Chapter Six
In the end Gabriella chose a deep burgundy colored silk gown with a plunging neckline. She tried to assure herself that it had nothing to do with Drummond's bold threats upon herself or her person. That it was simply because the rich colors of the gown set off her complexion and notably, the diamond earrings.
"Oh, you are truly hopeless," she exclaimed to herself after Matilda had finished dressing her hair and left her alone for a few moments before she needed to go downstairs to dinner. "Utterly hopeless," she finished in a whisper as she regarded her reflection in the mirror.
What did she see there, she wondered? Certainly not the same woman whose husband threw her aside for his pregnant mistress saying that a bastard heir was better than no heir at all. However, the most horrible thought was that she wondered deeply whether she could really blame Reginald. Being barren was such a disgraceful condition. She understood why no man could possibly want a woman who w-was . . .
Velvet white skin . . . glorious breasts . . . a dimple . . . my love . . .
"Except perhaps, Drummond," Gabriella murmured, thinking that she had never been more surprised and thankful to see Drummond at that hideous "wife's sale" that her husband had commissioned. And, to see Reginald thwarted from selling her to that portly banker, as had been his intentions! Drummond had rescued her as completely as any fanciful hero. It was truly disconcerting to have the very man that you have secretly loved your entire life appear in your moment of greatest need and figuratively carry you off to safety. But was it safety? She wanted so much to believe that it was and yet, she had frivolously believed in the marriage vows also . . . no matter how miserable she had been through the years. The problem being, that if one man could so heedlessly throw her aside . . . why not the next? What could she ever hope to be to Drummond, but his lady in keeping? Yet what choice did she have, or did she really wish any other choice?
"Do I?" she whispered, remembering Drummond's hands, his magic fingers, his words, and his gaze upon her. Oh gracious he made her feel more like a woman than she had ever felt in her life, although it was all so improper . . . so immoral. Just then, she could hear knocking on the door with Matilda's voice behind it, reminding her of the time. So Gabriella gladly put her troubled thoughts aside, thinking distractedly that she truly had no wish to deal with them at all!
When she arrived downstairs to stand in front of what she presumed were the double doors to the dining room. It was then that she heard the distinct murmuring of conversation on the other side of the doors, accentuated by the tenor fluctuations of male voices, in some type of amusement. Guests? Men laughing? Startled, Gabriella looked askance of the very proper young butler. "Are there guests?" she whispered anxiously. Then finding herself without a moment to change her course of entering the room, which she would not have done except the attentive butler was already opening the doors.
"The Archangels, my lady," the butler said as he stepped aside and waited her entrance very properly.
Archangels?
Gabriella's steps faltered at the entrance.
"Madame, you are all things that are exquisite. Please come forward, Lady St. John, and meet my accomplices," Drummond said looking masculinely resplendent in his black evening attire.
Gabriella gladly placed her gloved hand on the slightly bent arm that Drummond offered her. It was foolish to feel so protected by this gesture, to find strength in Drummond's nearness. She gazed up at him knowing that her uncertainty showed clearly.
He dipped his head slightly, enough so that only she may hear his words. "And you will find that they shall be your loyal champions as well, madame."
With this assurance, he guided her into the formal dining room where five gentlemen resided in varying degrees of posture and noble rank, Gabriella was soon to discover. It was a formidable grouping of noble titles and men. Each man was handsome and distinctive in his own manner. However, simply none were more trim and attractive in their evening wear than Drummond, who stood securely at her side as she curtsied to each man's introduction. Two dukes, two earls, a marquess, a baron, and none of these esteemed gentlemen showed her a moment of lesser regard.
Gabriella nearly sighed in audible relief, during the last introduction to the Earl of Ravenscar, when he proclaimed her enchanting. Both she and Reginald knew the earl personally, although she knew none of the other young aristocrats in the room before this gathering. That it appeared Lord Ravenscar would not directly slight her for her scandalous presence in Drummond's country home. Nor for the deeds of the horrible "sale" this day, gave Gabriella a modicum of her dignity back.
Still, she could not fathom the presence of the five lords here. It was not as if the manor were found in London where all may arrive on a whim. Drummond's estate was over a two-hour ride from London.
"My lady, allow me to seat you for dinner granting these hounds their proper food," Drummond said, as he guided her to a lavishly laid dining table.
There was some hidden meaning in Drummond's words, Gabriella thought, unable to catch its subtlety beneath the varying admiring gazes of the gentlemen around her. She could not remember seeing such appreciation in mens gazes before. It was flattering and only the slightest bit discomforting to be found attractive by such a grouping of distinguished gentlemen.
When Drummond seated her, he stayed bent over her and for the barest moment his lips grazed her earlobe warmly, as he murmured for her ears only. "The earrings are exquisite on you, madame. However, in that gown, with your breasts bared so, I can only envy my passion pearl and where it must be nested at this very moment."
Gabriella barely stifled her gasp as her cheeks grew warm and Drummond moved to sit at the head of the table directly beside her. She dared not look at anything but the gold-rimmed plate in front of her. She was properly shocked at Drummond's bold dealings, but not in outrage, it was more than a bit thrilling to be flirted with so decadently. However, she had a moment of anxiety because the scandalous little pearl Drummond spoke of was laying quite innocently over her linen drawers and not at all where he envisioned it to be. She chewed the insides of her lip suddenly worried over Drummond's reaction, should he discover this.
"Please, gentlemen, find your seats as you will," Drummond said. "I believe my cook has surpassed himself this eve in honor of Lady Gabriella's presence."
Each man took his place, seeming to Gabriella as if the seating of each man were an arrangement of long standing. Lord Ravenscar sat directly across from her to Drummond's immediate right and next to him was the Duke of Sutherlin with his piratical eye patch that only lent a mysterious quality to his already dark handsomeness. Next to him sat the Marquess of Hartley, with a noticeable silver hook in place of his left hand and the longest, most beautiful brown hair that she had ever seen on a man. The gilded-haired, Baron of Hawkenge took the seat at the end of the elegantly set table, obviously to ease what must be an injured leg up onto a stool, which he promptly did. That left the auburn-haired and colorfully dressed, Laird Duneagan directly beside her to her right. He actually winked at her when he caught her looking at his kilt, which left his knees shockingly bared.
"Gentlemen, before they serve the first course, I should like to toast to my good fortune and the lovely, Lady Gabriella," Drummond said, raising his flawlessly fluted, crystal wine glass.
Gabriella was a bit stunned, of all that she had envisioned this evening in her life could entail, never had she thought it would allude to such fairy tale qualities from the horrible beginnings of this morning. She hesitantly raised her glass as was proper, finding her gaze captured by Drummond's peppery-gray eyes, over the rim of her crystal wine glass.
Chapter Seven
Drummond pondered irresistibly that Gabriella's eyes were likened to deep and rich colored violets, shimmering in the sunlight. Inexorably, he held her gaze for long moments before allowing her to escape as the butler began to serve the first course. Then, he watched her peek downward at her plate with the beginnings of a blush coloring her cheeks to petal pink, as his gaze refocused to capture the entire vision that she presented in her low-cut burgundy gown. While the gentlemen, Archangels took up varying degrees of conversation around the table, he could only wonder about Lord St. John's sanity for ever letting this woman slip through his fingers.
Through the first and second courses served, the conversation drifted through assorted male topics including boxing, hunting, billiards, and one of his favorite pastimes fencing. All discussed to a delightfully curious Gabriella. He understood that a lady of her upbringing would not have been subjected to these bastions of male interests before. Societies ridiculous and redundant mores, being that ladies were too delicate to be subjected to such rough and tumble male accomplishments.
He delighted in Gabriella's obvious interest and held his breath, as it were, to see if she would be brave enough to scramble over the walls of propriety and ask a question of her own. However, it was not until the conversation inevitably turned to their shared profession, during the third course, that she became embolden enough to blurt.
"You're spies . . . all of you are spies?"
"Were," Radford amended dryly.
"And you canna let a soul know of it, lass," Brynmore briskly added.
"All of us are entrusting you with our lives to speak of this in your company, my lady," Saxonhurst advised.
"We will have to make the lady an official member of the Archangels," Harrison rasped with a rare smile directed at Gabriella.
"She should speak a vow of some sort," Wyndham said, quietly intense from his end of the lavish table.
Drummond let his gaze slip over Gabriella, who appeared amazed and a bit flustered. "What do you say, my lady, shall you join this illustrious gentlemen's club? Shall you swear secrecy, and then we will divulge our secrets without hesitation in your company?"
"I—, would. I mean, yes," Gabriella replied with demure hesitation, contradicting the excitement coloring her violet eyes.
"Excellent," Drummond responded with his gaze traversing the table and each person there. "How should we officiate this momentous occasion, gentlemen?"
"I would be voting for a kiss each," Brynmore replied, smiling rakishly. "However, I ken our leader might be vetoing this notion."
"And you would be correct," Drummond answered with a quiet, but possessive quality in his voice.
"You are the l-leader?" Gabriella asked in obvious wonder.
"The mastermind is more his tune," Harrison answered in a gravelly whisper.
Drummond raised an eyebrow to Harrison, but turned to Gabriella. "Yes, madame, I was the leader of this nefarious group of information seekers." He toyed with the stem of his wine glass for a moment. "And now to our ceremony and vow. I believe the lady should part with a secret bit of information about herself. Which we shall then keep, just as she will vow to keep our secrets."
"Oh– I." Gabriella gazed in a startled manner around the table. "I expect that it would only be fair," she finished with a dainty hand pressed to her remarkable bosom.
"Hmm," Drummond pondered. "What shall it be? Something intimate enough to cause you caution, I should think."
"Yes, of course," Gabriella replied gazing at each man in turn.
"Then let us retire to the gaming salon for cigars and perhaps a brandy to bolster our lady's courage," Harrison suggested.
"Yes," Drummond replied, watching Gabriella's eyes widen at the suggestion that she should join gentlemen in that most sacred ritual of port, cigars, and conversation after a meal. "I for one, enjoy saving my dessert for a much later hour," Drummond added to Gabriella's blush as they all rose.
Chapter Eight
A few moments later and only partially down the hallway in the presumed direction of the gaming salon, Gabriella found herself whisked into a narrow, darkened hallway. This one split off from the main corridor she, Drummond, and the others had been following.
"Drummond, what is it-?" she gasped in a near squeal. Finding her back pressed into the hallway wall by the hard, lean length of Drummond's tall frame blanketing hers. Her breasts were plumped into his rib cage and he cradled her hips warmly between his thighs as his hands closed hard around her waist on each side.
"Why is my passion pearl not affecting you, madame?" he asked with his warm lips hovering over her ear.
"How could you possibly tell?" she appealed in a whisper directed into his shoulder, he was so close.
"Your nipples are relaxed, madame, and this would not be the case if my pearl was placed properly."
"Gracious," she breathed, trying to call forth the proper amount of indignation, however, succeeding only halfheartedly with the whirl of sensations she was experiencing. Gabriella found her hands placed flat on the well-toned muscles of Drummond's chest with her long crimson nails sliding downward over the shape of his abundantly formed mounds of sinew. Not in a gesture of warding him off as one would hope that she would attempt to do . . . Oh but, he felt so wonderful.
"Do you scratch, madame?" Drummond asked warmly into her ear as his hands slid downward from her waist to clasp both sides of her bottom.
"Oh my . . . I, ah– do not know," she whispered with a sighing gasp.
Drummond chuckled, then his fingers spread wide clasping the cheeks of her flesh, until she could feel the long ridged outline of his manhood pressing into her lower-lowest belly.
"I believe that you do," Drummond purred with the tip of his hot tongue tracing her earlobe making her shiver more as she clutched his broad shoulders for balance. "Like a sensuous little kitten with her claws extended . . . shall I call you kitten, madame? My kitten?"
"Oh." Gabriella puffed a breath into Drummond's ear with her lips grazing the cool ice of his ruby stud, while he rocked her against him . . . breathlessly . . . indecently along the outline of his turgid sex. The length was breathtaking and the outline seduced her with a poignant urge to rub, or-or grind back!
"I believe that I have deduced your ploy, madame," Drummond announced as the warmth of his body, abruptly left hers. And as quick, Gabriella found herself bodily twirled around to face the wall with Drummond's hands clamped to the back of her waist. She fought the illusory need for balance with her hands pressed into the cream-colored wall.
"Drummond, what are you doing?" she whispered with a slight frantic hissing sound, wondering when they would be spied by a passing servant or the return of one of the Archangels to discover what had become of them. "Someone shall see us," she exclaimed on a final hopeless note in what she prayed was a voice tinted with outrage, but which sounded suspiciously husky to her ears.
"Hmm," Drummond ignored Gabriella's half-hearted protests as he bent his knee to the floor behind her flowing silk skirts. He kept her efforts to move away from him, firmly at bay with his hands now clasped to her enchanting rounded hips, stifling her movements and causing her splendid ripe ass to gyrate provocatively, directly in front of his nose. He thought for a moment about reprimanding her to cease her struggles, however, then decided to simply enjoy the feisty attempt. A maidenly bared bottom looked so much lovelier when it was squirming.
"Now we shall see if I am correct," Drummond muttered, and then in one fluid motion he whisked the back hem of Gabriella's skirts upward to her waist, while he held her still with his other hand. The result was as he suspected, an enticing view of very practical white linen under drawers and no less enticing for their puritanical qualities.
"Drummond!"
Drummond moved his hands quickly, catching Gabriella's squirming hips as he realized that this position was not advantageous to him and he glanced over his shoulder, spying the perfect remedy in a marble-topped corridor table on his left. Without further adieu, he had his feisty kitten planted firmly, bent face down over the end of the table's sturdiness. He intended to secure those drawers without delay! He noted judiciously that Gabriella was sputtering, incoherent worded phrases, and he could only assume that his feminine delectable was aghast as he bent to his task.
A moment later he had the sturdy white linen pulled to the back hollow of Gabriella's dainty knees. He could only believe that a woman's buttocks never looked quite so thrilling as when they were completely bared and squirming in this bent over position.
"Drummond, what are you doing?" Gabriella squealed in an outraged whisper.
"Anything that I wish," Drummond muttered, cupping one of Gabriella's cream-filled rump cheeks in his hand.
"Oh," she panted, wiggling up onto her toes to do what he could not imagine, nor truthfully care, while his gaze was riveted to the dark pink folds of her paganly exposed honey pot. A honey pot, he noted vicariously, that was creamy in welcoming dew, giving him physical evidence that the lady doth protest too much!
"Step out of the drawers," Drummond commanded as he slipped them down over Gabriella's small slippered feet, leaving only her sheer stockings, lavender garters, and his passion pearl, while Gabriella heaved above him in agitation.
He spoke in a commanding voice once again. "You are forbidden to wear any type of under garment that will hinder my pearl in the future, madame."
"Oh, you beast!" Gabriella sputtered.
That did it! Drummond unbent his knee to stand. He kept Gabriella pinned to the tabletop, by the length of his thigh and one of his hands, settled into the small of her back, while he lay his other palm in a stinging slap to her pearly white buttocks.
Slap!
"Ohhh," Gabriella squealed in surprise, then huffing, "beast," once again with less conviction.
Slap! Slap!
"Oww," she gasped as Drummond watched Gabriella's lush buttocks jiggle with a new pink tint, staining the tender curves from the punishment of his hand. He fondled the pink flesh with his fingers, then he lifted his hand intending to spank her again.
"Drummond, no!"
Slap! Slap! Drummond spanked both wiggling buttocks.
"Please!" she squealed.
Slap! Slap! Gabriella's luscious, squirming ass was beginning to turn red.
"No more!" Gabriella pleaded.
Drummond paused, rubbing his hand over Gabriella's wriggling lush ass cheeks, feeling the heat of her skin on his palm from where he had stung the opulent flesh. "Your cooperation, madame, or the punishment shall continue."
"How can you be so cruel?" she asked, yelping a moment later when he slapped her pillowed rump once more.
"Ohh, I will do anything-!" Gabriella cried.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
"Are you spanking her?" Extolled suddenly, an amazed masculine voice from down the hall behind them.
Drummond stalled in mid-slap and turned partially with a lazy drawl affecting his speech. "Wyndham." Drummond paused as Gabriella squealed, while trying to rise, which he stalled easily. "I am," he stated.
Wyndham wielded a slow calculating grin at him. "Touche, Drummond. You are a leader of our times. I shall leave you to, well-." Wyndham inclined his head slightly and retreated.
Drummond watched Wyndham disappear around the corner just as Gabriella sobbed beneath him. She truly was crying. Damnation, he had never intended to-.
"I w-will do a-anything you say . . . please, j-just release me!"
Grimly determined, Drummond lifted Gabriella, swinging her around to face him, countering his tender urges with command. "Now you have the proof of my determination, madame."
He had not intended it. It had been the furthest notion from his engaged thoughts, however, viewing Gabriella's lovely face, tear-stained with embarrassment and perhaps a hint of shame. He just-.
Gabriella could not think coherently, she was mortified, indignant, and more than cowed by Drummond's superior baring. All this despite the fact that her entire body tingled strangely and her woman's core was liquid. However, in the midst of these clamorous emotions, she abruptly found her lips smothered beneath Drummond's mouth.
Drummond was kissing her! So unexpected was this that Gabriella forgot to breathe for several long moments beneath the determined seduction of Drummond's warm virile lips. That was until she suddenly gasped for air and his male tongue swept inside her mouth. This was an entirely foreign endeavor to her that left her folded backward over his supporting arm as her hands made fists in his lapels. His tongue was firm and bold, lapping her lips, top and bottom, to return with a tease against the tip of her tongue, until she followed it into his gently sucking mouth. She nearly swooned then as he captured her tongue inside the heat of his inner mouth, and he began to suckle it back and forth. Just-just, like coupling!
Drummond tasted of fire and heady wicked things, and when he released her tongue, lifting his lips from hers, an actual whimper of loss cascaded out of her throat.
"I shall allow you ten minutes to repair yourself, madame, then I shall expect you in the gaming salon with your secret prepared."
Dazed, Gabriella could only mutter a half agreeable sighing sound.
"And, your lips, kitten, after I have kissed them, are ravishing," Drummond said, right before he released Gabriella and turned to stride away. He left conspicuously to allow Gabriella the time to collect herself and never would he admit the same need to collect himself . . . after that one devastating kiss from her lips.