‘Relief. Exhaustion. How much sleep have you had since you left London?’

  ‘I have no idea. None going up. When I tried to think about something else, all I could do was think about you. Not very restful. I slept in the carriage coming back, I think.’

  ‘You should be in bed now.’ She was so tight against his body that she felt the change come over him, felt the energy flowing through him, just like the startling electric current she had experienced when she had attended a demonstration at the Institute in Porto.

  ‘Gabrielle.’ It was a question and she answered it, tipping back her face to look up at him.

  ‘Gray, you know what I need. You cannot give it. I cannot ask it.’

  ‘Forget that tonight. Forget all of it. Make love with me, Gabrielle. Just us, tonight. We will worry about everything else tomorrow. Who knows what will happen? Life is a chance suspended by a thread and I have just found out how fragile that is.’ When she hesitated, he stepped back into the bedchamber, leaving her cold and alone on the threshold. ‘I am sorry. I am not thinking straight. You want to go and I should let you.’

  ‘I want to stay,’ she said, suddenly certain. She loved him, wanted him. He wanted her and needed her. Tomorrow, rested and with his family to worry about, he would know this had no future, but that was tomorrow. Now was all there was. This minute. This man.

  Gaby stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, felt for the key and turned it in the lock.

  The sharp click seemed to break a spell. Gray swept her into his arms, kissing her on the way to the bed, falling on to the wide green covers with her, still lip-locked, his hands pulling her back into a close embrace. Fully clothed, they strained together, their bodies frustrated by layers of cloth, their legs tangling. She knew his taste now, his scent, the feel of his mouth over hers, and yet it was all new. And not enough, not nearly enough.

  She pulled and tugged at their clothes, her fingers clashing with his until finally they calmed enough to work together, unbuttoning, shifting, tugging. Her torn gown fell to the floor, her petticoats and stays after it. Gray knelt back on the bed like a half-naked god in a sea of green and looked down at her. ‘You are so beautiful, I do not have the words.’

  Gaby opened her mouth, then closed it again as he bent over her garters. Beautiful? She would take that from Gray, treasure it. She watched as he untied the ribbons, rolled down her stockings, kissed the crease of her knee, making her laugh. She was naked now, bare to only the second man she had ever lain with and it was a long time since Laurent. She should be nervous, perhaps, but she was not.

  ‘You still have far too many clothes on, Gray.’ His shirt was half out of his breeches so she found the hem, pulled it over his head and then stopped. They were on their knees facing each other and she let her gaze wander down his torso. There was the scar on his shoulder, the wound that had brought him back to England. It was a white dent now, surrounded by a network of spidery lines. The triangle of dark hair on his chest, brown nipples, tight and puckered now with arousal, that tantalising trail of hair down towards his navel... Gaby ran one finger down it, pressing against the hard muscles of his stomach, then gripped the waistband of his breeches, pulling so that they swayed together.

  Gray came up on his knees and she saw just how aroused he was. Still she could feel nothing but excitement, anticipation. Need. Love, but I must not say it. Let him believe it is all desire. ‘You are wearing too much,’ she said, meaning to tease, her voice breaking, husky with longing.

  ‘Only fair. You’ve already seen me in the river.’ There was laughter in his eyes now, but hunger, too. ‘Mind you, the water was very cold, I was hardly at my best.’

  ‘It whetted my appetite.’ Finally she managed to find the fastening, released his falls and reached for him. He filled her grip, hot and proud and eager, magnificently male.

  Gray kicked away his breeches and tumbled her back into the silken covers. ‘I want to spend hours making love to you, slowly, inch by inch, exploring every private corner, every dimple, every freckle.’ His mouth trailed down her neck, detoured so he could nibble at her ears, nuzzle behind into the soft, vulnerable skin there. ‘And if I do that I will go out of my mind. Gabrielle, I’m beyond finesse. I need you now. Forgive me.’

  ‘I need you now.’ She wriggled beneath him, loving his weight, his hardness over her softness. He pressed between her thighs and she lifted to meet him, gasped as he touched her intimately, one finger penetrating, his thumb playing fire and sweetness between her folds. She was already wet for him, but she was beyond modesty, pushing against his hand, demanding more.

  He shifted, nudged against her and she opened to him, lifting again, gasping at the pressure as he filled her. It had been a long time, but her body wanted him as much as she did. Gray rocked gently, inexorably into her: advance, retreat, slide and press. He filled her, caressed her, claimed her.

  Gaby met every thrust, sighed at every withdrawal, tightened her legs around him until all at once he was totally within her.

  They both stopped moving. ‘Are you all right, Gabrielle? Have I hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, confused at the concern in his voice. Then she realised her cheeks were wet, her lashes clogged with moisture. ‘I am crying because I am happy.’

  He smiled then, the rare true smile that she trusted as much as his frown. ‘I haven’t done anything to make you happy yet.’

  ‘Liar.’ She tightened her muscles and he closed his eyes and began to move again, each thrust and withdrawal so slow and sure that she could have believed that he was far less shaken by this than she was, until she felt the tension in his shoulders where her fingers held him, felt the thudding of his heart over hers.

  Then her own driving pulse took possession of her and thought and reason took wing, leaving only sensation. Gaby was not certain where her body ended and Gray’s began, only that nothing else existed but this man and the heat of his body, the scent of him, the slide of his skin over hers, the depth of his possession of her.

  ‘Gabrielle.’

  What was he asking? Or perhaps it was just a statement, she thought hazily as the pleasure built and twisted so tightly it was almost pain. She felt his rhythm become uneven, his breath ragged and let herself go, let the pleasure soar. Gray pulled away and, even as she gasped a protest at the loss of him, she felt the hot spill of his passion against her belly. He is taking care, she thought hazily. Then she welcomed his weight as they collapsed together, his head heavy on her shoulder.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gray came to himself slowly. Still half-awake, eyes still closed, he felt beneath him softness, sweet-smelling bare skin. Someone was breathing close by his ear. Gabrielle. He knew who it was although his exhaustion-drugged brain could not quite recall where he was or how he had come to be there. He had made love to Gabrielle and the aftershocks of pleasure were still running through him.

  ‘Gabrielle.’

  ‘Gray,’ she murmured, her breath tickling his ear. She moved under him, the soft curve of her belly against his rapidly growing arousal.

  He shifted and she moved with him, opening to him, welcoming his body back into hers with the sensual generosity that he realised was typical of her. He plunged into the tight, moist, hot velvet of her and she rose to meet him, clenched around him, murmuring, then gasping, encouragement. He should make this slow, something told him, although he could not quite recall why, and his body did not want to go slowly. It wanted to possess, to give and take pleasure, to lose itself in her.

  The pleasure built as her legs twined around him, her heels hard on his buttocks, her thighs gripping him. The sensation in the base of his spine twisted, intensified to the point of pain as his climax built and suddenly he remembered where he was, what he was doing. It was almost too late, he was past the point of no return and her legs, her grip as she cried out in the throes of her own passion, was strong. Somehow, knowing he might have hurt her, he wrenched back, gasping as much with relief than with release as he spilled on to her thigh.

  ‘Gabrielle? Did I hurt you?’

  She blinked up at him. ‘No. We forgot ourselves, both of us. It is all right, you remembered in time.’ She reached for him, pulling him close again.

  ‘I fell asleep on top of you.’ He nuzzled into her neck for a self-indulgent moment, then rolled to one side and sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face, over the stubble that must have fretted her skin. ‘You must wonder what sort of selfish lout you’ve taken to your bed.’

  ‘An exhausted one.’ Gabrielle propped herself up on her elbows and studied his face. ‘I have no complaints at all, but you should rest. When did you last have a full night’s sleep?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ He wanted to stay there all night, just looking at her as she lay there, relaxed and pleasured and quite unselfconscious. Warm, olive-toned skin, just now flushed pink over her breasts. Long, sleek muscles in those elegant limbs, high, small breasts he wanted to take the time to worship thoroughly. A nest of dark curls hiding delights he could spend hours exploring. ‘I do not feel like sleeping now.’

  ‘But you should. And I should go home.’ Gabrielle sat up abruptly as the clock on the mantelshelf struck one. ‘Jane will be back by now and wondering where I am. I must not worry her.’

  She scrambled from the bed. ‘Will there be water in the dressing room?’

  ‘It will be cold,’ he warned as he got up and searched for his breeches. He needed to escort her out as though they had spent the past hour in innocuous conversation. ‘But I can hardly ring for more. I must see you to the door.’

  Gabrielle was already splashing in his dressing room. ‘It will do,’ she called. ‘Can you see my stockings?’

  Gray tucked in his shirt and scooped up her clothes. ‘Here, let me be your lady’s maid.’ His fingers, usually so sure, fumbled over the laces of her stays, the fastenings at the back of her gown, but somehow between them they managed to get her dressed tidily, her hair smoothed into submission, the rent in her gown pinned up invisibly.

  ‘Gray, your hair is on end and where is your neckcloth? Oh, there, under the bed.’

  ‘I will come and see you tomorrow,’ he said as he cracked open the door, checked up and down the passageway. Perhaps when he had slept for nine or ten hours he might know what he was going to say to her. In a way it was a mercy that there was no time to talk now.

  ‘In the afternoon,’ she agreed, walking demurely beside him to the head of the stairs, just as though she had not bitten his shoulder just minutes before. ‘Don’t forget that we’re at Half Moon Street now. And, please, do not be angry with Henry. He was trying to help me.’

  Henry? He had forgotten his cousin. That was going to be an uncomfortable encounter. Unless—‘Do you want me to pretend I know nothing of your meeting with him?’

  ‘That would be best, don’t you think?’ she murmured as they reached the hall. ‘Oh, Fredericks, thank you.’ His butler appeared, carrying her cloak and gloves. ‘Look at the hour! I was just about to leave when Lord Leybourne came in and we quite lost track of time, hearing the good news.’

  ‘Good news indeed, Miss Frost. I will send round to the mews for your carriage, it will be here directly.’

  Gray knew he should make polite conversation while they waited. Easy, confident meaningless chit-chat, instead of standing there, wanting to take her in his arms and carry her back upstairs to that all too empty bed that would hold her scent, perhaps her warmth. Gray racked his tired brain for something innocuous. ‘The house in Half Moon Street is proving comfortable, I trust?’

  ‘It is delightful.’ Gabrielle sounded perfectly awake and sensible, thank heavens. ‘I do appreciate your help finding it.’ She chatted on, holding up a one-sided conversation while he stood and looked at her and prayed silently that her tender, thoroughly inconvenient conscience was not going to give her—and him—hell tomorrow. Because he wanted her again. And again. He wanted—

  ‘Your carriage, Miss Frost.’ Fredericks was already at the door.

  Gray pulled himself together, said all the right things to speed a guest on their way in the presence of the butler, then turned and made himself put one foot in front of the other towards the stairs.

  ‘I will send up your man and hot water for a bath, my lord.’

  ‘No. No, thank you. I can undress myself and I would only fall asleep in a bath. Tell Tompkins I don’t want to be disturbed until at least ten tomorrow. Go to bed, Fredericks. I am sorry to keep you up so late.’

  He would make himself wake early to check for any trace of Gabrielle. When he reached it the room was scented by Gabrielle’s light perfume, by the musk of their loving. He threw open the window, shook out the bedcover thoroughly, then jammed it to the foot of the bed as though his restless sleep had trodden creases into it. A quick survey on, under and beside the bed revealed not so much as a hairpin. Even so, he must wake by nine to check in daylight.

  Everything had changed and Gray had no idea how to feel about it, other than that his tired body had no trouble in luxuriating in the memory of their lovemaking, of the feel of Gabrielle filling every sense. Gray pulled off his clothes, tossed them on to a chair and fell into bed. He was vaguely aware that he had forgotten to snuff the candles, but he did not have the will to stir again. Let them gutter out.

  * * *

  ‘I expect Lord Leybourne to call this afternoon,’ Gaby said casually, affecting an interest in the choice between marmalade and cherry jam for her breakfast toast.

  Jane looked up sharply, then folded the learned journal she had been reading and set it down by her plate. Clearly Gaby was not as successful in feigning unconcern as she thought. ‘And why might that be? I thought that you and he had fallen out.’

  ‘Not exactly fallen out. And he has been away in Yorkshire. This cherry jam is very good.’

  ‘Gabrielle.’

  ‘Very well,’ She put down the toast. When Jane chose to be perceptive there was no point in trying to evade her. ‘I believe he may come to propose.’

  ‘Marriage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I understood that the appearance of attachment you were making was to quash your aunt’s matchmaking schemes for the pair of you and that it was simply a pretence.’ Now Jane was studying her over the wire rims of her pince-nez.

  ‘There is a degree of mutual attraction,’ Gaby admitted warily.

  ‘Is there a reason why Lord Leybourne should be making you an offer?’

  She was blushing, she knew she was. ‘Yes,’ Gaby admitted.

  ‘I cannot say that I blame you,’ Jane remarked. ‘Really, my dear, the wind will change and fix you in position with your mouth open like that. I may be a spinster bluestocking, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with my eyesight. He is a very superior specimen, physically and mentally, and he has an admirable war record. If you did not succumb to him, I would be wondering about your state of health.’

  ‘Jane.’

  ‘I had always understood that my role was to give you the appearance of respectability, not to lecture you on your conduct,’ Jane said crisply. ‘However, as we are discussing the matter, I had believed that you did not intend to marry because of the loss of control of the business that such a state would entail. I confess I find myself puzzled that you are now contemplating matrimony.’

  ‘I am not. But Gray might well be.’ She was not going to contemplate what being married to Gray might be like because if she did she would probably put her head down amidst the toast crumbs and the butter, and have a good weep. And tears, she had finally fallen asleep telling herself at three in the morning, would be counterproductive. She was an impossible wife for an earl with vast responsibilities in England. He, or any man, was impossible as a husband. Impossibilities were not worth crying over.

  ‘He is a gentleman with a code of honour. He is not going to be pleased to be refused.’

  ‘He might not ask. We had agreed to be lovers, he knows my feelings on the subject of marriage, and yet, somehow, last night I felt something had changed.’ It had for her. She was in love with the man and it was no good pretending that she was not. ‘He made a point of saying he would call, but as he was almost asleep on his feet and the butler was showing me out he could hardly elaborate.’

  Jane made a sound that in any other woman would be a giggle. ‘Asleep on his feet? My dear Gabrielle—what had you done to him?’

  ‘I suppose I had better explain. I had dinner at Gray’s town house with his cousin Henry. If you recall, I told you that Gray had left suddenly for his Yorkshire estate? As I was leaving I met him coming in. Just outside his bedchamber door.’ She explained about little James and Gray’s long journeys and lack of sleep. ‘I think his mother will arrive with the children tomorrow.’

  ‘So now you will have Lord Leybourne, your aunt and his mama all expecting the match.’

  ‘I am sure he will not have said anything about me to his mother and she can hardly approve of a bride for him who is in trade. That might help.’

  ‘You are no more in trade than he is, selling the agricultural produce of his estates. You are hardly operating smoke-belching factories or coal mines. Your lineage is impeccable, your upbringing that of a lady,’ Jane said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  ‘I am going to have to return to Portugal. That is the only way out of it.’

  ‘Run away?’

  ‘A strategic retreat,’ Gaby countered. Yes, run away.