Yours Until Dawn (14 page)

His nostrils flared as he reached for her. Although she could have easily eluded him, something in his face stopped her. He captured her shoulders and drew her toward him, his grip rough.

“You haven’t been entirely honest with me, have you, my dear Miss Wickersham?” Her heart nearly stopped before he continued. “You didn’t choose this vocation because of your overwhelming compassion for your fellow man. You lost someone in the war, didn’t you? Who was it? Your father? Your brother?” As he lowered his head, the scotch-flavored warmth of his breath fanned across her face, making her feel as drunk and reckless as him. “Your
lover
?” Coming from his beautifully sculpted lips, the word was both taunt and endearment.

“Let’s just say that you’re not the only one atoning for your sins.”

His laughter mocked them both. “What would a paragon of virtue such as yourself know of sin?”

“More than you realize,” she whispered, turning her face away.

His nose grazed the softness of her cheek, although she could not have said whether it was by accident or design. Without her spectacles to shield her, she felt painfully vulnerable.

“You seek to goad me into continuing to live, yet you don’t offer me a single reason why I should.” He gave her a shake, his grip as harsh as his voice. “Can you do that, Miss Wickersham? Can you give me a reason to live?”

Samantha didn’t know if she could or not. But when she turned her head to reply, their mouths collided. Then he was kissing her, slanting his mouth over hers, sweeping the honeyed heat of his tongue over her lips until they parted with a small broken sound that was half moan and half gasp. Only too eager to accept her surrender, he drew her hard against him, tasting of scotch and desire and danger.

Her eyes fluttered shut, putting them on equal footing. In the seductive embrace of the darkness, she had only his arms to hold her, only the heat of his mouth to warm her, only the hoarse music of his groan to make her senses dance. As his tongue roughly plundered the softness of her mouth, Samantha’s pulse raged in her ears, ticking off each beat of her heart, each moment, each regret. His arms slid from her shoulders to her back, drawing her against him until her breasts were crushed to the unyielding wall of his chest. She curled one arm around his neck, struggling to answer the desperate demand of his mouth on hers.

How could she save him when she couldn’t even save herself?

She could feel herself descending into the darkness with him, only too eager to surrender both her will and her soul. He might claim to court death, but it was life surging between them. Life in the ancient mating dance of their tongues. Life in the irresistible tug of her womb and the delicious ache between her thighs. Life pulsing against the softness of her belly through the worn cotton of her nightdress.

“Sweet Christ!” he swore, tearing himself from her arms.

Deprived of his support, Samantha had to brace her hands against the desk behind her to keep from falling. As her eyes drifted open, she fought the urge to shield them with her hand. After being lost in the delicious shadows of Gabriel’s kiss, even the waning firelight suddenly seemed too harsh.

Struggling to catch her breath, she turned to watch Gabriel grope his way around the desk. His hands were no longer steady. They knocked over an ink bottle and sent a brass-handled letter opener skittering into the floor before finally closing over the pistol. As he swept up the weapon, his expression as resolute as she had ever seen it, a strangled cry caught in the back of Samantha’s throat.

But he simply reached across the desk toward her. Fumbling for her hand, he pressed the pistol into it. “Go,” he commanded through gritted teeth, folding her fingers tight around the weapon. When she hesitated, he gave her a shove toward the door, his voice rising to a shout. “Go now! Leave me!”

Casting one last stricken glance over her shoulder, Samantha tucked the pistol in the skirt of her nightdress and fled.

My darling Cecily,

Have you decided yet which of my virtues intrigues you the most—my bashfulness or my humility…

W
hen Samantha heard a muffled bang, she sat straight up in her bed, terrified it was the distant report of a pistol.

“Miss Wickersham? Are you awake?”

As Beckwith resumed his knocking, she clapped a hand to her chest, seeking to steady her pounding heart. Glancing at the trunk in the corner, she remembered that Gabriel’s pistol was now buried deep inside of it, next to his bundle of letters.

She tossed back the blankets and climbed out of the bed, sliding her spectacles over her bleary eyes. After Gabriel had sent her away, she had spent the rest of the night huddled in a miserable knot, convinced she had been a fool to leave him in that state. She had finally drifted into a dreamless sleep near dawn, the victim of sheer exhaustion.

Slipping into her dressing gown, she opened the door a crack.

Although Beckwith looked as if he, too, had spent a restless night, his bloodshot eyes were twinkling with good humor. “Forgive me for disturbing you, miss, but the master wishes to see you in the library. At your convenience, of course.”

Samantha arched a skeptical eyebrow. Her convenience certainly wasn’t something Gabriel had ever troubled himself about before. “Very well, Beckwith. Tell him I’ll be down shortly.”

She washed and dressed with more care than usual, pawing through her limited wardrobe for something that wasn’t gray, black, or brown. She was finally forced to settle for a high-waisted morning gown cut from somber blue velvet. She painstakingly wove a matching ribbon through the tight coil of her chignon. It wasn’t until she caught herself leaning over to peer into the dressing table mirror so she could spit-curl a loose tendril of hair around her finger that she realized how ridiculous she was being. After all, it wasn’t as if Gabriel could appreciate her efforts.

Shaking her head at her reflection, she hurried to the door. Only to rush back to the dressing table five seconds later to dab some lemon verbena behind each ear and in the hollow of her throat.

Samantha hesitated outside the library door, her stomach beset by a most curious fluttering. It took her a minute to identify the foreign emotion as shyness. She was being ridiculous, she told herself. She and Gabriel had shared a drunken kiss, nothing more. It wasn’t as if every time she looked at his mouth, she would be remembering the way it had felt on hers—the commanding way his lips had molded hers beneath them, the smoky heat of his tongue plundering…

The clock on the landing began to chime ten o’clock, jerking her out of her reverie. Smoothing her skirt, Samantha gave the door a forceful knock.

“Enter.”

Obeying the curt command, she opened the door to find Gabriel sitting behind the desk, just as he had been the night before. But this time, there was no empty glass, no bottle of scotch, and mercifully, no weapon more lethal than a letter opener.

“Good morning, my lord,” she said, slipping into the room. “I’m gratified to see that you’re still among the living.”

Gabriel rubbed his brow with the heel of his hand. “I wish to God that I wasn’t. Then at least this infernal pounding in my head would cease.”

Closer inspection revealed that he hadn’t escaped the events of the night unscathed. Although he’d changed into fresh garments, dark gold stubble shaded his jaw. The skin around his scar looked pinched and white and the shadows beneath his eyes deeper than usual.

His laconic grace of last night had vanished, leaving in its place a rigid posture, which seemed to owe less to formality than to the obvious discomfort he was suffering every time he moved his head.

“Please sit.” As she seated herself, he said, “I’m sorry to have summoned you so abruptly. I realize I must have interrupted your packing.”

Puzzled, she opened her mouth, but before she could get anything out, he continued, his long fingers toying with the brass handle of the letter opener. “I can’t blame you for leaving, of course. My behavior last night was reprehensible. I’d like to blame it on the liquor, but I’m afraid my ill temper and bad judgement must bear equal responsibility. However it might have appeared, I can assure you that I’m not in the habit of forcing my attentions on the female servants of my household.”

Samantha felt a curious pang in the vicinity of her heart. She had almost allowed herself to forget that was all she was to him—a servant. “Are you entirely certain about that, my lord? I do believe I’ve heard Mrs. Philpot mention an incident with a certain young chambermaid on the back stairs…”

Gabriel whipped his head toward her, wincing as he did so. “I was barely fourteen when that happened! And as I recall, Musette was the one who cornered me…” He trailed off, his eyes narrowing as he realized she had deliberately provoked him.

“You can put your conscience at ease, my lord,” she assured him, adjusting her spectacles. “I’m not some love-starved spinster who believes every man she meets is out to ravish her. Nor am I some moonstruck debutante swooning over a stolen kiss.”

Although Gabriel’s expression sharpened, he held his tongue.

“As far as I’m concerned,” she said with an airiness she was far from feeling, “we can both pretend your little indiscretion never happened. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, rising from the chair. “Unless you’ve found some other reason to send me packing, I have several—”

“I want you to stay,” he blurted out.

“Pardon me?”

“I want you to stay,” he repeated. “You claim you used to be a governess. Well, I want you to teach me.”

“Teach you what, my lord? Although your manners might lack a certain polish, as far as I can tell, you’re quite proficient in your letters and your numbers.”

“I want you to teach me how to go on living like this.” He lifted both hands, palms upward, revealing their faint tremble. “I want you to teach me how to be blind.”

Samantha sank back down in the chair. Gabriel Fairchild was not a man to beg. Yet he’d just bared both his pride and his soul to her. For a long moment, she couldn’t speak at all.

Mistaking her hesitation for skepticism, he said, “I can’t promise to be the most agreeable of students, but I’ll strive to be the most able.” His hands curled into fists. “Given my recent conduct, I realize I have no right to ask this of you, but—”

“I’ll do it,” she said softly.

“You will?”

“I will. But I should warn you that I can be a very stern taskmaster. If you don’t cooperate, you can expect a sound scolding.”

A ghost of a smile skirted his lips. “What, no caning?”

“Only if you’re impertinent.” She rose again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some lessons to plan.”

She was almost to the door when Gabriel spoke again, his voice gruff. “About last night?”

She turned, almost grateful that he couldn’t see the spark of hope in her eyes. “Yes?”

His ravaged countenance was as devoid of mockery as she had ever seen it. “I promise you such a regrettable lapse in judgment will never happen again.”

Although Samantha felt her treacherous stomach dive toward her shoes, she struggled to inject a lighthearted smile into her voice. “Very good, my lord. I’m sure Mrs. Philpot and all of the maids will sleep more soundly in their beds tonight.”

That afternoon it was Samantha’s turn to summon Gabriel. She deliberately chose the sunny drawing room for their first lesson, believing its spacious open areas would best suit her plans. A beaming Beckwith ushered Gabriel into the room, then backed toward the door, bowing all the way. As he drew the doors closed, Samantha would have almost sworn the butler winked at her, although she knew that if pressed, he would swear he simply had a speck of soot in his eye.

“Good afternoon, my lord. I thought we’d begin our lessons with this.” Stepping forward, Samantha pressed the object she was holding into Gabriel’s hand.

“What is it?” He held the object gingerly between two fingers, as if she just might be inclined to hand him a garden snake.

“It’s one of your old walking sticks. And a very elegant one, I should say.”

As Gabriel’s graceful fingers explored the handsome lion’s head carved into the cane’s ivory handle, his suspicious scowl deepened. “What good is a walking stick when I can’t see where I’m walking?”

“That’s precisely my point. It has occurred to me that if you ever hope to stop blundering about the house like a waltzing bear, you need to know what’s infront of you
before
you crash into it.”

His expression growing more thoughtful, Gabriel lifted the cane and swept it in a wide arc. Samantha ducked as it whistled past her ear. “Not like that! This isn’t a sword fight!”

“If it was, I might stand a sporting chance.”

“Only if your opponent was also blind.” Sighing with exasperation, Samantha moved behind him. Reaching around, she closed her fingers over his until they were both firmly gripping the cane’s carved head. She lowered its tip to floor level, then began to guide his arm into a gentle arc. “That’s it. Just swing it slowly. Back and forth. To and fro.”

Lulled by her hypnotic, singsong tone, their bodies swayed in time as if to the rhythm of some primitive dance. Samantha was seized by an absurd notion to press her cheek to the back of his shirt. He smelled so warm and deliciously male, like a glade of sun-warmed pines on a lazy summer afternoon.