Her logical answer relaxed him. Crossing the room, he put on his coat, shoving his cravat into a pocket. At this hour, there would be no one to criticize his mode of dressing.
Lifting a candlestick, Diana led the way downstairs and unbolted the front door. The rest of the household was long since asleep, and in the distance she heard a clock strike three times. The deepest, darkest hour of the night.
Before she could open the door, he took the candlestick and put it on a table before embracing her, making his goodnight kiss as thorough as any they had yet shared. Her arms went around his neck as he pulled her close, his strong hands shaping her soft curves. In spite of her fatigue, she realized that if he was ready for another round, she would be more than willing to cooperate.
Even as he kissed her, Gervase knew how foolish it was to try to claim a woman of her kind, to attempt to move her so thoroughly that she would accept none of the other men who desired her. There might be an expression of dazed delight on her face when he lifted his head away, but she was, after all, a whore.
Even as he told himself that she was not worth the effort, an inexplicable surge of possessiveness came over him. Seeking the entrance to her robe, he slid his hand between the silken panels, low, between her thighs. “I want you to be mine, Diana,” he whispered, caressing her most secret places with the edge of his hand. “Only mine.”
She shook her head wordlessly, her flawless face mysterious and unreadable even as he felt the hot, involuntary response of her body. He wanted to take her again, right there, with only the thin Oriental carpet between them and the cold marble floor.
Since Diana wanted that too, perhaps his purpose would be better served by not satisfying their mutual desires. Releasing her, Gervase turned, opened the door, and went alone into the night.
* * *
Diana shivered as she bolted the door, feeling the dark side of what joined them. In her bedchamber she changed to a high-necked, long-sleeved flannel nightgown, the antithesis of eroticism, then crawled into bed. She’d slept here for three months, but never before had the bed seemed so large or so empty.
Tired though she was, sleep proved elusive.Sex is a double-edged sword.Madeline’s long-ago words haunted her.
Diana had thought she understood, but only now was the meaning clear. Never having experienced passion, she was unprepared for its power. The night had been a shattering experience for her, not just because of the new physical worlds revealed, but because of the emotions stirred. She had given and received pleasure, and so had Gervase. That magical sharing created a closeness very different from her feelings for her son and friends.
She desired him as much as he desired her. She wanted to yield to his wishes, to promise to be only his, to talk and laugh and love with him so that the hard lines of his face would soften into the irresistible tenderness he’d shown tonight. The only power she wanted over him was the power to make him happy.
It would be treacherously easy to center her world around him and his demands, but that was not what she had come to London for. Diana already understood some of the complex currents that lay between them and sensed that there was far more beyond her comprehension. Like her, Gervase had been gravely wounded by life, and he had done less healing than she had. Until she understood the origins and depths of his pain, there could be no worthwhile future for them.
She drew herself into a tight little ball, her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to regain the warmth she had felt earlier. No matter how hard it was, she would resist that insidious desire to surrender. Someday, God willing, she could safely surrender to Lord St. Aubyn, but much must change first. She wanted them to be equals in their loving, not master and slave.
Diana shivered uncontrollably, knowing that it was not simple fate that had joined them, but the goddess Nemesis herself. Nemesis, the goddess of retributive justice. Had Diana known what was to be, she would have stayed at High Tor Cottage, but it was far too late for retreat. The thread that joined her to Gervase was now too powerful to be denied.
In the days ahead, she would play the role of independent woman and he could accept that or not, as he chose. Even as she made the silent vow, she wondered if she could keep it.
As she’d told Gervase, tears came easily to her. When she buried her face in the pillow, she was unsure whether she wept from joy or sorrow.
Chapter Eight
The dinner hour was long past and Whitehall nearly deserted when the British foreign minister paid Lord St. Aubyn a visit. George Canning was brilliant, unpredictable, and very, very ambitious. Ever since William Pitt, the guiding spirit of the Tory party, had died a year and a half earlier, the party had been fighting bitterly over who among them was most fit to wear the great man’s mantle.
Virtually the only thing Tories agreed on was the necessity of defeating the French, but more of their energy went into fighting each other. It was a battle Gervase had little taste or patience for.
He was deep in a pile of reports from Portugal when Canning’s entrance caused him to look up. He narrowed his eyes consideringly. Politics is a matter of personalities, and Gervase’s army service and friendship with Sir Arthur Wellesley in India had allied him with the war minister, Castlereagh, one of Wellesley’s closest friends.
Since the foreign minister and the war minister had overlapping responsibilities and there was fierce, covert rivalry between them, Canning automatically regarded Gervase with suspicion. Usually the two dealt indirectly. This was the first time Canning had sought him out. Gervase stood, glad of an opportunity to stretch, and offered his hand. “Good evening, Canning. You’re working late.”
Then he stiffened. Behind the foreign minister was another man, a Frenchman who was one of the viscount’s chief suspects for the spy called the Phoenix.
After shaking hands, Canning waved casually at his companion. “I’m sure you two know each other.”
The Count de Veseul, elegant in black, gave a debonair smile. “But of course we do, though it is a thousand pities society does not see more of Lord St. Aubyn.”
Gervase accepted the Frenchman’s proffered hand without enthusiasm. There were other men who might be the Phoenix, but Gervase rather hoped Veseul was the culprit. Under his unctuous charm and his air of secret amusement, the Frenchman had the audacity, intelligence, and viciousness to dare anything.
His face reflecting none of his thoughts, Gervase asked blandly, “Have you come to work here in Whitehall, Veseul? Heaven knows we are understaffed.”
The Frenchman waved his gold-headed cane gracefully. “Work?Moi?I am a lily of the field. I toil not, neither do I spin. I leave such things to diligent fellows like you.”
Raising his brows, Gervase murmured, “You underrate your accomplishments. Surely the tying of such cravats is a life’s work in itself.”
“Ah, but that is not work, that is art,” Veseul said soulfully. “I am a master of many obscure forms of artistic endeavor.” His black eyes gleamed with amusement, confirming Gervase’s suspicion that this conversation took place on two levels. The Frenchman knew what kind of work the viscount did, probably guessed that he himself was suspected of spying, and took private, smug satisfaction in this sparring.
