CHAPTER SEVEN THE TERMS OF PLEASURE #2
“At the Mercury Club, you touched me because we needed a convincing disguise.”
“Initially.”
“Precisely.”
The word seemed to strike both of them.
“You called it performance even after it ceased to be one,” Eleanor said. “You have called desire instruction every time it became inconvenient to admit that you wanted me.”
Gabriel’s eyes darkened.
“I do want you.”
The admission came without hesitation. Eleanor’s breath caught. He moved around the table but stopped several feet from her.
“That does not make the arrangement safe.”
“I am not asking whether it is safe.”
“What are you asking?”
“That we change the terms.”
Gabriel looked toward the concealed door, as though considering how many people remained within shouting distance. Then he looked back at her.
“What terms?”
“I choose what we do tonight.”
His expression altered.
“Eleanor.”
“You answer my questions truthfully. You do not hide behind instruction. You do not call mutual desire a lesson merely because the word makes it easier to leave afterward.”
His mouth tightened.
“No promises are required,” she continued. “No courtship. No declarations. No expectations beyond what we freely choose.”
“And afterward?”
“No false indifference.”
“That may be impossible.”
“Then leave now.”
The challenge hung between them. Eleanor’s pulse beat painfully at her throat. She was not certain whether she wanted him to accept or feared he would. The two impulses had become inseparable. Gabriel crossed the remaining distance. He stopped close enough that she felt his warmth.
“Physical intimacy will complicate everything,” he said.
“Everything is already complicated.”
“You are angry.”
“Yes.”
“Your father has betrayed you.”
“Yes.”
“You may be seeking a decision no one else can take from you.”
“I am.”
“That is not necessarily the same as wanting me.”
Eleanor looked directly into his eyes.
“I have wanted you since you kissed me in the ballroom. I wanted you when you touched me in Sabine’s library. I wanted you in the carriage, and I wanted you behind the curtain while Vauclair stood close enough to hear me breathe.”
Gabriel’s control fractured for a heartbeat. She saw it in the tightening of his face and the way his gaze dropped to her mouth.
“I am angry,” she said. “I am also capable of knowing what I want while angry.”
He said nothing. Eleanor waited. She had learned the usefulness of silence from him, though perhaps he had only taught her to use openly what she had always understood.
At last, Gabriel asked, “What do you want?”
“For you to come upstairs.”
His breath changed.
“To your chamber?”
“Yes.”
“You have thought about this?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Since when?”
“The first kiss.”
He looked almost pained. Eleanor felt an answering surge of confidence.
“Before we go,” she said, “I have questions.”
“Of course you do.”
The return of humour was faint and defensive. She did not permit it to change the subject.
“How many women have you taught?”
Gabriel looked at the fire.
“None.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I have seduced women. I have pleased them. I have been pleased by them. I have occasionally offered suggestions when enthusiasm exceeded technique.”
Despite herself, Eleanor nearly smiled. Gabriel continued before she could accuse him of evasion.
“But I have never done this.”
“What is this?”
“Remained long enough for one encounter to become another. Explained why I touched someone instead of simply touching her. Negotiated rules. Waited.”
The final word emerged quietly. Eleanor studied him.
“You have never waited for a woman?”
“Not in this way.”
“Why?”
“Waiting allows anticipation to become attachment.”
“And attachment is dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Because women become attached to you?”
Gabriel met her gaze.
“Because I might become attached to them.”
The answer entered the room softly and altered everything. Eleanor had expected him to fear her expectations. She had not expected him to admit fear of his own.
“You think you may become attached to me?”
His smile appeared. It was the charming one, polished and immediate.
“Your talent for interrogation suggests the possibility—”
“No.”
The smile faltered.
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn the truth into a jest because you regret giving it to me.”
Gabriel looked away. For the first time since she met him, he seemed uncertain where to place his hands. He slipped them into his pockets, then removed them almost immediately. Eleanor waited.
At last, he said, “I am not afraid you will become attached.”
She scarcely breathed.
“I am afraid I will.”
Neither moved. The confession felt more naked than anything that had occurred behind the Mercury Club’s curtain.
Gabriel’s mouth curved again, though the attempt at humour lacked strength. “A humiliating position for a man of my experience.”
Eleanor reached up and placed two fingers against his lips. The smile disappeared beneath them.
“No performance,” she said.
His eyes held hers.
“No performance,” he agreed.
She removed her hand.
“Come upstairs.”
* * *
The guest chamber overlooked Rothmere House’s rear garden.
A fire had been lit, clean nightclothes placed upon the bed and warm water left inside a covered basin.
Candles burned upon the mantel and bedside tables, filling the room with gentle light.
It was a respectable chamber. Nothing about the way Gabriel stood inside it felt respectable.
Eleanor closed the door. She did not lock it.
A maid sat outside at the far end of the corridor, while Barlow and Arabella remained awake somewhere below.
Safety surrounded the room without entering it. Gabriel stayed near the fire.
His coat had been discarded downstairs. He wore a dark waistcoat over the damp shirt he had partially opened at the club, though he had buttoned it again during the carriage journey.
Eleanor had seen more of him than society ever did and not nearly enough.
She removed the silver mask and placed it upon the dressing table. Then she turned. Gabriel had not moved.
“You said I choose.”
“You do.”
“Undress.”
The word felt startling in her mouth. Gabriel’s eyes darkened, but he obeyed.
He removed his waistcoat first, unfastening each button with deliberate care.
The garment joined his cravat upon the chair.
Eleanor watched the movement of his fingers.
She had always been the person observed.
Her father’s colleagues assessed whether she looked sufficiently modest. Publishers evaluated whether she seemed too intelligent, too young or too female to be credible.
Gabriel had taught her how to receive men’s attention without shame. Tonight, she wanted to look.
He opened his shirt. The white linen parted over his chest, revealing smooth muscle and golden skin touched by darker hair. A pale scar crossed his left side beneath the ribs. Another marked one shoulder, narrower and older. Gabriel drew the shirt from his trousers. He looked at her.
“Continue,” Eleanor said.
He removed it entirely. The beauty society praised did not end at his face.
His body was leaner than his coats suggested, formed by riding, fencing and activities no drawing-room rake should have practised often enough to leave calluses upon his hands.
Yet he was not flawless. Scars interrupted the smoothness.
One ran along his back near the shoulder blade.
A cluster of faint marks crossed his side, almost parallel.
Eleanor approached. Gabriel remained still while she lifted one hand.
“May I?”
His expression changed at being asked the question he had so often offered her.
“Yes.”
She touched the scar beneath his ribs. The skin felt slightly raised.
“What caused this?”
“A knife.”
“When?”
“Vienna.”
“Intelligence work?”
“Yes.”
“You told society you received it climbing from a married woman’s window.”
“The truth was less entertaining.”
Her fingers travelled to the marks upon his side.
“And these?”
He caught her wrist. Not hard. The reflex was immediate enough to answer before he spoke.
“An old lesson.”
“From whom?”
“My father.”
The room became quiet. Gabriel released her at once. Eleanor did not ask more. Not tonight. Instead, she flattened her palm over his chest. His heart beat quickly beneath it.
“You are nervous,” she said.
“No.”
“You are.”
Gabriel looked down at her hand.
“I am unaccustomed to inspection.”
“You invite inspection every time you enter a ballroom.”
“That is admiration. This is different.”
“How?”
“You are looking for the truth.”
Eleanor slid her hand lower over the hard plane of his abdomen.
“And do you dislike that?”
“I have not decided.”
His muscles tightened beneath her palm. She reached the waistband of his trousers and stopped.
“Remove the rest.”
Gabriel inhaled.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
He unfastened his trousers. The movement exposed the dark hair below his abdomen, then the hard length of him as he pushed the fabric down over his hips.
Eleanor had felt him through clothing and held him beneath the cover of darkness.
Seeing him fully was different. He was beautiful there too, though the word seemed inadequate for something so distinctly male and alive.
His erection rose thickly from his body, the skin drawn tight and the tip already damp. Eleanor stared.
Gabriel’s voice roughened. “You are very quiet.”
“I am looking.”
“I noticed.”
“Does it trouble you?”
“Everything you do troubles me.”
She lifted her gaze. He was not joking. Gabriel stepped out of his trousers and stood naked before her.
He did not pose. He did not smile. He simply allowed her to see him.
The vulnerability of it moved through Eleanor more deeply than modesty might have done.
She circled him slowly. The scars upon his back became clearer.
She touched one near his shoulder, and Gabriel’s breath changed.
Eleanor bent and pressed her lips lightly against the mark.
He went very still. She kissed another. Then she returned to face him.