Chapter Sixteen

Gabriel had been ready to leave. He’d had enough of games. She was not going to tell him anything, and he certainly didn’t intend to tell her anything she could reveal to the man he’d dreamed about ruining these many years.

Yet he had lingered a moment too long. He had allowed himself to indulge those very compelling feelings. He had wanted to touch her again, to see whether her skin was really as soft as he remembered, whether her hair still smelled of roses. Whether those eyes could ignite fires within him.

Surely not.

Not if he used the discipline that had brought him to where he was. As brittle as her explanations were, as wily as her answers, he saw a vulnerability that touched him. He kept trying to tell himself that it, too, was only a pose, an actress’s trick.

Yet he really didn’t believe that. She did not trust him. He couldn’t complain about that because he didn’t trust her, either. Yet he could not rid himself of a feeling that there might be common cause here.

A feeling that was all too dangerous. If she really was the courtesan she seemed to be, she could destroy him with a word.

Yet the temptation was overpowering. Instead, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, then found himself unable to leave it at that. Her skin was as soft as he remembered, her hair like silk, her breath like the light breeze of a spring day.

She was intoxicating, and he understood why and how she had half of London panting after her.

He wondered whether part of it was because she was so different from other women he had known. Of course, he had taken little time in the past few years to cultivate a woman. Instead, he’d favored women who’d wanted no more than a momentary affair.

He’d never been tempted to linger.

This woman could make him linger for a very long time.

That terrified him, even as it intrigued him.

But he also knew her eyes were on a bigger prize, a wealthier prize.

That thought spurred him. She had no interest in an extended affair. Perhaps a brief interlude would dull the aching need inside him.

All those thoughts flitted through his mind as he hesitated, knowing that he might well not retreat easily from this bed as he had others. Her eyes, now a stormy gray as expressive as a squall at sea, appeared to reflect the same confusion that he had. Doubt mixed with desire.

Desire won. His lips pressed down on hers. He tasted her lips, then his tongue explored her mouth, tentatively at first, then with a sense of growing urgency.

Her arms went around his neck, and his arms tightened around her, drawing her near. Her gown was muslin and feather light and he could feel her body through it. Soft and supple but with strength. No girl’s body, but a woman’s.

He felt it change as his hands stroked her back, then moved to her breasts as his lips continued their seduction of her mouth. He felt her tremble as his fingers played with her nipples, erotically, intimately, feeling every response: the swelling, the hardening of the nipple. His lips moved down toward the throbbing pulse of her throat and nuzzled it, feeling her quiver, almost vibrating under his touch. He knew exactly what those tremors were, because they were rippling through him, too. His body was no longer his own to rule.

His lips drew away from her, and he looked at her face.

Her body was reacting to his, and reacting in a seductive, instinctive way, but the look in her eyes …

Startled. And her lips … they had engaged his but in a curiously inexperienced way. As if every sensation was new.

She was an experienced woman who played wealthy men against one another, but some of her reactions made him wonder if …

He was wrong. He knew he was wrong. It was just a coquettish game that she played.

His loins were rigid and heated, and he felt as if he were on fire. He couldn’t stop now. He crushed her to him again, his mouth insatiable as it tasted again and wanted even more.

“Your bedroom?”

Her expressive gray eyes looked enormous. Desire burned in them. But so did something else he could not fathom.

She hesitated, and he realized she was struggling with something he did not understand. Then a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

He put an arm around her shoulder, guiding her toward the stairs. “Up the stairs?”

“Yes,” she said. Not oui, he noticed. Her accent sometimes disappeared. It was obvious she was as comfortable with English as with French, and she used French to portray a certain image.

But he would mull over that tomorrow. His curiosity was overshadowed by a more urgent need now.

She led the way to a bedroom. She stopped there, turned, looked at him with questions in her eyes.

He touched her face, tracing her elegant cheekbones with feather-light movements. So soft. So incredibly soft.

He heard a movement behind him. He was loath to turn, to take his attention away from her.

She jerked away, as if burned, then looked beyond him. “It is all right, Dani,” she said. “You can go to bed.”

“Is there anything …” He heard the doubt in the maid’s voice but he did not turn. Instead, he watched emotions cross Monique’s face.

A touch of hesitation. Then, “No,” she said.

He heard footsteps move away. “She is protective of you,” he said softly.

“We have been together a long time.” Her words were little more than a whisper.

“Am I safe?” he asked lightly.

“I do not know whether either one of us is safe.”

He knew she meant herself and him. He didn’t know, either. There had been something from the very first time they saw each other. He’d believed in love. He had seen it between his parents. He also knew how destructive it could be, how it had ultimately destroyed his mother.

But this wasn’t love. It was lust, he told himself. Like recognizing like. They were both after something and didn’t mind using any means available to achieve it. He just wasn’t sure whether their goals were in direct conflict.

If so, this … interlude … was extraordinarily foolish.

And yet his heart quaked as he put his arms back around her and she moved into them and she looked up at him with a kind of wonderment in her eyes, the same fascination he felt. Her lips were already swollen by their last kiss and now with the slightest tremor, they were beguiling.

She is an actress. But despite the mental warning, he saw an odd innocence in her.

Beguiling … and dangerous.

He almost believed she felt the same aching attraction, the same electricity that made his body react in ways not altogether familiar. He nibbled at her earlobe, and her body responded with shivers of what he thought was anticipation. The same anticipation that was enveloping his body in heat.

He’d never before felt this raw, naked, physical appetite. He’d never felt this drumming in his heart, or the intense white hot heat that ran through his body when he touched her, looked at her, and especially when he saw that same flame in her eyes.

His hands undid her buttons on the back of her dress, slowly and sensuously, his fingers lingering possessively on her skin. Heat flooded him, and he had to force himself to go slowly, to give her as much pleasure as he himself intended to take. He tried not to think of Stanhope’s hands on her skin.

He shifted the gown off her shoulders, and she stepped out of it. Dressed only in a sheer shift. No corset over it now. But then with her body she needed none.

Her breasts were taut against the sheer cloth. His hands went inside the shift, fondling her rounded breasts, then the nipples. He heard her swift intake of breath. His hands lifted the shift from her body and she stood naked except for the silk stockings held up by pieces of cloth.

Saints in heaven but she was lovely. He saw the astonished look of pleasure on her face as his hands continued their seduction of her body, hesitating at the back of her neck, running downward, then touching her breasts again, gathering the left one with his hand and leaning down to kiss it. Her expression of wonder and surprise startled him. She seemed to be experiencing these things for the first time.

He took his hands from her and unbuttoned his waistcoat, then his shirt, until he stood in only his tight breeches and boots. She looked at him, the lashes sheltering her eyes, giving her a half-sleepy, sensuous look. Her right hand went to his shoulder, touched and explored, then moved up to his hair.

Now it was his turn to slow, to try to control the spasms her touch created. He tried to warn himself again, but each one of her touches pulled down another stone of his defenses.

Her hand moved again, trailing fire every inch as it moved over his chest and downward, along the skin that stretched taut over the ridged muscles of his body.

His body paid no attention to his mind, not to the scruples or reservations. It had only want now. And it was exercising that in the most blatant way.

His arms went around her, and he pulled her to him. Her body melded into his, kindling a flame he knew would have to burn itself out. Lightning leaped between them, jagged and violent yet blinding them with its intensity. Need took over, a need so great it threatened to consume him. His mouth savaged hers, insatiable as it tasted and wanted more.

He felt the whisper of her breath, then heard the soft groan and he could wait no longer. He lifted her and took her to the bed, his lips still locked on hers. He released them as he lowered her body. He sat on the bed, pulled off his boots, then quickly stripped off his breeches.

For a moment he paused. Something in her eyes again stopped him. But then she held out her hand, and he fell to the bed beside her.

He stroked her body, watching the reactions as his fingers touched the soft hair at the triangle between her thighs. He touched and seduced until she gave a small cry, and he positioned himself above her, moving slowly, teasing, then started to enter. Her arms went around him, holding him tight, and she whimpered as he penetrated deeper till he encountered a fragile barrier.

He had never bedded a virgin, but he knew instantly, and with certainty, that Monique Fremont was exactly that.

It was too late to stop, though. He felt the barrier give, heard her smothered cry.

Damn it to hell. He started to withdraw, but her arms kept him close.

“No,” she whispered.

The word was an aphrodisiac. Very slowly, very cautiously, he moved deeper inside her, feeling a growing response to him. It was instinctive and primitive, and ever so enticing. Sensations built. Need flamed. Shimmering waves of heat pounded through him. He moved with a rhythm that grew more and more frantic, a whirlwind of power.

Their bodies seemed made for each other, their responses feeding upon the other.

He sought to prolong her pleasure, to savor the infinitely precious moments of unity combined with rushes of pleasure. Then that moment of magnificent explosion …

She cried out, and he knew she too had reached the pinnacle of sensations. He was too aware that he had never made love like this before, nor had he felt the exultation that accompanied the climax.

But as he fell back to earth, his body still shuddering with the aftermath of splendor, one fact kept ringing in his mind.

She had been a virgin.

Monique had never realized that the act of intimacy could be so shattering. She’d never realized it paled the fireworks she’d seen only days ago. Or was it an eon ago?

Even as she had granted him her bedroom, she knew it was a mistake. Inviting him tonight had been a mistake. Succumbing to her runaway emotions was a greater mistake.

But now she had no regrets. She lay in his arms, her body sated but still reacting to sensations that lingered deep inside. There was soreness, yes, but it was nothing compared to the marvelous journey she’d just taken.

He was still inside her, not as he had been seconds before but still warm and throbbing.

He felt as if he belonged there. She had never thought, never believed, the act could be like this. She’d always thought of it as something distasteful. But then she had heard, as a child, the grunts of men from inside a closed door and later saw the tears of her mother, the discoloration of her skin.

But tonight … had been gentleness as well as passion.

His hand caught hers and his fingers tightened around it. He sighed heavily, then moved off her. He rose and went to the water pitcher and found a towel, dampening it.

He returned and gently washed her, his movements slow and tender and even those excited her again. When he’d finished he lay next to her, propping himself up on one elbow and gazing at her.

She knew he had questions. He knew she had been a virgin despite her pose as a worldly woman.

He leaned over and kissed her softly. “Why did you not tell me?”

“I did not think this would happen.”

“Did you not?” he asked wryly.

Perhaps deep inside, she secretly acknowledged. He had intrigued her from the moment she had spied him on the ship. She had been drawn to him in ways she’d never expected. And tonight she’d received some answers that had been plaguing her.

He was no fool. He was no libertine. He was no user. He had thought she was what she had wanted everyone to think: a courtesan as well as an actress. When he’d discovered she was a virgin, he’d been prepared to stop despite the heat that had drawn them together.

“Do you want to tell me why?” he asked in a lazy, sensuous voice.

She did not have to ask what he meant.

“No,” she said.

“You are not French, are you?”

She moved her head to look into those green eyes that seemed to look straight through her soul. “Why …?”

“You are too at ease with the language, even for an actress,” he said. “You grew up with English.”

“I grew up in France,” she corrected him.

“But of English parents?”

“I had an English mother,” she admitted even as she wondered why she was giving him that information. But she seemed as powerless now as she had been an hour ago when she brought him to her bed.

“Tell me about your mother.”

She thought it a curious question, but then she realized that it was an opening into her life, into her mind.

“There is nothing to tell,” she said. “She died several years ago.”

“And your father?”

She stiffened. “My mother had many lovers.”

“Is that how you play the …”

“Whore so well?” she finished for him.

“Never that,” he said, his hand tightening around hers.

“I am an actress,” she said, again avoiding a direct answer.

“But to what end?”

“I might ask the same,” she said.

“I am but a poor American trying to make my way in the wilds of English aristocracy,” he replied with amusement.

“You want something from Stanhope.”

“I want a successful business arrangement. I need funds to rebuild an indebted estate.”

“Have you been there?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “It’s in dismal condition.”

“But you care deeply about it?”

“It’s my heritage.”

“Why do I not believe you?”

“I have no idea, Miss Fremont,” he said. “Perhaps because we are both accomplished liars.”

“Then you admit …”

“Admit what?”

“That you are a fraud.”

“On the contrary. I am indeed the Marquess of Manchester, impoverished long-lost heir.”

“I have heard tales of a scandal.”

“Have you, now?”

“Your father …”

“My father was accused of selling shoddy goods to the army,” he said. “He was disowned by my grandfather. Quite fortunately, though, the estate was entailed, and he could not keep me from getting it. He did bankrupt it, though, possibly to make it useless to the heir of the son who disgraced him. There is little but debt and land that produces little in income.”

“And you need income.”

“Any way I can get it,” he said. “Stanhope made me an offer that can triple my funds. Quickly.”

“And you trust him?”

“Do you?”

She hesitated. Should she warn him? “I have heard he is not entirely honest in his dealings.”

“And that is the kind of man you want as a protector? Or,” he said, “you have a different game in mind?”

She wanted to tell him. Dear Mother in Heaven, she wanted to tell him. But he had made it clear that he intended to press his business with Stanhope, and she would be giving him a means to win Stanhope’s confidence.

He wouldn’t use it.

She knew that in her bones.

Yet part of her could not give him that knowledge. Only one other person in the world knew. And that was Dani.

She didn’t know this man. She only knew that she was terribly susceptible to him, and that he clouded her mind and judgment. She needed to think before telling him any more.

Her hand touched the small blond tendrils on his chest, then went to his neck. She snuggled into his arms and her lips found his as their bodies came together again.

This time she knew what to expect. She was sore, but the craving inside her was even more compelling. He entered slowly, carefully, at first, then thrust deeper with the same urgency she felt.

She’d thought she knew what to expect, but …

This time they whirled together in a feverish dance toward a destination she now wanted above all, only to find it more spectacular, more magnificent than before. Bursts of wonder and thunderous waves of pleasure swept through her like a great tidal wave until she could bear no more. Exquisite quivers filled her as together they drifted back to earth.

And she rested in his arms. Contented now.

She closed her eyes.

No more questions tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow she could force answers. And perhaps … she could offer some.

Perhaps.

Stanhope prepared for the weekend at his estate with the same meticulous attention he paid to everything.

He had paid Lynch enough to secure his releasing Monique that weekend. He had not yet received her reply, but she would come. He knew it. She wanted what he could offer.

Manchester had already accepted.

Both Stammel and Daven would be there, as would twenty other gentlemen of the ton, along with eight of their wives. He’d had regrets from others, but he would overlook the slights. For the moment.

He planned a hunt and entertainments, including dancing. He would dazzle Monique with the estate and its fine gardens, with his guests, with his wealth. And he would claim the bet. He intended to take her to bed. He also planned to spring the trap on the new marquess who irritated him for no particular reason. He would make it clear that he needed a substantial deposit on the shipping contract.

And after he had the man’s signature and funds, he would see that Manchester disappeared. Stanhope didn’t see the marquess as a threat. But he did not like loose ends, and Manchester was exactly that. He could rewrite events long since forgotten.

And something about the marquess nagged at him. He did not care for that kind of nagging.

Monique Fremont also was a puzzle. A much more attractive one to be sure, but a puzzle all the same. There was something familiar about her, and he kept thinking that he should know her.

At the same time he was quite sure he would have remembered a woman with her charm and talent. He just wasn’t sure of her motives, though. She did not even pretend an attraction to him, even as she had coldly set out her terms for an arrangement. Why the three of them? Why three men known to be business partners?

There were no rumors of other men, although Manchester, again, was an irritant. He seemed to be around her entirely too often.

Yet he was paying court to Pamela, and his daughter, surprisingly, had few objections. That made him suspicious as well. Pamela had always been compliant, but he did not like the docility with which she approached the prospect of Manchester as a husband.

And lastly, money was missing from his safe. The only people who had access to his home—other than servants—were his business partners. There had been the soiree, of course, but he had checked his safe the next morning and everything had been in place.

Stammel? Daven?

Would either dare?

Only if one were desperate.

For one of the few times in his life, he thought events might be spiraling out of control. He could remember only two other times. One was when sailors survived a ship that was meant to sink. They lived to tell of shoddy construction and a cargo of stones rather than muskets.

Fortunately, he seldom took chances. In case of just such an eventuality, he had forged one of his partners’ names to all the documents. Stanhope had been properly contrite, regretful that he had any part in such a despicable action.

Manchester’s father received the blame, and conveniently killed himself before suspicion could be turned elsewhere.

Stanhope had planned that the son follow the father’s footsteps.

But now he was beginning to wonder whether the course was the wisest one. It might be best if the bloody man died on the road, victim of a bandit. And sooner rather than later.

Monique rose lazily and reached out for him.

Her body was sore, and yet she felt quite grand.

She had reached out earlier, found him lying next to her, his eyes on her. She couldn’t see what was in them, but his hands were gentle as they touched her.

He did not try to make love again, but she relished the feel of his body next to hers, and she drifted back into the sleep.

Now she searched and he wasn’t in bed, nor in the room.

She rose. The sun was high in the sky. She wondered how late it was. Where had he gone? She rang the bell.

Dani was there almost immediately, a gleam in her eyes. Her lips were in a rare smile.

“You look different,” she said.

“Do I?”

“Oui. So did my lord.” The smile spread.

“Where is he?”

“He said he had business. He left you a note.” Dani handed it to Monique. “He is a handsome man, non?”

Monique knew she was reddening. Her face felt warm. Just as the rest of her. And yet she also felt deserted. No farewell. No parting kiss.

She took the piece of parchment and read it.

Monique—

Thank you for a memorable evening. I regret I had to leave early, but I had unavoidable business and I did not want to wake you. If I can ever come to your assistance, please contact me.

Gabriel

She felt her face grow even warmer as the full impact of the message struck her. Curt. Indifferent. Please contact me, indeed. When it snowed in hell.

“What is it?” Dani said, looking alarmed.

Monique passed the note over to her, watched her face as she read it. “This does not sound like him,” Dani said. “He is not a cruel man.”

“Well, we misjudged him,” Monique said. “I knew …” her voice trailed off, and she fought back rare tears. Of rage, she told herself.

She had given herself to him because …

Because he had appeared gentle and tender and … drat it, she had wanted him. She had never known that lust came to women as well as to men. Lust. That was all it had been. On both their parts. She had just justified her lapse as something else, something …

She would know better in the future.

She had almost, for a moment, forgotten why she had come to London.

Monique turned to Dani. “It is time to accept Lord Stanhope’s invitation.”