‘I think I want to go back to the hotel now. I am so tired all of a sudden.’

  ‘Confession tends to be exhausting, don’t you find? A letting-go of a tension that has been held a long time.’ Gray reached up and banged on the roof of the carriage and it slowed, turned.

  ‘What have you to confess?’ Gaby found she had the energy to tease a little.

  ‘Youthful idiocy,’ he said after a moment. ‘Then poor judgement followed by misguided gallantry followed by an inability to... Never mind, that is in the past now.’

  He is talking about his marriage, she realised. The temptation to press him for more details, here in the darkness when she, at least, was in confessional mood, had to be resisted. Gray was a proud man and a private one and she owed him too much to indulge in vulgar curiosity.

  The silence as the carriage wound its way back through the night-time streets was curiously companionable. All either of them said when they reached her hotel room door was her thanks, his ‘Goodnight.’

  Gray bent his head, brushed his mouth across the lips she raised to him, then, as she opened the door he turned and walked away.

  A lamp was burning low on the table in their sitting room, but when she peeped around the door of Jane’s bedchamber she was fast asleep on the bed, still in her wrapper, a book fallen open on the coverlet. She pretended that she was a brisk, unsentimental woman, but even so, she stayed up at night to see Gaby safely home.

  With a sudden surge of affection Gaby moved the book, found a spare blanket in her own room and draped it carefully over her companion, then took the lamp and put herself to bed.

  She had told Gray that she was tired and so she was. Yet her brain would not let her sleep. I could love that man if I am not very careful, she thought. She wanted to be his lover, she had agreed to become so, but something suspiciously like her conscience was telling her that had been a serious mistake.

  If she was not very careful she was going to forget her reason for coming to London—to find a man to father her child and heir. She could hardly be Gray’s lover and, at the same time, seek out another man. Nor, she realised, could she indulge her desire for him and then promptly end the liaison. She would be using him, she saw that all too clearly.

  For a moment there was the tempting thought of being both his lover and hoping she would fall pregnant by him. Gray’s child. She could almost see the little boy. Somehow she was sure it would be a boy with dark hair, his father’s eyes... Gaby shook her head resolutely as though that would stop the dull ache of longing inside. Gray would never agree to father her child and to try to trick him would be despicable.

  Which meant that she must tell him she had changed her mind and as quickly as possible. It would be a lie—she wanted him, desired him, ached for him. Telling him that they should not be lovers would hurt. It was not going to be an easy conversation, Gaby thought as she pulled the covers over her head and burrowed down. Not easy at all.

  * * *

  If anyone had told him a month ago that he would hear about a fellow officer being killed by a Frenchman in civilian disguise, aided by a loyal Englishwoman, and that he would decide to do nothing about it, Gray would have thought them either insulting enough to challenge, or a fool.

  But here he was doing just that, he thought, as his valet moved soft-footed around the dressing room disposing of garments as he shed them. Why?

  Because he believed Gabrielle, he supposed. And if the positions were reversed, he would certainly do his utmost to rescue a Frenchwoman from an assault by one of her own countrymen, whether or not they were at war. Norwood was not a man he had ever warmed to or admired. There had been an essential coldness about him. Not that Gray expected to form a warm friendship with every officer he met, but he had never seen Norwood grieve for a friend lost, or put himself out for someone who needed help. And there had been whispers about women, young women, seduced and abandoned.

  It was not hard to believe that the intelligence officer might want to secure a wealthy wife, not too great a stretch to visualise him forcing the issue. Had he been so ruthless as to plot the death of a patriotic young man to increase his gains? Possibly, Gray realised with a sense of shock that the idea came so easily.

  ‘My lord?’ Tompkins was standing patiently, a nightshirt folded over the back of the chair beside him, the red silk banyan draped across the seat.

  Gray realised that he was down to his evening breeches and must have been standing there, his hands on the fastenings, for several minutes while he thought. ‘I’m sorry, just puzzling something through.’

  ‘Of course, my lord.’ Tompkins whisked away breeches, stockings, evening pumps and shook out the nightshirt. When Gray took it and pulled it over his head he added, ‘Mr Hotchkiss, the agent, left a portfolio for you. I thought perhaps it was somewhat bulky for night-time reading, but I have placed it on the table in your bedchamber. Can I do anything else for you, my lord?’

  That must be the first selection of houses for Gabrielle. It might be better to stop brooding on Norwood’s death and do something practical. ‘Light a candelabrum for the table and bring me a pen and ink and the brandy, Tompkins. Then take yourself off to bed.’

  The agent had included details of eight houses and two apartments in the portfolio. Gray tossed two of the houses aside as being insufficiently good addresses. Gabrielle, with the faint taint of trade and her anything-but-faint air of independence, needed the most fashionable and respectable of addresses to lend her consequence.

  Two would be too small, one, too large. Another street he knew to be very noisy at all hours. That left four. He scribbled a note to Hotchkiss to be sent first thing in the morning and closed the lid on the inkwell. Inspecting four houses with Gabrielle might be a diverting way of spending the day. The sooner she was established in her own household the better for the sake of his ability to sleep, let alone his ability to keep his hands off her. He wanted her in his arms, against his skin. He wanted to be over her, in her, with her.

  Gray picked up the details of the apartments that he had initially discarded without more than a glance. A house with Miss Moseley in residence and a complement of servants was not going to be suitable for a liaison either. But if he took one of the apartments himself, then they could use that for trysts in complete privacy. He uncapped the ink and picked up his pen again.

  I have details of four houses if you would care to inspect them tomorrow. Also apartments, which might prove useful.

  Might I suggest a bonnet with a veil?

  G.

  Oh, yes, he was beginning to ache for Gabrielle Frost, he thought as he addressed and sealed the note. Gray snuffed out all the candles and took himself off to bed, where he proceeded to toss and turn until he sat up again with an oath, wide awake.

  What the devil was the matter with him? Tomorrow he and Gabrielle might be lovers. Certainly the day after. With that definite he could surely compose himself to sleep? He was not some randy seventeen-year-old lusting after his first wench.

  But for some reason he could not stop thinking about Gabrielle. Not her in bed, although that image was always there in the back of his mind. Not her part in Norwood’s death either. Just Gabrielle. How she smiled, how she looked when she was sad. The sudden flashes of humour, her seriousness about her quinta and her love of Portugal. The curve of her neck, the gesture of her hand...

  I am on the brink of falling in love with her. Hell and damnation.

  He would marry her tomorrow, love or not—this was close enough for him, love was a dangerous emotion. But she would not have him, he knew that much about her now. The resistance to marriage was engrained in her, confirmed by Norwood’s cynical manoeuvrings. And he was not in a position to simply walk away from England and his obligations, even if she could be persuaded to marry him and believe that he would be a sleeping partner in the business of the quinta, as she might if he was a younger son without ties to England.

  Gray lay in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling mouldings made mysterious by shadows.

  He had children here, estates and obligations here. A seat in the House of Lords. Responsibilities. Many people would say that one of those was to find a suitable bride who would get on with his mother, love his children, support him socially and politically.

  But that was not going to happen. His record as a husband had convinced him that he should not try again and Gabrielle Frost was simply impossible. Except as a lover. Perhaps after a week or two they would have worked this mutual desire out of their systems. He could only hope so, he felt he had enough regrets about women as it was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘This one,’ Gaby announced, turning a slow circle in the little drawing room of the house halfway up Half Moon Street.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Gray queried. ‘The property in Charles Street has been redecorated more recently and the St James’s Place one is larger and we still haven’t seen the one near Grosvenor Square.’

  ‘This is close to Green Park. The street is quiet and the house has a good feel to it. There is a pleasant sitting room and bedchamber for Jane and one for me, and the dining room and this drawing room are quite adequate for any entertaining I might do. The domestic quarters are good, too, which will help in attracting suitable staff.’

  ‘If you are sure? The rent, I have to admit, is reasonable and Hotchkiss says the landlord will be flexible about how long you take it for. Property is in demand in the area and he will have no trouble reletting it if you decide to leave at short notice. I’ll send him a note now.’ He took a notebook from his pocket, scribbled a few lines and folded it. ‘Are you ready to look at the apartments?’

  ‘Yes.’ This was what she had been dreading, she thought as she followed him out to where his groom waited with the phaeton. Gray obviously thought that taking an apartment would be a discreet way of conducting an affaire and he was right. Only she now had to tell him that she did not want one. Or, rather, that she did, but her conscience would not allow it. He might very well ask why her inconvenient conscience had not informed her of this at the first kiss, by the second caress. A very fair question, she supposed.

  The groom took the note, handed the reins over to Gray and walked briskly off down the street. He had even thought of that, she thought gloomily, finding that she did not have the courage to tell him while he was concentrating on the traffic.

  They went through Berkeley Square, crossed Bond Street and drew up outside a house in a quiet backstreet. ‘Veil,’ Gray murmured before he gestured to a crossing sweeper, handed him sixpence to hold the horses and promised him the same when they came out.

  The lad grinned, bit the coin, pocketed it and went to stand at the horses’ heads, holding the reins firmly. ‘Dun this afore, guv’nor, they’ll be all right wiv me. Prime pair of prads.’

  Gaby allowed herself to be helped down and followed Gray up to the front door. The landlady had obviously been expecting them, a key was handed over and the woman retreated back into her downstairs front parlour without any attempt to look at Gaby, for which she was truly grateful.

  They climbed one flight of stairs in silence, then Gray unlocked the right-hand door on the landing and held it for her to walk through to a sitting room with a view of the street. ‘Gray—’

  ‘Not bad,’ he said after a swift glance round, turned back, caught her up in his arms and gave her a rapid, hard kiss, then let her go. He opened another door. ‘Ah, the bedchamber. Very pleasant, what do you think?’

  ‘Gray.’ She stayed where she was in the middle of the sitting room.

  ‘What is wrong?’ He turned back, then closed the bedchamber door. ‘The landlady appears discreet, the place seems very clean and respectable.’

  ‘I can’t do this. I realised last night.’ She braced herself for his reaction.

  ‘By this I assume you mean have an affaire? A rather sudden change of mind. Is it something I have done? Or not done?’ He was very clearly not pleased, but he was hanging on to his temper, which was a relief. She realised her knees were not quite steady and her mouth was dry.

  ‘No. It is nothing you have said or done, or not said, not done. I want to be your lover, but I cannot, not with a clear conscience, and I realised it last night when I thought it through without a haze of desire consuming me. Gray, the reason I came to London was that I need to find a father for my child, a man who will agree to surrender it to me without making any claims. Someone I can trust to vanish and allow me to return to Portugal as a widow, raise the child respectably.

  ‘I cannot begin an affaire with you, then just stop and coldly go looking for another man for that purpose. It would not be right, not fair to you. And I don’t think I could bear it, it will be hard enough as it is.’

  She had expected an explosion or a lecture or disgust. Possibly, probably, all three. Instead Gray looked at her, that steady frown on his face, and seemed simply to study her. After a moment he asked, ‘You are in the market for a stud?’

  ‘I am looking for a man I can trust not to blackmail me,’ she said, her tongue stiff in her mouth. ‘An intelligent man. A decent man without any ties. I realise this may be an impossible quest.’

  ‘So you lied to me when you told me that you were coming to London to allow any tension between you and your neighbours, the MacFarlanes, to cool. You intended to find a father for your child all along.’ One hand rested, clenched, on the door frame of the bedchamber. He was angry, she saw clearly. Angry and hurt.

  ‘That was a partial reason. It makes sense. If I return, apparently married and widowed, everyone who knows about the MacFarlanes’ schemes will assume I acted on the rebound from that discovery.’

  Gray lifted his fist an inch, thumped it once against the door frame, then walked away to the window. ‘The tenderness of your conscience is at odds with your prowess as a schemer, it seems.’

  ‘If my parents taught me anything, it was to listen to my conscience and be guided by it,’ she said bleakly, to his back. ‘I allowed my feelings for you to overcome that. It was tender enough when I considered how I must be honest with this man—if I ever find him—but, somehow, desire was not so easy to resist as it should be.’

  ‘And that is what you feel for me? Desire?’

  ‘And liking and, I had hoped, friendship. But that is a forlorn hope now, I can see that.’ It was more than the loss of friendship that was tearing at her, making this so hard and bitter.

  I could love him. Perhaps I already do and I have deceived him and wounded him and he deserved none of that.

  That mention of friendship had been too much like a plea for forgiveness, a pathetic, craven hope that perhaps what she had done was not so dreadful, after all, and he would turn from his contemplation of the street with a smile, with a hand held out, with a reassurance that he understood.

  Gray did turn then, his hands by his sides, his face blank of expression. ‘I had best return the key.’ He went to the door, held it open for her, then locked it behind them before preceding Gaby down the stairs. She remembered to lower her veil before the landlady came to the door and took the key and then they were out on the street again. Gray’s hand was steady and impersonal as he helped her mount on to the seat and he remembered to toss the crossing sweeper the promised sixpenny piece as the lad released the reins.

  It seemed that she was the only one with shaking hands and an inability to think straight.

  ‘I will have Hotchkiss deal with you directly in relation to the house in Half Moon Street,’ Gray said as the phaeton swept out into Old Bond Street, across into Grafton Street and down Albemarle Street. She had not realised how mercifully close they were to the hotel.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice sounded scratchy, but at least she was not weeping, which was a miracle because she felt as though she had lost something precious and had only herself to blame. ‘I fear this will make things difficult if my aunt asks you to escort us anywhere.’

  Gray managed to shrug while simultaneously guiding his team around a wagon, unloading crates outside the Royal Institution. ‘I will simply refuse on the grounds of prior engagements.’

  ‘Of course.’

  When they drew up in front of Grillon’s, Gray gestured to the doorman, who hurried forward to help Gaby down. ‘Without my groom I fear I cannot escort you inside, Miss Frost.’

  ‘I quite understand, Lord Leybourne. Thank you for your assistance. And understanding.’

  She glanced up to catch an expression on his face that she could not read. It was gone as soon as she glimpsed it, a starkness that went beyond frustrated desire or anger at her foolishness.

  ‘You are welcome to the assistance, Miss Frost. I fear you may have to manage without the understanding. My regards to Miss Moseley.’

  She stood there watching his broad shoulders as he drove towards Piccadilly.

  ‘Ma’am?’ It was the doorman. ‘Are you entering the hotel?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, I am sorry. I was wool-gathering,’ she murmured. Gray’s words had been too low to have reached the man’s ears, she hoped, thankful for her veil. ‘Thank you.’

  Somehow she gained the suite and found it empty. On the table in the sitting room was a note from Jane informing her that she had gone to investigate Earle’s Circulating Library at Number Forty-Seven and might be gone for some time. As it was meticulously timed, it was clear that Jane had been gone only a few minutes. Gaby went into her room, locked the door, took off her bonnet, gloves and pelisse and repressed a sniff. Weeping was not going to help matters. On the other hand, she rather thought it was that or ring for a decanter of brandy and attempt to drown her sorrows.

  Tears won. It was such a long time since she had allowed herself to weep—not since she received the locket and the news of Laurent’s death—that it was hard, almost painful. Afterwards she did not feel any better. Gaby looked bleakly at her reflection in the mirror. All she had achieved was a stuffed-up nose, reddened eyes and a headache. And she was going to have to find some explanation for Jane, who might often be preoccupied, but was bound to notice something wrong, even after Gaby had bathed her face and done her best with the rice powder.