by Anne Stuart
“In the library, brooding as always,” Dulcie said, smacking his hand with calm affection. “Are you going to walk around the place half naked?”
“No, love,” he said with a faint attempt at a grin, “I’m going to strip off my breeches and walk around bare-arsed.” And he reached for the buttons.
“Off with you!” Dulcie shrieked. “This is a decent household, you wretch.”
Laughing, he grabbed another tart and sauntered up the back stairs to his room.
But his grin faded by the time he was out of Dulcie’s sight. Another day, another endless, waiting day. Thinking of Sophie, at home in that delectably feminine bedroom, lying in her bed. If only he hadn’t seen it. His fantasies had been bad enough. Now he could actually envision her stretched out, pink and rosy, amid the soft white sheets, and the vision was sheer torment.
His windows overlooked the sea, and he’d left them open to the early morning air. He paused, staring out into bright sunlight when the sound of voices penetrated his brooding abstraction. And he realized with sudden horror that it was the voice he most wanted, and dreaded, to hear. Sophie de Quincey’s.
Quickly he yanked the shutters closed, plunging the room into darkness. He sprinted for the door, and he could hear their voices quite plainly, Phelan arguing with that damned supercilious tone, Sophie, his Sophie, being adamant right back.
“If she’s ill, all the more reason to see her,” Sophie was saying stubbornly. “We parted on … confusing terms.”
“She really doesn’t want to see anyone,” Phelan argued, but their voices were coming damnably closer. “She has the headache …”
“She’ll see me,” Sophie said flatly, and Valerian could tell by the proximity of her voice that she’d reached the top of the stairs. The only way Phelan could stop her would be to forcibly remove her, and Phelan wouldn’t do that. Particularly since he knew Valerian would explode out of his bedroom and flatten him if he dared to touch her.
He had no choice. He shut his door, as silently as possible, and dove for the bed, pulling the covers over his bare chest. The chamber was very dark, only a faint crack of light filtering through, and as long as she stayed at the far end of the room, he would get away with it. Indeed, short of locking the door, he had no choice. And his beloved was a stubborn female—she’d find a way in sooner or later. He might as well face the inevitable.
“Valerie?” Her voice was soft, sweet, troubled, and the door opened a crack, letting in a dangerous amount of light.
He released a convincing moan. “It’s too bright,” he said, and she quickly scooted into the room, closing the door behind her. Smack in Phelan’s face.
He could see her silhouette in the shadowed room, the faint glint of her golden curls, the tilt of her chin as she started toward the bed. “Dear Val,” she said. “Are you all right? I was so worried …”
“Of course, child,” he said faintly, trying to sink farther back into the pillows. “Just one of my miserable headaches. I do get plagued with them, and then nothing will do but for me to have darkness and complete quiet.”
“And I’m disturbing you,” she said miserably. “I’ll leave …”
“No,” he said, unable to resist. It would be the last time he saw her. Surely he could indulge himself just for a brief moment. “Sit and talk to me. My … husband told me you were ill, and receiving no visitors.”
“That was my mother,” she replied with some asperity. “I’ve told you what a fuss she makes. I had a slight cold, and I was … troubled.”
“Troubled, Sophie?” he echoed, troubled himself. “What about?”
She moved across the room, much too close to him. Instead of taking the overstuffed chair that was set at some distance, she perched herself on the foot of the bed, dangerously near his booted feet, which lay hidden under the covers.
“About you, Val,” she said in a voice that left no doubt that she had steeled herself to start this conversation. “About me. About us.”
Saints preserve us, Valerian thought miserably. “Dear child,” he said faintly, “I don’t quite understand.”
“Neither do I,” she said, her voice rich and miserable. “You must know that I feel closer to you than I ever have to any other living being. There’s a bond between us, one that I’ve never felt before, and I find it very confusing. It’s not as if I don’t have good friends, and a mother who’s devoted to me. But you’re different. I want to spend all my time with you, to talk with you, to laugh with you. I’m drawn to you in ways I can’t begin to understand.”
Valerian stopped cursing himself long enough to respond. “My dear,” he said gently, “I’m really very flattered.”
“I don’t want you to be flattered!” she shot back. “You’re a woman of the world. You understand these things far better than I do. Explain it to me. Explain why I’m far more interested in spending the rest of my life with you than with Captain Melbourne. Explain to me why when I touch you I feel hot and cold inside, and my stomach hurts, and my pulses race, and my heart beats too strongly.”
“You once told me it sounded like the flu,” he said.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said. “No, on second thought, do laugh at me. It’s absurd, isn’t it?”
“Absurd,” he said faintly.
“I want to go with you.”
“What?” She’d managed to shock him.
“You said your husband was getting ready to leave, to travel. I want to come with you.”
“Your mother would never allow it,” he said flatly.
“I know. So I thought we wouldn’t ask her. Really, she’d have no cause to fuss. After all, you’d provide a perfect chaperone for me, and it would give me a chance to see the world. No one would think it the slightest bit odd.”
“Everyone would think it very odd indeed,” he said in a biting tone of voice. “You aren’t running away from home.”
“Perhaps if you asked, Mama might be reasonable.”
“I’m not about to ask. I don’t want you coming with us.”
He heard her swift intake of breath, and knew that he’d hurt her. He cursed himself, even knowing that he’d had to do it.
“I thought … Forgive me,” she said in a small, miserable voice. “I thought you felt some … affection for me as well.”
“I do. Which is why I won’t drag you around the Continent, trailing after my husband. We’re vagabonds, child. Rootless wanderers, with no proper home to call our own. I wouldn’t ask you to share that kind of life.”
“But, Val, I have a very great deal of money,” she said eagerly. “We could set up house here, and your husband could continue his travels. I confess, I don’t really want to leave England, but I want to be with you.”
“Sophie,” he said gently, “it really won’t do.”
“Why not?”
“We’d be ostracized by society.”
“Why?”
Lord, the child was an innocent! “Because,” he said brutally, “we wouldn’t be sharing a house as two friends. We’d be sharing it as lovers.”
He’d finally managed to shock her. And then she delivered the killing blow. “If that’s what you want,” she said humbly, “I’m willing.”
It took all his self-control not to reach for her. He took a deep, calming breath. She didn’t even realize what she was offering, didn’t understand either the ramifications or the logistics of such a suggestion. He knew full well that she didn’t desire women. She desired him. Enough to risk everything she had.
“I’m not,” he said. He gave her a moment to absorb the blow. “My dear Sophie, you’re very young. I’m experienced, sophisticated, and you find that attractive.” He was damned if he’d refer to himself as a woman again. “But you need a husband, babies, a life of your own. And I prefer my unfettered way of living. And I’m not interested in the romantic attentions of my own sex.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice small and mortified. “I didn’t mean, that is, I thought …” Her words trai
led off in a flurry of embarrassment. “I’d better leave.” And she started to rise from the bed.
He couldn’t bear it. Humiliating her was even worse than lying to her. But telling her the truth simply wasn’t possible.
“Forgive me, Sophie,” he said, his voice naturally deep. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Oh, Val,” she said with a muffled sob. And she flung herself across the bed, weeping, against him.
His arms came around her small body, almost of their own volition, when he should have pushed her away. He stroked her hair, kissing the flower-scented sweetness of it. He murmured soft, soothing words as she sobbed in his arms, her fingers clutching him. And she suddenly grew still, and he knew it was too late.
Her hands slid up his bare, muscled arms to his stubbled chin, and his hard, flat chest was beneath her tear-streaked face, and she froze. Then, abruptly, she pushed herself away from him, scrambling off the bed, and a moment later she’d crossed the room to fling open the shutters, letting in streams of bright, damning sunlight.
She stared at him, and her face was white with shock. The sheet lay at his waist, and he sat there in bed, indisputably masculine. Indisputably guilty.
“You bastard,” she said low, her voice full of misery.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. He kicked off the sheets, rising from the bed.
“You lied to me. Tricked me.”
“Yes,” he said again.
“And all the time you were laughing at me. At the stupid little provincial, ready to throw everything away in her passion for another woman.”
“I never laughed. I was … touched.”
“Damn you,” she said fiercely.
“Yes.”
She slammed the door as she left. He made no move to stop her. There was nothing he could say, no excuse that would make his lies more acceptable. He’d known there was no future for the two of them. He’d just hoped he could have salvaged a tender memory.
The door slammed open again, but this time it was Phelan. “What the hell happened?”
“Can’t you guess?” Val said wearily, turning from the window. “She offered to run away with me. I declined the offer. She told me she loved me. I told her she should wait for a man. She flung herself into my arms, and then the entire question became academic. She hates liars.”
“Did you try to explain our reasons?”
“No.”
There was a moment of silence. “Just as well,” Phelan said finally, ever practical. “The fewer people who know about us, the better.”
“We’ve got to get out of here, Phelan. Once the people of Hampton Regis find out …”
“She’s not going to tell anyone. It would only reflect poorly on her. After all, everyone knows she’s been living in your pocket for the past few weeks. Not to mention the fact that she spent the night alone with you in an inn. If it’s discovered you’re a man, then she’s well and truly ruined.”
“She might not realize it. She’s absurdly innocent …”
“Innocent, yes. Stupid, no. She won’t tell anyone. And not for her own sake. Once she calms down enough, she’ll realize you must have had a good reason for lying to her. She might not understand that reason, but I’m willing to wager our safety that she’ll keep quiet in deference to it.”
“I’ve got to get out of here, Phelan. If worse comes to worst, I’ll swim for France.”
“Tomorrow.”
“What?”
“There’s a small boat leaving for France tomorrow. I’ve booked passage for the three of us. You, me, and Hannigan.”
“What about Dulcie?”
“She stays behind. She has family nearby—she has no interest in wandering the globe with us.”
“Tomorrow,” Valerian said glumly, telling himself he should be relieved.
“Cheer up, Val. By the time we’re in Paris, you’ll have forgotten all about her,” Phelan murmured.
He glanced up, meeting his brother’s eyes. “Just as you’ve forgotten Juliette?”
“Juliette? Who, pray tell, is that?” Phelan countered.
“Just someone who loved you.”
And Phelan stamped from the room, no longer making any attempt to hide his temper.
Sophie de Quincey was sick, angry, and shaking inside. If she hadn’t made the journey out to Sutter’s Head in the old trap, pulled by an ancient and much-beloved mare, she would have raced homeward in a frenzy. But Buttercup was too dear and too old to be whipped into accumulating some speed, and Sophie had to content herself with plodding slowly back to town, tears of rage and hurt streaming down her face.
How could she have lied to her? Or rather, how could he have lied to her? Valerie Ramsey, the bawdy, elegant, sophisticated lady of her acquaintance, was no lady at all, but a man.
And such a man. She’d never seen a man without a shirt on before, and the sight had been dazzling. He had all that bronzed, muscled skin. And it was so warm and resilient beneath her hands.
He hadn’t shaved. The stubble across his chin only made him more attractive, and those beautiful gray eyes with their absurdly long lashes no longer seemed the slightest bit feminine. How could she have been so gullible?
He was so tall, looming over her in the bright light of the bedroom. He’d never seemed that tall before. But suddenly, shorn of his disguise, he’d been large, and masculine, and absolutely devastating,
And a liar, Sophie reminded herself. What a fool she’d been, ready to throw everything away for him. She hadn’t even understood herself what she’d been offering; she only knew that a future without Valerie Ramsey had seemed bleak indeed.
It would have been heaven, compared to this devastating betrayal. Better for her to have gone through life thinking she’d been moved by a female. Aroused was the word, much as she’d shied away from it. Fallen in love. There it was, for her unwilling mind to accept. She’d fallen in love with another woman. Only to find out he was a man.
Suddenly the absurdity of it struck her, and she wanted to laugh out loud. Until she remembered stripping off her clothes in front of him. Beseeching him to tell her about what men and women did together. Lying in the gazebo, her head in his lap, while he told her about the strange and wonderful things that went on between a man and a woman.
She could feel the heat suffuse her entire body. She’d talked about things she wouldn’t even discuss with her mother, or with her closest friend. She’d allowed her curiosity full rein, and he’d satisfied it. Damn him.
If he’d been any gentleman at all, he would have steered the conversation to more acceptable topics. He would have kept away from her, not encouraged her. He would have …
He would have told her the truth. It was the one thing she needed in her life. Honesty, no matter how brutal.
It wasn’t until she was almost at the outskirts of Hampton Regis, her tears dried on her cheeks, that she thought to consider exactly why he’d lied to her. She hadn’t bothered to ask, and he hadn’t offered an explanation. But he must have had a very good reason.
And who was the man calling himself Val’s husband? A relative, obviously, and Sophie guessed they were probably brothers. But why were they embarked on such an absurd masquerade?
She was half tempted to turn around and drive back to Sutter’s Head. Her mother would have a fit of the vapors when she realized her daughter had taken the trap out alone, though at least she’d assume Sophie had gone calling on a female friend, an act which was completely acceptable. If her mother ever found out she’d been alone in a bedroom with a half-clad male …
Come to think of it, she’d spent the night in bed with that same male. If anyone were to find out, she’d be thoroughly ruined.
The thought didn’t even begin to disturb her. She wasn’t interested in the opinion of society, her mother’s disapproval, or even Captain Melbourne’s offer.
She was only interested in whether Val’s reason for lying was justification for his acts. And whether she could ever forgive him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Juliette sat in the corner of the tiny cottage and tried not to stare at the woman across from her, concentrating instead on the arcane intricacies of pastry dough. Lady Margery had seldom left her alone in the past few days. Juliette had become maid, driver, and cook, taking the place of the mysterious Barbe. She allowed herself to wonder what had happened to the woman who’d accompanied Lady Margery as far as the inn. Was she as dead as Mark-David Lemur, or perhaps only wounded? Lady Margery seemed to have no interest in her servant’s fate, and Juliette hadn’t dared to ask. She’d simply done as she was ordered, stripping out of the boys’ clothes that had gotten soaked with blood, dressing in skirts that were too long for her slender body. It was the first time she’d worn women’s clothes in more than a month, and she hadn’t missed them at all.
“I can’t imagine what my son would have seen in you,” Lady Margery had said with a critical glance. “I would have thought he’d have better taste. I brought him up to be more fastidious.”
“He didn’t see anything in me,” Juliette had replied, and received a stinging slap across the mouth for her troubles. Despite her elderly appearance, Lady Margery was far from weak. But then, Juliette had guessed as much. It would have taken a certain amount of strength to cut Lemur’s throat, then drag his body up onto the bed beside her.
“Don’t ever lie to me, child,” the old woman said, her eyes glinting with madness. “I don’t care for it. If you had decent clothes you might not be bad-looking, but no one is worthy of my son. He belongs to me, and me alone. Anyone who interferes between a mother and a child deserves to be punished. Don’t you agree?”
She had had little choice. If she’d said yes, she might be signing her own death warrant. If she’d argued, the result could be the same. She’d said nothing, learning that silence was her safest course.
Lady Margery needed not much more than a servant and an audience, and Juliette performed those roles admirably. She had no difficulty handling the small carriage, and they arrived at the tiny village of Hampton Parva by midafternoon the next day. But all of Juliette’s hopes for assistance against a murderous madwoman were in vain.