Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3)(16)

“Are you finished amusing yourself?” Gabriel asked, impatient with his father’s flight of fancy. “Because I have actual problems to deal with.”

Still smiling, Sebastian reached for some chalk and applied it to the tip of his cue stick. “Forgive me. The word makes me a bit sentimental. Go on.”

“For all practical purposes, Pandora would be of no use to me other than in bed. She’s a novelty. After the newness wore off, I’d be bored within a week. More to the point, she’s temperamentally unsuited to be my wife. Anyone’s wife.” He had to finish his brandy before he could bring himself to admit huskily, “Despite all that . . . I don’t want anyone else to have her.” Bracing his hands on the edge of the table, he stared blindly at the green baize cloth.

His father’s reaction was unexpectedly sanguine. “To play devil’s advocate—has it occurred to you that Lady Pandora will mature?”

“I’d be surprised,” Gabriel muttered, thinking of those heathen blue eyes.

“But my dear boy, of course you would. A woman will always surprise you with what she’s capable of. You can spend a lifetime trying to discover what excites and interests her, but you’ll never know it all. There’s always more. Every woman is a mystery, not to be understood but enjoyed.” Picking up a billiards ball, Sebastian tossed it into the air and caught it deftly. “Your Lady Pandora is young—time will remedy that. She’s a virgin—well, there’s a problem easily solved. You anticipate marital ennui, which, forgive me, is a pinnacle of arrogance unmatched by anyone except myself when I was your age. The girl sounds anything but boring. Given half a chance, she may please you even more than Mrs. Black.”

Gabriel sent him a warning glance.

His father had made no secret of his disapproval of Gabriel’s mistress, whose husband was the American ambassador. As the young, beautiful wife of a former Union Army officer whose war injuries prevented him from satisfying her in the bedroom, Mrs. Nola Black took her pleasures where she found them.

For the past two years, Nola had fully indulged Gabriel’s every desire, their encounters unhindered by morals or inhibitions. She always knew when to push the limits farther, coming up with new tricks to spark his interest and satisfy his complex desires. Gabriel didn’t like it that she was married, he resented her temper and her possessiveness, and lately he had begun to realize that the affair was turning him into the worst possible version of himself.

But he kept going back for more.

“No one pleases me more than Mrs. Black,” Gabriel said with difficulty. “That’s the problem.”

Slowly his father set the cue stick onto the table, his face impassive. “You fancy yourself in love with her?”

“No. God, no. It’s just that . . . I . . .” Lowering his head, Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, which had begun to crawl with discomfort. Although he and his father had always spoken freely on a great variety of subjects, they rarely discussed personal sexual matters. Sebastian, thank God, was not one to meddle in his sons’ private lives.

There was no easy way for Gabriel to describe the dark side of his nature, nor was he particularly eager to face it. As the Challon family’s oldest son, he had always strived to meet high expectations—his own and other people’s. Since a young age, he’d been aware that because of his family name, wealth, and influence, many people actively wanted him to fail. Determined to prove himself, he’d earned high marks at Eton and Oxford. When other boys had wanted to test themselves against him by picking fights or trying to best him in athletics, he’d had to prove himself repeatedly. Whenever he’d identified a weakness in himself, he worked to overcome it. After graduating, he had managed his family’s financial affairs competently, and he’d made his own investments in fledgling businesses that had paid off in spades. In most areas of his life, he was self-disciplined and hardworking, a man who took his responsibilities seriously.

But then there was the other side. Sexual, intemperate, and bloody tired of trying to be perfect. The side that made him feel guilty as hell.

Gabriel hadn’t yet found a way to reconcile the opposing halves of his nature, the angel and the devil. He doubted he ever would. All he knew for certain was that Nola Black was willing to do anything he wanted, as often as he wanted, and he’d never found that kind of relief with anyone else.

Flushing, Gabriel struggled to explain without making himself sound like a depraved freak of nature. “The problem is that I require particular . . . that is . . . she lets me . . .” He broke off with a guttural curse.

“Every man has his tastes,” Sebastian said sensibly. “I doubt yours are all that shocking.”

“What your generation considered shocking is probably different from mine.”

There was a short, offended silence. When Sebastian replied, his voice was as dry as tinder. “Ancient and decrepit fossil that I am, I believe the ruins of my senile brain can somehow manage to grasp what you’re trying to convey. You’ve indulged in wanton carnal excess for so long that you’re disillusioned. The trifles that excite other men leave you indifferent. No virgin’s pallid charms could ever hope to compete with the subversive talents of your mistress.”

Gabriel glanced up in surprise.

His father looked sardonic. “I assure you, my lad, sexual debauchery was invented long before your generation. The libertines of my grandfather’s time committed acts that would make a satyr blush. Men of our lineage are born craving more pleasure than is good for us. Obviously I was no saint before I married, and God knows I never expected to find fulfillment in the arms of one woman for a lifetime. But I have. Which means there’s no reason you can’t.”