Gabriel: Lord of Regrets (11 page)

She smiled more broadly and rose to do his bidding—for once. He ran a hand through his hair and knew he should be buttoning his falls as fast as human hands could manage. He let his hands fall to his side and left his clothing in disarray as Polly advanced on him.

“I’ll tend to that.”

“Woman, you are unnatural, and I am perfectly capable—”

She knelt right between his legs. “And you are shy.” She gently extricated his softening length from his clothes and surveyed him. “Shy,” she murmured, “and… well proportioned.”

He watched as the artist in her measured, assessed, and turned him this way and that.

“Love, you keep that up, and I won’t be the only one set upon in this library. Best put away your toy.”

“Toys,” she corrected him, lifting his cock to run her fingers over his balls. “You got to see my bubbies, so hush. With models, one isn’t allowed to touch, and this is frustrating, because seeing the poor thing just hang there…”

“Polonaise.” His voice was hoarse to his own ears. “Might we have the anatomy lesson some other time?” Many other times?

She gave him a look from between his thighs, a look conveying hunger, artistic and erotic hunger, and he had to gaze past her head at the portrait of the third earl over the fireplace. The blighter seemed to be silently laughing.

“Right.” She tucked him away. “Your dignity won’t stand for it, and in your own library and all.”

“Just so.” She finished buttoning his falls, then ruined her display of sense by stroking him through his breeches a few times before she rested her cheek squarely on his genitals. “Gabriel, what have we done?”

“I don’t know.” Though he knew damned good and well what they had not—quite—done. He trailed his hand over the softness of her hair, the weight of her head an odd comfort. “I should be sending you away, Polonaise, not trifling with you.”

“And I should have enough pride to flounce off and not stay where I’m not wanted.”

“You’re wanted.” She was far more than wanted, which announcement would only make it that much harder to send her safely on her way. “You can’t doubt that now. You’re wanted until I’m coming like a hopeless stripling at the simple sight of you, wench.”

“You did, didn’t you?”

And he’d pleased her all over again, which hadn’t strictly been his intent.

“I said you could stay until the portrait is done,” Gabriel reminded her. “You haven’t even put paint to canvas yet.”

“The next sunny day, I will, and I can be very fast, Gabriel. Marjorie is a wonderful subject.”

Polonaise had accepted that she must leave, which should have been a relief. The notion was, in fact, intolerable, as intolerable as the idea that Gabriel’s situation might put her welfare at risk.

Which meant his best hope was to make her time at Hesketh memorable, and perhaps someday…

“Marjorie will be wonderful to work with,” he said. “I am a wonderful lover, however, and you must allow me to prove that. It’s only fair.” He was just another horny sod, soon to be reduced to a begging horny sod.

“So romantic.” She sighed against his thigh. “You could be a terrible lover, and I wouldn’t know the difference.”

“But I’m not,” he said, feeling both sad for her and pleased for himself that Polonaise Hunt did not have the sophistication to know good lovemaking from the common variety. “You’ll indulge my need to establish this beyond doubt?”

“You know I will.” She sounded bleak, and that had his good humor fading. “But it can’t come to anything, Gabriel. Promise me right now, you won’t start getting notions.”

“I already have,” he countered, meaning it. “I’ll promise you nothing but pleasure, Polonaise.”

“And the loan of a coach at the end of my stay here.”

He stroked his thumb over the sweet, stubborn curve of her jaw. “So mean,” he chided. “But hear me: I know I was dishonest with you at Three Springs, Polonaise. I had my reasons, though they seem less worthy now. I understand you want to decamp to higher ground when your work here is done—”

“You’ve ordered me to.”

He gently put a palm over her mouth, only to feel her tongue tasting his skin.

“I’m sending you away for your safety, not because I want to. If I had my way—”

She covered his mouth with her hand in a reciprocal gesture.

“No, Gabriel.” She peered up at him solemnly. “You need heirs and I am not the stuff a marchioness is made of and we won’t discuss this again. I’ll paint, and then I’ll leave, and if we dally a little betimes, that is simply for our own fleeting, private pleasure.”

“Those are your terms?”

“And discretion,” she added. “No one can know. Not Aaron or Marjorie or even the staff.”

“I accept your terms.”
For
now
. He also silently assured her they wouldn’t be dallying a little. They’d be dallying one goddamn hell of a
lot
, and her pleasure would be far from fleeting.

***

“Mr. Erskine, you will devote your utmost efforts to this case.”

Erskine kept his expression deferentially bland. “My lady, I do so with all of my clients’ concerns.”

“You mistake me.” Lady Hartle drew herself up. She was a tallish woman and wearing boots, which put her a tad below eye level with her solicitor. “You will devote
all
of your efforts to this case, until Gabriel Wendover and his younger brother see reason.”

Erskine wished, not for the first time, that he’d followed his mother’s advice and gone for the church instead of the law, though rising early on Sundays would be a pain. “Reason and the law are only nodding acquaintances. I am powerless to change the one, regardless of how compelling the other.”

“My daughter is the Marchioness of Hesketh.” She rapped the point of her parasol on the floor, like a judge might strike his gavel to demand order of an unruly courtroom. “I’m not asking you to change anything, but rather, to inspire the Wendover menfolk to abide by contracts that have stood for almost fifteen years.”

Erskine knew better than to back down. “As you’ve explained it, the only possible argument for invalidating the marriage is fraud in the inducement, but because the older brother was declared legally dead, it’s hard to know who was responsible for the fraud.”

“The bridegroom, of course.” Lady Hartle nearly shook with her determination. “Aaron had his brother declared dead. Gabriel didn’t rise up from the grave and see it done himself.”

Gabriel Wendover, who was never
in
the grave.

“So your theory is Aaron deceived his way into your daughter’s hand in marriage. A novel outlook, I’m sure, and the judges are not particularly fond of novelty. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of nonconsummation?” Not that this made the legal turf much easier to spade.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lady Hartle snapped. “My daughter is a beautiful young woman who knows her duty, and Aaron Wendover is a former cavalry officer in fine health with no younger cousins or sons to inherit.”

“So you’ve said.” Erskine’s tone begged leave to doubt Lady Hartle’s assessment. “Who are their solicitors?”

“The old marquess used Hamish and Hamish. You will contact them immediately and threaten suit.”

Which was absolutely the least prudent course. “Of course, my lady.”

“Be delicate about it.” She put her gloves on, which to Erskine bore a bit of symbolism. “Be firm, though. If I have to threaten scandal, I will. This is Marjorie’s birthright, and I will see it protected.”

“I understand.” Erskine bowed formally and hoped that would be sufficient cue for his client to make her farewells. She swept out, leaving the door open behind her, and Erskine’s partner, a dapper young blond chap by the name of Hay, came sauntering in.

“Hell hath no fury?” Hay asked.

“Hell hath all kinds of furies, but a mama-in-law scorned has to top the list.” Erskine kicked the door shut, lest all the heat leave along with her ladyship. “Join me for a pint?”

“That bad?”

“She schemed and maneuvered and threatened to get the younger brother’s foot in parson’s mousetrap, now the older brother has reappeared, and we must jettison brother-the-younger and get our marital hooks into brother-the-elder.”

“This is Hesketh, right?”

“How could you possibly know?”

Hay shrugged. Though young, he had an impressive network of informants and was smart enough not to brag about it. “Word travels. So can you do it?”

Erskine sighed mightily and thought of his daughter’s millinery bills. “Possibly.”

Hay slapped him on the back. “Or possibly not, but you can definitely spend a great deal of coin in the trying?”

Erskine grabbed his coat and hat, for it had become a suitably miserable, wet day. “Sometimes, my lad, even the coin doesn’t make the aggravation worth the effort.”

***

“It’s time we went up to Town.” Gabriel made that decision after dinner, when he wasn’t watching the candlelight bring out red highlights in Polonaise’s hair, or contemplating the late evening he intended to spend lying in wait for her in the library.

Resting his back.

Aaron glanced around at the footmen tidying up after dinner. “How about a game of billiards?”

Privacy was always the better alternative, so they were soon behind a closed door, with another fire roaring, the balls racked on the green felt.

“You want to meet with the solicitors?” Aaron broke and stepped back for his brother to take his shot.

“It seems the next thing to do.” Gabriel bent over the table—carefully, always carefully when the weather was turning—and sank a ball, but missed his next shot. “There’s the matter of my being declared dead, of course, and your having been invested, but also the looming threat to your marriage.”

“Marjorie’s happiness isn’t a threat.”

“You try my sanity, little brother.”

Aaron sank two balls quickly—easy shots—then blew the third easy shot.

“If you think I’m going to take her to wife, you’re mistaken. The notion is barbaric.”

“You wouldn’t abuse her.”

“I would
swive
her, were we married,” Gabriel said patiently, “and she is my brother’s wife, not some broodmare coming into season as she approaches the breeding shed.”

“I know that.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Beat you at billiards,” Aaron ground out.

“I have no legitimate children, Aaron.” Gabriel studied the cherubs frolicking on the ceiling among oaken strawberry leaves.

“One comprehends this.”

Gabriel finished the oldest syllogism in aristocratic memory for him. “Ergo,
one’s
duty is to produce my heirs. Why the hell else would you take the title if not out of a profound appreciation for your role in securing the succession?”

“Leave it, Gabriel.” Aaron’s tone was relaxed, though he gripped his cue stick so tightly his knuckles gleamed white.

Gabriel bent low over the table and sank three balls in rapid succession. “We go up to Town and meet with Kettering, but we discuss only my death and the title. Your marriage can wait until Lady Hartle actually rattles her sword.”

“Is your back bothering you?”

“My brother is bothering me, but yes, stretching out like this is something I attempt cautiously.”

Aaron twirled his cue stick, a cavalier, graceful show of disrespect. “One might think you’d attempt it regularly, so as to accustom the body to it again. You were abed for how many months?”

“Too many. I used to spend a great deal of time soaking in hot springs, and that helped significantly.” As had Polly’s padded chairs, and her cooking.

“Why not have a bathing chamber put in here? We can afford it, and there aren’t any hot springs to be had.”

“That is a capital idea.” And offered with studied casualness.

“My quota for the year.”

Gabriel put aside his cue stick. “In truth, you have them fairly often. Whose idea was it to set up a schedule for swapping around the various rams on the tenant farms?”

“Mine.” Aaron appeared to study the balls arrayed on the table. “A young fellow likes variety.”

“And inbreeding is never a good idea,” Gabriel responded primly, though the British monarchy was comfortable enough with the notion. “I understand you favor bullocks over horses for the smallholders, too.”

Aaron sent the cue ball careening off various bumpers. “The heavy horses take more fodder and bedding, and aren’t as palatably put into the stew pot when their days are over; nor are they as strong for their size as the bullocks.”

“So now you’re getting rid of our draft teams?”

“Not ours.” Aaron lowered himself into a chair before the fire—the very chair Gabriel had been considering. “I’m former cavalry, recall, and George would call me out did I advocate getting rid of all the farm horses, but for the yeoman, the bullocks are the better bargain. Where are you off to?”

“The library,” Gabriel said. “There to consult further with your Domesday Book. Design us a bathing chamber, why don’t you? You were always good at such things.”

Aaron waved a hand. “Your wish, et cetera. When are we going up to Town?”

“Tuesday suits, and our week will be up then too.”

“Famous.”

“Aaron?”

“That would be me.”

“I want to help, you know.” Gabriel’s hand was on the door, but his back was to his brother. “Whatever is turning you so damned grouchy, I want to help.”

“You can’t. I’m just growing into the Wendover legacy, you know. Bad dispositions, the lot of us.”

Seeing his brother wasn’t in the mood for confidences, Gabriel went prowling in the direction of the library, there to… rest his back.

“Aaron?” Marjorie’s voice floated forth from the doorway to the game room. She was in shadow, because Aaron had blown out all the candles, leaving only the hearth light to think by.

“Here.” He held up a hand so she could see where he was over the back of his chair.

“I thought Gabriel was with you.”

“Sorry.” Aaron knew he should get to his feet, but instead he held out a hand to her. “Just me. Was there something on your mind?”

She advanced into the room, peering around as if to make sure Gabriel wasn’t lurking, though mentally, Aaron considered his brother nigh haunted him, and had for two years. His musings were cut short when he saw his wife was in her nightgown and wrapper. He’d seen her thus only for a very few moments on their wedding night, two years ago, and the image had haunted him right beside that of his brother’s pain-wracked face.

“You don’t normally seek me out at such an hour, Margie. Did you need me for something?” Did she need him for
anything
?

“I needed to talk to you,” she said, still darting nervous glances into the shadows.

“Come then.” He patted his knee, and when she approached, tugged her onto his lap. He settled his arms around her. “It grows chilly. We can talk like this.”

She nearly levitated at first, like a broody hen whose dignity had been slighted, so badly had he startled her. Then she settled, her arm tentatively sliding around his neck.

“I have always liked your scent,” she said.

“You came here to discuss my scent?”

She gave a tired sigh, and Aaron felt a stab of remorse. He was forever tossing barbs at her, because it was the only way he knew to keep his emotional distance.

And here he’d gone and pulled her into his lap.

“Mama is going to try to set our marriage aside.”

“We can assume that much,” Aaron replied, and in order that he didn’t clutch her to him in an obvious display of need, he stroked his hand down over her unbound hair. “Your hair has more red in it than I suspected.”

“Firelight does that. I don’t want to marry your brother, Aaron.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“He’s a good man, and he’s different from when he left two years ago, more human, but still…”

“You can’t stomach the thought of bedding him now?”

“Do we have to be specific?”

“Maybe it’s the scandal you can’t stomach,” Aaron suggested. “Gabriel doesn’t seem to mind the thought of scandal.”

Marjorie shuddered, and perhaps, just perhaps, her hand tightened its grip on his waistcoat. “He’d marry me then? He said he wouldn’t want to, and I might have the dower house and a stipend.”

“At least,” Aaron said, but because he’d discouraged Gabriel from bringing up this topic, the plan was news to him. “Would you like that, Marjorie, to be free of the Wendover men altogether?”

She shook her head.

“Still want your title, do you? I’d be the heir, at least until Gabriel took a wife and got down to business. We’d have the courtesy titles.”

“It isn’t the blasted title.” She muttered the words against his chest.

“So what is it you want, Wife?” He bent low, his lips near her ear, and inhaled a tormenting whiff of flowers, soap, and female warmth.

“You,” she whispered. “Aaron, I want
you
.”

***

Gabriel headed directly for the library, and realized for once his back did not hurt; nor did it ache or twinge or throb. His muscles weren’t even particularly tight, which was odd, because bad weather usually wreaked havoc.

Anticipation was a wonderful salve, he concluded as he reached the library, only to find his quarry… nowhere to be seen.

His first inclination was to spread himself out on the sofa and lie in wait, because Polonaise was no doubt up in her room, shedding clothes and lingering over her ablutions in preparation for their evening encounter.

His second inclination was to see to himself, because waiting for her was going to make him ache in places other than his back, and he wanted to have as much patience as she needed.

He set those two thoughts firmly aside and went up to the guest wing on the second floor. The light under Polly’s door confirmed her whereabouts, because she’d neither waste candles nor risk fire by leaving them unattended.

“Come in.”

She looked startled when Gabriel stepped into the room and closed—and locked—the door behind him.

“I thought you were the maid, bringing extra wood.”

Gabriel eyed the wood box and the lady sitting in her nightgown and robe on the hearth rug before the fire. “You have plenty of wood, though maybe you were building up the fire for me?”

“Hardly. Tonight isn’t a good time, Gabriel. If you’d please leave?” She rose to turn down the covers and run the warmer over the sheets, a brittleness to her movements.

“You’re tired,” he suggested, “and those letters put you out of sorts.”

“I
am
tired.” She even ran the warmer over the pillows, something Gabriel had never thought to do. “And the letters did put me out of sorts, but it isn’t only that. You’ll have to come back some other time.”

“And give you days to man your battlements?” Gabriel advanced into the room, which at least qualified as cozy. “I think not, Polonaise.”

“I’m not manning anything.” She put the warmer back on the hearth. “It’s just…” She didn’t back away as he moved toward her, but he thought she might have muttered an oath as his arms came around her.

“Your menses, right?” He rested his chin on her crown and held her gently. At Three Springs, he’d known her biological schedule, and not because she’d ever discuss such a thing with him.

“Not my… not that. I am tired, and flirting with a headache. It happens when I paint for too long or sketch too much. I suspect I need spectacles, and I know I need you to leave.” She tried to slip free a moment later, but he held her fast. “Gabriel?”

“I am not accustomed to taking orders,” Gabriel said, “even though we are in your bedroom, and if I were to take orders anywhere, it would be here.”

“Idle promises.”

“Word of a Wendover,” he intoned solemnly; then he patted her backside. “Pain makes everybody cross.” How the nuns would laugh, to know he was quoting them.

“I wish suffering for my art didn’t mean a throbbing at the base of my skull.”

“I never did understand why suffering was a prerequisite for making something pretty.” Gabriel fished carefully through her hair for pins—there were a deuced lot of them—then sank his fingers onto her scalp and massaged gently.

“That feels… divine.”

“Hmm.” He kept at it a few more minutes then left off in self-defense. She was all but purring in his arms, and the feel of her silky, fragrant hair sliding through his fingers brought to mind images of it down around her hips while they—

“I’ll be going up to Town next week,” Gabriel heard himself say. “With Aaron, and you ladies are to stick close to the house when we leave.” This was what he’d come to her room to tell her—among other things.

“Right now, I would promise you nigh anything if you’d just keep doing what you’re doing.” Her voice sounded wonderfully sleepy.

“Lowering, that.” Gabriel resisted the urge to sweep all her hair aside and kiss her nape—strictly in the interests of making her feel better. “One prefers such sentiments from beautiful women under other circumstances.”

“Bother, you.”

“Right.” He did steal the kiss then. “Cross. I almost forgot. Shall I braid you up?”

“One braid. Over my left shoulder tonight.”

“You alternate?”

“It’s like riding sidesaddle. If she can afford the extra equipment, and the extra habits, a lady alternates sides to prevent herself from getting uneven.”

“God forbid a lady’s fundament should be anything other than perfectly symmetrical. Not that I’d remark such a thing, ever.”

“You’d notice. You men.”

“And enjoy the noticing.” Though he hadn’t noticed any lady’s fundament since he’d noticed hers. He steered her over to the vanity stool and kept his lips to himself long enough to do her braid, as ordered, but then he rested his hands on her shoulders and had a minor orgy of kissing over her neck, shoulders, nape, and jaw.

When his lady was sighing softly, her head cradled on her arms, Gabriel desisted. “Time for bed, Polonaise.”

“You are bossy, Gabriel Wendover.” She rose and untied her wrapper as she scolded him.

He brushed her hands aside. “Allow me.”

“I’m not a child.” She spoiled the effect of that pronouncement by yawning as widely as any child, and standing docilely while he divested her of her robe. Perhaps she truly was tired, but Gabriel suspected she also sought to draw out the pursuit phase of their dallying, and in this… she was wise.

Damnably wise, given the magnitude of the issues unresolved between them.

“Into bed.”

She complied, sending him only one half-hearted peevish look over her shoulder as she did. “Good night.”

“Hardly.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged off his boots and stockings, then started on his cravat.

“Sir, what are you about?”

“You’ve never seen a man undress before? Suppose that reflects badly on me.”

“I’ve watched you undress,” Polly said, settling back against her pillows. “At the springs and the pond. I was shameless.”

“Note the erroneous use of the past tense. Did you spy on Beck as well?”

Polly smiled sweetly. “Sara caught him once, by the cistern. I wasn’t so fortunate, but what could he possibly have to interest me?”

“You are a naughty woman.” Gabriel pulled his shirt over his head, grateful for the low light. Polly had seen his scar on occasion, but he didn’t have to force the issue.

“You like that I’m naughty.”

“Adore you for it.” His hands went to his falls, and he paused when he saw Polly was watching those hands.

“Your scar continues to fade,” she said. “Or maybe it’s that you’re not in the sun of late, and your skin is not as dark.”

“I’ve a Portuguese grandmother, hence the Mediterranean cast to my skin. Move over, my love.”

He shucked out of his breeches and drawers in one motion while Polly remained right where she was, frankly eyeing his half-aroused cock.

“You wanted to look earlier, but the circumstances didn’t allow me to indulge you.”

Her brows flew up, and she bit her lip, suggesting he’d found one way to silence her, at least temporarily.

“You know you want to, naughty lady, and I live to serve you.” When he wasn’t sending her away or leaving her side without explanations.

“Right.” She bounced off the other side of the bed, all traces of fatigue gone, and lit a branch of no less than six candles.

“Will that be enough?”

“Broad light of day would be better,” she muttered, not catching his sarcasm.

He scooted back to lie against her pillows. “Touch gently, particularly my stones.”

“You didn’t touch yourself gently.” Polly hopped back onto the bed. “Yesterday in the library, you were quite brisk with yourself.”

Gabriel steeled himself to be inspected. “Sometimes, gentle touches arouse, not so gentle touches sustain the arousal, and ungentle touches can consummate the pleasure.”

Polly put the candles on the night table, while Gabriel considered the erotic potential of hot wax.

“Touch my bubbies the way you were going at your self yesterday, and I’ll ungently deter you.”

“So you say.” His arousal was fading at Polly’s matter-of-fact demeanor, but then she drew her fingers over him, standing him up, and lust came roaring back on a big, fast horse. “Do your worst.”

Her worst was considerable.

Gabriel hadn’t been tortured in Spain, but his wound had been fierce and his recuperation painful. He’d learned to set his mind apart from his body, to separate his awareness of pain from his awareness of all else. All his mental discipline was useless when Polly leaned close to his cock and wrapped her fingers around him.

“You’re larger than the models I worked with in Italy. Quite a bit larger.”

“I’m taller too.” Gabriel tried to sound nonchalant. She fiddled with his foreskin, which was retracting the longer she touched him and the harder he grew.

“What does this feel like?”

“Polonaise, will you leave me no dignity?”

“You left me none. You are fastidious, but you must miss your hot springs.”

“I do. Do you miss spying on me as I stripped to the skin?”

“Oh, very much.” She leaned in, and because Gabriel had once more closed his eyes, he wasn’t prepared for the sensation of her tongue sliding up the length of him.

“There will be no more of that.” He sank a hand into her hair to ensure it.

“Coward.” She nuzzled the base of his shaft, and Gabriel’s hold relaxed because he’d made his point—hadn’t he? “I won’t bite, unless you ask it of me.”

The words sounded familiar, though he could barely comprehend them. “I forget you came of age on the Continent. What was I thinking?”

She fondled his sac in reply. “I like these. They are so soft and strange.”

“So vulnerable, you mean. Are you quite finished? I intended this to be a visual inspection.”

“I am not finished.” She stroked him with her tongue again. “I like the taste of you.”

“No doubt you’re comparing me to cardamom, and zest of orange, concocting some fricassee with my name on it.”

“Hush.” She licked him all over, leisurely, and finished with a little suck on the end. “You’d be a dessert.”

“God in heaven.” His hand in her hair became… guiding. “I’m aspiring to be drizzled with chocolate glaze.”

It didn’t take her long, not long at all, to learn the coordination of her hand around his shaft and her mouth on the head of his cock. He forced himself to move his hips only minutely and slowly, so she could properly torment him for a quiet eternity. When she was drawing firmly on that spot just under the tip, and fire was boiling out from the base of Gabriel’s spine, he tried to tug her away.

“Love, I want to finish,” he rasped. “Need to.”

“Hnn.” She got her mouth back on him, and God help him, he arched his back, just once, feeling the drag of her lips and the tight glove of her fingers and the sheer, pounding bliss of all she was doing to him, and it was too much.