“Your hair is like silk.”
“Thank you.”
“Although it’s rather tangled, I regret to say.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Mine.”
He looked so contented that Livia felt as if her heart might burst with her own happiness.
Right, right, right.
At length she said: “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Is the bed noisy?”
“I wasn’t paying attention. Were you?”
“No,” she confessed.
He turned onto his side, facing her. “Let’s do it again. Only listen, won’t you?”
“I’ll try.”
They made love, more languorously this time, just as satisfyingly, and after, when they had reluctantly disengaged and lay on their sides again, relaxed, the sweat drying on their naked bodies, she looked at him and said:
“Well?”
“Sorry. You distract me.”
“Oh well.”
“Let’s just assume it’s the quietest bed in the world.”
“All right.”
There was a pause, easy and comfortable. Then:
“Gabriel.”
“Yes, Livia?”
“You have the nicest dimple in your chin.”
“Thank you. I’m glad it pleases you.”
“It does. Very much.”
“I’m glad,” he repeated drowsily, and in the very next moment he was fast asleep.
Chapter 14
Livia smiled, allowed her own eyelids to drift shut, but just as she was about to surrender herself to sleep as well, was brought sharply awake by a consciousness of what the morning would bring. Daylight. Servants. The need for discretion. A vision of herself and Gabriel, trying to explain to Grandmama his presence in his fiancée’s bedchamber, had no redeeming qualities to it whatsoever.
Also, suddenly, she was cold. They were both lying on top of the now-rumpled bedclothes, completely naked.
“Gabriel,” she said, then, still in a low voice but more forcefully: “Gabriel!”
He slept peacefully on.
Livia would have gladly sold her soul for the chance to cuddle up to him, wrap them in warm quilts, and spend the night this way, but practical considerations overrode her sybaritic self.
She pinched the skin of his upper arm, even as she admired the hard swell of muscle there. Goodness, but he was sinfully attractive.
Gabriel shifted his arm slightly but otherwise showed no signs of imminent consciousness.
As a last resort, Livia hitched herself on top of him.
This clever stratagem brought a prompt response from Gabriel, although it didn’t seem likely to induce a swift departure.
He opened his eyes, smiled, slid his arms around her; within a very short time he was hard, and an answering desire threatened her worthy resolve.
“Again?” he murmured. “This is a nice position, too. If you could just slide down a bit—”
“You need to go.”
At that, Gabriel stopped his horribly tempting effort to lure her into making love and glanced quickly toward the windows. “Good God, how long did I sleep?”
He looked so adorably startled that Livia couldn’t help herself. She kissed him. It was a nice position, with her breasts pressed against his chest, and how exciting to have him, well, pinioned beneath her—even though she knew at any moment he, with his vastly superior strength, could flip her onto her back. That was also a nice position . . .
But then she rolled off him and scrambled underneath the covers, pulling them primly up to her neck. “Not long. But you must go, you know.”
“You’re right, of course.” He sighed, then said soulfully: “‘Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.’”
“Yes, Romeo, because otherwise Granny will kill us.”
He laughed. “How right you are.”
Livia watched, drinking her fill of him, as he rose, dressed, then came to the bedside where she lay, snugly warm again, under the covers. He leaned down to kiss her lightly, and said:
“‘Parting is such—’”
“‘—sweet sorrow,’” she finished, twinkling up at him. “But we’ll see each other very soon, after all. Granny wants to leave by nine.”
He laughed again. “She says that, of course, but I strongly doubt we’ll depart before noon. Adieu, my sweet.”
With that, he went to blow out the last of the guttering candles on her dressing-table, and was gone, softly closing the door behind him.
Livia was so happy that sleep suddenly seemed unimaginable. She stretched luxuriously, listened for the rush of raindrops against the house, revisiting in her memory the events—the delights—of the evening. Joy, sweet joy sang within her. She felt with her hand for the spot where Gabriel had lain, but the warmth of his body was no longer there. She sighed, missing him already; then she curled onto her side and finally, finally, closed her eyes. Her last wisp of consciousness was a line from Hamlet.