The Perfect Mistress (20 page)

Something within her refused to quail at this bit of male intimidation. Or perhaps something in her simply wanted to experience being death-defyingly close to his satiny lips and dark velvet eyes again. She came up slowly, face to face, eye to eye, and nose to nose with him.

His lips were parted slightly, and she could feel the soft eddies his breath made as it moved across her skin. His eyes were warm and filled with shimmering lights that seemed to be internal reflections of things known and things experienced, just waiting to be explored. Through those windows on his soul she glimpsed unplumbed secrets—pleasure, sadness, pain, pride, and a thousand more vagaries of the human heart and mind—

beckoning to something nameless and half formed within her.

Waves of sensation poured over her, rich and liquid, clinging to her senses, running down the inner walls of her body… thick like cream, sweet like honey. She could see the heat-bronzed texture of his skin, could smell the sandalwood and starched-cotton scents of his garments blending with the wine on his breath. She could almost hear the beating of his heart… slow and inviting… patient and waiting. It was such a basic and seductive rhythm.

Her gaze drifted to his mouth and she waited, entranced, scarcely breathing. Like a glacier, he moved without seeming to move, melting toward her and, by the inexorable force of his movement, scouring and changing the landscape of her senses. And suddenly, as if a suffocating layer of frost were being scraped away from her senses and her spirit, need began to grow, warm and nascent inside her. She felt the pull of longing, fresh and painfully strong, the tension between the almost and the certainty, the wanting and the having. She suddenly ached for the feel of him, craved the pressure and taste of his mouth. She wanted. For the first time, she truly wanted the intimate physical contact of a kiss.

And he was so close. The slightest movement… across a space of less than an inch… would bring her that heady satisfaction. But she waited, absorbed in the wonder of newborn desire, certain that there would be forever to have and to savor that inevitable sweet conclusion.

Then abruptly he pulled back, staring hotly at her, and turned away.

She staggered—unkissed, untouched—and quickly turned back to the bookcase to hide her shock and reassemble her defenses. What on earth had gotten into her? It took several minutes to banish the embarrassed heat in her countenance, before she could turn back to the divan. He was seated, sipping his warming champagne, watching her with an unreadable expression.

"Here it is," she said, relieved to find her voice normal. She held up a book titled
Aesop's Fables
.

"Ye gods." He dragged a hand down his face with a martyred air. "We're now reduced to parables and morality tales. What's next? Bedtime stories?"

"Oh, I don't think we'll be here quite that long." She opened the book.

"I'm especially fond of the one about the fox and the grapes."

She read that fable, then another and another. But, instead of falling asleep, Pierce found himself falling deeper and deeper under some strange and beguiling spell that had begun with his risky gambit at the bookcase and still exerted an effect on his senses. He had meant to pull her into his arms and kiss her, and to keep kissing her until he managed somehow to raise the passionate responses she so desperately denied possessing.

But somehow, staring into those azure blue eyes, glimpsing in them the irresistible glow of inner discovery, he hesitated in seizing that moment.

Something was happening inside her, and he found just watching the shimmering, shifting lights of becoming in her eyes unexpectedly fascinating. In that moment he sensed her rising desire and understood that she was beginning to feel the nearness and the need between them in the same powerful way. Apparently
not-kissing
, like
not-sinning
, had an erotic appeal all its own. Near, but not quite near enough. With her it was tantalizing.

Now he sat watching her take the parts of the fox, the crow, the weasel, the rabbit, and the turtle, knowing she was doing it to distract them both and somehow not caring. He laughed at her charming make-believe menagerie, thinking of all the human creatures that lived inside her: the prim little schoolgirl, the naive miss, the adamant bluestocking, the stubborn daughter, the petulant debutante, the conniving urchin, and most interesting of all, the tempting, voluptuous woman who had yet to make her presence fully known.

Gabrielle seemed to be a composite of every female to whom he had ever been attracted. No, he decided, she was different. He shifted his heated frame to a more comfortable position, as she lowered her voice to imitate a wizened old owl. Entirely too different. Too interesting. Too complicated.

And too damned desirable.

Something that had been nagging at the edge of his awareness ever since he had stood on the street outside the shoe shop that morning, finally emerged into his consciousness. Somewhere in the midst of flower arranging and music hall songs and chess games and limericks, somewhere in the slow, tantalizing revelation of the person inside Gabrielle, his plans to use her as a foil to gather evidence against Gladstone had fallen apart. Knowing her as he now did, he could never subject her to the old man's perversity, or to the questioning and examinations that would be required to validate her

"evidence" afterward.

It was a blow to his schemes, but it wasn't fatal. Sooner or later, Gladstone would take to the streets again, to take advantage of some other desperate woman under the guise of helping her. And Pierce would be there to intercept her and start the wheels in motion to put an end to the old man's hypocritical policies and his government.

With that decided, he turned his attentions to Gabrielle, watching and listening, now free to concentrate on exploring and enjoying and claiming her lush presence and person for himself.

Later, just as Gabrielle was launching into another story, Gunther appeared at the door to request their presence in the drawing room for tea.

"But, it's not yet five o'clock," Gabrielle protested, then caught herself and glanced at Pierce. All she could think was that there wouldn't be any time for "touching," and she prayed that her shameless thoughts didn't show in her face.

"Your mother was most emphatic, Miss Gabrielle. I was to fetch you immediately." Gunther stood in the doorway waiting, his unbending efficiency speaking her mother's annoyance plainly.

Gabrielle smoothed her skirt and sent a hand to her hair. Pierce tugged at his vest and made sure his tie was straight. They trailed Gunther downstairs, stealing glances at each other behind his back, like guilty children. Beer hall tunes and nursery songs, limericks and then Aesop's fables—they had brazenly trespassed the rules of high romance and now were being called to account.

In the drawing room, they found Rosalind with her friends Genevieve Francette, Clementine Bolt, and Ariadne Baden-Powell waiting for them. All through tea, Rosalind made it a point to converse on cultural topics and to give a nod to Gabrielle's numerous cultural accomplishments whenever possible. More than once she alluded to her daughter's skill at the piano and was less than subtle in praising Gabrielle's "exquisite soprano" and her

"musical reading voice." By the time she managed to work in a few words about the way the duke of Burgundy had declared that Gabrielle danced like a floating feather, Gabrielle was certain she knew what purgatory must be like.

Rosalind's message was dismally clear. Their style of courtship was straining the bounds of credulity for a grand passion. If continued, their behavior would lead to questions about the seriousness of his lordship's intentions.

But, when Gabrielle walked Pierce to the door, there was a stubborn glint in her eye. "I think another gift is probably in order. Something precious and expensive. My mother believes that
generosity
in a man covers a multitude of sins."

As soon as the door closed behind him, she lifted her skirts and hurried for the stairs. But she wasn't quick enough.

"Gabrielle!" Her name came roaring out of the drawing room in an icy blast, freezing her in her tracks. "I would have a word with you, young lady."

Gabrielle stiffened and clamped a ruthless hand on her rebellious impulses. She managed to get through the lecture that followed by repeating over and over in her mind:
Only a few more days… a few more days and I
will be free to get on with finding a husband
.

9

«
^
»

P
ierce spent a good part of that evening in a dark, chilled carriage parked outside the Reform Club on the Pall Mall, waiting for Gladstone to leave.

The later it got, the less the likelihood that the old man would decide to do a bit of "walking" on the way home and the more irritated Pierce became. By the time he trailed Gladstone to his home, watched as most of the lights were extinguished, and headed home himself, he had had plenty of time to think about his situation with Gabrielle and was in a ripe mood indeed.

The control that Rosalind exerted over Gabrielle—and by association, over
him
—was intolerable. He was a peer of the realm, for God's sake. He wouldn't stand for his mother's scheming and manipulation, why should he stand for
hers?

If Rosalind were a man, he knew exactly what he would—he stopped dead. What was the matter with him? She was an adversary, just the same as any political opponent, and she had to be treated as such. In politics, sound strategy was to discover an opponent's weaknesses and exploit them.

And he already knew Rosalind's prime weakness: she was a devout romantic. Only when she believed that he and Gabrielle were grandly and passionately in love, would she release them from the boudoir. And she could only judge whether or not they were convincing lovers by the level of her own romantic feelings about them.

Then it wasn't Gabrielle he needed to ply with gifts and romantic gestures

—it was Rosalind!

With that revelation keenly in mind, he spent the next morning acquiring and sending several cases of Perrier-Jouet and a number of excellent clarets and burgundies to Maison LeCoeur, to express his gratitude and largesse toward his soon-to-be mistress and her mother. Then he arrived on the doorstep himself, promptly at three, with his arms once again full of flowers.

The atmosphere was noticeably warmer toward him in the drawing room, where Rosalind sat with her covey of friends. And it got warmer still when he presented her with a massive bouquet, declaring that her arrangements were always so superb.

She was flattered speechless at first, but she recovered as he turned to go and suggested that surely he meant them to go to Gabrielle instead.

"Oh," he said with a wickedly charming smile, "I've brought her some as well." He turned so that she could see and lifted a dark-colored earthen pot in the crook of his other arm. It hadn't been visible at first, tucked away at his side, against his dark coat. Her eyes widened on what appeared to be three grizzled sticks with a few stemmy green shoots sticking out of them.

He nodded and excused himself to make for the stairs, carrying with him the deliciously stunned look on her face.

After a moment of silence, Rosalind turned to her friends with an unsettled expression. "At least he is making an effort… in his own peculiar way."

"He brings blossoms to
la maman .
. ." Genevieve said.

"An' he brings '
er
dried up sticks in a pot," Clementine declared with a scowl.

Ariadne, who had been staring at the door, broke free of her reverie and turned with a look of annoyance. "It is a rosebush, Clementine, not 'sticks in a pot'! The shoes were too easy, and the wine too ordinary." She glanced back at the doors with a wistful expression. "But a rosebush. Who would have thought the bounder had such a streak of romance in him?"

Pierce took the steps two at a time, outpacing Gunther, who halted in some pique at the top of the stairs and left him to his own devices. He found Gabrielle waiting for him, wearing another frothy white confection and a long-suffering look. She brightened and bounded up from the divan when he entered. Then her gaze fell to the pot.

"What's that?"

He smiled and held it out to her. "A rosebush. For you."

She scowled, accepting it. "Did my mother see it?"

"Of course. She was enthralled."

"She was?" She lifted the pot and regarded the shrub with a dubious expression.

His smile tightened. "Of course. It's a hauntingly romantic gesture."

"It is?"

"It most certainly is," he said, propping his fists on his waist. "It is symbolic of our growing affection. It is a raft of extravagant metaphors rolled up in a pot of soil. In fact, it's a whole bloody treatise on our present and future love."

"Oh. Well." She forced a polite smile. "That's lovely of you." Then her politeness melted into worry. "Do you think she understood all that?"

"I expect she'll figure it out," he said testily. "She
is
a professional romantic."