Kasey Michaels (5 page)

Sophie bit her tongue to keep from laughing, knowing the word
coach
was always followed by this particular answer from Ignatius. “Oh, naughty bird! Sophie’s very angry with you,” she exclaimed, wagging a finger at Ignatius so that his head bobbed and weaved, following her every movement.

“Sophie loves you! Sophie loves you!” Ignatius shrilled in a higher voice, much like Sophie’s own, pushing his head against the bars until she reached in two fingers and stroked his feathery head. “Sophie loves you!
Squawk!
”

“No, no, no, Ignatius,” she corrected. “It’s Sophie loves
me
. Sweet, silly, literal bird!” She turned her back on the parrot and smiled sunnily at the duke. “You’ll have to excuse Ignatius, Your Grace. He is quite the mimic, and repeats nearly everything. Why, just now he sounded just like Uncle Tye, didn’t he—and then just like me. Isn’t that precious? He’s
such
a clever bird.”

“Uncle Tye?” the ninth duke repeated, looking past her, at the birdcage.

“Yes,” Sophie said, pleased but not surprised that he’d taken the bait she had so carefully offered. “Sir Tyler Shipley. Do you know him?”

“Sir Tyler is your
uncle
? Sir Tyler Shipley, of His Majesty’s government?”

Sophie knew her smile wrinkled up her nose. Desiree had told her so. She’d also told her that such small, endearing quirks could cause many a man to tumble into malleable insensibility, if not into believing himself to be in love. “One and the same, although I haven’t seen him in ever so long. I doubt he’ll remember me now as the rather pudgy child I was then. But I shall remind him.”

“One most sincerely hopes not,” the duke muttered, finally falling into the chair Sophie had pointed out to him five minutes earlier. “Dear God, I hadn’t thought about this. Mayfair must be shin-deep in your mother’s discarded lovers.” He absently lifted his booted legs onto the footstool Sophie hastened to place closer in front of him. “This isn’t going to work. I don’t care what my solicitor said. There must be some other way. This isn’t going to work at all.”

Sophie sat down on the small bit of footstool left to her and patted His Grace’s knee, wishing she could “pat” it with an anvil. “There, there. It’s not to worry. Only think about it, Your Grace. So many important men, and all of them so collectively eager to see me happily wed and out of London, yes? Out of London and stuck in Hampshire, or Sussex, raising babies and watching my husband go off to the city to bed his mistress. Just as they wed their wives and went off, in their turn, to bed my mother. Why, I imagine they will all prove most eager to assist you in settling me as quickly as possible—once they realize how very
discreet
I can be, of course.”

The duke looked at her fully, his blue eyes so like dearest Uncle Cesse’s. Intelligent, all-seeing—yet without a trace of humor in them. How had any son of Uncle Cesse’s come to be such a prig? “I see. You’ve figured this all out madam, haven’t you? And you rather delight in the notion of strong men quavering in their boots as you walk into any gathering, fearing that their liaisons with the notorious Widow Winstead are about to be served up at the supper table.”

The notorious Widow Winstead, indeed! Sophie longed to slap his face for such an insult. It was enough that her mother had been who she had been; it was too much to hear His Grace say the words, hear the tone of his voice when he said them. But she tamped down her temper yet again, and doggedly, determinedly, assumed a hurt expression, her full bottom lip pushing forward in a pout. “Oh, no, Your Grace! It’s nothing of the kind. I just thought you should know that, grateful as I am for your kindness in sponsoring me for the Season, I am not without resources of my own. I shouldn’t wish to be a
burden
on you, you see. And I’m quite confident my uncles will be of great assistance to both of us.”

“If one of them doesn’t decide to strangle you in order to protect himself from scandal,” His Grace muttered, then drained his glass and looked up as Edith Farraday tippy-toed into the room and took up a chair in the furthermost corner. “Who’s that?”

Sophie, grateful for the interruption, turned and waved to her make-believe guardian, waggling two fingers at her, and then explained the woman’s presence. “I would introduce you, but I’m quite convinced Mrs. Farraday will be snoring again within the minute. Travel is anathema to her—a delicate stomach, you understand—so that Desiree prudently dosed her with laudanum before we set out. Frankly, I’m surprised she has been able to toddle up the stairs without assistance.”

The duke looked at the tall, rail-thin woman for another moment, until Edith Farraday’s chin once more made contact with her bony breast. Then he turned to Sophie. “Shouldn’t she be in her bed?” he asked, then quickly swept his legs off the footstool and glared at her as if only belatedly realizing that his left boot had been resting most intimately against her hip, her hand on his knee. “Miss Winstead, please get up. This is highly unsuitable.”

Don’t rush your fences, Sophie
, she warned herself as she obediently rose, holding her breath so that her cheeks blushed a becoming peach. “I’m prodigiously sorry, Your Grace,” she apologized, smoothing down her skirts. “Uncle Cesse so liked it when I sat at his feet. He called me his little girl, and told me the most marvelous stories. He was always making me laugh, and teasing me back into a good humor whenever I complained to him about my studies. I particularly disliked sums.” She frowned, looking down at him in real sympathy. “You must miss him very much.”

The duke abruptly stood up, turning away from her, but not before she caught the fleeting flash of anger—of pain?—in his blue eyes. “You must have your uncles confused, Miss Winstead. I never knew the man you’ve just described. And now, as my aunt has taken to her bed—that is, as my aunt is resting this afternoon, I suggest you rouse Mrs. Farraday, and I’ll have someone show you both to your rooms. We’ll meet again at dinner.”

“You don’t like me, do you?” Sophie called after him as he made to quit the room. “I didn’t think you would, but I had hoped we could cry friends. After all, our parents were quite fond of each other.”

He slowly pivoted on his heels, his eyes boring into her, causing her to take a deep breath rather than let him see her flinch. “Our parents, Miss Winstead, behaved like alley cats for nearly four years, scandalizing all of Society and making total fools of themselves. I have spent these last years raising the Selbourne reputation up and out of the muck, only to have my father’s whore’s daughter thrust on me. Do I
like
you, Miss Winstead? To be frank, no.”

Sophie relaxed, smiling at him. She needed the duke’s cooperation, if hers was to be a successful Season. Her task, getting him to like her, would be difficult, but not impossible. Especially if he felt as much emotion as
that
about her to begin with.

“Well, it’s early days yet, Your Grace,” she said sunnily. “You’ll like me well enough in time. I’m convinced of it, and shall work very hard to bring you round my thumb. Men are so much more
convenable
when they are dazzled, you see, and Mama taught me just how to be dazzling.”

“Is that right? Then I have nothing to fear, Miss Winstead, as I do not
dazzle
,” the duke gritted out from between clenched teeth.

“Oh, of course you do, Your Grace. But it’s not to worry. I’m simply grateful for your kindness in launching me. Because I should marry at least once, as Mama did, so that I can be marginally respectable, yes? A fairly elderly, titled gentleman, I believe, who shouldn’t stay above ground long enough to prove inconvenient.”

The duke braced a hand against the back of a side chair, shaking his head as he looked at her. “I’m not sure if I should admire your candor or toss you out of here on your ear. Why are you telling me all this, Miss Winstead?”

Sophie shrugged. It was an artlessly deceptive movement taught to her by Desiree, and perfected by dint of practicing for years in front of her mirror until the gesture had become quite natural to her—and yet another weapon in her feminine arsenal. “I suppose because of your father’s involvement with my mother, yes? I shouldn’t want you to think I have similar designs on you. I cannot help being charming, you see. I’ve been taught too well, and have no notion of how to be unlovable or disagreeable. And I also shouldn’t want you chasing after me, or believing yourself to have fallen in love with me. That wouldn’t do at all, because I adored Uncle Cesse, and have no intention of breaking his beloved son’s heart. I am simply here to be launched, as it were. That’s all. Other than that, you really should ignore me.”

She watched as the duke pressed a hand to his forehead, squeezing his brows together as if in real, physical pain. “I see,” he said, dropping his hand to his side and looking at her levelly. “You have been raised to be irresistible and have therefore warned me against the inevitable in order to keep me from the unthinkable. Is that about it?”

Sophie considered this for a moment, then laughed aloud, a pleasant, tinkling sort of laugh that also had been practiced to perfection. “Why, yes, Your Grace. I think that just about says it all. So, are we agreed?”

He spread his arms wide, shaking his head. “Agreed? Agreed to
what
, Miss Winstead? I still don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about! You don’t sound in the least interested in finding yourself a suitable husband. Just one titled enough and old enough and infatuated enough to wed you and then cock up his toes.”

“Exactly!” Sophie exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “I don’t want to marry, not really. I don’t need to marry—I’m nearly odiously wealthy, you know. You do know that, yes? But it was
Maman’s
wish that I enter Society, and that I marry, at least the once. And I should like to have a child or two or three. I must think of them, yes? The daughter of a kept woman is difficult enough to launch, but bastards, I know, are never in season.”

He was rubbing at his eyebrows again. “Refined young ladies do
not
say bastard, Miss Winstead.”

“Well, of course they don’t! They don’t swear, they don’t play cards—well, not the way I was taught, I’m sure. They don’t drink port, they don’t enjoy the aroma of a good cigar circling in the air over dessert and male conversation. They usually don’t shoot better than most men, and they don’t, frankly, know their way around a man. But then, Your Grace, most young ladies were not raised by an assortment of uncles who taught them everything from thieves’ cant, to sailors’ chants, to some of the more delicious scandals of government service and the
ton
. They were not privileged to watch as the most beautiful, alluring, wondrously
alive
woman in all of England entertained her equally entertaining gentlemen. I miss the company of my uncles, Your Grace, and long to be among them again. I long for the dash and intrigue and excitement of Society. But, as I said, I must marry at least the once in order to be totally accepted, to remain in Society, where I wish to be. I cannot prevail upon your kindness forever, now can I?”

“I should hope not!”

She closed her eyes and gave herself up to a single, honest moment. “Oh, it will be so good to be out and about, having fun. I already can see why
Maman
enjoyed Society so much for, at the heart of it, it’s all just one mad, delicious game in which everyone wins, yes?”

“I do not, Miss Winstead,” Bramwell said frostily, “believe I can in good conscience allow you to—to
flirt
, to hoodwink anyone into marriage.”

“Oh, pooh!” she responded, still all light and sunny and really quite pleased with herself. “Everyone does it—flirt, that is. All of us females. I just believe I probably will do it
better
than most. You’ll see. And what’s the harm? As long as everyone knows the rules, of course. According to
Maman
, most do, and you must simply avoid the rest—or warn them away if you don’t intend to play the game to the end, whatever that end may be.” She opened her eyes once more, to see that the duke was once again in the process of removing himself from the room. “Where are you going, Your Grace? Never say I’ve frightened you away.”

“You haven’t frightened me away, Miss Winstead,” he tossed over his shoulder, never slackening his pace toward the doors. “I’m simply off to inquire if any of my servants knows the whereabouts of a discreet armorer.” And with that he was gone.

“Armorer?” Sophie mouthed quietly, then shook her head, tossing back her curls, and crossed to where Ignatius sat preening himself. “That went well, Ignatius,” she said, sticking her fingers through the bars to ruffle the bird’s feathers. “And to think it was only my first go at dazzling a man. The silly duke of Selbourne doesn’t know if he’s on his head or on his heels. Outraged over my plans. And yet interested. Confused. Confounded.
More
interested. Precisely where a man should be, in the gospel according to Constance Winstead.”

“Kiss me, Connie!” the clever Ignatius shrilled as he heard Constance’s name, his voice now sounding much like Uncle Cesse’s. “Pucker up!
Squawk
! Pucker up!”