by Laurel McKee
But then she saw it was Dominic, his hair like a golden flame in the shadows, and she drew in a deep breath. But Dominic was just as fearsome as Hammond, in his different way. He threatened her in ways Hammond never could.
“You startled me,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” he answered quietly. But Sophia couldn’t hear anything contrite in his tone. He took a slow step toward her, and she reached out to hold on to the railing. “Madame Martine was worried you had fallen behind, and I told her I would find you.”
“I’m fine. I just wanted to explore a bit. I’ve never been backstage at a theater before.” Sophia glanced over her shoulder at the soaring space beyond them. It felt as if she and Dominic were suddenly all alone in the darkness, suspended high above the world where no one could find them. She had the sudden, strongest urge to reach out for him. She wanted to wrap her arms around his strength and hold on so she would know there was one real thing in this dream-world.
But she knew if she touched him, that fire inside her would ignite and she couldn’t hide it again.
She glanced down at the stage below. “It’s amazing up here,” she said.
“Yes. Like a different world,” Dominic said, as if he knew her thoughts. He took another step until he stood beside her, and he braced his hands on the railing next to hers. He didn’t touch her, didn’t look at her, but she was very aware of him close to her. The smell of his skin, the heat of him, made her remember their kiss vividly.
“When I was a boy,” he said as he looked down at the stage, “I used to hide up in the walkways of the theater all the time. It was my favorite place, for there I could pretend I was anywhere, anyone. No one could see the real me. That’s how I learned that the theater meant freedom, the only real freedom I could find.”
“So you loved acting from the beginning?” Sophia asked softly. She couldn’t look away from Dominic, from the fascination of this rare glimpse into his thoughts. He drew her in so easily.
He shot her a quick, flashing smile. “How could I not love the theater? It’s in our St. Claire blood. We spouted Shakespeare quotations as our first words. Who wouldn’t want the gift of being someone else, if only for an hour?”
“Yes, indeed.” Sophia murmured. Yet his brother found the theater a trap of family expectations. How strange clans were; how easily one could be lost in them. She would love to be someone else for a moment, someone who didn’t have that wild impulse deep inside that always drove her to trouble even when she only wanted to avoid it. Someone who had a net to catch her when that recklessness overtook her. Someone whose play had a happy ending, no matter what chaos ensued in the midst of the action.
But that was the theater, not real life. In real life there was nothing to catch her, or anyone else. “What is your favorite role?” she asked. “Romeo? Hamlet? Some dashing, romantic rake?”
“Iago,” Dominic answered.
Sophia gave him a startled glance. She wouldn’t have expected him to choose a villain, a man tormented and driven to incite another to murder by blackest jealousy. “Iago? But he is so…”
“Scheming? Evil? Cruel?” Dominic said with a laugh. “Yes, all those things. His demons eat him up inside until he has no choice but to destroy everything around him, even when that thing is the personification of sweetness and light. It’s better to let such things out on the stage, wouldn’t you say—Lady Sophia?”
Somehow he put a world of hidden meaning into those two words. Sophia studied him in the faint, murky light. His handsome face looked harsh, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut. His eyes darkened as he looked down at her. She could see him as a villain, so beautiful he drew people closer and closer before he destroyed them because he could not help it. Because he was driven on by demons, just as she was.
She thought about Jane Grant, the lost fiancée, and wondered if she was something of sweetness and light. If he still mourned for her and what she had meant in his life. She wondered what had driven him to hide in the theater rafters as a boy, what drove him to the million deceptions of the stage and the card table.
But she couldn’t ask him. She didn’t have the words, and she suspected he would never share his secrets, his deepest self. Perhaps, like her, he didn’t even know.
“That sounds strange to me,” she said. “I haven’t been Lady Sophia in a long time.”
“Have you not?” he said, a touch of some dark amusement in his voice. “But it suits you. Mrs. Westman sounds too prosaic for such an exotic princess.”
Sophia laughed. “A penniless princess, cast away from the palace. Yet I wouldn’t trade what I have now for an ivory tower. Nor do I think you would trade the theater for the grandest of castles.”
“You’re right. Only the theater suits me, I fear. I’m no good at anything else.” Suddenly, he turned to her in one quick, lithe movement. He drew her close, the soft curves of her body molded to the hardness of his. And she knew his words weren’t true—there was surely at least one other thing he was very good at indeed.
She grasped at his shoulders to keep from falling and his arm tightened around her.
His head bent down to hers, his kiss brushing against her brow. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he said, his voice low and rough.
For a moment she was confused; all she could make sense of was his touch around her. “What was me?”
“That night at the Devil’s Fancy,” he said, and she felt his lips curve in a smile against her temple. “You kicked me in the balls. I was furious about that for weeks after.”
“Were you really?” Sophia laughed at the memory, a memory that had haunted her as well. “It was rather clever of me, though I had never tried such a thing before. My old nanny told me to do that if any man ever grew overly bold with me.”
“Was I too bold with you? You seemed to like it—at least until you ran off and left me in agony.”
“I did rather like it,” she admitted reluctantly. She could hardly deny it after what had happened between them in her bedchamber. The sparks that crackled between them were too bright to be dismissed. “But it frightened me as well.”
“I frightened you?” he said tightly, and she wished she could see his face and read what was in his eyes.
“I—well, I think I frightened myself,” she said. “I was a silly, naive girl back then, but I thought myself so bold and brave to be sneaking into your club. I was in over my head.”
“And now?”
“Now I am not so naive any longer. I have traveled a great deal and met many men.” Men like Lord Hammond, who were angry when they were denied, and men like Jack, handsome and foolish. Men weak, and men so strong they ran over everyone in their path. But she still felt just as silly as ever when it came to Dominic. “You should stay away from me.”
He shook his head, and his lips brushed softly over her skin. “What role do you play now, Sophia?” he whispered against her hair. “What secrets do you keep?”
“I—I am only myself,” she answered, even though she often had no idea what that meant. “I am no Desdemona, no Ophelia.”
“You definitely are not. You’re the enchantress in her dark palace, concocting spells, mixing up your potions and poisons.” His mouth trailed a light path over her temple and the curve of her cheek, the merest, softest brush. Her eyes drifted closed, and she shivered.
“I have no magic spells,” she said shakily. If she did, she wouldn’t be where she was, alone in the world. Unsure of what to do next.
“That’s where you are wrong,” he said. His mouth trailed down to her throat, open and hungry as her head fell back, and he traced a ribbon of burning kisses over her skin. “You have a spell that makes me keep coming back to your side even when I know very well I should not. That Huntingtons are always trouble.”
Sophia gasped as his tongue tasted the pulse that beat frantically at the base of her throat. She held on tighter to his shoulders, her nails digging into him through the fabric of his velvet coat. She wished i
t was his bare skin, hot and damp under her hands. She wanted to feel him, all of him, as he rose above her and filled the whole world with only him, only that moment between them.
“No, you shouldn’t,” she whispered. His mouth trailed over the curve of her bare shoulder as his strong hand held her hard around the waist. “But I do like it when you do…”
“You taste like sunshine,” he said hoarsely against her skin. “Do you want me to stop?”
Sophia shook her head. Then she forgot everything completely when his other hand slid up her waist and cupped her breast through the satin of her gown.
His fingers curled around her, and she felt his thumb trace lightly over her nipple. It hardened under his touch, and her head fell back as she let the sensations rush over her. The hot pleasure of his touch was delicious, and she craved more and more of it. What would it feel like if his mouth closed over her bare breast? If he touched her with nothing between them?
His thumb and forefinger closed over her nipple and plucked at it lightly, and she whispered his name. His teeth set to her shoulder and she felt him smile against her.
“Sophia,” he said, his voice so rough she could barely recognize it. “You are so beautiful.”
So are you, she thought as she looked down at his golden head against her. He was like a bright god. She twined her fingers in his hair and felt its silk shift through her touch. She tugged at it as he plucked at her nipple again, pulling his hair hard enough to hurt, but he said nothing. He just scraped his teeth against her and drew her even tighter to his body. His palm slid under the curve of her buttocks, and she felt the press of his erection against her through their clothes.
She had never wanted anything like she wanted Dominic now. It was a dark abyss that would consume her, yet she couldn’t help but leap into it head-first.
As Sophia watched in dazed shock, he fell to his knees in front of her and her skirts fell back over him. She tried to kick him away, but his hands closed hard over the soft, bare skin of her thighs above her stockings. His fingertips caressed her there, feather-light just on the tender crease at the top of her leg, and he pressed her legs apart.
She felt the hot touch of his breath on her most intimate place, light as a sigh, just before his tongue plunged deep inside.
Damn it all! Her eyes fluttered shut, and she held tight to the railing as a trembling, burning rush of pure sensation shot through her body. He seemed to know instinctively just how she liked to be kissed, how she liked to be touched—just there.
He licked one slow, languid stroke then another, before he flicked at that tiny, sensitive spot with the tip of his tongue. She felt herself contract at that touch, felt a rush of wetness trickle onto her inner thigh, and he groaned at the taste.
How savagely she wanted him! How she had missed this feeling of being so vitally alive, so aware of her body. For just an instant, she let herself feel it, let him pleasure her.
A sudden burst of raucous laughter broke into her sensual dream. Her eyes flew open, and she found that they had not actually jumped together into some new world. They were still on the theater walkway, and there were other people nearby. Including his family.
Oh, damn it all, she thought again in a hot rush of panic. She had been reckless before in her life, but never quite like this. Dominic let her go and rose to his feet, and she backed away from him as she tried to draw in a breath. Her skirts fell around her again, and she pulled up the cap sleeve of her bodice. Her hand trembled on the slippery fabric.
Dominic leaned toward her as if he would reach for her again. His face was taut with lust, his eyes hooded, but then he turned away. As Sophia watched, confused, he crossed his arms over his chest, and his shoulders rose with a deep breath.
“I should rejoin the others,” she said softly. Camille would be looking for her soon, if she hadn’t been distracted by some new flirtation. But Sophia felt too flushed and shaky to face anyone.
“I’ll take you,” he said. His voice sounded very far away, and he didn’t turn to face her.
How could he move from the hot rush of passion to this chilly distance so fast? Sophia wished she knew how to do that, too. Perhaps she was out of practice with her own acting skills.
“I think it’s best if I go alone for the moment,” she said. She heard another burst of laughter, louder and closer this time. “They can’t be far.”
Dominic slowly turned to face her, and his expression was as cool and blank as a classical statue. A handsome Apollo. “At least let me watch until you are safe,” he said. “I won’t let them see that we’re together.”
At first, Sophia had the irrational flash of thought that Dominic was ashamed to be seen with her. Then she laughed at her hurt. Of course they should not be seen together. She was at a crossroads in her life, trying to see where she should go next. The last thing she needed at this moment was another scandal, another wave of gossip, especially with her cousin Elizabeth in Paris. That could be her way back to her family.
She nodded. “Very well. But really, what trouble could I get into here at a theater?” Beyond the trouble she had already found…
Dominic laughed. “More trouble than anywhere else, I fear.”
Sophia nodded. She began to turn away, but suddenly Dominic reached out and caught her gloved hand in his. She spun around and found him watching her, smiling. She distrusted that smile more than anything else.
“I haven’t forgotten that diary, Lady Sophia,” he said, a thread of steel running through his quiet voice. “I still would like to buy it from you.”
The diary. What strange hold did it have over him? Why would someone like Dominic want a long-dead woman’s crumbling journal? The mystery just made Sophia want to hold on to it, to hold on to Mary, even more.
She slid her hand out of his. She could think so much more clearly when he wasn’t touching her. “It’s not for sale. And why would you want it, anyway?”
Dominic gave a careless shrug, but Sophia wasn’t fooled. She could see the dark, determined glint in his eyes.
“I am interested in old family history,” he said. “Perhaps there is something there I could turn into a play.”
“I doubt it. Mary Huntington led a quiet life, from what I’ve read so far.” A quiet, sad life, slowly destroyed by unrequited love. Heartbreaking, yes, but not the stuff of great drama.
“I would still like to read it,” Dominic said. “If you won’t sell it to me, may I at least take a look at it?”
Sophia studied Dominic’s face. She wondered if he looked anything like Mary’s husband. If he did, surely Mary’s heart had broken all over again every time she looked into his beautiful eyes and didn’t see what she longed for there. Sophia suddenly wanted to be away from Dominic, to be away from herself when she looked at him.
“Perhaps,” she said quickly. “Now I really must go and find the others.”
She hurried away, hardly seeing where she was going until she found a narrow flight of stairs leading down from the walkway. She could hear laughter again, but it had moved further away. As she climbed down to the stage below, she was suddenly surrounded by looming scenery, painted images of meadows and drawing rooms that created a confusing vista that closed in around her.
Sophia twirled in a circle, disoriented and breathless. She could still hear voices, but they seemed at once nearby and very far away. As she stared up into the darkness of the walkways, the back of her neck suddenly tingled, as if someone watched her.
Her heart pounding, she swung around, only to be confronted by more shadows. There was a flash of movement, like a break in dark storm clouds that rippled around her.
“Who is there?” she called. “I think I’m lost…”
But there was no answer. Sophia stood very still, and as she listened closely, she heard the faint sound of footsteps hurrying away.
I must be imagining things, she thought, rubbing her hand over her brow. Surely she was just tired, and the fantastical atmosphere of the theater was o
vercoming her senses. She was beginning to imagine her life was a play, with mysterious, dark heroes and villains watching from the night.
She rushed between the scenery, hurrying forward blindly, until at last she heard Camille calling out to her. “Sophie! There you are. Wherever did you vanish to? Monsieur Caville is taking us to that little café I told you about, it should be such fun…”
From the Diary of Mary St. Claire Huntington
I miss my family most desperately since I lost the child. There, I have written it, I can see the words here in blackest ink, so everyone may know they are true. My sister and mother write to me every week, and I sit here by this window and wait for their letters as if they were fragments of the real world flung into the recesses of my lonely tower. They write of such ordinary things—the garden, a marriage in the village, a new dress, but to me every word is manna from heaven. I used to think my family so dull, so ordinary! But now I miss them, and I think they are exactly what a family should be.
My husband’s family—they are nothing like that, even when they come to visit us here. And they seem to frown every time they look at me, as if they expect something from me I cannot give, I cannot be. John says I imagine things, that our love should be enough to make me happy, and I used to think that as well.
But perhaps things are looking brighter for us. Word has come that the king’s brother, the Duke of York himself, is to visit us on a hunting trip! John seems excited to think our position at Court is improving, and I spend all my time planning the visit. I pray this works out as my husband hopes it will.
Chapter Eleven
A chocolate shop. How difficult could it be to work there? And yet they had turned her down when she tried to apply, saying she was too fine a lady to be behind the counter
Sophia stood outside the large, gleaming window of the chocolatier and examined the tempting array of elaborate sweet treats laid out there. The Aide Demandé sign in the door was still there, but they had not wanted her help. Could she really find some way to be useful?