by Sara Bennett
“Get out!” she hissed.
“I don’t think I will,” he murmured. His hand brushed her cheek, his fingers sliding down to brush the soft, full shape of her lips. “We have so much to discuss, you and I…”
She made to jump up, but he caught her, easily subduing her. When she caught her breath again he was lying very close, the heat of his body like a banked fire, his hand back over her mouth.
“I hear you went to see Sir James Trevalen today. Did you mean to give me up?” He shifted closer still, and she was aware of the masculine, spicy scent of him. “Do you really think he can catch me? I am like smoke; I will slip through his fingers and vanish.”
It was useless trying to answer him with his hand over her mouth, so she didn’t try, simply narrowing her eyes at him. He lifted his hand slightly, and his fingers trailed over her mouth again. He shifted his big, warm body, leaning over her, and she felt the weight of his chest upon her soft breasts.
“I wonder…Do you really want to see me punished? Are you such a cruel woman?”
“You deserve to be—”
But again he covered her mouth, this time with a long finger across her lips. “No, my sparrow, let me finish. I have been pondering the question, and this is what I think. You want to see me gone because you’re afraid of me.”
She shook her head in denial, but perhaps her eyes told a different story.
“Afraid of how I make you feel,” he went on, with a smile. “How long has it been, Miss Dupre, since you’ve had a lusty young man in your bed? Come, be honest with me now. I know Lord Appleby is rich, but he is definitely past his prime. How long is it since you’ve been thoroughly made love to?”
Antoinette tried to squeak a protest but his words reverberated in her head. Never, she thought. I have never been thoroughly made love to.
He moved closer still, and his lips trailed teasingly over her temple. That sensation she remembered from last night was back again, inside her, softening and melting. Her skin ached for his touch, and she had to force herself to lie still and not wriggle. And that was when he swooped over her and kissed her, his mouth firm and hot.
She responded with a mixture of need and curiosity. Even while she was telling herself she shouldn’t, her lips were clinging to his, savoring the feel and taste of him. A moment later he surprised her again as he slid his tongue between her lips.
Unexpected as it was, the sensation didn’t displease her. The opposite, in fact. The intimacy of his action thrilled her in the way he had last night, when he sucked at her breasts through the cloth of her nightgown. Antoinette heard herself whimper softly, opening her mouth wider, daringly returning the caress of his tongue with hers.
He shifted slightly, whispering in her ear. “You dislike this intensely, don’t you, Miss Dupre? Do you still want me to stop?”
“Yes,” she said huskily. “Yes, I do want you to stop.”
But it was a lie, and as he began to kiss her again, her mouth clung even more desperately to his. In just a few short moments this man, this stranger, her enemy, had set her body on fire to such an extent that she no longer cared what he had done or who he was. All she wanted was the pleasure she knew he could give her.
The tension inside her was building, growing tighter and tighter, but, infuriatingly, the release she sought eluded her. Was she doing something wrong?
She heard him groan softly. “Antoinette,” he said. “I want to kiss your breasts. I want to spread your legs and drink deep. I want to be inside you…”
Antoinette knew she should be shocked. She really should be very very shocked. She tried to think of all the reasons that such a thing was impossible, reminding herself of what she had to lose.
“No.”
But even as the protest left her lips, she felt him move. He was lying upon her now, but not heavily, supporting his weight. Still, she could feel the contours of his body and the hard shape of that part of him that made him a man, pressing to her belly through her nightgown. When she wriggled it butted against her, and she had the bizarre urge to giggle. Then his hand slid down and covered the mound of her breast, and she gasped instead. He made a sound of approval as her nipple jutted into his palm, as if eager for his attention. He found it with his finger and thumb, rolling it, tugging on it, until Antoinette heard herself moan deep in her throat.
“Stop. I command you to stop…”
“Why?” he rasped. “When we’re both enjoying it so much?”
It was true, she was enjoying it, but he was her enemy and she didn’t trust him. He was playing games with her, and they were dangerous games.
“Lovely, lovely Antoinette,” he breathed. “Command me again.”
“I command you to stop.”
He groaned as if her words added another dimension to his enjoyment of her. Pleasure spiraled through her, urging her onward to who-knew-what. This was unknown territory for her, and yet the thought of entering it was exciting. His hand ran down over her belly to the hem of her nightgown, and he drew it up. Antoinette felt the cool night air caressing her naked limbs. He sat back and looked at what he’d uncovered.
“What are you doing?” she said nervously. The pleasure receded, and she tried to sit up.
He grasped her ankles and pulled her down again. Antoinette began to protest, but just then his hand ran up her inner leg, diving into the curls between her thighs, and touching her in a way that made her forget all about running away.
“You’re ready for me,” he whispered, stroking her.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” she managed in a breathy voice. “I don’t know you.”
“Your body knows me,” he said, and his fingers worked their magic once more. “Your body wants mine. Relax, Antoinette, and allow yourself to enjoy it. Why not?”
“I haven’t…”
“Has Lord Appleby been neglecting you? Never mind, I will make it all better…”
Before she could answer or even think, one of his fingers was sliding inside her moist body, and his mouth was on her breasts, sucking first one nipple and then the other.
Antoinette clasped his head and realized for the first time that he wasn’t wearing his mask. His hair was springy against her fingers, and the nape of his neck strong and yet strangely vulnerable. His clothing brushed against her nakedness, and she felt the linen of his shirt and the rougher cloth of his trousers and the leather of his belt. But most of all she felt his hot mouth and his tongue, as he worked his way down over her belly, tasting her skin as if she were a rare delicacy.
Antoinette lay bathed in a warm glow of delight. She almost believed it was a dream, or perhaps she preferred to believe that because it was safer than accepting that this was real.
He had reached the apex between her thighs, and he paused. She felt herself tense, thinking he would stop now. But he didn’t.
He parted her legs. In the darkness she felt his breath against her skin, cooling her, and then his open mouth closed on her and his tongue went deep.
She couldn’t speak. Once more she was in new territory, and it was beyond anything she could have imagined. Her fingers clenched in the sheets, and she struggled not to scream. He began to move his mouth upon her, teasing her swollen flesh. Heat coursed through her lower belly, and she arched off the bed as the feelings inside her gathered strength. It seemed to her that there was a cacophony of sounds inside her, growing louder, drowning out the thudding of her heart, and in a moment more she would explode and scatter into bits and pieces.
He stopped.
She made a cry of distress and heard him chuckle. “Be patient,” he teased.
He bent again, and his tongue was back. Antoinette realized dizzily that she wanted him, as he’d said, inside her. Filling her. Her arms around his big body, her mouth on his, their bodies moving as one to the ultimate goal.
His tongue was doing its work on her, sliding around the swollen nub, and the tension was reaching a crescendo.
And then he pulled away. Again.
>
Antoinette lay still, holding her breath, waiting for his next touch, for the roll of his tongue to bring her to that place she had so recently experienced and already longed for again.
It didn’t come.
She sat up, her hair loose about her, staring around in the dark. She opened her mouth to call his name and remembered she didn’t know what it was. Legs weak and shaky, she rose from the bed and found the tinderbox and lit a candle. The weak light wasn’t much help but it did show her one thing.
She was alone.
He had gone.
The ache between her legs told her that he had left her wanting more. Of course, she thought angrily, he had done so on purpose, so that she would be longing for him to return.
And she was.
With a sigh of frustration and annoyance with him, and herself, she walked to the window. She was glad he’d gone, and yet the ache in her body mocked her, made her think of what might have been. He frightened her, put her off balance in a way she had never felt before. How did he know why she’d gone to Sir James? How did he know what she felt when he touched her? It was as if he knew her better than she knew herself.
She looked down and gave a gasp. A dark figure stood against the stars, head back, staring up at her. He lifted an arm and waved to her, and she was certain she could hear his laughter. And then he was gone, as if he had simply vanished into the night.
Leaving her more unsettled than ever.
Chapter 10
Gabriel strode away from the manor house and into the woods, a spring in his step despite the heavy ache in his groin. He was trying to reconcile the last few moments of heady pleasure with a woman he found wildly attractive with the fact that she was the mistress of Lord Rudyard Appleby, his enemy. He felt confused, as he always was when he’d spent time with her, as if the two Antoinettes didn’t quite match.
Don’t get drawn into her web, he warned himself. Don’t trust her.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy her.
Pleasures of the flesh didn’t necessarily mean a commitment of the mind or heart. Aphrodite would tell him that, if she were here to ask. Gabriel could seduce her and enjoy her, and when he had what he wanted from her—the letter—he would return her to Appleby without a second thought.
But the words had a sort of forced bravado, and he wondered if it would be that easy to let her go.
“Master Gabriel?”
He bit back a sigh of annoyance. Mary was waiting by his door. “Why are you out so late?” he asked her sternly, as he went inside the cottage and lit the lamp.
“No reason.”
There was a note in her voice he recognized. He turned toward her, and in the soft light he saw that her fair hair was down around her shoulders and her dress was low-cut, showing off the swell of her breasts. He frowned.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
She smiled. “I want to be here,” she replied softly, and swayed toward him.
And suddenly he was angry with her and himself. He didn’t want her here, and he certainly didn’t want to take her to his bed. His body was crying out for release, but it was Antoinette he wanted. Mary Cooper would be second best, a means to an end, and she didn’t deserve that. And he certainly didn’t want to go down that road—it was against all that made him a man.
“Go back to the house, Mary,” he told her sharply. “I mean it.”
The protest died on her lips. She made a little sound, half sob, and turned and ran outside. He heard her steps fading through the woods until there was only silence and he was alone once more.
Glumly, Gabriel sank down in his chair before the ashes of the fire. It was only then it occurred to him that he’d been in Antoinette’s room, in her bed, and he hadn’t thought to search for the letter. For all he knew it had been secreted somewhere beneath her nightgown!
A wry smile twisted his lips. No, she didn’t have it on her. He would have found it otherwise when he’d touched her, kissed her, licked her…
The memory made him shift uncomfortably.
There had been a freshness about her, an innocence he hadn’t been expecting from a woman in her position. But perhaps that was part of her charm, that illusion that he and he alone could awaken her passion. It certainly worked. He knew he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until he was in her bed again.
I command you to stop.
He smiled. Next time, he promised her silently, she would command him to do something else entirely.
Antoinette lay and watched as the dawn light peeked through her curtains. She, too, was trying to come to terms with what had happened between them. Was she insane to allow such a thing? But sanity didn’t appear to come into it. Rather it was as if she’d lost her wits completely once he began to touch her. Were such things always so, between men and women? That ecstatic, dizzy joy? She didn’t believe it. She had seen too much unhappiness in the marriages of her acquaintances to believe joy was a lasting consequence of matrimony.
But she wasn’t thinking about marriage, was she? She was thinking about connection. Physical congress. Making love.
He made her body cry out in a way that was new and wonderful, until she longed to be a part of him.
Whoever he might be.
And what if Sir James Trevalen arrests him?
The question made her sit up. He didn’t think he could be caught; he’d said so: I’m like smoke. But that sounded like overconfidence to Antoinette, and Sir James appeared to be a competent man.
Outside the light was growing brighter; the day was beginning.
Of course if she discovered who he was first she could warn him. Give him time to get away before she told Sir James. It seemed like a reasonable plan. All she had to do was find where he was hiding. Antoinette didn’t believe for a moment she wouldn’t recognize him instantly if she saw him, however he might disguise himself—there would be some indefinable something that called to her. After such intimacy as had occurred between them, she was confident it was impossible for her not to know him.
She would find him, warn him of Sir James, and he would leave. Then she would be safe from his attentions.
Satisfied, she lay back, closing her eyes again, only to have them instantly spring wide open. She didn’t want to be safe from his attentions! She felt as if she were wandering through a marvelous emporium, full of wondrous new objects, and she’d only just begun to explore. The image was very nice, but not quite apt. Antoinette grimaced. No, she was more like a greedy child who desired to gorge on sweets, even knowing they would make her sick. The temptation was stronger than her fear of the consequences.
As sleep claimed her, she found herself drifting back in time to the Mayfair house. It was some days after the evening when Appleby destroyed her reputation, and the morning when the letter, which was her only hope of escape, arrived in the post from Surrey.
She’d been expecting a letter from Miss Bridewell, and every morning she’d haunted the entrance hall, intent on getting her hands on it before anyone else. This morning the postman was early and she was still descending the stairs when the footman opened the door. Breathlessly Antoinette hurried to intercept him as he made his way toward Lord Appleby’s study to lay the letters on his desk. A moment later she was holding Miss Bridewell’s longed-for letter in her hands.
She already knew what it would contain. Miss Bridewell had promised to contact her old acquaintance, a housekeeper who had once worked for Lord Appleby, and pass on the mysterious details that would be the means of Antoinette’s escape from this intolerable and dangerous situation.
“She knows something,” Miss Bridewell promised her. “As soon as I wrote to her mentioning Lord Appleby’s name and his visits, she sent a note back warning me about him.”
“It may be nothing, but it’s as well to follow it up,” Antoinette replied. “If you hear any more, then you must send me the details at Lord Appleby’s house in Mayfair.”
Antoinette thought no more of it. She
was more interested in the excitement gripping London as visitors from all over the world arrived to attend the Great Exhibition—Britain’s might on display. She soon persuaded herself that Lord Appleby was perfectly amiable and all her doubts were groundless.
But then Miss Bridewell sent a hasty scrawled note: Have news of serious nature. I am setting off to visit the person we spoke of as she will only discuss matters with me FACE TO FACE. I will send DETAILS as SOON as I have them. PLEASE TAKE CARE.
The wording was dramatic. Puzzled, Antoinette wondered what it meant, but there was so much more to occupy her that she told herself it was sure to be a storm in a teacup. Shortly afterward she became aware of the gossip concerning her and Lord Appleby, and had the unpleasant task of refusing his offer of marriage. A week later he staged the scene that ruined her reputation and placed her firmly in his power.
And now at last Miss Bridewell’s letter was in her hands. She only hoped whatever it contained would be the key to release her from her predicament.
A step behind her warned Antoinette of someone approaching. If Lord Appleby found her and asked to see her letter she could refuse, of course, but then he would wrest it from her. Antoinette was no longer under any illusions concerning His Lordship’s ruthlessness.
Hastily, hands shaking, she pushed the letter down inside her bodice, before turning to face whoever it was with an aura of determined calm.
It was Lord Appleby’s secretary, a young man with a protruding Adam’s apple and an ingratiating smile. “Miss Dupre,” he greeted her, his gaze dropping to her bosom.
Had he seen her deposit the letter there? Or was he ogling her figure? Antoinette didn’t have time to find out. A loud jangle announced a visitor at the front door, and the footman hastened to open it. They could hear him protesting, but a moment later he was stepping back, giving way before the forcefulness of an obviously unwelcome visitor.
It was a woman in a black gown, the silk rustling as she moved, her dark hair touched with gray beneath a fashionable scrap of a bonnet. The flash of jewelry at her throat and fingers was eclipsed only by the flash of her dark eyes in her beautiful and yet haggard face.