The Perfect Mistress (21 page)

She took a deep breath, realizing that she had offended him. "I, on the other hand, am a ghastly amateur. Forgive me. It's just that I had something of an extended lecture last night, and I thought we agreed you would bring something suitably expensive and—wait!" She had been struck by inspiration. Holding the pot, she looked it over with rising appreciation. "A rosebush belongs in a
garden!
. Oh, Pierce, you're a wizard."

"I am?"

She flashed him a radiant smile, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him out the door. "You've found the key to the prison. Where better to tend our blossoming love than in a
garden!
"

Down the stairs and back through the morning room they went, to the doors leading to the terrace and the garden at the rear of the house. She paused to pull the bell, then they stepped out into a bright afternoon and a walled garden filled with nooks and vine-covered bowers and the sound of sparrows chirping above the faint clatter of the distant street. A paved stone terrace set with rattan furniture lay at the center of three stone paths that radiated outward, like the spokes of a wheel, between beds of grass and new plantings. There was a tang in the air, the smell of freshly tilled soil that spoke of spring and new growth.

When Gunther arrived, she sent him for tools, fertilizer, and water. As the houseman collected the materials from the gardener's shed, she had an idea and glanced up at the house to locate her window. She pulled Pierce out along the path to a spot clearly visible from her room, where a cleared flower bed lay waiting for the gardener to prepare it for planting.

"If we plant it here, I can see it from my window… and think of you every time I look at it." She looked up at him. "Is that romantic enough?"

It was more than romantic, he thought, it was arousing. Intensely so.

When he looked down into her sparkling eyes, his gaze got tangled in them.

For a long moment he stood feeling the warmth of the sun, the cool air, and a sudden, absorbing awareness of her freshness and sensuality. Gunther's arrival with the tools and watering can was all that kept him from kissing her on the spot.

Gabrielle dismissed the houseman and, straightaway, sank onto her knees beside the bed, grinding her pristine voile into the dirt that had spilled onto the grass.

"Gabrielle, your dress—"

"Oh, I can't be bothered with a dress," she said determinedly, patting the ground beside her, insisting that he join her. "Not when I'm so overcome with the
romance
of the moment." Challenged to match her sacrifice in the name of gloriously impractical love, he planted the knees of his expensive trousers in the dirt beside her. Beaming with mischief, she thrust a spade into his hands and ordered, "Dig."

Pierce, as it happened, knew nothing about gardening or roses. Gabrielle, on the other hand, had done a good bit of gardening at Marchand and knew something about the cultivation of French roses and their English counterparts. She insisted that the soil be turned all around the area before digging a hole for the bush. In the combined warmth of the sun and with the exertion of digging, Pierce soon overheated and had to peel off his coat and lay it across the branch of a nearby flowering cherry.

"You gardened… in a French girls' school?" He balanced on one hand stuck in the soft dirt, wielding the trowel forcefully with the other. Then he raised up onto his knees and held up one dirt-caked hand. "In dirt?"

"What other kind of gardening is there?" She smiled. "It is a highly commendable pastime for ladies—considered quite 'improving.' It is also considered quite romantic."

"It is?" He scowled, wriggling his dirt-caked fingers. "Oh, yes. Silly me. I can feel myself being swept away."

"Dig," she ordered, pointing to the modest dent he had made in the ground. "It is universally agreed that a woman in a garden is something of an enticement." He gave a snort of disbelief. "It's true. The beauty and natural harmony that abound in a garden illuminate a woman's own graces and display her at her best." She lowered her voice and leaned closer.

"Personally, I suspect that the effect has more to do with the strong scents and earthy textures." She paused, amused by the sight of him in so undignified a posture. "Or, as Mme. Marchand said, it just may have to do with the fact that men adore the sight of a woman on her knees."

"Who is on whose knees here?" he grumbled.

A short while later they were both on their knees, one adding the bonemeal and milled peat while the other mixed it in the soil. Together they removed the bush from the pot and set it in the hole, and together they scraped and packed and tamped and watered. Their shoulders bumped and their hands brushed, and when they reached for the trowel at the same time, he held her hand for a moment before relinquishing it and the tool.

Whether from the work or from his nearness, she found her breath coming faster and became aware of where every point of her body was in relation to every point of his. Her gaze flitted surreptitiously over his shirt and vest, lingering on how they molded to his body as he moved, and somehow she felt her corset and the strain of fabric across her shoulders and breasts in a new way. Then when they straightened to begin "watering in,"

she saw how his waist tightened and his thighs flexed as he lifted the heavy metal can, and felt her own waist and thighs tighten in response.

She could scarcely take her eyes from him as he stretched to extend his reach and make sure the far side of the bush was properly watered. How was it that by just removing a coat he seemed so much more human… so much more male?

When he finished and turned, she found herself nearly nose to nose with him again and abruptly sat back on the edge of the grass.

"Why did you bring me a rosebush?" she asked, raking the soil with her fingers.

"To be perfectly honest, I thought a grand romantic gesture was called for. And what was more fitting for a 'rosebud' than a rosebush?"

"A rosebud? Just what is that?"

"I'm afraid that's what we bounders call pale, perfect little debutantes, with their delicate constitutions and impossibly dewy eyes." When she looked up, he had a devilish twinkle in his eye. "Behind their backs, of course."

"Have I just been insulted?"

"Not really." He reached out to brush a streak of dirt from her cheek and only made it worse with his dirty hand. He tried again with his handkerchief. "As a rule, 'rosebuds' are highly desirable. They're bred, pampered, and groomed like prime thoroughbreds and then rigorously schooled in all the female graces and accomplishments. They play and sing sweetly. They sketch and do watercolors and read poetry with great flair.

They converse brilliantly, and arrange flowers artistically, and sip champagne modestly, and dance divinely…"

"That's not me!" Her rebellion flared.

"You think not?" He laughed and seized her hand, letting his gaze skim the curve of her body as she sat curled on the grass at the edge of the flower bed. "Granted—you play beer hall songs instead of sonatas, read limericks and fables instead of sonnets, pour your champagne down some poor potted palm, and force men to do your flower arranging for you…" He sat down beside her and laid his arms across his upraised knees. Then he gave her a slow, sweeping look that caused her heart to skip. "But, you work so hard at not being appealing that it has something of the reverse effect."

"It does?" She felt a shiver that could only be called pleasure.

"It does." He glanced at the rosebush they had just planted together. "In that respect, you're probably more a rosebush than a rosebud."

"Now I'm a rosebush?" she said, looking dismayed. "What does that mean?"

"Without pushing the entire metaphor ridiculously far, let me just say…

you're infinitely more fascinating than the typical rosebud. More complex, more textured, more complete. And the thorns you affect don't detract from your beauty or desirability any more than a rose's do from its. Thorns—

keep life interesting."

"They do?" There was a curious flutter in her stomach.

"Yours do," he said, his voice lowering. "One look at you is all a man needs to know that someday you'll blossom. And one taste of you is all a man needs to make him want to be there when you do."

She found herself staring, entranced, into his dark eyes: knowing, provocative, inviting. A thousand mysteries inside him. She couldn't swallow. A moment later she came to her senses and pulled her chin back, trying to think of something to dispel the jittery warmth rising inside her.

"One of your rosebush metaphors, no doubt," she whispered, averting her gaze. "Very effective. I'm sure my mother would be impressed."

"There are more," he said—too quietly. She couldn't help looking back at him and was immediately caught up in the glint of sun in his hair and the bronzed texture of his skin. Her fingers fairly itched to touch his tousled hair, his strong jaw, his soft lips. "You are a rose, sweetheart. A flower of great beauty and delicacy… so fragrant and soft." He reached out to run his knuckles down the side of her cheek and she couldn't seem to pull away from that touch. "Your skin feels like silken petals." He leaned closer, then still closer, lowering his dark head and following the line of her shoulder, breathing in her scent. "
Ummm
, you always smell like sun-warmed roses to me. Like summer love in a country meadow. Like desire among the wild roses."

He slid his hand back along her ear, into her hair, and used it to nudge her head closer to his. She watched his gaze settle on her mouth and was helpless to suppress the sweet tangle of emotions rising in her. He wanted her. She could feel it like a tangible thing, reaching for her, taking hold of her. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to feel his lips against hers, to be with him in that country meadow…

"And like a rose, sweetheart, you need tending… otherwise, you won't open properly." He was so close that his breath bathed her lips. "Let me tend you, Gabrielle," he whispered, filling her vision, her senses, her erratic heart with the sultry persuasion of his revealed desire. "I want to see you blossom." Just before his lips touched hers, she heard him say, "I want to feel you unfolding in my hands."

Wave after wave of sensation washed through her senses, reaching the pleasure-starved roots of her being. His patient wooing and tender persuasions had finally penetrated her deepest recesses. She wanted to claim the need in her, to open those forbidden chambers where need and vulnerability and response had been locked away. She wanted to unfold…

to feel herself opening, growing… to know what it was to feel deeply and fully… to embrace both him and her own long-denied yearnings.

His lips finally touched hers, and a dizzying flush of warmth rushed through her, spreading through her lips and face and trickling down her throat in rivulets of pleasure. She inclined her head, yielding to his tutoring, instinctively imitating his gentle pressure, complementing the angle of his mouth with hers. His hands slid around her waist and drew her slowly toward him, enfolding her with exquisite care.

Then he tilted her back, bracing over her, holding her to him as they sank together onto the moist, tilled ground. The unexpected weight of his chest drove the breath from her for an instant. She gasped in surprise, and his tongue sought that opening, tracing the sensitive inner surface of her lips, tasting her, dipping provocatively into her mouth. Each stroke of his tongue was like liquid fire that set her tingling, burning.

She had never experienced anything so potent, so pleasurably intimate, so wholly involving. Every part of her was stimulated and responded with a furl of pleasure, a tingle of warmth, or an ache of longing. Her body hummed, resonant with pleasure. He must have felt it, for he murmured approval and whispered her name as he poured long, fluid kisses down the column of her throat. His hands slid from beneath her to begin tracing her shape, seeking her through her clothing.

His long fingers closed over her breasts, finding the line of her corset and the soft flesh above it. Pleasure streamed from all over her body to collect in a delicious burning fullness at the tips of her breasts. She arched against him seeking the warmth, the solidity of his frame and released the sides of his shirt to slide her hands up his sides and around his back. She pressed her tingling breasts harder against his chest, melting against him, wanting to match every curve and hollow of his body with the mounds and valleys of hers. Closer, she wanted to be closer…

"They're in the garden?" Rosalind stopped in the midst of putting the final touches on an arrangement of the flowers Pierce had brought her and stared at Gunther. She had just instructed him to deliver the usual champagne to Gabrielle's boudoir and he had informed her that the pair was not there.

"Whatever are they doing?" she demanded, emptying her hands of scissors and blossoms and looking to her friends, who were seated around her in the drawing room.

"They began by planting, madam," the houseman said with a sniff.

"That rosebush," she said with annoyance, before catching the intimation that more had occurred. She scrutinized her majordomo's impassive face.