profits, building up enough money to do what I promised him I would before he died. I’m just about ready to start; if I’d known there was a time limit…In God’s name, don’t tell me you’ve taken away my future before I’ve even had a chance to live it!”
“I’m sorry,” his father said, uncomfortable, “but I can’t. Appleby gets what he wants. Just leave it, Gabriel, for God’s sake. You will have the baronetcy when I die. You will be Sir Gabriel Langley, isn’t that enough?”
But it wasn’t enough, not nearly. Gabriel wanted to shout it out, but he didn’t trust himself. He was furious. He wanted to shake the truth out of his father, but he knew it would do no good. Adam had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and for some reason, he’d decided not to explain his actions to his only son.
Gabriel turned and strode from the room. Outside, his mother waited, her face sickly white. “I’m so sorry, Gabriel,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
“This man, this Appleby…?”
“This is my fault.”
Gabriel saw the pain. He didn’t understand it, but he knew something was very, very wrong, and if Sir Adam wouldn’t tell him what it was, then his mother must. But still her next words were completely unexpected, and they shocked him.
“Before I married your father I was another man’s mistress.”
He swallowed down the lump in his throat. He didn’t, he realized, think any the worse of her because of what she’d just revealed; it wasn’t that. He was shocked because it had never occurred to him that his sweet and gentle mother had such a risqué past.
“Why?” he rasped.
“I was foolish enough to believe the promises made to me. I ran off with him and then I was trapped, ruined, with no way of going back. Your father knew, of course. He accepted matters. Besides, we were in love, deeply in love. So I left this man and married your father. I did not see him again until just recently.”
She’d been avoiding his gaze, but now Gabriel took her hands gently in his and squeezed them, forcing her to look up at him.
“Mama, none of this matters. In our family a scandal is as normal as breathing.”
She smiled in acknowledgment, but he could see it was an effort. “Oh, Gabriel, if only that was all it was. A scandal.”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
She met his intent blue gaze, so like his father’s. “When the news came out about the Great Exhibition, I saw Lord Appleby’s name in the newspapers, and I wrote to him. I…I had fond feelings for him, once. I told him I was pleased he was such a success, and I spoke a little of my own life.” She swallowed. “I was relieved, you see, that he had found happiness in his life and business. I’d always felt guilty for abandoning him.”
“Appleby was the man you…?”
“Yes. I was his mistress. Do you begin to get an inkling now, Gabriel? Are you sure you want to know more? There is much worse to come.”
“Tell me.”
“After I left Appleby and married your father, I discovered I was with child.”
The words fell like stones into the well of his heart, but this time she didn’t pause to allow him time to recover.
“I wasn’t certain who the father was but we—your father and I—decided it didn’t matter. You would be his child no matter what. When you were born I was sure you were Adam’s son—in many ways you are very like him—but Adam couldn’t accept the truth after all. He’s always found it difficult.”
“He thinks I am Appleby’s son.” He could see the truth in her eyes.
“No! Not really. But he has doubts.” She sighed. “I should never have written to him. It appears that he made inquiries into our lives and now believes you are his, and he is threatening Adam with disclosure.”
“I can’t imagine my father being worried about that.”
“He isn’t. Not for himself. It is me, Gabriel. He says he doesn’t want me to be exposed before the censorious eyes of society. No
one knows about my past, you see. We’ve always kept it a secret. It would be…difficult. I would imagine the ladies of the parish would refuse to speak to me.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a sob.
His mother was always busy in the village where she lived; she was a part of the community, a well-loved part. What would a scandal like this do to her?
“Why would Appleby want to hurt you, Mama?” he said gently.
“Because I dared to love another man better than he, and I left him to marry that man and live happily ever after. That is what he cannot forgive, Gabriel.”
“So this is all about hurt pride and revenge?” Gabriel muttered.
“I think so. He wants us to suffer. You, especially, because you should have been his son. He is childless, did you know? All his pride in his achievements will come to nothing when he is dead—he has no one to pass it on to.”
His mother, still beautiful, managed a shaky smile. “Can you forgive me, Gabriel?”
He wrapped her in his arms, feeling her fragility, suddenly afraid of what was happening to them. No matter what she said, he knew she couldn’t survive being ostracized by her friends and neighbors. It would break her gentle heart. Fury swept through him in a hot, scalding wave, taking with it any consideration of caution.
“I’m so sorry about Wexmoor Manor,” she murmured into his chest. “I know you love it.”
“No doubt that was why Appleby demanded it, to cause us all the most pain and suffering.” He set her at arm’s length, pinning her with his intent gaze. “Tell me, Mama, where does Lord Appleby live?”
“Gabriel…”
“Where?”
She told him, caught between loyalty to her husband and worry for her son, and fearing for them both. Gabriel gave her another quick hug of appreciation and made for the stairs, causing a maid to jump to one side as he hurried down them. And then he was throwing open the door to the street and slamming it shut behind him.