The Reluctant Countess (4 page)

* * *

“You look enchanting this evening, Countess.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Sophie mumbled as she looked at her feet.

Bother!
These steps were hard; it was taking all her concentration to get them right.

Society thought she was aloof and cold, but in truth Sophie was just scared of slipping up, so she had to be on her guard at all times.

Oh dear, this is the turn with the little intricate steps. I must count quietly
.

“Are you well, Countess?”

“Pardon, my lord?” Sophie breathed as she completed the turn successfully.

“You made a small noise that suggested you were experiencing some sort of discomfort, Countess.”

“Thank you, I am quite well,” Sophie said with a small tight smile. She must try harder to stay silent whilst dancing in the future.

Sophie’s dance partner was Viscount Sumner. He was a man, unused to being ignored. Handsome, with eyes the color of the ocean and long dark eyelashes, he had a head full of blond curls, which often had the girls sighing, and of course a vast fortune, which aided his cause. She had seen others laughing with him, and knew he had a lively wit that she would enjoy. However, she also had a fear of ending face-first on the dance floor with her skirts over her head if she missed a step, so she rarely conversed while negotiating the dance floor. Of course, dancing was the only time a woman could really get to know a gentleman, and Sophie’s reluctance to talk had gone a long way toward building her reputation as an ice maiden.

Patrick watched as Stephen waltzed Sophie up and down the room. The viscount had made several attempts to converse with her and she had rebuffed each one. Holding herself erect, she merely kept a polite smile on her face while looking over his shoulder, or occasionally, when she thought no one was looking, down at her feet. After yet another attempt, Stephen looked up at the ceiling as if seeking divine intervention. Patrick had observed her dancing with several different partners now, and noted her trepidation as the steps grew more difficult. What the hell was that woman’s story? And why did he care so much?

“That woman is frozen from the inside out!”

Patrick looked at Viscount Sumner as Stephen moved to lean on the wall beside him. To many, Viscount Sumner was a devil-may-care peer whose biggest concern was the color of his waistcoat. Patrick, however, knew him differently.

Two of their estates bordered each other and for Patrick, Stephen and his family had been the only light in an otherwise dark and bleak existence. When they were old enough, and against Stephen’s family’s express wishes, he and the viscount had enlisted. After proving themselves, they had been conscripted to spy for the foreign office. Often behind enemy lines for long periods at a time, Patrick had soon realized that the viscount was a man with a sharp mind and equally sharp right hook. He was one of the few people Patrick would trust with his life. A rarity for him, after a childhood spent with a father who had taught him to trust no one.

“She is everything I will not search for in a wife, Colt,” Stephen declared with a disgruntled expression. Taking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, he swallowed a large mouthful.

“I am not so sure, Stephen.” Patrick glanced at his friend.

“How so?” the viscount questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Watch her for a while, and then tell me what you think.”

Stephen sent his friend a searching look, then shrugged. He turned his body so that he had a clear view of the countess.

Mr. Talbot led her onto the floor for the next dance. Moving his eyes to her face, Stephen watched her lips move as she negotiated the difficult steps.

“She is counting.”

“Yes,” Patrick said, watching Talbot fail in his efforts at conversation with Sophie.

When had she become Sophie?
When you realized that you have no wish to harm her, merely claim her as your own
.

“Talbot looks as frustrated as I,” Stephen said when the dance finished. He watched as Sophie moved toward a group of four ladies. “Look at her hands; she keeps opening and closing them and then tucking them into her skirts. How strange,” he added. “It is as if she is holding her breath to keep herself still.

“She doesn’t offer a comment unless one is addressed to her. Very odd,” Stephen mused, turning once again to face Patrick. “I noticed Lady Carstairs keeps a close eye on her, and that the countess only smiles when she is near. Good lord, Patrick!” Stephen said, standing upright suddenly
and looking at the mass of moving people before him. “If they realize that she is not actually an ice maiden, she will be eaten alive.” Stephen’s face now had a worried frown.

“So in light of your discovery, what conclusions would you draw?” Patrick asked quietly.

“I could almost believe she is scared witless and extremely uncomfortable in this setting,” Stephen said, his eyes still on Sophie. “I know it sounds strange, but it is almost as if she is somehow new to this,” he added, waving his hand around the room. “Or is it that she suffers from a crippling shyness?”

“Hmmm,” Patrick murmured. “An interesting point, my friend, but of course we will keep our findings to ourselves.”

“Are you suggesting I gossip, Coulter?” Stephen inquired, while trying and subsequently failing to look offended.

Patrick snorted but remained silent.

“She reminds me of you.”

The words were spoken softly, but Patrick heard them.

“You had that look permanently etched on your face for the first year you entered society,” Stephen said quietly.

He didn’t want to ask, but something made him.

“What look?” Patrick queried.

“Trepidation, almost as if you were waiting for the axe to fall.”

And Patrick knew Stephen was right, because inside he had felt that connection with Sophie from the first. He remembered the gut-gnawing fear of failure that he had felt all those years ago. It had taken months to go away, and in that time he had earned the reputation of a man who loathed small talk and was hard to befriend, not unlike his countess. Patrick wondered, when had he begun to think of Sophie as his countess?

* * *

Patrick rarely made it a practice to ride in the park with the rest of fashionable London, showing off his horses. Usually at this time of the day he was ensconced in his office reading estate
reports and plotting his next financial move. However, he had woken after a night dreaming about Sophie in a series of erotic fantasies that left him aching and frustrated, and had made the decision to call on her, only to be informed she had taken her carriage to the park. Without questioning his motives too closely, he had followed.

“Lady Belfour,” Patrick said to the elderly woman as she sent him a little cooing wave from her carriage.

Swearing beneath his breath as another carriage, filled with frothing lace and plentiful color in addition to several young frivolous ladies, headed his way, Patrick urged his big mount into a trot in the opposite direction. After a thorough search of all the carriages present, he could see that Sophie was not here, and he had no wish to stay and be hunted by every available young lady and their pushy mothers.

“My lord, lovely to see you.”

Pulling up alongside the carriage he was about to overtake, Patrick looked at its occupants and found his first smile of the day.

“Your Grace,” he said, nodding his head to one of the few women he liked, his friend’s wife, the Duchess of St. Brides.

“Going anywhere in particular, Colt?” inquired the handsome Duke of St. Brides in a lazy drawl.

The Duke and Duchess of St. Brides were a love match. Their courtship had been fraught, but the eventual outcome was a relationship built on love, respect, and friendship. Patrick often felt his happiest when around them, and yet he also felt a pang of discomfort that he would never have what they had—could never have that kind of happiness.

“Do you think he has a slightly panicky look around the gills, darling? Almost as if he is a species on the brink of extinction and a predator is looming,” the duke remarked, his eyes twinkling.

“Stop teasing, Dominic,” the duchess said, giving her husband a less than gentle punch on the arm.

“Ouch, vixen.” The duke dutifully rubbed his arm, still smiling broadly.

“Is that a paunch I see forming over the waistband of your extremely tight pants, St. Brides? Tut tut, marriage is obviously agreeing with you too much,” Patrick said, eyeing the flat stomach of his friend.

“Don’t try and change the subject, my friend; I see the panic in your eyes,” St. Brides said cheerily.

“I am glad you can have so much fun at my expense,” Patrick muttered.

“I remember the days only too well before my darling wife ensnared me in her web.” St. Brides gave his wife a heated look that made her blush and giggle.

“Shouldn’t that sort of thing have started to wear off by now?” Patrick grunted, watching the couple steal a quick kiss.

“Never,” St. Brides declared. He chuckled as a few carriages bearing young ladies, all waving frantically, approached. “My advice to you, Coulter, is to run.”

Hissing a foul word, then begging the duchess’s pardon, Patrick took off. Ignoring the gales of laughter coming from the duke and duchess, Patrick headed for a path that would take him away from the more frequented areas of the park.

Slowly the noise faded and the trees grew thicker, and he was finally alone. The day was clear, the skies blue, although away from the sun there was a definite chill. Content to let his horse take the lead, Patrick cleared his mind and ambled. It was something he did rarely.

The problem was that she intrigued him. Yes, she was beautiful, but so were many other women. The countess was playing some sort of game, hiding something behind a frozen façade. Patrick had glimpsed the fear and vulnerability beneath that façade and that had fired his interest. He understood all about fear and vulnerability, having masked it himself throughout his youth and into adulthood. It either destroyed you or made you stronger; luckily for Patrick, it was the latter.

Yes, he still wanted to unmask her, but now he was not so sure he wanted the public to become aware of her deceit as well. He wanted to know for himself that she was not a scheming little vixen who had taken the old earl for his money. In his head, he knew she could not be that person, because there was something so good and innocent about her. Stephen’s words came back to him.
I
know it sounds strange, but it is almost as if she is somehow new to this. Or is it that she suffers from a crippling shyness?
Was it true? Had she only just learnt to become a lady? No one had known who she was before she married the old Earl of Monmouth, but Lady Carstairs had said she had remained in the country looking after her elderly parents, choosing to stay with them rather than have a season.

Patrick enjoyed the solitude for twenty peaceful minutes before the squawk of a baby reached him from somewhere up ahead. Reining his horse to a halt, he listened. There was the little squawk again, but Patrick had yet to hear an accompanying adult voice. Of course, a small child would not have made it out here alone, but he could still hear no other voices. Another squeal filled the air, this one louder and more demanding. Dismounting, he tied his horse to a branch and went to investigate.

“If anyone saw me now, Timmy, then I would surely be bundled up and sent to Bedlam,” a voice said from beyond the treeline up ahead.

Patrick knew that voice. No other woman could make his skin feel hot with just a few softly spoken words. Quietly, he pushed through some branches and found himself in a small clearing. Ahead he saw two shapely limbs clad only in long cream satin knickers with lace edging and a pair of dainty leather shoes waving around in the air. The owner of the lovely limbs was obscured by her skirts, which were covering her head as she attempted to walk about on her hands. Dragging his dazed gaze to the right, Patrick noted a small child sitting on his bottom clapping and squealing as the Countess of Monmouth walked toward him on her hands.

“The trick is, Timmy, to find your balance before you start walking,” said a muffled voice from beneath the skirts.

This was not going to help his sleepless nights in the slightest, Patrick thought as he watched her. He could now envision the exact shape of those slender limbs as they wrapped around him and he drove deep into her welcoming heat.

“Ouch!”

Patrick started toward Sophie as she tumbled to the ground, landing in an inelegant heap, and he watched as she righted herself, clutching her left hand.

“Ow, ow, ow,” she cried, leaping to her feet and hopping around in a small circle, which produced further squeals of delight from her young companion.

“Let me see,” Patrick said as he reached her side.

Sophie gasped, then stumbled backward. She stared at the large, disturbing male as he moved to intercept her.

No, not him, why him of all people?

“I … I am unhurt, my … my lord,” Sophie said, putting her stinging palm swiftly behind her back like a small child who was caught with something forbidden. Had he seen her knickers? Oh lord, what if he had seen her walking about on her hands like some common … oh this was not good. Sophie’s head was spinning in circles. Hurriedly, she lowered her eyes. She couldn’t think when Lord Coulter looked at her. All that dark smoldering heat and unleashed power was very disturbing to someone as inexperienced as she.

“Give me your hand, Countess,” Patrick said softly.

“I … ah … I.”
Words, Sophie, for pity’s sake—find some words
. She tried to breathe. What had Letty told her to do when she felt herself stuttering? Form the word in her head.

“I am not above force,” Patrick said in a firm tone.

“P-please, my lord,” Sophie whispered, “I must tend to my bro … Timmy.”

Patrick reached for her hand as she turned, then spun her back to face him. Ignoring her struggles, he examined the red swollen surface of her palm. Small black marks indicated she had managed to imbed something in there.

“These must come out now, Sophie, or they’ll cause infection,” he said, giving her a small tug to stop her struggles.