When at last he rolled her onto her back and pressed his forehead into her shoulder, entering her fully on a sharp intake of breath, some emotion welled up, something too elusive and fragile to name. Then it was gone as he started to move strongly in her; there became only the give-and-take of their bodies working together.
So complete was the darkness of the room that even with her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she couldn’t make out his features. She discovered instead his muscles moving beneath herhands; her fingertips found the scars that creased and nicked the warm skin of his back. Every inch of him against her was alive and hers to touch for these stolen moments in the dark. The short hairs at his neck curled, sweat-damp, as she learned the shape of his head beneath her hands. She traced his lips with her tongue, took his sigh into her mouth as she matched the lift of her hips to the movements of his.
Sweat trailed between them; although the room was cold, under the blankets was nothing but heat. She slid a foot up along his calf to the outside of his thigh, tilting herself to take him deeper before twining her legs around his.
Slow sweet tension built, not so steeply as before but just as commanding; he read it in her altered breathing and shallowed his strokes to give her more friction where she yearned for it, purposeful fingers between them finding her nipples until she bowed up against him. The pulses of pleasure still rippled through her as she set her heels alongside his thighs, offering him his own release. More urgent now, fast, hard strokes until his rhythm faltered and broke. On a groan, he spilled in a hot rush against her stomach. She welcomed his full weight, arms wrapped around his back. He turned his face into her throat, his hair soft against her lips as he caught his breath.
Well after his breathing had evened out, he lifted his mouth to hers for a devastatingly soft kiss before rolling to his back and pulling her half atop him. As he arranged the blankets over them, she dropped her head against him to listen to his heartbeat steady beneath her ear. One of his hands curved over the small of her back while the other combed gently through tangles in her hair. She let him lull her thus with hands and the warmth of his body, and at last she slept.
Chapter 14
Light filled the room when Isobel awoke; she had no sense of what time it was but the morning looked well advanced. She was alone in bed but not in the room. A careful look showed Nathaniel seated at the small table nearby such that he faced her, bent over a piece of paper. He wore trousers and boots, shirt open at the throat and his sleeves pushed partway up his forearms.
For this chance to watch him unawares she did not move, not wanting yet to reveal that she had woken.
With each slight movement of his head as he wrote, the light picked out slight glimmers of copper from the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin. He struck out a line on his paper, straight brows coming together in a slight frown before smoothing out again as he resumed writing.
Her eyes lingered on his hands. She’d have watched only them... but his pen stilled.
For a small stretch they merely looked at one another. How to break the silence? The only other man in whose bed she’d wokenafter having been intimate for the first time was Jamie, the morning after their wedding.
Nathaniel’s mouth curved, there and gone so fast she could almost have missed the smile had it not remained in his eyes. Unaccountably shy and hating that she felt that way, she tentatively returned the smile.
“I must attend to several tasks before my appointment with Baudelaire. Now you are awake, I will see to them.”
He had remained, then, so she wouldn’t wake up alone, after. He might have simply left with only a note to tell her his business, but he had not. It warmed her, that consideration.
“Amélie will be expecting you,” he added. “Do you know the way on your own?”
“I believe so. But if not, I will offer a coin to one of your boys downstairs to direct me.” He had pointed out several boys who could be trusted as messengers the first time she’d come to his rooms.
Nathaniel stood, his document evidently completed. “I will come to L’Orchidée later, and we will discuss plans for tonight.”
Had he decided she would go with him to Le Repaire after all? “I’ll go to Amélie shortly.” She stretched beneath the blanket and watched him as he wound his neckcloth and fastened the buttons on waistcoat and jacket.
He took up hat and greatcoat but paused before opening the door to turn and look at her again. When she offered him another shy smile, his own mouth curled up briefly once more.
Then he was through the door, shutting it softly behind him.
“And so you have come once more to challenge me.”
“I do believe the challenge will be yours,” Nate returned, settling into the seat opposite Baudelaire and signalingthe waitress for wine. The chessboard was already set up, the black pieces on Nate’s side.
“I have chosen for myself the prerogative to open,” Baudelaire said. “It may be the only advantage I have.” They conversed in a similar vein for several minutes before dropping their voices.
Between moves, Nate slid a copy of Isobel’s notes from Frascati’s into Baudelaire’s sketchbook on the pretext of examining a sketch. “I am at this point more interested in the other man who played at my table last night. Fournier is likely what he appears to be, although I have a colleague trailing him for another day or two to be certain.” He’d sent Pereira to follow Fournier. Pereira was a native of Galicia who’d been recruited into Scovell’s Guides during the Peninsular War. The British government still had plenty of uses during peacetime for former soldiers from the intelligence detachments, especially polyglots like Pereira and himself.
“I assume you do not mean the unfortunate student who tried his hand most inexpertly at playing cards.” Baudelaire pushed a pawn forward, keeping one finger atop it. “I am told he was very sick, after. Perhaps he will think twice in the future about gaming.”
“Perhaps.”
“Your antagonistic opponent was not known to my colleagues before last night. Charles Oberlin.” Baudelaire unwisely released the pawn.
In two moves he would have Baudelaire’s rook if Baudelaire wasn’t careful. “His accent marked him from elsewhere.”
“So does that of many in our fair city, but I take your point. We will for the moment consider that he is newly arrived.”
“He was there specifically to engage me,” Nate said bluntly. “And he made no secret of his interest in Isobel.”
