Gabriel: Lord of Regrets (10 page)

“Learning to jest,” Gabriel replied. “I’m not a quick study, but there is hope.”

Gabriel wasn’t looking for Polonaise as he made his way to the library—or so he told himself—but rather, he was intent on examining further the fascinating details Aaron had catalogued in the estate book. The book was a first-rate idea to Gabriel’s mind, one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-it notions smart landowners likely stumbled on independently. Aaron’s record filled in gaps and went a long way toward reassuring Gabriel that Hesketh had been in good hands during his absence. But God above, the parade of petty and not so petty annoyances Aaron had documented beggared description.

Entire herds of cows stuck in the ponds, sheep tearing through huge sections of fence, drainage dikes breaking so newly planted fields flooded—the list went on and got Gabriel to thinking of a similar run of bad luck they’d had at Three Springs.

His thoughts were interrupted by the prickling sense he wasn’t alone as he gained the library.

“Polonaise?” He spied her dark auburn bun over the back of his favorite couch. The sofa was long enough that he could stretch out on it full length and bake his carcass before the fire.

She waved a hand but didn’t rise or turn, and he saw a handkerchief in her hand. A sinking sensation gathered in his guts, for if he’d made Polly Hunt cry, he was a dastardly specimen indeed.

Cautiously, he moved around the couch, spying letters scattered over the cushions. He gathered those up and set them aside, staring down at her bent head. For want of other inspiration, he settled beside her and took her in his arms.

“As bad as all that?”

She burrowed against him, a gratifying shift from her usual token resistance.

“Tell me.”

She shuddered through a fresh bout of tears while he stroked her back and poached lungfuls of her scent and generally wondered why he thought he could ever leave her for long.

“Allie.”

Well, of course. “You have a letter from her?”

“Finally.” She tried to pull away, a belated version of her token effort.

“Do you really want me to see your face when you explain this heartache to me, Polonaise?”

She pressed her nose to his neck. “You are so mean.”

“I’m awful. A disgrace and a miserable excuse for a gentleman. What did Allemande say?”

“She is angry with me for leaving, when Sara has a baby on the way.” Gabriel let her shift in his arms so her head was on his shoulder. “She’s scared, Gabriel, and I’m not there.”

“She’s afraid Sara won’t fare well in childbed?”

“That, yes.” Polly blotted her eyes with her handkerchief. “But she’s also… She’s scared Sara and Beck won’t l-love her once the baby comes along. She doesn’t say it outright. She goes about it by indirection and points out that Hildy doesn’t have to push one piglet aside to have another. She loves them all at the same time.”

“God spare us from the logic of children and breeding hogs,” Gabriel muttered, though he could understand Allie’s reasoning and her insecurities better than Polly knew.

“She’s alone, Gabriel, and Sara will love that baby, and just when Allie’s trying so hard to grow up, and I’ve left her, left them both, to do what?”

“To establish yourself as an artist. To give them room to be a family without you.” Though Gabriel had left his own family behind at Hesketh, and hadn’t that become a marvelous disaster?

“I can’t do this…” She leaned into him, her grip on him becoming fierce. “What difference does it make if I paint, when Allie feels so lost?”

“Hush, and let me hold you.” Gabriel tucked her against him more closely, wishing he’d locked the door, because Polly wouldn’t want anyone, not a chambermaid, a footman, or God himself, to catch her at her tears.

Not over this.

“Allie is growing up,” he said, searching for words. “This lost feeling you allude to is part of it, Polonaise. She is loved dearly, and Sara and Beck won’t push her aside for the baby. Beck especially will take her under his wing, because she’s his princess.”

“He’ll have another princess,” Polly wailed quietly. “Or worse, a fat, squalling little prince, all blond and charming like his papa. Allie will hate her own sibling, and me too, for leaving her there.”

“She will resent having to share, but she’s one of the most loving, tenderhearted creatures on God’s earth, my dear.”
As
was
Polonaise.
“When she sees that Beck and Sara trust her to be the older sister, and this baby isn’t the end of the world, she’ll have more confidence and one more person to love.” Though it might take a decade or so.

“It isn’t like that.” Polly heaved a shuddery sigh. “You’re the oldest, and you can’t know. I was the youngest, the one without much music, and it’s an endless exercise in not being paid attention to.”

“You needed an Aunt Polly. Someone to balance the family’s focus on the two older children.”

“An army of Aunt Pollys. Rich ones, who understood the difference between painting and music.” So fierce, and so heartsore.

“What about a single rich, famous aunt, in demand for her portraits in England and on the Continent?”

She rested against him more pliantly, and he could feel the tension in her easing. “I hate you, Gabriel Wendover.”

“You can visit her anytime, you know.”

“I have a portrait to paint, after which time, I will be escorted off the property by Hesketh himself, a very intractable exponent of spoiled nobility if ever I met one.”

“I’m not Hesketh yet.”
God
be
thanked
. “You might consider putting Marjorie’s picture aside and going on to your next commission.” His back twinged at that suggestion, and his heart.

“Are you really so anxious to see the last of me, Gabriel?” She craned her neck to peer at him, and he was struck by the hurt lurking in her eyes. Of course, she’d sympathize with Allie’s feelings of rejection and bewilderment.

Of course, she’d doubt herself and her chosen path.

“Don’t think that.” He brushed a kiss to her cheek. “I have my reasons for wishing you well away from here, love, and they’ve nothing to do with a distaste for your company.”

She laid her cheek against his. “I’m an idiot.”

“A man of sense hesitates to agree.” He didn’t pull away, because certain varieties of idiocy were contagious. “Might he inquire of your reasons?”

“I’m going to kiss you if you don’t hare away, Gabriel. Really kiss you.”

“You are an idiot, then.” Her other cheek also received a kiss. “As am I, for I can’t just now consider haring anywhere, for any reason. Thunderbolts from heaven couldn’t—”

She shut him up by gently sealing her lips to his, and for Gabriel, the sensation was one of coming home. Coming truly home, not merely returning to the family seat, but returning to
himself
, to where he should be. Like having the heart put right back in his chest after looking for it for ages and ages.

He held off as long as he could, letting her tease at his lips then graze her tongue along them. When her hand slid down his chest to wrap around his waist and anchor her more firmly to him, he took over. Gently, he kissed her onto her back, until he was sprawled over her, caging her with his body but holding her with only his mouth. Crouched above her, he started the kiss over, so he was the one doing the teasing and tasting, and then the invading.

She made a moue of relief as she opened to him and spread her knees. While Gabriel delicately explored the warmth of her mouth, she got her skirts tugged out of the way and brought her legs up around his flanks.

“Polonaise.” He ran his tongue down the line of her throat. “We have to—”

“No.” She clasped him with her legs and arched up against him, right up against the erection roaring to life in his breeches. Her mouth went from beseeching to demanding, and heat began to pour off her body, into his veins and organs.

“My dear, the door—”

“Kiss me.”

She gave an upward push below the waist, and he couldn’t
not
kiss her. Kiss her, and give her his weight, and start a slow, rolling rhythm with his hips. She arched up to him with surprising power and slid her hand down the length of his spine.

“Gabriel.” His name was a curse on her lips, an imprecation directed toward men who moved too slowly and left their women frustrated with desire.

“Easy,” he murmured, but had to smile when she worked a hand under his waistband and over his buttocks, and dug in with her nails.

“More, Gabriel. Now, please God, more.”

He felt the possessive sting of her nails, and through his clothes, felt the sheer, perfect pleasure of being cradled against her. She was living flame in his arms, writhing, clutching, and demanding he relieve her need.

He got a hand untangled from their bodies enough to slide it up her side, then eased a breast free of her bodice. He rested his cheek against the ripe, plump fullness and breathed in her scent, the way a hungry man took a moment to give thanks for a meal before devouring it.

She went momentarily still before she resumed her slow rocking against him. He took her nipple in his mouth then paused.

“Clove?”

“Mmm.” She arched her back and offered herself to him like a feast, then winnowed her fingers through his hair.

“Gabriel…” Not so insistent, a little breathless, a little bewildered, and he was going to spend in his breeches like a randy lad if he didn’t exercise some—

She’d taken over the rhythm of their meshed bodies, rocking herself tightly against him with a greater sense of urgency. He drew on her, and through the haze of his own building lust, it occurred to him
she
could
find
pleasure
like
this
. He shifted his hips, giving her more of his weight as she began to breathe more harshly.

“Gabriel, I can’t… It’s too much…”

“Not enough,” he managed, freeing the second breast and teething her lightly. “Come for me, Polonaise. It’s the least you deserve.”

“I don’t… Oh,
holy
saints, Gabriel
…” He felt the spasms rock her, felt her buck up against him desperately, and rode her hard when she would have shied back at the first searing bolt of pleasure. By divine providence, he held off his own climax, easing away from her only when she was spent and panting beneath him.

“What in God’s name…?” she whispered, while he sat back on his heels and undid his falls with shaking hands. He dug frantically for his handkerchief with one hand while he took hold of himself with the other and finished in a few quick, short strokes. His pleasure came upon him fast and hard, and then harder, leaving him breathing like a bellows, eyes closed as he tried to steady himself in the aftermath.

Cool fingers brushed over the head of his cock, making him flinch back.

“Not yet,” he cautioned. “Too sensitive.”

“So that’s what you feel when you spend?”

He opened his eyes and focused on the way firelight danced through her hair—because letting his gaze linger on her rucked-up skirts, her abundant breasts, or even her lush, reddened lips was purest folly. He managed… a nod.

She hadn’t known? Hadn’t she been knocked witless by erotic pleasure before? Holy saints, indeed.

His Polonaise looked puzzled as she started to tuck herself up, but he stilled her with a hand and crouched forward over her, his cheek against her chest.

“Christ, Polonaise.” It was barely a whisper, but provoked her to stroking her hands over his hair, a slow, sweet caress that helped ease his racing heart. “Sweet, ever loving Christ.”

And cloves, which would forevermore be an aphrodisiac to him.

Perceptive woman that she was, she let him gather his wits and his wind for long, quiet moments, and he had to hope she needed the time as well.

“You are dangerous.” He sat back and surveyed her, then climbed off the couch. “Don’t you do that.” He stilled her hands again, but gently. “I will put to rights what I disturbed.” Carefully, he eased her breasts back into her bodice, and to his relief, she let him.

“You needed to do that?”

“You’re full of questions. Come here.” He lay down beside her without righting his clothing and dragged her over him. “I don’t hold with the notion that every good swiving requires endless verbal recounting. You stole my wits, love. I haven’t spent like that since I was a mere boy, and you will leave me a little dignity by not gloating.”

She turned her face into his chest, and he felt her smiling at his expense. Her smile warmed his heart and made him want to start up again, which was a very bad idea indeed, and not simply because the door was yet unlocked.

“I’m not sorry.” He could hear the humor and pride in her tone.

“You are sorry indeed”—Gabriel tucked his chin against her temple—“to accost a man in his own library, leaving him no modesty and less control. For shame, Polonaise. Now go to sleep and dream of me.”

“You’ll sleep too?”

“With one eye open, lest you have your wicked way with me again.”

She cuddled up, while he wrestled with consternation. What was wrong with those imbeciles on the Continent, that they’d failed to see to Polly’s pleasure? She was a Congreve rocket, as volatile in her passions as she was about her cooking or her art.

Jesus, to have her in his bed would be—

He yanked hard on the reins of his unruly desire, and nuzzled her hair as it occurred to him that in some ways, he was her first. The notion pleased him profoundly, and he was still savoring it when he fell asleep and dreamed of clove-scented sheets and huge mugs of chocolate topped with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Voices in the corridor awakened him. Gabriel put a finger to Polly’s lips, and as the voices passed, she went limp against him.

“Time to make our escape,” Gabriel whispered, shoving to a sitting position. When Polly would have climbed off the couch, he caught her with a hand behind the head and kissed her again, a right smacker, a kiss of dominion and gratitude. Polly smiled at him, a soft, radiant, devastatingly lovely smile, and he had to look away.

Only to notice his breeches were still undone. “Lock the goddamned door, Polonaise, or you’ll see the banns being cried.”