The weeks and months that followed the wedding ceremony fell into a curious pattern. Ostensibly, Gabrielle was Cam’s duchess, the chatelaine and mistress of Dunraeden. In point of fact, she was still a prisoner, and her movements curtailed by Cam’s order to an unnerving degree. Though a stranger coming among them would have observed nothing amiss, Gabrielle was never comfortable and excruciatingly aware of the guards who manned the castle walls and entrances. Cam gave out that they were posted to watch the Channel for the approach of an invasion fleet. Gabrielle tested the truth of that statement by slipping away to the chapel one evening when the guards were changing and their vigilance was relaxed. Within half an hour the alarm was given. In less time than that her hiding place was discovered.
“The pulpit screen?” Cam drawled, studying his wife laconically from beneath raised brows.
“Certainly,” said Gabrielle. “Carvings are my hobby. The woodwork in your chapel is exquisite. I could not resist taking a closer look. I trust I was not trespassing?” And she met his eyes boldly.
“Trespassing?” murmured Cam, and patted her carelessly on the cheek. “My dear, how can you trespass? This is your home. You are free to come and go as you please. But in these dangerous times, it is more prudent to keep me informed of your movements. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” said Gabrielle, biting back the spate of curses she longed to fling in his smiling face.
In this exchange, Cam was following the pattern which he had followed since the night of their hastily contrived marriage. On the surface, all was serene and untroubled. Not an uncivil word passed his lips. But behind that chilly and safe politeness, Gabrielle sensed that dangerous, unpredictable emotions were barely held in check.
For all his civility, she was still afraid of him in a way that she had never been afraid of anyone in her life. When she tried to analyze her feelings, she came no nearer to discovering why this should be so. In the months that she had been at Dunraeden, there had been no overt threats to her person. On the contrary, the Englishman had treated her with deference and had seemed to go out of his way to ensure that everything was done to make her stay a comfortable one. And if Betsy and Lord Lansing were to be believed, the man was a paragon of every virtue imaginable.
Both had proved to have a fund of stories and anecdotes about her captor. She’d listened to them in silence and with something like suspended belief. It was impossible to recognize the warm, attractive character they portrayed in the cold, unfeeling man she knew. The change had come upon him, so she was given to understand, in that failed attempt, when he’d gone to France as a young man of nineteen summers, to rescue his mother and sister. Gabrielle drew her own conclusions. Having lost his mother and sister to the Revolution, he hated everything remotely French.
She could see it in his eyes when they touched upon her, in the way he stiffened when she came into a room. There was violence there, the look of a lean and hungry caged tiger. It was a relief when she became conscious that he was deliberately keeping his distance. Fortunately, there seemed to be much to occupy him in and around Dunraeden.
Her own days were no less busy. The Englishman had taken it into his head that she was to play the part of his duchess and chatelaine as if their marriage had been genuine instead of a sham to mislead his enemies. When she had demanded, frigidly, why she should put herself to so much trouble when her stay at Dunraeden was to be of short duration, he had shrugged negligently and remarked that it was what everyone expected.
With irrefutable logic, he had added, “To do anything less would not only occasion gossip, but might also create a climate of antagonism toward you, that is, if you persist in flaunting your antipathy to the situation in which we find ourselves.”
Inwardly, she was forced to concede that he spoke no less than the truth. Only the Englishman and Lord Lansing knew all the circumstances surrounding her abduction and incarceration at Dunraeden. To the servants, she was the most fortunate of girls. Having stolen her out of France, their master had bestowed his name and tide upon her. They could not conceive, now, that she would wish to escape her fate. And if His Grace set guards to watch over her and never permitted her to go beyond Dunraeden’s walls, it was done with the best will in the world. For who could say what those dastardly French might not attempt to have her back in their clutches? And she was known to be careless about her own safety, as the episode in the chapel had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. For the moment Gabrielle had their sympathies. They may have had their suspicions that the marriage was not a love match, but since their master, by their lights, had done right by her, they expected Gabrielle to reciprocate. It was for these reasons, she persuaded herself, that she conceded to the Englishman’s wishes.
By degrees she became more comfortable with everyone at Dunraeden, with the exception of its master. The servants offered a deferential friendliness and Lord Lansing and Betsy hovered over her like a pair of swans with a lone cygnet. Sometimes she had to forcibly remind herself that, in spite of appearances, she was a prisoner with a different life awaiting her once she was returned to France.
As one month slipped into the next with no word of when she would be released, she began to think more seriously of an escape attempt, though the enterprise seemed doomed to failure. Even if she managed to escape Dunraeden’s walls, she was left with the problem of how to make her way across the Channel. The only answer that came to her was that she should stow away on some vessel bound for France. She knew there were smugglers in the area. Lansing had let slip that the warren of caves along the cliffs was a known rendezvous. And it was possible that the French contrebandiers themselves crossed the Channel to Cornwall. Gabrielle decided that it was foolish not to explore every avenue of escape should the opportunity ever present itself.
As it turned out, she soon perceived the advantages of pursuing her role as Dunraeden’s chatelaine. Not only was the boredom that had begun to set in during her first weeks of captivity kept at bay, but under Betsy’s tutelage she became familiar with every room and cellar, every stick of furniture, every piece of string and scrap of paper that fell to her domain. Regrettably, however, she did not have the run of the place. The armory was off limits, and the Englishman himself kept the key to that interesting locked door. Nothing daunted, Gabrielle made capital of what she regarded as a fatal blunder in the Englishman’s strategy. She began to hoard anything that might assist her to escape. In the space of several weeks the cache she had hidden under the mattress in her chamber came to comprise one blunt carving knife and a set of boy’s clothes. When a long coil of hemp rope finally came into her possession, she decided that it was time to put the first part of her plan to the test. Escape was not yet her object. At this point, it was enough if she could make it to the other side of her prison walls.
She chose her moment with care. Over her months of confinement she had become aware that the Englishman did not spend every night within the castle walls. Long after she had retired to her bed, she could hear the low murmur of voices as he dismissed his valet in the adjoining room. Shortly afterward, she heard his footfalls as he let himself out of his chamber and went stealthily along the corridor. He returned just before dawn. It never once entered Gabrielle’s head that Cam was stealing away to meet with a woman. She knew him for a spy. It was to be expected, she thought, that spies would be involved in clandestine meetings under cover of darkness.
She was beginning to despair that the Englishman had given up his nocturnal activities, so long a time had slipped by since he had last spent the night away from Dunraeden. But her patience was finally rewarded.
They’d had words one afternoon for the first time in an age, and Gabrielle was lying awake, staring into space, retracing in her mind the substance of their heated exchange. It had begun when she’d been called to the library and instructed to copy a letter to her grandfather that the Englishman had already set down. There was nothing new in this. At regular intervals her letters were carried to Mascaron, proof that she was alive and well and still in her abductors’ power. This time she balked.
“It’s more than two months since you brought me here,” she said as she wrote the date at the top of the page.
“What of it?” asked Cam, propping one hip against the desk and folding his arms across his chest.
Gabrielle’s eyes brushed over him and slid away. She had never denied that the Englishman was a handsome creature. It was almost inevitable, given her blondness, that his dark good looks would find more favor in her eyes than Lord Lansing’s fairness. He had the build of an athlete or a warrior, lean and well muscled. She could appreciate that, that and the tests of endurance she knew were necessary to produce such sleek strength. As a prime specimen of masculinity, she gave him his due. But she had no difficulty in detesting the ironic slant to his sensual mouth, the baiting glint that flickered at the back of those intelligent blue eyes, and most of all, the air of condescension he adopted when there was no one present to observe how he dealt with her.
“How much longer am I to remain at Dunraeden?” she demanded.
He tipped her chin up with one long finger. “What? Bored with my company already, Angel? And you only a bride of two months?”
She shook herself free of him. “I’m your prisoner,” she stated unequivocally.
“Prisoner?” He feigned incredulity. “You’re my duchess. You have the run of the place. You want for nothing.” His voice changed color, became darker, harsher. “Do you know how many women would give everything they possess to be in your shoes?”
“Duchess!” She spat the word as if it were the foulest oath she could think of. “I have no interest in being your duchess.”
His teeth snapped together. “No. And for a very good reason. The task is beyond you.”
An angry flush heated her cheeks. “I’m as good as you are,” she declared.
His lips curved in a sneer. “If the height of your ambition is to be the match of any man, then by all means, let us agree that there are few to equal you. But as a real woman you leave much to be desired on all counts.”
She shook her head slightly. What she had meant to say was that by birth she was his equal. His words gave her thoughts a new direction. “I wear the clothes you choose for me. I watch my language. Lord Lansing says my manners and deportment are irreproachable. I’ve accepted the role you’ve set for me. What more do you want?” Her throat worked convulsively, and she did not know why his scorn should matter to her.
“What more should I want?” He had risen to his feet and was towering over her. She didn’t like the set of his jaw, didn’t trust the storm in his eyes. “From you, I want nothing. How could I?” His eyes swept over her, insulting, damning. “You’re just a child playing at being grown up. Now write that letter like a good little girl.”
Shamed, trembling, furious at the injustice of his venom, she pulled herself to her feet. In the months since she had been held at Dunraeden, she had been a veritable pattern card of propriety, the epitome of respectability, her manners, her language, her deportment faultless to a degree. In that moment it struck her forcibly that, inexplicably, and against all reason, she had been trying to win the Englishman’s esteem. His words, his whole demeanor convinced her that the task was hopeless. She was an object of ridicule and was sorry that she had ever put herself to so much trouble. Mortification converted to a heedless anger. Caution was thrown to the winds. She wanted only to show him how little she cared for his good opinion.
Casting around in her mind for the vilest, most shocking curse word of her extensive vocabulary, she finally said, “Write your own f—ing letter.” She hoped that the English word she’d picked up from his crew on their flight from Normandy was as coarse as any she knew in her native tongue.
He bared his teeth in a ferocious grin. Before she could push past him, he had grabbed her by the shoulders. “I’ll wager you never use such language in Lansing’s hearing. Is it just he who brings out the female in you? You are a woman, I suppose, Gabrielle? You can feel like other women, can’t you? D’you think I don’t know that you reserve all your smiles and soft words for him?” He administered a rough shake. “By God, you’re my wife! You’d better not be giving him what you’re refusing me.”
Shocked, she stared at him, not knowing what to make of this outburst. His hands dropped from her shoulders and he spun away from her. His fingers combed through his dark hair.
“For God’s sake, get out of here!” he said savagely. “Just get out of here before I do something we’ll both regret.”
She didn’t need a second telling. Rashly, she had opened the door to the tiger’s cage. She lifted her skirts and fled.
Gabrielle kept to her chamber for the remainder of the evening, too shaken to attempt to pass off what had taken place in the library as if it were of no moment. By turns weepy and blazing with anger, she paced back and forth in front of the great tester bed, venting her displeasure by shredding a silk stocking she’d left carelessly lying on the floor. She twisted it in knots, wishing all the while that she could do as much to the Englishman’s thick head.
“As a woman, on all counts, you leave much to be desired,” she muttered under her breath, mimicking Cam’s voice exactly. “You’re just a child playing at being grown up,” she repeated, and savagely twisted the stocking in her hand. She felt a stab of satisfaction as she heard it rend. She threw it from her in disgust and stalked to the long cheval mirror.
The girl who looked back at her was as unexceptional as any she had known in the salons of Paris. It was all so unjust. She’d given her very best effort to being a woman. Lord Lansing did not find fault with her. Why on God’s earth did the Englishman have to be so beyond pleasing? She was sure she did not care.
“Is it just Lansing who brings out the female in you?” Now what the devil did he mean by that? She was a female, wasn’t she? Couldn’t he see that she had breasts and long hair?
The girl in the mirror brushed her hands over her breasts, then shook out her long mane of tresses. They fell about her shoulders in voluptuous abandon. The Englishman was blind, Gabrielle decided viciously. She was sure she was no different from any other female. Or perhaps there was more to being a female than she’d ever dreamed. She had always suspected as much. She thought of Louise Pelletier and the Englishman’s words came back to her. Now there’s a woman who knows how to be a woman.
Again she assured herself she did not care. She was sorry that she’d ever taken into her head to pass herself off as something to which she could never aspire. She took that thought to bed with her and between bouts of weeping persuaded herself that she was very happy to be exactly as she was—though she could not say with any certainty what she was exactly.
It was a long time before she heard the Englishman move about in his own chamber. When he dismissed his valet, she stirred and pulled herself to her elbows. Moments later, a knock came on the adjoining door.
“Gabrielle?”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“Gabrielle?” His voice was louder, more insistent.
She held her breath. After a moment’s silence, she could hear him cursing softly on the other side of the door.
Evidently, it was one of those nights she’d been waiting for, one of those nights when he was engaged in his clandestine activities. But where before he had moved about with stealth, now he slammed around his room as if he wished to waken the dead. He was angry, and that made her smile.
She waited a good half hour after she heard him stomp along the corridor before she stirred from her bed. Within minutes she had donned the boy’s garb and had the coil of rope draped over one shoulder and under one arm. Though she was as nervous as a thoroughbred, she could not help grinning when she saw herself in the looking glass. This was the Gabrielle de Brienne she recognized. She wished the Englishman could see her now. Female, she snorted. I’ll give him female. And she snuffed out the candles one by one.
As a matter of course, she tried both doors to her chamber. As always, she was locked in for the night. She padded to the window and cautiously eased herself over the sill and onto a narrow stone ledge that she had previously observed ran the length of the west wall. By ill luck or design, the window of her chamber overlooked the bailey. It was necessary to get to one of the towers before she could lower her rope over an outside wall. With slow, agonizing steps, her back pressed hard against the wall, she inched her way to the west tower. Far below, in the uncertain light of the few pitch torches, she could just make out the shadowy figures of men moving about in the bailey. She was still for some few minutes, but not one of them thought to check the sheer-faced walls.
Her worst moment came when she lowered herself over the tower ramparts. Gabrielle had always had the agility of a monkey, but either her ribs had not healed properly or the inactive life of a lady had made her as weak as a kitten. As she strained against the rope she felt the pull on every muscle and bone in her body. She could not take the chance that, having reached the rocks below, she would be able to haul herself up again. Recognizing that what she needed was more practice, she contented herself with hanging in midair, her feet braced against the wall.
Over the next several weeks she scarcely saw the Englishman for more than a few minutes at a time. He was up with the dawn and rarely returned before she had retired to bed. Lord Lansing explained, rather apologetically, that the Englishman’s estates were extensive and that he spent the better part of each day visiting tenants and overseeing some project of an experimental nature.
The arrangement suited Gabrielle admirably. She had no more desire for the Englishman’s company than he had for hers. And if Betsy and Dunraeden’s other servants (who had a very romantic turn of mind) were somewhat disappointed at this lack of devotion on their master’s part to his new bride, she herself was vastly pleased. The pity of it was, he did not stay away all night long.
For whatever reason, those stealthy nocturnal excursions had ceased altogether, and she had given up depending on the Englishman to oblige her by spending his nights away from home. As it was evident to her that she would never make it to the other side of the castle ramparts unless she submitted her body daily to some vigorous form of exercise, she had decided that she must be the one to take up nocturnal rambling. The Englishman never suspected what she was up to, and as the days slipped into weeks, she tested herself to the limits of her endurance. Gradually her former strength and agility returned. Only one thing occasioned her some disquietude. Fresh calluses began to form on her palms. During the daylight hours she was careful to keep her hands covered or hidden, and every night she conscientiously smoothed them with Betsy’s miraculous salve. No one remarked upon them.
She was beginning to feel increasingly confident of her ability to control her own destiny. It showed unbeknownst to Gabrielle, in the small secretive smile that curved her lips whenever her eyes came to rest on Cam. Soon she would be beyond his power, she thought. Nothing could stop her.
But then he found her with Lansing. And everything changed.
Lord Lansing was not in love with Gabrielle, no matter what Cam might have conjectured, but he was devoted to her, and moved by her unhappy plight. He had never been in favor of using an innocent pawn in the dangerous game in which Cam was engaged. And having met Gabrielle, and having come to understand something of her circumstances, he was more sorry than ever that he had not been more vigorous in dissuading his friend from the course on which they had embarked.
It had never been his intention to stay on at Dunraeden. He was a young man, and single to boot. The fleshpots of London held an allure for him that any gentleman of his acquaintance would have condoned. But when he thought of leaving Gabrielle to fend for herself with only Cam for company, he could not bring himself to do it. He knew his friend to be reserved, but in Cam’s manner with Gabrielle he had detected a callousness that troubled him greatly. On several occasions he had tried to broach the subject of Gabrielle with Cam, only to be met by cold stares and short rejoinders that amounted to a warning to let sleeping dogs lie. The Duchess of Dyson was one subject on which, he was given to understand, her husband refused to be drawn.
Duchess! Lansing never thought of Gabrielle as Cam’s duchess. She was Gabrielle de Brienne, an innocent hostage who had been cruelly wrenched from everything that was dear to her. And as one week slipped into the next, it began to be borne in upon him that to return Gabrielle to her former life as if nothing had happened was no longer possible. In France, it was generally presumed that she had drowned. How was it possible, then, to return her to Mascaron without occasioning suspicion? At the very least, the girl would be ruined.
True, Cam had wed her out of hand for his own purposes. But the marriage was to be dissolved when Gabrielle’s usefulness was at an end. For all Cam’s reticence in discussing Gabrielle’s future, it had gradually become evident to Lansing that his friend had no tendre for the girl. His liaison with his mistress continued unabated, though to be sure, he had belatedly begun to exercise a modicum of discretion now that he was promoting the fiction that he was a married man. In Lansing’s opinion, there was only one thing to be done. Since Cam seemed intent on having the marriage annulled, some other eligible gentleman must be found who would step into the breach. And since he was one of the perpetrators of her abduction, his own conscience constrained him to make the supreme sacrifice.
Such were Lansing’s thoughts as he wandered through state rooms and private apartments in search of Gabrielle. She had deserted her usual haunts. One of the footmen directed him to the tower chamber that she had once occupied. He found her alone, seated at one of the window embrasures, looking out to the English Channel and beyond. In her white muslin gown with its green satin ribbons she looked as fragile as the first snowdrop of spring. Lost in private reflection, she was not aware of his presence until he said her name. The face she turned up to him before she had the presence of mind to school her features into a semblance of welcome was hauntingly beautiful, thought Lansing, and achingly sad.
“Thinking of home?” he quizzed, accepting the place she indicated on the window seat beside her.
Home. For days past she had thought of little else but Normandy. A plethora of unrelated thoughts continually chased themselves through her head. She wondered where old Roland, the leader of the local contrebandiers, was getting his supply of Calvados. She thought of Goliath constantly, and wondered how he was passing the hours he had formerly devoted to improving her swordplay. Mascaron she could not remember with anything resembling equanimity. And at the recollection of Rollo as she had last seen him, handsome and debonair in his dress regimentals, a lump would invariably form in her throat. It was best not to think of home at all, she was coming to realize.
“One of our dairy maids was to have been married the very week I was brought here,” she offered at length.
“And that makes you unhappy?”
“No. Why should it? I’m very happy for her. Minette snared a young man, one of our gardeners, whom all the girls were mad for.”
“I see,” said Lansing, his eyes regarding her thoughtfully.
Gabrielle’s fingers were busily smoothing the ends of the green satin ribbons that adorned her frock. “How was it done, I wonder?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Minette.” Gabrielle’s huge eyes were turned upon him.
As green as grass, thought Lansing inconsequentially, and forced himself to concentrate on what she was saying.
“Even Rollo was partial to her.” She waited a little breathlessly and then continued, “He said that Minette was a real woman. What…what did he mean, I wonder?”
With the greatest difficulty, Lansing swallowed a chortle of laughter. It was a moment before he could bring himself to say, with a semblance of gravity, “I expect the girl was a bit of a flirt, ’tis all.”
“Flirt!” exclaimed Gabrielle, her tone disparaging. “I don’t like flirting!” She was remembering Cam’s kiss at the Château de Vrigonde. Just thinking about it made her go hot all over.
“Not like flirting!” Lansing was caught between laughter and shock. “My dear girl, in our society, flirting is de rigueur. It’s an accomplishment of which every well-bred gentleman and lady should know the rudiments, to say the least.”
She considered his words carefully. “D’you mean like pistol shooting and fencing and so on?”
Though his lips twitched, he managed in a neutral tone, “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“And…and might one improve with practice?”
“Of course.”
Her smile was by turns dubious, tremulous, and finally dazzling. “Oh Simon,” she breathed. “Could you, would you, be my tutor?”
Simon shrugged off a fleeting unease. There could be no harm in it. Cam, Lansing was persuaded, was too wise, too sensible, too urbane to resent this innocent game of dalliance. Besides, Cam was not here.
“I’d be delighted,” he said, smiling.
Gabrielle sighed, turned up her head and pursed her lips. Her eyes were closed.
Lansing’s smile deepened. “Oh that kind of flirting,” he said, chuckling. “Gabrielle, haven’t you ever been kissed before?”
She opened her eyes. “Yes, but I didn’t like it.”
“Not like kissing? Why that is positively…tragic! Here, let me show you how nice it can be.”
His hands closed around her arms. “Come closer,” he said softly.
She leaned into him, and trustingly angled her head back.
His lips, as cool as melting snow, brushed over hers in the faintest caress.
He pulled back slightly. “Open your mouth for me,” he muttered.
“I wouldn’t advise it!”
Cam’s voice from the threshold cut the silence like the crack of a pistol shot. The couple on the window seat separated with a guilty start. When Cam slammed into the chamber, they both shot to their feet.
“Cam, what you are doing here?” said Lansing. “I thought you were inspecting the beacons along the cliff.”
Cam smiled unpleasantly. “That would explain this cozy tête-à-tête.”
Taken aback by his friend’s hostile demeanor, Lansing stared at Cam. Recovering quickly, he exclaimed, “Oh no! Cam, you’ve got it all wrong! I was merely instructing Gabrielle in the finer points of flirting. You know, for when she goes into society.”
He glanced uneasily at Gabrielle, who was affecting an interest in the strings of her white kid shoes. Cam’s eyes, he noted, were riveted on his wife. Lansing was beginning to get the picture. He would have laughed out loud if he had not been so acutely aware of the jeopardy in which he stood. Preserving a grave face, he offered generously, “Well, now that you’re here, Cam, perhaps you wouldn’t mind going on with the lessons?”
He looked from Cam to Gabrielle. He might not have existed for all the attention they paid to him. He cleared his throat. “I’ll be toddling along then.” He waited.
Silence.
Lansing made an elegant bow to Gabrielle, shrugged negligently, and sauntered from the room.
It was a moment before Cam spoke. “Flirting?” he said, and moved closer.
Gabrielle’s chin lifted. He was close enough so that she could see that his eyes were not of a uniform color. Chips of a lighter blue ringed the irises. She wondered fleetingly if she was observing the phenomenon that the English called “sparks flying.” She sensed that the Englishman was in a very unpleasant humor.
“He was teaching me how to be a real woman,” she explained in her own defense.
If anything the specks around his irises grew brighter. “A real woman,” he repeated between his teeth. “What does that mean, precisely?”
“You know.” She could not sustain his hard scrutiny, and glanced longingly at the half-open door.
“Refresh my memory, if you would be so kind.”
“It’s what you said.” She chanced a quick look at him. “You said I should become more like Louise.”
Her answer seemed to floor him. “Did I say that?”
She nodded.
“You want to become a real woman?”
She was conscious that there was a change in him. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought that she read tenderness in his expression. “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Perhaps the task is beyond me. I’ve only had one lesson.”
“Those lessons should come more properly from a husband,” said Cam softly. “You’ll come to me if you want to know anything.”
Gabrielle eyed him doubtfully. “Would you teach me how to be a real woman?”
Cam sucked in his breath and exhaled slowly. Smiling, he said, “My dear, what else are husbands for? It shall be my pleasure.”
He moved closer. “Now where were you with Simon? Oh, yes, now I remember.” He grinned lazily. “Open your mouth for me.”
Gabrielle felt his hands cup her shoulders. His touch jolted her. The heat of his body seemed to be overwhelming her. She began to have second thoughts. “I don’t think…”
“Easy. Doucement,” whispered Cam. “This won’t hurt a bit. I promise.”
His lips, warm, strangely compelling, feathered along the arch of her eyebrows, her eyelids, heating her skin wherever they touched. He seemed to be fascinated with her chin, enthralled with her earlobes, charmed with the curve of her cheek, the slope of her throat. Gabrielle’s lips followed his, trying to connect with them.
“Please,” she whispered.
When he gave into her, his kiss was as soft as swansdown, as gentle as a summer breeze.
It was Cam who pulled back. “How was it?”
Gabrielle’s eyelashes slowly fluttered open. She crowded a little closer. “Nice,” she said. “Am I doing it right?”
Cam murmured something indistinct before taking her lips again. This time his kiss was hot and sweetly erotic. She felt as if she were floating, and clutched the lapels of his coat as her head began to spin. He took her deeper. The sensation resembled the one she had experienced before she learned to swim, when she had stepped into deep water. She was being sucked into dark turbulent depths. She clung to Cam as if he were her lifeline.
He only meant to taste and savor, Cam told himself. And yet as the kiss lingered he had to fight to hang onto his control. For weeks, months, he had struggled against his own devils. Gabrielle had become an obsession with him. Over and over he’d told himself that she was out of bounds, that there were a score of cogent reasons for him to keep his distance. He could not even explain her attraction. But of one thing he was never in any doubt. She had spoiled him for other women.
Louise sensed that there was something amiss, had hinted coyly that she suspected him of taking up with other women. He’d found excuses not to visit her. A pall had fallen over what had formerly been a most satisfactory arrangement. His mistress was an undeniably sensual creature. It wasn’t her fault that her skillful, practiced lovemaking left him longing for the unawakened passion of one innocent girl. Gabrielle. She wanted to be a real woman. To him she was the original Eve, mysterious, dangerous, an ingenuous siren, a scarlet angel. His mind, soul, senses were filled with her. She was his obsession, and he was done with fighting the inexorable magnetism that drew him to her.
His fingers dug into her hair, holding her steady as his lips sank into hers. He’d wanted women before, but never like this. He wanted her with a desperation that shocked him. If he’d found her with any other man than Simon, there was no question in his mind but that he would have resorted to brute force. She was his. He would make it so. The kiss became rougher, more urgent, and his need to possess began to spiral out of control.
It was Gabrielle’s first taste of physical desire. Some of the symptoms she had experienced before—the shortness of breath, the erratic heartbeat, the pounding in her ears. Danger. Her sixth sense came into play. He was the enemy. She should be taking to her heels. But all through her body she could feel a curious urge to surrender. Aroused, confused, afraid of the unfamiliar sensations that were heating her blood, sensitizing her skin, she moved restlessly in his arms. Small animal cries of distress caught at the back of her throat.
Cam lifted his head. Her green eyes were cloudy with desire. He knew he could take her very easily. He hadn’t even touched her in any way that counted. And he could feel her arousal in every pore of his body. But he could also sense her panic. It was that more than anything, that helped him find the strength to check the impulse to savage her lips and crush her warm willing body to his until she surrendered everything to him. It was too soon to take her the way he wanted.
Summoning the remnants of his control, he took a step back. He managed a laugh, but even to his own ears it sounded shaky. He didn’t like what she was doing to him. Calm. Restraint. Finesse. He had to search to find his habitual balance. He gave her a moment to come to herself.
“For a novice, you did remarkably well.” His tone was as matter-of-fact as he could make it.
She touched her fingers to her burning lips. The fear had faded, Cam noted, and she gazed at him with something like awe.
“With a little pratice, you’ll be quite proficient,” Cam observed.
The look of awe changed to a look of horror. And still she said nothing.
Desire had receded, and Cam felt more in command of himself. “Oh yes,” he said quietly, brushing one finger over her swollen lips. “We’re not finished with each other, Gabrielle. Not by a long shot.”