A Secret Love c-5

by Stephanie Laurens

Her breathing was shallow, racing with her heart. He didn't want to speak again, to risk breaking the spell. She was hot and wet, his fingers slick with her dew. He found the tight nubbin concealed between her folds and circled it, but that wasn't his target. He waited until she'd steadied, until she'd stabilized on a narrow ledge one step away from the peak, then zeroed in.

  The long slide of his finger entering her, spearing in, inexorably penetrating and filling her softness, sent her into spasm. Every muscle locked, so tight she was shivering, every fragment of awareness focused, waiting for the final touch that would shatter her.

  He didn't administer it; the time was not yet. His finger buried in her sheath he held still, blocking all awareness of the heated softness that gripped him, the supple strength of her inner muscles, the hot honey that dampened his hand, the evocative scent that wreathed his brain.

  Then she stabilized again, and the peak had moved away, one step further on. He knew, but doubted she did. He started to caress her again.

  How long he prolonged the delicious torture, how many times he brought her almost to the peak, then let it shift away, he didn't know, but she was wild, sobbing in her need, her fingers clenched on his arms, her lips burning his, when he finally thrust deep and let her fly.

  She came apart in his arms.

  Cursing the darkness that stopped him from seeing it, from reaping the reward of his expertise, he gathered her to him, letting her cling, then cradling her as she collapsed completely.

  He drew her closer, sensing her heartbeat, feeling it thunder, then slow. Then she stirred.

  "I want you."

  His lips curved against her hair. "I know."

  Her breath was a soft huff against his neck as she shifted, and reached, and found him. "How?"

  Her fist closed, and he shook. "Ah…"

  Fingers as quick as his slipped the buttons on his waistband, brushed aside his shirt. Slim digits dipped, then stroked, caressed…

  Words were superfluous. He drew her hips nearer, sliding his own to the edge of the seat. They met-it was she who sank down, a long-drawn sigh shattering in her throat. It was all he could do to stifle his groan as she closed hotly about him. After that, he lost touch with the world as she became his reality, the hot, wet, generous woman who loved him in the dark.

  She was everything he craved, mysterious, giving, intensely feminine; in some sensual way, she held a mirror to his soul. She filled his senses until he recalled no other, until he knew nothing beyond her luscious heat and the primal need that gripped him.

  He sank into her and she wrapped herself about him; at his urging, she shifted her legs, awkward for a moment as she repositioned them, locking them around his hips. When she sank fully onto him again, she gasped. Gripping her hips, he lifted her, thrusting upward as he lowered her.

  She sobbed, then found his lips. They clung, and loved, gave and took and gave again. The horses plodded slowly on.

  The gloom inside the carriage became a heated cave, filled with lust, desire, and so much more. Hunger, greed, joy, and delirium ail spun, a kaleidoscope in the dark. Then she flew high and he followed, soaring beyond the stars. The end left them shattered, broken and destroyed, reborn in each other's arms.

  The gentle swaying of the carriage slowly drew them back to earth, yet they lay still, letting the long, achingly sweet moments wash over them, neither ready to lose the soul-deep communion.

  His lips at her temple, her hair silk against his cheek, Gabriel dragged in a breath. His chest swelled, shifting her warm weight. He locked his arms around her; he didn't want to let go. Didn't want to lose the peace she'd brought him-she and she alone.

  Never had he reached this state, this depth of feeling. Beyond sensation, beyond the world, a sea of unnameable emotion still lapped him. He wanted to deny it, shrug it aside. It frightened him. But it was a drug-he feared he was already addicted.

  She stirred, first again. Sitting up, she sighed and shook back her hair. "I meant to tell you…"

  He got the distinct impression she'd intended to say, "before you started this," and, what's more, in a censorious tone. He was too sated to do more than smirk in the dark. He was still buried to the hilt inside her. "What?" Reaching for her, he drew her back into his arms.

  She acquiesced, then relaxed; despite her resolution, she was still dazed. "My stepson… he overheard a conversation at White's-between a Captain Something and another man. The captain was dismissing the Central East Africa Gold Company."

  He frowned, "I thought your stepson was too young for White's."

  "Oh, he is. This was on the steps-he was walking in St. James Street."

  "Who was the captain talking to?"

  "Charles didn't know."

  "Hmm." It was difficult to think with her warm weight snuggled against him, with her body intimately clasping his. That last, and his resurging vigor, prompted him to say, "A captain recently returned from Africa shouldn't be impossible to trace. The shipping lists, the Port Authority, the major merchant lines. He'll be known somewhere."

  "If we have a witness like that, we'd be able to petition the court immediately."

  But then there'd be no reason for them to meet, and he'd yet to learn her name. He frowned, grateful for the dark. "Perhaps. It depends on how much he knows." Turning his head, he squinted down at her, but still could see nothing. "I'll look into it."

  "Have you heard anything else?"

  "I have contacts in Whitehall sounding out the African authorities over the company's mining claims, and there are others I'm hunting up who might know of the company's presence in those particular towns." Shuffling higher on the seat, he glanced upward. "Now-tell your coachman to roll back, slowly, to Brook Street."

  She sat up, still clutching his coat, and cleared her throat. "Jones?"

  The carriage slowed, then halted. "Ma'am?"

  "Brook Street, please-you know where."

  "Aye, ma'am."

  Taking advantage of her uptilted head, Gabriel pressed his lips to her throat. She fought to stifle a giggle, then sighed.

  Then her breath caught. A moment later, she asked, slightly dazed, "Again?"

  "I'm hungry."

  So was she. They devoured each other at speed, reckless and driven, reaching the bright pinnacle before the carriage even left the park.

  It wasn't, unfortunately, all that far to Brook Street. Wrapping her in her cloak, Gabriel shifted her to the seat beside him. He righted his clothes, then leaned over her to press a long kiss to her swollen lips.

  The carriage halted; he drew back. From over his shoulder a street flare shone in, laying a narrow swath of light across her face. She was exhausted, her eyes shut-he could just see the edge of a crescent of dark lashes lying on one pale cheek. The strip of light illuminated only that cheek, her earlobe framed by a strand of soft brown hair, the edge of her jaw and the corner of her lips.

  Not enough to identify her.

  Gabriel hesitated, then he shifted and his shoulder cut off the light. "Sweet dreams, my dear."

  Her murmured "Good-bye" was soft and low, a lover's farewell.

  Descending to the street, Gabriel watched her carriage roll away; it was all he could do not to call it back. Turning, he climbed his steps, frowning as he reached for his latchkey.

  He'd seen her face before. The line of her jaw was familiar.

  She was one of his circle.

  Who?

  Letting himself in, he went up to bed.

  Sniff.

  Alathea battled to lift her heavy lids, and lost.

  Sniff.

  Stifling a sigh, she tried again and managed to see through a slit. "Nellie?"

  Sniff. "Yes, m'lady," came in dolorous tones. Sniff.

  Alathea struggled onto her back and raised her head. And saw Nellie, red-nosed with watering red eyes, shaking out her cloak. Alathea dragged in a breath. "Nellie Macarthur! You go straight back to bed. I do not want to see you, or hear of you being about on your feet, not until you're bet
ter." Fixing her old maid with a pointed glare, Alathea summoned strength enough to deliver the words "Do you hear?" in appropriately intimidating tones.

  Nellie sniffed again. "But who'll see to you? You've got to go to all these balls and parties, and your stepmama rightly says-"

  "The tweeny will do for me for the nonce-I'm not entirely helpless."

  "But-"

  "Doing my hair in a simpler style for a few nights will be a relief. No one will think anything of it." Alathea glared again. "Now go! And don't you dare sneak about downstairs-I'll be speaking with Figgs immediately I get up."

  "All right," Nellie grumbled, but Alathea could see from her lethargic movements that she was seriously under the weather.

  "I'll tell Figgs to make you some of her broth." Alathea watched Nellie open the door. "Oh-and don't bother to send up the tweeny. I'll ring for her when I'm ready."

  With barely a nod, Nellie shuffled out.

  The instant the door closed, Alathea dropped back on her pillows, closed her eyes, and groaned. Feelingly.

  Her thighs would never be the same again.

  Chapter 12

  "Allie?"

  Blinking, Alathea refocused. Concern in her eyes, Alice peered at her across the breakfast table.

  "Are you coming out into the garden with us?" Mary, beside Alice, looked equally worried.

  Alathea summoned a quick smile. "Just wool-gathering. I'll get my hat-you go on ahead."

  She rose with them and parted from them in the hall to go up to her room to fetch her gardening hat. Nevertheless, it was half an hour later before she reached the garden.

  Mary and Alice hadn't waited for her but had started weeding the long border. Although they looked up when she neared and smiled welcomingly, it was plain they'd been exchanging confidences, whispered comments on their hopes, their dreams. Returning their smiles, Alathea surveyed their endeavors, then looked around. "I'll start on the central bed."

  Leaving them to their dreams, she went off to contend with hers.

  The central bed circled a small fountain, a water sprite caught in the act of springing free showering droplets back into a wide bowl. Spreading her raffia mat by the bed, presently filled with pansies, Alathea knelt, tugged on her cotton gloves, and set to.

  About her, her family went happily about their morning routines. Jeremy and Charlie appeared from around the house, dragging dead limbs cut from overgrown bushes. In half an hour, Jeremy's tutor would arrive, and Charlie would change into his town rig and go out to spend the day with his Eton chums. Miss Helm and Augusta, clutching the ever-present Rose, came out and sat on a wrought iron seat; from what Alathea could hear, they were engaged in a simple botany lesson. After an hour or so, she, Mary, and Alice would retire to wash, change, and prepare for their morning's excursion-whatever Serena had organized. Inside, Serena would be sifting through the invitations, sending notes, plotting their best course through the shoals of the Season. Alathea was content to leave the strategies to her; it was bad enough that she had to weed.

  The fiction they'd concocted to hide the fact that they could not afford a second gardener, one to take care of the beds and borders at the Park and the garden of the London house, was that Alathea enjoyed planting and weeding and Serena felt it right that her daughters, too, became knowledgeable in the art of creating a stunning border. And, of course, all gentlemen should have some understanding of landscaping. Luckily, landscaping, borders, and beds were all the rage, although ladies and gentlemen generally only oversaw such projects, a fine distinction the earl, Serena, and Alathea had omitted to mention.

  As she reached for a blade of grass cheekily poking up between clumps of pansies, Alathea inwardly sighed. She would much rather never see a weed again, but… With a yank, she uprooted the interloper and dropped it on the grass beside her. Parting the pansy leaves, she searched for more.

  Of course, as soon as her hands were mindlessly busy, her thoughts drifted…

  She could never meet with him privately again. Not ever. The countess was going to have to retreat; she couldn't yet disappear. Despite the fact she'd enjoyed last night hugely, she couldn't possibly risk such a meeting again.

  In a carriage. She still couldn't quite believe it. If she hadn't been there… Was there anywhere he couldn't… wouldn't…

  Minutes later, she shook her head. Struggling to hide a smile, she looked down.

  Thankfully, no one knew. She'd gathered enough strength to instruct Jacobs to drive around Grosvenor Square while she'd scrambled into her chemise, stockings, shoes, and gown. Her hair she'd had to leave down. Goodness knows what Jacobs had made of the pins he would by now have discovered on the carriage floor. Concealed beneath her veil and cloak, she'd been safe from Crisp's eyes. Other than Jacobs, who'd been busy with his team, only Crisp had been awake when she'd returned. She'd given strict instructions that not even Nellie was to wait up for her on pain of her considerable displeasure. She'd done the same the night she'd gone to the Burlington; she could only thank her stars she had.

  So no one knew of her fall from grace. Her lips kicked upward. It had, to her, felt more like an elevation. A revelation certainly, an induction into a realm of earthly bliss. She was not of a mind to wallow in senseless regrets-she'd lived, all but died, and exulted last night, and for that she could only be glad.

  Even now, she wasn't free of the lingering spell. She hadn't imagined that the activities theoretically restricted to the marriage bed could result in such an interaction-a voyage into another dimension of feeling where the world fell away and emotion reigned. She'd had her first inkling of that joyous state during their night at the Burlington. Last night, they'd journeyed much further, through landscapes of unutterable delight.

  And it had been they, not just she. He'd been there, with her-had it been her inexperience, or had he been as stunned by the glory as she? Whatever, they'd shared it all-the journey, the discovery, the overwhelming satiation, followed by their plunge into that well of deep peace.

  It had been the most glorious night of her life.

  Her lips quirked. She had to wonder what he'd thought he'd been about, holding her naked on his knees. She assumed it had been part of some plan-he was always planning. She strongly suspected he'd intended her to feel in his power. She had to smile. He couldn't know that she'd sat there, naked before him, and gloried in the power she'd wielded over him.

  For power there'd been-those dark, illicit moments had been charged with it-but for every tithe of power he'd held over her, she'd held the same measure over him.

  She'd startled him with her statement that she wanted him. Other ladies would not have been so bold. But he hadn't been at all reluctant-oh, no. If she hadn't taken him, he'd have taken her.

  Warm memories washed over her, through her-kneeling in the sunlight, she drifted away.

  A conspiratorial giggle from Alice drew her back; she blinked-and saw the pansy plant she was holding, roots dangling, in one hand.

  With a muttered curse, Alathea plunged it back into the hole from which she'd pulled it and quickly tamped it down. Then she checked her pile of "weeds." Two more pansies were rapidly returned to the soil. She could only hope that if they died, they wouldn't leave a hole in her border.

  Inwardly sighing, she sat back on her heels, ignoring the twinges in her thighs. She had to stop thinking of last night. She had to determine how on earth she was going to proceed after last night. It seemed she would be safe only on a crowded street in broad daylight, and she'd have to wear a mask under her veil as well.

  It would be easy for her to communicate with him by letter, but she couldn't see any way he could reply. And she knew him too well to beard the tiger; if she cut off all contact entirely, he'd come after her. Not trying to discover her identity, but trying to discover her. He'd be very intent, very focused; in such a state, he'd be unstoppable.

  And where would that leave her?

  She didn't like to think.

  No. Folwell would keep her
informed of Gabriel's movements. She would send him notes if necessary until they discovered something more, then she'd meet him in Grosvenor Square.

  That brought her to the question of what more she could do to further their investigations. A vague recollection of Lady Hester Stanhope's diaries had her turning to scan the long border.

  Rising, she dusted her gloves, then stripped them from her hands. Strolling to the long border, she made a show of evaluating the progress made, then nodded. "We've done enough for today." She met Mary's and Alice's bright eyes. "I want to visit Hookhams again. Would you like to come?"

  "Oh, yes!"

  "Now?"

  Alathea turned to the house. "Just a quick visit-I'm sure your mama won't mind."

  She found what she was after in the biography of an explorer-a bona fide map of Central East Africa showing more than the major towns. The map told her Fangak, Lodwar and Kingi-Kafia Kingi, to be precise-were indeed towns, albeit small ones.

  Leaning back in the chair behind the desk in her office, Alathea pondered her discovery. Was it good? Or discouraging?

  About her, the house was peaceful and still. The lamp on her desk shed light onto the open book. In the grate, embers gleamed, warming the night. She'd stolen every moment she could throughout the day to wade through the stack of biographies and diaries she'd borrowed from Hookhams. At last, she'd uncovered something-something real.

  The information was good, she decided-at least it gave them something to check. Surely they'd be able to find someone other than the mysterious captain who knew the area, now she knew where the area was.

  On the stairs, the long-case clock chimed the hour. Three o'clock, the beginning of a new day. Stifling a yawn, Alathea closed the book and rose. It was definitely time for bed.

  The next day, she spent the afternoon within the hallowed halls of the Royal Society.

  "Unfortunately," the secretary informed her, peering at her through a thick pair of pince-nez, "there are no lectures presently scheduled on Central East Africa."

  "Oh. Can the society recommend any expert on the area with whom I could consult?"