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He bit back a sigh of annoyance. Mary was waiting by his door. “Why are you out so late?” he asked her sternly, as he went inside the cottage and lit the lamp.
“No reason.”
There was a note in her voice he recognized. He turned toward her, and in the soft light he saw that her fair hair was down around her shoulders and her dress was low-cut, showing off the swell of her breasts. He frowned.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
She smiled. “I want to be here,” she replied softly, and swayed toward him.
And suddenly he was angry with her and himself. He didn’t want her here, and he certainly didn’t want to take her to his bed. His body was crying out for release, but it was Antoinette he wanted. Mary Cooper would be second best, a means to an end, and she didn’t deserve that. And he certainly didn’t want to go down that road—it was against all that made him a man.
“Go back to the house, Mary,” he told her sharply. “I mean it.”
The protest died on her lips. She made a little sound, half sob, and turned and ran outside. He heard her steps fading through the woods until there was only silence and he was alone once more.
Glumly, Gabriel sank down in his chair before the ashes of the fire. It was only then it occurred to him that he’d been in Antoinette’s room, in her bed, and he hadn’t thought to search for the letter. For all he knew it had been secreted somewhere beneath her nightgown!
A wry smile twisted his lips. No, she didn’t have it on her. He would have found it otherwise when he’d touched her, kissed her, licked her…
The memory made him shift uncomfortably.
There had been a freshness about her, an innocence he hadn’t been expecting from a woman in her position. But perhaps that was part of her charm, that illusion that he and he alone could awaken her passion. It certainly worked. He knew he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until he was in her bed again.
I command you to stop.
He smiled. Next time, he promised her silently, she would command him to do something else entirely.
Antoinette lay and watched as the dawn light peeked through her curtains. She, too, was trying to come to terms with what had happened between them. Was she insane to allow such a thing? But sanity didn’t appear to come into it. Rather it was as if she’d lost her wits completely once he began to touch her. Were such things always so, between men and women? That ecstatic, dizzy joy? She didn’t believe it. She had seen too much unhappiness in the marriages of her acquaintances to believe joy was a lasting consequence of matrimony.
But she wasn’t thinking about marriage, was she? She was thinking about connection. Physical congress. Making love.
He made her body cry out in a way that was new and wonderful, until she longed to be a part of him.
Whoever he might be.
And what if Sir James Trevalen arrests him?
The question made her sit up. He didn’t think he could be caught; he’d said so: I’m like smoke. But that sounded like overconfidence to Antoinette, and Sir James appeared to be a competent man.
Outside the light was growing brighter; the day was beginning.
Of course if she discovered who he was first she could warn him. Give him time to get away before she told Sir James. It seemed like a reasonable plan. All she had to do was find where he was hiding. Antoinette didn’t believe for a moment she wouldn’t recognize him instantly if she saw him, however he might disguise himself—there would be some indefinable something that called to her. After such intimacy as had occurred between them, she was confident it was impossible for her not to know him.
She would find him, warn him of Sir James, and he would leave. Then she would be safe from his attentions.
Satisfied, she lay back, closing her eyes again, only to have them instantly spring wide open. She didn’t want to be safe from his attentions! She felt as if she were wandering through a marvelous emporium, full of wondrous new objects, and she’d only just begun to explore. The image was very nice, but not quite apt. Antoinette grimaced. No, she was more like a greedy child who desired to gorge on sweets, even knowing they would make her sick. The temptation was stronger than her fear of the consequences.
As sleep claimed her, she found herself drifting back in time to the Mayfair house. It was some days after the evening when Appleby destroyed her reputation, and the morning when the letter, which was her only hope of escape, arrived in the post from Surrey.
She’d been expecting a letter from Miss Bridewell, and every morning she’d haunted the entrance hall, intent on getting her hands on it before anyone else. This morning the postman was early and she was still descending the stairs when the footman opened the door. Breathlessly Antoinette hurried to intercept him as he made his way toward Lord Appleby’s study to lay the letters on his desk. A moment later she was holding Miss Bridewell’s longed-for letter in her hands.
She already knew what it would contain. Miss Bridewell had promised to contact her old acquaintance, a housekeeper who had once worked for Lord Appleby, and pass on the mysterious details that would be the means of Antoinette’s escape from this intolerable and dangerous situation.
“She knows something,” Miss Bridewell promised her. “As soon as I wrote to her mentioning Lord Appleby’s name and his visits, she sent a note back warning me about him.”
“It may be nothing, but it’s as well to follow it up,” Antoinette replied. “If you hear any more, then you must send me the details at Lord Appleby’s house in Mayfair.”
Antoinette thought no more of it. She
