Chapter Twenty
“Miss Devereux? What’s the meaning of this?” Gabriel hissed. He’d been thinking of her, pacing and wishing she would miraculously appear at his door, but having her indulge him in that hope so unexpectedly was rather disconcerting!
Caroline gazed up at him with a rather stupefied look upon her face. He was puzzled until he realized that he was not properly dressed for meeting a lady.
He had removed his coat, vest, and cravat. His shirt was currently half unbuttoned. He hastened to at least do up the buttons but she stumbled to her feet, almost pitching against him in her hurry. Gabriel grabbed her.
“I…I didn’t know how to give this to you at dinner. Or while the doctor was here. So.” She offered him the paper. “Here it is.”
“Here what is?” He was genuinely baffled.
“Here’s the blackmail letter. You may read it, of course, to verify it for yourself.”
Gabriel didn’t even blink. He snatched the letter and opened it, though he did not need to read it. He’d seen it before, after all. Still, he caught a few choice phrases: dreadful little brat , wrong side of the blanket , at least he’ll never have the title had the tendency to stick out rather.
“He really was a dreadful man,” Caroline said.
Gabriel’s jaw tensed. “Come in here. Quickly.”
He ushered her into his chamber with haste and shut the door. Caroline blushed to the roots of her hair, and he was confused until he realized what a new experience this must be for her.
She was inside a man’s bedchamber at night, alone. This was the sort of scandalous actions only the boldest heroines in her novels ever undertook. Caroline was as bold as any of them, as bold as any soldier or sailor he’d ever known. But she was also more baffling than anyone he’d ever met, because why would she just hand over the blackmail letter?
“Why would you give me this?” Gabriel murmured. The young woman’s eyes dropped down in evident shame.
“Because I should never have gone through with this nonsense in the first place. Because I’m really not the sort of person to entrap someone else. I’ve felt wretched ever since our first meeting at Devereux House, and it doesn’t matter how I might feel now. I have to do this.”
“I’m sorry? What do you mean ‘how I might feel now’?” he asked. Gabriel’s heart began to pound so loud he was shocked it didn’t wake the whole house. She couldn’t mean what he prayed she meant. Could she?
She still couldn’t force herself to look at him.
“All I meant was I’m sorry about the blackmail and everything else. You’re free now. And I must retire to my own room.” Caroline tried to take this opportunity to rush away, but Gabriel put himself between her and the doorway.
“Don’t leave,” he said.
“I’ve done my duty. I have no reason to stay.” She frowned. “And I’ve no wish to stay here while you relish in my humiliation. I’m afraid I’ve still too much pride left for that.”
God, he adored her pride. He also loved seeing her surprise, and he knew he was about to enjoy the sight of it again.
“I’m afraid you’re not the first Devereux to return this letter, Caroline.”
The revelation clearly struck her like a thunderbolt.
“Wh-what?” Caroline’s jaw dropped. Gabriel could not help it. He was now thoroughly enjoying himself.
“I’d a bet with Simon. If he found this letter and brought it to me without alerting anyone in the house, I’d give him a sovereign. He managed it all brilliantly. He’s a clever little fellow. Takes after his sister, I’d say.”
Caroline looked afraid to move. She still didn’t seem to understand.
“But I found the letter where I’d left it,” she said.
“Because I asked Simon to put it back. In fact, I gave him a second sovereign to see he did just that.”
He watched as the light of understanding began to fully sparkle in her eyes. Caroline gazed at him in wonder; it was a sight he relished.
“Why would you do something like that? You had your freedom! You knew what taking this letter back would mean.”
“Yes. It would mean that you’d have no more power over me.” Gabriel’s enjoyment subsided. He spoke to her gently because he wanted her to know how absolutely serious he was. “But it wasn’t until I had the letter that I realized how much I prefer being in your power.”
At those words, Caroline’s last traces of fear vanished. She looked up at him with full belief and astonishing hope.
“You prefer it?” she whispered.
Gabriel stepped closer toward her, and he seemed to exert a marvelous type of spell over her as he did. Her wide gray eyes practically glowed; she shivered in pleasure as he took her into his arms, collapsing against him. This was sin and salvation in one perfect moment of surrender.
“I prefer everything to do with you,” he said.
“You want me to have power over you?” Caroline’s eyes fluttered shut as Gabriel pressed his lips to her forehead. He held her closer, not wanting her to ever part from him.
“Haven’t I made my desires clear enough for you?” he rasped. “I’ve pressed for all the information I could get on you. Favorite flowers, cakes, dishes, colors, everything. I want you to have everything you desire here, Caroline.”
He meant it, too. So long as she wanted for nothing, he could be happy.
“But how could you want me after what I’ve done to you?” she asked. “I tried to blackmail you, for Heaven’s sake! That’s not the sort of person you should wish to be with.”
“All you’ve done is give me the first glimpse of a real life I’ve ever had.” He cupped her chin in his large, rough hand and lifted her mouth to meet his. Their lips almost touched as he whispered the next words. “Even when I thought I hated you, I never wanted anyone or anything more. And I could never hate you, Caroline Devereux.”
“Never?”
“I never have. Not really.” He held her face in his hands, gazed into her eyes. The sweetness of his feelings merged and melted with the hot, almost scorching need to feel her in his arms. To claim her as his finally, and thoroughly. “May I kiss you, Caroline?”
May I never cease kissing you? Not until my last breath?
“Yes,” she whispered, capitulating into his arms in a final, glorious act of surrender. As Gabriel’s mouth found hers, he surrendered himself in turn permanently.
…
Caroline moaned softly as he pressed his lips to hers. The kiss seared her through her soul, enveloping her in a column of fire. Her heels lifted from the ground as their embrace tightened. His black hair was sleek as her fingers trailed through it.
He hadn’t shaved since this morning, as the faint rasp of stubble against her cheeks suggested. Caroline dove deeper into the kiss, an explorer on a sacred mission. She had written of love and desire without ever having known either of them.
Now, she knew them both. And she wanted to know everything about the physical side of love and wanting. She’d been prepared to say goodbye forever to the Earl of Rockford and here he was declaring himself as hers. Always, eternally hers.
“You don’t hate me?” she whispered.
“No.” His word was a prayer and a protestation. “No, you strong-minded creature, just the opposite. I love you, Caroline.”
The most impossible words to achieve in the English language, at least in her experience. He gave them willingly, as he gave his heart and his hand and himself. Tears blurred her vision a moment.
“I love you as well, my lord.”
He pulled her into a tighter embrace then, their mouths meeting and their kisses melding them as one. Gabriel’s breathing deepened, his hands clutched at her back, at the delicate arrangement of her hair. His lips and his stubble kissed and caressed her jaw, her neck. His breath was hot against her flesh, and she moved on instinct.
Though it was unmaidenly in the extreme, she urged her hips against his just once.
“Oh God,” he hissed as Caroline pressed herself against him yet again. She shivered in delight and shock as she could feel his…excitement mounting.
There was experience, and then there was stupidity, and she was fast rushing to the wrong end of the line. If she valued her virtue, she ought to hurry back to her room and wait for the wedding night. But her instincts all united in a great, wordless cry to push her forward.
She wanted him, and she wanted him now.
After a lifetime of readying herself to accept crumbs of affection if she were lucky to get any at all, she was now offered a veritable feast. She could not deny herself or him.
“We must stop this,” he whispered, though his lips continued to caress her throat. Caroline dipped back in his embrace. “If you only knew what I wanted—”
“Then we two would be in total agreement.” She kissed him, wanting more than kisses. Wanting her whole body to burn with ecstasy.
“I don’t want you to regret this.” He was straining now against the sheer pull of his desires, but he would not cross that line. Not if she hesitated in the slightest way. “As I told you in the Weatherford garden, I want this to be perfect.”
“You were right to stop me back in the garden. You would be wrong as sin to stop me now.”
“Wrong as sin, you say?” he asked huskily.
They kissed again, and the kissing carried her off as a current on the river. He lifted her slightly off the ground, and she lost her footing in common sense and was glad of it.
“Please, Gabriel.” She tilted her head back, her lips feathering his jaw. “Please, I want you. I don’t care how wretched it makes me.”
“Wretchedness has nothing to do with you.” All his last hesitations had vanished. He believed her now, and he was relieved and as ready to quit struggling as Caroline herself.
His lips devoured hers. The kiss was glorious as he gripped her hair, pins scattering as he pulled them free. Caroline’s hair tumbled around her shoulders.
“How could you be anything less than perfect?”
She wanted to laugh. Perfect, her? The worst debutante in a dozen years, the pity of the ton ’s matrons?
“I’m so far from perfect.”
“No.” He shook his head slowly as he held her face in his hands. “For me, you’re exactly right.”
Her heart thrilled. Yes, for him she was right, as he was for her. Caroline grinned, wishing to tease him. “Am I right for you even when I trip while dancing?”
He smirked. “Especially then.”
She held her breath as he deftly undid a button on the back of her gown.
His fingers tensed, and she could feel the effort he was expending not to simply rip the garment from off her body. Groaning with the restraint, Gabriel turned her about and began to make rapid work of the rest of her buttons.
It was as if she were stepping into an entirely new world, shedding her old body and emerging as a wholly different creature. Caroline knew that if she didn’t stop now, she’d never want to stop. Common sense dictated she should be as safe as possible. As if intuiting this, Gabriel hesitated when he touched the laces of her stays.
“I meant what I said. I want you to be certain.” His lips traced the shell of her ear.
“I most certainly am. Are you certain?” she asked.
“As I’ve ever been of anything in my life.”
Those words were the last threshold Caroline needed to cross. She sank back against him, letting his heat and his arms and all of him envelop all of her.
“Then please, Gabriel. Please.”
“You’ve no idea what the sound of my name on your lips does to me,” he growled.
She turned her head to his. Their lips met again as her gown slipped to the floor.
His fingers worked at her stays, and as every tug loosened them Caroline felt like freedom itself. When her stays joined the dress in short order, Gabriel began to slide off her shift. She shivered with the pleasure of revealing herself to him, but Caroline was also a stubborn person. She turned around, stopping his progress.
“I think fair’s fair.” She teased one of the buttons on his shirt loose. “After all, I’m a forward-minded woman. I like for things to be equal.”
“That’s something I’d never discourage.” The earl’s grin was full of wicked delight as he undid the buttons of his shirt.
He had the powerful physique of a god, like she’d always thought. The statues of ancient Greece and Rome with their impressive physiques would have appeared inconsequential beside him.
Caroline’s breath quickened as she placed a hand over his chest and felt the beat of his heart. The sinewy slope of his shoulders was broad, the hair covering his chest and the rigid wall of his stomach dark as night.
He tensed beneath her hand as she traced her fingers up and down his chest, along his arms, all the way up his throat to the well-sculpted masterpiece of his jawline.
“I didn’t realize men felt so…rough.” She couldn’t help laughing a bit as she kissed him slowly.
“And do you like things that are rough, my dear?” His voice, normally growling, was now almost a lion’s purr of pride as Caroline kissed and nipped at his stubbled cheek.
“It feels so different. It’s so alien to my usual experience.” She couldn’t help frowning as he began to remove her shift. “I know I’m not as unique to you. My body, that is.”
“There you’re wrong. Everything about you is unique.” Gabriel took a shuddering breath as he laid her bare.
Caroline’s nipples grew hard as the cold air brushed along her skin. There was the moment when her instincts told her to cover up and embrace modesty, but she silenced that voice when the hunger in Gabriel’s eyes turned ravenous.
She shivered with ecstasy as his fingertips traced her around and around the nipple until she could feel a deep throbbing begin between her legs.
“You have no idea how much I love your softness, Caroline. How desperately I’ve dreamed of doing this for weeks now.”