by Meg Buchanan
Chapter 27
“ARE YOU NEARLY READY?” Courtney asked the next morning. Last night, when they finally made it to the bedroom, she reminded him why he was happy to marry her, even if she wasn’t Mere.
“Just a moment.” But this morning, Sophie seemed subdued. She was in the green outfit he’d bought her when they first arrived in Paeroa. She put her hat on and slid a hatpin into it to secure it, then smiled at him. The emerald brooch he bought for her to replace the one Charlotte stole was pinned at the base of her throat
He picked up the bag sitting at Sophie’s feet. The carriage was already full of luggage. He wasn’t sure why Sophie needed yet another bag for just three days in Auckland. She kissed his cheek, then bounced down the steps, a flurry of shiny black boots and olive-green skirts. She was beautiful.
They headed for Auckland and arrived at Queens Wharf. The trip had been straight forward. The carriage and horses would be waiting for them at George Norries’ stables in Thames when they went back.
He turned to Sophie. “Do you want me to call a cab so you can go to the hotel now, or do you want to stay with me and we’ll go to see my lawyer together?”
“I will stay with you.” She took his arm, but he wasn’t sure whether it was because she wanted to be close to him or if it was just something she did. Nothing about the way she was acting was normal. This morning before they left the house she was quiet and had been thoughtful since. Not thoughtful in a wanting to care for him way as she usually was, but in a thinking about something way.
When he asked her what was wrong, she just said. “Nothing.”
That evening, in her hotel bedroom, after they’d had their meal, Sophie seemed tired and still more than a little down. He’d had to get them separate rooms. His lawyer had advised him that now they were in Auckland and applying for a special licence, while the application went through the courts, that was the way it needed to be. He and Miss Westmore should wait until they had their licence and were married before they shared a bed again.
“Would you like me to send for wine to be brought up?” he asked.
She traced a line in the shiny surface of the small table just inside the door and shook her head. She had changed out of the green outfit for dinner and was now in something beautiful and shimmery. An evening dress Millicent would have been proud to wear. Perhaps she’d been back to see Madam Eloise, or perhaps Waihi ran to a dressmaker now too.
She looked over at him, reached up slowly and took the pins out of her hat. Her hair tumbled like midnight around her shoulders.
“Do you really love me?” she asked. She was perfect, restrained and ladylike as she carefully placed the hairpins on the table.
“Where did that come from?” he countered the way he always did.
“You never say it. I tell you I love you all the time, and you say ‘Of course’ or ‘you gave me your stew,” or ‘you’re perfect’, you never just say, ‘I love you’.”
“Do I need to?” he asked. He’d spent the day working with the lawyer on a way to marry her. That should be proof enough for her.
“See?” Sophie came over to him and kissed him on the cheek. He looked around the room. Surely there was a decanter with whiskey or at least sherry in here. He was paying enough for their rooms.
Sophie carefully unpinned the emerald brooch she had worn again this evening and walked to the bed. She placed the brooch on the bedside table, then came back to him. Another kiss on the cheek, before she sat on the chair, and delicately lifted her foot and started to unbutton the strap of her shoe. A delicate shoe, cream satin embroidered with silk flowers on the toe and a small heel.
“Let me help you.” He knelt at her feet, rested her shoe on his thigh and undid the button, then carefully removed it and started on the other. When it had gone, he ran his hands up her stockings to her knees. The lawyer wouldn’t approve of the way this was going. Fortunately, he wasn’t here.
He heard her sigh, and his hands went higher. The desire to touch her the way he could at the club and had done last night was overwhelming. He went further, beyond the garters and the rib at the top of the stocking. Instead of the silk he was expecting, there was skin, she was naked above the stockings, just flesh, then the fine hair, then the edge of the corset across her hips. He moved his hand down a little, turned it over and smoothed the hair with the back of his fingers.
“Miss Westmore, you forgot something, when you dressed this evening,” he said.
“No.” She slid a little forward and relaxed her thighs, opening to his fingers. “I know what you like, Courtney, you taught me.”
She did. It was her nakedness under the dress Charlotte put her in that broke through his defences at the club. The seductiveness of perfect manners and social grace on the surface and naked underneath.
He touched the secret place of her, could feel the warmth, the softening. He rested his forehead on her skirt as his fingers slid deeper, his other hand drifted under her buttocks and lifted her a little. All this had only ever been his. But she was right. He didn’t love her; he was only marrying her because that was what his family thought he should do. It was a convenience, and this was lust.
She sighed. “I don’t care about what your lawyer said. I want to be Sophie again tonight,” she whispered. “Make love to me.”
“We shouldn’t,” he said and slid his hands down her legs, over her stockings and out from under her skirts. He smoothed the skirts back down over her legs.
She sighed and sat up. He stood, and Sophie did too. The decanter was on the sideboard with glasses. He knew there had to be something to drink here. He needed one. Sophie was behaving so oddly.
He could feel her watching him. “I have come to a decision,” she said.
“What decision is that?” He poured them both a drink. “Just sherry unfortunately,” he said as he handed her the glass.
She smiled at him. She was lovely, she would make a perfect wife even if he didn’t love her.
She took the sherry and walked in her stockinged feet over to the fireplace. “I’m going to Australia to live with my Aunt. I have already written to her and arranged it. I have booked my tickets and I’ll sail tomorrow at noon.”
He took a gulp of sherry. He wasn’t sure how to react to that. he was stunned. She was leaving him? She was going to Sydney? “You can’t leave, Sophie. We are to be married.”
“See. Not, you can’t leave Sophie, I love you and can’t live without you.” She sipped the sherry and then put the glass on the mantelpiece. She turned to face him. “If you hadn’t come to Waihi when you did, I would have met you in Paeroa. I’d already had my trunk sent ahead. I planned to tell you my plans and then go on to Sydney.”
“But, Sophie…” He broke off the comment. He was about to be jilted. Not quite left waiting in the church, he hadn’t bothered to organise the wedding, but still. “Why let me go to the trouble of getting the special licence?”
Sophie slowly released a breath. “There was always the chance you would decide you loved me. I tried my best to please you last night, I cooked food you liked, I played Sophie the virgin whore, all to make you love me. Do you?” She stood there waiting.
Now would probably be the time to declare his undying love.
Then he watched as Sophie reached behind her and started to unbutton her gown. “Make love to me, one last time,” she said, and let the gown slide down her arms and drop to the floor.
Then she looked at him, her lips slightly parted. “I know you like the chaste Miss Westmore when we are with your family, but you like it when I’m Sophie too.” She was appealing, lovely, wearing just the corset, all pink ribbons and white lace, and fine white stockings. She must have been shopping on her own in the last few months, he couldn’t see Eliza helping her purchase that outfit.
She wanted to make love, he wanted to make love to her. He went to her and picked her up.
Her arms slid around his neck as he carried her to the bed. One last time. He managed to p
ull the covers back clumsily with one hand, and then dropped her on the bed. She curled up on her side and rested her head on her hand. The way she moved was most sensual thing he could ever remember seeing.
He shed his jacket.
“I could help you,” she said as he removed his cravat, then loosened his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and her breasts when she lay like that. Like the darkest veil. He fumbled with the top button.
“I can manage.” Found he had to lift his chin higher. He got the bloody thing undone, and then the rest of the buttons followed.
Above the lace of the corset, her breasts were so white, with the finest blue veins leading to the nipples peeping just above the lace, nipples the same red as her lips.
He ripped the shirt off, and his wrists got caught in the cuffs. Bloody cuff links. Her lips a little parted as she waited for him to undress. Then Sophie turned onto her back and stretched like a cat. She arched her back and ran her fingers the length of her body. She was more erotic than sensual now.
He gave up on getting undressed, toed off his shoes and climbed onto the bed and over her, nudged her legs apart with his knees so he was kneeling between them.
“Show me,” he said.
He watched her slowly move her fingers between her legs, touched the moist flesh there, then sat up a little so she could touch his lips with those fingers.
He could taste her, the familiar musky taste of her. God, he’d missed this while she was at Eliza’s.
He pulled her closer so he could kiss her, but the position was awkward. He should have shown a little more restraint and finesse and got undressed properly. He collapsed on the bed with her in his arms, half under him. Tasted her mouth, then the hollow of her neck and the space between her breasts.
She curved into him reciprocating kiss for kiss, touch for touch. They made love, slowly and tenderly. For the last time. He couldn’t believe she meant it. Sophie was perfect. He didn’t know why they were such a good match, but he knew he loved her.
In the morning he’d prove to her he did. Because by some miracle she still loved him even though he gave her time to get over it.
He woke just on dawn and watched Sophie sleep in the light from the streetlamps below the window. He needed to show her how much he loved her and that he couldn’t live without her.
And he needed to stop her going to Sydney. He ran his hand down the length of her body, completely naked still, and she stirred a little.
Last night, it hadn’t taken them long to divest themselves of the few clothes they still had on. As always, she matched him in ardour and inventiveness.
She stretched and the sheet she had around her fell down to her waist, revealing the creamy breasts and shoulders.
What a fool he’d been. He’d known her for exactly a month and during that time he’d wasted so many nights that could have been like last night. Wasted the time comparing her to some idea of Mere that was just in his head. Sophie was perfect for him. He’d loved her all along. Why didn’t he know that?
He turned over enough to find his coat on the floor and take his watch from the pocket. It was not as early as he thought it was. If he went now, he might find her mother and father still at the house. Perhaps William was right. The answer was to offer her father money. That seemed to be what was important to him. And if money wasn’t enough incentive and her father wouldn’t sign a paper giving him permission to marry Sophie, he’d beat him into submission. Maybe not.
He slid out of bed without waking Sophie, gathered up his clothes and went to his own room to get dressed.
Chapter 28
IT TOOK LONGER to get to Sophie’s parent’s house than he imagined. It wasn’t as easy to get a cab that early in the morning as he’d thought. He knocked on the front door. He couldn’t hear any movement in the house. Perhaps Sophie’s parents were away. That would complicate matters. Shoved his hands in his pockets and turned and watched the hansom cabs go past, and the odd private carriage. Her parents lived in a nice part of town. The small garden out the front of each house was beautifully tended and the black wrought iron fences along the footpath provide a tidy division between the private and public space.
Finally, he heard footsteps from inside the house and turned back as the door opened. The same maid who had let him in a mere month ago opened the door.
“Are Mr and Mrs Westmore at home,” he asked the young girl.
“Yes sir,” she said, hesitantly, as if she wasn’t sure it was in her interests to let him in. But if she didn’t do it willingly, he’d force his way in. He had no time for civility and etiquette.
Perhaps the maid saw that in his face, as she stepped back to allow him in.
“I’ll tell them you are here,” she said and shut the door and then left him standing in the foyer.
She disappeared into what had to be the breakfast room and heard murmurs of conversation. The maid’s, Sophie’s mother’s and then a man’s voice. He assumed that was Sophie’s father. Good everyone he needed to speak to was here. He wouldn’t have to track the man down to his place of business.
A tall, elegant man in his mid-fifties came out of the breakfast room, blotting his moustache with a linen napkin. He appeared dressed for work, apart from his jacket, shirt sleeves and waistcoat. He didn’t look like someone who would sell his daughter to pay his gambling debts. It always surprised Courtney that the monsters in the world were so hard to recognise.
Mrs Westmore appeared behind her husband.
“Is this him?” the man asked her, and she nodded.
“Mr Samuels,” snarled the man he presumed was Sophie’s father. “I hope this visit is to return the daughter you abducted?”
Definitely Sophie’s father, and he dared to feign outrage at this supposed kidnapping of Sophie. Perhaps to save face.
“I wouldn’t return a stray kitten to your care,” said Courtney. Probably not the most diplomatic response.
Mr Westmore snorted. “Says the man who abducted a defenceless young girl and has kept her prisoner for a month. You are not in a very strong position here, Mr Samuels.” So, Sophie’s parents were going to play the game that way.
Courtney pulled out the document he’d obtained to get the man’s permission to marry Sophie before he decided to get a special licence. “Call the constables on me then, I am sure they’ll be fascinated by the true story. I’m here to save your neck. Sign this so I can marry your daughter, and I won’t go to the law about your treatment of her.”
It took more money and further threats of going to the law than it should have to get the necessary signature. But within fifteen minutes of entering the house he left, a lot poorer, but with what he needed.
By the time he returned to the hotel, it was later than he’d hoped.
He looked at his watch. After eleven. Sophie said her booking was for midday. He had just under an hour to spare, he went up the staircase, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached the landing, sprinted along the hallway and when he reached Sophie’s room, knocked on the door.
“Sophie?” No answer. He tried again. “Sophie.” Still no answer.
A maid went by. “Excuse me,” he said to her. “Do you know where the young lady who had this room is?”
“She’s left, sir. She ordered a cab for ten-thirty. I think she said she was going to Queen’s Wharf.”
Of course, she would have left early. She wouldn’t want to risk arriving at the wharf late.
He checked his watch again. Half an hour to get there, or he’d be headed for Sydney on the next boat too.
He arrived at the crowded wharf just on midday and went to the ticket office.
“Which boat is going to Sydney?”
“The Valetta.” The man pointed to a ship further along the wharf.
“Do you have the passenger list?”
“No, sir.” And the response implied, I wouldn’t let you see it if I did.
“Are there other ships leaving
for Sydney today?”
“No, sir.”
So, the Valetta it must be. He thanked the man and took off through the crowds. Everyone in Auckland seemed to be there, either leaving or farewelling someone about to leave.
Finally, he spotted her. Standing near the gangplank, suitcase by her side. He pushed through the crowds.
“Sophie,” he called above the noise. She must have heard as she turned. She saw him coming towards her and looked surprised.
He finally reached her. “God, I thought I’d get here too late,” he said.
“But, we said goodbye last night.” She sounded genuinely puzzled. She was so used to him neglecting her she accepted it.
“No.” He pulled the piece of paper her father had signed, out of his pocket. “I went to get this. As she took the paper from him, he dropped to one knee. Might as well do this properly, he hadn’t managed to do anything else the way it should be done.
He took her hand. “Stay with me. Marry me. I love you, and I can’t live without you.”
She looked sceptical. “Vraiment?”
“Yes, truly.” He stood. “Well?”
She flung herself at him. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
“What about Sydney?” He nodded at the Valetta.
“I don’t want to go to Sydney. I want to stay with you. I always wanted to stay with you. I just wanted to know you wanted me too.”
He slung his arm over her shoulders. “More than anything. It just took me a while to realise that.” He looked around the crowded wharf. “Now to find someone to unload your trunk. I don’t want to have to buy you a new wardrobe.”
Sophie smiled up at him happily.
“Last one.” Courtney dumped the crate of papers onto the back of the wagon.
William flicked the tarpaulin over the mess of boxes, papers, rolls of old maps on the wagon. “Are you two done,” he asked.