At the Bride Hunt Ball Read online

  She nodded.

  “Your things could still be there, tucked away in the attic or thrown in a shed,” he offered.

  “I doubt it,” she said, shaking her head forlornly. “But I was willing to hope.” Her comment was met with silence, and Madelyn wondered at his thoughts. She stopped before a large portrait of a beautiful, dark-haired woman with familiar icy blue eyes. The woman smiled serenely with a plump baby on her lap, her thumb trapped within his pudgy fist. On her right crouched a young girl equal in her mother’s beauty, her rosebud lips almost pursed in a pout. On the other side of the seated mother stood a handsome boy of about ten, his chin raised to a challenging angle, his blue eyes flashing with the promise of future arrogance. Gabriel. He had to be the boy standing in the picture.

  Breaking out in a wide grin, Madelyn turned to look at the duke. He stood in the shadows, his broad shoulders pressed against the closed doors. He stared at her intently, and she pretended his desire-filled expression was a figment of her imagination.

  Her mind listened, but her body warmed in response.

  She gestured to the portrait with a nod of her head. “So serious for such a young lad?”

  He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.

  A rush of anticipation flowed through her. The thought that he brought her here for other, more sinful reasons toyed with her conscience. She shouldn’t want him to desire her again, but she did. And she desired him, his touch, and just his company as well.

  “I never smiled much.” His voice was a low purr in the shadows.

  “Don’t be silly,” she replied, taking a step closer to the next portrait—and farther away from him. “You smile all the time.”

  “At you,” he conceded, “with you, because of you.”

  For a brief moment her eyes met his, but she soon blushed and looked away. She took another step to peruse a painting of a dour-faced young miss, her stern expression making her appear older than she was. Lady Eugenia in her youth, no doubt.

  The next portrait had Madelyn instantly intrigued. It looked to be of his mother, albeit at an older stage in her life. Terribly thin, the duchess smiled, though the sharp beauty so dominant in the other likenesses of her was now nowhere to be seen. In its place sat a deep sadness that his mother couldn’t seem to hide. Madelyn turned, her unspoken question stalled upon her lips.

  When Gabriel spoke next, his words were soft, but hard-edged. “She mourned her marriage.” He sighed, long and heavy, like a burden sitting on his shoulders temporarily lifted.

  Patiently, Madelyn waited for him to continue.

  “Originally, my father stood behind her in that picture, though he wasn’t present for the sitting. After he passed away, she had him painted out, as he was never truly there in the first place. And my meaning is literal and figurative. Their union wasn’t a love match, as it usually isn’t in such cases.” He paused and shook his head slowly. “However, my mother grew to feel very deeply for my father. He never returned the sentiment, but that didn’t stop her from grasping at an exhausted hope that one day he would.”

  “Your father never showed her affection?”

  “Indeed not. He had many lovers.” He shook his head in disdain. “I was away at school so often that I don’t believe even I grasped the extent of my mother’s depression until I came home from Eton on holiday one year and found she’d grown sickly pale, lost considerable weight, and only came to life in front of her children.”

  Sadness welled inside Madelyn. “It must have brought you great pain to see her so.” Her eyes flicked over the portrait once more, then back to Gabriel. His wore a guarded expression, but she detected sorrow there as well. “I must ask…why would you have such a likeness of your mother displayed if it brings you pain? Why not simply take it down and allow only those portraits of when she was content?”

  “Find it maudlin if you like, but put simply, it stays because it is a reminder to me of the unquestionable power of love…and the destructive consequences when that love goes unreturned.” He sighed, shifting his shoulders against the door. “I made a vow when I was fifteen to never inflict that sort of pain nor bear it. I thought all I had to do was keep my heart from becoming engaged.” His eyes took on a darkly intense nature, as if his body and mind were homing in on her. “Only recently has it occurred to me, however, how incredibly futile that endeavor would turn out to be. Besides, I do not have it in me to be like my father.”

  “Where are the portraits of him?” she asked, the abruptness of his mood change making her a touch nervous. Perhaps it wasn’t a mood change after all, she thought. Perhaps her perusal of the portraits and her following questions merely distracted him, albeit temporarily, from his true intentions.

  “There are very few,” he said. “Most are in the corridor leading to my private office.” He pushed off from the door. Turning briefly, he locked them in. “My father wasn’t fond of his likeness painted.”

  “Oh? Why so?”

  He shrugged and angled toward her. “He was never happy with the finished product. Claimed the artist portrayed him unflatteringly or some other such nonsense.”

  Madelyn cast a sidelong glance at Gabriel, figuring that must be where he had inherited his innate sense of fastidiousness. She took another step and nearly tripped over the leg of a cushioned chair. She skirted around it, thinking the piece of furniture might prove beneficial in keeping him at bay.

  With slow, exaggerated steps, he reached the chair, then surprised her by sitting in it instead of advancing on her. When he stretched his long legs out before him, Madelyn stole a glance at his sleek, muscled thighs sheathed in snug black breeches. She thought of the intoxicating feel of having that strong, virile body press against her own.

  “He was a perfectionist…” Gabriel’s voice trailed away, pulling her attention from her sinful musings.

  Clearly, he was planning to carry on with their conversation but had stopped once he spied the desire so apparent in her eyes.

  He pulled his legs in, bracing his hands on the arms of the chair. “Come here, Madelyn.”

  How much closer could she get to him? If she took a step to the right, she’d bump into his thigh.

  That was what he wanted, apparently, because he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her swiftly down onto his lap. The abrupt hardness of his thighs against her soft bottom evoked a small squeak from her. She looked to his smooth mouth, then to his hooded blue eyes, knowing the naked hunger apparent there matched her own.

  He leaned in close, their breath mingling. “Kiss me,” he whispered.

  And she was helpless but to obey his gentle command. Leaning into his warm chest, she brushed her lips across his. He kept still, his eyes open a mere slit, watching her.

  Impatient with his lackluster response, she pressed her lips to his again, her palms splayed on his broad chest. Shyly, she ran her tongue across his bottom lip. His nearly imperceptible intake of breath told her he was not immune to her touch.

  “More,” came his gruff command.

  Closing her eyes, she kissed him again, deeper, slipping her tongue into his warm mouth to stroke his. He groaned. One of his hands slowly smoothed over her thigh, then up her bodice to cup her breast. A thousands sparks of delight shimmered through her as he rubbed his thumb over the hardened tip. She squirmed deeper into the unforgiving cradle of his lap, desperate for him to kiss her back more fully.

  And then Gabriel took over, kissing her with the ferocity of a thirst-starved man. He sank his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, showing her with his kiss that she was his and always would be. A low ache welled between her thighs and she tightened her muscles in response. She whimpered in yearning, and he answered her with a groan of his own. The play of his hands became steadily more demanding, roving over her bottom, her back, molding to the back of her head as he devoured her mouth. Shivers raced across her skin as her heart thundered in her ears.

  Gabriel felt completely out of control. He had to have her. Now and for
ever. If she would deny him, he thought he’d explode. With rough urgency, he tugged at her bodice until her breasts spilled free, then broke their kiss to nuzzle and nip her neck.

  “’Tis a lovely gown,” he said, his hand sculpting up her back, over her shoulders, then down the arms that clutched at him. “Awful of me to wrinkle it, don’t you think?”

  Her head lolled back as his lips wandered lower still. “My—My stepmother hates it. Told me—” she gasped as he flicked his tongue over her nipple. “—that I looked plump.”

  “Wrong,” he murmured, then suckled at one breast, then the other. “You are perfection.”

  Madelyn felt as if she was melting in his arms, her body trembling with need. At Gabriel’s urging, she didn’t hesitate to change her position in order to straddle him in the chair. He helped and pushed her skirts to her waist.

  Cupping her bottom, his mouth seared onto hers for another wet, hot wanton kiss. Madelyn knew it was wrong of her, but in that moment she felt something break free in her soul. In that instant, with his lips slanting across hers, hunting for her surrender, she gave her heart over to him completely.

  Relishing the feel of having Madelyn’s supple, lush body draped around his, Gabriel smoothed his large hands over her stocking-enclosed knees, then splayed them over her bare legs. He smiled against her mouth when she mewled with pleasure as he made small circles with his thumbs on the soft flesh of the inside of her upper thighs.

  Madelyn clutched at his shoulders, her fingers curling into the woolen fabric of his coat as his dark head moved downward, leaving a molten trail of heat down the curve of her throat. Threading her fingers through his silky black locks, she gasped as he returned his attentions to her breasts. Relentlessly, he kissed and licked her, all the while holding her to him with his hands at her lower back. Dampness spread between them and she rocked against the hardness of his arousal.

  “Unbutton my breeches,” he said hotly against her neck.

  Hurriedly she complied. With a great deal of fumbling, he was freed.

  “See what you do to me?” he asked, lifting her hips effortlessly.

  Instinctively, Madelyn guided his arousal to her. “We’re going to…like this?”

  “Indeed,” he growled against her throat. “I plan to show you every single way even if it kills me.”

  He reached between their bodies and stroked at the sensitive nubbin of flesh hidden in her folds until she was fairly vibrating with need. When her breaths came faster and her moans sounded near frantic, Gabriel impaled her with one smooth upward thrust of his hips.

  Her mouth opened on a moan and he caught it for a soul-reaching kiss. Panting with desire in between kisses, he hesitated, wanting her to adjust to the feel of him and allow himself to gather some much needed strength so as not to succumb to his release in the next damn second. He thought of her pleasure first and foremost. Without it, his meant nothing, was nothing.

  To his surprise it was Madelyn who began to rock against him first. She clutched at his head, and he curled downward, to nuzzle her breasts.

  Waves of glorious sensation pooled within Madelyn. A swell of pleasure so intoxicating poured through her, she imagined she could do this forever and ever.

  It was sweet torture, but Gabriel allowed her to set the rhythm, gentle and achingly sweet. When her breathing quickened and she began to tremble atop him, he couldn’t hold back any longer.

  Holding her to him with his large hands clamped to her waist, he reared his hips upward in fluid surges. She bucked against him with an uninhibited pace that took his breath away. She cried out his name the same time he groaned hers, and together they shuddered with the power of their release.

  As she quavered atop him, he kissed her cheeks tenderly, then pressed a soft kiss upon her lips. Madelyn feared her heartbeat would never return to a more sedate pace. Gabriel’s chest rose and fell powerfully against hers. Astonishingly, she craved the feel of his hard, naked chest against her skin and realized she wanted him again.

  Unbeknownst to her, Gabriel felt the same way. And he would have her again, that he knew, but first he had an infinitely more important task at hand.

  “I need to ask you something,” he whispered long moments later while he fixed her bodice.

  Madelyn swung her leg down, readjusting her position so she sat upon his hard lap instead of astride him. She’d have stood if not for her shaky legs.

  She gazed up at him, observing a flicker of doubt, of hesitation, in his eyes. An immediate sense of foreboding bloomed in her mind. She blinked away a sudden surge of panic. Here it comes, she thought.

  Gabriel couldn’t ask her to be his bride. She was “glaringly unfit.” Indeed, those were his very words to her in the orangery. No, she couldn’t be his duchess. But there was nothing stopping him from asking her to be his mistress.

  Yet she knew she couldn’t blame him for thinking to ask her such a thing. She had slept with him. Twice.

  Her recent behavior was so out of character, so unlike herself, so wild and without thought of the consequences, she rather thought this love business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Who would seek something that made one behave impulsively, where reason and good, sound judgment were thrown out the window in order to drown in all-encompassing passion?

  She slid off of his lap though his tense hands tried to keep her there. Standing shakily, she brushed at her skirts, trying to ignore the ache of a restrained sob in her throat.

  She wanted to snip this moment in time and save it before it was ruined—before he ruined it. Their lovemaking was beautiful and precious, and if Gabriel spoke those hurtful words, she knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it. She could take a thousand veiled insults from her aunt, could endure a scathing mile-long list of her shortcomings from her stepmother, but she could not suffer the pain of Gabriel asking her to be his lover, and only his lover. To have it implied by the man she loved that she was good enough to tup but not to marry. Why oh why did she have to go and fall in love with the man?

  Sitting up, perspiration from their recent, primal lovemaking still dotting his brow, Gabriel reached for her, but Madelyn stepped back.

  She swept at a coil of hair that had escaped from her once elaborate topknot. “Whatever it is you have to ask me, it shall have to wait,” she said, trotting toward the door.

  “It cannot wait,” Gabriel intoned. A quirk in his brow told her he was confused by her sudden change in behavior.

  Her breaths came faster as she fretted that he would simply blurt out the words. “I’ve been gone too long, I must go,” she blurted. “We shouldn’t have done this again. It was a mistake.” Rattling the door handle, she belatedly remembered that he had locked them in with a key.

  He was there a moment later, apparently after refastening his breeches. Slipping the key into the lock, he looked down at her, his expression both perplexed and concerned. “A mistake. What is it you are afraid of, Madelyn?” he whispered, opening the door. His hand rested on the doorjamb, blocking her retreat.

  “You,” she replied, then slipped underneath his arm and ran down the corridor without turning back.

  Chapter 17

  “His gaze has been fastened on you since the moment we stepped out into the garden,” Charlotte whispered as they angled their way through the course of Wolverest’s intricate parterre, the low box hedges barely knee-high.

  “You must be imagining things,” Madelyn answered with a shrug. She hoped that she was giving the appearance of deeply concentrating on the miniature maze before her. With something akin to desperation, she worked to make certain their path never crossed Gabriel’s. And what a Herculean feat that was turning out to be.

  Escorting no one through the geometric patterns, the duke kept his pace slow, his hands clasped behind his back. Indeed, Charlotte was correct. With prowl-like concentration, he kept his steady gaze on Madelyn’s every move.

  Oblivious to their cat and mouse game, the other guests milled about whispering, giggling, and ge
nerally enjoying an innocent stroll about the interlocking paths. Madelyn envied their ignorance. Her body flushed anew with prickling heat as Gabriel’s unflinching gaze raked her with stark intensity. She didn’t need to be told he was looking at her. She could feel it.

  The coward in her wanted to run and hide, or at the very least avoid his gaze, but Gabriel wouldn’t let her. And if he didn’t stop it, everyone else was going to notice as well.

  Unable to stop herself, she looked over to him. Their gazes caught and held. Her breath stopped for a long moment, then came out in a low whoosh. Good Lord, he was beautiful. His skin appeared sun-kissed, his ink-black hair tousled and glossy in the warm sunlight. Tousled, no doubt, by her own hands in the art gallery. His intense, sparkling blue gaze made her feel drawn to him, like he was silently beckoning her to come to him and she was helpless but to obey. However, she made no move to fulfill his unspoken command and simply carried on her stroll with Charlotte. Only, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him. She felt trapped within his gaze.

  And though she wasn’t quite sure why Gabriel yet stared at her, she was certain of why she was compelled to gaze at him. She loved him.

  She loved him, and that very thing was propelling her to avoid him and his “question.”

  She swallowed, thinking he’d look away at any moment, but he never did. His booted feet unerringly wound around the intertwined paths. Never once did his step hesitate—

  “Oh!” Arms flailing, Madelyn tripped over a low, ankle-high hedge, catching herself by hugging the small tree at the center of the boxed section. Charlotte retrieved her. Together they stepped back onto the graveled path.

  “Heavens, Maddie!” Charlotte swatted at Madelyn’s skirts, taking care to see if she had snagged her gown. “Are you all right?”

  “Y-Yes. I’m fine,” Madelyn assured her friend. Her eyes flicked to Gabriel in order to see how he took her spill. Secretly, she hoped he’d found her clumsiness humorous so she could be mad at him, but he only raised one dark eyebrow.