The Millionaire Rogue (25 page)

“
If
I say yes.”

“
When
you say yes. Your family stands to lose as much as I do if we don't find that blasted diamond and prove to my rather unadoring public that I can indeed safeguard the bank's assets. Your marriage to the marquess may be your family's only hope.”

Sophia threw back her port with a wince. The sadness in her eyes evaporated, replaced by a gleaming mischief. “‘My family's only hope'—why, that's awfully grim stuff. You've been reading Shakespeare again, haven't you?”

Hope stiffened. “Perhaps.”

“The tragedies? I bet you've been penning a poem or two as well. Something about that forbidden fruit you and Lake are always talking about.”

Hope, suddenly warm, tugged at his collar and cleared his throat. “As you can imagine, the tragedies
have
suited my mood these past weeks. But what with the bank so far under water, I've hardly had time to pen poetry.
Poetry
. Bah! I gave that up long ago.”

Even Hope wasn't convinced by his denial. Judging from Sophia's arched brow, she wasn't, either; she was grinning, the pallor of her sadness disappearing, her old colors—trouble, beauty, earnestness—rising in its place.

“I'd like to read it,” she said softly. “You aren't the only one to have visited the tragedies so recently. My dearest mama has been nothing short of a nervous wreck and, as you can see, her antics have driven me to drink. I've found particular solace in the sufferings of Tybalt.”

“Ah, yes. Jolly fun fellow, that Tybalt, if not a bit . . . oh, I think bloodthirsty's the right word.
Italians.
” Hope shook his head. “Never fear, Miss Blaise, the murderous rage shall pass in a few weeks' time. You must refrain from using any sharp objects in the interim, letter openers and the like, lest your dearest mama end up like poor Mercutio.”

Sophia laughed, the kind of laugh that made the skin at the edges of her eyes crease with pleasure. “And
we
must take care, lest God smite us for plotting my mother's demise.”

“Bah! God hath smote us already. Smite away, I say. Smite away.”

For several heartbeats, Hope watched as Sophia's shoulders moved in time to her laughter. He knew without asking it was the first time she'd laughed in weeks, since Violet's accident that terrible morning at Farrow Field. He saw the tension in her neck relax, the sinews of her sloping shoulders loosen with her delight; her surrender, if only for a moment, to him.

He remembered with startling clarity the feel of those muscles and sinews beneath his hands as he worked his way across every inch of her body, the sensation of her sinking beneath him into the warm softness of his feather bed. How sweet it had been then, her surrender; how he'd reveled in it, worshipped it, while drowning in his own.

A breeze tickled his skin; the light from the window was softening now, burning the silken strands of Sophia's hair a fiery white. She caught him watching her; their eyes met for a long moment. She was so beautiful it made his belly hurt; he was lost in her gleaming skin and wild hair and almond-shaped eyes.

And then they were leaning toward each other, her lips parted just enough for Thomas to make out the white gleam of her pearlescent teeth. Her scent invaded his every sense, clean air with a hint of soap, his eyes fluttering shut as he inhaled whatever parts of her he could. He couldn't, they shouldn't, but . . .

They both jumped back at the sudden racket at the door. Sophia managed to spill what was left of her port on her cotton dress, a very unladylike curse escaping the mouth he'd been about to kiss as she brushed at the stain with the back of her hand.

“Hello?” came Violet's voice, thin and tired. She was at the door in the arms of a rather diminutive footman, who sputtered and panted as he wove his way into the room beneath the weight of his burden. “Is that port I see on your dress, cousin? Damn you both, why didn't you wait for me?”

“Forgive me, Lady Violet, I was about to take my leave . . .”

“. . . was in the library, looking for a book . . . Shakespeare, you know the one, star-cross'd . . .”

“I didn't know you'd be down . . . I was just visiting, er, the house . . .”

“. . . dreadful headache after listening to Mama complain for an hour about the roads . . . terrible this time of year . . .”

Gasping with pain, Violet unwrapped her arms from about the poor footman's neck as he settled her on the nearby settee. She surveyed Hope and Sophia, her eyes narrowed with suspicion or pain, he couldn't quite tell.

“You're up to something,” she said. “What is it?”

Hope cleared his throat, as if to speak, but Sophia interjected before he could begin.

“Mr. Hope was calling to ensure you received all the letters he'd sent you. He heard you had woken and was merely concerned for your well-being. Ah, the letters, there they are!”

The footman, poor chap, panted as he bent down to place a neat stack of correspondence on Violet's lap. Lady Violet blanched a whiter shade of—well, white as she looked down at the pile.

Mr. Hope took that as his cue to leave. “Miss Blaise,” he bowed to Sophia, “I do so hope you enjoy the gift. Remember what I said about sharp objects. Good evening. Lady Violet.”

He stalked from the room, Violet clutching the back of the settee as she turned to watch him go. “Sharp objects?” he heard her say. “What the devil does he mean by that? Sophia!”

Hope took his hat and gloves from the footman and charged through the front door, the blood marching in his ears so loudly he did not notice the Earl of Harclay bounding up the steps until it was too late.

They ran headfirst into one another, the earl drawing back as Hope muttered his apologies.

“Hope! Just the man I was . . . er . . . hoping to see! Do you have a moment, old man?”

Hope cleared his throat for what felt like the hundredth time and pulled at the wrists of his gloves. He had no patience for the earl this afternoon; he was as liable to ram his fist into Harclay's face as he was to give him a moment.

“I'm afraid not, my lord.”

“Trust me.” Harclay slung an arm about Hope's shoulder and pulled him close. “You're going to want to hear this news.”

Hope went stiff, arching a brow. “News?”

“I've found it!” the earl whispered. “The French Blue. I've found it. Not only that—I've devised a plan, rather ingenious in my humble estimation, to have it back in your pocket by week's end.”

S
ophia had every intention of keeping her distance from Thomas. No matter her dreams of him at night, the delicious wanderings of her thoughts by day; no matter the ache in her heart or the heavy weight of the diamond ring about her neck. Sophia swore to focus her affections, and her thoughts, on the Marquess of Withington, and to do so required removing Mr. Hope from her heart and her head.

With the French Blue lost, the family's fortune dwindled; her uncle was in debt to the tune of thousands of pounds. First they lost their credit with the grocer, the fishmonger, the shops on Bond Street. Next, they would lose the house.

Guillaume Cassin was still at large. The threat of exposure, and subsequent ruin, was very real indeed.

If ever there was an opportune time in which to agree to an opportune offer of marriage, this would certainly be it.

Sophia had every intention of doing right by her family, she did. But fate, in the form of an unexpected visit from that scalawag Earl of Harclay, had other plans.

He'd found the diamond, or so he claimed. And his scheme to get it back—well, it was nothing short of absurd, as it involved multiple steps, multiple disguises, and crimes that were punishable by medieval sorts of death. Like his plan, the earl was either cracked or utterly brilliant; Sophia could not yet say which it would be.

“I was at White's, a few evenings ago,” Harclay panted. He paced before the grate in the drawing room, Cousin Violet laid out upon the sofa, Sophia perched at her feet.

“As I was drinking myself into a stupor I happened to overhear King Louis—yes,
that
King Louis, the one who's been living so high on the hog in exile, here in England—and his brother the Comte d'Artois discussing payment for
le bleu de France
. Seems we're not the only ones on the hunt for the diamond.”

Of course Sophia knew of the French royals; they were in the papers often enough, tales of their enormous stipends and even more enormous appetites providing endless fodder for London's gossips. Brothers to the fallen Louis XVI, they lived in exile in the hopes that the new King Louis—he styled himself Louis XVIII—might one day reclaim the throne of France.

Seeing as Napoleon had no intention of ceding said throne; seeing as Louis and Artois were so fat they would sink any ship that attempted to bear them across the Channel; well, such ambitions were laughable at best.

Harclay's news did little to further their cause.

“They said a man by the name of Daniel Eliason, a jewel merchant, is in possession of the French Blue. This week they are to meet on Eliason's ship in the Docklands, and pay him thirty thousand pounds for the jewel.”

Sophia swallowed, let out a breath.

“I propose—hear me out, before you object—I propose we lure the king into our possession, and force him to take us to his brother, who at this very moment is working to procure a loan for the thirty thousand. We take the money, have the royals lead us to Eliason, and—
Huzzah!
—buy the diamond for ourselves.” He caught Sophia's eye and had the grace to flush pink. “For Mr. Hope, I mean. Of course the French Blue belongs to him.”

Sophia furrowed her brow. “How do we set the plot in motion, then? What bait do we have to lure the king to our cause?”

“Ah!” Here the earl and Cousin Violet exchanged a knowing glance. “It's quite simple. The king likes whores. Begging your pardon, Miss Blaise, no other way to say it. I propose we—all of us, you and Hope and that one-eyed monster of his—lure old King Louis to my house under the premise it is a palace of pleasure or some such nonsense. Once he's inside, we get him drunk, very drunk, or . . . yes, or we give him a goodly dose of laudanum, just enough to make him docile. Then he leads us to his brother, the money, and, at last, the diamond.”

Sophia looked from the Earl of Harclay to Violet and back again.

Dear God, they were serious.

This senseless, dangerous, convoluted plot—they meant to put it in play.

But the plot
did
involve Mr. Hope; and before her better sense took hold, Sophia blurted, “I'm in! Count me in. Which part shall I take?”

*   *   *

Several days later
The Earl of Harclay's Residence
Brook Street, Hanover Square

A
courtesan, as it turned out; Sophia was one of many half-naked goddesses inhabiting Aphrodite's Temple, a labyrinthine set that transformed the Earl of Harclay's well-appointed drawing room into a house of ill repute, complete with swaths of red satin and nude statues of Greek immortals in suggestive poses.

All was going to plan—Harclay and Cousin Violet managed to lure the king into the Temple, and His Highness King Louis XVIII appeared to be enjoying himself most thoroughly in his chair beside the earl—until Harclay, having sipped from a balloon of brandy proffered moments before by Sophia, suddenly pitched forward.

His eyes welled; his face matched the swaths of satin above his head.

Sophia looked down at the empty tray she held in her hands, and looked back up at the king. He appeared healthy as an ox, if not a bit perplexed by Harclay's sudden, violent movements.

She'd poisoned the wrong man.

She'd poisoned Harclay.

Across the room, Sophia met eyes with Mr. Hope, who up until that moment had been waiting in the wings. Her belly sinking, she watched his face unfurl with understanding, and then he was dashing forward, falling to his knees beside Mr. Lake as Avery, the earl's butler, held his master's head in his hands.

Sophia placed the tray on the edge of the stage and lurched toward the small knot of men, throat thick with tears. Violet was calling for a doctor; Lake, more menacing than ever in his gravity, called for mustard seed and water.

The earl's face was now a frightening shade of blue. His body was limp, devoid of any movement. Mr. Hope was shouting now, binding King Louis' hands and feet; the room pulsed into action around her.

Dear God
. She'd
poisoned
the
earl
. And not just any earl. Violet's earl, the earl that was to lead them to the diamond, to sanity and salvation. What if he never woke? What if she'd killed him, killed him with her carelessness?

Sophia checked, and checked again, that the balloon with the chipped foot—the poisoned brandy—would go to His Highness King Louis. But then she'd caught Mr. Hope watching her, his blue eyes following her every movement, lingering on her every curve.

So much for keeping her distance. Such a thing wasn't possible, not when he looked at her like that; not when she felt her heart rising beneath his gaze, her heart and blood and the longing that plagued her day and night.

Sophia remembered her hands shaking as she offered the balloons to Harclay and Louis, her thoughts a riotous tangle. It was entirely possible she offered the wrong drink to the wrong man.

Her vision blurred by tears, she stood over Mr. Lake as he held a potion to Harclay's lips. The earl drank it in short, hot sputters; but time and time again his eyes fluttered shut.

He was dying.

Panic rose in her throat. Sophia swallowed it, willing herself to remain calm. She'd written scandalous memoirs, deceived a princess, dueled with sinister Frenchmen.

Surely she could bring a man back to life.

Sophia elbowed Lake aside and sank to her knees. “Allow me.”

She wound up her arm and, squeezing shut her eyes, brought down her hand, hard, on Harclay's cheek.

Violet was crying out, holding the earl's head in her lap. Sophia watched as his lips broke into a small smile; and then he was opening his eyes and turning over and emptying the contents of his stomach onto Violet's costume.

“I'm sorry,” he sputtered, wiping his lips, “for ruining your toga.”

An audible sigh of relief coursed through the room.

Sophia sat back on her haunches. “I'm so very sorry. I don't know how it happened—”

With a wince, William drew himself up. “Think nothing of it, Sophia. Just promise me you'll never again raise your hand to another man—you seem to enjoy it a tad too much. Bloody hurt, too.”

Thank God he wasn't dead. Thank God.
Through her tears she felt herself smile.

“I promise.”

There was a tickle at the back of her neck. Sophia looked up to see Mr. Hope looming above her, his fingers moving to grasp her arm. Wordlessly he lifted her to her feet, branding her with the heat of his touch, his palm to her bare skin.

They stood very close. His eyes—oh, those
eyes
—searched her face. She grew warm beneath his scrutiny; when she tried to look away he pulled her closer, his fingers pressing into the flesh of her arm.

“Are you all right?” His voice was low, barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” Sophia glanced across the room. The earl stumbled; Mr. Lake caught him just before he fell face-first to the floor. “Though I cannot say the same for his lordship. Poor Harclay.”

“An accident.” Hope squeezed her arm. “Nothing Lake and a little mustard seed couldn't fix.”

“But I almost killed him! What if he's—what if he's crippled forever?”

“Darling.” Sophia tried to ignore the thrill that sparked in her chest at his endearment. “If brandy could cripple a man, I daresay I'd be gnarled and stooped as an apple tree. That thieving rogue will recover, make no mistake. In the meantime, we must see to tonight's adventure.”

Sophia swallowed, squaring her shoulders. Their last adventure; one last wild night. “Yes. Yes, you're right.”

“Excellent.” Hope smiled. He released her arm, running his palm over her bare shoulder. “Here, let me get your shawl. It'll be chilly by the river.”

She tried not to shiver at his touch. She didn't want to feel like this, not now, not when the fate of her family, of Hope and the bank, hung in the balance.

She did not want to feel this desire for him pulse through her being with every heartbeat, every breath, more potent than ever.

She did not want to feel like this.

But then she met his eyes as she ducked into the frayed cashmere shawl he held open for her. He was looking at her the way girls dreamed of being looked at; adoringly, intently, his eyes at once soft with affection, hard with desire.

No matter what she wanted, what was good and what was proper, there was no helping the way Thomas made Sophia feel.

The gentlemen, who, in their attempts to push King Louis through the doorway, had gotten him stuck, were calling for Thomas's aid; Cousin Violet was twittering about time, they didn't have much time now.

Hope reached for Sophia's hand, took it in his own. By now the gesture was familiar, but that familiarity was thrilling in its own way. It made her feel confident, and warm, as if she might count on his presence at her side no matter tonight's events. As if he would protect her no matter what happened.

He turned and made for the king, who was howling some French obscenity or another. For a moment Sophia stood, watching the roll of Hope's shoulders through the tunic of his Achilles costume.

“Sophia! Sophia,” Violet snapped. “Oh, come, enough of this wallowing in self-pity. Harclay's alive, and with any luck he'll stay that way. We've got to go, or we'll miss our rendezvous with Artois!”

Sophia blinked, breaking the spell, and followed her cousin out of the room.

*   *   *

T
heir party piled into two hackneys. With a bit of cajoling, King Louis was at last persuaded to lead them to his brother, the Comte d'Artois, who waited like a sitting duck in his carriage on King Street, a thirty-thousand-pound note tucked into his tasseled pocket.

Sophia watched the proceedings in mute fascination. At gunpoint, the king and Artois agreed to accompany Hope's motley crew to the Docklands, where Mr. Daniel Eliason, that shadowy jeweler, awaited their arrival, the French Blue in the strongbox aboard his ship.

Thomas sat across from her as the hackney rumbled through the darkened streets toward the Docklands. Outside, the night was black, complete; this side of town had no gas lamps of which to speak, and the thoroughfares were narrow and mean, bordered on either side by shuttered tenements.

Sophia swallowed, and kept her gaze studiously focused on her lap. Not only was she terrified of what was to come—this adventure, it was dangerous, it was stupid, and it would likely get them all killed—she feared meeting Thomas's eyes. She couldn't bear to see him look at her like that again. Not when she would leave him behind after tonight. Leave him behind, and all that he had made her feel, all that she had seen and known at his side.

At last the hackney creaked to a stop. The gentlemen dismounted first. Hope held out his hand, guiding Sophia out of the vehicle. Her fingers shook in the warmth of his palm; he tucked her arm into the crook of his elbow and held her close against him.

She did not protest.