"I'm not in the mood for cards," he said, his voice clipped, his eyes now cold and harsh. "I must ask you to forgive me, madame, I couldn't do you justice as a partner." He bowed and turned away, walking with undue haste to the drawing room door.
Simon sighed. "For a minute there I thought I spied the old Nathaniel."
"The old Nathaniel?" Gabrielle's eyebrows quirked.
"I told you this morning that he lost his wife in childbirth," Miles reminded her with a touch of his earlier stiffness.
"We all have tragedies," Gabrielle said quietly, and to the surprise of both men for once there was no mockery in her voice. Her eyes were dark pools of unhappiness, and then it was gone. "Well, if Lord Praed won't play, you must find me another partner."
She smiled in her usual fashion and took Simon's arm as they went into the cardroom.
Nathaniel lay fully dressed on his bed, listening to the voices from below, the strains of dance music asa few couples took the floor in an impromptu country dance. He'd left instructions with the stables that his postchaise be at the front door at five o'clock, well before dawn. Now all he had to do was get through the night and he'd be on his way to Hampshire and sate from the devil's inferno embodied in a pair of charcoal eyes.
After a while the noise died down and he heard the called good nights as his fellow guests made their way to bed. He undressed and tried to sleep. But all the usual tricks he used to bring about oblivion when he was keyed up failed him. When the handful of gravel flew through the open window and rattled on the polished wooden floor, he understood what he'd been waiting for.
To question the inevitable was an exercise in futility. He relit his beside candle, then got up, shrugged into his dressing gown, and went to the window. Gabrielle de Beaucaire stood on the pathway below, hands on her hips, her head thrown back as she looked up at his window, every line of her body both a question and an invitation.
Nathaniel leaned out into the moon-washed night. He said nothing, merely crooked a finger at the still figure. For the batest moment she seemed to hesitate, then she was swarming up the creeper, hand over hand, toes searching for a foothold, gripping where they could. Leaning his elbows on the broad sill, he watched her progress, trying to conceal his anxiety from himself.
When her head came level with the windowsill, he reached for her, taking her strongly beneath the arms and lifting her bodily through the window.
Gabrielle was so surprised at this evidence of more than ordinary strength in a man whose physique indicated wiriness and agility rather than muscle power that she made no sound until her feet made firm contact with the bedroom floor and she was released.
Then she drew breath and brushed the hair away from her forehead, offering him a small smile.
"I was a little scared of the climb tonight. But one shouldn't give in to fear, should one?"
He regarded her, unsmiling. "And temptation?" he inquired softly. "What of temptation, Gabrielle?"
"Ah." She put her head on one side, considering. "Resisting temptation is a different matter. A matter best left to individual consciences, I believe, according to circumstance."
"Yes," he said, still softly. What reason did he have for resisting this temptation just this once? He'd be away from there in a few short hours, away from Gabrielle de Beaucaire, and he'd never see her again. She wanted this as much as he did. This was an ephemeral temptation, not one that need be resisted.
His hands went to the buttons of her shirt. In leisurely fashion, one by one, they came undone. Gabrielle stood motionless under the purposeful unfastening, although her blood flowed swiftly and her heart was beating fast.
Lifting and turning her wrists, he unfastened the tiny pearl buttons before pulling the shirt-sleeves off her arms. He tossed the shirt aside and stood looking at her, bared to the waist in the moonlight. She held still for the long, unhurried scrutiny, her skin prickling, her nipples lifting and hardening with the cool breeze from the window.
He held the generous swell of her breasts in the palms of his hands, his thumb flicking the nipples, his eyes holding hers before he lowered his head and drew his tongue in a slow, easy stroke first over the right breast and then over the left. It was a caress so full of promise that Gabrielle caught her breath, but she obeyed the unspoken rule of silence that held them both.
In the same silence Nathaniel caught her waist and lifted her onto the windowsill before pulling off her boots and stockings in turn. Slowly, he unfastened the waistband of her britches, lifted her down again, and pushed the garment off her hips. Then, smiling, he hitched her back onto the cold stone windowsill and pulled the britches clear of her feet.
Gabrielle shivered, but it was not with cold, although the stone was hard and chill beneath her bottom and thighs as she sat naked in the window.
Nathaniel lifted her with the ease of before, cradled her in his arms, and carried her to the bed, laying her gently on the rumpled coverlet.
"Why do you keep carrying me around?" she inquired, her voice sounding strange as the intense silence was at last broken. She tried for a lightly amused tone, but there was a quiver in her voice that spoke of much more than amusement.
Nathaniel stood looking down at her as she lay on the bed, vulnerable in her nakedness. Her limbs were long and straight as hazel wands, and the generous curve of hip and bosom surprised and delighted him. Clothed, her height masked the richness of her body. "I suppose because it makes you more manageable," he said. "Or at least it gives me that illusion."
"And you need me to be manageable?"
"I have my share of masculine pride." A glimmer of self-mockery touched his eyes, and it was as if the harsh, isolated coldness he so often evinced belonged to a different man. He threw off his dressing gown and came down on the bed beside her.
"I'd never have believed it," Gabrielle murmured, brushing her fingertips over his chest. "Such a modest and unassuming man, I thought you were."
Nathaniel chuckled, flinging a leg over her thighs, drawing her close against the warmth of his body. "I must have been too delicate in my approach. I've never had dealings with a devil woman before."
They both knew the banter was a delaying tactic, a last-ditch attempt to bridle the heady swirl of passion wrapping tight around them.
Gabrielle closed her eyes, and the scent of his skin filled the air around her. She inhaled greedily, her hands running over his back, learning the curve of hip and buttock, the swell and ripple of muscle, the knobs of his spine. She palmed his scalp, her fingers twisting in the crisp, wavy thatch.
Nathaniel felt the press of her breasts against his chest, the tautness of her erect nipples as he tasted the sweetness of her mouth with a questing tongue. His need rose hard and urgent, eclipsing all else but the immediacy of desire. With a soft moan of assenting urgency Gabrielle moved against his rising flesh, her thighs tightening as she held him in the warm furrow of her body, the earthy words of uninhibited passion on her lips, whispering against his mouth.
"I want you," he said with low-voiced ferocity, his palms flattening against the insides of her thighs, opening her. He touched her heated core and she cried out.
"Come into me, love, now."
Despite her fervent imperative, he tried to hold back, to keep control for both of them, knowing that delay could only enhance their pleasure, afraid also that he might make an error of judgment if he yielded to hasty need, and knowing with aching certainty that this loving was going to be unique and must not be jeopardized by rash, unvarnished lust.