Temptation Has Green Eyes (31 page)

Max concentrated on removing her hat and cloak, and then tenderly helped her off with her gloves. Sophia let him minister to her, treat her with care.

What shocked her the most was how steady the news left her. “Do you think it’s true? That I’m a king’s daughter?” Really true? She didn’t yet understand how it could be. And had her mother’s family left the country and returned without anyone being any the wiser?

Gently he pushed her down on a sofa by the window and took the place next to her. “First we talk. Clear everything up, get it out of the way. Where shall we start?”

One thing puzzled her. “What did you mean about French? What has she done? She’s been with me since I was a child.”

His eyes turned grave, the golden sparkles dimming. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I have to. French has been spying on you.”

She gasped in shock. “Why would she do that?”

He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I made some enquiries. She came to you when you were thirteen, straight from Northwich. I don’t know if he set her there to ensure your safety as well as to report your doings. You are, or were, very precious to him.”

“Only in the sense that he could use me.”

“I don’t know.” He touched her chin, stroked a gentle finger down her throat. “Or perhaps he did care. He’s not a monster. He’s a man with misguided principles.” He paused and his mouth set in a hard line. “But I might be revising that opinion. Sweetheart, I know the man did something to you I find hard to forgive, but still I hate to tell you. John Hayes is dead.”

Shock hit her hard. “Dead? How?”

“Footpads, it’s said.”

She snorted in a most unladylike way. “Footpads?” She didn’t believe that for a minute. “You mean a footpad called Northwich?”

“Yes. When I heard that, I knew the game was much more serious than we’d supposed. It went far beyond a feud between two families. That Northwich, a clever man, would risk murdering a known associate, that he’d take that risk, meant you could be in danger too. But I fear Northwich will never be brought to justice for Hayes’s demise. I would have left French with him, were it not for that. With your permission, I’ll send her to one of my minor estates to work as a maid. I can ensure her safety there, but I don’t think Northwich wishes her dead, or she’d have gone with Hayes last night. Hayes knew too much about his master’s dealings, and Northwich knew I was planning to take him and question him. He had to go.”

She couldn’t bring herself to care about the man who had used her so badly. Not even hatred. She just didn’t care. Sadness suffused her. She should be feeling so much more, and if she’d known this earlier, she would have.

Now her husband stretched his arm behind her, his posture protective. “Yesterday French tried to separate us. Together with John Hayes. I was in Lloyd’s, in my usual place, when I saw a woman in your aquamarine gown pass by the window. That’s a very distinctive gown unlike any other. So I followed, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch up with you—her. She hurried across Covent Garden Piazza and met with a man. John Hayes, to be precise. They kissed. In the street no less, and then went inside a house there. Most of the houses in Covent Garden are devoted to one thing—the pursuit of pleasure. I was supposed to believe you were meeting Hayes for an illicit tryst. Then come home and rail at you, perhaps send you away. You’d be on your own, looking for friends.” He gazed at her, waiting for her.

“But I didn’t—”

“I know, sweetheart, I know. I never doubted you. I knew it wasn’t you as soon as French met Hayes.”

“Why?”

“Because of what happened in the country. What you told me there and your reaction. You’d never meet that man voluntarily. My first thought was that you were being threatened in some way. Then I realized it wasn’t you, and I knew who it was.”

“French,” she said dully.

“As you say. French. There is a resemblance in height and coloring, and across the distance of a square as busy and as large as Covent Garden, she could pass for you. I’m right?”

She frowned. Yes, she’d sometimes asked French to attend her dress fittings when she had no time for them. Ladies found it useful to have a maid who resembled her in height, build and coloring. “Yes. But it’s only a passing resemblance.”

“When she was in your gown with your favorite hat, it was more than that. She had her hair done the way you prefer, too. I saw her mainly from the back.”

She gave him a wondering stare. “You noticed all that?”

“I notice everything about you.” He grazed her cheek with his knuckle. “I knew that wasn’t you. I knew you wouldn’t meet John Hayes on your own, much less take him as a lover. That was when I realized French was in league with them, and it was she who’d taken your clothes and met Hayes. Because I’d sworn I’d never doubt you again. And I did not. But you were ill, and I couldn’t speak to you about it.” He gave her a soft smile. “It was nothing to do with oyster patties, was it?”

She shook her head. “It was the vile lies Northwich said to get me to come to his house alone. And he was trying to isolate me, wasn’t he? I did that all by myself.”

“He failed. You were never alone.”

Her mind started working once again. Once she’d gained Northwich’s assurance that she hadn’t married her half-brother, her brain had clicked back into action, making her wonder what on earth she was doing at his house. She’d been in the process of excusing herself when Max had arrived. “No, I don’t think so. John did it because he wanted to. Perhaps the duke had decided he’d grown too close to me and was in danger of winning me over. The duke wouldn’t want that for me, would he?”

“No.” Of course not.

“A princess should marry a prince. Perhaps Northwich’s own son. John Hayes introduced me to Alconbury. Was he also planning for his marriage to a princess, illegitimate perhaps, but also possibly the start of a dynasty?”

He said nothing for a moment. She knew that expression. When he was working out a complicated deal or weaving something into his plans, he looked like that.

“You’re right. Hayes wouldn’t feature in Northwich’s plans for you and his attempt at winning you wouldn’t have met with his approval. A creature, a tool, wouldn’t be allowed so much power.” He smiled. “We spoiled his plans, did we not? With the able help of your father. I don’t think he suspected the half of this.”

“You thought—”

He took her hands gently in his. “I drove myself mad with speculation, but in the end, one thing remained. One thing is true through all of this. You’re mine, Sophia. Your parentage is immaterial now, because you’re my wife. A Wallace.”

That statement affected deeper than anything else since they’d left Northwich’s house. Tears threatened to fall, but she forced them down. He was right. “Yes. I am the daughter of Thomas Russell and his wife Lady Mary, and now I’m the wife of Maximilian Wallace, Marquess of Devereaux.”

She’d found where she belonged. She was home.

Max took her hand. “I want to touch you properly, Sophia. Show you how I feel about you and how sorry I am that I doubted you for a single moment.”

“But you said that yesterday—”

He interrupted her. “That was when I knew. I didn’t doubt you, not for a minute.”

He glanced down at her and shook his head. “Too many clothes,” he said as if that were the most important thing in the world. He stood and held his hand out to help her up. Her heart beating double-time, she got to her feet.

He pulled out the pins that secured her fichu to her gown. He tossed them on his dressing table, before drawing the piece of gauzy linen away and dropping it on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“Undressing you.” He paused to remove his own coat, letting it fall disregarded to land in a heavy
thump
on the floor.

“Why? I’m fine, Max. I don’t need to rest.”

“You may not. I need this. I need to touch you, to claim you.”

“Oh.” That answer took her aback somewhat.

“Not surprised at discovering you’re a princess, but surprised I want to take you to bed?” His mouth quirked in a half-smile.

“A little surprised, but this news… I’ll let it sink in. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t alter the person I am. Not to me, nor to the rest of the world. I’m still the daughter of a Cit, and I’m still married to you.”

He paused and gazed at her face. “Exactly. And you’re still the loveliest woman in London.”

“I was never that.”

“You are to me.”

The way he looked at her, eyes sparkling, she believed him. Her body heated when he gazed at her, desire naked in his eyes.

“And you’re right about that, too. It doesn’t alter who you are. The woman I love.”

What Northwich’s news had failed to evoke, Max managed now. Her mind reeled, and she’d have fallen if he weren’t holding her steady. “You can’t.”

“I’ve found it surprisingly easy,” he said, his smile returning. “It happened all on its own. Of course I love you, Sophia. I could give you myriad reasons, but in the end it means nothing next to the way I feel when you’re by, the man you make me. I’m a better man for knowing you.”

While she was still stunned immobile by his words, he went to work on her hair, removing the frivolous scrap of lace fashionable women called a cap and tossing it away. It floated to the carpet, and he tossed the pins on his dressing table.

“The first time I saw you, really saw you, I thought you brought light to the room.”

While he spoke, he was busy about her, divesting her of gown, petticoats, and unhooking her stays. He dumped pins and bows on the dressing table as he worked as efficiently, if not as neatly, as any lady’s maid. She’d worn the type of stays that fastened down the front today, an old pair from when she used to dress herself most days.

Someone must have stuffed her head with flock. “You love me?” she repeated stupidly.

He smiled. “Of course I do. Yes, Sophia, my wife, my true sweetheart, I love you.”

He asked nothing of her, but lifted her and laid her on the bed, as he had that other time, stripped quickly, and joined her, snuggling close.

She shivered.

“Cold?” he asked.

She shook her head.

Only then did he kiss her. Small sipping kisses at first, slowly lengthening, so they became luscious. Then he gave her his tongue, licking deep into her mouth and persuading her to do the same to him in return. They played, danced, kissed until she found difficulty remembering what life was like without it, without him in her and her in him.

His cock pressed hard into her stomach, dampness marking her where he had released some of the nectar of his body. She wanted it, ached to feel him inside her, but she wanted something else first. To learn him. To show him without words what he meant to her. And what he’d just told her meant. Her heart, her mind filling with warm wonder, she slowly drew away from him, smiling. She swept her hands over his chest, glorying in the hard-packed muscle and the tiny nail heads of his nipples, hard against her palms.

“I do love you, Max,” she said, her heart in her throat, because she’d never said that to anyone else, not even her father. “I couldn’t imagine living without you.”

“Nor I you.”

Tenderly, he cherished her, making her feel like the most precious porcelain figure, the most delicate silk. He stroked her body, cupped her breasts so the nipples stood proud. He bathed each tip with his tongue and sucked gently, first one, and then the other, until she cried for him for more. He obeyed her, licking a line around the rosy tip before drawing it into the heat of his mouth. Curling his tongue underneath, he pulled, sending arrows of sensation straight to her heart.

Crying his name, she curved her hand around his head and dug her fingers into his hair. He released her nipple and paid attention to the other, murmuring “So sweet,” against her skin. He dropped countless kisses around her breasts. Then he kissed a trail up to her throat where he played and lingered around her pulse points, turning her into a totally sensual being.

He gazed into her face. “You are essential to me, Sophia. My wife, my love—everything.”

Smiling, she drew him close and kissed him. His words, his caresses all said the same thing. He loved her truly. “I don’t know how long I’ve loved you either. When I saw you at my father’s house, when you came on business, it was as if you brought your own atmosphere with you. You seemed separate. I always knew when you were in the house, because I could feel it. Is that love?”

“I don’t think so, but it might be a start.” He touched his lips to hers. “For me, it’s not being able to imagine my life without you in it.”

So simple. She nodded. “It is that. After a while, I couldn’t bear the thought of you moving on. It was only business, I thought. You didn’t notice me.”

“Every time.” He murmured the words against her lips. “I always noticed you. But how could I say anything? Foolishly, I thought of other people’s expectations, not what I needed. And it is need, Sophia. I was so afraid today that I’d lose you. If you’d gone with Northwich, I couldn’t go with you. But I didn’t want to alter your decision. It had to be yours.”

“It was. It still doesn’t seem real. But I don’t care. It doesn’t alter what I am, does it?”

“It makes you more precious to some people. I swear I’ll protect you with the last breath I take, but for your own sweet self, for no other reason.”

“Oh, don’t say that!”

She touched her finger to his lips and he sucked it in, caressed it with his tongue.

“Don’t think about it. Or even believe it. We’re here, and I’m going nowhere. Not without you. You really thought I could do that? Become a political pawn?”

He released her finger slowly, his green eyes bright. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do. It’s tempting, the chance to wield power. But even if I wanted it for beneficial ends, it would be distorted.”

“I’ll just have to try to influence people as a marchioness instead of a princess,” she said, smiling. “I’ll deny everything else.”

“Rumors will still spread.”

“Damn them,” she said, cinching him close.

His laugh vibrated through her body. “Damn them all,” he said. “We should stay here. Forever, if need be.”