Somehow it felt entirely different when strong male hands stroked soap over her leg.

And Gabriel’s interpretation of leg was not exactly in line with her own. Kate was no sooner lying back in the bath, enjoying the tingling sensation of his strong fingers stroking her thigh, than they crept higher . . . and then higher still.

She sat up. “Gabriel!”

“Hush, darling,” he said. And with that, his fingers slipped into a caress. This was no kiss  . . . She should stop him.

Instead her legs fell farther apart in a silent plea that he continue. Whatever he was doing was fatal to her self-control. Kate’s common sense, her willpower, all the parts that made her fierce and strong, deserted her. All that was left was a body that rejoiced in his touch, arched toward him.

His other hand wandered to her breast and she actually threw her head back and cried aloud. His hands were like fire, teasing, tormenting, stroking her . . .

“I—” she gasped.

A finger dipped into her most private place for one throbbing instant and she shattered, crying out, her arms flying around his neck, her body shaking as stroke after stoke of fire shot through her body.

Kate came to herself slowly, finding that her wet arms were locked around Gabriel’s neck, that her eyes were squeezed shut. His fingers eased from her plump folds, giving them a little farewell pat that sent a final shudder through her body.

“God almighty, Kate,” he said in a kind of groan.

She didn’t move. She felt sweaty—and she was in a bath. Noises had come from her mouth that she hadn’t imagined any lady could ever make. Pleasure was replaced by a wave of embarrassment so violent that she would have preferred to die rather than open her eyes.

Plus—though it was a minor consideration—her legs were still throbbing.

“Kate?” he asked, his voice just as sinful as before. “Are you ever going to open your eyes?”

She shook her head, keeping her face tight to his skin. It smelled warm and male and indescribably enticing.

A hand slid down her back, following the curve of her spine under water, slid around the curve of her hip. “I want to kiss you there,” he said, conversationally.

Her body jerked in shock. “No,” she said, the word muffled by his skin.

“I must go downstairs and begin the dancing, but Kate . . .”

He gently pulled her arms from around his neck and stood up. Perforce, she opened her eyes. He was all taut muscle, even the part that stood fiercely above the band of his smalls.

“Won’t that be uncomfortable?” she asked, realizing instantly that her effort to make casual conversation was a failure. There was something aching in her voice, something that begged him to stay.

He couldn’t stay.

He was rubbing toweling over his chest and staring at her as if he couldn’t look away. “Yes,” he said flatly. “I’m going to have to wait on those stairs for a good ten minutes.”

Looking at his face, Kate suddenly realized that there was no reason for her shock of embarrassment. What happened between them, no matter how intimate, was not shameful.

So she pointedly let her legs fall apart, just as they wished to, and ran her hand down the inside of her thigh.

“What if I want that kiss . . . now ?” she whispered.

Her flesh throbbed under her light touch, at the very idea of it.

“You’re killing me,” he said hoarsely. “I have to go, Kate. You know that.”

She gave him a devilish smile. “It’s all right. As long as you remember that I’m here, waiting.” She let her head fall backward, and her breasts rose above the water.

He made a choked noise and disappeared through the velvet drapes. Kate heard the door close behind him.

A small smile curled her lips. She had learned something rather wonderful, it seemed to her.

Gabriel would go downstairs and do whatever it was he had to do . . . and then he would return.

Thirty-three

Y ou almost missed the first dance,” Wick hissed at him. “I’ve delayed the musicians as long as I was able, telling everyone that Sophonisba was taken ill.”

Gabriel felt as if he were in a dream. His mind, his heart, were locked upstairs, with Kate, with the silky, honey woman waiting for him.

The only thing that got him to the threshold of the ballroom was the iron sense of duty in which he had been drilled since birth.

“I’m here,” he said tightly.

“Not a good night,” Wick said, looking at him. “She’s over there.” He nodded toward Tatiana and her uncle, in the middle of a small circle of gentlemen.

Gabriel walked across the room like a sleepwalker and apologized to Tatiana for missing most of the evening meal. “My aunt is elderly, as you could see,” he said. “When we reached her chambers she wasn’t feeling well, and I’m afraid she is rather imperious in demanding attendance during those moments.”

“I admire a man who has a sense of his responsibilities,” Dimitri said, rocking back on his heels and smiling approvingly at Gabriel. “Family always comes first in Russia. I don’t care for the kind of fathering that you see in England, with a child scarcely recognizing his own blood relation.”

A little girl with Merry’s name and Kate’s face danced across Gabriel’s mind as he turned to Tatiana and requested her hand for the dance.

Tatiana danced like a feather, her curtsies graceful, her sense of timing impeccable. And Gabriel, trained to dance from the age of three, was as good as she was.

Dimly, from behind a haze of sensual frustration, he was aware of the pleasure of having a partner with whom he was truly in harmony.

“Perhaps we might dance again?” he asked, as the music drew to a close.

She bestowed a little smile on him. “Indeed, Your Highness, it would be a pleasure.”

“A waltz, perhaps,” he said, knowing that he was putting the seal on his coffin. The moment a waltz began and he stepped onto that floor with Tatiana held in his arms, it would be a matter of days until he was signing a marriage contract. The dance was considered too sensual and disreputable by many sticklers in the ton ; stepping onto the floor with an unmarried woman was tantamount to an announcement of their impending marriage. Not that anyone had any question about that.

She looked a little puzzled, as if a shadow of the bleakness that stabbed through his body had become visible in his eyes.

“I would be honored,” he said, getting a grip on himself.

Tatiana turned from him to take Toloose’s hand, giving him the confident smile of a girl who is discovering her power over men. “I should have to ask my uncle,” she told him, secret laughter in her eye showing that she understood the implication of a waltz as well as he did.

Gabriel took a breath. If he danced two or three more sets, and then told the orchestra to play the shortest waltz they had in their repertoire, then he could pretend to fall, or pretend to get drunk. Anything to get himself out of the room and back up to his tower.

A sharp rap on his arm brought him back to himself.

Lady Wrothe was standing at his side. “The music’s starting again,” Henry stated. The expression on her face was not entirely charming.

“Lady Wrothe,” he said, bowing. “Would you be so kind as to—”

“Yes, I would sit out this measure with you,” she said, interrupting. “Very kind of you, as I turned an ankle with these dratted heels of mine.” She headed directly for a secluded little alcove, just large enough for its padded settee.