Chapter Ten #3
“It is strange,” Gabe answered. “A fortnight ago, I would have handed everything over to Fenton more or less gladly. He is another cousin, the son of my father’s youngest brother, and so next in line. He was Harry’s heir presumptive until my mother’s conjuring trick.”
“And the family favored him?”
“The Dowager Duchess will do what the King and House of Lords and the King’s Bench rule.
She’s a High Tory from the cradle and will be so to the grave.
If she could run her demesne as a feudal lord, she would—in point of fact, she does.
We are all terrified of her. Fenton is her pet, always doing his best to ingratiate himself, and all the aunts pamper him. ”
They were a formidable set, his grandmother and her daughters, as intimidating in their way as the Duchess of Rutland.
Gabe would have a devil of a time asserting himself as head of the family.
Harry had bent to the Dowager’s every command, and Fenton was entirely her creature.
The Dowager referred to Gabe, in icy tones and in all company, as the Egyptian street rat.
He wouldn’t be surprised to learn, when it all came out, that she had advised Fenton to do him in.
But the Egyptian street rat, a soldier’s son and a smith’s foster, raised to fend for himself and survive on his wits, wasn’t easy to intimidate. Or to kill.
“You said a fortnight ago,” Louisa observed. “What changed?”
He turned to face her. She was tall enough that her nose was level with his neck; it would be a small matter to bend his head and capture her lips with his.
“I met a woman I want to impress,” he said. “A woman who makes me think that, if she were with me, I could find this life bearable. A woman who makes me think I would actually make something of my life, if I had her beside me.”
For a long moment, the world spun only for them as she stared into his eyes. All that existed were a man and a woman in a magical garden, with the notes of an orchestra riding the breeze and the scent of flowers pouring from the baskets suspended from the trees.
He took a step toward her. He had the sense that his life hung in a fragile balance, and if he could touch her, something would be decided that would secure his fortunes of the rest of his life.
Abruptly she turned and strode down the path, eyes focused straight ahead, avoiding the gazes of other walkers who regarded them furtively, jealously, or with outright curiosity.
“She sounds a paragon, this woman,” she said, her voice snapping with cold. “I am sure I would like to make her acquaintance.”
“Louisa.” He caught her arm to keep her from fleeing. Her forearm was warm beneath her glove, the flesh of her upper arm firm and soft at the same time. She was pliable muscle over a spine of steel.
“No.” She whirled to face him. “No. You are being absurd. Do not toy with or try to flatter me, Your Grace. You have known me a few days, less than a week. You have seen me on three separate occasions. Three. You are going to try to make love to me now and claim I have transformed you somehow? To what purpose?”
Fury and possibly shame—something hot he couldn’t identify—bubbled inside his core. She would slight him, too? He had thought it safe to confess, to confide in her. He had thought she, of all people, would not judge him.
“You think I can be with you and not see you? Not know you?”
“The one time, I was masked,” she answered. “So really, our occasions of meaningful interaction can really only be counted as two.”
He loomed over her, his body not an inch from hers, his voice a low growl in his throat. “That first night was not meaningful to you?”
Her breath gusted over parted lips. The pupils of her eyes flared wide and dark. He knew from the mantle of color on her cheek that she desired him. The same conflagration shaking him to his core was devouring her, too.
“You cannot not hold that night of madness against me,” she breathed.
“I cannot forget it,” he rasped, and pulled her to him.
He fell upon her, and she rose to meet him, her mouth as warm and consuming as an open flame.
Triumph surged, along with a raging hunger.
He could not get enough of her; not in a lifetime would he ever have enough of her.
He planted his hands on either side of her perfect face to hold her still for a kiss that tugged his soul from his frame, and he wanted to consume all of her in return, that delicious body, that quick and capacious mind, that deep and mysterious soul.
She slid her hands to the back of his neck and tugged him towards her as she stepped back, away from the trail, away from the lamps with their haloes of light.
She pulled him into the dark shadows beneath the trees and he followed, consumed by her siren’s kiss.
She tasted of wine and raspberries, and her body was soft and pliant and strong against his, and in kissing Louisa, Gabe found the purpose of his life.
He was content to sweep his hands along the curve of her back, following the firm swells and hollows, for he wanted to take all night touching her.
He wanted to make it his life’s work, discovering her.
But her hunger was more ravenous than his, for she met his ardor with an urgency suggesting something long leashed had been set free in her, and having been starved of sustenance, she was prepared to feast. To devour.
He thrilled at her demanding touch, at the way her hands scraped down his sleeves, anchoring his arms tightly around her, at the way she opened her mouth to his passionate onslaught, at the way she melded her hips to his so his arousal sank into the silk layers of her skirts.
She slipped a hand between them, tugging at his breeches, and need sank its teeth, shaking him.
“Here?” he murmured against her lips, pressing her back against the bole of a tree.
“We’re not the only ones,” she whispered back, and it was true.
There would be at least a dozen couples up and down Druid’s Walk similarly engaged, and more couples slipping away from the dark lanes between the shadows of the trees.
Vauxhall was notoriously accommodating for stolen caresses and, if the lovers were determined enough, a quick swive.
His blood rose at the thought, and his body hardened with anticipation.
He could have Louisa again, right now, and mark her indelibly as his own.
He would curse himself, later, for being a fool.
But what man would have been listening for anything else but the hurried rush of her breath as he dove his hands beneath her skirts, finding heated, soft flesh beneath.
What man would have heard anything but her quiet moans as he skimmed his fingers along her entrance, then dipped inside, stroking to her to readiness.
What mortal creature would not have had his senses filled to surfeit with Louisa—Louisa’s tongue desperately plunging into his mouth, Louisa pushing herself against his palm so he dove in deeper, deeper, Louisa struggling with the button to free his trousers so they could complete this wild joining and come together the way they were meant to be.
At first, when the blow struck his head, he thought it simply a new level of desire; he was near to exploding with need for her.
But when stars bloomed across his vision and a burning sensation bloomed above his ear, he realized it wasn’t some new level of climax.
He’d been struck in the head. He gave an angry grunt, his body stiffening in response to the shearing bolt of pain.
Then the blackness tipped his whole world akilter, and he fell.