“It will all be taken care of! The room is already booked, my love.” Gabrielle had hardly known the woman for an hour and she was making a concerted effort not to strangle her. Not only was the woman an obvious control freak, but she steam-rolled over Sebastian with the ease of a ton-loader. What was worse, was that the man himself didn’t seem to be making any effort to thwart her. “Gabrielle understands the importance of our reputation, don’t you, sweetheart?” She jolted at Amelia’s sudden address. The woman was staring at her with gleaming blue eyes very like Sebastian’s- but lacking any of their familiar warmth. “St. Mary’s will be a wonderful place to have the baby, don’t you agree?”
Gabby’s gaze slid from Sebastian’s irate expression to Amelia’s controlled smile – and she knew she couldn’t very well let the woman trample her. She didn’t plan to be impolite, she just had to make her opinion known. She did, indeed, like Dr. Bletchley and thought he would be the best doctor to delivery their baby.
“My apologies, Lady Amelia, but I am pretty partial to Doctor Bletchley. He’s been very kind on the few occasions we’ve met and I honestly think that-”
“Nonsense!” Amelia cut her off sharply, her eyes flashing dangerously even as her smile remained in place. “I understand that it is your first child, my dear, and you’re also fairly new to Britain and thusly unfamiliar with our practices, but believe me when I say St. Mary’s is what’s best for you and for the baby. I know that Doctor Bletchley may have more experience catering to…people of your ilk, but St. Mary’s is not only cleaner, it’s more prestigious and better funded. You won’t be sorry you went.”
People of her…ilk?
Doctor Bletchley was a British- African man – dark-skinned and well spoken. Now, Gabby wasn’t guessing that the duchess was a racist bitch, she was sure of it. Slowly, she raised a napkin to her mouth to dab at an invisible food stain delicately. “Of course, Lady Hunter.” She rose from the table, her stomach churning with disgust. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling a little under the weather. It must be the baby. Please excuse me.”
“Of course, dear. Do lie down and have a glass of soda. Rest up.” Amelia’s unfaltering smile was maddening, and as Gabby made a good show of tottering off in her heels, it was emblazoned across her mind.
That ghastly woman was going to be the grandmother of her child – and it was clear that she thought she was going to have control over its every move. If that was the impression she had, then Duchess Hunter had another thing coming. Gabrielle was prepared to pretend to be a dutiful, loving wife. She was even prepared to put herself in the media spotlight and feign fame and fortune. One thing she would not do, however, was take orders from a conniving high class crone – Sebastian’s mother or not.
Kicking off her heels, she fled up the stairs, both her mind and her stomach in turmoil.
**
She didn’t speak to him for two weeks.
Mind you, she had every right, considering his mother’s first grand, cruel power play. Even Sebastian himself had been surprised at her ruthlessness. While he’d known his mother would do everything in her power to put her grandchild and the Hunter name in the spotlight, he hadn’t thought that would include insulting Gabrielle to her face.
Luckily, the high-maintenance woman was out most days’ till late flitting around the London social scene. On the few occasions that she did chose to interact with them, it wasn’t to ask after the baby or Gabrielle’s health, but to lecture them on what social groups they should let their child interact in and what extracurricular activities would be best for it.
Gabrielle endured these tirades with thin patience, her fingers clutched to the tiny swell of her stomach as she stared raptly at the air beside his mother’s head. She was cordial enough with him in his parents’ midst, but the moment Amelia released them, she fled from him, locking herself in her studio or the bathroom to drone him out. His mother was, he realized, trying to dictate his child’s future just as she’d dictated his, and the thought disturbed him greatly.
There was, however, absolutely nothing he could do about it. He was constantly in the eye of the media and any wrong move he made would reflect badly on their family. This, in turn, would make his mother suspicious – and if she found out that he and Gabrielle weren’t truly married, she would no doubt challenge the child’s legitimacy. Despite the background he’d faked for Gabby, his mother was still displeased with her.
This was, Sebastian knew, because she hadn’t
chose
her – and of course his father made not the slightest motion to curb his wife’s behavior. He never had. Since their marriage, she had been the one in charge – and Sebastian’s political and emotional obligations to his family dictated that he satisfy her. He couldn’t even allow Tristan near the house under his mother’s watchful eye. She strongly disapproved of homosexuals, and would no doubt explode with anger upon discovering Gabrielle and the unborn child had been in contact with one.
His mother’s antics were making Gabrielle profoundly unhappy – any fool could see that; and Sebastian could do nothing to stop it. He felt her toss and turn all night beside him only to rise in the middle of the night to disappear and do God bloody knew what.
One night, he felt her leave the bed around three in the morning, and after several tense moments by himself, he rose to don his robe and follow her. Silently, he padded down the stairs and through the parlor and kitchen to the narrow landing that led up to her workshop. A low light shone down from the room, confirming its occupation, and Sebastian sighed before beginning up the stairs.
When he crested the staircase, he stopped cold, the sight before him giving him pause.
Gabrielle was utterly, completely naked. Her caramel colored skin glowed in the dim light of a number of candles that she’d lit as she moved hauntingly to the base of the soft music that played from her iPod. Splotches of paint were flecked over her shoulders, the small of her back and the small jut of her abdomen as she worked, utterly absorbed in her work.
Her horrendous nightgown lay pooled in a heap at the head of the stairs, and the woman worked with long, almost violent strokes of a thin brush, the paint swirling onto the canvases in hypnotic motions. It was, Sebastian realized, the piece she’d begun to work on not long after moving into the house. The colors and pattern were brilliant, fairly leaping off the page in a desperate plea for help.
Desperation.
Gabby felt utterly alone at his side, shoved into a mold that she couldn’t even begin to fit into, and utterly ignored by his mother.
He felt like a complete and utter cad watching her, entranced by her jolting, furious motions and the curves of her ripening body. Though he hadn’t had her since their first time, he’d longed for her every night. Inhaling the perfume of her freshly washed hair and listening to the soft timbre of her breathing was torture. Seeing her now, like this, he felt himself reacting powerfully, his erection tenting the front of his silk pajamas as breath came almost harshly.
All at once, as if she sensed him, Gabrielle stopped mid motion, turning to fix him with Gray eyes full of frustration and loneliness. In a sudden fury, she tossed the brush across the room. Sebastian flinched when it hit the wall a foot from his head with a loud clatter, his mouth dry at the sight of his “wife’s” bare breasts.
“How dare you.” The words escaped Gabrielle on a low, almost inaudible tone. “How dare you let her spout that bullshit day after day? She’s not the one having this baby, Sebastian,
we
are.” Groaning, the young woman drew her hands over her face and down her chest, streaking paint alluringly over her skin. “
I am
.” She raised a hand to place protectively over her belly before turning from him. “Go back to bed.”
In five quick strides, Sebastian spanned the room drawing her stiff form into his arms. Gabrielle fought him,struggling in vain against his superior strength, but after a moment of writhing, she sagged in his arms, her breath hitching on an unmistakable sob. The sound startled him.
Gabrielle, despite her current unhappiness, struck him as a very strong woman. For her current situation to have brought her to tears… “I’m sorry.” He whispered against her neck, the smell of oil paint and strawberry shampoo drugging him. “I’m
so
sorry, Gabby.”
“Are you?” She demanded, her voice trembling. “You say that, but when that
woman
comes to us tomorrow with some ridiculous plan for
our
child, are you going to challenge her?”
“I will,” He promised lowly, his words firm. Though the promise brought him no small amount of trepidation, he knew something had to be done. What if Gabrielle became depressed? What if she got sick? She would lose the baby and that would do none of them any good. Sebastian found, now, that the thought of losing a child he’d come to at least start to view in the permanent realm disturbed him more than he’d like to admit.
He wanted more than to just watch his child being born. He didn’t want it to be shipped off to some expensive boarding school the moment it would walk. He knew, from experience, that such things were never the best policy for his child.
Gabby was right. It was time for him to be firmer with his mother. She might hold many of the cards, but he still had a few of his own. “I promise, I will speak with her, Gabby.”
She turned in his arm to face him, searching his face for any signs of dishonesty before she spoke. “You know, I believe you. I might be crazy for it, but I do.” With that, she made a last attempt to pull out of his arms, the naked slid of her body against his driving him to the cusp of insanity. Sebastian jerked her back to him, reading the shock in her eyes a moment before he kissed her.
She tasted just as sweet as he remembered – and her body was like liquid heat as she arched into his embrace, her lips parting beneath his. He had watched her for weeks – admired the poise with which she’d handled the cameras that poked into their privacy and his harpy of a mother. He’d seen her unhappiness and the strain in her features.
And now he would erase it all – every last iota.
His mouth moved down the column of her throat slowly, deliberately, and she shuddered against him as his tongue dipped into the hollow at its base. Her skin was damp with sweat and a few streaks of paint that smeared against his hands as they slid over her spine and down to cup the round globes of her behind.
Though she wasn’t even three months heavy with pregnancy, her body had already begun to change – her breasts were rounder and more lush, her hips fuller. As Sebastian lowered his head to take a chocolate-hued nipple between his teeth, a ragged gasp escaped her. His tongue circled the tight little nub slowly, until she was squirming and whimpering in his embrace. Her reaction drew a Sebastian’s smile against her warm flesh as one of his hands crept forward to find her wet and wanting between the legs.
They’d been dancing around one another for what seemed like an eternity, and now that he had her in his arms, he was going to take his time with her to recall the chemistry that had driven them to exhaustion before morning had broken.
Gabrielle gasped as his fingers moved torturously over her drenched cleft, her head falling back as he stroked her. He marveled that she slickened so quickly for him – even though she might be furious with him for allowing his mother to oppress them. Releasing her nipple, he straightened, eager to watch her face as he pleasured her.
Her gray eyes were hooded and dark, her fingers tense as they gripped his upper arm. With every stroke of his fingers, her hips bucked gloriously against his hand. When he finally obliged her with the swift thrust and withdrawal of two fingers into her tight sheath, Gabrielle cried out softly, biting her lip as she shook her head in denial of the pleasure wracking her body.
She was gorgeous like this – covered in paint and absolutely nothing else as her body strained against him. He slid his fingers back inside her, stroking the silken walls of her femininity until she was whimpering continuously, her lips parted as her thighs trembled. Again and again he plied her until hushed epithets were falling from her lips and her nails raked over the silk of his pajama shirt as she came powerfully.
He relished the way her inner muscles milked his fingers, their spasms slowly ebbing until she sagged against him, her breathing ragged. Sebastian leaned down to press a kiss against her damp forehead, and then the sweetness of her mouth, before raising his hand to lick his fingers clean.
There was little that he had seen that could make the unpredictable Gabrielle Arnold blush, but she did now, her cheeks flushing in the low light of the flickering candles. “That…” She finally managed on a hoarse whisper, “That was most definitely
not
proper.”
Sebastian’s cerulean eyes gleamed with amusement even as the sight of her heaving breasts made his erection pulse. “You have no
idea
how improper I can be, Gabrielle.”
He felt the shudder of arousal traverse the length of her body as her eyes glowed with anticipation. Her tongue darted out to wet full lips and Sebastian bit back a groan. “Show me.”
He hardly needed to be asked twice. Reaching down, he slid his hands beneath her thighs to lift her aloft, pressing the prominent bulge of his erection against her center. Gabrielle moaned, her arms winding around his neck as their mouths found one another and fused, their tongues tangling restlessly.