by Laurel McKee
Most Huntingtons did not, anyway.
“I thought you said I should open a club of my own,” Sophia said. “Maybe I could move to London again and become a business rival to the St. Claires.”
Camille smiled teasingly. “Ah, and I thought you were not listening! You certainly would have the ability to run such an establishment. But I think in the French way, and I see you are too young and pretty to have to scrape along for yourself.”
“I doubt the St. Claires would want to help me out of my ‘scraping.’ ” Or possibly anything else. She had seen the raw shock in James St. Claire’s eyes when she told him who she was and that she had Mary Huntington’s diary.
“But did not Monsieur James send you flowers this morning?” Camille said, nodding and smiling to passing acquaintances.
Another thing that was odd. Sophia had been surprised to find that bouquet at the breakfast table—and dismayed at her pang of disappointment that the card was signed by James and not Dominic. She couldn’t understand why either of them should send her flowers. Maybe it was James’s way of apologizing for his strange behavior.
“That was a mere thank-you,” Sophia said. “Plus perhaps a small apology. He reacted most oddly when I told him I thought we might have a bit of an old family connection.”
“A connection? How very intriguing. You must tell me more!” But Camille was suddenly distracted by a woman calling her name, and she hurried across the path calling, “Ma chère madame la duchesse! So lovely to see you again…”
As Sophia started to follow her, her attention was caught by a flashing glimpse of sunlight on golden hair in the crowd. Her heart beat faster at the sight, and she knew, even without seeing the man’s face, that it was Dominic. He stood at the edge of the tree-lined path, talking to a lady in a stylish pale blue walking dress. He held his tall-crowned silk hat in his hand so that his bright hair was bared, and Sophia could see he was laughing.
A real laugh, not the one of practiced charm she had seen him use at the club. He threw his head back with a flash of infectious humor more brilliant than a ray of the sun, and Sophia felt a wistful pang as she watched him. Who was making him laugh like that, so full of abandon?
She studied the lady who stood beside him. She was young and petite and as exquisitely beautiful as a china doll, with fair, translucent skin and fine-spun, red-gold hair coiled beneath a feathered hat. Her small, gloved hand rested on his arm as she leaned forward to smile up at him from under her lashes. The two of them looked so happy together, so comfortable and easy.
So right. Sophia couldn’t remember ever feeling that way with anyone, as if she just belonged right there. Even when she had lived with her family she had felt alone, different.
“Mon dieu, isn’t that one of the St. Claires now?” Camille said. “How funny, after we were just talking about them. It must be fate. Too bad it is not your flower-sending admirer, but Monsieur Dominic is certainly as handsome.”
Sophia pretended a great interest in the handle of her furled parasol. It wouldn’t do to encourage Camille when she was in a matchmaking mood. “Oh, yes, so it is.” She wanted to stop herself from going on, but somehow she couldn’t. “Who is that with him? She is very pretty.”
“Oh, that is his sister! Mademoiselle Isabel St. Claire. I met her at the Café Anglais. I believe she is the twin of your Monsieur James. A friend of mine saw her as Juliet in London last year and said she was wonderful. We must go see their performance at the Theatre Nationale while they are here.”
His sister. Sophia felt a ridiculous rush of relief at the thought and felt so foolish she had to laugh at herself. Dominic certainly seemed to bring out the worst in her! “Will we not be too busy at the club?”
“Nonsense, Sophie. You must know that meeting people and being seen at all the fashionable places is part of doing business. The theater will be… oh, sacre bleu!” Camille broke off with a gasp and a smile. “They are coming this way.”
“Who?”
“The St. Claires, of course. And Monsieur Dominic is looking right at you. Smile, Sophie.”
“What! He is not looking at me,” Sophie said, feeling again like a silly schoolgirl wondering if the young man she fancied was watching her at a ball. She resisted the urge to peek over at him.
Or at least she tried to resist. She couldn’t seem to stop herself and glanced in his direction from the corner of her eye. Yes—he really was looking at her, and so was his sister. Isabel St. Claire was smiling with a curious gleam in her green eyes, but Dominic was scowling, his laughter completely gone.
Disoriented by that angry frown, Sophia tried to spin away and find an escape route. But there was none.
“They are coming this way,” Camille said. “Sophie, smile! You do look so fierce when you’re all solemn like that.”
Sophia automatically arranged her face in a smile, but it felt brittle as the St. Claires came closer, and Camille called out a greeting to them.
“Madame Martine, how lovely to see you again,” Isabel said as they met under the arching shady branches of a tree. She was even prettier up close, as delicate and gold-and-white as a fairy princess. Dominic hovered behind her protectively, and Sophia wondered what it was like to have a brother like that. Someone who watched over his relatives, keeping them from harm. “And you must be Mrs. Westman! You must forgive my informality, but I feel I know you already. Paris is abuzz with the success of your friend’s club.”
“You must visit La Reine d’Argent and see for yourself, Mademoiselle St. Claire,” Camille said. “Perhaps tea one afternoon?”
“I would adore that,” Isabel answered. “If my jailer brothers would release me from rehearsal for a mere hour.”
“You are here now,” Camille pointed out.
“My first real outing since we arrived in Paris,” Isabel said with a pretty pout. “I am longing to see so much more of the city. Tell me—where did you get that hat, Madame Martine? I must do some shopping while I’m here.”
As Isabel and Camille chatted about modistes, Sophia surreptitiously watched Dominic from the corner of her eye. He seemed to be politely listening to his sister’s conversation, but he also appeared to be watching Sophia. Expecting something from her.
What a puzzle the St. Claires were, Sophia thought. She had met so many people in her travels, learned so much about their emotions and their foibles, but she couldn’t decipher this family at all.
They all turned to walk on through the park, and Isabel St. Claire fell into step beside Sophia. “You are certainly every bit as pretty as James said, Mrs. Westman.”
Sophia laughed in surprise. She wouldn’t have thought “pretty” would be the adjective James would use after the abrupt way they parted at the club. “I thank you and your brother for the compliment, Miss St. Claire. I was afraid he did not care for me after we parted.”
“Of course not! He has spoken of nothing but you all day. He does tend to get a bit tongue-tied around women he admires, which I fear can give the wrong impression. But did he not send you flowers? He said he was going to.”
“Yes, he did. They were beautiful.”
“There! Then he has truly apologized.”
“There was no need to apologize. Your brothers were charming,” Sophia said. She slid a glance at Dominic, who was talking with Camille. “What did they tell you about me?”
Isabel shrugged. “Not a great deal. They do try to keep secrets from me, though, when they go places they think I should not. They haven’t realized I have many methods of discovering information all my own.” She leaned closer and whispered, “I heard some sort of dark muttering about a diary. Do you know anything about that?”
“I’m not at all sure. Your brothers seem rather—dramatic,” Sophia said cautiously.
Isabel laughed happily. “They are that. But tell me, Mrs. Westman—do you enjoy the theater? Will you come see our show when it opens?”
Sophia opened her mouth to answer, when she suddenly noticed a man standing ne
ar the wall. As she fell silent, everyone went on chattering and moved off to examine a nearby flowerbed. The man shouldn’t have caught her eye at all, he was such a nondescript figure. A rather portly man in a brown tweed coat with his hat tugged low over his brow, a newspaper in his hand. But somehow his very stillness made him stand out in the pale swirl of the crowd.
And he was looking right at her.
“Mrs. Westman?” Isabel said.
Sophia turned to smile at her, and when she looked back the man was gone. But someone even worse was in his place. It seemed the man in the brown coat was merely a searcher, leading the hunter to its prey.
For it was Lord Hammond who watched her now.
He smiled as he caught her eye and strolled leisurely toward her. Sophia watched him, frozen like a hare before the hunter. She had thought she left him behind in Baden-Baden.
She should have known better.
“Mrs. Westman,” he said as he stopped at her side. “How charming to see you here.”
Sophia glanced toward the others, who still stood nearby but not close enough to hear the conversation. Dominic watched her closely, as if he tried to figure out who this man was and what she was to him.
Sophia swallowed hard and forced herself to smile at Hammond, leading him a few steps further away from the others. What else could she do in such a public place? Hit him over the head with her parasol and run? As tempting as that was, she didn’t want to cause a scene.
“Lord Hammond,” she said. “What a surprise. I hadn’t heard you were in Paris.”
“I merely stopped on my way back to London, to perform an errand for my cousin the Duke of Pendrake.” He stepped closer to her, too close. She could smell his expensive cologne, and the cloying scent of it seemed to wrap around her like tentacles.
Sophia made herself keep smiling. “You must be eager to reach England again.”
“Not at all. I’m glad my errand brought me to Paris so I could see you again. We parted much too abruptly in Baden-Baden.”
“I thought all business between us had been concluded, Lord Hammond,” Sophia said coldly.
He laughed, as if her attempts to maintain distance amused him. “You took something from me I would very much like to win back, Mrs. Westman.”
“If it’s the money, I will happily play cards with you again any evening at La Reine d’Argent. You could attempt to win it back, but surely I was the victor fair and square in Baden-Baden.”
He waved those words away with a quick flick of his elegantly gloved hand. “The money is nothing at all. I would happily gift you such a sum whenever you wish, and more. I told you before, my dear, I am a very generous man.”
“But I have no need of such generosity. I am finding work here,” Sophia said. “And I’m afraid I don’t understand why you would wish to help me at all. You didn’t seem at all happy when you lost our little game.”
“I never take kindly to losing, Mrs. Westman. I am not accustomed to it.” Lord Hammond suddenly frowned, his affable facade vanishing. “And I don’t care to play games with you any longer. Farewell—for now.”
Sophia held her breath as he walked away until she saw he was truly gone. How could he have come back into her life now, making veiled threats? She felt herself trembling with fear and anger.
Chapter Eight
It had been a long, profitable evening, but Sophia couldn’t help worrying as she made her way up the back stairs of the club, stripping off her long silk gloves as she went. She kept thinking about Lord Hammond at the park and worrying about where he might appear next. About what he wanted from her.
She paused at the top of the stairs to peer down over the railings at the shadowed kitchen below. Everything was quiet now. All the servants had departed after tidying up the salons, Camille had gone home, and Sophia was alone in the dark stillness.
This was normally the time she liked the best, once the rush of the night had passed and she was alone with her thoughts. But tonight the silence made her think too much about things she would rather not, and not only Lord Hammond. Things like the loneliness that she could keep at bay while she worked, while she lost herself in the cards, but that came out to plague her at night. She and Jack had never gotten along after the first passionate rush of their elopement, especially once the drink got to him. But still she felt as if she wanted someone with whom to talk, to go over what had happened at the club, to laugh at the patrons’ silly antics, or to ask advice about what she should do concerning Hammond.
Things like the need to have someone touch her, hold her in the cold darkness.
Sophia shook her head. “You are being ridiculous,” she whispered aloud. Perhaps she did need to go back to London and its foggy sensibleness, back to the shelter and limitations of her family. It seemed Paris was making her romantic and broody, two things she certainly did not want to be. Just as she shouldn’t have been watching for Dominic St. Claire all evening, and yet she had been.
But for right now she would just put her feet up by her own fireside and have a nice brandy before she went to bed.
She turned at the small landing on the third floor and opened the door to her sitting room. The small apartment seemed like a cozy haven after the long evening. The fire was already burning in the grate, laid out by one of Camille’s maids before she left, and a tray of bread, cheese, and brandy was left on the small table next to it. The fire was the only light in the room, its flickering, red-orange glow casting shifting shadows around the few pieces of furniture and the filmy curtains at the windows.
Sophia leaned back against the door and smiled as she took in this little domestic scene, the books piled on the table and the cozy rug on the floor. How could she be lonely when she had this? Her little home, after so long in one hotel after another. Her sanctuary after fending off men like Lord Hammond for too long. But it didn’t feel like a sanctuary tonight.
She dropped her gloves onto the nearest chair and reached up to unfasten her pearl earrings and black ribbon choker. Suddenly there was sound, a rustle of something like fine wool fabric, the creak of old sofa springs, and Sophia froze. She suddenly had the paralyzing feeling that she was not really alone.
Holding her breath, she reached behind her to grasp the door handle. If she could just get it open and run fast enough…
Then a man sat up on the sofa, and she saw the firelight gleam on pale blond hair. It was Dominic.
“What are you doing here?” she cried. She let go of the doorknob, but she didn’t feel any safer. In fact, he was probably the very last man she should be alone with.
He smiled at her, that careless, unrepentant grin of his, as if he was found in a lady’s private sitting room every day. And perhaps he was. Sophia saw the way women of all sorts were inexorably drawn to him, bright moths to a fatal flame. Just as she was drawn to him, against all her better judgment and all her experience. Even now her heart was pounding so hard she feared he could hear it.
“I was waiting for you, of course,” he said. His tone was light, but Sophia could hear a thread of pure, unbreakable steel underneath. “Your sofa is quite comfortable.”
“You should not be in here,” Sophia said, feeling foolish as she stated the obvious. “If you wished to speak to me, you should have made an appointment. There is an office downstairs we use for club business.”
“I do want to speak to you, but not about office sorts of things,” Dominic said. “I won’t take up much of your time.”
“You already have.” Sophia hated the tiny quiver in her voice. She stood up straighter and tilted back her chin. “What do you want to talk about, then? It’s late and I’m tired.”
He rose from the sofa, a slow, graceful unfolding like that of some powerful jungle cat. Sophia held her breath as she watched him move toward her, forcing herself not to run as he leaned his hand against the door near her head.
Sophia studied him warily. The firelight behind him seemed to cast a halo over his hair, but he looked far from angelic. His c
ravat was untied, hanging in loose, crumpled folds, and his shirt had fallen open at the throat to reveal a vee of smooth, bronzed skin. His hair was tousled, falling over his brow in waves that made Sophia long to brush them back. To feel their silkiness against her fingers.
She tucked her fists into the heavy folds of her skirt and watched as his smile turned teasing, as if he guessed what she was thinking. He leaned closer, and Sophia could smell the lemony crispness of his cologne. He didn’t actually touch her, but it felt as if the warmth of his body wrapped around her and drew her close. She remembered her longings of earlier that night, that need to be touched and held in the darkness, and it rushed back onto her a hundredfold with him so close. She did want him to touch her, far too much.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” she whispered. All sorts of wild fantasies flashed in her mind, images of him kissing her, touching her, his skin warm against hers…
Dominic’s smile faded, and his hand curled into a tight fist against the wall. “My brother.”
“Your—what?” Sophia stuttered. All those heady fantasies fled like a cloud sliding from the sky. She hadn’t been expecting that.
“My brother James. I am sure you remember him, since he sent you flowers. Or perhaps you don’t, since you seem to have so many admirers.”
“I—yes, of course I remember. He seems like a charming young man.”
“He is quite infatuated with you,” Dominic said calmly, tonelessly.
Sophia had to laugh. This conversation felt so strange. “Is he indeed? We have only met once. How impetuous of him.”
She pushed herself away from the door and past him, but he suddenly caught her arm in his grasp. It wasn’t painful, but she found she couldn’t pull away from him. His hand was warm and strong on her bare arm, and his touch made her shiver.
She glanced up at him, and his eyes glowed in the flickering shadows as he stared back at her. All of his usual careless charm was gone, and he looked frighteningly intense.