Kasey Michaels (21 page)

Sophie went looking for Bramwell before dinner but could not seem to run him to ground, even when she’d dared to look for him in his own chambers—not that Sophie really thought such things to be daring. She had, however, then spent a few fruitless minutes attempting to hold a conversation with his grace’s valet, Reese.

As she walked down the staircase, on her way to the drawing room, she still wondered how one man could possibly be so nervous. She’d been watching Reese off and on since her arrival in Portland Square, as he had such queer ways about him. Amusing. Although, or so it seemed, not to him. Starting at shadows. Always knocking three times before entering a room, always entering that room slowly, peeking behind the door as he entered, as if some bogeyman might be hiding there to jump out at him. Strange man, Reese. Perhaps if she spent some time with him, talking to him, she could discover a way to make him less tense. She would, that is, the moment he seemed more comfortable around her, and not as if he’d just seen a ghost.

Sophie walked into the drawing room, still on the lookout for His Grace, but found only Mrs. Farraday. The woman would knit forever, for Heaven only knew what purpose, and be happy as a clam dug deep in the sand.

“Good evening, Mrs. Farraday!” Sophie called out loudly, then stepped right up to the lady and waved a hand in front of her face, just to make sure she had the woman’s attention.

Edith Farraday looked up at her ward, her smile tentative, her eyebrows climbing on her forehead as if this maneuver, that tended to make her look permanently startled, would help open up her ears. “Miss Sophie,” she shouted, laying her needles in her lap, “is it time for dinner, then? I’m hoping for a standing rib tonight, I must confess.”

Mrs. Farraday didn’t have to confess to anything, Sophie knew, because the woman’s appetite was quite obvious to anyone who had ever shared the table with her. For a thin woman, a very thin woman, she could probably eat an entire cow at every sitting, with room left over for two slices of pie. “I think Cook said something about veal tonight, I’m afraid,” she answered, trying to keep her own voice somewhere below a bellow, as Mrs. Farraday spoke seldom, but always with enough force to command an army to charge, probably so that she could hear herself speak.

The already arched brows climbed higher. “You’re afraid the cook steals?” she asked in a near shout. She shook her head, clucking her tongue in time with each sad shake. “Well, then, that puts paid to my standing rib, don’t it, Miss Sophie?”

Sophie bent and hugged the old lady, kissing her cheek. What a dear she was. The shoemaker’s penniless widow probably still didn’t have the faintest idea why she and Desiree had rescued her from the local poorhouse and set her up as Sophie’s guardian. And she didn’t care, either. She had just stood still for fittings for her new gowns, sat when she was told, gone where she was told to go and, as long as she had her knitting, never asked more of life than a clean bed to sleep in and a good standing rib at least once a week.

“Ah, how touching,” Bramwell drawled from the doorway, and Sophie straightened, turning to go meet him halfway as he walked into the room. “The guardian and the grateful ward,” he whispered. “Strange, it seems more like the dear, oblivious lady is a beloved pet, rather like Giuseppe and Ignatius. Lord knows you treat her like one, almost as if your roles were reversed. Is that why you’re so grateful, Sophie? Because Mrs. Farraday may be your guardian but, in reality, it is you who guards her?”

Sophie grinned. “No need to whisper, Bramwell,” she said, deciding to be as informal as he, since it seemed that they had cried friends the other night at Almack’s—not that he had gone out of his way to be in her presence these past days. Perhaps he didn’t enjoy being part of a crowd? “Mrs. Farraday couldn’t hear you from here if you were to cup your hands around your mouth and shout until the chandelier shook.”

Bramwell eyed both the distance and Mrs. Farraday owlishly as that woman went back to her endless knitting. “You’re jesting.”

“No, I’m not. Go ahead,” she encouraged him, an imp of mischief invading her, hopefully invading him as well. “Go on. Try it.”

His Grace stood for a moment, his head tilted to one side as if considering what he should do, then he called out in his robust baritone: “Mrs. Farraday—run! The room is on fire!”

Three alarmed footmen raced in from the foyer, eyes wide and frightened, reluctantly ready to battle the blaze. Bramwell immediately looked abashed.

Sophie collapsed in giggles into a nearby chair.

And Edith Farraday just kept on knitting.

“My turn,” Sophie said, as a rather red-faced Bramwell apologized, then shooed the footmen back to their posts. She got up and walked closer to Mrs. Farraday. “His Grace has just offered to set me up as his mistress, Mrs. Farraday!” she said loudly, but not too loudly—for the footmen had already heard more than enough, hadn’t they? “He says he longs to ravish me tonight until my eyes roll up in my head!”

Edith Farraday lifted
her
head and smiled vacantly at the duke. “No, no, Your Grace,” she bellowed. “Don’t be distressed. My eyes are quite fine, thank you. I always knit in this light.”

Sophie grinned triumphantly even as Bramwell unsuccessfully tried to bite back a laugh, then told her that she was poking fun at a poor, innocent old lady who could not help that she couldn’t hear anything below a violent clap of thunder.

“Oh, no, no!” Sophie protested as she gently helped Mrs. Farraday to her feet. She then gathered up the woman’s knitting and the bag she kept with her at all times, all the while pantomiming the sound of the first dinner gong going, so that the old woman knew it was time to go upstairs and prepare for the evening meal.

As Sophie watched her guardian leave, a spring in the old woman’s step as she contemplated swallowing down whatever the thieving cook had left them to eat, she explained: “I would
never
make fun of Mrs. Farraday. She’s the sweetest thing, and I consider myself lucky to have her as my guardian. And, as she didn’t hear me, there was no harm done, now was there? I was only proving my point to you, Bramwell. And perhaps funning with
you
a little, yes? At least you’re smiling now. You weren’t when you came in, you know. In fact, you still seem rather on edge. Shall I pour you a glass of wine?”

She watched as his expression cooled, and he opened his mouth to freeze her with an automatic refusal. But he stopped himself, smiled, and agreed that she could fetch him a glass, and one for herself while she was at it, so they could sit and have a comfortable coze.

Phrases such as “comfortable coze” did not trip lightly from the duke’s tongue, so it was probably those words that alerted Sophie that all was not well. Was very much less than well. She’d never be quite sure exactly what had warned her. But one thing was obvious: Bramwell was not a happy man. Therefore, she immediately set out to make him happy again, for his own sake as well as hers. Mostly for hers, if she wanted to be strictly honest about the thing.

As she poured the wine and carried the glasses and sat down on the couch and motioned for him to join her—all the time smiling openly while secretly measuring the depth of his unhappiness, his discomfort—she chattered nineteen to the dozen about the afternoon just past.

She told him of her various suitors. She gave a wonderfully visual recreation of Giuseppe’s antics, including the tug-o-war that had resulted when one of her callers had refused to give up his poem to the monkey. She informed him that he must be prepared for an onslaught of suitors asking for permission to court his aunt.

And Bramwell never laughed. He never smiled. Not once. He didn’t even pick up his glass. He just sat there, very politely, looking at her, and making her feel as if he were waiting until she ran down, until she had no more silly stories to tell—and then he was going to say something dreadful. Something awful. Something Sophie was certain she did not wish to hear.

It had to have been the kiss. That’s what had done it. He hadn’t wanted to kiss her; she knew that. She also knew he’d wanted to kiss her again since. A woman, she’d decided, just knew these things. And, probably, he wanted to do more than kiss her. That’s what men did. That’s what, as she’d come to determine from her readings of her
maman’
s journals, from Desiree’s lessons, men thought women were put on this earth for in the first place—to accommodate men and their need for kisses—for more, always for more.

The duke must be going out of his mind with wanting her. Wanting her as his father had wanted her mother. Except that Bramwell Seaton, Ninth Duke of Selbourne, was
not
his father. What his father had done had shamed him, and he’d probably rather face a firing squad at dawn than believe himself capable of repeating what he saw as his father’s weakness.

How could her mother have believed it wonderful to be desired? It was terrible; terrifying! Even more terrifying was to desire in return, for Sophie could not deny that she was attracted to Bramwell. Attracted to him as a man of intelligence, of compassion, even of a rather delicious humor—when he forgot to hide it.

Panic seized her. Sophie didn’t want to leave Portland Square. She didn’t want to leave Aunt Gwendolyn and all the other wonderful people she’d met since coming to London. But to leave Bramwell?

The romantic heart she’d always sworn she did not possess began to ache inside her breast. Her ears rang; she felt dizzy. Fear slid its tentacles around her, gripping her, hurting her, stealing her breath. All the pain she’d vowed never to feel slammed into her at once, robbing her of everything she’d yet to possess.

Was this how her mother had felt when the uncles had said their good-byes? Hollow? Frightened past all reason? Lonely, once again to be alone? Love did not exist. Sophie knew that, believed that. She didn’t love Bramwell Seaton. She couldn’t. But, oh, how she very much did like him. How very much she did, God help her, desire him. Yearn for his touch, his kiss.

“Sophie, there’s something I must say to you, tell you,” Bramwell said at last, when she’d subsided into nervous silence, when they both had been silent for endless moments, nerve-snapping moments, He took her hand in his, took both her hands in his, and she closed her eyes against another wave of desire, another unexpected, rending slash of that knife called physical longing.

Don’t touch me, don’t touch me
, she cried silently, closing her eyes against the strange, unreadable expression in his.
Even your fingers against my hand melt me into a puddle of longing.
Maman’s
journals spoke of desire as delicious, wonderful, exciting. How could she have been so mistaken, or so lucky? This is lust that I feel now, just as Desiree warned of, joked about. But it’s not enjoyable. There will be no looking back at this moment in fond memory. This is wrong. This hurts. And now, with only a few words, it’s going to be over
.

So unfair, so unfair! He was going to send her packing. Sophie was convinced of it. And it wasn’t just because of that stupid, impulsive kiss, or because he might want her, long to have her in his bed. Why, he might not want her at all! As her mother’s daughter, and while also being judged on her own merits and faults, she might disgust him rather than ignite his passions.

Yes! That was it! She had been too much of a bother to him from the very beginning, as much as she had tried to be a help. Giuseppe had pilfered His Grace’s favorite stickpin, or something, and Ignatius had probably been squawking out naughty ditties again. The duke was tired of having gentlemen clogging up his drawing room. She’d thrown that stupid brandy snifter when she’d been angry enough, idiotic enough, careless enough, to let him see her dreadful temper. There had to be something. Something. She had embarrassed him somehow.

A million thoughts, none of them good, crowded Sophie’s mind and, for once, no solutions presented themselves. But, then, she had never before been so frightened, had so much to lose. She was devoid of a single thought that could provide her with some wiggle room, a way to charm, to tease, to divert, to please. To make Bramwell happy so that she, too, could be happy. No clouds. No rain. She wanted sunshine, she craved it. But all she saw were clouds, and a storm about to arrive at any moment.
Oh,
Maman, she thought sadly,
how did you stand it?

“Yes, Bram?” she prompted when the silence dragged and dragged, when he didn’t say anything else. “You have something to tell me, you said? But you aren’t saying anything, are you? Even Uncle Cesse, that most talkative man, had his silent moments. Well, it can wait, I’m sure, if you want to dress now for the theater. We are still going, aren’t we? Oh, dear, we aren’t, are we? Is that why you’re so solemn, yes? I promise, I won’t be disappointed if you’ve made other plans. Truly. Or, if you’d rather—”

He squeezed her fingers. “Sophie, I’d consider it a considerable blessing if you’d just shut up now and listen to me,” he said, a small, sad smile robbing his words of any sting, yet frightening her even more. “We have to talk about the other night. About Almack’s. About—well, about balconies.”

Balconies? Of all the things she had thought of, feared, this was the one thing she’d not considered. He was upset because of that unfortunate incident at Almack’s? But surely it had only been a few gentlemen, poking a little bit of fun, teasing Bramwell that he might be thinking of setting her up as his mistress or some such thing. Was this really enough to have him send her packing? Or was this just the excuse he had chosen?

She tilted her head, looking at him quizzically, measuringly. “Balconies?” she repeated, attempting to pull her hands free of his. He wouldn’t let her go. “Going out onto the balcony isn’t the same as proposing marriage, is it? I thought as much at the time, Bramwell, and Desiree’s reaction when I mentioned it to her convinced me of it. That man, those people—they were alluding to something entirely different, weren’t they? Something about my mother, and the fact that she was mistress to your father, yes? Mistress to men other than your father. It’s all right, Bram. I knew there would be some gossip if I were to go into Society, and I prepared myself for it. But now that they’ve had their bit of fun, they’ll soon stop. I’m convinced of it.”