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‘And do, please, call me Gabrielle,’ Miss Frost added with a smile so sweet it set his teeth on edge. She poured two glasses of amber liquid from the decanter on a side table, handed him one and sank down gracefully into an armchair.
Gray would have had money on it that the exaggerated grace was as much a calculated provocation as the sweet smile. He took the glass with a smile at least as false as hers and settled into the chair opposite. ‘Very well, Gabrielle. Tell me why you refuse to countenance whatever your aunt’s request might be?’
‘I assumed rightly, did I not? She wants me to go to England and has sent you to fetch me.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. Gray crossed his legs, lifted the glass, inhaled and almost closed his eyes in pleasure. The wine could not possibly taste as good as the nose promised. ‘It seems a perfectly reasonable suggestion to me.’ It had actually been rather more of an order, but saying so was hardly likely to help and he had to agree with his godmother. Gabrielle Frost was too young, too well bred and too lovely to be alone and running a business in a foreign country with only a bluestocking as an exceedingly careless chaperone.
‘If I go to London, she will insist that I marry George.’ Gabrielle’s lips tightened into a straight line. ‘I will not, of course, but arguing about it is a crashing bore.’
‘I understand your objection to a first-cousin marriage,’ Gray said. ‘But Lord Welford is your aunt’s stepson, not a blood relation in any way.’ He took an incautious mouthful of the tawny port, choked and stared at the glass. It was every bit as good as the aroma had promised. ‘This is superb.’
‘It is indeed, whereas George is a spoilt, dim, selfish, pompous little lordling.’ Gabrielle took a sip from her own glass and allowed her lips to relax.
Gray crossed his legs. ‘Not so little. He’s my height now.’ Still spoilt, still inclined to be pompous. Selfish? Gray had no idea, although it was to be expected that the indulged heir to an earldom would have a well-developed sense of entitlement. For himself the army had knocked any self-importance that he’d had out of him, but George, Viscount Welford, had never been allowed near anything as dangerous as a militia exercise, let alone a battlefield. ‘I have to admit, he is not exactly the sharpest knife in the box, but he is not an idiot and it is a good match.’ He took a more restrained sip of the port. He deserved it. ‘And she cannot force you to the altar.’
‘She will nag and cajole and lecture and hector and make my visit an absolute misery. But let us assume that I am foolish enough to do as you ask and weak enough to give way to my aunt’s matchmaking. Let me calculate who gains what.’ Gabrielle, whose wits were clearly as sharp as any boning knife, began to mark off points on her fingers. ‘I gain the heir to an earldom, the expectation of becoming a countess one day and the opportunity to enjoy the English climate—I understand that rain is supposed to be good for the complexion. In return I give up my inheritance, cease the work I love, subjugate myself to the dictates of a man less intelligent than myself and who would run the business into the ground and surrender to being bullied by my aunt. Somehow I do not think that a title and clear skin weigh more heavily in the scales.
‘George, on the other hand, gains a very valuable wine estate and me. With all due modesty, I believe I am wealthier, more intelligent and better-looking than he is. Of course, there is a something on the negative side for him, too—I would make his life a living hell in every way I could think of.’
Put like that, Gray could sympathise. In her shoes he would not want to marry Lord Welford either. ‘Leaving aside Lord Welford—’
‘By all means, please let us do that.’ She was positively smiling now. One glossy lock of brown hair slid out of the combs that she wore in it, Spanish-style, and slithered down to her shoulder. Gabrielle moved her head at the touch on her neck and the curling strand settled on the curve of her breast, chocolate a
gainst warm cream.
He could not keep crossing his legs. Gray ground his wine glass rather vigorously in his lap, refrained from wincing and ploughed on. If he had wanted to spend his life negotiating with hostile powers, he would have joined the diplomatic corps, not the army. ‘Leaving him aside, you clearly cannot remain here.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘You are single.’
‘Portugal is full of single women.’
‘You are inadequately chaperoned.’
‘Fiddlesticks.’
‘Fiddlesticks? You admit to having had a lover—what kind of chaperonage does that argue?’
‘The kind I want. I am very glad I had a lover. That lover.’ Her chin came up, but there was a sparkle in her eyes that hinted at tears suppressed. Or anger.
‘Very well.’ Clearly he couldn’t shame her into doing the right thing. ‘Who are you going to leave this quinta to? I hope you have a long and healthy life, but one day, you will need an heir.’
‘To leave it to my own child would be ideal. Unfortunately that requires a marriage.’ She shrugged. ‘Back to the problem with husbands.’
He tried for a lighter note. ‘They are really such a problem?’
‘If I marry a local man, the quinta will vanish into a larger holding and lose its identity. If I was fool enough to marry in England, what husband is going to want the trouble of an asset so far away? He will sell it or hand it over to some impersonal manager. It will no longer be Frost’s, either way. “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage.” That is William Blackstone, the legal writer. Believe me, I have read all round this. How would you like your very being suspended? More port?’
‘Thank you. And, no, I would not like it. But then, I am a man.’ Gray got to his feet, glass in hand as she glared, tight-lipped. He needed to move before he gave in to the urge to shake the infuriating female. Or kiss her. That combination of temper and intelligence and sensual beauty was intoxicating and he was tired after a virtually sleepless, uncomfortable river journey, exasperated and, totally against his will, aroused.
If he had not been concentrating on the sideboard and the decanters, he would have seen her rise, too. As it was, they collided, her forehead fetching him a painful rap on the chin. Gabrielle clutched at him one-handed. He did the same to her and they swayed together off balance, breast to breast.
She smelled of roses and rosemary and something else herbal he could not identify. Her breath was hot through the thin linen of his shirt and her body was soft and supple against his, which was as hard as iron. Gray steadied them both, set her back a safe six inches and took the glass from her hand. ‘I’ll get the wine.’
From the grip that she had on her glass, and the second or two it took for her to relax it, that collision had shaken her as much as it had him. Gray made something of a business of pouring the port, careful about drips, precise in replacing the stopper in the decanter, anything to give them both time to compose themselves from whatever that had been. Other than lust.
‘Thank you.’ When he turned back, Gabrielle was seated again, fingers laced demurely in her lap. She took the wine from him, her hand as steady as his was, and he wondered again at her composure. Or, at least, the appearance of it.
