A future without Gabriel.
Her fingers faltered. The half-braided strand of hair slipped through her hands. She could no longer deny the truth. Her work here was done. Gabriel had no further need of her. He was back where he belonged—in the loving arms of his family.
Climbing down from the bed, she went to the armoire and dragged out her battered leather portmanteau. She propped it open beside the bed before unlatching the lid of her trunk.
She never thought she’d wax nostalgic over the ugly serges and sensible wool stockings she’d been wearing since arriving at Fairchild Park, but suddenly she wanted nothing more than to bury her face in them and weep. Gently easing them aside, she fished out a single clean chemise and petticoat and tucked them into the portmanteau along with a slim volume of Marlowe’s poetry. She was about to close the trunk when a creamy corner of stationery caught her eye.
Gabriel’s letters.
She had tried to bury them so deep they would never surface. Yet here they were again, as compelling and irresistible as they had been on the day they were received.
Samantha tugged the ribbon-bound bundle into her hands, letting the trunk fall shut. She moved to sit on the side of the bed, running her fingertips over paper so worn from repeated handling that it threatened to crumble beneath her touch. She could imagine Gabriel caressing the fine linen with his strong hands, weighing each word as if it were gold.
She knew she would hate herself later, but she could not resist loosening the ribbon that bound them. Just as she was unfolding the first letter and holding it up to the light of the tallow candle that burned on the table next to her bed, a knock sounded on the door.
Samantha jumped to her feet with a guilty start. She frantically scanned the room, then kicked the portmanteau under the bed. She was halfway to the door before she remembered the letters clutched in her hand.
The knock came again, its impatient edge unmistakable.
“One moment, please!” she cried out before rushing back to the bed and shoving the letters under the mattress.
She swung open the door to find Gabriel standing there, garbed only in a dressing gown of forest-green silk. Before she could utter a word, he reached for her. Cupping her face in his hands, he swept his tongue into her mouth, kissing her with a fierce tenderness that stole her breath away. By the time he dragged his lips away from hers, she was dizzy with desire.
“And a good evening to you, too, my lord,” she whispered, still swaying on her feet.
Pushing her aside, Gabriel charged into the room. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it.
“What is it?” Samantha cast the door a worried glance. “Are you being pursued by barbarian hordes?”
“Worse. It’s my family.” He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “They’ve settled into the mansion like a flock of pigeons. I thought I was never going to elude them. Do you know how hard it is to sneak past someone you can’t see?”
Thankful that he also couldn’t see her swollen eyes and the tear stains on her cheeks, she said lightly, “According to Dr. Gilby, you won’t have to worry about that much longer, will you?”
He shook his head as if he still couldn’t quite comprehend his good fortune. “Amazing, isn’t it? But do you want to know the most astonishing thing of all?” He reached for her again, his seeking hand closing around her slender wrist. “When Dr. Gilby told me that I would make a full recovery, I realized the thing I wanted to see most in the world was your sweet face.”
Samantha turned that face away from him. “I fear you might be sorely disappointed.”
“That’s quite impossible.” All traces of humor disappeared from his voice, leaving it curiously somber. “You could never disappoint me.”
Biting her lip, she tugged her wrist from his grasp and moved out of his reach. She was less afraid that he might start kissing her again than of what she might do if he did. “To what do I owe the honor of this rather unconventional visit?”
Gabriel leaned against the door and folded his arms over his chest, his convincing leer sending a delicious shiver down her spine. “Don’t play the innocent with me, Miss Wickersham. I’m hardly the first lord of the manor to sneak into the bedchamber of his most irresistible servant.”
“Wasn’t it you, my lord, who told me you weren’t in the habit of forcing your attentions on the females in your employ?”
Pushing himself away from the door, Gabriel moved toward the sound of her voice with the grace of a prowling panther. “Why would I need force when seduction is so much more effective? And so much more”—his lips caressed the word—“pleasurable.”
Samantha began to back away from him, fearing this more playful Gabriel was even more of a danger to her heart. Yet at the same time, she could not resist joining in the game. “You should know by now that I’m not the sort of woman to be seduced by expensive baubles, a few flowery words, or some extravagant promises made in the heat of the moment. Neither my body nor my heart is so cheaply won.”
As Gabriel’s shadow fell over her, the back of her knees struck the bed. He pressed a hand to her chest, sending her tumbling back into it. Before she could protest, he followed her down, gently cupping her cheek in one of his big hands. “I haven’t any baubles on me at the moment, but what if I promise to make you my wife and love you for the rest of our days?”
Chapter Eighteen
My darling Cecily,
Every minute seems an eternity while I await your reply…
“Have you gone stark raving mad?” Samantha shoved at Gabriel’s chest with enough force to send him tumbling clear off the bed and onto the floor.
He sat up, looking bewildered. “I never realized it was so much safer to propose by letter.”
Bouncing off the bed, Samantha began to pace the small room, her frantic strides reflecting the turmoil in her heart. “Perhaps the blow to your head affected more than your vision, my lord. Perhaps it affected your memory as well. Because you seem to have forgotten that you are an earl—a peer of the realm—while I am a mere servant.”
“What you are, Samantha—”
She whirled around to face him. “Miss Wickersham!”
A half-smile played around his beautifully chiseled lips, only infuriating her further. “What you are, Miss Wickersham, is the woman I adore and intend to make my wife.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “There’s no help for you, then, is there? You’re regaining your sight only to lose your mind.”
“Has it occurred to you that you have no choice but to marry me?”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because I’ve already compromised you. Or have you forgotten?”
She could tell by the challenging set of his mouth that he knew there would be no forgetting the shameless way her body had wept beneath his hand, the shudders of pleasure that had wracked her to the core. She would carry that memory to her grave.
“I release you from any obligation. There’s no reason you should spend the rest of your life paying for a…a foolish indiscretion.”
He arched one tawny eyebrow. “Is that all last night was to you? An indiscretion?”
Unable to come up with a convincing denial, Samantha resumed her pacing. “I’m sure your mother would have been horrified had she known you proposed to that baronet’s daughter. What would she say if you told her you intended to marry your nurse?”
Gabriel reached for the hem of her nightdress as she swept past him, tugging her into his lap. He wrapped his strong arms around her, making any thought of escape impossible. “Why don’t you come with me right now and we’ll find out?”
Her squirming only settled her deeper into his embrace. “You’ll give the poor woman an apoplexy! Why, the news would probably kill her! Or me,” she added grimly.
He laughed. “She really isn’t the dragon she pretends to be. As a matter of fact, when we first met, I noticed a marked similarity in your—”
Samantha clapped a
hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it! Don’t you dare say it!”
Still laughing, Gabriel tugged her hand from his lips. “I’m sure you’ll grow to love her someday.” Both his grip and his voice softened as the sparkle of mischief faded from his eyes, leaving them glowing with a tender light. “After all, she is going to be the grandmother of your children.”
Gabriel’s words slid like a knife into Samantha’s heart, giving her a glimpse into a future she could never share. She blinked back a rush of tears. She might not have tomorrow, but she could have tonight.
“I was wrong,” she whispered.
He frowned. “About what?”
“I am the sort of woman who can be seduced by flowery words and extravagant promises.” Cupping his cheek in her hand, she lifted her face to his.
As Gabriel felt the softness of Samantha’s lips flower beneath his, it was as if a light dawned somewhere in his soul. Curling an arm beneath her hips, he lifted her to the narrow iron bedstead, laying her back among the rumpled sheets.
He knew he should wait until after they were wed. But he’d been waiting so long for this moment—for more than a lifetime, it seemed.
“Wait,” she said, nearly stopping his heart. “I just want to put the candle out.”
He waited until she was back in his arms before murmuring, “I don’t need the candle anyway. All I need is you.”
Finding the hem of her nightdress, Gabriel gently tugged it over her head. In that moment, he felt like a bridegroom. Knowing that Samantha was naked beneath him, that he could spend all night exploring the exquisite treasures of her body, made his mouth go dry and his hands shake with longing.
It had been so long since he’d held a naked woman in his arms. Even before Trafalgar, he’d spent months of self-imposed celibacy longing for Cecily. While the other sailors aboard the Victory had satisfied their cruder urges with harbor prostitutes during their brief stints ashore, he had remained aboard the ship rereading Cecily’s letters. Although his body had burned for release, he had been content to let it smolder while he dreamed of the day when they would be reunited. If he had known that day would never come, he still would have been willing to wait for this moment. For Samantha.
Gabriel unknotted the sash of his dressing gown and shrugged it off of his shoulders, desperate to be skin to skin with her, flesh to flesh. Kissing her as if each kiss would be their last, he glided like raw silk down her body, groaning when his chest encountered the plump softness of her breasts, when his swollen staff brushed the downy curls between her legs. He wanted to bury himself in her right then and there, to seize all the pleasure that had been denied him through those long, lonely months.
But Samantha was no harbor prostitute. She deserved more than a rough-and-tumble coupling. She clutched at his shoulders and moaned in protest when he dragged his mouth away from hers and rolled to her side. There was barely enough room for both of them in the narrow bedstead, but that suited Gabriel just fine. The cozy confines made it that much easier for him to throw one leg over her thigh, to nuzzle her throat while his hand cupped the fullness of one breast. Her nipple was already as ripe as a succulent berry begging to be taken into his mouth.
Eager to please, he did just that—tugging and teasing, suckling and soothing, with his lips and tongue and teeth, until she was arching beneath him, her hands tugging at his hair. A familiar exultation quickened in his veins. He didn’t need his sight for this. Making love to a woman in the dark had always come as naturally to him as breathing.
“I can feel that,” she whispered between panting breaths, sounding both disconcerted and scandalized.
“I should hope so,” he replied, reluctantly lifting his head from her breast. “I wouldn’t want to waste your time.”
“No. I mean…”
Gabriel had the keen sensation that if he could see her face in that moment, it would have been tinted with an adorable blush.
“… down there,” she finished.
He shook his head, a helpless laugh escaping him. “I can promise you that you’re going to feel a lot more than that down there before I’m through with you.”
As if to make good on his promise, he sent his hand gliding over the satin-soft skin of her abdomen. She shivered with anticipation beneath his touch, but he prolonged both the pleasure and the torment by taking his own sweet time exploring the slight curve of her belly, the sensitive hollows just above her hipbones.
By the time his fingers grazed the softness of her nether curls, it took little more than a nudge of his thigh to coax her legs apart, to allow him unfettered access to what lay between them.
“You make me feel like such a wanton,” she confessed, her every breath a sigh of delight. “As if I would do anything for you …with you.”
Gabriel hadn’t believed it possible for him to get any harder than he already was, but as a dizzying array of erotic images flashed through his mind, he realized he was wrong. “I’ll be more than glad to give you a lifetime to prove that.”
“What if we didn’t have a lifetime?” She wrapped her arms around him in a grip that was surprisingly fierce. “What if we only had this moment?”
“Then I wouldn’t squander a single opportunity to do this,” he said, claiming her mouth for an achingly tender kiss. “Or this.” He lowered his lips to her breast, swirling his tongue around her distended nipple. “Or this.” His voice deepened to a groan as he sifted his fingers through her curls, stroking the sleek flesh beneath.
She moaned beneath his touch, a throaty song of welcome. Her body was already moistening to receive him, flowering like a bloom beneath the kiss of the sun. He used the pad of his thumb to smear its sweet dew over the secret bud nestled between those velvety petals. He wanted her to burn for him, to ache for that moment when she would take him deep inside of her and make him her own.
“Please, Gabriel…” She arched against his hand, her voice a ragged whisper in his ear. “I can’t wait any longer.”
As her thighs fell apart, she reached over to caress his throbbing length, extending to him the one invitation no man could resist.
As her fingers encircled him like velvet ribbons, he gritted his teeth against a primal frisson of ecstasy. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”
He rolled on top of her. His erection nudged those damp curls, poised at the very gates of heaven.
“Gabriel, there’s something I have to tell you.” She clutched at his back, the note of panic in her voice unmistakable.
His fingertips found her lips, stilling them with a tender caress. “It’s all right, Samantha. There’s nothing more I need to know. I realize you haven’t been entirely forthcoming with me. A woman like you never would have sought a post like this if you hadn’t been running from your past. But I don’t care. I don’t care if there was another man before me. I don’t care if there were a dozen men. The only thing I care about is that you’re in my arms, right here, right now.”
To prove that he was a man of his word, Gabriel drew back his hips and thrust himself deep inside of her. Through a fog of mindless pleasure, he heard her broken cry, felt something fragile and irreplaceable give way before his body’s insistent demand.
He lay buried to the hilt in her, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. “Samantha?”
“Hmmmm?” she replied in a hoarse squeak.
Gabriel fought to hold himself still even as her body squeezed him in a vise of raw pleasure. “Just what was it you were going to tell me?”
He heard her swallow. “That I’ve never done this before.”
He collapsed against her throat, biting off a reverent oath. “Do you want me to stop?” Even as he offered, Gabriel didn’t know if he could.
She shook her head violently. “No.” Tangling her fingers in his hair, she dragged his mouth back to her lips. “Never.”
As their tongues tangled in a dark dance of delight, she arched against him, that simple motion gloving him in rapture. Gabriel had always prided himself on his sophistic
ation. He was shocked to learn that he was still barbarian enough to want to beat his chest and roar with triumph, all because he was the first man to have her—the only man. He began to move, gliding in and out of her with long, deep strokes deliberately designed to melt her whimpers of pain to moans of pleasure.
With Samantha to share it with him, the darkness was no longer an enemy, but a lover. Everything was texture and sensation, friction and contrast. She was soft. He was hard. She was smooth. He was rough. She gave. He took.
Believing she deserved some extra indulgence for the pain he had caused her, something to make it all worthwhile, Gabriel reached between them. Without missing a stroke with his tongue or his cock, he gently fingered her until she convulsed around him with a husky cry that was nearly his undoing.
Drawing her arms over her head and lacing his fingers through hers until they were palm to palm, heart to heart, he whispered fiercely, “Hold on, angel. Don’t ever let go.”
Samantha obeyed, wrapping her slender legs around him. Then there was no more holding back, no more resisting the driving rhythm that beat like tribal drums through his blood. Gabriel rode her, hard and fast and deep, until they were both mindless with pleasure, until he felt those dark shivers of rapture begin to ripple out from her womb once again.
As exultation thundered through him, spilling out in a hot torrent, Gabriel slammed his mouth down over hers, afraid their mingled cries would rouse the entire household.
Samantha awoke in Gabriel’s arms. The bedstead was so narrow that there was only room for them to lie side by side with her back nestled against his chest like two spoons in a drawer.
She glanced toward the window, grateful to discover that the night sky was still dark without a single pink streak to herald the dawn. She would have been content to lie there forever with Gabriel’s muscular arm wrapped around her waist, his breath stirring her hair, her bare bottom snuggled against his hips. She could feel his heart beating against her back in the sweetest of lullabies.