The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  He could hear her moving behind him, pouring the water. He forced himself to concentrate on the important matter of their escape. He looked out the window and, just as he’d hoped, they were facing the back, the narrow wynd below them. And, as he’d ascertained earlier while studying the building, the chamber’s window was situated above a decorative ledge. Since the building was quite old, the ledge could possibly be a bit decrepit and unstable. He would have to be very careful about testing each step as they moved along the ledge to the neighboring building, where they would then enter a window of some unsuspecting and possibly irate tenement dweller. But it seemed the only way to get them out of there.

  “’Tis done. What else would you have me do?”

  There was a note of resignation in Gabby’s voice. Perhaps she finally understood how dangerous their situation was. And he wasn’t just thinking of Mother Henn and her two goons. He was thinking of them alone together in that room with her half-dressed and him half-mad with wanting her. Tersely he said, “Get under the covers and pull them up to your chin.”

  He heard the bed squeak as she climbed into it, and the rustle of bedclothes. “Well, I’m covered now. It’s safe to look.”

  He turned. She had the counterpane pulled up, her fingers clutching the crimson material in a wad just beneath her chin. Her eyes bespoke her annoyance, however, and her lips were slanted in a petulant frown. He pointed a warning finger at her. “After I’ve cleaned myself up a bit, we’re going to get out of here, Gabby. But in the meantime, you will stay in that bed and you will not move an inch!”

  He watched her a moment, his finger still pointing a warning, and waited for a rebellious reply. When none came, he lowered his hand and turned toward the dressing table, hazarding a look at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall above it. There was blood matted in his hair, but really very little on his face. He dipped his head in the basin and rinsed the stickiness from his hair, then wrung the excess water out and stood up. He extracted a pair of muslin bloomers from the armoire and toweled his hair nearly dry. Then he took a small brush from an inner waistcoat pocket and arranged his thick, straight locks, avoiding the wound and the tender goose-egg sized bump beneath it as best he could. All the while, he could feel Gabby watching him.

  “You surprise me.”

  He turned and glanced at her. Her arms lay on top of the covers now. Not usually considered objects of lust, he couldn’t imagine why the sight of her smooth white arms excited him. Apparently all of her excited him. He looked quickly away and busied himself with straightening his neckcloth. “What do you mean, Gabby?”

  “You’re such a prude.”

  Zach felt his jaw tighten. “Just because I don’t think it seemly that you should be prancing about the room with practically nothing on? You surprise me, Gabby. I should think you’d feel compelled by your proper upbringing to behave in a more ladylike fashion and demonstrate a little modesty.”

  Gabby sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But the thing is, when I’m around you, Zach, I don’t feel I’m doing something wrong if I’m not quite dressed.”

  Zach’s busy, nervous fingers froze in their efforts for a moment, while a shiver coursed through him. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Gabby. As you’re so fond of remarking, you’re not a child anymore and you shouldn’t—”

  “And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with kissing you, either. What happened the other day was wonderful, Zach. I’ve been sleepless every night this week from thinking about it. And I’m quite sure I’d not feel a bit of guilt even if we … made love.”

  Zach could feel the sweat forming again on his brow. Her honesty had a most devastating effect on his body temperature and his nerves. Gooseflesh rippled its way down his back, his arms, his legs.

  Yet she was not so honest about all things. He shifted slightly till he caught her reflection in the mirror, but without allowing her the same view of him. “Strange words coming from someone who is betrothed to marry.”

  He watched the play of emotions on her face: indecision, resolution, and finally sincerity. “Rory and I are not betrothed. ’Tis nothing but a sham. I hoped to make you jealous enough that you would realize that you and I are meant to be together. But now I realize that I should have been honest with you all along.” She paused, tilting her chin higher, gathering courage. “I love you, Zach.”

  Zach swiveled, the momentary triumph of extracting the truth from her diminished by the impact that selfsame truth was having on his composure. He took recourse in denial, flippantly remarking, “Laudanum is not a reliable truth serum, I see. Only part of what you say is the truth.”

  “What part don’t you believe? I assure you, Rory and I agreed from the beginning that our engagement was only—”

  “No. I don’t mean the engagement.” Zach’s palms were coated with icy perspiration. The room seemed suddenly too confining. “I… I discerned a certain falseness about that from the beginning. He’s not your type, Gabby.”

  Gabby leaned forward, the counterpane falling away from the front of her, the sweet seductiveness of her once again in clear view. “You’re my type. And you know I’m being truthful when I say I love you, Zach. I’ve always loved you. And you love me. Why can’t you admit it? Why won’t you let me get close to you? Why can’t you let yourself be happy? Is it because of that woman who died when I was very young? Tell me about her, Zach. Maybe it would help us both understand things better if you talked about her.”

  The room was small, but not so close and airless that he should be having phobic symptoms. But he was. Even with the window open, Zach was feeling trapped and suffocated. The stimulant of sheer panic raced through his bloodstream and urged his heart to a frenetic speed. He was cold and clammy, light-headed and itching to break free of that room to the freedom of the outdoors. Outside where there was no wanting, no wishful yearning, no painful confrontations with the past, the present, and the truth. No Gabby…

  “Zach, what is it? You don’t look well.” Gabby scrambled out of the bed. Zach could only watch, unable to move, unable to think clearly. He had to marshal every ounce of resolution to keep himself from bolting out the door. What a coward, he derided himself. What a craven milksop!

  Gabby stood in front of him now, holding his hands, rubbing warmth and sensation into his frozen fingers. The room spun around them, everything too bright, too sharply focused. “I think you must be having a delayed reaction to that hit on your head, Zach. Come, sit on the bed.”

  Zach went unresisting to the bed and sat down, then immediately began shivering convulsively. Gabby watched him with fear in her eyes. “You’re freezing! I’m going to close the window.” Gabby turned, but Zach caught her wrist.

  “No! Don’t!”

  She stared at him, puzzlement and alarm written plainly on her face. “I won’t, then, but you’re so cold. Here, get under the covers.”

  Feeling like a complete idiot—the errant knight in the ludicrous position of being mollycoddled by the damsel in distress—Zach allowed Gabby to take off his boots and jacket and assist him into the bed and under the covers. He was still shaking rather violently and could do nothing till the episode passed. What had brought it on? he wondered. If it wasn’t the environment he found himself in, what was it? Was it Gabby’s confession of love, or his own feelings of love and desire for her that threatened to spin completely out of control? Was it her insistence that he face the past and confront the fears that still haunted him today because of Tessy’s death?

  Zach sighed through chattering teeth. It was too complicated, too damned hard! He’d rather avoid the whole ordeal of sorting out his feelings for Gabby. He was much more comfortable with his feelings for, and the resulting good works attached to, the poor and downtrodden. Those feelings were pleasantly distant, while his feelings for Gabby were uncomfortably … close.

  The reality of the situation was that he did love her, just as much as she claimed to love him. In fact, he cared too much for her to subject
her to his particular brand of destructive affection. The only way to keep her from harm, then, was to convince her that she didn’t really love him, and, as well, never admit to loving her. If he admitted his feelings, there would be no stopping the girl and no way to resist her.

  Then the unexpected happened. Apparentiy Gabby was unstoppable even without the added ammunition of admitting he loved her. She climbed into bed beside him, wrapped an arm over his chest, and nestled her warm body against his. “There, Zach. Now you shan’t be cold.”

  Chapter Nine

  For as long as Gabrielle had known him, Zach had never shown fear of any kind. Caution and common sense he had in abundance, and he’d frequently lectured her over the years about her apparent lack of these estimable qualities. But when it came down to being brave, there was no one who could top Zach. After all, he was always the one who rescued her from the scrapes her curiosity and intrepidness continually got her into.

  He’d saved her from that crumbling tin mine she’d been lost in years ago, a happenstance that had secured her eternal devotion to Zach—at least all the devotion she hadn’t already given him. He was nearly killed in that mine, but he had never considered the danger to himself. His only thoughts had been to find her.

  Maybe that’s why it was so frightening to Gabrielle to see Zach in an apparent state of terror. She knew he wasn’t just sick, or in shock from his injury. He was petrified. But Zach’s vulnerability didn’t lessen him in Gabrielle’s eyes in the least. She knew his fears had nothing to do with goons like Jasper and Bob, or trepidation over the necessity of climbing out on a second-story ledge to rescue his shatterbrained sister-in-law from the clutches of an amoral mistress of a bawdy house. His fears were internalized and emotion-driven, and therefore deeper, more complex, and much harder to resolve. And until he quit shaking, till his complexion returned to a healthy color and the dazed look of panic left his expression, she would do what instinct and love told her to do. She would hold him.

  Except for Zach’s quick, shallow breathing, and the crackle of the fire, the room was silent. Muffled sounds from the lower two stories, however, drifted up the stairs and through the floorboards—a woman’s coy laughter, a man’s low, rumbling voice, the rhythmic squeak of a bed, followed by a female’s ecstatic cry. Naive as she was, Gabrielle realized that, given the circumstances, the woman’s outcry was probably false and performed for the benefit of her customer’s sense of manly pride.

  It was an odd sensation lying there, listening to the sounds of commercialized sex—bought and paid for, dehumanized copulation—while at the same time, glorying in the bliss that was finally hers by being in Zach’s arms. The surroundings were not in the least romantic or sacred, but the sense of knowing she belonged exactly where she was, with Zach, was overwhelmingly satisfying to Gabrielle. Even if she’d found herself compelled to share a bed of nails with Zach, she told herself, she’d happily have lain there with him forever.

  After a time, Zach’s breathing slowed and deepened. He no longer shook. Her head rested on his shoulder and her arm was draped across his chest. She moved her hand to place it over Zach’s heart. She was relieved to discover the frenetic rhythm had slowed to a reasonable pace, though it still seemed to beat harder and faster than normal.

  She liked the feel of his chest beneath the sensitive pads of her palm. With just the thin material of his muslin shirt between her skin and his, the heat of his body radiated through. She found a gap between the buttons of his shirt and slid a finger between, testing the texture of his chest. She felt a tremor run through him, but she knew that what he experienced now was much different from the shaking of before, and came from a different source. She had inadvertently pleasured him, and she liked how that made her feel.

  From an accidental peek of Zach in the midst of dressing for a Pencarrow party many years before, Gabrielle remembered that his chest was smooth, the muscles and sinew well-defined. As a child she had been entranced by the beauty of the man, her infantile admiration approaching something akin to worship. As a woman, she still appreciated Zach’s masculine beauty, but today she wanted to experience it on a less aesthetic, less lofty plane, and on a more basic level. She wanted to enjoy him as a mortal woman enjoys a mortal man. She wanted to touch and kiss every inch of him.

  She began to stroke his chest, prepared at any moment for the probability of his hand darting up to stop her. But it didn’t. He just lay there, breathing deeply. She didn’t speak. She didn’t want the mood broken by ill-judged words, or to inadvertently repeat the things that might have precipitated Zach’s strange attack of panic.

  She grew braver, extending her hesitant strokes over a wider area of Zach’s chest. When she felt Zach’s nipple beneath her fingers, she lingered over the hard nub, finding the exploration of his anatomy a pleasing, engrossing process. When he gave a little gasp and covered her hand with his, Gabrielle knew Zach found the process just as pleasing. Maybe too pleasing.

  “Gabby, what are you doing?” His voice was a rasp.

  “I’m touching you. Don’t you like it, Zach?” Gabrielle was surprised at the huskiness she detected in her own voice.

  “I—” He didn’t finish what he was about to say, and he didn’t move. Gabrielle took this as encouragement. After a moment, she pulled her hand from beneath his—he made a token show of resistance, nothing to signify—and began to unbutton Zach’s shirt. One-handed, this was a time-consuming task, but despite the very real probability of a houseful of people worrying about her and wondering where she was, Gabrielle was in no hurry. She had been waiting for this her whole life.

  Finally the shirt fell open, and she pushed aside the muslin, sliding her hand over the contours of his bare chest, the shock of flesh on flesh almost unbearably thrilling. Zach moaned and pulled Gabrielle on top of him. Her breasts were flush against his chest, her legs tangled with his. And they were eye to eye.

  Zach felt intoxicated. Holding Gabby this closely worked on him like a drug. Even though her confrontational words had, most curiously, been the cause of his phobic attack, the comfort she extended to him afterward was apparently the cure. A languid sense of well-being had stole over him as she’d snuggled close, the symptoms of his disorder easing away like the sting of a burn after bathing it in cool water, every passing second bringing more relief.

  Then he’d felt drowsy, content, almost post-orgasmic. He also felt grateful. In Gabby’s arms, he’d recovered from his attack without feeling a smidgen of embarrassment. Bleader was the only other living person to have witnessed one of Zach’s attacks. And, though Bleader was as loyal, devoted, and compassionate a servant as a man could hope for, afterward Zach had felt considerable embarrassment.

  So he’d continued to repose on the bed with Gabby, allowing her gentle caresses, hardly expecting the aroused shudder that went through him as it became obvious that Gabby’s designs in touching him had changed from the comforting ministrations of a friend to the sexual inquisitiveness of a lover.

  Now he had pulled her atop him, her weight evenly and delightfully distributed over the length of him. He could feel her nipples against his bare chest, knotted like hard pebbles. One of her legs had slid between his, and the other was pressed tight against his thigh. He was breathing fast, and so was she, and they hadn’t even kissed. Zach felt as though he were under the influence of an aphrodisiac, awash in stuporous pleasure that took away his ability to reason.

  The rise of her mons lay against his erection. He moved his hands slowly down her back, down the smooth slim curves, till they rested on her buttocks. He cupped her and pulled her hard against him. Her lips parted, her eyelids fluttered, and she gasped. Zach bit his lip, the same intensity of arousal making it very hard for him to do what he knew he must—stop. Still he didn’t move. He just held her against him, not as yet able to sever the contact, but unwilling to ignore his conscience and take Gabby on to the next step, and, inevitably, toward consummation.

  Gabby had no similar qualms. She set
tled the matter by pressing her lips to his. The contact was searing. Zach groaned and opened his mouth against hers, kissing her hard and long. He felt her fingers in his hair, tugging him closer. He rolled over and pinned her neatly beneath him, parting her legs with a nudge of his knee, running his hand up her calf, all along the inside of her smooth, warm thigh.

  He covered her face, neck, and shoulders with kisses, her flimsy nightdress working its way down from the neckline and up from the hem. There was just a narrow swath of fabric covering Gabby’s torso, and the silky texture of it chafed against Zach’s chest erotically. But he was sure her completely naked body would feel even better…

  “Oh, Zach,” Gabby whispered in his ear. “I’m so glad, so glad you want me…”

  Gabby’s words relocated Zach’s wandering conscience. He pulled back and looked into Gabby’s flushed face. In her eyes Zach saw infinite trust and sensual need. Coupled like two disparate entities was the child he knew and the woman he feared. If he made love to her, would he be abusing the trust of the child? Or would he be committing himself to the expectations of the woman? Either way, Gabby would be the loser. He was not marriage material. He’d been a jinx, really, to every woman he’d loved. Therefore he would not compromise Gabby into the necessity of what would amount to yet another sham betrothal.

  Quickly he rolled off her, then got up from the bed. He walked to the armoire and began rifling through the clothes hanging inside. “There’s got to be something in here you can put on! We need to leave immediately, Gabby.”

  No sound came from the bed. Gabby was either shocked into silence by his abrupt departure, or too angry—or hurt—to speak to him. Or all three. He refused to turn and look at her. He busied himself with searching through the armoire, till he finally discovered something in the very back. A man’s heavy velvet dressing robe. He snatched at it, thinking it would at least adequately cover her and keep her warm in the carriage until they were able to return to Charlotte Square. How he was going to explain Gabby’s state of undress to the Murrays, however, was a puzzle!