Her Secret Lover (Aphrodite's Club 2)

Coombe was standing very still, staring at the saddle in his hands; he seemed to be in a dream. Quietly she took a step closer, ignoring the pungent smell of his body.

“If you take me to London, Coombe, I will help you to get your own stable and your own horses. You see, I need to get back to London urgently. Will you help me?”

He heaved a deep sigh, then spat on the straw, causing her to leap back out of the way. “I’m only the groom,” he growled. “An’ I have my work to do, miss.”

It was a dismissal, and yet she lingered, not wanting to give up.

“Coombe…?”

“I’ll think on what you’ve said,” he said, and slouched away.

Antoinette watched him go, not entirely discouraged. Coombe had shown a definite interest in what she was offering. She would speak to him again when he’d had time to mull it over, and next time he might be more willing to listen.

Gabriel waited until her steps began to fade away before he glanced up to watch her retreat and admire her figure. To prevent her from recognizing him he’d kept his face hidden and his shoulders hunched, but he needn’t have worried. She didn’t have a clue. He was a groom, and that was exactly what she saw when she looked at him.

Just as well.

He knew what she was up to, the manipulative little minx. She intended to turn the highwayman over to Sir James Trevalen and see him hanged. And if that didn’t work, she was hoping to bribe Coombe into taking her back to London, where she could prevail upon Lord Appleby to deal with him.

Ga

briel wasn’t about to let that happen.

So what next?

If he was a sensible man he’d make a run for it, sail over to France, and go into hiding, forget all about saving his home and revenging himself on Appleby. Well, he mustn’t be a sensible man then, Gabriel told himself, because he wasn’t going anywhere. Antoinette Dupre might well be a ruthless, greedy woman but…no, there was something wrong with that picture. He realized it was the way she had ridden off to see Sir James this morning, as if the devil himself were in pursuit of her. Almost as if she was afraid.

Of him and his pursuit of the letter? Or was it the way he’d made her body sing when he’d held her and touched her last night? The way she’d bolted this morning showed a fear of her own reactions rather than his.

Antoinette was running from herself.

He smiled. This was a promising start. He remembered the advice Aphrodite had given him on the night he’d fled from London. “Seduce her,” she’d commanded in her soft French accent. “Make the woman yours. Make her so hungry for you that her senses overrule her mind, and soon you will discover all she knows. I promise you she will tell you willingly.”

He hadn’t believed her. He was beginning to now.

Gabriel was looking forward to making Antoinette Dupre hungry for him…as hungry as he was for her.

Chapter 9

Antoinette woke to the touch of a man’s hand in a place it oughtn’t to be. Her eyes sprang open in the darkness, and she stared frantically about her, seeing only shadows. Shadows that breathed. And the hand was definitely there, warm and calloused, stroking her face.

With a gasp she jumped away.

“Now, now, my little brown sparrow, not so fast.”

“You!” Her heart threatened to break free of her ribs.

He chuckled breathily. “Why are you surprised? I told you I’d be back.”

Antoinette tried to find her wits. He was acting as if she should be pleased to see him, as if it was perfectly all right for a stranger to turn up in her bedchamber in the middle of the night.

“Get out!” she hissed.

“I don’t think I will,” he murmured. His hand brushed her cheek, his fingers sliding down to brush the soft, full shape of her lips. “We have so much to discuss, you and I…”

She made to jump up, but he caught her, easily subduing her. When she caught her breath again he was lying very close, the heat of his body like a banked fire, his hand back over her mouth.

“I hear you went to see Sir James Trevalen today. Did you mean to give me up?” He shifted closer still, and she was aware of the masculine, spicy scent of him. “Do you really think he can catch me? I am like smoke; I will slip through his fingers and vanish.”