by Carla Kelly
She sniffed and absently picked up an ebony trinket box from the escritoire. She lifted the lid and her lips parted in surprise. Curious, he looked over her shoulder to see a small gold broach studded with amethyst stones in the shape of a heart.
“Oh, dear. Did Uncle Oliver have someone special in his life?”
Selwick searched his memory for the things he’d been told about the odd man as the floral scent of Sophia’s perfume tweaked his awareness of her. “Not that I can recall. Did he mention anyone in his journal?”
“I confess I only skimmed the passages. I shall go back and take a closer look. If there was someone he wished to give such an object to, she should have it.”
“He is dead now, Miss Sophia. You do not owe anything to anyone outside the family—”
“But we have an obligation.”
“Perhaps you or one of your cousins would like such an object as a memento.”
She traced the heart with one slender finger and sighed. “It is lovely, is it not? But how much more precious to the one for whom it was intended. I shall look for a name tonight.”
He was touched that she was so determined to honor her uncle’s intentions, as well as his instructions, and found it refreshing that he could detect no greed in her. Admirable, really.
Thomas Evans, her cousin Marjory’s husband, had already come to him to ask how much the estate was worth. In fact, none of Pettibone’s heirs, with the exception of Sophia, had missed an opportunity to question Sebastian as to the disposition of Pettibone’s wealth. And he’d told them all the same thing. No one is to know that until the reading of the will. The document had been given to Sebastian sealed, with instructions to open it only at the reading.
“You are not much like the rest of your family,” he ventured as he took in the delicate flush of her cheek.
She looked up at him, her eyes twinkling, then smiled as she replaced the broach in the box and put it back on the escritoire. “We were raised differently. After Papa died, Mama took me back to her village. We were—” she shrugged her shoulders “—the genteel poor. Good family, but a bit strapped for the ready. After Mama died, it was just my aunt and female cousins. We did not have many extras, but we always had what we needed to get by.”
“Were you happy, Miss Sophia?”
“Happy?” She paused. “Those were lovely days. Except for…” She turned her back to him and busied herself with counting a stack of linen handkerchiefs.
“Except for?” he prompted.
“You strike me as a man who has always known his place in this world, Selwick. Perhaps that is an advantage of being male and a peer. But I, well, never quite felt that I belonged after Mama died. Twice a year, I was sent off to holiday with my father’s family, and I was given a season in London for my ‘come out,’ so I was not deprived of family contact. My aunt and cousins have been very good to me, but I am not quite one of them. I’ve always wanted to find that…that feeling of belonging and connection.”
Sebastian felt a tug at his heartstrings. Yes, he’d always known his place in the world, but there was so much more he’d have done if he hadn’t had the accompanying responsibilities. But Miss Sophia should not have had to learn that lesson. “You shall find connection when you marry and have a family of your own, Miss Sophia.”
She laughed as she followed him into her uncle’s dressing room. “Alas, Selwick, I shall never marry.”
“Why? Do you not have a dowry? Perhaps your uncle has left you sufficient to attract a suitor.”
“My dowry is respectable. But there are a variety of reasons not to wed. Not the least of which is a lamentable lack of proposals since my…ah, refusal of the duke.”
“Ah, yes. The duke. A jilt, I heard.”
She shrugged. “Refusal. Jilt. The same thing, actually.”
“Not at all. A refusal happens privately, before offers are accepted and contracts are made. A jilt is a rather public sneer at an accepted fiancé. Much harder to live down. And a caution to future suitors.”
She looked down and a lock of hair fell across her cheek, shielding her from his scrutiny. “There were reasons for that.”
A long moment passed before he reached out and swept the lock back, the tips of his fingers leaving a tingling trail in their wake. His lips parted as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind. Instead, he pried the lid off a crate and set it aside.
Sophia wondered if she should tell him why she’d turned her back on the duke. But the duke had said her reasons were ridiculous. Childish. That she should put girlish notions aside and accept the realities of life. She could not bear it if Selwick thought her ridiculous, too. She sighed and looked down into the crate to see what surprises it held.
Selwick lifted a large object wrapped in wool bunting, and unwound the cloth to reveal a stunning painting surrounded by an ornate gilt frame of a forest scene with a rocky precipice and waterfall. She drew a long breath in appreciation. The painter had been gifted. Sophia could almost feel the mist rising from the water.
“Such beauty…” she said, and sighed.
“Breathtaking.”
She glanced up to see Selwick studying her, and she suspected he was not talking about the painting.
He cupped her face and ran his thumb over her lips. The intimate touch left a tingling in its wake. Oh, she should stop him. She should run. Her eyelids, suddenly heavy and languid, drifted shut and she parted her lips in an invitation. She had loved the feel of his tongue earlier, and she was surprised how much she wanted it again.
He obliged with a slow, hesitant brush of his lips. Was he testing her? Drawing her out? Sophia felt herself melting into him, so close she could feel his heart beating. And then, when she had nearly grown accustomed to it, he deepened the kiss. She was drowning in him, unable to breathe or even think coherently.
He held her to him with one hand splayed at her back, and the other moving, caressing along her spine, as slow and unhurried as his kiss. And when she had grown to crave that touch, his hand slipped around to her side. She moaned when he broke the kiss to nibble his way down her throat.
The curve of his body as he bent to his task opened a breach between them, and his hand brushed across her breast. She gasped in shock, but a fire kindled inside her, so delicious, so arousing that she thought she would die if he stopped. The heat of his hand as he cupped her breast was seductive and her firmed peaks were so sensitive that Sophia shivered with the sheer pleasure of it.
And then he was kissing her again, fitting himself against her until she could feel every line of his body. When the hard length of his arousal pressed into her softness, she knew she should stop him. Should break the embrace at the very least. Oh, but how could she? Her body had a mind of its own and she could only press closer.
He moaned and parted from her, cupping her shoulders to hold her away from him. “I should not have done that, Miss Sophia. You have my apology.”
She blinked. What had she missed? Twice in one day he’d owned her entirely and had retreated. The heat of a deep blush crept all the way up from her toes. “If you do that one more time, Selwick, I shall doubt your sincerity.”
When Miss Sophia went to her room to change for dinner, Sebastian did not follow her example. He worked well past dinner, his mind in a turmoil.
It seemed he could not please anyone. Even Potter, when he’d brought a dinner tray to Sebastian, had looked at him in disapproval. “I believe I saw Miss Sophia with Mr. Pettibone’s journal, my lord. Is that quite the thing for a young woman to be reading?”
“I hardly think there is anything objectionable in there, and if there is, I believe Miss Sophia has the fortitude to withstand it,” he’d growled. Now he was answerable to the servants, as well as the family?
His every instinct for self-preservation urged him to finish at Windsong quickly and hie back to London. This chaotic Christmas was not what he had bargained for. And Miss Sophia Pettibone was evidently more temptation than he could reas
onably resist.
Perhaps his lust had been heightened by the crisp northern air, or some spice in Mrs. Cavendish’s cooking. Whatever it was, it made him—yes, he who had always been firm in his resolutions—waver like a schoolboy when it came to that cheerful bit of muslin so different from anything he’d known. She had his mind wandering toward a relationship he’d never contemplated before.
He shuddered. What sort of fool was he that he kept playing with fire, stoking it hotter and hotter at each encounter? The kiss this morning had been bad enough, but the kiss in Pettibone’s dressing room made him certain he’d lost his mind. And it was getting more difficult to put her out of his thoughts.
The worst of it, though, was that he knew she was likewise enthralled. He’d had enough women to know an ardent, if innocent, response. She wanted him almost as badly as he wanted her, but it was unlikely she knew what lay ahead for her if she gave in to that temptation. Unless…
Unless her relationship with the duke had been more intimate than it should be until after the wedding. Could she have jilted him because he was clumsy? Inept? Had he hurt her? The mere thought of that made Sebastian’s blood boil. It would be bad enough to have the duke despoil her, but to ruin such promise and sensuality would be unforgivable.
He laughed in self-derision. He had no business thinking of Miss Sophia in that way. And no right. And he bloody well knew if she looked at him the same way one more time, kissed him like that, touched him, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. To make matters worse, he was responsible, as the older and more experienced, to see nothing happened between them. To accomplish that, physical proximity must be avoided at all costs. Yes, that was the ticket. Like it or not, he would keep a safe distance from the chit.
Chapter Seven
Sophia rose early the next morning, and Janie helped her dress in a drab mauve gown and added a muslin pinafore. There was much to be done today between going through the crates and helping Mrs. Cavendish with the sweetmeats she’d requested. Georgie must have sugarplums, and there should be mincemeat and a nice Christmas pudding for all.
Janie pinned her hair up in a loose knot to keep it from falling over her shoulders and then Sophia hurried downstairs to the kitchen. Mrs. Cavendish was sending the breakfast trays up with the servants and Potter was adding wood to the cookstove.
“Good morning,” she said with a cheerful smile.
Mrs. Cavendish waved to the worktable where her breakfast had been set out. “I’ll be with you in a moment, dearie.”
She sat on the stool and poured herself a cup of tea while Potter came to stand beside her, ready to fetch her whatever she needed. But she had other uses for Potter this morning. “Please sit down, Potter. I’d like a word with you.”
He looked a bit nervous and Sophia hurried to reassure him. “I would like to ask you a few questions regarding my uncle, if you would not mind.”
“I, uh…” was his only response.
“You needn’t worry about keeping his confidence, Potter. He is gone now and I only want to do what he would have wanted. I promise I will not repeat anything you tell me.”
The color in his cheeks heightened. “If you say so, Miss Pettibone.”
She poured a cup of tea for the butler and applied herself to her porridge. “I found a broach yesterday. A lovely thing in the shape of a heart with jewels all around. Had Uncle Oliver meant it for anyone special?”
There was a short silence while Potter thought, then, “Mr. Pettibone was accustomed to purchasing items he found attractive with no particular person in mind, miss. Perhaps he meant it for one of his nieces. You, perhaps?”
“Then there was no one special in his life?”
“Mr. Pettibone was hardworking early on, Miss Sophia, and had no time for social engagements. Later, he became a bit reclusive. He feared people would like him only for his money, you see. The curse of great wealth, I believe he called it.”
The thought saddened her and she blinked back a wayward tear. “I wish he’d have come home.” She sighed.
“I believe he did, too, miss.”
She pushed her sadness aside and braced herself for the business at hand. “Very well, Potter. We shall determine the best home for the broach, and meantime I think we should start the sugarplums and mincemeat. Then I must go help Lord Selwick in the attic.”
He started to rise from his chair and then sat again, a smile on his face. “Is this why you are making a little Christmas despite your cousins’ opposition, miss? For your uncle?”
She looked down into her porridge. “In his journal, he mentioned missing Christmas with his family. The food, the decorations, the rollicking times. This is our last chance to give him that. One Christmas at Windsong Hall. Do you think me silly, Potter?”
He reached out and covered her hand with his. “I think it is the nicest thing anyone could have done for him, miss. Far nicer than a funeral.”
“Then will you bring me candles for the windows? We shall keep them burning until…until he arrives.”
Tears glittered in Potter’s eyes as he nodded.
Mrs. Cavendish was free to turn her attention to them and made shooing motions with both hands. “Get on with ye, now. No tears in my kitchen. And you, missy, hie to the attic. Lord Selwick went up an hour ago.”
“But the sugarplums—”
“’Twill not be my first sugarplum, nor my first Christmas pudding. I can manage without ye. Lord Selwick, now, that’s a different matter. Stacks and boxes of things to go through. He needs ye more than I. I’ll see to it that someone brings your lunch. Ye won’t want to take the time to freshen up to sit at the table. Sooner done, sooner gone,” she reminded.
Sophia needed no reminder that everyone but her wanted to leave Windsong Hall. She finished her porridge quickly and headed for the servants’ stairs that passed through the south wing and climbed with the same rising expectancy she always felt when she was about to see Selwick.
The top of the attic stairs opened to a massive room the width and breadth of the entire south wing. The floorboards gleamed from a recent polishing and the rafters had been swept clean of cobwebs. A dormer window at each end allowed meager light from outside to stream in. Crates had been clustered at the far end near one of the windows, and a small table had been placed to hold writing materials. An oil lamp hung from a beam to dispel any gloom from the lowering clouds.
Selwick, his back to her, was prying the lid off a crate with a crowbar. His muscles strained against his shirt-sleeves and the way the pull of fabric defined his lean flanks left her feeling flushed. He really was the most striking man. And when she could tease him out of his stern countenance…But that was in the past. All she wanted now was to finish the inventory quickly so she and her cousins could return to their homes.
She marched forward, the heels of her slippers making soft thumps on the polished wood floor. He turned to look in her direction and she could have sworn she saw something akin to pleasure in his expression.
“I did not expect to see you so early, Miss Sophia.”
“I have been remiss, Selwick. I agreed to help, and then promptly abandoned you to perform other chores. You have my apology.” She rubbed her hands together and swept her gaze over the waiting crates. “How many have you done?”
“This is the first. I finished in your uncle’s room last night once I got Potter to help me move a crate. Just these and the ones in the cellar to go.”
Just these? There were fifteen crates in all! She could at least be glad he’d chosen the attic next rather than the cellar. She didn’t much relish the thought of working in a dark, dank cellar all day.
Selwick lifted an item from the crate and said, “A painting. Landscape of a meadow.”
She went to the table and wrote the description down beneath the previously inventoried objects. There were two pages already filled, and suddenly Sophia wondered if he was as anxious to have this done as she.
A glance over her shoulder revealed that he wa
s watching her with a gleam of speculation in his compelling eyes. What on earth could the man be thinking?
Miss Sophia had a steady hand and worked without complaint throughout the morning. They barely spoke, but for him calling off the items and she repeating them as she entered them on the inventory sheets. He regretted the awkwardness, but he did not know how to remedy it. If he was to keep his resolve—and his distance—he would have to discourage any personal discourse.
Oh, but he was bursting with curiosity. The little she had told him, and her mention of the incident with the duke left him hungering for more information. What, precisely, had been the reason for Miss Sophia not receiving any more proposals? Was the jilt not all it seemed to be? Was there something more?
They worked in tandem, neither passing a personal word or thought. They might have been strangers, to all appearances. “Wooden carving of a bear,” he said, and set the figure on a canvas sheet until the remains of the contents had been identified and repacked.
“Wooden carving of a bear,” she confirmed.
A new crate held furs, the pelts stored flat to prevent creasing. He took them out one at a time, laying them on top of one another as he called off the descriptions. “Furs. Three small brown, likely mink. Two large black, bear, I think.” The next three were large and white, reminding him of sheep before shearing. “Three…mountain goat?”
He heard her pen scratching across the paper and sighed. He did not need that reminder to feel her presence. The signs were thick around him. Her scent, her soft sighs, the rustle of her gown as she turned or moved. All were incredibly evocative. He was like a schoolboy again, growing hard and ready at the slightest provocation. He marveled that his intellect and his body could be at such odds—knowing she was trouble, yet responding to such bone-deep need that it shook his very soul. He turned to look at her, drawn by her silence.
She glanced up when he did not call out an item, confusion in her eyes.