Chapter 43

When they reached her room, he set her on her feet, though he did not release his grip on her. ‘We had barely begun, had we?' he said tenderly as he looked down at her. ‘Three or four precious, unforgettable days of passion, of exploration, and then I came so appallingly close to losing you. Shall we start again?'

‘That sounds wonderful.'

‘What do you want from me, then, my beautiful bride? I am entirely at your command. Your pleasure, as you must surely know by now, is mine.'

She told him, whispering in his ear, and drew him towards the bed. ‘I think I can manage that,' he said. ‘But shall I undress you first?'

‘Perhaps in a little while.'

‘And shall I undress myself?'

‘Yes! You can do that. And I will watch you. I believe I would enjoy that.'

She slipped off her silk evening shoes, and lay back against the pillows without taking her eyes from him. He ripped off his cravat and threw it aside, then shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat. He pulled his shirt over his head and stood smiling down at her in his black satin breeches, and she drank in the sight of his muscular chest, slim waist and strong thighs. He began to unbutton himself and she bit her lip as the tantalising line of dark hair that ran down from his belly was revealed. She had kissed her way down it the day after they were married, and she would again, but not now. He sat beside her on the bed, and slipped out of his breeches and stockings. He was naked, magnificent, and hard for her. ‘Good,' she said. ‘Very good. Now come here.'

He came to lie beside her, and she pulled his head down so that she could kiss him. They were open-mouthed, hungry, fierce, their tongues exploring each other, and she ran her hands up his back and dug her fingers into his taut muscles. Presently he released her mouth with one long, last lingering kiss and began to work his way down her throat, pressing his lips to her skin, to the hollow where her pulse beat, and biting her gently where she was most sensitive. His warm, naked, beloved body covered hers and she spread her legs so that he could lie between them and she could wrap herself around him for the first time in what seemed like years, though it was only weeks. She was still clothed, of course, but only in two layers of delicate, gauzy material that was barely a barrier between them. Her nipples were almost painfully hard, so sensitised already that the mere touch of the lace of her chemise was arousing, yet frustrating, for she wanted more. ‘This gown…' he murmured against the curve of her shoulder.

‘Do you like it?'

‘That's by no means strong enough a word,' he said, kissing the valley between her breasts, where the jewel still lay, and then pulling down the silver gauze with intent fingers to reveal one taut globe covered with the merest wisp of lace. He did not pull the lace aside, but fixed his hungry mouth on her with her chemise still in place, and she gasped at the heat and wetness of him and the sheer rightness of it. His clever tongue worked its way under the lace and circled her nipple, and then he used his teeth to drag aside the material, tearing it a little. His teeth just grazed the exquisitely sensitised, erect flesh with superb control, just hard enough, not too hard, not too soft, and she moaned and pushed up against him, urging herself into his mouth, arching her back, pressing her pelvis against his. His hand was on her other breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers, tantalising her through the material that still covered her there. She dug her heels into the mattress and her nails into his skin.

Presently he pulled back a little, so that he could push the gown down completely and bare her breasts. They were flushed, and she was so aroused that when he blew on one engorged nipple she whimpered and writhed under him. He laughed, a low, intimate, triumphant sound, and took her in his mouth once more and sucked on her hard, one tight bud and then the other. ‘I think…' he whispered a little while later against her hot skin, and between words the tip of his tongue teased the very tip of her, and it was almost unbearably good, ‘I think I could make you come like this, without laying a finger on any other part of you, without touching you in any other way.' She moaned incoherent assent. ‘But you don't want that, do you? Not now?'

Before she could remind him what she wanted, before he made her beg again, he dragged her skirts ruthlessly up about her waist – another petticoat ruined – and slid into her, claimed her completely, with a breathless, slick movement that made them both cry aloud at the fierce perfection and completion of it.

She had told him, when she had whispered her desires to him a few moments since, that she did not want him to be controlled, tentative, careful of her as though she were fragile and might break under him. She was not, she would not, and she wanted all of him, all of his passion and his strength pounding into her. She locked her legs tight about his waist, gripped his buttocks tightly with both hands, and moved with him in complete unity of purpose. They came together, panting, gasping, kissing with frantic urgency, desperate to join and not be parted. Never to be parted.

When at last they lay in each other's arms in the dazed aftermath of passion, he smoothed the silvery fabric – now sadly, possibly irrevocably creased and crumpled – over her thigh and said, ‘Do you know what I would like to do, Georgie?'

‘I don't. I hope it's wicked and shocking,' she said lazily, her own tongue coming out to explore his nipple, as it seemed only fair recompense.

‘Of course it is. Would you expect any less of me? Don't stop, by the way.'

‘Mmm,' she said. ‘I promise I won't. Please, tell me.'

‘I would like to see you in this almost transparent gown with nothing at all underneath it.'

‘I'm sure that could be arranged.'

‘I'd like to see you, every precious inch of you, in this gown with nothing at all underneath it, leading me – possibly on a leash, I'd have to think about that – into that house where first I laid eyes on you.'

He saw her expression, half shocked and half intrigued, and said, smiling, ‘There's no need for us actually to do it. I don't mean the dress – I must insist upon that, my love – but the public display, the house and all the rest of it. It's just a fantasy that perhaps we might both enjoy.'

Georgie did not answer him directly, though she was sure that he was right; he had given her delicious food for thought. She said instead, tangling her fingers in the whorls of soft dark hair that covered his chest and tugging on it a little, ‘Everyone is always talking about your reputation – you, too. But that's one of the first things you have ever said to me that truly makes me understand how you gained it, if you have ever really done such a thing as that. And you make me realise now that you never told me why you went to that house. Perhaps you were, you are, a regular visitor? I asked you then, but you said only that I would not believe you if you told me. Is it so very terrible, your reason? We should have no secrets now, Gabriel, and if there is anything more you want from me that you are afraid to ask?—'

He laughed. ‘Oh, my love! The truth is quite different. I had no intention of telling you my guilty secret then; I was too busy painting myself as dangerous, mysterious, intriguing – all for your benefit. Telling you that I had gone there to look for my idiot nephew and bring him home to his anxious mama would hardly have produced the desired effect.'

She raised her head and looked at him in surprise. ‘Truly?'

‘Truly. You have noticed, I dare say, that he is of an amorous disposition. He attempted to flirt with you more than once, as I recall, but you gave him the cold shoulder. Yes, I was watching, of course I was watching, I was always watching… But I am straying from my point. He led a very sheltered life as a child on FitzHenry's estate in Ireland, and it is fair to say that London went straight to his head. He has no father now, and I am hardly in a position to lecture him on morality. But Blanche did call on me to restrain him from his more desperate activities when she heard of them. I spoke to him, I made sure he knew how to protect himself and others. And when she discovered from something he had let slip to his sister that he intended to pay a visit to that house, she asked me to go there and remove him, if I could find a way to do so. She was right: it is no place for the inexperienced, as I recall saying to someone else.'

‘You did say that. But you did not find him?'

‘No, he was not there. He told me later that he had thought better of it, that he realised he was in dangerous territory, and becoming carried away with the idea of being a terrible sort of a fellow. God knows I understood what he meant by that, since it was precisely the path I followed. I was impressed that he was wiser than I was at the same age. He is really not unintelligent, when he thinks with his head and not another part of his anatomy.'

She chuckled. ‘I'm sorry I did not know that sooner – why you were there, I mean.'

‘Because you would have told the Aubrey woman of it? I fear she would not have believed you: my terrible reputation again, you know. Avuncular concern does not fit with how the world sees me.'

‘Is any of it true, though, Gabriel, your terrible reputation?'

‘Oh, yes. Much of it is. Too much. I will not have you put me on a pedestal, my love. I was expelled from Oxford for my atrocious behaviour, then caught in flagrante at eighteen with a married woman several years my senior; I fought her husband in a duel and wounded him, and was obliged to flee abroad. I lived a rackety sort of life across Europe after that, and only came back when I was forced to take on my father's responsibilities during his illness. I was a constant worry to him, and to my poor mother, and I regret that most of all, but it is far too late to mend.'

‘Blanche told me of your estrangement from your father.'

‘Did she? I am glad. That is a sorry tale, with faults on both sides. I was fired up with righteous anger towards him at the time, young idiot that I was, and of course when I saw what a sad mull he had made of running the estates towards the end of his life I was angrier still. But I have talked about it a great deal in recent years with Mr Summerson, and he has helped me to see things in a fairer light. We are none of us perfect, me least of all. I do regret that my father died before the breach between us could be mended, but do not be thinking of me as a tortured, mistreated soul. I am just an average sort of sinner, worse than most, not as bad as some.'

Something occurred to her that had not so much as crossed her mind before. Now that it struck her, she did not understand why she had never thought to ask what was surely a crucial question. With a sudden icy chill on her, despite all his declarations of love and fidelity, she said, ‘Did you have a lover, Gabriel, when you met me? Is there some woman whom you have written to tell of your marriage, who received the news with distress and who is wondering even now if you will come back to her, and hoping that you will?'

With a fluid movement, he shifted their bodies so that they were looking each other full in the face, and said earnestly, ‘There is not. There has not been anyone for a long time. And after my brother's death and all that followed it, I was… I don't know how to put it. Frozen, I suppose. Uninterested in physical contact for the first time in forever, aware that I must marry, reluctant to do so, a little revolted by the prospect… Trapped. Until I entered that house and saw you huddled in your corner, fascination warring with fear on your lovely face. Until I went down on my knees in front of you. Then I began to wake up. God knows, I'm awake now.'

His hands were on her, hers on him, and she could see that he was telling the truth. He was wide awake, every part of him, and as for her… ‘I think you might undress me now after all,' she said, rolling onto her stomach so that he could reach the buttons that ran from waist to hem of her gown. The beautiful, crumpled fabric had been dragged up around her thighs, and she was, she realised, still wearing her stockings and her garters. Perhaps he would remove them, perhaps he would not. Either way had its advantages. She looked over her shoulder and smiled teasingly at him.

He smiled too, a wolfish sort of a smile, and trailed a line of butterfly kisses from the nape of her neck, across her shoulder blades and down the deep vee of her bodice. ‘What a delicious picture you present,' he murmured between kisses. ‘If only Boucher were alive to paint you. Being fully and most delightfully occupied, I had not until now noticed the back of this extraordinary confection. A shocking omission, I know you agree. It is just as glorious as the front, I see now, and merits just as much attention.' And he began to undo her, in every possible sense, as very slowly with lips, tongue and clever fingers he worked his way down her body.