His roused body sprang free from constraint. Smiling, Gabrielle touched him and then, obeying the pressure of his hands on her hips, slowly lowered herself astride his lap, guiding his body within her own.
"Ahh," she whispered. "Why do you feel so good… so right?"
"Why do you?" he whispered back, closing his eyes.
The carriage jolted in a rut and his grip tightened, his fingers pressing into the flesh of her hips. The movement of the carriage slowly insinuated itself into the rhythm of their joined bodies as Gabrielle moved herself over and around him and he lifted his hips to meet her.
"I read somewhere that cossacks make love galloping on horseback," Gabrielle murmured, lowering her head to brush his lips with her own in a fleeting caress. "Maybe we should try it later."
Nathaniel groaned. "How much stamina do you think I have, woman?"
"Limitless," she replied with a smile of utter confidence.
"Your faith is touching." Smiling, he gripped her more tightly as he felt the internal movements of her body, the little ripples that told him she was nearing her pinnacle.
Gabrielle drew breath sharply, her head falling back, the pure white column of her throat arched. He thrust upward, his fingers biting into her flesh as she convulsed around him. She fell forward with a moan of joy, her forehead resting on the top of his head, and he held her as he fell slowly from his own peak and the carriage swayed and rocked beneath them.
"MonDieu, I think we're going through a village," Gabrielle gasped with a weak chuckle as she raised her head, glancing toward the window. "Do you think anyone can see in?"
"Don't tell me you're worried about appearances!" Laughter, wonderful and carefree, bubbled in his chest. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt so light-hearted, so unrestrained, so much in charity with his fellow man. Distantly, it occurred to him that the true seductive power of Gabrielle de Beaucaire lay in her ability to create this feeling.
"Get off, you wicked creature." He lifted her off his lap and deposited her on the seat opposite. He shook his head, taking in the wonderful untidy sprawl of her naked limbs, the unruly tangle of that dark red hair as she smiled her crooked smile, her eves languorous with satiation.
"For God's sake, put some clothes on," he directed, his voice a husky rasp. "You'll catch your death."
"And whose fault would that be?" She made no move to obey, just continued smiling at him.
Nathaniel pulled the cloakbag toward him and opened it. "You're not, I trust, going to have the unmitigated gall to imply that I have any say in your actions." He riffled through the contents of the bag.
"Only to the extent that you're the cause of them," she responded. "I seem to find you irresistible. My riding habit's in there somewhere."
Nathaniel looked up, his eyes sharply appraising. Then he shook his head in resignation. "The feeling is reciprocal, it seems. Are there undergarments in here, or do you always go without them?"
"Only when they might be a hindrance," she said with a serene smile. "I couldn't see much point wearing them last night, and your departure was so precipitate, I didn't have time to change my clothes this morning."
There was a hint of reproof in her voice as she said this.
Nathaniel pulled out a silk chemise and a pair of pantalettes. "Put these on." He held them out to her. Then he said with some constraint, "I felt I'd yielded sufficiently to temptation. Perhaps I should have said something-"
"Running off like that was distinctly ungentlemanly… not to put too fine a point on it," Gabrielle interrupted as her head emerged from the neck of the chemise.
"Perhaps so." Nathaniel leaned forward and began to do up the buttons at her throat. "But you made it very clear that you were responsible for your actions. I didn't feel it necessary to tell you of my plans. They were made well before you arrived in my bed.”
She took the drawers he handed her and slipped them over her feet, raising her hips to pull them up. "Well, have you agreed to amend them?" She pulled on the stockings he held out.
Nathaniel lifted her right leg and slipped a lace-trimmed garter up to her thigh, and then served the left leg similarly, his hands smoothing over the muscled roundness of her calves, the satin softness of her inner thighs.
"It would seem so," he said with a wry smile, handing her a clean shirt and the skirt of her habit.
"Good," Gabrielle declared with a nod of satisfaction. She fastened the buttons of the shirt and slipped into the skirt, buttoning the waistband. "We shall have a game of passion… an interlude. No promises."
"And where will people think you are?"
She shrugged into her jacket. "Georgie knows. She's the only person who needs to know. And she's no prude. I'm no virginal innocent, Lord Praed. And I rule my own life."
"I don't question it," Nathaniel said. "My neighbors will look askance, however, at a woman sharing my roof so flagrantly."
Gabrielle grinned. "Somehow, Lord Praed, I don't believe you give a tinker's damn what your neighbors think. And I certainly don't. They don't know me from Eve and never will."
It was perfectly true. Since Helen's death, Nathaniel had as little to do with his county neighbors as possible. He didn't encourage callers, and paid no calls himself. He had a reputation for being a somewhat surly recluse. There would be gossip, of course, but it wouldn't worry him.
But what of Jake? Oh, the boy was too young to hear the tittle-tattle, and certainly too young to speculate on his father's visitor. He'd be in the nursery and the schoolroom most of the time anyway.
Gabrielle said suddenly, "What of your son, though?"
It was as if she'd been in his thoughts. "What do you know of Jake?" he demanded sharply.
She shrugged. "Nothing, really. Miles simply mentioned him in passing."
"And did he tell you of Helen?" His tone was still sharp.
"Only that she'd died." She decided against telling him what Miles had told her of Nathaniel's grief and his difficulties with fatherhood. It was no concern of hers anyway. "It was a word in passing. I wasn't particularly interested, and in fact, I'm not now. Interludes should have no attachments to the past and no strings to the future. Don't you agree?"
"You're an extraordinary woman." Nathaniel frowned. "You have none of the softnesses of your sex."
How could you know? I saw my mother in the tumbril on the way to the guillotine. How much softness can survive in the soul of an eight-year-old after that? And what was left was leached from my soul with Guillaume's blood as he died in my arms. She turned her head away with a sudden movement to hide from him both the grief and the fierce anger in her eyes, and she spoke lightly, revealing nothing in her voice.
"One reason you might reconsider the question of employing me, Sir Spymaster," she said. "Since it's the softness of women you object to."
"Is that what this is about?" His voice was cold and flat as he suddenly suspected manipulation.
She shook her head. "No." She said this with so much conviction that she realized with dismay that a part of herself meant it. The seduction had taken on a life of its own, and she was as much a victim of her plan as Nathaniel.
She rested her head on the squabs and regarded him through narrowed eyes. "No, I'm as much taken by surprise as you are. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up trying to persuade you to change your mind, sir."