But to his relief, Gabrielle showed no signs of lingering once she was dressed. She showed none of the softness of the night either, not even offering a farewell kiss before going to the door.
"Sleep well, Lord Praed. I promise I won't disturb you at the breakfast table this morning."
Her laugh had the old mockery in it as she closed the door behind her.
With a speed akin to desperation, Nathaniel began to dress, throwing his few belongings into a portmanteau before hurrying down the stairs and outside to his waiting postchaise.
Gabrielle encountered a maidservant struggling with a scuttle of coal as she turned into the corridor to her own bedchamber. She offered a cheerful good morning, but the girl, tongue-tied, stared wide-eyed at the dawn apparition in britches and shirt.
Shrugging, Gabrielle went on her way. The girl was presumably a very lowly member of the household staff and wouldn't know the names of the Vanbrughs' guests even if she was inclined to gossip. Not that it mattered one way or the other. No servant would be able to guess in whose bed the Comtesse de Beaucaire had passed the night.
She gained her own room without further incident. The neatly turned down bed awaited her, mute evidence of where she had not spent the night. A sheet of paper on the plumped virgin pillow caught her attention immediately. She picked it up. Georgie's spidery writing weaved untidily over the paper:
Gabby, where are you? Or can I guess? Perhaps I won't try. Just to alert you: Simon says Lord Praed has ordered his carriage for dawn. Apparently he's decided his business here is over and he won't even stay for breakfast! He's such a rude man, Gabby, I can't see what you see in him. But then, there's no accounting for taste, is there? I don't know if you want to know his plans, but just in case… Sleep well!!
Gabrielle scrunched the paper in her fist, staring out of the window at the rapidly brightening day. He'd said nothing about leaving. Was he still going? After such a night, could he simply get up and leave without a word of explanation or even farewell as if those glorious hours had never happened?
She remembered the way the shadows had returned to his face just before they'd parted. His eyes had become brown stones again. And she knew he was capable of walking away from an ephemeral erotic encounter without a backward glance.
But she couldn't allow that. The seduction of Nathaniel Praed had to go much deeper than one mutually enjoyable night. She was still as far as ever from persuading him to accept her into the service… and as far as ever from avenging Guillaume's death.
With swift efficiency she began to move around the room, packing a cloakbag with necessities-her riding habit, clean linen, several day dresses. Evening gowns and her jewel casket would not be necessary; she couldn't carry them anyway. It would help, of course, if she knew where he was going. She tossed her hairbrushes and toothpowder on top of the contents of the bag, swung a dark velvet hooded cloak around her shoulders, dropped an ivory-mounted pistol and a black loo mask into the deep pocket, and drew on her gloves, picked up her whip and the bag, and headed for the door.
"Merde!"She couldn't go without a word to Georgie. Dragging off her gloves again, she went to the secretaire, found paper and quill, and scrawled a few words of oblique explanation. Her cousin would read between the lines and would send on the rest of her belongings once Gabrielle knew where she was going.
Taking the note, she left the room and hurried down the corridor. Outside Georgie's room she folded the paper carefully and slipped it beneath the door, where Georgie's maid would see it when she awoke her mistress in a few hours time.
Gabrielle ran down the stairs and out of the front door, noticing that it was already unlocked. Presumably, Lord Praed, damn his eyes, had wasted no time in making his departure. She hurried to the stables, her cloak snapping around her ankles with her long stride. She'd have to borrow one of Simon's horses, but he wouldn't mind.
A groom was sweeping the stableyard as she strode in. "Saddle Major for me," she ordered. "Do you know which direction Lord Praed took?"
"Not off 'and, milady," the lad said, tugging his forelock. "But I reckon as 'ow Bert will." He hurried into the stable block and a minute later the head groom emerged.
"Major's got a swollen fetlock, my lady. You'd best take Thunderer," he stated as he came over to her. He knew Lord Vanbrugh's stable was available to the countess without question, and her present unconventional dress came as no surprise to a man who'd known her since childhood and knew her fondness for the freedom of early morning rides astride.
"I may need to keep him for a few days, Bert. Lord Vanbrugh won't need to ride him himself?"
"Don't reckon so, my lady. 'Is lordship's got the new geldin' to try out."
Gabrielle nodded. "Do you know which direction Lord Praed's chaise took? I have an urgent message for him."
"The driver said they was goin' into ‘Ampshire, my lady. To 'is lordship's estate. Reckon they'd take the Crawley road."
Gabrielle frowned, picturing the route. "How long ago did they leave?"
" 'Alf an hour, ma'am. The chaise was ready at five, but 'is lordship didn't come fer it until 'alf five."
“I see."
The lad brought Thunderer, saddled, into the stableyard and Bert gave Gabrielle a leg up. She settled in the saddle, waiting while Bert adjusted the stirrup leathers for her and fastened her bag behind her. If the head groom thought there was anything strange about the countess's unheralded crack-of-dawn departure, unaccompanied and dressed as she was, he kept it to himself and behaved as if this were just another of her lone early morning excursions to be over by breakfast time.
Gabrielle trotted Thunderer out of the stableyard and down the long driveway to the road. The Crawley road lay to the left, and if she cut across country, she could join it about five miles along, where, if she remembered aright, there was a small stand of poplar trees beside the road. It would be perfect for what she had in mind. At a good gallop across the fields, Thunderer would gain on the slower road-bound chaise with ease.
Her crooked little smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she imagined Lord Praed's surprise. He would probably be enraged, of course, but unless she had read him wrong, and after such a night how could she have, he would find her unorthodox approach ultimately irresistible.
Chapter 5
Nathaniel sat back against the leather squabs of the light vehicle, his arms folded across his chest, his expression more than usually forbidding. Something about this hasty if planned departure went against the grain. It felt like flight-flight from the enchantress.
His body sang with the memory of her. Her scent lingered on his own skin, her taste was on his tongue, her exultant laughter ringing in his ears. Who was she? What was she? Apart from what Simon had told him, he knew nothing about her except the furthest reaches, the deepest intimacies of her glorious body.
How was that possible? How could one plumb the erotic depths of another's body and yet know nothing of the personality, the spiritual makeup, the motivations, fears, and hopes of such a lover?
Frowning, he tried to put together what few facts he had. But they added little to the sum. Gabrielle was a widow, a grieving widow according to Simon, desperate for some activity to take her mind off her grief. But the woman in his bed had shown none of the reservations one would expect of a grieving widow. But then, he had exhibited none of the reservations of a grieving widower, and he knew himself to be that. The grief and remorse ran so deep, it flowed with his blood in his veins. It hadn't stopped him… had put no brake on the sensual excesses of the night.