Love Lessons at Midnight (14 page)

He observed her from the landing, trying to detect her mood. She certainly sounded cheerful. He sagged in relief. She did not know. “Mother, what a delightful surprise! Why did you not tell me that you were paying a visit? I would have sent one of my carriages. Is everyone well at home?” he asked.

Abigail turned as Rob walked across the foyer with open arms. She met him halfway, stretching on tiptoes to hug her tall son. “Your sisters and their families are all well,” she said, patting his arm affectionately.

“How did you travel?” he inquired, already suspecting the answer.

“Why, by public coach, what else?” she replied. “Just because you have become the earl does not mean that the rest of us will change our ways. We’re simple country folk, Robert. Public conveyance is quite satisfactory. I met the sweetest young couple, recently married. They were traveling to London for him to assume a position as a clerk.”

Slight of stature with simple tastes and plain features, she nonetheless attracted people like bees to a honey tree. Her warm blue eyes and broad, ready smile had always cheered the dourest of her husband’s parishioners and offered comfort to any in affliction. She wore her gray hair in a simple coronet of braids and favored practical dark colors that did not show soil when she cooked or worked in her garden. Her only adornments were the small gold cross on a thin chain about her neck and her narrow wedding band. There was a shrewdness in her eyes that belied her merry nature. She
possessed the ability to see through deceit and to detect goodness. Many people made the mistake of thinking her flighty because of her talkative nature and propensity for striking up conversations with strangers of all stations.

“I hope I am not imposing, Robert, but I read in the
Chronicle
that this session of Parliament will end shortly and I wanted to spend a bit of time observing the season before you returned to Kent.”

Rob blinked. “You are most welcome here anytime, Mother, but why on earth would you care about the season?” he asked as a footman took her one modest trunk to the guest room at the head of the stairs.

She clucked patiently. “For my granddaughter—your niece Esther—who will turn seventeen this winter.”

“Bernice’s eldest? She was but a child last I looked,” he said, shaking his head. “I suppose I should have looked more frequently—or posted a sentry. If she is of an age, of course, I shall sponsor her come-out.”

“Now that you are an earl, I imagine you have many duties…and also, I fear, many nieces.”

“Six, last I counted,” he said glumly as they walked into a small receiving room with comfortable furniture. He knew little about such social events and had never set foot in Almacks, although once he became Barrington, he had received a voucher. Would his lack of interest be held against Esther?

Abigail’s laughter rang down the hallway. “At least you have the number of your nieces correct, even if you cannot remember their ages. Girls do grow up, Robert.”

Rob rang for his butler and ordered a noon meal for them, then asked, “Would you like to rest a bit or freshen up before we eat?”

“I may be a grandmother, but I remain strong as a plow horse. We have much to discuss.”

“I shall have to find out what is involved in introducing a
young lady to society,” he said distractedly. He had no idea about where to begin.

“I am not certain ′tis wise for Esther to do this, Robert. That is why I have come a year early. If your poor uncle Reginald and his sons had not passed so tragically, the gel would never have had the thought in her mind. She would have married among the gentry in Kent just as her mother and aunts did. We are country people. I do not want her hurt, Robert.”

“So you decided to see if the ton is as wicked and snobbish as everyone at home believes it to be.”

She nodded. “Would it be too great an imposition for you to introduce me to some of the ladies of your acquaintance? Perhaps that Baroness Oberly you mentioned in a recent letter?”

Ah, so now we get to the heart of the matter.
“Why do I believe that you are more concerned with my marrying than you are with Esther’s having a season?” he asked wryly.

Abigail sighed. “I never could dissemble with you, could I, Robert? I confess that I want not only to protect Esther, but to protect you as well—whether you believe you require it or not,” she added before he could protest.

Rob raised his hands in resignation. “I suppose your arrival may be more timely than you thought. I would value your opinion of the baroness.”

“Second thoughts, Robert?” she asked shrewdly.

“When first we met, she appeared quite the perfect woman to become my countess, a sweet, charming young widow with an infant son…”

“What has happened to change your opinion?”

Gaby?…Fantasia?
…Lord help him if he mentioned them! But how could he explain anything when he was so confused? He paced across the oriental rug and stared out the bow window at the busy street outside. Gathering his thoughts, he replied, “I have found that she has little interest
in my work—or any of the reforms to which I am committed. Oh, she and her father attend my speeches in Lords now and then, but he is quite the Tory and sees any attempt to better the lot of the poor as radical and destructive of the social order.”

“I take it she has not expressed such harsh sentiments, else you would never have considered her,” she said.

“No, she has expressed no sentiments whatever regarding politics. She has a very limited understanding of the desperate conditions under which so many of our people live, even though she does have a kind manner with those in her employ.”

“She only attends the debates in Lords to gain your favor. Hmm,” Abigail said, stroking her pointed little chin.

“Perhaps I flatter myself overmuch to think that. I do not know.”

Abigail shook her head in frustration. “Robert, Robert, you have never had any idea of your worth—and I do not just mean your title, a burden only recently come to rest on your shoulders. You are good, kind, noble of spirit…and unconscionably handsome!” she added with a smirk.

Rob was shocked and it registered on his face. “Mother! If I acted upon such an inflated sense of worth, I would be vain as those toffs who spend half the day on their toilets before venturing out to promenade. Recall how Father cautioned about vanity?”

“I have little fear you will ever succumb to vanity,” she said dryly. “But you have turned women’s heads since you were a lad. Why do you think poor Credelia begged her father to allow her to marry below her station?”

Rob winced. No one in the family had the least idea how disastrous their marriage had been. As far as his mother knew, Credelia had died in a tragic accident that robbed him not only of his wife but his child as well.

“Oh, dear heavens, please forgive my bringing up such
painful memories, Robert. I realize that your unhappiness with her kept you from considering a second marriage until inheriting the title forced you to do so.” She placed her hand on his arm gently, noting his expression of surprise, then apprehension.

“Did you think me incapable of linking your spoiled young wife’s behavior and your going off to war? You had no money to purchase a commission. I did not have to ask your uncle to know he had given it to you. And I am certain only the most extreme circumstances compelled you to do so.”

“I had hoped to spare you,” he said simply.

She hugged her son, then looked up into his troubled eyes. “Robert, you are too noble for your own good. So much has happened…since Credelia died. I wanted you to come to me and talk about your losses, but you were off in Spain, then preoccupied by your duties as Barrington. There never was time. Now we shall make some. First, you must arrange for me to meet this baroness and take her measure.”

Rob chuckled ruefully. “If you had had charge of Wellington’s armies, the war would have been won in half the time.”

A
s Abigail and Rob shared an early dinner, he described the gentlemen in Parliament he worked with—and those who worked against their causes. She was excited when he told her he would participate in a debate the following afternoon.

When she asked if she might attend, he replied, “These things can become, er, acrimonious. I do not think—”

“Balderdash, Robert. My ears shall not fall from my head if I hear a harsh word or two. I vow I’ve heard far worse from my second son-in-law when his new gelding dumped him on the ground Friday last. I am greatly interested in what members of Parliament think about the terrible unrest in the countryside.”

“You mean the Luddites who go about smashing machinery? Many rail against them but few understand or care why the poor benighted devils do as they do.”

Abigail’s brow furrowed and her eyes flashed. “Then they are either blind or foolish or incredibly hard-hearted!”

“I shall allow you to observe the debate only if you promise not to pray aloud from the gallery for thunderbolts to strike down my opponents,” he said with a smile, adding, “However, silent prayer would be welcome.”

“I will do no such thing, aloud or under my breath,” she replied primly, pleased that she would get to see her once shy son actually speak before the peers of the realm.

Although she would never admit it, his mother was exhausted by her long and arduous coach trip. After a few
delicate yawns, she made her excuses and retired for the night, eager for tomorrow.

Rob had explained that he was going out for a political gathering at one of his clubs that evening, which was true. What he neglected to tell her was that after the brief meeting, he would go to the House of Dreams…and Gaby. With so much emotion roiling in his soul, he wanted only the blind solace of the flesh. He knew that was selfish of him, but he also knew that she enjoyed their nights together as much as he.

After leaving Brooks he ruminated in his coach as the driver headed for St. John’s Wood. What would his mother think if she had any idea about his moral shortcomings? He should feel horribly guilty…but he did not. Gaby and Fantasia were good women. What he shared with each of them felt somehow…right. If that damned him as a lost soul, he was powerless to change his fate.

After he undressed in the assignation chamber to wait for Gaby, he doused the candle, plunging the room in darkness. “How can I bear to leave her…and never again to spar with Fantasia?” he murmured softly to himself.

What he truly wanted was a woman with Gaby’s innocent sensuality and Fantasia’s keen intellect, a woman who could share every facet of his life. Increasingly, he was certain that woman was not Baroness Oberly. How the devil was he going to have his mother meet her without giving the impression that this was a prelude to courtship?

The disturbing consideration was interrupted when a dim flash of light signaled Gaby’s arrival. She quickly closed the door before he could catch a glimpse of her. He strode toward her in the darkness. Having memorized the furniture placement in the room, he knew it better than his own sleeping quarters in the city house. With a breathless greeting, he embraced her and felt the warm reassurance of her arms around his neck. Her head tipped back and her lips parted eagerly when he lowered his mouth to hers.

They kissed hungrily as his hands splayed over the delicate curve of her back, caressing every tiny bone. Her nails dug into his shoulders as their hips met in an undulation as old as time. Wordlessly, he scooped her up and stepped over to the bed. When he bent over to lay her across it, she pulled him down with her, whispering, “Please, come inside me, my Rob. I need you. Now!”

He was not alone in his need for the solace of blind passion. She had spent the day worrying about Jenette and Eastham—and how to stop her friend from undertaking such a deadly subterfuge. Hoping for a distraction, she had looked forward to the chess match that afternoon. Then when he sent his regrets, she worried that he might end both of his liaisons at the House of Dreams.

Now he was here, his naked flesh pressed to hers.

What more was there to ask for than this moment? Gabrielle gloried in it, guiding his hard staff into the wet heat of her body. She arched and gasped as he filled her, stretching her flesh, gliding in glorious friction. “Yes, Rob, yes,” she whispered hoarsely, locking her legs around his hips.

They moved in a frenzy, the desperation each felt resounding in the other. He rolled onto his back and raised her upper body so that she could ride him the way they had accidentally discovered some time ago. His hands cupped her breasts, then glided down the curve of her tiny waist to cup her buttocks as they rose and fell while he thrust upward in counterpoint.

Her fingernails clawed at the hardness of his chest, then raked through the springy hair covering flexing muscles. She tossed her head back, arching against the impossible pleasure of each stroke. “Slower, please…I do not wish to end this…”

“Let me suckle you,” he whispered, holding her hips immobile, then resuming a much slower pace.

She braced an arm on each side of his head and lowered
her upper body so her breasts hung over his face, suspended like fruits ripe for plucking. His mouth was hot and sweet as he took one nipple, then the other, feasting on the hard points until she whimpered in pleasure.

The sounds she made, tiny, indistinct mewls, sent the blood singing through his veins. He seized a fistful of her hair and guided her mouth to his for another soul-robbing kiss. Her tongue darted inside, bold and saucy for an instant, then coy and inviting as it retreated. He followed inside her mouth, twining his tongue with hers. Free of the restraint of his hands on her derriere, Gabrielle once again increased the pace, raising and lowering her hips, twisting and rolling as she felt the great onrush of culmination begin.

“Come with me, my love,” she whispered raggedly into his mouth.

“How could I not?” Rob rolled them over and plunged deeply, feeling the contractions of her velvety sheath drawing him to spill his seed. He let go of all the control he had schooled himself to learn over the past weeks. Assured that she would be with him in surfeit, he felt free to surge to the stars. He kissed her hard, pressing his body the full length of hers as the world exploded around them.

Neither cared.

He rolled over and brought her with him so she nestled across his chest. They lay, limp and panting. A light sheen of perspiration slicked their skin in the cool night air. Gabrielle glided her hand over the muscles of his shoulder, loving the hard, smoothness of his body. He was a horseman who spent hours outdoors. He had spoken about riding across fertile fields and working with breeding stock on his estate. Would he return to it and his family when the session of Parliament ended? Would the baroness pursue him?

Those are not questions I have the right to ask.

If he wished to speak more about his conflicting emotions regarding Lady Oberly, he would bring the matter up. If he
did not…To keep herself from such troubling thoughts, she began nibbling kisses in the crisp hair on his chest while she caressed his face with her hand. When her lips grazed a hard male nipple and she tugged at it with her teeth, he let out a soft growl of pleasure.

“You are an insatiable little minx, are you not, Gaby?” he asked in a husky voice.

“Does this please you?” She could tell that her ardor pleased him mightily by the hardening of his staff as it pressed against her thigh.

“I am here to please you, remember?”

“Well…it would please me if we could begin all over again…only this time slowly, softly, like—”

“Butterfly wings,” he whispered with a chuckle, brushing a soft kiss against her ear. Then he used the tip of his tongue to trace the outline of the small shell, sending shivers down her spine. “Yes, we can do this for as long as you wish, my darling Gaby.”

“You know all…there is to know…all any woman…could ever want…ever imagine,” she gasped out between small hitches in her breathing as he laved her throat with his tongue and massaged her scalp with his fingertips. Then his hands roamed across her back, gently lifting the mass of her tangled hair away so that he could caress her dewy skin. He rolled them onto their sides and raised himself up over her to press kisses from her throat to her breasts, then down lower until he reached her navel. He devoted exquisite attention to it, making her writhe and arch.

“I must taste like the salt block in Cook’s kitchen,” she murmured.

“Did I ever tell you how much I enjoy salty delicacies?”

He continued soft caresses, using his hands and his mouth, moving over every inch of her body, leaving her a quivering mass of pure bliss. While her body basked, her mind whirled. If only this could go on forever. If only they could close out
the whole world and just be…suspended in time and space. But no, they had tonight.

“Tonight, we have tonight. No one can take this from us,” he murmured.

She had no idea that his thoughts so closely mirrored her own until he spoke. “Yes, tonight must be enough…” she whispered back, letting body overtake mind as she returned his kisses and caresses, marveling anew at the contrast between her soft body and his hard one, her smoothness and the abrasion of his body hair. Yet for all his strength, he cherished her body, fierce with passion, gentle with…

Love?

No, never love! He had said that they had tonight. Implicit in that was an eventual farewell. His duty was to leave. But not tonight. She wrapped her arms around him and held him fast, kissing him deeply. After a long while, they became one and rode again to the pinnacle together. Neither thought about the price of tomorrow.

Rob left his mother beaming as one of the attendants assisted her up to the gallery in the House of Lords. Then he spent several minutes glancing over his notes before slipping them into his jacket. Several of his foes took their seats across from his, glowering at him and muttering none too softly about “lovers of rabble” and “disruption of the social order ordained by the Almighty.” He glanced nervously up to see if his mother had overheard them take the Lord’s name in vain, and was grateful that she had not.

If only Lord Teesdale and his cronies minded their manners during the debate! If only sheep were not stupid! Engrossed in the opening arguments, he did not see a second lady come late and take the only remaining seat in the gallery, which happened to be next to Abigail. The second female was a widow, austerely garbed in black from head to toe, heavily veiled.

Amber had read about the proposals put forth by Mr. Peel to reform the policing system—or lack thereof—in London. The mishmash of competing jurisdictions and bribery led to a thriving industry of thievery. The “flash houses,” as they were called, were not only refuges for cutthroats and street whores, but served as recruiting centers for children who learned to swill gin, pick pockets, and sell their bodies just to keep from starving. She wanted to listen to Rob’s proposals for stopping the abuse. But even more, she longed to see him move and hear his voice in the bright light of day.

When Rob was recognized, he rose and began to speak. “We need a unified force immune from bribery, overseen by the governing authorities. Trained professional men must close down the flash houses. They are schools, not where the young learn to read and write, but where boys learn to steal and girls to sell themselves. How long must this continue before we act?”

As he elaborated the abuses and remedies with exacting and dramatic detail, Abigail leaned over and whispered in the widow’s ear, “I see you are as taken with the Earl of Barrington’s presentation as am I.”

Amber looked at the elderly woman in the gray gown. Although of good quality, the day dress was utterly unadorned save for a small gold cross that hung suspended on a fragile chain. Her bonnet also was without feathers or any of the fallals so in fashion now. But her face was lively and kind.
Grace, if she had been given the chance to be a country lady.
Smiling at the whimsical thought, she replied, “He is quite a marvelous speaker, awake on every suit. That vile Lord Teesdale has yet to tangle the earl with words, and not for want of trying.”

“Do you follow the debates often?” Abigail asked, warming to the young widow, who appeared quite well informed regarding political matters.

“I subscribe to the
Chronicle
and the
Times.
Whenever I
read that the Earl of Barrington will speak, I try to attend. We share a concern for aiding the poor, especially children. I greatly admire his keen intellect and strong moral compass.”

“Have you ever met him, seeing that you have so much in common?” Abigail inquired.

“No,” Amber replied, almost too quickly.
We have far more in common than ever you could imagine.
Even in disguise, she would never link herself to him in this place. “That is, although I would be honored, he is an earl and I but a poor widow.”

Abigail patted her hand sweetly as Rob once more began to speak, rebutting yet another Tory lord’s diatribe about “the rabble.”

As the afternoon wore on and the arguments on the floor became more heated, Abigail and Amber traded whispered commentaries on the fallacies of Tory social policy and the earl’s piercing wit in tearing them apart. When the session finally concluded, the two women rose and started to make their way from the gallery. Amber was prepared to thank the lady for her lively discourse, but her companion spoke first.

“I have a confession I feel I must make, my dear.” When Amber cocked her head, Abigail whispered, “That handsome young rascal with the razor wit is my son.”

Amber almost tumbled over the gallery railing to the floor below. “You are his m-mother?” she asked.

Abigail smiled. “That is the usual way it works, I believe. And now,” she said, taking the widow’s arm, “I am going to introduce you.”

Without appearing horribly rude and yanking her arm away, Amber could do nothing but allow the older woman to guide her downstairs. The Widow St. John was deceptively strong for such a birdlike little thing. “I really must go. Your son is surrounded by his political friends and I—”