Her lids narrowed. “Do not attempt to flatter me.” Her snapped words were accompanied by a scathing snort. “I underestimated you, Your Grace, had no idea you chose to be a snoop in your spare time.”
“Only when it involves the safety of my daughter,” Magnus replied, but not quite truthfully. He would protect Clarissa with his life and under any circumstances, but his interest in knowing more about Sophia was purely personal.
Blonde brows arched over surprised eyes. “You believe me to be a danger to Clarissa?”
“I believe there are many reasons why a person might choose to live under a name other than their own,” Magnus replied guardedly.
“All of them nefarious, no doubt,” she taunted.
It was hard for Magnus to think of a good reason for a woman to choose to change her name. God knows he had tried for what was left of the afternoon and early evening before Sophia arrived.
Only to conclude that the only reason for anyone to change their name was so that they could not be identified or found.
There were too many reasons why that might be the case for Magnus to even begin to guess which of those reasons Sophia’s might be.
But the one he feared hearing the most was that she was a married woman hiding from her husband.
He could not, and never would, countenance an attraction to a married woman. Knew, from Lucy’s behavior during their marriage, how humiliating that could be to the husband. Even if Sophia had been separated from that husband for some years.
“Could we begin this evening again?” he placated. “Perhaps eat dinner together like two civilized—”
“I am not feeling particularly civilized right now, Your Grace—”
“Magnus.”
She frowned. “What?”
“I believe I asked you yesterday to call me Magnus,” he reminded, closing his eyes briefly as he recalled that was exactly what she had called him in his fantasy last night when he pumped his cock to completion.
“There are many things I should like to call you,” she scorned.
“I can imagine,” he acknowledged dryly.
“I doubt that.”
“Nevertheless, I want you to address me by my given name, as I intend to call you Sophia.”
Her eyes flashed. “We cannot all have what we want.”
“We can have a facsimile of it.”
Sophia gave a snort. “And is that acceptable to you? To know that what you have is only a copy and not the true original?”
For Clarissa’s sake, Magnus had accepted his sham of a marriage to Lucy for eight years. Also for Clarissa’s sake, he had lived only half a life these past ten years since Lucy died. After meeting Sophia yesterday and having such a fierce physical reaction to her, for the first time in many, many years Magnus had imagined the possibility of having more. For himself.
Only to have those hopes dashed earlier today when he learned that Sophia was not the direct and honest woman he had thought her to be.
Did he still want her anyway?
Of course he did.
Enough to accept that she had secrets she would refuse to share with him if he asked?
God, yes!
After hours of contemplation, he now knew he wanted Sophia in any way he could have her. In any way she would allow him to have her.
Sophia was the first woman to have shaken him out of the comfortable if unexciting existence he had lived in for the past ten years. Despite everything, he had remained true to his marriage vows while Lucy was alive. But he felt alive again in Sophia’s company, more alive than he had ever felt before. He wanted more of that, of her, not less.
“Will you answer two questions?” he pressed.
Her gaze was frosty. “That will depend upon what those two question are.”
“Are you a married woman?”
“No!”
Her reply was made too vehemently for Magnus to disbelieve her or to deny his own relief in her answer. “Is your first name really Sophia?” he prompted huskily.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Then that is what we shall be to each other: Sophia and Magnus.”
She eyed him warily. “I do not understand.”
Magnus took a step closer to her. “I should very much like to become your lover.”
The phrase you might have knocked me down with a feather wafted across Sophia’s stunned mind.
Because that was how she currently felt. Mindless. Weightless. Rootless. As if the slightest breeze or movement might knock her over.
Had Magnus Spencer, the haughty and aristocratic Duke of Weston, just stated he wished to become her lover?
Surely not.
Admittedly, he had kissed her yesterday, and there was no doubting he had been aroused by it. But it was a leap rather than a step forward from that to suggest the two of them might ever become lovers.
Sophia gave a derisive shake of her head. “I should go. Your butler will no doubt be here shortly with dinner—”
“My butler has instructions not to enter the room until he is sent for.”
“Because you believed I might agree to become your lover?”
“I hoped so, yes.”
“I do not enjoy being toyed with, Your Grace—”
“I believe anyone who knows me—or who does not know me, for that matter,” he added dryly, “will tell you I do not toy with anyone. Nor do I say things I do not mean.”
Sophia ran her tongue over her dry lips. “You wish to become my lover.”
“Yes.”
“In the knowledge, or should I say a lack of knowledge, of my surname or anything else about me?”
“I know I desire you. Is that not enough?”
Sophia’s knees threatened to buckle beneath her at this blunt honesty from a man as self-contained as Weston.
If Robert had been surprised yesterday that this man had kissed her, how much more shocked would her cousin be now to learn of the duke stating he wished to become her lover?
Not that she intended telling Robert about this conversation. He was rash and hotheaded enough to call the other man out for having propositioned his cousin. A relationship she had no intention of Magnus ever knowing about. Because once he knew of that connection, he and his investigator would add two and two together and come up with the correct answer of four. From there, it would only be a matter of delving a little deeper to know exactly who she was and why she had chosen to absent herself from her family and Society for the past ten years.
She could no longer even look at Weston as she answered him. “Whilst I am flattered by your offer, Your Grace—”
“No, you are not,” he drawled with an edge of self-derisive humor. “My proposition was neither flattering nor seductive.” He sobered. “But it was honest,” he added softly.
And Sophia had a feeling that both honesty and integrity were very important to this man. “Even though you know you have not, and will not, receive the same honesty from me?”
He shrugged those wide shoulders. “Desire does not require absolute honesty. At least, only in the feelings and actions within that relationship.”
“And you desire me?”
“Very much.”
Sophia was once again stunned by the bluntness of Weston’s admission. If Robert was to be believed, Weston’s completely uncharacteristic admission of desiring her.
Her cousin had sounded completely certain of his facts when he told her the Duke of Weston had remained aloof from virtually all pleasures of the flesh since his wife died, and completely so in recent years. Nor, having seen Clarissa’s dark hair and gray eyes, did Sophia believe she in the least resembled Weston’s dead wife, so that could not be the reason for Magnus’s interest in her either.
Sophia was completely at a loss as to how to deal with this.
“Last night, alone in my bed, I masturbated to completion thinking of you.”
Sophia’s eyes widened. A glance at Magnus’s face, and the unwavering directness of his gaze, revealed tha
t he was once again telling her the truth.
That honesty caused her heart to swell with something she had never felt before. An elation, perhaps, that Magnus was so freely admitting the response he had to her.
Did she owe him the same honesty? Could she— Dare she tell him—
Sophia’s lashes lowered to her once again blushing cheeks. “I did the same, standing naked in front of a mirror, while imagining it was you touching me.”
Magnus breathed in sharply as he imagined how beautiful and wanton Sophia must have looked as she pleasured herself. Knowing, whatever Sophia’s reason for concealing who and what she was, that she spoke too bluntly now, rendering herself vulnerable in the process, to be telling him anything other than the complete truth.
He took another step closer. “Did you come?”
She swallowed. “I did.”
“Deeply?”
“Very.”
“I have never come harder or for so long in my life as I did last night thinking of you,” he acknowledged.
Her lips twitched as if she was about to smile. “Did it hurt?”
“I take it by that comment you are referring to my bruised balls?” he drawled. “A little,” he acknowledged after her nod of confirmation. “But it was worth it, might even have enhanced my pleasure to know that you were the one who had bruised them.” He reached out a tentative hand to place it beneath the warmth of her chin and lift her face so that she was once again looking at him. Her pupils were completely blown, leaving only a thin circle of sky blue. “At least stay and have dinner with me this evening, Sophia.”
Indecision shadowed her features as she gazed at him searchingly.
Followed by an expression of yearning.
A yearning which was all too quickly squashed. “No.” She pulled back so that Magnus’s hand no longer cupped her chin. “One of the many things I teach my girls is that she must never dine alone with a gentleman or her reputation will be lost forever.”
His hand fell back to his side. “You are a woman, not a girl.”
“But you are a gentleman, and as such, I must hope you will not try to force the situation when I have already said no.”
“You said no to dinner, not to becoming my lover.”
“You misspoke earlier, Magnus,” she murmured admiringly. “You might not toy with people, but you do like to play word games. And you play them too well not to have done so before.”
“If I have, then it is only when I am in the House. Politics is nothing but a game of words.” He grimaced.
“One I am sure you invariably win.”
“The majority of the time, yes,” he admitted dismissively. “But what is between the two of us is not a game where there would be a winner or a loser. Hopefully, we would both benefit from such an arrangement. I will not disappoint you, Sophia,” he added earnestly. “I might be many things, but I believe even my wife would have agreed I am an accomplished and unselfish lover.”
Sophia eyed him quizzically. “Even your wife…?”
He gave a humorless smile. “I should have known you would pick up on that part of my comment.” He sobered. “My marriage to Lucy was not a happy one. We never shared a bed again from the day she told me she was expecting Clarissa.”
“I… But… Your daughter is now almost seventeen years old.”
He sighed heavily. “Yes.”
“You have not… You did not…” Sophia found it impossible to finish those intimate questions.
“Fuck other women?” Magnus felt no such reticence. “Not during my marriage, and not often after Lucy died either. Two years ago, I even gave up on those empty encounters. I have not wanted a woman since.” His eyes darkened. “Until you.”
Every word Magnus spoke confirmed what Robert had already told her. It also deepened the import of Magnus’s desire to have a relationship with her.
A part of Sophia so wished she might say yes. That she could let Magnus lift her up in his arms and carry her off to his bed before making love to her with the single-minded intensity she instinctively knew that he would.
Unfortunately, she had “made her bed” a long time ago, and it was not one that could ever include such an upright and respected gentlemen as Magnus Spencer, the Duke of Weston. Much as she desired him and he admitted to desiring her. She might be shamed and forever shunned by Society, but she would not have the same happen to Magnus by association if they became lovers and anyone should ever discover who she really was.
It had been ten years, and for the first five of that ten years, Sophia had not so much as ventured anywhere near London nor made her presence known when parents visited the school. Robert had been her only visitor to Portsmouth during those years, and then only after he had promised never to reveal her whereabouts to her parents.
Her first visit back to London after those five years had been to travel in the school carriage to deliver one of the pupils back to her parents, ones Sophia was not familiar with or they with her, before instantly informing the driver of that carriage to turn it around and return posthaste to Portsmouth.
The next time Sophia visited the capitol, it had been at Robert’s request, and she had spent the whole of that two-day visit fearful of who might call at his home and recognize her. Luckily, no one had.
She had become a little bolder after that, realizing that her appearance was no longer that of a young girl but of a grown and confident woman. One that she realized no one seemed to recognize, either the parents who visited the school or as she began to move more freely about the city, shopping and walking in the parks.
At Robert’s insistence, Sophia had begun to visit him for a week during the summer holidays and another at Christmas, when most of Society had retired to the country. It was a pleasant habit she had fallen into these past three years. A time when she bothered no one and no one bothered her.
Until the advent of Magnus Spencer into her life.
“Does the age difference bother you?” he now questioned.
Sophia blinked. “What age difference?”
He smiled ruefully. “You are seven and twenty, and I am eight and thirty.”
“It is only eleven years,” she dismissed.
“Then I do not understand.” He gave a shake of his head. “I admit to desiring you, and you admit to desiring me. You are not married, and neither am I. We are both of an age where we do not need the permission of anyone else to do exactly as we please.”
“I am to be headmistress—if you decide to send Clarissa to school in Portsmouth—to your daughter.”
“And?”
“And it will not do,” Sophia stated briskly. “If anyone should find out, there would be accusations of favoritism and goodness knows what else. No, Magnus, it simply will not do.”
Until Sophia said his name, Magnus had been leaning toward, reluctantly, accepting her refusal. But when she spoke his name, her voice softened, became almost a caress he could feel down the length of his spine until it tightened his bruised balls and engorged his cock. Telling him he was not wrong, that Sophia did want him, and that there was another reason entirely for her continued refusal to consider taking him as her lover.
He looked at her searchingly. “You have stated you are not married or involved with Royston, so perhaps there is another man in your life you feel a…romantic loyalty to?”
She smiled at his choice of words. “No.”
This situation was intolerable to Magnus. Before him stood the woman he desired, the only woman he had desired for many years, and it was a feeling she admitted to reciprocating. Neither of them owed allegiance of any kind to another, and yet still the bloody woman refused him.
What possible reason— “Are you a virgin?” It was the only other reason Magnus could think of for Sophia’s continued stubbornness. Although how such a beautiful woman as Sophia, one moreover who admitted she was staying at the home of a single gentleman, could ever have remained untouched at the age of seven and twenty, Magnus could not fathom.
/> Unfortunately, the question caused Sophia’s cheeks to pale and her eyes to take on a haunted appearance. She also seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
“The state of my virginity, or otherwise, is none of your concern,” she finally told him aloofly. “Now, if you will excuse me—”
“Please, Sophia!” Magnus reached out instinctively to grasp her arm as she would have turned on her heel and left him. A possibility so abhorrent to him, it caused an actual physical pain in his chest. “Do not go,” he spoke gruffly as he rested his forehead against hers. “I cannot bear the thought of you leaving like this, knowing we are at such odds with each other, you will never come back.”
If Magnus had treated her with arrogance or tried to force her in any way—God forbid—Sophia knew she would have had no trouble maintaining her air of aloofness or, in the case of the latter, fighting back. But to have a man as proud as Magnus virtually pleading with her not to leave him was beyond even her strength of will.
Tears swam in her eyes as she reached up and placed a gloved hand against the hardness of one of his cheeks. “One day, you will thank me for having been strong enough for both of us.”
He shook his head. “I cannot imagine such a day ever occurring.”
She smiled sadly. “Perhaps not now, but one day you might.”
“I want you, Sophia.” He placed the warmth of his hands on her hips. “What place does ‘one day’ have when we want each other now? When none of us know what might happen tomorrow?”
She pressed her lips together to stop herself from simply saying “yes” and launching herself into his arms. Because it really would not do. “I am deeply flattered that you want me, Magnus. I truly am. But I must once again say—”
Magnus’s mouth claimed hers before the word “no” could leave her lips.
Chapter 5
Sophia’s resistance had already been sorely tested by the intimacy of their conversation, but now it shattered completely, leaving only that aching want and desire inside her. Her lips parted on a sob, and her arms moved tightly about his neck as she eagerly returned Magnus’s increasingly deepening kisses.
It was heaven to feel his lips ravishing hers. To be held so tightly in Magnus’s arms. To feel the hot and solid perfection of his body pressing against her own and know it could be hers if only she said yes.
Craving (Regency Lovers 3) Page 4