The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (Lords of Disgrace 4)

There was silence and she was content to lie there against his warmth, feeling his heart beating close to hers, his breath stirring her hair.

‘I have no idea how to be a father,’ Gabriel said abruptly.

‘And I have no idea how to be a mother, so we will just have to work it out as we go along. You know what makes a bad father.’

‘That’s true.’ By some miracle he sounded amused. ‘And you already know how to be a wife.’

‘I do? I suspect I am rather a disobedient one.’

‘Dreadfully so,’ he agreed. Caroline felt him take a deep breath and the long body cradling hers became tense. ‘Not letting yourself feel emotion is like taking laudanum when you’ve got a broken leg. You know there is a vast amount of pain out there somewhere, but it is behind shutters, quite safe unless you are foolish enough to let it out by stopping the dose. But you have to stop the dose because otherwise you become addicted to the medicine.’

‘You have to want to stop,’ Caroline suggested.

‘Yes. You caught me at just the right moment.’

‘I caught you? That makes me sound like a designing hussy.’

‘You are a hussy.’ She could hear the laughter in his voice. ‘You proposition notorious rakes, you drug unwanted suitors, you hide up chimneys, you order marquesses about and invade the homes of respectable magistrates. No wonder I love you. Such a rakehell as I am needs a wicked wife to love.’

‘You...’ Her heart seemed to have stilled to a slow, almost painful, thud. ‘Gabriel, I know you desire me—’ Just at the moment there was absolutely no ignoring the physical evidence of that.

‘Have you such little faith in my promises?’ Gabriel rolled over on to his back as though to stop himself clouding her thoughts with his touch. ‘I had no idea that was what I was feeling and I didn’t want to dig and find out, coward that I am. I have always controlled risk. People think gamblers are reckless, but successful ones are the exact opposite. We calculate risk, we know just what we can afford to lose. Loving gives a hostage to fortune, doesn’t it? I did not dare to hazard my heart on you. How have you so much more

courage than I do?’

Caroline turned to rest on her elbow and smiled at him. ‘I have been practising loving all my life. My mother, my brothers. I even worked hard at loving my father. And I suspect women find it natural to take the risk, because if we have children then every moment we could be in fear for them and if we couldn’t face that, then the human race would die out.’

She loved Gabriel’s face when he was thinking hard. Every ounce of intelligence, every scrap of ferocious concentration showed in those dark eyes, in the set of the sensual lips, in the line that formed between his brows. He was so good at putting on the mask that hid his feelings that she knew it was only absolute trust that let him relax so in front of her.

‘I can’t promise I’ll always get it right.’

‘Nor me. How dull if we did,’ Caroline teased. ‘No arguments, no drama, no lovely making it up afterwards.’

‘Hmm.’ Gabriel’s eyes had lost their brooding intensity. ‘Are you tired still?

‘No,’ Caroline said demurely. ‘I am wide awake. Oh!’

Gabriel tossed back the covers and began to smooth his hands down over her body. ‘Nothing shows yet.’ He sounded ridiculously disappointed.

‘Of course not! It will soon enough and then I’ll be lumbering about like a whale.’

‘More lovely curves.’ Gabriel’s tongue drew a lingering trail of liquid fire down over the swell of one breast, into the valley between them and up over the other. He explored her body as though it were new to him, murmuring with appreciation over the curve of her hip, the dimple beside her knee, the elegance of the curl of her ear until he almost had her believing herself that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Perhaps I am to him, Caroline thought in wonder. I think he is the most handsome man. And the kindest and the...

‘Wickedest!’ she gasped as Gabriel slid down the bed and began to do outrageous things with his tongue.

‘You called?’ He lifted his head and looked at her with such an innocent expression that she laughed and was still laughing, joyously, as he came up the bed and abandoned gentle teasing for a passionate possession that sent her spinning from laughter into blind ecstasy in moments.

* * *

‘You are thinking,’ Caroline said much later, as she lay with Gabriel watching the light fade out of the sky. ‘I can hear the wheels turning.’

‘So are you. A guinea for them?’

‘You may have them for free. I was wondering what you wanted to do with Edenvale.’

‘Turn it into a home,’ Gabriel said without hesitation. ‘I won’t let my life be ruled by memories and secrets any more and I certainly won’t allow my father’s ghost to drive me out of what should be our family home. And we’ll have my brothers and yours to stay, often, and Alex, Cris and Grant and their children and make so much noise that not a single spectre dare linger.’

‘I do like the idea of ghosts and ghouls fleeing gibbering in the face of a house full of happiness. And what was on your mind?’