Regency Rogues Omnibus (10 page)

Drummond halted abruptly and turned to face the Archangels as he spoke with suppressed authority. “Saxonhurst, you are now in charge of gossip management. The principal has been grievously harmed in these events and I demand voices out there of equal equity. Consult with Radford who will head the investigation for your base information and direction.”

Drummond paused, turning his gaze away from Saxonhurst and he pinned Wyndham with his glare as he continued to disperse orders. “Wyndham, you will use that law degree you are so fond of and gain me entitlement! I want the principal’s complete restitution and restoration.”

“Brynmore.” Drummond swiveled to face Lord Duneagan. “We need foot soldiers for further surveillance, especially for the malefactor, and we shall branch outward from there.” Drummond paused, gnawing on his cigar as he faced them all as a group. “Gentlemen, as is customary, Harrison shall be our vindicator in this endeavor . . . and gentlemen,” Drummond paused as he stressed, “I demand the first taste of justice quickly or else, I shall gut the menace myself, personally!”

Each man nodded, breaking apart to follow their orders. He had kept them up to date so far and they each knew from past experiences, what he required of them. Only Harrison hesitated in his withdrawal and instead came to his side.

“This has become even more personal?” Harrison asked.

“Yes,” Drummond replied in a clipped voice. “We will obtain the principle’s freedom by any means.” Drummond paused and took a harsh breath. “However, we will entertain all avenues, before I set the final course of action.” Drummond gazed frothily at Harrison. “If only for my lady’s sake, I will entertain lesser mercenary means. But, I shall have her, Harrison, freely and clearly as my own.”

Gabriella stepped away from the opposite side of the closed door and hurried back to the bed, before Matilda could return and find that she had been eavesdropping. Was she the principal, Gabriella wondered as she laid down on the bed? Was it she, whose freedom Drummond was seeking? Then, her mind leaped forward, wondering excitedly; could he? She had not understood most of what Drummond had said, except it seemed as though he would help to secure the estate she supposedly held. How odd that her father would do such a thing. However, she clearly remembered her father begging her forgiveness on his deathbed, and she had given it to the deflated and repentant old man, in his last breaths. Perhaps he had come beyond the grave to seek his redemption as if money or land could ever buy back-.

“Madame . . . Gabriella.”

Gabriella turned her head to see Drummond moving toward her with his special brand of fluent male grace.

“Drummond,” Gabriella whispered as Drummond took her hand and sat beside her on the bed, immediately stroking her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Did you do all of it, Drummond?” Gabriella asked.

“Hm,” he murmured, bending closer to kiss her temple, where he said, “Perhaps the bit about the prince regent, love. Priny does owe me a few favors and laments how he will ever repay them. However the rest, although completely expected, was truly gossip sparring from the events.”

“Oh, Drummond,” Gabriella sighed, and then she murmured in wonder, “The prince.”

“For you, my love,” Drummond replied as he kissed her cheek, and then the corner of her mouth. “Anything.”

Gabriella caught Drummond’s mouth soundly with her lips, languishing in a deep kiss before Drummond pulled away to look at her closely. “And now, my love, I believe you owe me a secret.”

Gabriella lightly caressed the chiseled bone of Drummond’s jaw with her fingertips, as she asked, “Must we, Drummond? It was so long ago.”

Drummond’s long and slightly roughened finger pad pressed against her lips, silencing her as he answered, “We must, Gabriella. I must.”

Gabriella understood then, more than she had before. Drummond hurt as she hurt. He needed to understand that she had not willingly turned away from their fledgling love all those years ago. Gabriella stroked Drummond’s chin with her thumb, feeling his strong cheekbone with her fingertips.

“Yes I will, Drummond, but you must let me tell you in my own way.” Gabriella paused and traced Drummond’s full bottom lip with the soft edge of her fingernail. “And, I owe you a meal first. A dinner that I would prepare. A meal for just you and I.”

Drummond’s smile was very slow and filled with sensuous promise. “A meal, a secret, and then perhaps after we shall entertain dessert.”

Drummond left her then with the promise of his lips still warming hers. She would have the day to plan . . . to decide, and in the end to try on her own to shake the sensual master’s world. Could she do it? She would have to be very brave!

Chapter Seventeen

At precisely seven o’clock, Gabriella was standing outside of Drummond’s study, repeating the litany, “seize the day,” in her mind.

Oh, she could not do this
, Gabriella thought nervously, pressing her forehead to the cool wood paneling of the door. The Archangels were gone on their separate duties for Drummond so she and Drummond were alone. All day she had boldly planned this, until now she stood here hesitating in her inborn shyness.

Abruptly, Gabriella exclaimed in fierce whispering, “I have wasted twenty-five years. I love him and will not waste another moment!” Her hand reached for the doorknob bravely. “I will not!”

Gabriella swept into the room as regally as she could muster with her bare feet and her hair tumbling down around her mink-covered shoulders. It was time for her to attempt to seduce the master. Drummond’s head lifted from what he had been studying upon his desk and Gabriella noted with satisfaction that her unexpected entrance had surprised him. Drummond’s gifted gray eyes moved slowly to study her appearance, sliding over her unbound hair, her entire petite stature folded inclusively in the sable colored mink— to finally rest, for long moments on her bare feet with their crimson painted toenails. He was intrigued and it heightened the air in the room between them. Gabriella finished shutting the door firmly behind her and ran the tip of her tongue over the edge of her lightly rouged lips, to dampen them.

“I have a confession to make,” she said lightly, moving further into the room.

“You do,” Drummond murmured, leaning back in his chair as his gaze tracked her approaching movements. He had obviously been passing the time waiting in his study for the dinner hour to arrive. He was dressed elegantly in his crisp black evening attire. His ruby stud, blinked blood-red in his earlobe, as she stopped in front of his desk.

“I have given all of your servants the evening off . . . every last one,” Gabriella said, as she stroked the front edge of her mink wrap with her long red fingernails.

Drummond’s features tightened in a purely masculine way, with his square jaw notched upward. He watched the languorous motion of her hands, through his eyes now partially lidded. “Very industrious of you, madame,” he answered in a husky tenor.

Gabriella thought that she had seen Drummond exude manful intent before, however, it was nothing compared to his heightened awareness now. It was as if he scented the air and found his mate . . . perhaps his fertile mate. And, he was engaged.

“Would you escort me to dinner, amour?” Gabriella asked huskily. “I have had it placed in the small intimate dining room across the hall.” As Gabriella spoke, she feathered one hand upward in the direction of the door allowing her mink wrap to open over the bareness of one knee. A tease, before it was covered again. She felt the thrill of it heat her cheeks as she watched Drummond skim his full bottom lip with the top of one finger.

“I would be enchanted,” Drummond replied in a resonating murmur as he stood with a supple and panther-like quality, so tall and well formed.

Gabriella took his proffered arm, feeling the tractable muscle beneath the superfine material of his evening jacket as she tilted her head in a coquettish gesture and smiled upward in what she hoped was an alluring manner.

Precious,
Drummond thought, however, Gabriella was alluding to a plenitude of sensual provocativeness. Interesting. His gaze followed the flow and shape of Gabriella’s fluffy mink wrap as they walked to the dining room across the hallway. It did not escape him that the wrap she wore was entirely out of place. No, it merely excited him in a way he had never experienced. It appeared his lady had not only blossomed, but effloresced into a flower of the rarest creation. His flower. His orchid.

“Please, my lord, sit and I shall serve you.” A breathy pause followed as Gabriella pirouetted, her back to him. “After you take my wrap, of course.”

Drummond imagined, knowing his lady-light as he thought he did, that she would be wearing a silky shift beneath the mink. She was newly shy of their intimacies together and she appeared to be trying mightily to seduce...

Gabriella was gloriously nude! Stunned, Drummond inhaled a startled and very heated breath as the mink wrap came away from Gabriella in his hands. By god, would it always be like this as though he were seeing her nude for the first time?

It also occurred to Drummond— quite peripherally, for his gaze was entranced by the view of Gabriella’s lusciously rounded and pale buttocks— that there appeared to be no food or summery utensil for eatery in the room. Candles flickered over a snowy-white linen tablecloth, stretched over the elongated dining table in a very provocative manner. Provocative? Since when had a mere dining linen, exacerbated in his mind, to be placed as arousing?

“Do you like my breasts, amour? I rouged the nipples a tiny bit— can you tell?”

Drummond’s head swiveled. Oh yes! He could see that. However, what stunned him and sent a lightening jolt of desire spearing his groin to turgid attention, and every place between, was Gabriella’s pink-lipped orchid. Bared!

Gabriella’s heart-shaped loins were completely shaved of auburn curls and as tender looking as some newborn baby’s bottom with his passion pearl kissed between the pouted, blossom colored lips. Drummond thought, perhaps he growled— a mating sound surely— as his much touted control snapped completely.

“Do you like it?” Gabriella asked, much too innocently, as she stroked one of her long scarlet-painted fingernails up over the plum-shaped outline of her loins. “You must shave me every morning if you wish to keep me this way.”

Drummond did growl then, a predatory mating sound, as he swept Gabriella naked against him and took her mouth beneath his impassioned lips. They had seduced. They had played. However, now every tissue that made him a man, demanded that he take her . . . fill her . . . make her his completely.

Drummond released his ravishment of Gabriella’s lips and bent, catching her thighs beneath his forearm as he quickly lifted her up high against his chest, while he walked the few steps to the table. “I presume you are this evening’s full course meal?” he asked huskily, neither really wanting nor needing an answer.

Drummond did realize, however, that he needed a breath of space to tamp down on his flaming desire. Gabriella was just too precious to him to be rough with, as his inflamed lust was challenging him to do through every excited pore of his body. So, when he reached the table, he set Gabriella fully down upon its linen surface, even her dainty feet, and then he stepped backward, a pace. “Please, madame, stand so I may view my tasty morsel.”

Gabriella appeared hesitant, but took his hand, using it as leverage to stand. By god. This was not helping at all! Gabriella was sleek, yet enticingly well rounded, toasted to an apricot sheen in the candlelight. From the outline curve of her hips, to the sleek flatness of her belly accentuated by the dangling slope of his golden chain about her hips, to the shapely line of her legs, she was ravishing. Drummond forbade himself to look at her breasts or do more than glance at the bareness of her exquisite loins. No, not for a moment or two, not until he regained some of his composure, he thought as he began to undo his cravat.

“A feast,” he managed to rasp, before he partially turned his back and began to take off his jacket.

“Are you all right, Drummond?” Gabriella asked softly.

He would lie! He would sidestep, begin to talk seductively to throw a diversion, if he could retrieve any words past his passion-cramped throat. He would ... he would. Hell!

“I am overwhelmed,” Drummond expelled, mumbling for the first time in his life. Then he turned, taking his shirt off as he did, thinking that he had best leave his pants on — perhaps through the entire encounter! Drummond glanced up at Gabriella, rather sheepishly, he supposed for him, and found that she was smiling. Actually, she was grinning, with warmth, love, and quite a dab of feminine power. The whole while she twirled the end of the chain with his passion pearl, bringing his gaze downward.

“I suspect that I deserve this completely,” Drummond muttered. Another first, he never muttered.

“You do,” Gabriella challenged with a sultry giggle, then she slanted one leg outward with her pink toes pointed, just so. She was posing for him.

“Gads, woman, you are merciless,” Drummond proclaimed, and then he was there, pulling Gabriella down to her knees in front of him. “I am begging you, madame. I am begging you to let me touch your breasts.”

Gabriella laughed, warmly and seductively, with a woman’s innate power over her man. “My amour, I will die if you do not touch my breasts.” Then, she surprised him yet again by lifting each of her breasts plump weight upward, offering them to him. Thrilling!