Velvet by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

and he knew he couldn’t risk putting the animal off his stride by startling him. A hesitation would be enough to throw him off balance, and if his hooves so much as clipped the top of the wall at that height and terrifying speed, he would go down, hurling his rider to the ground like a cannonball from the breach of a gun.
    He closed his eyes involuntarily and when he opened them again the wall was almost upon him and it was too late to bring his own hunter to a halt even if he’d wanted to. The animal, like all horses, simply followed his leader in blind trust.
    For a dizzying moment they were in the air and then landed with a jolt on solid ground amid the apple trees of Farmer Gregson’s orchard.
    Gabrielle’s horse stood panting, reins hanging loose from his neck. On the ground beside him lay the still figure of his rider, her hat flung several feet from her body, her black habit spread over the damp, dark green grass beneath the trees.

3

    Nathaniel flung himself from his horse and ran to the inert figure.
    “Gabrielle! Dear God!” He dropped to his knees beside her, tearing at the snowy cravat to bare her throat, his fingers feeling for her pulse. It was strong but fast beneath his fingertip. He sighed with relief and then frowned. The black lashes formed half-moons on the pale skin, her lips were slightly parted, her chest rising and falling with each regular breath.
    Her pulse was far too vibrant for an unconscious person.
    “Gabrielle,” he said in a near whisper. “If this is a trick, so help me, I’ll make you sorrier than you’ve ever been in your life.”
    “Try it,” she said. Her eyelids swept up, revealing utterly mischievous charcoal eyes, and in the same moment she sat up. Her arms went around his neck before he realized what was happening, and he could smell her warm skin tinged with the freshness of the winter air. Her mouth found his and he could taste her sweetness as the pliant lips opened beneath his and her tongue ran lightly over his mouth. Her body was pressed to his,her gloved hands palming his scalp. He could feel her heart beating against his chest.
    And a wildness swept through him. His arms went around her, and his hands spread over her back, feeling her supple slenderness, the rippling play of her muscles as she obeyed the pressure and reached against him. For a minute their tongues fenced, half in play half in war, and then he moved his hands to grasp her head, holding it strongly as he drove deep within her mouth on a voyage of assertion that in some faint part of his brain seemed long overdue.
    Gabrielle had believed she could fake sufficient response to satisfy him. She had been prepared for revulsion and had trusted she would be able to control it sufficiently for her purposes. She had expected to take her pleasure in the satisfaction of fooling him, of achieving her goal.
    She had not been prepared for what was happening. She had not expected to find herself responding from some deep, passionate well within herself as the red mist of arousal engulfed her and she could smell him and feel him and taste him … and she wanted him. She wanted him as vitally as she had ever wanted Guillaume. She wanted him in the same way, wanton and unthinking, the visceral responses of her body overtaking, suppressing any possible restraints of the brain.
    It wasn’t supposed to happen. But it was happening. And Nathaniel Praed was matching her every step of the way. The knowledge was in her blood, transmitted from his skin to hers.
    And it was going to play merry hell with schemes of revenge.
    At long last his grip on her head slackened, his flat palm passed in a soft, caressing motion over her hair, and he raised his head. Her mouth felt bereft, and she knew her face was open and vulnerable, the truth ofher responses naked in her eyes, but she could no more dissemble than she could cut her own head off.
    Nathaniel’s expression was as bewildered and as open as her own, his eyes no longer