Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams (23 page)

Not even for a good friend like Adrian Draycott.

Geneva's lips curved. “Is that your usual way of dealing with encroaching females?”

Ashton felt a strange tickling sensation in his chest, a blend of hot and cold and purest hunger. The truth was that no other female had ever been so rash as to bait him in his lair as this woman had done.

“On the contrary.” Gabriel moved soundlessly through the room and tossed off her domino, then stood studying the perfect ivory sweep of her shoulders and her full breasts. As his hand brushed her chin, he watched color tinge her creamy cheeks.

Curiosity. Determination. But no fear. Not a trace of that.

Maybe it was time the woman began to see what danger she was courting. He touched a powdered curl that lay coiled on her bosom. As his fingers moved, he watched the curl tremble, rising and falling rapidly on the full breasts confined against low, lace-trimmed satin. “To be perfectly blunt, my dear,
this
is how I treat encroaching females.”

He caught her with a hand to her slender waist, pulling her into the shadows, pulling her to his heat, to his fury. There was
not even a hint of subtlety in his fingers circling her neck and holding her still beneath his exploration.

But he did not touch her red lips, not then. Instead he worked along her jaw, her neck, her shoulder. Slowly he caressed the soft powdered curl at her bosom.

Geneva's breath caught sharply. His was not a touch but a possession. Later, she would realize it was not so much a kiss as a conquest. But for the moment, she did not think or analyze, swept along on the dark power of his touch. She did not flinch, not even when Gabriel's mouth shifted the powdered strand aside and tasted the lush rise of her breast.

Her hands slid to his shoulders. Her blood was a storm in her veins. She hated the man for his arrogance and his harshness, but Adrian had told her this was the only person who could help her, and Geneva knew he was right. Only a man of utter ruthlessness would face the terrors of revolutionary France. Only a man of total callousness could snatch her sister and her sister's children from the looming shadow of the guillotine. And the darkness in Gabriel Montserrat's eyes told Geneva that he had witnessed the fury of the guillotine many times.

For that service she would pay any price he named.

But Geneva had not been prepared to like the task, to feel her pulse sing and her blood drum as an utter stranger bent her to his will.

Inches away, Gabriel cursed harshly. She was even more sweet than he had imagined, a creature of silk and springtime. Her skin rose and fell, flushed and hot with her arousal.

She would be his, Gabriel knew. She did not even understand the significance of her fingers threading through his hair and the pebbling of her nipples beneath the tight satin.

But Gabriel did, only too well. The sight of her passion, so sweet and new and untried, was like a brand to his groin. He
traced the thrust of her breast with his lips and felt her shiver, her fingers sliding deeper into his hair.

Right now, she could be his, all ivory skin and breathless moans as he shoved up her skirts and brought them both to reckless passion. Suddenly Gabriel was shocked by how much he wanted that.

But he did not allow himself to pursue it by even one more motion. It was Geneva's very response as she trembled against him that made him curse and release her.

Because she was too young and he was vastly too old.

He looked down and cursed to see that
his
fingers were shaking, while hers were perfectly steady. Grimly he caught up her domino and tossed it over her pale shoulders. “Leave.”

“I don't understand.” Her voice was husky with passion. “What you did—how it made me feel—”

“Was wrong. Damnably wrong. And unless you leave, it will happen again. Along with something far worse.”

“Worse?” Her eyes were dazed, confused. “It was very nearly heaven, my lord. How can you call it wrong?”

“Damn it, have you no sense? My reputation is as black as that domino you wear. People whisper that I consume innocent virgins by the dozen. And if you are even glimpsed in my company, then
your
reputation will be blackened, too. What would your parents say then?”

“My parents and family are dead, swept away in one of the cruel waves of cholera that ravaged the East India Company settlement in Madras.”

“And you are left alone in the world?”

“Except for my sister in France.” Her chin rose. “But you needn't worry about me. I have a substantial inheritance from my father.”

“All the inheritance in the world won't protect your reputation as a woman alone here in London, you little fool. Leave now, now while you still can.”

Geneva did not move. “Is it true?” she asked softly. “Are you truly as black as everyone says?”

Gabriel laughed bitterly. “What does the truth matter? Either way you will still be ruined.”

“It matters to me, my lord.”

“In that case, you are a greater fool than you seem,” Gabriel said harshly, striding across the room and drinking from the glass of fine Bordeaux that he'd poured, even though he knew it would taste like the cheapest vinegar to him.

Without a word Geneva slid her hand into the folds of her domino. Her eyes glinting, she held out a pistol, silver-etched and double-barreled. “Now, my lord, you will gratify me by sitting down and listening for once.”

Gabriel did not betray his surprise by the slightest motion. “Is that weapon you are clutching supposed to frighten me?”

“Without question.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

And as he did Geneva took an angry breath, leveled the sight, and shot the glass from between his fingers. “Does that? I am a crack shot, I assure you. The next bullet will land between your eyes!”

“Shoot away. I'll be of no use to you laid out in a coffin.”

“I am serious. I
will
shoot.”

“I am quaking in my boots, as you can see.”

“As if you would
ever
quake,” Geneva scoffed. “But you are far too practical a man not to do exactly as I say. As long as I hold this pistol, at least.” She smiled grimly. “And I do not mean to let it go, I assure you.”

At that moment Gabriel's butler appeared at the door, his face the color of raw dough. “My lord? I was certain that I heard a—” His voice trailed away as he saw the broken glass and crimson stain spreading over the fine Persian carpet. “Then I did hear it. You are wounded!”

“Go away, Stanton. That is only a glass of Bordeaux down there, not my blood. There are those who say my blood is not red, but black, after all.”

“But my lord—”

“Begone! And close the door behind you.”

As the servant fled, shaking his head, Gabriel settled his long length into a wing chair. Templing his fingers, he looked measuringly at Geneva. “Well? You have me captive. My attention is all yours, Miss—” His brow rose in a mocking question.

“Miss Russell.” Geneva felt the bite of his sarcasm, but raised her chin defiantly. “It was necessary. I am sorry to spoil your wine and your carpet, but my sister's life is at stake.”

“How enormously affecting,” Gabriel said with a yawn.

“Only the man known as the Rook can save her.”

“As I said before, I've never heard of the fellow.”

“No?” Smiling grimly, Geneva reached to the desk behind her. “Then perhaps you will explain this black silk mask, which the Rook is well known to fancy.”

Although Gabriel's mouth hardened, he merely shrugged. “Left over from some masquerade, no doubt. I do not keep track of such things.”

“Indeed.” Geneva tossed the mask onto his lap and held up a letter written in French and sealed with a bloodred crest in the shape of a rook. “And this is from the same masquerade, I suppose?”

Gabriel pushed to his feet, his body tense. “Where did you get the key to my desk?”

“I had no need for a key. I merely picked the lock. One of our servants used to be an attic thief and he enjoyed teaching me his tricks. All it took was a corset stay, worked in exactly the right place,” she explained.

Gabriel's eyes darkened as he moved toward her.

“Stay back,” Geneva ordered. “I still have my pistol and there's a bullet in the second chamber.”

Gabriel's pace did not slow.

“I'll shoot, I warn you.”

“Be my guest.”

His chest was before her. All she had to do was pull back the trigger. Geneva swallowed, focusing, preparing. Did the man know no fear? “Stop tempting me, blast you!”

The earl only laughed.

Her finger tightened. Sweat dotted her brow. She had to shoot, if that's what it took to make him listen. The situation was too desperate, and she had no one else to turn to.

Gabriel's hand circled her wrist. “Go on and shoot,” he ordered, his chest level with the barrel of her pistol. “I fancy you couldn't miss at this distance.”

“I would not miss at two hundred paces,” she said irritably. “In this position, I would certainly blow away half of your chest.”

“As I said, my dear, fire away.”

“You're
mad.”

“So I am told. But don't let that stop you.”

She felt his heat and his utter indifference to her choice. Geneva knew then that there was no doubt he was the man who had time and again bested the finest officers of revolutionary France. “I will, I tell you!”

His eyes were coldest granite. “So you have said.”

She meant to. She tried with every shred of her being. But her finger locked and would not close.

And then she let the barrel waver.

He moved in utter silence, shoving the pistol aside and wrapping his hand around her chin. His eyes glinted, gray and savage upon her face. “And now, my little hellion, you'll learn two lessons. Never make promises you can't keep. And never carry a weapon if you do not mean to fire it. Especially,” he added grimly, “when it is leveled against your worst enemy.”

“Are we enemies?”

He looked down at the naked sweep of her shoulders, and his eyes darkened. “Without a hint of a doubt.”

“But why? I came here for your help, not as an enemy.”

“Women and men are always enemies.”

“Only because you think of them so. Indeed, you treat women most shabbily. You have had your pick of far too many, I think.”

“So now you are a philosopher?” Gabriel pulled her hands to his chest, drawing her toward him. “I merely treat women as they wish to be treated, Miss Russell, as beautiful jeweled objects to be coveted, admired, and beautifully maintained. Never do I treat them more seriously than that.” His eyes darkened. “Except in bed, of course. And there I treat them
very
seriously.”

Geneva swallowed. A dark tendril of sensation coiled through her chest. “You are intolerable!”