Midnight Pleasures

by Eloisa James

  “Was Braddon successful in his disguises?” Sophie asked, after Henri had left the room.

  Patrick rolled his eyes derisively. “Never.”

  “Oh, poor Braddon,” Sophie said mechanically as her mind whirled. It seemed that Braddon was just carrying on a tradition by trying to pass off his future wife as a French aristocrat. And clearly, Patrick would not want to be party to Braddon’s new “stunt.” Perhaps more important, the idea sounded remarkably foolhardy, in light of Braddon’s history of failed masquerades.

  Patrick didn’t like the pucker of worry that appeared between Sophie’s brows. Why was his wife sparing any sympathy for that good-for-nothing lout? Braddon’s honored place as an old and dear friend evaporated from Patrick’s mind.

  “Braddon lies,” Patrick said, a blunt edge in his tone. Sophie’s eyes flew to his, startled by the sudden disgust in his voice. In the back of her mind she could hear David Marlowe saying that Patrick was a stickler when it came to honesty.

  “He lies? What do you mean?”

  “He’s precious close to a loose fish. He rarely distinguishes between truth and falsehood.”

  Sophie looked at her husband inquiringly, but Patrick didn’t want to continue. In fact, what with one thing and another, he found himself in a pucker of a mood. The way to mend it, he thought, is a little intimacy with m’wife. So he nipped around the table and sat on the arm of Sophie’s chair. Without another word, he began pulling the pins out of her hair and scattering them on the carpet. Slowly, slowly, curls the color of honey and sunlight fell down Sophie’s back and over her shoulders. And by the time Patrick’s long, clever fingers ran through her hair a final time and moved to the hooks on her dress, Sophie had long ago stopped thinking of Braddon and Braddon’s problems.

  Thus, it was somewhat to Patrick’s dismay that the very first billet to arrive the next morning was from the Earl of Slaslow.

  “What the devil does he want?” he growled, the very picture of a jealous husband.

  Sophie looked at Patrick in surprise. “I’m sure he is simply being polite. He invites me for a drive.”

  Patrick snorted. Since when was Braddon a punctilio? His manners were easy to a fault.

  “You are not available,” he stated presumptively.

  “I’m not?” Sophie was really surprised now. Was Patrick the possessive sort of husband? It was a rather thrilling thought. Thrilling but impractical.

  She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at her husband. “Is there some reason why you don’t wish me to see Braddon?”

  “It doesn’t look right,” Patrick replied.

  “I’m a married woman,” Sophie pointed out. “No one will think twice if I drive in the park with a bachelor.”

  “But you were engaged to this particular bachelor!”

  “I’m married to you,” Sophie remarked. “Surely you don’t think that I would ever have an affair with Braddon.”

  Put in this cold, reasonable light, Patrick had to admit that no, he didn’t think Sophie would ever break her wedding vows—with Braddon or anyone else. She had integrity, his little Sophie.

  “Oh, all right,” he said, feeling as if he had somehow lost a battle. “See him all you like! Set him up as your cicisbeo!”

  “I don’t think I shall do that,” Sophie replied calmly. “A cicisbeo ought to be able to string more than two sentences together, don’t you think?” There was a twinkle in her eye that made Patrick feel much better.

  Sophie walked to the door of the morning room. “One always has one’s husband,” she teased, “if one wants to have a muddled conversation!”

  Patrick gave a mock growl and reached out to catch his giggling wife, but she whisked through the door and was gone. Patrick caught up Braddon’s letter, which she had left behind. It was a decidedly un-lover-like note: “I need to see you. I’ll pick you up in the landolet tomorrow at four.” “Landaulet” was misspelled.

  He was being unreasonable, Patrick admitted. It was just … it was just that Sophie had not uttered a word about being in love with him. In fact, she didn’t seem even to be thinking of it. Here they had spent well nigh two months together, in the closest of quarters, and his wife had shown no sign of declaring herself.

  Just then Sophie popped her head back into the room. “What’s more, I shall expect all my cicisbei to speak excellent French!” she said saucily. As Patrick stood up he met her eyes, which were looking at him with wicked suggestiveness. It had been an enormously gratifying realization, the discovery that he could turn his wife into a melting, wild seductress simply by whispering a few throaty words in French.

  Then her smile faded. “Are you reading my letter, Patrick?” Her voice was suddenly cool. Patrick looked down and realized that Braddon’s note was still in his hand. He dropped it as if it had caught fire.

  “Why does he need to see you?”

  Sophie’s backbone straightened. “Not because we are setting up an assignation. Given that, it is not your concern.”

  Patrick’s mouth tightened to a thin line. The guilt he felt reading Sophie’s correspondence made his tone much harsher than it might have been. “It damn well is my concern! You are my wife, and your reputation is my business.”

  “Are you implying that my reputation will be tarnished by driving with Braddon?”

  “Well, your reputation is already not the best, is it?” Patrick said rashly. “Now that you’re married, everyone will be expecting you to lead me a pretty dance!”

  “A pretty dance,” Sophie said, pausing on each word. Her heart was pounding in her throat. “You think that my reputation is so … tarnished as to make me notorious?”

  “Your reputation isn’t really a concern,” Patrick said, reversing himself. “Braddon’s intentions are the important thing. I fail to see what business a known rake could possibly have with a young married woman, besides the obvious.”

  “One rake would certainly know another,” Sophie retorted, distaste clear in her tone. “However, as it happens, Braddon showed little interest in seducing me before I was married, and I am quite certain that his interest is now nil.”

  “Braddon is a loose screw,” Patrick said, thrusting his hand through his hair in frustration. “I cannot like his stringing you along, for God only knows what purpose. What I mean is, I know his purpose! Pretty strong, fishing in his best friend’s pond!”

  “That is an indescribably vulgar thing to say,” Sophie replied icily. “But since we are lowering ourselves, let me point out that you are the one who originally fished in Braddon’s pond!”

  “Why shouldn’t I wonder what your business with Braddon is?” Patrick shouted back, his temper out of control now. “He may not have wanted to kiss you, but the same can’t be said of you, can it?”

  Sophie gasped. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean,” Patrick said furiously, “Braddon told me that you talked him into eloping because you were madly in love with him. It was just your bad luck that I came up that ladder when you were waiting for Braddon … in your bedchamber!”

  Rage surged up Sophie’s back. “You! You dare to imply that I seduced you? You! A man everyone knows is a lothario! The kind of man,” she added scathingly, “who seduces his best friend’s bride. You may not imply that I was planning to seduce Braddon. I had decided to cry off from my engagement—and you know it! You waited long enough before letting me know who you were.”

  “No lady invites a gentleman into her chamber unless she wants him to know of her availability. You sure as hell didn’t fight me off when I came over to the bed!”

  The back of Sophie’s throat was burning. “I did,” she said, caught between the urge to scream and the urge to cry. “I did push you away, until you took your hood off.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you only succumbed because it was me in those robes? That’s a bit of a tall order!”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “So you think I will believe that you married me for lo

ve?” Patrick sneered as he moved toward her, his feet silent on the wooden floor. “Let me see, you were so desperately in love with me that you turned down my proposal and begged another man to elope with you.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  Patrick raised one mocking eyebrow. “Didn’t say what?”

  “I didn’t say I married you for love,” Sophie spat.

  Patrick was within a handspan of his wife now, close enough to see the teary glimmer in her eyes. The sight made his anger abruptly disappear.

  “So you married me for lust.” His tone was milder now. “Well, we were caught in the same trap, weren’t we?”

  Sophie stared at him in dumb frustration. Then she steadied her voice. Not for nothing had she witnessed a hundred—or a thousand—marital quarrels.

  “I am not having, nor am I planning to have, an affair with the Earl of Slaslow,” she said slowly and clearly.

  “Yes,” Patrick said. He was beginning to wonder what it was they were fighting about.

  “And I did not intend to seduce Braddon, had he appeared in my bedroom window rather than you,” Sophie stated.

  “I accept that.”

  “One more thing,” Sophie said stonily. “I may have married you for lust, but I will never question what the current object of your lust is. It may be that in the future we shall both find other amusements, but I will not read your correspondence, nor will I countenance you reading mine.”

  “Fine. You don’t question me and I won’t question you. It’s a lovely marriage you’re planning for us, my love.” Patrick emphasized the last phrase with bitter sarcasm.

  Her face paper white, Sophie turned and walked out of the room. Rage touched Patrick’s backbone again, like a whisper of fire. With a shock, he realized that he was unconsciously baring his teeth.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered with suppressed violence. One thing was very clear: He could not tolerate the idea of Sophie finding another “amusement.” Not with Braddon or with any other man.

  Patrick paused. Without thinking, he had started to follow Sophie up the stairs. Instead, he spun on his heel and headed out the front door. Grimly he started walking south toward the river.

  A half-hour later, he was feeling much better. True, he still winced every time he thought of Sophie saying she married him for lust. But Sophie would never take a lover. Her personal integrity was one of his favorite things about her—that and the way she was so devilishly vulnerable at one moment and sophisticated at the next.

  However, if he returned to the house now, he would arrive around three o’clock, and Sophie would think he was watching for Braddon’s arrival. Whereas he didn’t give a toss whom she went riding with, Patrick reminded himself. What he should do is go to his offices on the West India docks. His man of business, Henry Foster, had left some fifteen notes for him, which had escalated in urgency as the Lark continued to meander around the coast of Wales.

  Instead, Patrick jumped into a hackney and directed it to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He might as well see what was putting Breksby into such a twist that two notes had awaited his return from Wales.

  But Patrick’s temper was not mended by the interview with Lord Breksby. Breksby took the news of the haphazard fortifications stoically. He hadn’t expected anything different.

  “We’re very grateful to you, my lord,” the foreign secretary said punctiliously. “It is a pleasure to have my views so ably confirmed, and in such a timely manner.”

  Patrick inclined his head. “Will that be all?” he asked.

  “No, no.” For the first time in Patrick’s recollection, Lord Breksby—the capable, pompous Breksby—looked somewhat discomfitted, almost anxious. “The other matter … the matter of the gift.”

  There was a pause as Breksby rethought his plan to keep Patrick Foakes in the dark about Napoleon’s attempted sabotage. The man was so—so formidable in person.

  “Yes?” Patrick asked impatiently. He ought to return to the house before Sophie went out with Braddon. Then he could be generous about the whole matter, perhaps inviting Braddon to join them for supper. That would show Sophie that he didn’t care a fig whom she spent time with.

  “There has been some unpleasantness surrounding the gift we are sending to Selim’s coronation,” Breksby said, making up his mind once again to avoid a discussion of Napoleon’s substitute scepter. “In fact, it appears that there may be a plan afoot to steal the scepter. That being the case, we naturally intend to guard it very carefully. We hesitate to put you at risk, given the scepter’s vulnerability to thieves; therefore, we will transport it abroad through an alternate route. Our representative will bring the scepter to your dwelling in Constantinople a few hours before the coronation.”

  “You consider theft to be a serious possibility?”

  Breksby nodded. “Exactly.”

  His tone did not invite questions, and Patrick asked none. “I plan to travel to Turkey in the beginning of September,” Patrick noted. “I assume that your representatives will have no difficulty contacting me in Constantinople.”

  “I do not foresee any problem,” Breksby replied.

  Patrick stood up.

  “Mr. Foakes,” Breksby said gently. “There is still the matter of your dukedom.”

  Patrick sat down again, his stomach knotting with impatience. Damn it, Sophie would certainly have left with Braddon by now.

  “I have set the process in motion,” Breksby said. “I might add that, to this date, I have had nothing but favorable responses.”

  Patrick nodded.

  Breksby stifled a sigh. It cut him to the quick to grant a dukedom to a man who clearly considered the honor to be a trifle. “The only question that has been raised is whether the future Dukedom of Gisle will be a hereditary title.” He paused again.

  Patrick simply waited.

  By Jove, Breksby thought, the man’s unnatural. Anyone would make a push to ensure that his son inherited the title! “I will do my best to confirm the title as hereditary,” he said.

  Patrick grinned. Breksby was a good-hearted sort, and Patrick knew well that he wasn’t playing to the secretary’s sense of proper gratitude. “I am indeed indebted to you for your efforts in this matter, Lord Breksby.”

  Like many before him, Breksby fell prey to the beguiling charm of Patrick’s smile. “Ah, well,” he said, “I always strive to do my duty.”

  Patrick’s grin widened. “I am certain that my son, should I ever have one, will be even more grateful than I.”

  Breksby almost smirked. “There you are correct!”

  Lord Breksby parted with the future Duke of Gisle well satisfied. He was right not to have informed Foakes that they were worried less about the theft of the scepter and more about its substitution. He himself found the whole possibility remote, anyway. Why would Napoleon bother to pack a scepter with explosives? The plan had a far-fetched ring that didn’t appeal to Breksby’s sensibilities. Likely nothing would happen at all—and saying naught about it would save his own reputation. What if Foakes spread it about that Breksby had got the wind up unnecessarily?

  The sky was threatening rain as Patrick left the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He had undoubtedly missed Sophie and Braddon. He walked down the great marble steps leading to the Thames and stood looking at its muddy depths for a moment. Then he turned and summoned a hackney. What on earth was he thinking, to neglect his work? Normally, after being out of town, he would have visited the warehouse immediately. He’d been married only six weeks and already he was overlooking his responsibilities.

  When he reached the West India docks, his portly man of business trotted over to him with a look of acute relief. “By George, I’m glad to see you, sir!”

  And Patrick was swept into the hurly-burly air of the warehouse. One of his ships had run aground off the coast of Madras with the loss of a cargo of cotton; his man in Ceylon had sent an urgent message about the availability of black tea; Foster had an inkling that the master of the Rosemary was bilking them out of a cargo of sugar. Patrick settled down with a will. There, in the dusty, bustling offices that resounded with shouts and thuds from the warehouses next door, there were no disturbing wives, reproachful glances, or guilty consciences. He ate a light supper at his desk and continued working far into the evening.

  Sophie looked suspiciously about the street before she stepped into Braddon’s landaulet, but there was no sign of her husband. Tears still burned at the back of her throat, but she was perfectly collected. Without hesitation, she agreed to meet Madeleine’s father the following day.

  “Perhaps, if it is agreeable with Miss Garnier,” she said, “we could meet once or twice a week after that point.”

  Braddon agreed eagerly.

  “I have only one requirement,” Sophie said.

  Braddon squirmed. He’d seen that sort of look before, coming from females, and he hated it. “Anything,” he said with a silent groan.

  “My husband is to know nothing.”

  “Patrick? You mean Patrick?”

  “Of course I mean Patrick,” she snapped. “What other husband do I have?”

  “But, but—” Braddon was utterly nonplussed. “Why on earth not? Patrick has always been in on m’schemes. Not to say that he approves of ‘em, but …”

  “If he is to find out, then I will not be available to tutor Miss Garnier,” she stated, her tone allowing no room for argument.

  But obstinacy was second nature to Braddon. “Look here, Sophie. How are you going to explain where you are in the afternoon? What is Patrick going to think about the time you spend with Madeleine?”

  Sophie shot him a stinging glance. “Husbands don’t watch their wives as if they were lapdogs. My mama does precisely as she pleases.”

  There were a few seconds of silence as Braddon tried to decide how to point out that Sophie’s parents were not an appropriate exemplar.

  “My mama couldn’t have gone somewhere every week without my father findin’ out,” he finally said lamely.

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