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Hell. Gray took two strides out of the water, grabbed his own towel and slung it around his hips. ‘I apologise. I did not realise that anyone else would be swimming. I asked last night and they said there was this bay, but that it would be cold.’ And thank heavens for chill river water or she would have had even more of an eyeful.
Gabrielle made a vague gesture with her hand, her back still turned. Her neck was pink below the pinned-up plait of dark hair. ‘Not at all. I probably wouldn’t have swum, and anyway I should have made more noise in case anyone was here, but I was hoping to see the kingfisher.’
‘It flew past just before you came. If you stay there a moment, I will put on my trousers.’ That was thoroughly uncomfortable, pulling them on over chilly, damp flesh, but he tugged them up, fastened the falls. ‘I’m more or less decent now.’ It wasn’t as though she was a virgin. She must have seen a man’s chest before. Seen all of a man. Even so, he draped the damp towel over his shoulder and down across his torso.
Gabrielle turned, the movement swirling the thin cotton of the faded gown over her curves, and he realised that she was probably naked under it, ready to swim if she had felt brave enough to face a brisk dip. Now he was on the shore they were close enough for him to see that her pupils were dilated just a little, her breathing rapid enough to lift her breasts distractingly.
She had seen enough to excite her, just as the realisation excited him. Gray wondered if the more intelligent thing to have done would have been to sit down in the river and wait for her to go away. He’d have frozen his parts off, of course, it was far too cold to sit about in, but...
‘What did you say?’
‘Death before dishonour,’ he muttered. ‘I should simply have gone under the water.’
‘Gentlemanly, but idiotic,’ Gabrielle observed. ‘But then, so many of the things that gentlemen consider necessary are. I’ll leave you to...’ With a flap of her towel she vanished into the willows.
Gray carried on drying himself. The fact that his thawing anatomy was beginning to take a decided interest in proceedings was a distraction he tried to ignore although, as that was the crux of the problem, it wasn’t easy. He had thought yesterday that the attraction he felt was probably mutual, now he was certain. He had taken care not to be alone with Gabrielle last night, but an intimate chat over a glass of port was hardly in the same league as face-to-face confrontation with him naked and her as good as.
It was nothing more than a physical reaction, of course, but he was not going to accompany her on her tour of the remaining terraces, that was certain. His shirt tails refused to tuck in smoothly between the loose linen trousers and his still-damp skin and he pulled them out again impatiently and left them hanging, flipped the towel over his shoulder and walked barefoot back towards the Gentlemen’s House.
Gabrielle was an attractive young woman. He had been celibate since... Since when? Gray stopped halfway across the lawn and thought. Hell, six months. His father’s death, everything that followed, had swallowed up both time and emotional energy. But that explained why he was feeling decidedly edgy now. Being alone so casually with Gabrielle, who was not a virgin and would be quite well aware of what her feelings and reactions meant, was going to reveal any stirrings of desire.
As he stripped off again in his room and stood in the shallow bathtub, pouring blessedly hot water over himself, Gray wondered whether he should say he had changed his mind, would be leaving the next day.
But that would be to acknowledge that he was aware of that flare of attraction on the riverbank and that awareness was much better left unacknowledged. Besides, he was finding this insight into another world, one he had seen during the fighting but had been ignorant of, fascinating. They were adults, neither of them wanted an entanglement or complications, surely? It would be easy enough to manage his feelings for a few more days.
* * *
It could have been very awkward. Gaby wrinkled her nose at herself in the looking glass as she prepared for the dinner party. Awkward? Downright embarrassing. They had both felt that flash of desire, she was certain, and it had only been superior acting skills on both sides that had dampened it down. Or, rather, banked it behind masks of indifferent politeness. Flash? It had been more like a lightning strike.
Over breakfast she had braced herself to extend the invitation to climb the terraces on the far side of the river as they had discussed the previous day. Gray had clearly rehearsed a story of letters to write first. Then, he said, he had realised that he was close to some point of particular interest to him from the time he had passed through the area in August 1810. He asked for the loan of a horse for later in the morning so he could ride out and see if he could locate the French position he remembered.
Gaby had agreed with a definite sense of relief and reminded him about the evening’s dinner party. ‘We will leave at six if you could be ready by then,’ she said before she stepped down into the boat and Jorge skulled her across the river.
Gray had walked towards the house without a backwards glance. She, of course, only saw what he was doing because she happened to be facing backwards, not that she would dream of looking otherwise.
Now she held up one of a pair of earrings to her left ear and another from a different set on the other side and made herself concentrate on choosing. Yes, definitely the silver-and-pearl drops. Her hair was up in an elaborate knot secured with a silver comb, and they went well with that. She hesitated over the jewellery tray that Paula, her maid, had fetched from the safe and finally settled on the intricately worked silver chain with one large pearl suspended from it. With the chain twisted round her neck three times the pearl lay perfectly, just at her cleavage.
Her gown had been made in Lisbon two months before and was unworn. She had seen an illustration in one of the Paris fashion magazines that were imported in large numbers now and had sent it off to the dressmaker who had been holding fabric for her from the last time she had been in the capital. Gaby stood up, smoothed down the deep garnet silk and stepped into her evening slippers.
Yes, that would do very well. She did not want an affaire with Gray, but she did want him to realise that she was not some poor little provincial chit stranded abroad who needed to be brought back to England and London society in order to bloom. He could tell Aunt Henrietta that she had fashionable gowns and good jewellery and a lively social life and that would certainly annoy her, even if it did not discourage her from her efforts to dislodge Gaby from Portugal.
Gray was waiting in the hall, a handsome, most civilised, gentleman in his immaculate evening clothes. A red cabochon stone in his neckcloth echoed the gleam of the signet on his left hand, the finishing touch.
And I know what is under those clothes now.
Gaby kept that tantalising thought hidden under a polite smile as he came to the foot of the staircase and held out his hand to assist her down the last few steps. ‘Thank you.’ She rested her fingers on his arm when he offered it. Very formal tonight, aren’t we? Probably Gray was using that formality as armour, just as she was.
‘You look beautiful, Gabrielle.’
It was the first time he had used her given name without her asking. Deliberate or a slip? ‘Thank you, Gray.’ Baltasar opened the front door as Gray settled his hat on his head and Gaby looked out, past the lanterns that had just been lit against the gathering shadows. ‘Oh, good, the carriage is prompt
. The distance is very short,’ she explained, ‘but it is not a road one wants to walk over at night—not in evening shoes, at any rate.’ She was determined on polite small talk this evening while the thoughts of that morning still made her feel warm and flustered.
Gray handed her in and took his place facing her. The hood of the barouche was down still, but the coachman would raise it before they came home. Now the fresh evening air was pleasant and the lack of intimacy felt...safer.
‘Did you find the location you were looking for?’
‘Yes, and with less trouble than I had expected.’ Gray took off his hat and laid it on the seat beside him. The breeze ruffled his hair slightly and she thought that she preferred that to the smoothly combed effect. ‘It was a place where a party of French snipers ambushed our forward column. I was puzzled at the time at how they had arrived there unseen, but once I was able to look about freely I could see there is a gully behind the rock that would have given them cover.’
