Harriet lifted her head, her eyes widening in shock. "Morland was the man who seduced her?"
"Yes. Deirdre admitted it that night when she came to see me. But there was never any way to prove it later after her death." Gideon's mouth twisted. "It would have been extremely helpful if Deirdre had bothered to leave a note that night before she shot herself. But Deirdre was never particularly thoughtful of others. She probably did not care if I took the blame for her suicide."
Harriet shuddered at the raw pain and frustrated anger in Gideon's voice. "Gideon, you do not still love her, do you?"
"Good God, no." He looked down at her in glowering amazement. "I was convinced I loved her when I offered for her. Looking back, I think I was merely dazzled by her beauty and the fact that such a beautiful creature apparently wanted me. But whatever I felt for Deirdre Rushton died the night she told me she had accepted my suit only because her father forced her to do so and that she was pregnant with another man's child. She told me she hated the very sight of me."
"Oh, Gideon." Harriet tightened her arms around his waist. "She sounds like a very desperate woman. She was very young and she no doubt thought herself in love with Morland. She knew she could never have him and she resented being forced to marry a man she did not love. She blamed you for her problems."
"You do not need to make excuses for her," Gideon muttered.
"I just want you to realize that she probably did not hate you at all. She simply felt trapped and she took out her fear and frustration on you."
"She has certainly had her revenge on me, if that is what she was after," Gideon said.
"Yes, I know. You have been living in your own private corner of hell for six long years."
"That is a rather dramatic way of putting it, but not entirely untrue," Gideon said dryly. "I do know that I have been very much alone for the past six years."
Harriet smiled tremulously. "But not any longer. Now you have me."
"Now I have you." Gideon lifted his hands to touch her hair. "And I vow I shall take very good care of you, Harriet."
"Thank you, my lord. I promise to take excellent care of you, too."
"Will you, indeed?" His leonine eyes gleamed with a warm fire.
"Oh, yes. You are wrong to think that I am more fond of my fossils than I am of you." She stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth against his. "It is true I am very attached to them, but I care far more for you, my lord."
Gideon smiled slowly. "I am very pleased to hear that."
He scooped her up into his arms as if she were as light as a feather. Gideon made her feel like a delicate princess from a fairy tale, Harriet thought.
He put her down in the center of his bed and lay down beside her. "Perhaps you will show me just which portions of my anatomy you consider equal to or more impressive than the old bones you collect, madam."
Harriet laughed up at him in the shadows. "It is a very long list."
"Then you can start from my toes and work up."
"With pleasure."
She pushed at him gently and Gideon obligingly rolled over onto his back. Then she knelt beside him and studied his large feet with a serious expression.
"I would have to say that I have rarely encountered fossil metatarsals of such size."
"I am flattered." Gideon watched her face in the firelight.
"And one seldom is lucky enough to find a tibia of such proportions." Harriet drew a ringer slowly upward along the inside of his lower leg. "Very impressive."
"I am relieved to hear I compare favorably in that portion of my anatomy."
"Definitely," she assured him. Her fingers drifted up over his knee and along the inside of his thigh. "And other than the femur of an elephant I once had the privilege of examining, I have never seen such a magnificent thigh bone."
Gideon sucked in his breath as her palm drifted higher, opening his black silk dressing gown to expose his thighs. "I am glad you appreciate it."
"I most certainly do, my lord." She bent her head and dropped a tiny, damp kiss on his upper leg. The crisp, curling hair tickled her nose. The masculine scent of him made her deeply aware of her own growing arousal. She touched his thick shaft. "Now we come to a most interesting discovery."
"Do not tell me you have found fossils of that particular anatomical item," Gideon said.
"No," Harriet admitted. "But this is certainly as hard as any fossil I have ever dug out of stone."
"Ah." Gideon breathed deeply as she caressed him.
Harriet saw that the muscles of his thighs and chest were rapidly growing rigid with sexual tension. Stroking him was like stroking steel. The power in him was mesmerizing.
"Had I ever discovered something of this nature," Harriet murmured as she circled him with her fingertips, "I would have most certainly written it up for the Transactions. "
Gideon's laugh was mostly a groan of rising frustration. "I do not think I am going to survive this lesson. Come here, madam. I am going to bury a certain portion of my anatomy in your heat before it solidifies into a permanent fossil due to sheer frustration."
Harriet smiled as he reached for her and pulled her across his body. She found herself sitting astride him. The feel of his strong thighs cradled between hers was exciting. She could feel his manhood throbbing beneath her. It made her vividly aware of her own power as a woman.
She leaned forward, pushing his dressing gown aside so that she could splay her fingers across his wide chest. Then she dipped her head and brushed her tongue across his flat nipples.
"So good," Gideon breathed. "So damn good."
He put his hands on her knees and moved his palms slowly up the inside of her thighs. He found her softness, drawing forth the liquid heat. Then he slowly slid one finger inside her, testing her readiness.
"Gideon." Harriet arched her head back, her whole body taut as it reacted to the delicious invasion.
"Put me inside you," he whispered in a low growl. "Put your hands on me and guide me into you."
She reached down with trembling fingers and found him. Then she levered herself upward on her knees and sank back down very slowly. He entered her carefully, letting her set the pace.
She felt herself being stretched and filled. It was an exquisitely thrilling sensation. It always was. She took her time guiding him into her so that she could savor every inch of him.
And then Gideon was all the way inside and they were bound together in the way only a man and a woman could be. Harriet surrendered once more to the unique joy of being in Gideon's strong arms.
She did not think of Bryce Morland or of the terrible things he had done to Gideon for a long, long while. When Harriet awoke some time later and did remember the dreadful tale, she discovered that Gideon was sound asleep beside her.
Harriet thought about waking him to remind him again that he was not to deliberately provoke Bryce. But Gideon was sleeping so peacefully that Harriet decided to wait until morning.
When she awakened again in the morning, however, Gideon was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Tattersail's was already crowded when Gideon walked into the yard that morning. Not that the place was not usually busy, especially on sale days such as today. As the exclusive auctioneers of the finest bloodstock in London, it attracted the gentlemen of the ton the way candy attracted children. There was an unceasing competition among all who could afford it, as well as many who could not, for the most spectacular mounts.
Part of the yard was covered with a roof that was supported by a classic colonnade. Gideon propped a shoulder against one of the tall columns and watched idly as a hunter was led past the crowd of potential purchasers. He was not here to buy a hunter.