She heard the slide of sheets, his weight shifting on the mattress. His hand found her cheek in the darkness, his long, cool fingers slipping over her skin, threading through her hair. She felt the warmth of his breath an instant before his lips touched her cheek, and they traced the salty tracks of her tears down her cheek, to the very corner of her lips. He unclasped his other hand from hers, and his palm glided up her arm, whisking over the heavy fabric of her gown to her shoulder, and then his arm curled around her back, pulling her in closer.
Unbalanced, she lifted her hands to stabilize herself. The shock of his bare chest beneath her palms was galvanizing; somehow in the hours that had passed she had forgotten that his valet, Culpepper, had undressed him. And yet her fingers slid over planes of solid muscle, reached his taut, sinewy shoulders, and clasped around his neck.
Here, in the dark, there was no past, no future—just a jumble of moments falling one into the next, pulled straight out of time as if the world beyond them had burned to ashes. She turned her head, and her lips met his.
He sucked in a breath as if she had singed him, drew back a half an inch. A frisson of fear slipped down her spine, that somehow he had recognized her, that even in the darkness she had been revealed.
A moment later he eased closer once again, but it was only to place a chaste kiss at the corner of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have—it was wrong of me to—” His breath sighed out, stirring the hair that had escaped her topknot. “I don’t want to use you,” he said at last. “It wouldn’t be right, or fair. You deserve better than that.”
“You didn’t—”
“I’m trying to be better, Claire.” This was delivered with the press of his lips to the delicate skin at her temple. “I hardly know how to manage it, but be good enough to let me try.” His arm left her back slowly, as if it had taken no small amount of effort for him to peel it away from her, and the heat of his body was chased away by a sudden influx of cool air between them. “You had better go, darling girl, before my baser nature gets the better of me.”
Claire drew a sharp breath, scrambling up from her chair. Her hands trembled so badly that she fisted them in her skirts in an effort to quell it. What had she done? For a minute she had allowed herself to be swept away. Her heart gave a vicious beat in her chest.
With an alacrity born of mingled horror and guilt, she crossed the room to the door in mere seconds. The lamplight in the hallway cut across the carpet as she flung the door open. But she paused, one foot in the doorway. Uncertainly, she asked, “Will you be all right?”
“I’ll live,” came the dry, bitter response. “More’s the pity.”
Chapter Nineteen
“It’s just a ride in the park, Claire. It’s nothing to fret over.” Gabriel had intended the words to be mollifying, soothing—but Claire wrung her hands anyway, her lips flattened into that firm line that suggested she was biting back her true thoughts.
“But anyone could see,” she burst out with at last. “Anyone—”
“Hyde Park comprises some four hundred acres,” he said. “It’s damned difficult to find people you’retryingto locate, much less to stumble across someone by chance.” Her knuckles had gone white with strain, and impulsively he clasped her linked hands in one of his to still the nervous movement. She didn’t pull her hands away, but she went still and stiff as a statue, her gaze falling to his fingers wrapped around hers.
“He could fall.” The words fell from her lips, harsh and leaden, imbued with all of the worry contained in her. “He could fall. He could be thrown. What if he’s injured—”
“It’s a very small pony.” His fingers squeezed hers. “Even-tempered, docile. I promise I’m not fool enough to put Matthew on a spirited mount for his first lesson. Even if he were thrown—which he willnotbe, so don’t look like that—the most he’d acquire is a bruise or two.”
Footsteps above them snagged his attention, and he released Claire’s hands abruptly. The governess and Matthew appeared on the landing, exactly on time. Matthew had been dressed in a miniature version of a riding outfit, his hair neatly combed away from his face with the exception of one lock that fell over his forehead, stubbornly resisting all efforts to tame it.
“Mama,” he said, a grin wreathing his face as he scrambled down the stairs. “I’m going to ride a pony! Have you seen him?” He bounded down the last few steps, throwing his arms around Claire’s waist.
“No, darling, I haven’t.” Her arms closed around her son. “I thought you didn’twantto ride.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Not on a great tall horse,” he said. “But my pony is just a little taller than me.”
“Yourpony?”
Gabriel cleared his throat. “I may have purchased him,” he said. “A boy needs his own pony, after all. Just think of the inconvenience of hiring one out.”
“Oh, yes,” Claire said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Such an inconvenience, that.”
Despite the scathing tone she had employed, Gabriel felt his lips twitching to hold back a smile.
“You’ll spoil him,” she said, stroking Matthew’s hair.
“He should be just a bit spoiled,” Gabriel said. “Have you anything to attend to before we leave?”
“We?” Claire echoed.
“Of course. He’s your son. All of his first moments belong to you.” And because he had busied himself with patting his pockets for his gloves and drawing them on, he missed the flash of shame that flitted across her face.
∞∞∞
It was not yet the fashionable hour, and they’d seen precious few other carriages, but Gabriel had taken them through one of the less used gates into Hyde Park nonetheless. A pair of grooms had arrived earlier with both Gabriel’s horse, a magnificent and spirited black stallion with a handsome white blaze, and a little brown pony which stood placidly nearby, quietly rooting in the grass. Both were saddled and equipped with reins in preparation for the day’s lesson.
