It was dusk before Nathaniel broke the spell. He was sprawled on the long couch beneath the windows, Gabrielle's bright head resting on his belly as she knelt on the floor beside the sofa, one languid hand stroking intimately between his thighs.
His gaze fell on the Chippendale clock on the wall above the fireplace. It was six o'clock. He moved his hand down, twisting his fingers in the dark red curls, turning her head on his belly so that she was looking toward him. Her eyes were heavy with fulfillment, her features somehow smudged, no longer sharply delineated on the pale, translucent skin.
"Enough, now," he said quietly, and yet his voice sounded shockingly loud after the long hours of silence in the firelit intimacy of their love chamber.
Gabrielle smiled dreamily, her eyes asking a question.
"You may speak," Nathaniel pronounced.
"I think I've forgotten how to. Perhaps it's tomorrow rather than today."
Nathaniel shook his head and said nothing.
Again Gabrielle felt that dart of unease. His eyes were unreadable as they looked down into her face, and she was used to seeing warm tenderness, a languid glow of satiation in their brown depths after such an excess of sensual joy.
But perhaps she was imagining it. They had been strange hours, eliciting new responses. Nathaniel had led them into uncharted territory, and unfamiliar emotions were to be discovered in such a landscape.
Without moving her position or ceasing her stroking attentions, she attempted to reassert the comforting realities of every day. "I seem to be hungry."
To her relief, Nathaniel responded in the same tone, and the ordinary contours of the room reappeared and she was conscious of the prickle of the carpet beneath her knees and the dampness of his skin under her cheek.
"Me too," he said briskly. He caught her busy hand and put it away from him. "Now move your head, woman." He heaved himself upright and swung his legs off the sofa, looking around the disheveled room, where a bathtub of long-cold water still stood before the fire, and a table bore the remains of a cold chicken and a bowl of fruit.
Bending, he caught Gabrielle beneath the arms and hauled her upright. She swayed and leaned against him, nudging at his thighs with one knee.
"That'll do," Nathaniel instructed, taking her waist and moving her aside. He filled two glasses from a depleted wine bottle and handed one to her. "Drink this."
Gabrielle sipped and regarded him with a quizzically raised eyebrow."So what now, Sir Spymaster? You'veanother twelve hours to enjoy your prize."
"No," Nathaniel said. "I'm declaring a moratorium.”
"Oh? Why so?"She was puzzled and takenaback.
"Because it doesn't seementirely fair," hesaid, reaching for a dressing gown andshrugging into it. "Iwon the wager under false pretenses."
"What?" Gabrielle became suddenly conscious of her own nakedness as Nathaniel wrapped the robe around himself, tying the girdle securely. The atmosphere in the room was fractured in some way, and she felt an overwhelming sense ofvulnerability.
"I've decided to take you into the network," he stated calmly. "So, one could say that Icheated you out of your winnings."
Gabrielle stood very still, trying to make sense of this. "Then you didn't play fair," she said finally in tones of hurt confusion.
"Fair play, my dear, is not to be expected in the world of espionage," hepointed out in a voice like sere leaves. His eyes raked her face, looking for a conscious flash in her eyes, a hint of color in her cheeks, but there was nothing. Gabrielle de Beaucaire knew the underworld and the many dark faces of man, and she wore the velvet cloak of deceit as easily as he wore it himself.
"No, I suppose it's not," she said, suddenly matter-of-fact, going toward her own door. She paused, her hand on the latch as an explanation occurred to her for the strange, disturbing moments. "Was there some kind of test embodied in the last hours, Nathaniel?"
"I wanted to see whether I could trust you to play with the team," he said casually. "Whether you could control your own vigorous responses and follow the direction of a leader." He smiled. "It seems you can… in bed, at least. I'm willing to assume you'll be able to do it in other situations."
Gabrielle went into her own room. Distaste nibbled at her soul at the thought that all the while he'd been watching her, assessing her, as she lay open to him, her defenses down, utterly trusting in the loving congress that had always been inviolate, untouched by her own muddled emotions. He'd used sex to discover something about her. Surely he could have chosen some other arena.
But she'd succeeded. That was the important thing. Coldly, she concentrated on that fact. From now on she'd have access to the spymaster's world.
Nathaniel found himself staring at the closed door. Despite the ruthless pragmatism that had lain behind the scenario he had engineered that day, he was as stirred by her as ever. She had been more exciting in the role she'd played at his direction than he could ever have believed possible. Absorbing herself into the fantasy with her own brand of erotic magic.
Gabrielle de Beaucaire was a woman unlike any other. She could meet him and match him on every level-from hasty, lustful tumbling to exquisite love games; from angry challenge to witty retort; from analytic discourse to novel opinion. And on the back of a hunter, honesty obliged him to admit that Gabrielle probably had the edge.
His eye fell on the rumpled bed, the piled cushions on the floor where their game had led them at one point, the straight-backed chair where Gabrielle had-
Helen hadn't cared for hunting. The thought burst through his lascivious reverie. She'd been like Jake, timid on horseback. She'd not been playful either. A quietly smiling, grave woman of sweet disposition, she'd lent herself to him willingly, but he remembered now how once or twice he'd had the nagging suspicion that she'd found the sweaty antics of entwined naked bodies faintly ridiculous at best, distasteful at worst. He hadn't dwelt upon the suspicion, of course… had dismissed it as silly. Helen was too sweet and compliant to make such feelings overt, and what man wanted to see himself as ridiculous in the eyes of an adoring wife?
Gabrielle mocked him, challenged him, laughed at him, but nothing they did together, however outrageous, undignified, and sometimes downright silly, made him feel ridiculous. He did things with Gabrielle that he couldn't have imagined doing with Helen. Could never reveal to anyone else without being covered with embarrassment.
But they were alike, he and Gabrielle. They played in the same dark world… but on opposite sides. They understood risks and took them boldly. It was hardly surprising that they should be so well matched… in challenge as well as in treachery.
Chapter 13
Several days later, a day filled with the intimations of spring, when crocuses and daffodils pushed through the lawn under the ancient oak trees and the weak sun brought a sparkle to the wide gray river, Gabrielle came into the house with a nosegay of snowdrops she'd picked in the orchard. She was smiling unconsciously as she inhaled their delicate fragrance.
Jake suddenly raced past her. His head was down and he bumped against her as he ran for the open front door behind her. He didn't stop to greet her, or even apologize for knocking into her, but flew down the steps of the house.
"Jake!" Gabrielle dropped the snowdrops on the console table and ran to the door, calling the child. But Jake's pace didn't decrease as he headed down the driveway. He was hatless and coatless, a condition not ordinarily permitted by his oversolicitous nurse or the zealous Miss Primmer.
"Jake!" Nathaniel came out of the library, scowling ferociously. "Where the devil has he gone? He has absolutely no manners! What has that ineffectual governess been teaching him?"