He split the fruit of her sex, delving into her warm, welcoming depths, and she cried out, already close, it seemed. Within a minute, she was coming apart in his arms, her climax noisy and passionate. Her eagerness spurred him on, and he was close behind her, surprising himself with the speed and force of his second orgasm.
Afterwards, he drew her into his arms and fell asleep again, happier than he could remember feeling for a long, long time.
When he awoke, he was alone.
He sat up, puzzled and bereft. It took him a moment to work out why.
Eve.
He rang for Crawford and pulled on a robe. By the time his valet appeared, he’d searched his bedchamber and sitting room and realised she wasn’t there. Everything was gone except the feathered mask which had become wedged between the back of the sofa and the sofa cushions.
“My lord?”
“The woman who was here, where is she?”
Crawford blushed. He was a dreadful prude. “She left, my lord. Half an hour ago, at least.”
“On foot?”
“I believe Mr. Timms arranged a hack for the lady.”
“Why the devil didn’t you wake me?” Gil shouted, his voice hoarse with disbelief.
Crawford quivered with indignation. “My lord, I did not realise you would wish to be woken. The lady assured us most firmly that you should be left to sleep.”
“Did she leave a message? A note?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“God damn it all!” Gil hissed. “Call for my carriage and get me some clothes.”
While Crawford scurried away to do his bidding, Gil turned her mask over between her hands and considered what to do. He would visit Sir Neville Grayson first. She had been Grayson’s guest last night—he would surely know where Gil could find her.
Sir Neville Grayson was a tall, silver-haired man of around fifty. Despite the rumours of his endless dissipation, he showed no signs of overindulgence. His tall frame was lean and athletic, and his sharp blue gaze was shrewd. He leaned back in his chair and considered Gil, a faint smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t recognise the name,” he said. “She must have accompanied another of my guests. I am no stickler, Stanhope. If someone I have invited to one of my entertainments brings a friend, they will be given entrance.” He smiled. “Especially if the friend is a lovely woman. I assume Mrs. Adams was lovely?”
“Very,” Gil said tautly. He found Grayson’s sly humour irritating. He’d never much liked Grayson, who had been a friend of Miles Davenport’s before Davenport had gone off on his travels.
“So you took this dove to your bed, and when you woke up in the morning, your bird had flown?”
Grayson’s eyes sparkled with mischief. Gil felt like punching him. Instead, he feigned amusement at the jibe.
“Do you think you could find out who she is? If you ask around your friends?”
Grayson laughed. “Did you see how many people were here last night, Stanhope? That’s a lot of people to ask. Some of them I mightn’t see for months.”
Gil felt himself colour. “Nevertheless, if you’d keep an eye and ear out, I’d be grateful,” he said, rising from his chair, leaving the glass of Madeira he’d accepted untouched.
“Of course,” Grayson said smoothly but his eyes sparkled with wicked amusement, and Gil had no doubt the gossip would be doing the rounds by this evening. Lord Lovehope, as one scandal sheet had dubbed him, had met a woman who wanted nothing to do with him. How very amusing.
He took his leave of Grayson and walked out into a day that was warm and golden. A perfect summer’s day.
But it didn’t feel like summer anymore to Gil.
Part Three
Autumn
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase…
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 97
Chapter Eleven
September 1814
Gil stared out of his bedchamber window. It had been raining all week, and those murky, swollen clouds suggested there was more to come.
“Bloody weather,” he complained softly.
“Indeed, my lord.” Crawford put the finishing touches to his master’s neckcloth as he spoke. “It has been most vexing. Keeping your lordship’s boots clean is quite impossible. The mud seems to get on everything. As for your lordship’s new green coat—”
Gil turned away from the window with a sigh. “Do be quiet, Crawford. My head hurts like the very devil.”
Ordinarily, Gil was tolerant of Crawford's verbosity. The old fellow had spent his life in Gil’s household, having been his father’s valet for almost thirty years—service that long earned one a few privileges. But right now, Gil felt as though he’d been hit over the head with an anvil, and his patience was all worn away.