A Rake by Any Other Name (16 page)

“Any man who thinks of mushrooms when he looks at you needs spectacles.”

“No, when a man sees me, he sees the Goodnight fortune.”

“Not all men,” he said.

She reined her mare to a stop. “I stand corrected. You're right. You have never seemed in awe of my father's money. No amount of it will make you do something you find
repugnant
. You can take great pride in the fact that you cannot be bought.”

But nothing in her tone or the frown that accompanied it remotely suggested she thought he had anything of which to be proud.

Despite my age, I do remember what it felt like to be young. There's something quite terrible about how desperately important everything was then. It's a bit of a relief to discover with age that only a few things are truly essential. The trick, of course, is to discover what those things are.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

Sophie was prickly as a hedgehog with its spines out, but just when he expected to be speared by them, she drew them back in.

“Don't mind me, Richard,” she said, looking pointedly away as the vehemence drained from her. “I'm feeling…out of sorts and taking it out on you.”

Somehow, he'd done something to upset her, but for the life of him, he couldn't imagine what. Still, he was grateful her irritation had fizzled out. He wasn't about to ask why.

“That's all right,” he said, trying to make light of her pettishness. “Someday I'm sure I'll deserve your ire, and you can let it slide then since you've whipped me a bit unnecessarily today.”

She gave a little laugh that sounded suspiciously like a cross between a “hmph” and a snort.

“Very well. You have one deferred tongue lashing on deposit with the Bank of Sophie. Withdraw it when you will. Now, tell me the outcome of your trip to London, or I'll believe you do think me a mushroom.”

This was safer ground. He could report success all around. “Of course, a venture like this requires a good deal of capital.”

Which he would have had instantly if he'd only agreed to wed Sophie Goodnight, but it felt so much better to do this on his own without her father's bottomless purse. Richard was heir to a proud title. He'd keep it proud with the effort of his mind and his own two hands.

“I found an investor willing to take on the project at a reasonable rate of return,” he said. “Mr. Witherspoon located a man with forestry experience whom we'll bring on as our foreman. He assures me we'll be able to repay the investor with the initial cutting. The placard announcing the local opportunity for employment will go up in the village next week, and the first trees will be felled a few days after that. Building the mill will take much longer and employ more men.”

“That's wonderful, Richard. Truly,” she said, her blue eyes warmer than he'd ever seen them. “It will mean so much to the families who get work, to the whole community really. With wages in their pockets, they'll buy more goods at the shops. The store owners will then take on more help. Those people in turn have more money to spend and so on. Everyone wins.”

He shook his head in wonderment. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised by your grasp of economics.”

“Why?” she said, suddenly remote and wary again. “Because my father is a mere tradesman?”

“No, because you always see things differently. In my experience, most women don't think about things as you do.” As far as he could tell, Antonia and his sisters' grasp of economics reached no farther than the cost of their next gown, if they considered it at all. Except for Petra, of course. She had an unwomanly way of wading into masculine subjects at every turn. “I doubt my mother or sisters even have an opinion on trade, except maybe to condemn it.”

“To be fair, your family only condemns it because they know your stooping to trade will tar them with lack of respectability as well.”

“Now you're playing the devil's advocate. Would they rather live in threadbare gentility?”

“Men may thumb their noses at the rules, but women are always held to them with ruthlessness. I'm not saying it's fair. Lord knows it's not. But that's the way the world is.”

Somehow, he had the feeling she wasn't talking about engaging in trade any longer.

“If you don't know what the women in your life think about important things,” Sophie said, “perhaps it's because you've never asked them.”

Now that he considered it, he and Antonia hadn't ever really discussed anything of substance. He had no idea of her views on politics or religion. He didn't even know her taste in music beyond whether a piece warranted a gavotte or a quadrille.

Since he and Antonia had met at a salon which featured poetry reading, he might have expected to discuss literature with her. But once the poets finished their recitation, his conversations with Antonia generally devolved into typical non-topics, amusing anecdotes of mutual acquaintances and remarks about the weather meant to substitute for clever repartee. She was very skilled at making time spent in her company pleasing, but in the end, it was as insubstantial as a soap bubble.

“You're right, Sophie,” he said slowly. “I haven't asked a lady what she thinks about more serious things.”

“Which is why you feel comfortable speaking with me about them, since I'm categorically
not
a lady.”

“I didn't mean that.” Hang it all, why did she constantly goad him into verbal missteps?

“It's all right. I appreciate you treating me as if you thought I had a brain. On second thought, it might shock the well-bred women in your life to be drawn into such unfamiliar conversational waters. I'm sure you'd never want to do anything so
repugnant
.”

There it was again. That word with a barb attached to it. Clearly whatever had upset her was still swirling about it.

He might need that tongue lashing reprieve he'd banked sooner rather than later.

The meadow stretched ahead of them, green and freshly dotted with vibrant yellow patches of rapeseed. Sophie urged her mount into a canter across it. Richard followed, enjoying the rise and fall of her bum in the sidesaddle. Halfway across the space, she lost her bonnet. In a bit of horsemanship he wished she'd seen, he leaned down far enough to one side in order to snatch the straw capote before it hit the ground. By the time they reached the woods on the far side of the meadow, her hair was tumbling down in dark waves.

Good. He liked seeing it that way, but he handed the bonnet back to her in any case.

“Thank you,” she said as she fixed it over her windblown hair and tied the ribbons beneath her chin in a jaunty bow. “Mother is forever after me not to go without a bonnet lest I freckle, but I can't seem to keep one on my head.”

“I think you'd look fine with a freckle or two.”

“That shows how little you know. Above all else, my parents long to make a lady of me. Freckles, Mother says, belong on a milkmaid.”

“There are worse sins than having a few freckles.”

“Amen. But since I've already committed most of those, I must indulge my parents in the small matter of freckles.”

His imagination ran rampant. Thoughts of Sophie and sin all twined up together made his body rouse once more. If this kept up, he could set his watch by how often he had erections in Miss Goodnight's presence.

“The trail by the sea is a bit narrow and slopes steeply enough to make riding dangerous,” he said as he dismounted in a smooth motion. “We'll hobble the horses and go on foot.”

“Hmmm, I decided my reputation was safe with you so long as we were on horseback. On foot…”

“It's been my experience that no matter what you do, your reputation is fine so long as no one knows what you're actually doing. It's the things you're
seen
doing that make a difference.” He slid off his horse's back, crossed over to her, and lifted his hands, offering to help her dismount.

She slanted a sideways gaze down at him. “I ought to say ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.'”

“I assure you I'm not that bad.”

Her lips twitched in an attempt not to smile. “A minor minion of the Prince of Darkness?”

“Well, maybe worse than that,” he admitted. “A minor minion makes me sound like an imp.”

“A demon then,” she decided. “Skilled at temptation and ruin.”

“Temptation, maybe. But no one's ruining anyone today if I can help it.” He took her gloved hand. “Come, Sophie. Trust me, the view is spectacular.”

“Very well. Lead me into temptation, O Dark One.”

Most men would take that as a challenge, but Sophie wasn't most women. If the past was any predictor of the future, Richard would be the one tempted beyond bearing. He'd never been less than correct in his behavior toward Antonia, but something about Sophie made him want to throw convention out the window.

It wasn't that he respected her less than Antonia. There was just something raw and feral that sprang to life inside him whenever Sophie was around. It was like uncaging a tiger, taking him for a walk, and expecting him to stay on the leash.

When he helped her down, the tiger in him growled his approval at the narrow span of her waist under his hands. The beast almost purred when she slipped one of her hands in the crook of his elbow and let him lead her through the brush to the path that skirted the headland.

“Oh my!” She dropped his arm and hurried close to the edge. Richard always stayed a step or two back from the steep drop to the breakers below, but Sophie obviously suffered no fear of heights. The cliffs weren't nearly as tall as the ones at Dover, but the land fell away sharply in jagged columns, to dip its granite toes in the foaming water. Sophie spread her arms wide as if she'd hug the entire vista and fold it into herself. “This was worth the trip.”

“It's not so long a ride actually.”

“No, I mean the trip back from India. This view is amazing, Richard. Wild and ungovernable and unspeakably lovely.”

Just like her.

The wind caught her bonnet and blew it back off her head. The ribbons under her chin loosened but didn't give way, so the capote dangled down her back. She didn't bother to fix it. Instead, she lifted her hand to shield her eyes and continued to gaze out over the purling blue water.

“You miss India, don't you?”

Her quick, sad smile confirmed it.

“You miss someone who's still there,” Richard guessed again. The tiger inside him tensed, lashing its body with its own tail.

“I don't know where he is,” she said with a small shake of her head. “And I certainly didn't know who he
was
. Not really. But you're wrong. I don't miss him. I miss the
idea
of him.”

She sank to the crisp grass, drew her knees up under her skirts, and folded her arms across them. Any other young lady might have succumbed to a fit of vapors after making such a strange admission, but Sophie just continued to gaze into the distance where the grayish-blue water met the soft, summerish sky.

Richard settled beside her, burning with curiosity. “How do you miss the
idea
of someone?”

She cut her gaze to him for a blink and then back to the horizon. “Didn't you ever imagine the girl you'd someday love?”

“No. If I dreamed up a perfect woman, I'd risk being disappointed when a real one came along later.”

She shrugged. “You're ever so much wiser than I then. Perhaps it's a female failing, but from the time I was very young, I imagined the man I'd someday love. I even dreamed of him some times.”

“Let me guess. He was tall, dark, and handsome.”

“Yes, I imagined him as very fine to look upon, but that's hardly a crime. Can you honestly tell me men don't examine a lady's figure first and her character a distant second?

Richard raised his hands in mock surrender. “Guilty.”

But he didn't feel the least guilty when he looked at her. What man wouldn't notice Sophie's striking beauty and be fascinated by her? Until she unleashed that acerbic tongue of hers, of course.

“Well, give me a little credit for not being totally shallow,” she went on. “I imagined him inside as well as out. My dream man was honest and trustworthy, brave and selfless.”

“You were in love with a myth.”

“It didn't seem like a myth when I first met Lieutenant Julian Parrish. He was my walking dream.” Her eyes took on a hazy quality. Richard suddenly hated this Julian Parrish with a burning passion. “We met by accident. One day I was shopping in the bazaar, minding my own business, when a mad fakir started stirring up hotheads against the
Angrezi
. That's us, by the way. I know it shocks people to learn the English aren't universally loved and hailed as saviors bearing the gifts of civilization wherever we roam, but we're not.”

“You don't have to tell me. I've spent time in France. Hatred for us there runs deep.”

“And both ways, but that's a topic for another day. In any case, on this particular day, my
ayah
urged me to leave the bazaar, but I didn't listen to her. I had no idea I was in danger. I'd lived in India all my life. I didn't think of myself as the foreign devil the fakir railed against. However, my white face seemed to prove otherwise.”

Sophie plucked a grass stem and began tearing it into ever smaller strips. “A mob isn't a group of people, you know. It's one entity, one throbbing heart. A beast with a thousand arms and legs, and only one thought—to lash out in violence. I'd have been killed if Julian hadn't ridden into the swirling mass of shouting men with his sword flailing on both sides. He snatched me up, plopped me behind him on his saddle, and I clung to him as we rode for our lives.”

“After an experience like that, it would only be natural for you to become infatuated with him,” Richard said grudgingly. “Don't reproach yourself. Of course, you were impressed with the man after that.”

“I wasn't infatuated. I was in love, completely and hopelessly. You see, I
recognized
him. He was the embodiment of all I'd imagined. For years, when I'd peered up at the moon and wished, it was Julian Parrish I was longing for. I just didn't know his name until that day.”

Richard's gut clenched. “So what happened?”

She looked down.

“No, forget I asked.” Besides, every time she said the man's name, Richard's insides burned as if a knife were twisting into him. “You don't have to tell me.”