The Perfect Mistress (46 page)

calling him, claiming him. The pleasure was too keen, the need too great.

When she said his name, he opened his eyes and found himself looking straight into hers.

Now with every movement, every rush of pleasure, he both saw and felt the response deep within her. He felt himself being drawn into the very landscape of her soul, where he mingled with her hopes and dreams. And the last, desperate stronghold of isolation within him was finally breached.

She saw the wall around his heart tumbling down, saw the last barriers to his emotions succumbing to the tide rising in him… and felt a surge of exultation as she glimpsed in him the care and tenderness that he guarded so jealously. In that moment, in that sharing, she felt and understood in the language of the heart things that would take much time and thought, later, to distill into mere words. And though it wasn't necessary, though it was barely possible for her to speak, she said it anyway.

"I love you… too."

The smile on his face was enthralling to behold—part pleasure, part longing. He stilled and tensed. For that moment, as they looked at each other, they loved with all the tenderness they possessed… each honoring the strength and the vulnerability of the other.

Then they began to move again, each seeking fulfillment for the other and finding fulfillment in the giving. They touched and kissed and caressed, exploring the richness of their loving, until their passions crested and broke in joyful release. Pierce clasped her to him, groaning her name from deep within him.

Together they drifted, replete, luxuriating in the closeness they shared.

They touched freely, fully, loving each other without reserve. When at last they settled back into their senses, each was reluctant to break the spell between them. Finally, he shifted to lie beside her, carrying her gaze with him.

"Shocking dreams you have, Lady Sandbourne," he teased softly, stroking her cheek. He had never seen her so unashamedly bare, so elementally feminine and alluring. Her eyes were that summer-sky blue again, so clear and untroubled that he felt he was seeing into her innermost being. And at the calm center of her, he glimpsed the satisfaction, the sense of accomplishment that permeated her.

"Not nearly as shocking as my experiences while awake, Lord Sandbourne," she said with a knowing smile, running a finger down the ridge of his nose. "You're quite the most scandalous and exciting thing that has ever happened to me. Wicked man… whatever will I tell my husband about you?"

"Tell him the truth." He grinned. "That we are collaborating on a book."

"A book?"

"Of rules."

As the sense of it dawned, she laughed softly, and he added: "And be sure to mention that I made love to you… all night long."

Waking in a strange bed was a disorienting experience that Gabrielle had had all too frequently of late. She started up in the middle of rumpled bedclothes the next morning, clutching the sheet to her and blinking as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Remembering, she sank back onto one elbow and gazed with unabashed pleasure at the dented pillow beside hers. After a few moments, she rose and stretched languidly, feeling the impact of her night of passion in every tender and overworked part of her body.

She located her garments on the floor, donned them, and then padded into the sitting room, hoping to find Pierce there. The sight of him, seated at the table in his shirtsleeves, allowed her to release the breath she had been holding.

"Good morning," she said warmly.

He took one last sip of coffee and put his cup down on the tray, then rose and searched her with a look that avoided her face.

"You're dressed. That will save time." He reached for his coat and shoved his arms into it, then picked up his evening cloak and held it open for her.

She looked at the cloak, then at the tray on the table in confusion.

"Without a bit of breakfast?"

"I'm certain you will be much more comfortable breakfasting at home."

When she hesitated, he settled the cloak on her shoulders himself and, with a hand at her back, ushered her toward the door.

As they descended the steps to the side door of the hotel, she slowed and looked up at him, trying to catch his eye and read what was happening in him. But he kept his gaze averted and his jaw set. After abandoning himself totally in their loving last night, he was once again in supreme control of both himself and his circumstances.

The carriage was waiting by the door. He waved Jack to keep his seat and seized her arm to help her up the step. Frantic at the thought of being parted from him without a word of explanation or understanding, she halted on the step and turned, catching his gaze in hers and refusing to let it go.

His dark eyes, so often a window on his soul, seemed alarmingly empty.

No, not quite empty, she realized as she continued to search them. There were traces of regret. "Pierce, please…" she said softly, placing her hand over his on her arm. At her touch, another emotion stirred deep in the center of him. A feeling she recognized. Fear.

An inexplicable surge of desperation filled her as he jerked his gaze from hers and abruptly handed her up into the carriage.

As the door closed and the carriage lurched, she struggled with her chaotic emotions. He had loved her all night long, taking her again and again to heights of passion, introducing her to all the delicious new sensations her senses could hold, and cradling her against him afterward as if she were something rare and precious. She had fallen asleep to the low, sweet rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her cheek, feeling that at last everything in her world was right and complete. And she had once again awakened to an empty bed and a strained parting.

When she stepped through the entry of Sandbourne House, Rosalind heard her and hurried out of the dining room, straightaway. Sweeping a critical eye over her disheveled hair and still kiss-reddened mouth, her mother gave a crow of delight.

"Well, there's no need to ask what happened. It's written all over you!"

Rosalind rushed forward with compressed excitement and seized Gabrielle's shoulders. "Did he make you see rainbows or shooting stars or fireworks? I want every living detail—"

"Don't be insufferably common, Rosalind," Lady Beatrice insisted, coming up behind them. "It is enough to know that she was with him the entire night."

"Enough for whom?" Rosalind said, with an arch look over her shoulder.

Lady Beatrice glanced up to see one of the parlor maids stopped on her way up the stairs, watching, and she bundled Gabrielle and Rosalind into the drawing room and closed the great doors. Only then did the pair notice that the spark of triumph was missing from Gabrielle's eyes.

"What's happened, dearest? What is wrong?" Rosalind asked, pulling her to the sofa and settling beside her.

"I don't know," Gabrielle said, looking at her hands, captive in her mother's. "We had a wonderful night together. He was so tender and loving.

But this morning he said scarcely a word to me—just put me into his carriage and sent me off."

Rosalind scowled, looked thoughtful for a moment. "Morning-after nerves," she announced with an air of confidence. "He's been a bachelor for a long time. It's only reasonable that he might have a few second thoughts on the morning after." She patted Gabrielle's tightly clasped hands. "Nothing to worry about, trust me. Last night he made you his lover, dearest, and nothing can change that."

Shortly, Gabrielle was ushered upstairs and into a steaming tub of scented water that gradually soaked away her aches. As she rested on her bed afterward, she went over and over the events of the previous evening, analyzing them in every conceivable light. The more she thought on it, the less certain she was that her grand romantic gambit had secured for her the sort of victory she sought.

It was true that she had overcome his outrage and embarrassment and had coaxed him to surrender his passion for her and make her his lover. But his curt and distant manner this morning made it clear that passion was all that he had surrendered.

Surrender
. She sat up on the bed with her heart pounding. If there was anything in the world that Pierce loathed, it was the thought of surrendering to a woman… to his iron-willed mother or to her. Last night, it had been so easy to dismiss his misgivings, to concentrate on the pleasures and count on them to set the rest right. She had been so certain that a night of loving intimacy would dissolve whatever differences remained between them. But how quickly, after the closeness they had shared, his fears had risen between them again. How could he possibly be afraid of—

Afraid of loving.

The insight, so, clear and unmistakable, startled her. How could she not have recognized the traces of anxiety in the depths of his eyes, when it was the very same fear she herself had suffered? He believed that to love was to give until you had nothing left. He was afraid of loving her, for he believed that loving her meant surrendering all that he was… turning over control of his very life to her.

Was there no way to reach through his suspicion and hurt to touch him, to convince him she didn't want to take anything from him? Was there no way to make him understand that in every bit of loving there is risk, but that there is also possibility?

She saw it all with dismal clarity. In seeking her rightful place in his heart, she had barreled into his life, stormed into his passions, and demanded his response. But, however good and loving her motives, he could only see her actions through his own fears and expectations. Every demand she made was a reason for him to withdraw.

He simply was not a man who could be grabbed by the passions and pulled into love. He had to be approached forthrightly, honestly, and ever so gently. Instead of grand gestures and overwhelming seduction, she would have to
invite
him into her life and let him choose whether or not to come.

A choice. Wasn't that what she had wanted for herself? And wasn't that what he had once given her? He had broken through her fears, overcome her defenses and reluctance. He had won her love… not with his title and his power and his status… not with his mesmerizing kisses or his masterful sensuality… but with his warmth and humor and decency… with his help.

He had been her friend when she needed one most. And in so doing, he had proved what sort of man he truly was.

She had tried Lady Beatrice's way and Rosalind's way. Now she had to try her own way. Schemes could make her his wife and even his mistress.

But in order to have his loving, willing presence in her life, she would have to deal earnestly and openly with him. She had to once again become his friend.

How on earth did she go about that?

21

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T
he next evening, Pierce stood looking at the rain coming down in sheets in the darkened street outside the entrance to Brooks's and, with a quiet oath of disgust, repaired to the bar to wait for the downpour to end. After an interminable afternoon of weathering judgmental stares in the Lords, he made for the sanctuary of his club and had the misfortune to come face to face with Arundale and Shively. Shively tipped his hat and commented that Pierce was fortunate indeed that his accommodations at the Clarendon were so comfortable and so "well supplied." It was all Pierce could do to contain himself when Arundale added that he had heard that Lady Sandbourne was redecorating his house in his absence… in a rather unique "Egyptian" motif.

Obviously they had heard of his encounter with "Cleopatra" the night before. His worst fears were confirmed: Catton had recognized Gabrielle.

Now, in addition to his notorious forced vows, he would have a notorious wife to deal with. And there was nothing that made a man look more a fool in society than an unconventional wife.

But just as galling as the impending infamy of his marriage and his wife was the embarrassment he felt about it. He had never cared a whit for society's opinion, never ever bowed the knee to the proprietymongers of the upper ten. He had worn his licentious reputation as something of a badge of honor—insisting that he was no different from the rest of upper-class males and feeling righteous for the candor with which he took his pleasures. Now here he was, skulking around amongst his peers, resenting and blaming his wife's behavior, when his own left more than a bit of room for censure.

He strode into the bar, his shoulders squared and his jaw set with aristocratic arrogance. His gaze fell on a lone figure who sat with his back to the rest of the members in the bar. The other tables were filled with faces he wished to avoid, so he ordered a brandy and headed for the far table, thinking that a strange face would prove a mercy in his current state. But as he approached, the table's occupant roused, and Pierce found himself staring into a pair of gray eyes that were alarmingly familiar.

The duke straightened and looked a bit disconcerted. "You," he said irritably, then after a moment, made a motion toward the chair across the table. Aware of the several pairs of eyes attending their meeting, Pierce acknowledged him with "Your Grace," then settled into a seat.

As Pierce sat down, he was taken aback by the duke's appearance. His robust face was noticeably gray beneath his fading suntan, and there were dark rings beneath his eyes. Though his coat and collar and tie were in impeccable order, his graying hair was uncharacteristically ruffled.