Free Velvet by Jane Feather Page A

eyes now cold and harsh. “I must ask you to forgive me, madame, I couldn’t do you justice as a partner.” He bowed and turned away, walking with undue haste to the drawing room door.
    Simon sighed. “For a minute there I thought I spied the old Nathaniel.”
    “The old Nathaniel?” Gabrielle’s eyebrows quirked.
    “I told you this morning that he lost his wife in childbirth,” Miles reminded her with a touch of his earlier stiffness.
    “We all have tragedies,” Gabrielle said quietly, and to the surprise of both men for once there was no mockery in her voice. Her eyes were dark pools of unhappiness, and then it was gone. “Well, if Lord Praed won’t play, you must find me another partner.”
    She smiled in her usual fashion and took Simon’s arm as they went into the cardroom.
    Nathaniel lay fully dressed on his bed, listening to the voices from below, the strains of dance music as a few couples took the floor in an impromptu country dance. He’d left instructions with the stables that hispostchaise be at the front door at five o’clock, well before dawn. Now all he had to do was get through the night and he’d be on his way to Hampshire and safe from the devil’s inferno embodied in a pair of charcoal eyes.
    After a while the noise died down and he heard the called good nights as his fellow guests made their way to bed. He undressed and tried to sleep. But all the usual tricks he used to bring about oblivion when he was keyed up failed him. When the handful of gravel flew through the open window and rattled on the polished wooden floor, he understood what he’d been waiting for.
    To question the inevitable was an exercise in futility. He relit his beside candle, then got up, shrugged into his dressing gown, and went to the window. Gabrielle de Beaucaire stood on the pathway below, hands on her hips, her head thrown back as she looked up at his window, every line of her body both a question and an invitation.
    Nathaniel leaned out into the moon-washed night. He said nothing, merely crooked a finger at the still figure. For the barest moment she seemed to hesitate, then she was swarming up the creeper, hand over hand, toes searching for a foothold, gripping where they could. Leaning his elbows on the broad sill, he watched her progress, trying to conceal his anxiety from himself.
    When her head came level with the windowsill, he reached for her, taking her strongly beneath the arms and lifting her bodily through the window.
    Gabrielle was so surprised at this evidence of more than ordinary strength in a man whose physique indicated wiriness and agility rather than muscle power that she made no sound until her feet made firm contact with the bedroom floor and she was released.
    Then she drew breath and brushed the hair away from her forehead, offering him a small smile.
    “I was a little scared of the climb tonight. But one shouldn’t give in to fear, should one?”
    He regarded her, unsmiling. “And temptation?” he inquired softly. “What of temptation, Gabrielle?”
    “Ah.” She put her head on one side, considering. “Resisting temptation is a different matter. A matter best left to individual consciences, I believe, according to circumstance.”
    “Yes,” he said, still softly. What reason did he have for resisting this temptation just this once? He’d be away from there in a few short hours, away from Gabrielle de Beaucaire, and he’d never see her again. She wanted this as much as he did. This was an ephemeral temptation, not one that need be resisted.
    His hands went to the buttons of her shirt. In leisurely fashion, one by one, they came undone. Gabrielle stood motionless under the purposeful unfastening, although her blood flowed swiftly and her heart was beating fast.
    Lifting and turning her wrists, he unfastened the tiny pearl buttons before pulling the shirt-sleeves off her arms. He tossed the shirt aside and stood looking at her, bared to the waist in the moonlight. She held still