Gabriel felt himself turn a dull red as it struck him that she was talking about his lovemaking, not the conversation which had followed. "Phoebe, for God's sake, I'm not discussing that."
"Weren't you, my lord?" She looked up at last, her gaze politely quizzical. "I'm sorry. What were you discussing?"
He wanted to shake her. "I'm talking about the conversation we had after you found The Lady in the Tower."
"Oh, that."
"Yes, that. Damnation, woman, as far as the love-making is concerned, you need have no fears on that account. I told you it would improve mightily for you the next time."
Phoebe pursed her lips in a considering fashion. "Perhaps."
"There is no perhaps about it."
"Then again, perhaps not."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps I should take you straight upstairs to your bedchamber and demonstrate."
"No, thank you."
"Why not?" Gabriel's hand clenched around the edge of the mantel. It was either that or he would find himself wrapping his fingers around her throat. "Because it's the middle of the afternoon? Don't tell me my reckless Veiled Lady has suddenly turned prim and proper. Have I married a little prig?"
"It's not that." She returned her attention to her book. "It's simply that I do not believe the experience will improve until I can be certain that you truly love me. I have therefore decided there will be no more such incidents until you have learned to do so."
His fingers were clamped so fiercely around the mantel that it was a miracle he had not cracked the marble. He stared at her angelically bent head. "You little devil. So that is your game, is it?"
"I assure you I am not playing any games, my lord."
"You think you can continue to manage me the way you did before our marriage? I am no longer your personal knight-errant, madam. I am your husband."
"I have come to the conclusion that knights-errant are a great deal more fun than husbands."
He must not lose his temper, Gabriel told himself. He must not let his self-control slip. If he was to gain the upper hand in this domestic skirmish, he was going to have to stay cool under fire.
"You may be right, madam," Gabriel said evenly. "I have no doubt that a headstrong, willful female such as yourself would find an obedient knight-errant vastly more amusing than a husband. But it is a husband you have got now."
"I would prefer to keep the relationship in name only."
"Hell and damnation. Have you gone mad? There is absolutely no possibility of that. I will not allow you to manipulate me in such a fashion."
"I am not trying to manipulate you." Phoebe finally looked up from her book. "But I am determined that you learn to love me before you make love to me again."
"You do realize men have beaten their wives for less cause than this?" Gabriel asked very politely.
"We have already been through this, Gabriel. You will not beat me."
"There are other ways of exercising my husbandly rights. I found a means last night, did I not?"
She sighed. "1 was under a misapprehension last night. When you took that terrible risk of climbing down from the roof, I thought you were proving your love for me. In future I will not be so easily fooled. You need not bother to risk your neck again in that fashion."
"I see." Gabriel inclined his head with icy civility. Two could play at this game, he decided. "Very well, then, madam. You have made your position clear. You may be certain I will not force myself on you."
She looked surprised. "I did not think you would."
He took a grip on his temper. "When you are ready to resume your duties as a wife, be so good as to let me know. In the meantime, rest assured you will receive every courtesy as a guest here at Devil's Mist." Me started toward the door.
"Gabriel, wait, I did not mean to say I considered myself a guest in your home."
He paused briefly, careful to hide his satisfaction. "I beg your pardon? 1 thought that was the sort of relationship you wished."
"No, of course it isn't." She scowled in consternation. "I want us to get to know each other better. I feel certain you can learn to love if you will only give yourself a chance. 1 mean for us to live as man and wife in all other respects save in the bedchamber. Is that too much to ask?"
"Yes, Phoebe, it is. As I said, let me know when you are ready to be a wife. In the meantime I shall consider you a guest."
Gabriel went out into the hall without a backward glance and stalked through the rows of armor suits to the staircase. He was going to get some writing done this afternoon if it killed him. He was determined that the day would not be a total loss.
Three days later Phoebe retreated again to Gabriel's magnificent library and curled up in her favorite chair.
She gazed out a window and acknowledged that she was in serious danger of losing the grimly polite war that was going on between Gabriel and herself. Indeed, she did not know how much more she could stand of it. Gabriel's will was proving more than a match for her own.
Perhaps she had been doomed to lose from the beginning simply because she was more vulnerable than he. After all, she loved him with all her heart and he knew it. The knowledge definitely gave him the advantage, she realized glumly. Gabriel was clever enough to reason that if he simply waited, her defenses would collapse.
The worst of it was that as far as Phoebe could tell, she was not making any headway at all in teaching Gabriel to love her.
It was not that he was ignoring her, she reflected. It was that he insisted on treating her with an awful politeness that almost brought her to the point of tears. He no longer argued with her or lectured her or complained about her lack of wifely obedience.
He was treating her as a guest, just as he had said he would, and it was enough to make Phoebe grind her teeth in frustration.
Yesterday, in search of common ground, she had attempted to discuss a volume she had discovered in his magnificent library. She had brought the matter up at dinner.
"It is an absolutely magnificent copy of Malory's Morte d'Artfiur," she remarked as she nibbled at her boiled rabbit smothered in onion sauce.
"Thank you," Gabriel said. He forked up a bite of boiled potato.
Phoebe tried again. "I recall that on the night we visited Mr. Nash you asked him if he had a specific copy of Malory's book. One that had an inscription on the flyleaf. Why would you want that particular book when you have such a fine copy of your own?"
"The copy I asked Nash about was the one my father gave me when I was ten," Gabriel said. "When I left England I was forced to sell it."
Phoebe was stricken. "You had to sell a book your father had given you?"
Gabriel looked at her, his eyes cold. "I was obliged to sell all the books I had inherited from him as well as the entire contents of my own library. I needed the money to finance my trip to the South Seas and to set myself up in business there."
"I see."
"A man who intends to survive cannot afford to be overly sentimental."
"How terrible for you to have to sell off the things that meant the most to you."
Gabriel had shrugged. "It was all part of the lesson I learned at the time. The bullet your brother lodged in my shoulder and the manner in which your father crushed my investment ventures concluded my instruction. I have never again allowed my emotions to rule my head."
Phoebe sighed as she recalled the conversation, 'leaching Gabriel to love was going to be a more formidable task than she had first imagined. She stared out the library window into the gray mist and wondered if there was any hope at all of convincing Gabriel to trust his emotions again.
After a moment she got up and went to sit behind Gabriel's desk. It was time she sent a note off to Mr. Lacey. He would no doubt be wondering what had happened to her. Left to his own devices, Lacey would quickly drive the flourishing little publishing business back into oblivion. The man was interested only in gin and the craft of running his beloved printing press.