Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel (23 page)

“All right, Pen, I will agree on one condition.”

She tilted her head, her eyes still unfocused a bit from the passion of their kiss.

“If we are successful and I am found competent, you will marry me
that day
. Your reputation would be blemished but not blackened. We both know all manners of sins are forgiven by society as long as there is a wedding in the end.”

She blinked several times, rapid flutters of her eyelids, then simply stared at him without speaking.

Gabriel held his breath. Without his lungs moving, there was nothing to distract him from the hard pounding of his heart in his chest. She might be willing to put her reputation at stake for him, but her entire future? Tie herself to a man who at the very least would suffer from battle fatigue his whole life through, but who might also go mad if they were wrong about that?

“Is—” Her tongue came out to wet her lip, and then she swallowed and tried again. “Is my reputation the only reason you want to marry me?”

“
Christ
,
Pen,” he muttered, and dragged her face back to his. He poured everything he felt for her into the strokes of his tongue, into the movement of his lips on hers, into the way he caressed her face as he kissed her. She was so many things to him—the woman he’d loved from afar for so long, his savior from the darkness, his angel of mercy, his sunlight, his very soul.

Just when they were at risk of tearing at each other’s clothes and making love in the middle of the main parlor—damn the servants, damn her cousin, damn them all—she pulled back from the kiss and tucked her face into the crook of his neck.

“All right, Gabriel,” she said against his neck, her voice breathy and aroused. “If we win, I will marry you that day.”

Elation sang in his veins as he squeezed her closer to him, dropping kisses along the top of her head.

“But what happens if we lose?” she asked quietly.

The euphoria from her agreement to marry him didn’t precisely die, but it did take on a sickening pallor. Not succeeding was unthinkable. He would be branded a lunatic, she a whore, and he wouldn’t be able to marry her anyway, were he found unable to govern his own affairs. It wouldn’t be legal.

He dropped another kiss on the top of her head and struggled with what to say. There was no acceptable answer. There never would be.

T
he next several days were spent in intense preparation. Penelope had her records sent up and spent several hours poring through them, pulling copious notes from her most successful cases. She wrote letters to several of the men she’d worked with as well and was thrilled when three of them replied that they were willing and would be available to speak at Gabriel’s hearing.

She also interviewed Gabriel extensively again. She already knew most of what he told her, but she wanted to get it fresh in her mind. Then she, Gabriel, Liliana and Geoffrey sat down with everything she’d compiled and laid out their defense.

Penelope had never been so grateful for her cousins as she was now. Logic had never been her strong suit, and that was before her emotions were all tied up in knots over this. But logic was practically Liliana’s middle name, and Geoffrey was a gifted strategist. All Penelope had to do was write down their points and put her evidence in order—which she did twenty times if she did it once, hoping that if she did it enough, it would be automatic to her when she was in front of the commission. Otherwise, she feared she’d lose her place and not only make a fool of herself, but harm Gabriel.

She tried not to think of what it would be like when Mr. Allen made his accusations about her. She prayed it would not turn into a horrid ordeal, but consoled herself with the knowledge that even if it did, in a few days’ time she would be Gabriel’s wife and it would all be worth it.

Then she would get back to work to ensure that that’s what happened.

Where the days were focused on readiness, the nights were spent on passion. In the weeks since she’d taken Gabriel into her bed, he’d striven to drive her slowly, madly insane with need. He’d drawn out her pleasure past the point of bearing and then pushed her even further before letting her find release. He delighted in showing her places on her body she’d never have thought to put tongue, hand or sex to, much less imagined finding bliss there.

But as she closed the bedchamber door the night before they were to depart for London, she sensed tonight would be different. She could taste the tension in the air, like metallic honey on her tongue—sweet and heady but with a sharpness that raised the tiny hairs on her arms.

As the door clicked shut, Gabriel whirled on her so quickly she actually yelped. He swept her into his arms in one fluid motion that carried them both to the bed and dropped her in the middle of it even as he climbed up with her.

“Pen,” he said hoarsely, tearing at the buttons of his trousers. “I need you now. Can you forgive me?” he asked as he pulled her dress up past her waist and kneed her legs apart.

She understood his violent need to be inside her. She felt it, too, as if despite all that they’d done to prepare for what was to come, they both knew they might fail. They each feared this would be the last time they would lie together.

“Come to me,” she urged him.

He pushed into her, his shaft hard, hot steel. She moaned, the friction a raw pain/pleasure, as she wasn’t as wet as she normally was by the time they reached this particular intimacy. When he was lodged deep, Gabriel hung over her, his arms braced on either side of her shoulders, taking in great gulps of air.

She felt herself softening around him, adjusting to his invasion in small, pleasurable degrees.

Gabriel’s muscles strained with the effort not to plunge into her. Instead, he dropped to one elbow and took her mouth with his, sending his other hand between them to find the bud of her center. He stroked her in little circles that sent pleasure rushing through her like a drug. Circles he mimicked with his tongue in her mouth. His ministrations combined with the pulsing flesh that invaded her soon had her flooding with sweet moisture.

The very second he felt her wetness surround him, Gabriel rose back up and took her in unrelenting thrusts that rocked the bed with their ferocity.

Penelope simply held on, taking, wanting,
needing
everything he had to give her. Neither of them could last long at this pace, nor did they, exploding into a maelstrom of sensation that wrung hoarse cries from their throats.

After, Gabriel stripped them both and cleansed them with warm water that had been left in the ewer. As she floated in sleepy exhaustion, from not only the intensity of their lovemaking but from the days of frantic work, he curled his body around hers and they both succumbed to sleep.

It was only at her very last moment of consciousness that she realized he hadn’t pulled out before spilling his seed. She fell asleep with a smile on her face, dreaming of golden-eyed, brown-haired babies.

*   *   *

A crash of lightning awoke Penelope just after dawn. Well, what should have been dawn, as any sun that was meant to greet the earth in morning’s glory was buried behind angry clouds. She watched out of the bedroom window as they rolled through the sky in a unbreaking wall of gray, casting a pall over everything below.

Gabriel eased up behind her, wrapping his naked body around hers, and settled his chin upon her shoulder as he, too, scanned the sky.

“Are you still going to try to ride in this?” she asked anxiously, staring outside with dismay.

It had been decided that they would all go to Town together. Geoffrey had tried to convince Liliana to stay in Shropshire, as their baby was expected in a matter of weeks now, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Penelope knew that Liliana worried that the hearing would not go well and refused for Penelope to be all alone in her grief if that happened, as she’d been when Michael had died. But Penelope knew nothing and no one would be able to console her if she lost Gabriel. Not ever.

They planned four days for the travel to London, allowing that Liliana would not be able to push as quickly as they might without her. The intention was for the women to share a carriage while Gabriel and Geoffrey rode alongside, Geoffrey because he didn’t relish being cooped up for four days with two worried women, and Gabriel because he didn’t relish being cooped up at all.

But he wouldn’t be able to ride outside in a cold rain.

She turned in his arms just enough to see his face, which had gone dark as the storm clouds outside.

“That is my intention, yes,” he said. “If the rain holds off.”

The skies opened up before they’d even broken their fast. They waited a few hours longer than they should have, to see if it would let up, but it did not. Knowing they already risked slower travel times due to mud or potential flooding, Gabriel finally ordered Penelope’s carriage to be brought around. He said it was so that Liliana would not be overly cramped and uncomfortable with four in a carriage, but Penelope understood that he neither wished her cousins to know of his weakness, nor for them to be subjected to the surliness the trip was bound to bring out in him.

As Penelope settled herself against the plush green velvet squab, Gabriel pulled himself into the carriage behind her. Unlike the cramped conveyance that had spirited them to Somerton Park, Penelope’s carriage was a traveling coach with wide seats made for four and multiple carriage lamps that lit up the interior almost as well as a room. It also boasted large windows. She’d pulled back the shades in order to give Gabriel as much sense that he was not trapped in the dark as she could.

Still, she could see that tension gripped him. He settled across from her with a stiffness unlike him, and she noted his chest fell very shallowly. As the coach swayed into motion, she said gently, “Remember, Gabriel. All that you are feeling is
not
real. It is simply your body reacting to an association we’ve yet to discover.”

He nodded tightly and closed his eyes, but she could see that he suffered.

For the next half hour, she kept up murmured conversation in an effort to calm and soothe him. The cursed weather did nothing to help her cause, thunder rumbling in booms and lightning flashing with cracks that startled even her.

After a particularly harsh streak, a small groan reached her ears. Gabriel’s knuckles were white where they gripped his knees. Penelope bit her lip with despair. Nothing she was doing was helping him.

Then she stripped off her gloves and slipped out of her heavy cloak. She spread it on the floor of the carriage before slipping to her knees in front of him.

Her hands slid over his and his eyes flew open. “Shhh,” she said at the question in his golden brown depths. His gaze was fixed on hers with a mixture of desperation and blossoming awareness. “That’s right,” she said, running her hands over his thighs, letting her thumbs drag along the sensitive inner parts before stopping just shy of his manhood. “Keep watching me,” she purred. “Keep all of your attention focused on what I’m doing.”

Without breaking eye contact, she slipped her hands into the fall of his trousers, loosening buttons until the flap parted. His flesh had yet to harden, probably because so much of his energy was occupied just holding himself together. But she didn’t mind.

She took him into her hand, stroking gently, then harder. Squeezing on a stroke, then running her fingers lightly to the tip and circling it with the pad of her thumb.

Soon Gabriel was stiff and groaning for an entirely different reason.

By the time she took him into her mouth, she knew he was thinking of nothing but the hot flick of her tongue and the suction of her cheeks as she pleasured him. His hand fisted and relaxed in her hair, again and again until finally, he spilled himself with a hoarse shout.

He returned the favor, of course, with an intensity that left the inner carriage walls ringing with throaty cries of her own, and afterward, they dozed in each other’s arms. He was at peace for a time, but it wasn’t long after they woke that the tension gripped him again. All Penelope could do was hold him and whisper that all would be well.

They met Liliana and Geoffrey for dinner at a coaching inn that night. The rain had not let up enough for Gabriel to ride outside even for a short period. He asked Penelope if she would mind forgoing stops and pushing through to London—the idea of having freedom from the carriage for a few hours’ respite only to face the prospect of having to get back in was too much for him to bear. She agreed, of course, and they made plans to rendezvous with her cousins after the latter reached Town a couple of days behind them.

They rode at a relentless pace, stopping only to change teams every three hours or so. And each mile they traveled, Gabriel’s hold over himself seemed to fray. Penelope bit her lip as she watched him, sweat beading on his forehead. She hated seeing him suffer so, but a part of her also wondered if this forced confinement could actually be a good thing.

She reasoned that this was the longest time he’d ever allowed himself to suffer thus. Were it not storming, he’d be out of the carriage in a shot. But what if the prolonged time he had to remain here was, in effect, pushing his deeply buried memory to the surface like a sunken splinter? If she could just see the end of it, perhaps she could help him pull it out.

So when he cried out a few hours later, waking himself from a fitful sleep, she placed her mouth next to his ear.

“Tell me what you dreamt of,” she coaxed, her voice as low and hypnotic as she could pitch it. “Don’t let it fade away, Gabriel. Tell me what you see.”

He moaned, his head turning away from her. “Where are you?” she pressed. “What can you smell? What do you hear?”

“Blood,” he rasped. “Death. Cloyingly sweet. Rotten.”

Her heart squeezed in her chest, then accelerated to a rapid beat. What on earth? “Do you hear anything?”

He shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut. “No, it’s quiet. Too quiet. Still and . . . and dark. So much pressure, pinning me down. I can’t breathe,” he cried. “I can’t breathe!”

His chest was rocketing beneath her hand. He
was
breathing, but too fast. Too hard. She knew panic was setting in. Everything in her told her she must keep pushing. If she didn’t get this out of him now, he might never be free of it.

But what if you push him too hard, like you did Michael?

A cold fear shivered through her. No, she’d only been trying to help Michael.

You’re only trying to help Gabriel, too.

For the briefest of moments, doubt crippled her. So much that she trembled with it. But then she shoved it away. She’d learned much and she’d helped many since Michael had died. Gabriel insisted he trusted her instincts. She would have to, too. Because he needed her to.

“Where are you, Gabriel? Answer me,” she commanded harshly.

“Buried,” he groaned. “Buried alive.”

What?
Penelope’s breath caught in her chest. Surely he couldn’t be—

“Buried,” he said again. “Under my dead horse. Under the bodies of my men. Help me!”

His eyes flew open, rolling wildly around the carriage as he tried to place himself. His breathing had sped up to a dangerous level, and his hands shook like an apoplectic. He banged his fist against the wall frantically, signaling for the driver to stop. A relentless, unceasing banging that she knew would leave his hand bruised.

Her heart beat desperately in her chest as she watched helplessly. Had she pushed him too far? “I’m here, Gabriel,” she said, trying to reach him, but the moment the carriage rolled to a stop, he flung open the door and leapt out into the rain.

She followed, pelting cold drops smacking her face as she hopped down into the mud. She searched for his figure through the driving rain. In a flash of lightning, she spotted his silhouette several yards ahead. He was bent over with his head near his knees. She rushed to him, heedless of the sucking mud that ruined her boots and threatened to send her sliding to her bottom beside the road.

“Gabriel?” she called out as she drew near.

He looked over at her. She could tell that much in the darkness, but unless another flash of lightning hit, she would not be able to see his features. Was he all right?

When she reached him, she bent at the same angle as he, trying to get close enough to read his face. Rain drenched them both, though truthfully, she didn’t notice her own shiver until she registered his.