CHAPTER EIGHT THE SPY BEHIND THE SMILE
Gabriel woke with Eleanor’s hand resting over his heart.
For several suspended seconds, he did not move.
Grey morning light seeped through the curtains of the Rothmere House guest chamber, softening the edges of furniture and turning the last candle beside the bed into a pale, unnecessary flame.
The fire had collapsed into glowing embers.
Rain whispered against the windows, gentler than the storm through which they had escaped the Mercury Club, and somewhere beyond the closed door a servant moved quietly along the corridor.
Eleanor slept against him beneath the tangled sheets.
Her dark hair spread across his shoulder and chest, no longer pinned, controlled or arranged for anyone’s judgement.
One bare leg lay between his, while her cheek rested above the steady beat she had covered with her palm.
Gabriel had slept beside women before. Sometimes he had remained because leaving too quickly appeared discourteous.
Sometimes departure had been impossible without crossing a crowded corridor or waking a husband.
Once in Vienna, he had slept on the floor beside a duchess because the bed concealed three government dispatches and she did not trust him near them while conscious.
He had never awakened afraid to breathe because the woman beside him might remove her hand.
Eleanor’s fingers shifted slightly. Her thumb brushed his skin.
His body responded at once. Desire returned with humiliating efficiency, tightening low in his abdomen and drawing his attention to every place their naked bodies touched beneath the sheets.
He remembered her above him, her eyes fixed upon his face while she took him inside her.
He remembered the astonishment that had become pleasure, the confidence with which she set the rhythm and the way she had asked him to take control only after deciding she wanted to surrender it. The memory hardened him fully.
Eleanor made a soft sound in her sleep and moved closer.
Gabriel closed his eyes. Leaving had been the sensible choice.
He had tried. He had sat upon the edge of the bed, reached for his clothes and told himself that distance was not cowardice if it prevented future injury.
Then Eleanor had asked whether rakes always fled before dawn, and every defence he possessed had become inadequate.
So he had remained. Remaining had been worse.
He had lain awake with Eleanor breathing against his shoulder and realised that physical possession meant nothing compared with the danger of being trusted in sleep.
Her body had softened against his without calculation.
She had not watched him for signs of performance or required him to explain the touch of his hand along her back.
She had simply assumed he would not harm her.
Gabriel had spent years ensuring no one possessed enough of him to make trust necessary.
Now Eleanor’s palm rested over his heart as though she had every right to feel what occurred beneath it. He should move.
He should dress, leave the chamber and restore the arrangement to terms he understood.
Instead, he lowered his face and pressed his mouth to her hair.
Eleanor stirred. Her lashes lifted. For one dangerous instant, she looked at him without defence.
Then awareness returned. The events of the night moved visibly through her: the Mercury Club, the copied ledger, her father’s name, their conversation downstairs and everything they had chosen in the bed afterward. Her hand remained upon his chest.
“Good morning,” she said.
Her voice was roughened by sleep. Gabriel wanted to hear it every day. That was precisely the sort of thought that required immediate correction. He smiled.
“Is it?”
Eleanor’s expression changed. Not much. She had always been skilled at concealing her reactions, and the lessons had made her better.
Yet Gabriel felt the withdrawal before her hand left him.
She shifted away and drew the sheet over her breasts.
The movement created cold where warmth had been. Gabriel ignored it.
“You have completed the most demanding portion of your education,” he said. “With unusually high marks.”
Eleanor looked at him. Her face became politely attentive. Gabriel hated the expression and continued creating it.
“Your grasp of practical application is impressive,” he added. “Though your insistence upon discussing risk while naked may require further study.”
“I prefer informed decisions.”
“An admirable habit. Less common in bedrooms than one might hope.”
She sat upright, keeping the sheet gathered beneath her arms. The early light revealed faint marks upon her throat and breasts where his mouth had lingered. Desire moved through him again, followed by something sharper. Those marks would fade. The thought should have relieved him. It did not.
“You said last night was not a lesson,” Eleanor replied.
“No?”
“No.”
Gabriel propped himself against the pillows, arranging ease over discomfort as naturally as pulling on a coat.
“Then perhaps we should classify it as an examination.”
“Did I pass?”
“Decisively.”
Eleanor’s gaze rested upon him for a moment. Her lack of anger was worse than anger would have been. Had she accused him of retreating, he could have answered. Had she thrown a pillow, reminded him of the rules or demanded honesty, he might have been forced to provide some portion of it.
Instead, she merely said, “How gratifying.”
The cold courtesy struck harder than any visible wound. Gabriel reached for humour as a man might reach for a railing while falling.
“I should warn you that advanced instruction creates unreasonable expectations of lesser men.”
“Fortunately, I do not intend to seek further instruction.”
The words stopped him. Eleanor turned and placed her feet upon the floor.
The sheet fell away from her back. Gabriel saw the graceful line of her spine, the soft curve of her waist and the faint discolouration upon one hip where his hand had gripped her as pleasure overcame them.
He wanted to reach for her and kept his hands still.
Eleanor collected her chemise from the rug and pulled it over her head.
The linen settled around her body, hiding the skin he had explored so thoroughly only hours earlier.
“You should remain at Rothmere House until we understand what your father knows,” he said.
She found her drawers next.
“Arabella and I will decide that.”
“Julian will station men near the Finch house.”
“Julian and I will discuss it.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. She was not wrong. That made the correction feel more personal.
“I will obtain the complete records from Hargreaves,” he said.
“You may send copies.”
“Eleanor.”
She turned. The politeness remained, though hurt now sharpened it.
“Was there something else, Lord Ashcombe?”
The title created more distance than the room could contain.
Gabriel looked at her. He might have crossed to her, taken her face between his hands and admitted that he had lain awake listening to her breathe because sleep meant losing consciousness of her presence.
He might have explained that teasing was safer than tenderness because tenderness invited questions he did not know how to answer.
He might have done any number of honest things.
Instead, he said, “You should not return to your father’s study alone.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
She resumed dressing. Gabriel watched the wall.
By the time she had fastened the guest robe, the woman who faced him was no longer the one who had laughed beneath him in bed.
She was Miss Finch again: composed, observant and so self-contained that he could almost believe nothing had passed between them.
Almost. Her gaze lowered once to the sheet covering his hips.
The brief heat in her eyes betrayed her.
Desire remained. The knowledge gave him no comfort. Eleanor walked to the door.
“Your clothes are beside the fire,” she said.
“I remember.”
“Barlow will arrange breakfast.”
“Will you join me?”
She opened the door.
“No.”
Then she left. Gabriel sat alone in the bed and told himself the distance protected her. The lie sounded considerably less convincing without an audience.
* * *
By noon, Lord Ashcombe had returned to London.
Gabriel wore a dark blue coat, an immaculate cravat and the expression expected of a man whose greatest concern involved choosing between two invitations to supper.
He spent an hour at White’s losing a small sum to a cabinet minister who became talkative when victorious.
He accepted a note from a married baroness and allowed two elderly peers to speculate about the identity of the masked widow seen upon his arm at the Mercury Club. Mrs. Grey had been noticed.
Miss Finch had not. The disguise had succeeded.
That should have satisfied him. Instead, each admiring reference to the mysterious widow made him remember Eleanor’s quiet politeness that morning and the way she had covered herself after he called their intimacy an examination.
Gabriel drank half a glass of brandy and left the remainder untouched.
Shortly after two, he entered the government archive through a door most members of Parliament did not know existed.
The building stood behind an unremarkable administrative office near Whitehall.
Its public rooms contained tax records, shipping manifests and enough mouldering correspondence to discourage curiosity.
The lower archive housed documents from the war, diplomatic reports and intelligence files maintained by men who officially held no positions permitting such activity.
Gabriel descended a narrow staircase. At the bottom, an elderly clerk looked up from a ledger.
“Lord Ashcombe.”
“Mr. Cresswell.”
“You are expected.”
“How disappointing. I prefer dramatic entrances.”