Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Enemy (20 page)

She nodded and her eyes flared with a desire that seemed to equal his own.

His body reacted as if she really wished to bed him, but why would she do so now? She was with him out of desperation, not choice. And she would marry him out of that same desperation.

“It is what I want.” Her voice was husky, unhesitant. She turned away and pulled a chain over her head, a necklace he’d not realised she’d worn. She set it aside and turned back to him, raising her arms and running her fingers through his hair.

His hand slid to the smooth column of her neck. His fingertips felt the rapid beating of her pulse. She responded to his touch by tilting her head like a cat wanting to be petted.

“I do most certainly want this,” she whispered, her voice like a fleeting summer breeze.

She twined her arms around him and pulled his head down until he could no longer resist tasting her lips again. He crushed her mouth against his, a man starving for want of tasting her. She tasted of heaven, of warm nights and peaceful days. This was what he’d lost, what he would lose again. Losing her the first time had almost crushed his very soul—what would happen when he lost her again?

Pain be damned. She was here now, willing to let him love her again—no,
wanting
him to make love to her again. She wanted that pleasure again. The brandy he’d consumed had not addled his thinking to that degree. She
wanted
this.

So, why shouldn’t he? Men made love to willing women all the time. He’d done it. Many times. Why the devil stop now?

Still kissing him, Emmaline began to work the buttons on his coat. He quickly shrugged it off and tossed it aside. She stepped back to unfasten her dress and his fingers flexed with the impulse to rip the fabric away.

Her dress dropped to the floor and she backed him towards the bed, kicking off her shoes. “I will remove your boots.”

He sat upon the bed while she pulled off his boots, then he drew her close so he could untie the lacings of her corset. His hands shook with impatience as he worked the knot.

When he finally freed her from the garment, she unfastened the fold of his trousers. He pulled off his shirt.

They’d undressed like this in her Brussels bedroom many times, only this felt different to him, more urgent. But then the brandy made everything seem more than it was. The brandy made him hurry. The brandy made him willing to think only of this moment and nothing more.

Soon they tumbled together on the bed, freed of clothing and restraint, skin against skin. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was, how narrow her waist, how flawless her skin, how full her breasts.

No, he’d really not forgotten; he would never forget anything about her. He’d merely tried to force her from his mind. But now she was with him again, in the flesh. In the warm, smooth, erotic flesh. He inhaled her fragrance, linen and lavender, so familiar, as if she for ever carried the scent of the lace shop with her. Even the sound of her breathing was familiar. He hated to admit he felt more at home at this moment than he’d felt when visiting the house of his birth, the family who shared his blood.

Rational thought tried to poke through his reverie, but he pushed it away. He did not care that she wanted his hands on her merely out of carnal desire. His carnal needs drove him, as well. He did not care if she did this merely to keep him from abandoning the search for Claude—

He pulled away.

“
Qu’est-ce que c’est?
” she asked, then shook her head. “I mean, what is it? What is wrong?”

He could no more accept her lovemaking as payment than he could accept marriage.

“I need to know if you want this, Emmaline.” His voice came out too loud, too rough. “Do you want this?”

Her breath accelerated. “You must ask this again? I have never stopped wanting this.”

She reached for him and he rose over her, convinced that her fever was running as hot as his own. Her legs parted for him and he thrust himself inside her, rushing in spite of himself, as if he could lose everything if he did not seize this moment.

Miraculously, she did not cry out in pain, but in passion, and immediately she moved with him, as fast as he moved, as forcefully as he pushed. He felt everything in the moment. All his longing for her, all the delight in joining with her again, but that was not the total. He also felt the agony of her sending him away, the rage at her bargain with him, the cold realisation that he would part from her again.

His body chased emotion and thought away, replacing them with a pure physical need, the need nature supplied every creature, the need that promised man indescribable pleasure. Every muscle, every nerve, every part of him embraced the pleasure, and every part of him raced to the culmination, the climax.

She stayed with him on this frenzied journey, as if her every muscle, nerve and limb were as much a part of him as his own. They even breathed in unison.

The moment came.

Together they cried out. Together they convulsed with pleasure. Together they suspended time. All that existed was here, now and each other.

Their lassitude came in unison, as well. Gabe relaxed beside her, holding her close as if otherwise she might evaporate like dew on morning grass. She snuggled next to him, entangling her legs with his so that even now he felt connected to her.

“I have missed that,” she murmured.

He was surprised he had lived without it.

As the sensation ebbed, he wondered how long it had been since she’d lain with a man. It was inconceivable to him so passionate a woman could deny such needs, especially when her beauty no doubt attracted many willing men. Who could blame her? After all, he’d not been celibate since Brussels.

Although, if he were honest with himself, any release he’d found among the willing Parisian courtesans had meant nothing to him.

He firmed his resolve. This must mean nothing as well, mere physical release.

She rose on one elbow and looked down at him. “What is it, Gabriel?”

He had not even moved. “What? Nothing.”

“Something upset you suddenly.”

Her hair was all a-tumble, distracting him with its sensual beauty.

“A stray thought, nothing more.” He brushed her locks away from her face. “We forgot to take down your hair.”

She sat up and felt for her hairpins, pulling them out so that her hair fell over her shoulders and down her back.

Gabe combed the tresses with his fingers. “Still as lovely,” he whispered.

She leaned down and placed her lips on his, her hair tickling his chest, her kiss arousing him once more.

To the devil with the past and the future. What did a soldier care for such things? Reach for what was within grasp.

She broke off the kiss and climbed atop him, speaking the words that were in his mind. “I want you again,” she murmured.

When dawn flooded the room with light, Gabe made love to her again, as aggressively as the night before, lest daylight change everything. Nothing gentle between them, they grabbed at the pleasure, demanded it of each other and built it to an explosive force.

Afterward, as she lay in his embrace, he sensed the moment her lassitude turned to tension again. “What do we do now, Gabriel?”

To find Edwin and stop Claude, she meant.

He should tell her now that it was no use. There was nowhere to search, no clue to explore. He must return to London.

He composed the words in his mind and pictured himself telling her. He imagined her face when he dealt the crushing blow. It pained him as much as if he were inside her skin, enduring her disappointment and fear. Could he truly wound her in the way that would hurt her the most, by saying there was no way to save her son now?

He could not.

“I was thinking,” he began, stating a plan that would sound as if he’d deliberated on it all night long instead of making it up as he spoke. “We should rent a horse and carriage, something I could drive myself. We can head out in some direction and ask about Edwin at the posting inns. If one direction fails to find someone who has seen them, then we’ll backtrack and start in another direction.”

“You will do this, Gabriel?” She sat up and her smile rivaled the sunshine. “
Très bon.
We will find someone who remembers seeing them. I know we will!”

She lowered herself to kiss him again, a kiss filled with relief and gratitude for a decision he might very well regret later.

Reluctantly he broke off the kiss. “Let me dress and go out now to see what I can arrange.”

It took some time to track down an available carriage. After asking at several posting inns, Gabe finally found someone willing to rent him a gig. The one-horse vehicle was not as fast as a curricle with two horses, but it would have to do. He had no wish to search for something better all day and lose the time on the road.

When he returned, Emmaline had their bags all packed.

“Let us eat breakfast, enough to last us most of the day,” he told her. After a hearty breakfast they would leave on this next, probably hopeless, leg of their journey.

Soon they sat in the public room, drinking mugs of hot coffee and eating slices of ham, cheese and bread. Their table was located in the path most patrons needed to pass to be seated, so their conversation was frequently interrupted. Not that there was much conversation between them. What was he to say to Emmaline after their impassioned night together?

As they ate, a man bumped into Gabe’s chair. He looked to see who it was.

“Beg pardon,” the man said.

Gabe spoke to Emmaline after the man passed. “Are you concerned that the men who accosted you will show up here?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. They will see you first and avoid you, I am certain.”

Another man walked by, nodding a greeting. Gabe recognised him as one of the men he had questioned during the cock fight.

He glanced back at Emmaline and their gazes caught. Something had changed between them, he had to admit.

They were carnally aware of each other once again.

Emmaline blinked, and her expression turned to worry. “Where do we begin to look?”

Gabe shrugged. Perhaps it was only he who was preoccupied by their lovemaking. Her son consumed her thoughts. As always.

“We can toss a coin,” he suggested.

“Toss a coin?” Her brows knit in confusion.

He waved a hand. “We can go in any direction. One gives us as much a chance of succeeding as another.”

He took a sip of coffee, glancing up as yet another man walked by.

The man stopped. “Gabe?”

Gabe felt the blood drain from his face. It was his brother Paul.

His brother made a surprised sound. “Gabe! By God, it is you!”

Gabe rose and his brother enveloped him in a rough hug. “It is prodigious good to see you, but what the devil are you doing here?”

What spate of ill luck brought Paul here at the exact moment Gabe was sitting with Emmaline?

Without waiting for Gabe’s answer, Paul looked from Emmaline to Gabe, a question in his eyes.

Gabe moved closer to her. “Emmaline, may I present my brother, Mr Paul Deane. Paul, Madame Mableau.”

Emmaline extended her hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Paul clasped it. “You are French!” His eyes widened and he slid a very curious glance towards Gabe.

“Belgian,” she said.

Two other men had to squeeze by, and the serving girl stood with a tray full of food. “Your breakfast, sir,” she said to Gabe’s brother.

Gabe pulled out a chair. “Join us, will you?”

He signalled the tavern girl to put the food on the table.

His brother sat, but looked from Gabe to Emmaline instead of at his food. “What are you doing in Blackburn, Gabe? Are you billeted here?”

“No,” he replied. “I am still awaiting a commission.”

Paul did not even seem to hear him. His brow was creased and he looked at Emmaline, trying to puzzle out who she was and why she was sharing breakfast with Gabe.

Suddenly Paul’s eyes widened as if understanding dawned at last. His face immediately flushed red.

“What goes here?” he whispered to Gabe, inclining his head towards Emmaline.

She was witnessing all this, of course.

Paul’s disapproving expression looked so much like their father’s that Gabe was taken aback. Paul always had been a strait-laced prig. No doubt he’d concluded that Gabe and Emmaline had shared a bed as well as breakfast. He acted as if Gabe were seventeen and caught in a peccadillo, instead of a man in his mid-thirties who damned well could bed whomever he wished and didn’t need an older brother to pass judgement on him.

Or on her. It was unspeakably ill mannered of Paul to gesture and whisper and eye Emmaline so blatantly. He might as well point to her and yell, “Harlot!”

Emmaline had already blushed. Gabe was certainly not going to embarrass her more by giving his brother what for.

He made his voice mild. “To answer your questions.” Both the spoken one and the unspoken one. “Madame Mableau and I are in Blackburn on business, a private family matter that will not concern you—”

Paul’s brows rose as if waiting for more.

“I will lay your suppositions at rest and tell you what I intended to keep private a while longer—”