She could hear his heart beating beneath her ear, slow and steady.
"Why are you here?"
He put the question evenly; mystified, she answered. "You brought me here."
"And you came. Now you're lying in my arms, totally naked-you took me willingly, willingly gave yourself to me, purely because I wanted you."
She felt far more at his mercy now than she had before. How could he know the confusion and uncertainty hovering in her mind? But it seemed he did.
"You're good at that-giving. And what you have to give, I want." His hand gently stroked her hair. "You're a sensual woman, a Thoroug
hbred in bed, and I certainly don't care how old you are. You haven't even been in training for long and you still make my head spin."
She shut her eyes. "Don't."
"Don't what? Speak the truth? Why, when we both know it?" His hand moved down, stroking her back, then he closed his arms about her. "You love to give, and the only man you'll ever give yourself to is me."
She didn't want to hear it because she couldn't deny it and it gave him far too much power over her. She struggled to sit up. "We have to go."
"Not yet." He held her easily and nuzzled her ear. Then his lips touched her skin, and lingered. "Just once more…"
Chapter 16
The next morning, Alathea sat in the gazebo tucked to one side of the back garden and watched Gabriel cross the lawn toward her. Bright sunlight struck red and gold glints from his hair; she remembered the feel of it beneath her palms.
Eyes narrowed against the glare, she watched him exchange greetings with Mary and Alice, who were weeding the bed about the fountain. She had excused herself from gardening on the grounds of feeling under the weather. It was the truth; she'd barely slept a wink.
If she'd needed unequivocal proof that Gabriel had read her emotions accurately, the second half of their encounter in Lady Richmond's parlor had provided it. Even now, hours after the fact, just the thought of the suggestions he'd whispered in her ear, of what she'd willingly done and let him do to her, brought color surging to her cheeks. He'd wanted, and she had wanted to give. Last night, he'd introduced her to the ultimate in giving.
She wasn't hypocrite enough to pretend she hadn't enjoyed it, that the bliss she found in giving to him, whenever, however, brought the sweetest, deepest joy she'd ever known. In satisfying him, she found fulfillment. There was no other word, none that came close to describing the breadth and depth of what she felt. He'd labeled her a "giver;" she had to accept he was right. What she didn't-couldn't-accept was his extrapolation.
He was fascinated with her. That had been no act. He of all men would appreciate the irony that he should find her-a woman he'd known from the cradle-so physically enthralling. And despite what he'd said, her age did matter, but not in the way it would matter to the ton. Because she was older and where he was concerned more assured than any other lady he'd seduced, she was more challenging, more demanding of his talents. That, too, he would appreciate.
His fascination was real. Fascination did not, however, lead to marriage.
As he left the girls and, loose-limbed and confident, strode toward her, Alathea drew calm certainty about her. He was an exceptional practitioner of the sensual arts; he knew how to use his talents to pressure her, to cloud her reason. But she knew him too well-far too well-to swallow the tale that fascination was behind his determination to wed her. She thought too much of him-cared too much for him-to meekly fall in with his plans.
He reached the gazebo and trod up the steps. Ducking his head beneath the trailing jasmine that covered the small structure, he stepped into the cool shadows. Straightening, he met her gaze. Stillness gripped him. "What?"
Alathea waved him to the sofa beside her. She'd sent a note to Brook Street asking him to call. She waited while he sat; the wicker sofa was small-it left them shoulder to shoulder. He leaned back, stretching one arm along the sofa's back to ease the crowding. She drew breath and resolutely took the bit between her teeth. "There is absolutely no reason for us to wed. No!" She cut off his immediate retort. "Hear me out."
He'd tensed; his expression hardened but he held silent.
Alathea looked out over the lawn to where her stepsisters and stepbrothers chattered gaily. "Only you and I know about the countess. Only we know we've been intimate. I'm twenty-nine. As I keep trying to remind everyone, I've set aside all thoughts of marriage. I did so eleven years ago. I'm accepted as a spinster-your recent attentions notwithstanding, there's no expectation that I'll marry. Short of our liaison becoming common knowledge, which it won't for we're both too wise and too aware of what we owe our families and ourselves to bruit the fact abroad, then there's no need whatever for us to wed."
"Is that it?"
"No." She turned her head and met his gaze directly. "Regardless of what you decide is the right thing to do, I will not marry you. There's no reason for you to make such a sacrifice."
He studied her. "Why," he eventually asked, "do you think I want to marry you?"
Her lips twisted. She gestured to her stepsiblings, blissfully unaware of the clouds hovering on the family's horizon. "You want to marry me because of that same quality I counted on when, as the countess, I asked for your aid. I knew if I explained the danger to them, then you'd help. I've told you before-you're obsessively protective." He was her knight on a white charger; protectiveness was his strongest suit, and one of his most basic instincts.
He'd followed her gaze to the girls. "You think I want to marry you to protect you. Out of some notion of chivalry."
She'd tried to avoid that word; it sounded so melodramatic, even if it was the naked truth. Sighing, she faced him. "I wanted to trap you into helping-I never intended to trap you into marriage."
Gabriel searched her eyes, hazel pools of absolute sincerity. The vulnerability that had haunted him ever since he'd discovered the countess's identity evaporated.