He walked on, convincing himself of this logic. A line of black-clad candidates for the post of cook snaked out of the door and down the steps of his house. With a fresh wash of irritation he stopped on the pavement. Surely Gabrielle should have finished this tedious business by now.

He marched in and entered the morning room, where Gabrielle was conducting her interviews.

"For God's sake, the house looks like an employment exchange," he declared. "Haven't you found someone suitable yet?"

"Thank you, I'll be in touch with the agency," Gabrielle said to the woman sitting on a straight-backed chair against the wall. The woman bobbed a curtsy and left.

"What's the matter with you?" Gabrielle demanded of Nathaniel. "That was so inconsiderate."

"What's going on in my house is inconsiderate," he said. "There must be twenty women out there."

"Well, I can't send them away without seeing them," she said reasonably. "I don't know why there are so many unemployed cooks in town at the moment. I should have told the agency to screen them first, but it slipped my mind."

She regarded her husband closely. He was in one of his impatient, preoccupied moods, and it wouldn't take much to trigger an explosion. "Something's upset you."

Nathaniel ran a hand through his hair in an impatient gesture. "I've just seen Simon, that's all."

Had Simon consulted Nathaniel about the information already? She'd expected him to consider the message, consult his cabinet colleagues, and certainly the prime minister, before involving Nathaniel. Was Nathaniel Simon's first call? The lad couldn't have delivered the paper much more than a couple of hours earlier.

"Is that all?" she said lightly. "Seeing Simon doesn't usually put you out of sorts."

"I hate mysteries," he said. "And I cannot abide the feeling that I'm being used in some way." His eyes skimmed her face, took note of her hands lying calmly in her lap.

Gabrielle's palms dampened. So it was about the information. "Who's using you?"

"I don't know… yet," he added, beginning to pace the room. "But I intend to find out."

"You're not being particularly informative." Gabrielle rose and went to the fire, bending to warm her hands, although she was uncomfortably hot. She had the feeling her cheeks might be flushed and the warmth of the fire would offer explanation.

Nathaniel looked at her, the graceful curve of her tall body, the flickering lights in her hair, caught by a spurting flame, the slenderness of her waist, the flare of her hips, outlined under the creamy beige cambric of her morning gown.

Gabrielle had nothing to do with the events of the morning.

A familiar urgent sweep of lust carried all unease and irritations from his mind.

He approached her softly, encircling her waist with one arm, holding her steady across one outthrust thigh, his free hand molding the curve of her buttocks beneath the gown, slowly drawing up the soft material, revealing the length of her legs inch by inch, the hollow behind her knees, the expanse of smooth thigh, the pale flesh above her stocking tops.

Gabrielle made no attempt to straighten her body, relaxing into the supporting hold of the arm around her waist, feeling the hardness of his buckskin-clad thigh beneath her belly. His hand slid under the ruffled hem of her drawers, and a shudder of delicious expectation rippled through her as the fingers insinuated themselves into her moistening cleft, searching her out in an ever-spiraling dance of erotic intimacies.

"This isn't going to get a cook hired," she murmured in a desperate attempt to keep herself from sliding too soon into the inferno.

Nathaniel removed his hand and whacked her bottom. "Not an appropriate response in the circumstances, wife." He flicked her skirt down so that it fluttered back to her ankles, and released his hold.

Gabrielle straightened, flushed, her eyes glowing. "That was hardly appropriate behavior in the circumstances." She gestured eloquently around the salon. "Anyone could have walked in."

The idea seemed to amuse him, judging by his complacent grin. "I didn't heat too many objections, my love."

"No, well, you wouldn't, would you?" she said with feigned resignation. "You know my weaknesses all too well."

His grin broadened. "I'll lock the door and then I can finish what I started without fear of interruption." He suited action to words and then leaned back against the door, regarding her with hooded eyes.

"What is it?" she whispered, her voice thick, as if the sounds were coming through treacle.

"I'm trying to decide how I want you." he replied.

Gabrielle glanced around the room at the available props, now so engrossed in their game that she gave no thought to her earlier anxiety. "Chaise longue?" she suggested. Nathaniel shook his head "Table?" Another headshake. "Chair?"

"Perhaps," he said consideringly, pushing himself away from the door. With a swift economical movement he toppled her forward over the back of an armchair.

"I might have guessed," Gabrielle said into the velvet cushions, laughter mingling with arousal in her voice. "You're in one of your dominant moods."

"So it would seem," he said affably, throwing her skirts up over her head and slipping her drawers down over her hips. "Are you comfortable?"

"Perfectly," she assured, chuckling, shifting her feet to brace herself.

His hand moved over her, long, slow sweeps caressing her buttocks and thighs, repeating the voluptuous intimacies of the moment by the fire, and all desire to laugh vanished as they both entered the closed world of passion.

He drove against her womb in a deep probing thrust, and she reached back, wanting to enclose him totally within her, to lose all sense of their separateness. His fingers curled into her hips in a biting grip that expressed his own need for this knowledge of completion. Her flesh was his. The rhythmic throbbing deep within her grew to envelop her in the crimson-shot blackness behind her eyelids. He had a strong hand on the nape of her neck, exerting warm pressure as he moved within her, and his other hand was teasing, nipping at the exquisitely sensitive bud of her sex. Her climax ripped through her in a devastating, mind-numbing tidal wave. Somewhere in the distance she heard her voice, and then Nathaniel's hand on her neck pushed her into the cushions, muffling the involuntary sobbing cries of bliss, and his length fell against her back, his hands on her breasts as he held her through his own explosive moment of joy.

"Sweet heaven!" Nathaniel straightened slowly, leaving her skin feeling cold and exposed as he peeled his body from hers. He ran a hand down her back.

Gabrielle pushed herself upright. "Tell me it's eleven o'clock on a Monday morning," she demanded weakly, fumbling with her clothes as she attempted to put herself back together again.

"It is," Nathaniel refastened his britches. "What is it about you?" He shook his head in bemusement. "Devil woman." He answered his own question.

"I don't think I had anything to do with that," Gabrielle declared, examining her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. "Look at my hair, it's all over the place. How am I supposed to show myself outside the room like this?"

"I can't imagine," Nathaniel said with callous insouciance, unlocking the door. "But do something about those women. I want my house back."

"Yes, my lord. We arefeeling assertive this morning, aren't we?" Gabrielle stuck her tongue out at him in the mirror as she hastily tucked errant ringlets back into their pins.

Nathaniel raised a hand in mock threat and left her, unaware of the smile hovering on his lips or the bounce in his stride.

Gabrielle rang the bell for Mrs. Bailey and asked her to send in the next candidate.

Nathaniel went into his book room. He sat down at his desk, pulling a sheaf of reports toward him. He had to decide which of his agents could best be sent to Lisbon… or should he go himself? The Portuguese king was a pathetic, childlike individual, unable to govern; his regent was a coward, unfit to govern. They would crumple before a French advance. A British presence in Portugal was now vital…