Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (22 page)

Geoffrey walked over to the sideboard. He poured himself a brandy, downed the contents, and then filled the glass to the top. This time, he crossed over and propped his hip on the desk until Sophie had to crane her neck backwards to look at him.

“You insisted you wouldn’t wed Waxham.”

Sophie held her hands out, palms up to speak, but Geoffrey continued. “You even used Mallen’s title to deter my goal for you and Waxham.” He raised a brow. “Did you truly believe I didn’t see through your efforts? Imagine my surprise when Mallen actually began courting you.” The hot flood of shame burned her cheeks. Her brother never had really held her in high-regard. “You hated Waxham.”

She flinched. “I didn’t hate him.” She’d resented his treatment over the years, but hate? No, she’d never
hated
him.

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “Then in a few short weeks you’ve become so enamored of the earl that you’d throw away everything; a possible match with the Duke of Mallen, your reputation, any pride you might have possessed.”

Sophie tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.

“Waxham, who’s ignored you for years, of a sudden is paying you court, luring you away from polite company.” Her gaze slid away from his. “Surely you must have wondered at Waxham’s sudden interest?”

A frisson of unease unfurled along her spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her mouth dry with fear.

Geoffrey gave his head a sad little shake. “I don’t think you can comprehend the error of your mistake, Sophie. You will in due time. And I only hope you are able to live with the decisions you made this evening.”

Ice dotted her flesh at those cryptic words.

Geoffrey tossed back the remainder of his brandy. “Now, why don’t you find your rooms? I expect I’ll have an early visit from Waxham.”

Sophie swallowed and fled like the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. Her brother’s dark pronouncement continued to twist and turn around her brain. Geoffrey had alluded to there being something dishonest, something more sinister behind Christopher’s interest in her these past weeks. At one point, she too had been skeptical of Christopher, but in a short time, she’d come to see him not as the removed figure revered by the
ton
, but as a real man who laughed and who made her laugh. She set her jaw stonily. Geoffrey was wrong.

The man she’d left behind at Lady Brackenridge had been one determined to protect her at all costs. She wondered how he’d fared in her absence. A little sigh escaped her. She suspected sleep would be a fickle friend this evening.

***

More than an hour later, Christopher stared out the double windows of his father’s office, his gaze trained out into the ink black, starless London night sky. He’d made his escape from Lady Brackenridge’s shortly after Redbrooke had dragged off Sophie.

Christopher raked a hand through his hair. He knew ruin had awaited Sophie on the other side of Brackenridge’s library door. He should have insisted she leave before Polite Society converged upon them like hawks devouring their prey. Now Sophie would pay the price with marriage to him.

A bitter laugh escaped him. His father would be bloody well pleased by the turn of events. In the end, even though inadvertently, Christopher would wed Sophie. She deserved so much more than a hurried wedding to salvage a ruined reputation. Guilt stabbed at him like so many blades pressed to his flesh.

She would become his wife. At the thought, a calming peace filled him.

Odd, how so much had changed in so little time. The insecurities he carried, his greatest fear that she knew his failings and delighted in them no longer mattered. Christopher allowed himself to imagine a passel of daughters with blonde ringlets like Sophie’s and her wide cornflower blue eyes.

His musings brought back remembrances of the young girl she’d been. Christopher’s lips twitched. Sophie had followed him around his father’s country estates with a dogged intensity that, as a young boy, had aggravated him.

A knock sounded at the door. He glanced over his shoulder.

The butler cleared his throat, his eyes downcast. “Lord Waxham, you have a visitor.”

Christopher’s gaze narrowed on the intricate English Bracket clock on the mantle. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.

The Duke of Mallen stepped into the room.

“He said he needed to speak with you on a matter of some urgency,” the butler said, an apology in his tone.

Mallen eyed him with a stony set to his firm jaw. “Waxham.”

Christopher inclined his head.

The servant hurried from the room.

Mallen closed the door behind them. It would appear whatever his friend intended to say wasn’t for the ears of passing servants.

“Can I offer you a brandy?”

Mallen’s brows dipped. “I’m not here on a social visit.”

No, Christopher rather thought there was more to the duke’s early morning call. He gestured to the leather sofa.

“You and Miss Winters left quite the scandal in your wake.”

His chest tightened. It would have been the height of foolishness to have expected a different outcome. “Did we?”

Mallen’s eyes narrowed into thin, dark slits. “Imagine my surprise to learn the Earl Waxham, so above reproach compromised Miss Winters.”

A dull flush worked its way up Christopher’s neck. He tugged on his suddenly too tight cravat. He’d come to expect stern disapproval from his father—but never Mallen. Mallen had been the one person to stand alongside him through all the darkest points in his life; the death of his mother, the cruelty of his father, the years of shame he’d known as a student.

Mallen couldn’t possibly hate Christopher any more than Christopher hated himself. He swiped a hand over his brow. “It’s been a long evening, Mallen.” He shot a pointed look over to the doorway.

Mallen folded his arms across his broad chest, wearing his go-to-hell-expression.

“I’m not in the mood to discuss this with you, Mallen.”

Mallen stepped deeper into the room “Oh, I’m sure.” The caustic bite to his tone threatened to singe Christopher where he stood. “Tell me this. Were you or weren’t you discovered kissing Sophie Winters?”

He shifted as the wave of guilt grew. He couldn’t bring himself to respond to the question. Sophie deserved more than Christopher gossiping about her to Mallen.

Mallen stormed across the room. He dragged Christopher up by the lapels of his jacket. “I’ll ask you one more time. Did. You. Kiss. Her?”

Christopher held his hard stare. “You seem very concerned about Miss Winters.”

His friend tightened his hold on him, his black glower darkening. “This is not any young lady, Waxham. This is Sophie Winters. She is my sister’s dearest friend.”

Christopher inclined his head, as his friend’s reaction began to make more sense. “So this late visit stems from your sister’s relationship with Miss Winters?” He didn’t allow Mallen to respond. “Rest assured, Mallen, I intend to do right by the young lady. I plan to visit Redbrooke first thing in the morning and offer marriage.”

Mallen released him with such lightning speed that Christopher stumbled against the desk. The young duke spun away from Christopher, presenting him with his back. “Why did you invite me into your scheme? Why, if you intended to offer for the lady anyway? Why, Waxham?” There was an aged weariness to Mallen’s tone; of the like Christopher had never before heard from the other man.

Christopher cleared his throat. The rest of Society could go to hell…but Mallen’s opinion mattered a great deal to him. “It wasn’t intentional. It was…” His words died on a breath of air. “Christ.”

His friend turned back to face him, a frown on his lips. “What?”

The realization sank like a stone in Christopher’s belly. It churned and twisted until he thought he might be ill. This was incomprehensible. Inconceivable.

“You’ve grown to care for her.” He wanted Mallen to deny it; wanted him to laugh at the preposterousness of it all. According to Lady Ackerly’s reporting on Sophie, she’d had only a handful of dances, two walks in Hyde Park, and several visits from the distinguished peer.

Then, with Sophie, it didn’t take much more than that.

Mallen looked away.

And Christopher had his answer. He raked a hand through his hair. “Mallen—”

“Shut the hell up,” Mallen snapped.

“I didn’t intend for this to happen.”

Mallen’s upper lip pulled back in a sneer. “Come now. You’ve never thought this all through. I warned you that you played a dangerous game with the young lady.”

Only neither of them had considered that Sophie’s heart wasn’t the only organ to be endangered by Christopher’s scheming.

“You needn’t have agreed to help me,” Christopher said.

The left-handed jab spun Christopher around and knocked him to the floor. A momentary black haze clouded his vision. Christ, Gentleman Jackson would have been proud of such a punch. He pressed a hand to his bleeding nose and peered up at Mallen. “I deserved that,” he said around blood-smattered fingers.

Mallen towered over him, chest heaving. “Miss Winters is entirely too good for you. She’s entirely too good for either of us.”

“You are right,” Christopher said. Christopher had thought the very same thing more times than he could count on his two hands. “Regardless, I’ve come to care for her.”

His friend passed a hard, probing stare over Christopher’s face. “Do you love her?”

Christopher started. Did he love Sophie? He’d come to care for her in the past weeks. He desired her. He enjoyed her company. But love? “Love isn’t required.”

Mallen’s upper lip pulled back in a sneer. “Why don’t you tell that to Miss Winters?”

“I’m sorry you’ve been hurt, Mallen. That was never my intention. Will you stand up with me when I marry her?”

His friend made a crude gesture with his hand. “Go to hell, Waxham.”

With a final, black look he stepped over Christopher’s prostate form and left him alone to confront the reality of what he’d done.

His friend had been closer to the mark than he possibly knew. There was a special place in hell reserved for Christopher and his father.

“I’m proud of you, Christopher.” As if the devil himself had summoned him, the Marquess of Milford stood framed in the doorway. An uncharacteristic smile formed on the old bastard’s hard, unyielding lips.

Christopher climbed to his feet. “How long have you been there?”

His father arched a white brow. “Long enough to see Mallen knock you to the floor.” He waved his hand about. “Doesn’t matter.” A rusty laugh squeezed out of the marquess’ throat. “I imagine the duke isn’t accustomed to not getting his way. In the end, Miss Winters chose you. Did you tup the girl?”

Christopher’s hands balled into tight fists at his side. It was all he could do to keep from storming across the room and beating his father bloody. He looked past his sire’s shoulder and the fight went out of him. In the end, Christopher had no one to hate except himself. The marquess hadn’t ruined Sophie…those actions belonged to Christopher alone.

He dropped his chin to his chest.

“Not that it matters,” his father went on, either oblivious or uncaring about the internal battle that raged within Christopher. “She’s ruined and has no choice but to accept you. Still, it would be better if she was sullied for anyone else. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about Redbrooke trying to pass her off to a better chap.”

The viscount would be wise to do just that. Any number of lords would be more deserving of Sophie’s hand. Mallen’s visage came to mind. Christopher gritted his teeth. He was truly a bastard because even now, even if it meant Sophie’s happiness, he didn’t want to see her wed to anyone other than himself.

“Be sure you are at Redbrooke’s first thing in the morning. The last thing we need to provide the viscount is time to realize you’re hardly the gentleman Society believes you to be.”

He dropped his head into his hands, as his father took his leave, a maniacal laugh Christopher’s only company as he was forced to confront the ugly truth of what he’d done.

Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet

It is been purported that Miss S.W. was seen at Mary Somerville’s lecture on her understanding of the night sky at the Royal Astronomical Society. As this individual who looked markedly like Miss S.W was wearing breeches and a hat, the identity cannot be wholly confirmed and shall therefore, remain wholly speculative.

~17~

Christopher handed his beaver hat to Viscount Redbrooke’s butler.

The servant wrinkled his nose as though he found Christopher’s company distasteful. He appeared to be a good judge of character. “If you’ll follow me, my lord.” He didn’t wait to see if Christopher followed but made the long climb up the winding staircase to the main floor of the house.

With each step he took, Christopher’s guilt grew and grew until it was a living, breathing force that threatened to choke off his air supply.

He could not in good conscience enter into a union with Sophie unless he confessed all; his father’s ultimatum, Christopher’s efforts to thwart his father, Mallen’s role in helping him.

Yet, he knew with an intuition that had protected him from public shame all these years that the moment Sophie learned the truth, the gentle lightness that had grown between them would be shattered. She could never look at him the same.

Nor would he be able to blame her.

The butler stopped outside Redbrooke’s office. He glanced over his shoulder and then opened the door to announce Christopher.

Christopher paused at the entrance and took a long, slow breath.

“Enter,” Redbrooke called out.

Perhaps Sophie needn’t know the truth after all. Perhaps they would both be best served by her ignorance of Christopher’s sins.

Redbrooke didn’t pick up his head from the documents in front of him. “Waxham.”

The butler took his leave and Christopher moved into the room. He stopped at the foot of Redbrooke’s desk, and waited for the other man to finish reading the papers that occupied his attention.

As he stood there, all the age old insecurities that had haunted Christopher reared their ugly head as he was forced to confront the reality; Redbrooke would require him to read and sign off on legal documents. His eyes closed and he counted his shallow breaths until they slowed.