Mary Blayney (7 page)

“It is you who assign the worth,” she said as she tried to calculate how much he had drunk. “I prefer to think of myself as honest as I can be under the circumstances.”

“You mean the circumstances of coming to France in all manner of disguises? Deceiving everyone but a chosen few with half-truths and outright lies. Your brand of honesty is convenient,” he spoke as he refilled his glass.

“Yes, it is, my lord.” The last two words were an insult.

“You remind me that I am a spy.” He made a gesture as if to brush the insult away. “Tell me how we are different, for are you not a spy as well?”

“I have not been named a traitor.” She stood up, pulled the robe closed and faced him. “And you have. That, Gabriel Pennistan, is the real difference between our stations in life.”

Any dominance she had lost in allowing him to undress her and massage her feet, she had regained with that truth.

“Are you convinced a death sentence awaits me? If so, why should I even go back to England?”

“You have no other choice. No money, no clothes, none of the papers the French are so fond of.” She could see the reality of her words strike him. “Your brother sits in the House of Lords. Perhaps his influence will save you.”

There was a tap at the door as she was about to mention the possibility of prison. Instead she called out,
“Entrez.”
The door opened a crack. No one came in, but a man’s voice carried across to them, “Your bedchamber is ready, madame.”

“Merci bien, monsieur.”

The servant closed the door. Charlotte considered Lord Gabriel, looking belligerent rather than loverlike. “I remind you, my lord, whether I be prostitute or whore, for now the play continues.”

8

T
HE ROOM WAS
on the third floor, and by the time Gabriel had followed Charlotte up the stairs, fatigue pulled at him. Made him wonder if he had the strength to take off his clothes before he fell across the bed.

His muddled brain was still trying to sort out the difference between whore and prostitute. What did it matter? Even slightly drunk he understood that she was the kind of woman willing to share her body and nothing more. What made him think he wanted more than her legs wrapped around him, her body welcoming his?

The door to the room was ajar. Charlotte pushed it open farther and went in. Gabriel tripped through and grabbed the frame to steady himself, then pushed the door closed until he heard it click shut. He leaned against it, trying to take in his surroundings, lit by the fire and two candles. One thing he could see quite clearly: a bed, large enough for two. He stepped toward it. He might be drunk, but he knew what that bed meant.

She used a key to lock the door, and the sound of it grating shut sent a bolt of panic through him. Gabriel grabbed her wrist. “Do not lock the door.”

“You do not want privacy?” Her surprise gave way to understanding. “I will put the key on that table so neither one of us feels trapped.”

“You could take it the minute I fall asleep.”

“You may put it under your pillow.” She made to hand it to him, the word
fool
implicit in her tone. “The room is too small to hide it.”

“The table, then,” he said. “You are right, I am trusting you with my life while I sleep. Worry over the key is absurd in the face of that.” He stepped away from the door, barely able to stand on his own. “Did you drug me?”

“Stop being ridiculous. You were the one who poured the brandy, and my hands were shaking too much to do anything secretly. You are exhausted. I cannot credit how you have lasted this long.”

She took his still-damp coat from him and went behind a screen that must be used as a dressing area or for privacy. He undressed for the third time that day. He was out of his clothes before she could turn back the covers.

He watched her, busy at the small domestic task. “Whose bed is empty while you are with me?”

She came closer to him, her smile and half-closed eyes as seductive as her body. “My life is as I choose it. I am a widow. And committed to no one.” She put her hands around his neck and stood on tiptoe, pressing herself against him. She was still wearing her robe. He could feel the warmth of her nonetheless. “Come to bed with me.”

With the greatest sense of sacrifice, he took her arms from around his neck. He moved back a few steps. “Is there a need to maintain the charade, Charlotte? Unless there are peepholes in this room, I do believe we are now free to act as we wish.” He looked around the room as though he could spy a tiny eyehole, pleased that he could sound so practical when his body was screaming for hers.

“There are no eyes but ours, and half a day until it is safe to leave.” There was not the slightest hint of confrontation in her voice, but he could see it in her eyes. “The bed is the most comfortable place in this room. And we can make it even more comfortable together.”

She’d walked around the bed as she spoke, slipping off her robe, taking a moment to drape it across a nearby chair.

Her body was beautiful, not voluptuous so much as flawlessly proportioned from neck to lovely breasts to waist to hips. Legs that were trim to the ankles. Feet he now knew quite well. Her natural hair color was a summer blond. Did she ever remove her wig?

There were a hundred kinds of fool, he realized. He was man enough to know he would be the king of fools to decline what she offered. He knew what she was about. Wouldn’t that be protection enough? “So the whore offers herself to me?” he said as he climbed into the bed. The pillow was as comforting as his nurse’s arms. The mattress soft, the sheets as welcoming as the first blush of sleep. He counted the bed, and sharing it with her, the ultimate of the delights he had been forced to do without.

He leaned toward her, touching no part of her but her lips. It was enough to make them both want more.

“You are so wrong,” Gabriel whispered as he kissed her again and again, light kisses that were filled with frustration and temptation. “This is about sex as much as it’s about power.” To prove it, the next kiss was deep, and neither could deny the arousal.

“I do not care if you are prostitute or princess. Come to me as Charlotte Parnell.” He spoke softly. He was so close to her that he could feel her heartbeat.

“That much I can give you.” She blew out one of the candles on the table next to the bed. “Charlotte Parnell is yours.”

Even as she reached for him, he knew she was too easily convinced.
Charlotte Parnell is not her true name,
he thought as her hands found his chest and his shoulders, pulling him closer. It did not matter anymore. He was beyond the word
no,
spiraling into a world of want.

He kissed her mouth, her neck and then whispered in her ear, “You must know that you will have little pleasure from this. It has been months since I have been with a woman.”

“Perhaps,” she said, turning her head a little toward him. She wasn’t smiling, even if her eyes were warm with pleasure. “It may happen quickly, but it will be satisfying for both of us.”

He leaned toward her, pressing his chest to her, trailing kisses down the other side of her neck, the smell of her pulling him deeper into her thrall. He used his tongue to tease her breasts as he slipped his hand under her neck to pull her closer, cradling her body against his, moving his other hand down her back, over the sweet roundness of her hips, moving quickly. He knew he was being selfish, but his aching fullness found her wet and willing. Charlotte welcomed him, putting her arms around his neck, urging him to move so that he was more on top than beside her.

He expected the purely physical connection he needed so desperately. None of the intimacy that would make it more than a bodily function. He was wrong. She kissed him, and though there was no sweetness in it, there was a passion that was real, begging to be shared. Her hands pulled him close and her legs wrapped him closer. The comfort of the pillow and bed paled next to the feel of her whole body blending with his. Tense with the effort to restrain himself, he felt no answering tension in her. She stretched her head back. Her eyes closed.

All shared in silence, words the only part of her that she did not give him. He wanted to give her some pleasure. To give her time to enjoy the coupling. What he wanted and what his body could give were two different things. His thoughts faded in a primal pulse of need. He buried his face in her neck as he filled her body. She pressed up against him, opening to him with a generosity that made the word
whore
a tribute.

He tried to thank her, tried to do something more than fall asleep still holding her, but this drug was too powerful to resist. He mumbled one word, “Tomorrow,” and closed his eyes.

C
HARLOTTE COULD TELL
all she needed to know about a man the first time they had sex together. If a man was physical, sex with him was about position and endurance. If he was selfish, his satisfaction was all that mattered. If he was kind, he would pay well, no matter the circumstances. And if he was cruel, she did her best to avoid the bedroom.

Worst of all, worse than cruel, was the man who came to bed a different person than the one met in the ballroom. Whose life in society was all lies. A man like her husband, so practiced in his deceit that neither she nor her mother had seen through the façade. If innocence had been her excuse then, he had seen that she never made that mistake again.

Lord Gabriel was sound asleep, lying on his side, the warmth of his body finally easing the chill and the headache that came when she had reached the end of her resources.

One of his arms was outside the covers, stretched across her stomach. In protection, not possession. If he wanted to mark possession, his naked arm would be across her naked body. No, the covers between them made it protection. And the gesture bore out her observations earlier tonight. When he had asked for a robe and warmed her feet with his hands, or even before that when he had asked what would become of Georges.

He had not been free more than a moment or two and he had begun to reassert that essential quality that prison had done its best to destroy. He was one who cared. Who cared with temper and passion and not by halves.

That made him dangerous in more ways than one.

How could he have been a spy? Temper and passion were problem enough, but if you combined those with his kindness, he was bound to die for his cause. Or was it all pretense? Was he that good an actor?

Charlotte knew she should leave. She could go to the house and make sure all was well there and return, all before he stirred. She inched away from his warmth, his arm still loose atop her, and pushed one foot from under the covers.

She swore very quietly and fell back into the bed, her head swimming with insurmountable fatigue. Her eyes kept closing as if they had their own idea on how to spend the day. In that moment she made her decision, leaned over and blew out the remaining candle.

If taking him to her house was her first mistake, then falling asleep beside him would be her second. If she was wrong about him, if Gabriel Pennistan was capable of such deep deceit, deeper than her husband’s lies, then this gesture would mean her death. Her last waking thought was that if he was not the man she thought him to be, she would rather not wake in this world.

M
OVEMENT ROUSED HER
. Charlotte spread her arm out without opening her eyes. The other half of the bed was empty. Anger and panic woke her completely. How could she have fallen asleep? How could she? She jerked upright and searched the almost-dark room.

Gabriel came from behind the screen and stopped at the window. Making a small opening in the heavy drapes, he stood watching the world beyond their retreat.

She bit her lip and did her best to control her anger, while she reached for the flint to light the candle on the table near the bed. “What is there to see?” she asked. “This room is at the back of the house.”

“I can see that it is twilight.” He spoke without turning around. “This place is already alive with business. Madame Rostine keeps a very clean house and she will tolerate no dallying among her servants.”

“And how can you know all that?”

Now he did look at her, smiling. “I have excellent eyesight.” He let go of the curtains, but then pushed them apart a little so that the last of the daylight filtered into the room. “My excellent night vision also tells me something else.” He came back to the bed and slid in beside her. “You are in need of more attention. You should be in fine spirits and I do not see even the smallest smile of satisfaction.”

She made to rise from the bed, but he stopped her by kissing her shoulder and then the side of her neck.

There was that damnable kindness. The feel of his lips made her want to turn to him, let him lavish his sweetness on every inch of her body, but there were a thousand reasons it was unwise.

“Another one of my observations, Charlotte, is that sex changes the way things are between a man and a woman.”

Less tension and more trust.
She could feel it too, in the one hand massaging her neck and in the way he spoke, as though sharing his observations was as intimate an act as the kiss.

She forced herself to stiffen in his hold, knowing that despite the intimacy, his generosity was woefully misplaced.

“Leave me alone.” Summoning the contempt that had been so completely eroded, she shrugged out of his reach and spoke without looking at him. “I gave you what you wanted last night. But once is entirely enough.”

He stilled, then pulled her back onto the pillow, so that he was looking down into her face. “Are you saying that we had sex because you felt sorry for me?”

“Yes.” The one word came out sounding brusque and callous. Though she was well aware of his temper, she went on. “I knew it would send you off to sleep as efficiently as a drug.”

“You’re lying,” he said with what seemed to her like real amusement. “Charlotte, my dear, you wanted it as much as I did.” The humor in his eyes faded. “I could make you want me again.”

He touched her lips with his, small tempting touches. Each awakening the tiniest memory and an unmistakable invitation.

She turned her head away. “Is sex all men think about?” She hoped her breath of laughter sounded like exasperation. “If it is, then I can have Madame Rostine send someone to you. Need I remind you that your life is at stake? And I must go and see what can be done to preserve it.”

“I hear
fool
even though it is unsaid. How wise of you not to actually speak it.” He moved away from her and she wondered if his words, that kiss, had been nothing more than a contest of wills.

“If it is time to leave, then, madame, we will go together.” He left the bed and gathered his clothes.