by Liz Carlyle
Antonia managed to smile back. “Your boots are no impediment to what I require,” she said. “They may stay on. The shirt must come off.”
“Whatever Her Grace demands,” he said, stripping it over his head in one motion.
“Oh!” Antonia let her eyes run over him. “Oh, my.”
Gabriel was smooth and lean, his skin a warm shade of honey. His chest was tautly layered with muscle and just a dust of gold hair. His arms were the same. He possessed the body of a vigorous, physical man in the very prime of his life. He reached for her and drew her back into the vee of his legs. “We are going to regret this, you know,” he said, lifting her shirt to kiss the tender skin just beneath her rib cage. “But it is too late. We might as well enjoy one another. Here, let’s take this off.”
To her shock, Antonia’s skirt went sliding down her legs. “Oh!” she said, looking at the floor.
“All of it,” he growled. “All of it off, Antonia. I want to see you when I make love to you this time.” He looked up at her then, his eyes glittering gold in the afternoon sun.
In that moment, beyond the dusty room, nothing else existed. Outside, a faint breeze had kicked up, rustling the branches about the windows. Somewhere in the distance, a cow was lowing. The sun was dropping in the sky. But she saw only him, with his demanding eyes and lean, hard face. She wanted this; had begged for it. And what he wanted was not unreasonable. Without another word, she reached up and began to draw out her hairpins.
All the while he watched her, the simmering ardor growing in his eyes. When the pins were gone, she drew off the rest of her underthings, her hands shaking a little, and dropped them onto the floor. “Good Lord,” he choked.
Antonia had never been this naked with a man in broad daylight. She felt awkward, and a little uncertain, but the heat in his eyes was reassuring. “Have you any notion how beautiful you are, my dear?” he whispered, his hands coming up to cup her breasts almost reverently. “Those pink, perfect nipples alone could stir a man from the dead.”
“Thank you,” she said honestly. “I think these boots and stockings must be the next to go.”
A slow, lazy grin curved his mouth. Lightly, he thumbed her nipples, drawing them into taut, tormented peaks. “You may leave your boots on, too, Your Grace, if you wish.”
She craned her head to look at them. “I think not,” she said. “If you would be so kind as to unfasten the buckles?”
Antonia watched his long, elegant fingers as they made short work of her boots. Then one by one, he rolled her stockings down, as cleverly as any lady’s maid might have done. “I see you have some experience at this,” she murmured.
“A bit, yes,” he said, tossing the last stocking aside. “God knows I’m no innocent, Antonia. But you might as well use me for what I can give you.”
It sounded harsh, and oddly self-deprecating. He was more than that to her. Surely he knew? But when she straightened up and opened her mouth to chide him, Gabriel’s warm hands settled on her buttocks, urging her toward him. Still a little embarrassed, Antonia closed her eyes but an instant. At that moment, his tongue lightly touched her belly, making her shudder and gasp.
“My dear, you seem easy to please,” he murmured.
“Yes, with you, I—I think I might be,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “But what I wish to know is…how to…oh, heavens! What—oh! That is—”
“—delightful?” he supplied, withdrawing his tongue.
She grabbed firmly hold of his shoulders and nodded.
He lifted and parted her slightly with his broad, certain hands, and stroked his tongue deep enough to tease. Deep enough to leave her gasping. Several times. Antonia knew a little about desire and—she had thought—her body. But soon she realized she really knew nothing at all.
“Stop!” she heard herself cry after a few tormenting strokes. “Oh, please. Stop.”
He did so at once. “Antonia?” The concern in his tone was palpable.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him. “Not stop,” she clarified. She touched the tip of her tongue to her lip. “That was…oh! Someday I would like to—what I mean is, for now…I just want you.”
With one hand, he pushed the folds of his breeches and drawers away. Antonia looked down to see his erection spring free of the tangled cloth. It was…daunting.
“Climb on me,” he rasped.
She looked up at his eyes. “What—?”
He pulled her toward him roughly. “Come here, wench, and stop staring,” he commanded.
With a faint, uncertain laugh, Antonia set one knee to the mattress. Gabriel pulled her onto his lap, pushed her knees wide, then urged her down across him, allowing the warm weight of his erection to slide up through her warmth, grazing her most delicate spot.
“Ah,” she moaned, shivering in his embrace again. “Don’t you…wish to…undress? Or to lie down?”
“No time, sweet.” With a grunt, Gabriel shifted her weight and lifted her ever so slightly. She felt his shaft slide deliciously across her center again. With her hands on his broad shoulders, she rose onto her knees and met his first thrust.
“Good. God.” Gabriel’s voice was choked. “Almighty!”
He pushed deeper, slowly but inexorably, stretching her in a way which seemed impossible.
“Oh, my.” Experimentally, Antonia lifted herself up, reveling in the sight of his shaft drawing out of her body. She eased back down, exhaling on a perfect, sweet sigh. This was amazing. On her knees atop him, much of the control was hers. Gabriel set his broad hands at her waist and gently lifted her again.
“This really is…quite remarkable,” she whispered.
Gabriel laughed. “Put me to work, love,” he said, leaning back to watch her.
But instead, Antonia bent her head and kissed him—kissed him with her lips and with her tongue, thrusting inside his mouth as he had kissed her. It was as if something in the room burst into flames. Heat and desire rolled over them, an inferno of raw, emotional lust. Over and over, she rose on her knees, riding him as their tongues thrust and parried. His strong hands never left her waist. His belly drew taut as a washboard as he plunged up and inside her, searing her. Claiming her.
She had never known this—anything quite like this—was possible. Gabriel tore his mouth from hers and found her breast, drawing the nipple between his teeth. He bit—not hard, but enough to hurt. And yet it was not pain. Antonia cried out as his tongue teased and circled the hard little tip, pushing her toward something. It was maddening. Incendiary. Her nails dug into Gabriel’s shoulders. She lost herself to the sweet, driving thrusts of his body, matching his strokes, urging herself against him like a hungry wanton, seeking something precious and elusive.
“Come for me, Antonia,” he rasped. “Dear God, you’re like a wild thing.”
“I am.” The voice was not her own. “I feel…different.”
“Come for me, love,” Gabriel crooned. “Let me see you—let me—oh, God!”
Antonia felt a blinding light explode somewhere inside herself. Felt her body surge to him, surrendering to him, giving him what he had claimed. And then she was lost, and knew nothing more but perfect wholeness. A relief which was at once carnal and sweet and glorious. She came back to herself, unable to catch her breath, and just a little frightened.
She was not stupid. She understood desire. And her body—she had thought. But she was not at all sure what had just happened. It was so much more intense, so much more everything, that it was a little disconcerting.
She became slowly aware that they lay almost flat now. Gabriel had at last collapsed beneath her, and was now on his back.
“Oh, my,” she said beneath her breath. “Gabriel, this might not be…. good.”
He tilted his head to look up at her. “It definitely was not my best performance,” he said.
Antonia stared at him for a moment. “It…wasn’t?”
He laughed and let his head fall back onto the bed. “Five minutes is not my norm.” Again, she caught t
he self-deprecating sarcasm. “Thank God you’re a little powder keg, love, else you’d be damned disappointed with me right about now.”
A powder keg. That was a compliment, she thought. She let herself relax atop him, her breasts flattening against the faint dampness of his chest. His heat and scent surrounded her. Gabriel wore no cologne but smelled instead of plain soap and something wonderful. Something that was uniquely him.
“You are very good,” she murmured, her head resting on his shoulder. “You know it, too, do you not?”
He chuckled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. “I have been told that, yes, from time to time.”
She closed her eyes. “But you are more than that, Gabriel,” she went on. “You…touch me in a way I cannot explain. There is something between us that is almost…metaphysical.”
He set his lips to her temple. “Antonia, we are good together,” he said quietly. “But it is still just sex. Tell me, my dear, that you know that.”
Antonia felt sleep overtaking her. She felt suddenly exhausted to her very core. “Yes, I know that,” she murmured. “It was just sex. And it was just this once.”
But the acknowledgement brought Antonia no peace. Instead, she could think only of her promise. Just once. Already she was regretting those words.
Chapter Ten
T he church of St. George’s-in-the-East was a towering white edifice dwarfing everything which surrounded it. Stark against the Sunday morning sun, the bell tower cast a shadow which ran all the way to Cannon Street, and right over Gabriel’s toes.
“Bubbe, I don’t like it,” he whispered, tugging at her hand.
“What is this, ‘I don’t like it!’” she chided. “It is a church, tatellah. It is God’s house.”
“Not your God,” he muttered.
His grandmother squeezed his hand. “Gabriel, my child, you must learn to be part of them, these English. In a few years, you will be old enough for your bar mitzvah, yes?”
He narrowed one eye suspiciously. “The English don’t have them, Bubbe.”
“Oh, yes, but they are called confirmations,” she answered. “It was your mother’s dearest wish you should have one.”
Gabriel scraped his toe across a crack in the pavement and said nothing.
“Come, tatellah,” she cajoled. “Go up the stairs, and sit in the back. Just do what the others do.”
Gabriel looked at the church again. People were pushing past them now, and making their way up the flagstone path. Fine carriages were everywhere. “You won’t go with me, Bubbe?”
His grandmother brushed her hand across his cheek. “I cannot, but you must, tatellah. Because I promised your mother—and she promised your father.”
“But I hardly even remember him!”
His grandmother pinched his cheek. “It does not matter,” she said firmly. “He is still your father. And you must never disappoint him.”
“Umm.” George Kemble smacked his mouth perceptibly. “You do brew a most excellent cup of tea, Mrs. Waters. A North Fujian wu-long, is it not?”
Nellie Waters looked at him suspiciously across the housekeeper’s table. “’Tis whatever was left over in Musbury’s tea caddy,” she said, rising. The servants took tea belowstairs every afternoon at three, but the others had finished and gone. “There, on the sideboard. You may see it for yourself.”
Kemble made a fluttery, downward motion with his hand. “Do sit back down, Mrs. Waters,” he said. “I have so much to learn about how a ducal household works. I wondered if I might depend upon you to help me?”
Her suspicion did not wane, but slowly she sat. “You’d best ask Musbury,” said Nellie. “Or Coggins. They’d be the upper servants.”
Kemble smiled and crossed one knee over the other. “Yes, but they cannot know the day-to-day workings of the house,” he demurred. “Those intimate details which the personal servants almost innately grasp.”
“I don’t know what innately means,” said Nellie Waters. “But I know what you’re after is gossip. Don’t take me for a fool, Mr. Kemble.”
“Oh, no indeed!” said Kemble. “You are not a fool. That is precisely why I asked Mrs. Musbury to leave us alone after tea.”
“That’s all very well, I suppose.” The maid’s brow unfurrowed a tad. “But I’ll not be tittle-tattling about my mistress.”
“And who would respect you if you did?” Kemble slipped his hand into his coat and withdrew an engraved silver flask. He tipped it over Nellie’s cup. “Frog water?”
“And I’ll not be plied with alcohol,” said the maid.
“My good woman, this is the finest French armagnac this side of Algiers.”
Temptation sketched across her face. “A little tot, then, wouldn’t hurt, I suppose.”
“Not in the least!” said Kemble, dumping a generous slosh into the empty cups.
Nellie pulled the cup toward her. “I know your type, sir,” she said, sniffing at the brandy. “I know you’ve been snooping round, asking all manner of questions. And I don’t doubt for a minute that’s just what you were brought here to do.”
Kemble made a guilty face. “Dear me, there’s no pulling the proverbial wool over your eyes, is there?”
Nellie relaxed and took a healthy sip from her teacup. “Just tell me what you want straight out, sir, and perhaps I’ll help,” she said. “And perhaps I shan’t. But if you try to winkle it out of me, you’ll get not a thing for your trouble.”
She had convinced him. “Well, it is like this, Mrs. Waters,” he explained. “The duke is concerned about certain rumors regarding his late cousin’s death.”
Her eyebrows snapped together. “What sort of rumors?”
Kemble smiled a little tightly. “Oh, I think you know, Mrs. Waters,” he answered. “As you say, you are no fool.”
“Aye, rumors he was poisoned, belike,” said the maid. “And per’aps he was. But I don’t care what the village tabbies say, my lady did not do it. Don’t have it in her, poor lovie—and if she was going to poison a husband, t’wouldn’t have been this one.”
Kemble nodded knowingly. “You are referring, of course, to Lord Lambeth,” he said. “From what I hear, he would have deserved it.”
Nellie shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Well, he did himself in, the damned fool,” she said. “So that’s over and done. What else do you wish to know?”
“Who else might have wished the late duke dead?”
“Lord, make a list!” Nellie rolled her eyes. “The families of those last two chits he wed, per’aps. One or two of the servants. And the Earl of Mitchley—they quarreled over a boundary dispute. ’Twas to have been heard in court last year, so Mr. Cavendish said. And the duke was still hot as a poker at Laudrey, the local justice of the peace, for asking questions about his last wife’s dying, as I heard it.”
Kemble merely nodded. “The present duke tells me that the village doctor determined it was potassium nitrate poisoning,” he said musingly. “That is a drug often used for severe asthma, but usually by inhalation. Was the duke terribly ill?”
Nellie’s brow furrowed. “He took a cold in his chest shortly before the wedding,” she said. “Coughed for two or three days, and cut up a terrible fuss, wanting flannel and warming pans and running the servants to death. He was peculiar about his health, the duke was.”
“Before the wedding? You were here?”
Nellie looked wistful. “Lord Swinburne wished my lady to have a few days to settle down,” she explained. “And he wanted to acquaint himself with Dr. Osborne—to prepare him, I reckon. The doctor was upstairs, listening to my lady’s heart with his ear tube—her sleeping draught was disagreeing—and he said the duke’s barking sounded like asthma, so he went down to examine him. Within a se’night, the cough was gone.”
“Interesting,” murmured Kemble. “Tell me, Mrs. Waters, did you by chance see the duke’s body at any time after death?”
“Oh, yes, ’twas I who heard old Nowell screeching at the top of his lungs that
morning,” said Nellie. “I ran across to the duke’s bedchamber to see him all sprawled out on the floor.”
“Did you notice anything unusual, Mrs. Waters? About his face, perhaps?”
“That’s just what Laudrey asked,” said Nellie. “His lips were all strange looking. Brownish.”
“Ah, I see. Tell me, was there a chamber pot in the room?”
“Of course,” said the maid. “That was the first thing Dr. Osborne wanted to see. About to run over, it was. I allowed Musbury ought to give those chambermaids a good conk on the sconce, but the doctor said it was a…a symptom.”
“Of nitrate poisoning, yes,” Kemble acknowledged. “Your justice of the peace, Mr. Laudrey, did he examine the contents of the duke’s medicine chest? And if so, what did he do with it?”
“Yes, I showed him,” said Nellie. “Mr. Nowell was fit for nothing by then, and two days after, Coggins pensioned him off somehow. So I showed Mr. Laudrey what was where.”
“And what then became of the duke’s things?”
“His medicines and such?” asked Nellie. “Why, I boxed them up and took ’em to the stillroom. Waste not, want not, I always say.”
Kemble rose at once. “My thoughts exactly, Mrs. Waters,” he said with a smile. “Would you be so kind as to show them to me?”
Nellie took him across the corridor, lifted a small ring of keys from her pocket, and led him into a narrow room with stone countertops. “Here, in the cupboard,” she said, lifting down a large box which looked stuffed to bursting with brown bottles and tins.
“Good Lord!” said Kemble. “Was he a hypochondriac?”
Nellie considered it. “I never heard of that,” she admitted. “But he did have an odd rash back in the spring.”
Kemble smiled. “And the duke was deeply anxious about his health, I collect?”
Nellie smiled grimly. “They say Warneham feared he might die before begetting another heir,” said the maid, pushing the box to Kemble. “But me, I think per’aps he was just afraid to meet St. Peter. I think he had done something—something he was afraid to be called to account for.”
Kemble thought the maid was a woman of uncommon intuition. He began to poke through the box. “Tooth powder, headache powder, bilious liver drops, ointment for sore joints,” he muttered. “And—ah ha! This.”
