Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03]

by Duke Most Wanted

  He stood there, taking her closemouthed kiss for as long as he was able to bear it, for he savored the innocence he tasted in it. She would never kiss so again.

  Then he violated that sweet virginity with the tip of his tongue, a slow careful penetration that made her stiffen in surprise.

  She wasn’t one to quail. No, not his Sophie. At once she was back in the joust, her own dainty tongue slipping into his lips, the soft sounds of her pleasure vibrating through his mouth.

  God, so sweet, so strong, so powerful—

  He couldn’t get close enough to her. In two steps he had her down on the fainting couch, her willing body at last pressed completely to his. Beneath his . . .

  Soft and pale, her breasts emerged from her bodice when he pulled at the neckline. The gift of her flesh filled his hands as he impaled her mouth again and again with his tongue. There were other things he would do with that tongue, things she would enjoy, things he would get to in just a moment, just as soon as he’d had enough of fitting his hands around her small, high, perfect breasts.

  Oh, the things he would do to his magnificent Sophie . . .

  Outside the alcove room, the audience broke into applause. Jarred, Graham broke the kiss.

  “Oh God.” Not Sophie! He was a monster. He was a rotter, through and through. “Oh, bloody hell!”

  He backed off her, turning away—tearing himself away, in fact, an act which cost him more than he could ever articulate. He rubbed both hands over his face, straining for sanity through the aching, heart-pounding lust . . . and need. Need like nothing he’d ever felt before. Need that nearly had him turning back and flinging himself upon her once again, just for one more minute of that sweet, pure hearthfire light . . .

  He forced himself away, as far as the tiny room would allow. Leaning his forehead against the opposite wall, he clenched his eyes tightly shut and beat back the aching loss until coherent thought returned.

  Mostly.

  Losing himself in Sophie . . . When had she become a pool of cool clean water? When had she become the unpolluted air in his lungs? Why hadn’t he seen it sooner—why had she kept it from him, like a secret, like a treasure hoarded away for someone more worthy, someone less blind?

  Too late.

  No. Never. He needed this—needed her—needed—

  You need Lilah’s pile of gold.

  No. He could not trade this . . . this pure, clean creature for a tainted harpy like Lilah!

  Then trade her for the folk of Edencourt.

  The pale, sunken faces . . . the blank, enduring eyes that held no faith in his promises . . . the rot and the waste and the damned, squandered years he’d walked right by . . .

  Trade Sophie for his people? That . . . that he could do. Must do. To live without kissing Sophie would be torture. To live with destroying Edencourt . . . that would be hell on earth.

  Resolute, he turned his heart to stone. Only then did he dare to turn back to her.

  She was upright and dressed again, although her hair was down from its elaborate coil, falling untamed and coppery over her delicate ivory shoulders as she sat tensely on the fainting couch, her hands knotted in her lap.

  He was an idiot. Looking at the girl before him, the most lucid, non-babbling thought he could form was just that.

  I am an idiot.

  She gazed at the floor, her cheeks bright with flush. “This was not a mistake. Don’t you dare say it was a mistake—I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Sophie . . .” He wanted her but he couldn’t. Ever. “That was a mistake.”

  He would not be his father. He would not please himself at the cost of Edencourt’s people. He was only glad he’d managed to stop before he’d gone too far.

  No, you aren’t. Too far is precisely where you want to be.

  She’d given him so much. Understanding. Friendship. Safe harbor from the unhappiness he’d been immersed in for so long that he’d considered it the natural order of things. She’d told him the truth, about himself, how he lived and greatest of all, about herself. Until he’d ruined matters, she’d been entirely and completely herself with no apology. She’d inspired him to see into himself, to want to be a different man than he’d been bred to be—a better man.

  In his world of glittering facades, shifting loyalties and slippery deceit, a sincere friend who spoke the truth was worth more than gold.

  What had happened to create Sophie the cynic?

  I see no reason to allow the grimness of the real world to interfere with a desire to make things the way they should be.

  He’d killed that. He saw that now.

  He’d toyed with her affections. Thinking back with disgust at his insincere flirtation and his indifference to the proprieties, he realized what he’d done to her in his boredom and caprice.

  The fact that he’d entangled his own feelings did not matter. His heart was not his to lose. It belonged to Edencourt.

  “So that is all, then?” She raised her chin and gazed at him evenly. He steeled himself against the stain of disappointment and hopelessness in her expression.

  He gazed back at her solemnly. “Did you expect more?”

  “Of course not. Who am I to expect anything in this world?” She lifted her chin proudly and stood. Shaking out her somewhat-the-worse-for-wear skirts, she moved to the door. “My congratulations on your imminent engagement, my lord.”

  With a dip and a careless tilt of her head, she was gone, striding back into the noise and crowd of the musicale as if she had more important business kept waiting.

  Worry slithered through Graham’s relief. Her gray gaze might seem calm and disinterested to others, had, in fact seemed so to him once upon a time, but he now knew what raged beneath that still surface. His Sophie was a hard-headed, fiery, unpredictable creature.

  Who now seemed to think she had nothing to lose.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Everyone was enjoying a superior alto, absorbed in the best music of the evening. Sophie slithered sidways in the shadows of the back of the room, careful to walk lightly. If she could make it out of the room before the song ended, she could—

  Her elbow struck a tall, Chinese vase on a side table. It teetered, then slid right through her desperately reaching hands.

  Into those of Mr. Wolfe. Breathless with relief and quite frankly happy to see a friendly face, Sophie ignored the oddity of his lurking outside that particular room. Instead she merely helped him carefully place the vase back in position. Then she put a hand on his arm.

  “Mr. Wolfe, if I might impose?”

  He took one look at her, his hot eyes intent on her face, then tucked that hand into his arm and walked her from the room, keeping himself between her and any possible observers. Really, he was a very thoughtful man.

  Once in the hallway, he waved away a footman who stepped forward. “Fetch my carriage, can’t you see she’s ill?”

  Sophie blinked, then suppressed a rising hysterical giggle. Ill? Yes, she was ill. Overheated, overcome, overwhelmed. Infected with lust.

  Not only lust of course, but definitely, there was a very large portion of lust in the mix. Graham’s lips, his heavy, hardened body, his hands . . .

  Then her memory flashed on his eyes when he’d declared it all a mistake. The light had gone out from those eyes. The only thing she could see in those once-playful, teasing depths was sincere regret.

  So kissing her—among other things!—was cause for regret, hmm? She wasn’t worth it, apparently. She ought never to have kissed him so shortly after Lilah had. How could she compare with a lover as experienced and beautiful as Lilah?

  You’re running circles round the real problem here.

  Problem? There was no problem. There was only a mistake. Graham would testify to that.

  Sophie was barely aware of having reclaimed her cloak and being led out to a waiting vehicle. The footman helped her up and she found herself seated in a phaeton with Mr. Wolfe.

  “Oh, yes please,” she managed dimly. “Ta
ke me away from here.”

  He obediently clicked his tongue against his teeth and started his horses at a quick walk. Sophie sighed. It was such a relief to deal with reasonable man who simply did as she asked.

  Her way home secured, Sophie wrapped herself in her cloak and lost herself in her thoughts.

  IT WAS ONLY a moment later when Graham emerged from the Peabody house, but the phaeton identified by the groom as belonging to Mr. Wolfe was already nearly out of sight.

  Graham didn’t believe for a instant that Wolfe was taking Sophie properly home. The man was a bounder, a pouncer, lurking at the water hole, waiting to devastate the next helpless creature wandering by for a drink.

  Graham would be damned if Sophie was going to be that prey.

  Another groom passed him, bringing a fine saddled horse. Graham stepped forward. “I’ll take that.”

  The groom blinked at him, then looked over his shoulder. Graham followed his gaze to see Somers Boothe-Jamison giving him a strange look.

  “Ah.” Just stealing your horse. Sorry. “Now see here, Somers—”

  “You ought to go after her,” Somers interrupted, frowning down the street where the phaeton was no longer visible. “I don’t trust that Wolfe fellow. There are some very odd tales circling about him.”

  Graham briefly closed his eyes in relief. Thank God. Then he grinned fiercely at Somers. “So I’ll just take your horse then?”

  He was already mounting. Boothe-Jamison simply waved him on with a weary hand. “Go on, then. I’ll find another way home. Be good to that horse, would you? Not all of us are dukes, you know.”

  Graham settled himself into the saddle. “Try Lady Tessa,” he called out as he dug his heels into the mount. “She always has room in her carriage for a bloke without transport.” Only the young and handsome ones, of course, but Somers was a big lad. He could take care of himself.

  The phaeton was well out of sight. Wolfe was really putting on the speed.

  What in the hell was the man up to in such a hurry?

  SOPHIE TUCKED HER face down against the chilly night air and contemplated the riotous mess she had created with her impulsiveness.

  What was wrong with her? She’d never been so wicked before. She’d stolen money, lied and perpetrated a fraud but she had never lain beneath a man and let him touch her—nay, encouraged him to touch her! It hadn’t been only Graham who had pulled at her bodice to free her breasts to his hands!

  Yet in the end, she had allowed him to move away from her, to pull back that wonderful heated gift of passion and need he’d offered her. She could have stopped him—or rather, she could have started him again! She’d known that all she needed to do was to touch him, kiss him, press against him, and she would have been back down on that couch, willing clay in his hot hands once again.

  Why? Why had she walked away?

  Because in a few more minutes you were going to have to confess. In another second, you would have spouted your love like a fountain and spoken more truth than Graham is ready to hear.

  Sophie truly hated it when that little voice was right.

  With a deep breath, she ordered her thoughts to calm. There was no point in getting tightly wrought over the evening’s events. Tomorrow she would figure out a way to either tell Graham or to make sure he never found out the truth. What she needed right now was a good night’s sleep. What she needed right now was her bed—

  Except that when she raised her face and looked about her, she wasn’t anywhere near Brook House. Or Primrose Street.

  She was in the middle of a wood! The road stretched out before and after them like a moonlit ribbon in the dimness. The lighted lanterns dangling from either side of the phaeton gave only moderate circles of light. The moon, nearly full, gave the rest.

  “Where are we?”

  At her question, Mr. Wolfe guided the horses to the roadside and pulled them to a halt. “It was nearly time for a stop anyway,” he said cheerfully. “It’s a long way to Gretna Green. We won’t be there before dawn.”

  Gretna Green? Oh, dear. “Mr. Wolfe, please do not inform me that you intend to—” Surely the man wasn’t that stupid?

  But he only beamed at her, the darkness making him look oddly . . . sinister? Which was ridiculous, for Mr. Wolfe was just like Mr. Stickley, a harmless, rather sweet fellow who had perhaps misread her attentions.

  Wasn’t he?

  He smiled wider. He certainly did have excellent teeth. “Miss Blake, don’t you see? We were meant to be together, in that place, on this night! All day I was trying to ascertain how I ought to do this properly—should I approach Lord Brookhaven for your hand, since you have no father living? But this—this is so very romantic! We shall be lovers tossed upon the road, two travelers seeking rest and respite on their weary journey, a man and a woman, getting married—”

  “What?” Sophie drew back from him. “Mr. Wolfe, surely you can’t be serious! How can you be in love with me? You’ve only known me for a matter of days!”

  Wolfe grabbed her hand and pressed it to his heart. “It was your kindness, I think. The way you saw my nervousness and drew me out, the way you never failed to include me in the conversation, the way you looked right past those panting louts with all their fancy manners and poses, and didn’t believe their blandishments for one moment!” He brought her hand to his lips and dropped kisses upon her knuckles. “You are a light among the dull and shallow, you are the only one who saw me for the man that I am—”

  As he carried on, Sophie became more and more horrified. This was what she would look like and sound like if she ever confessed her true feelings to Graham. And this uncomfortable, guilty, but overwhelming desire to flee that she was feeling now? This would be Graham’s reaction to such a confession.

  Worse perhaps now because she ought to know better. She had seen the other side of this. She hated to think that she was just as thoughtless and careless as Graham!

  Yet, how could she blame Graham, when he was only being kind, as she had only been kind to Mr. Wolfe? She had let herself get caught up in her imagination and damned fairy stories! And fooled herself into thinking there was more.

  It was then that she saw the entire affair with crystal clarity.

  Simply wanting to love someone because they were appropriate or deserving was as futile as wishing one could fly. Here before her was a man who seemed as perfect a choice for her as any she had ever met—and she could no more love him than she could soar through the air.

  Just as Graham could never love her, simply because she loved him or because she deserved more than friendship.

  What precisely did she deserve? She had lied and stolen. She had perpetrated an enormous hoax upon Society at large, pretending to be someone she would never truly be.

  For someone who had always felt that her exterior did not do justice to her interior, it was a sobering realization that, perhaps, it did. Perhaps she was as plain and worthless within as she was without.

  Perhaps she deserved precisely what she’d received.

  Nothing.

  Wolfe’s praises ran down a bit and now he was gazing at her with fire in his eyes. It actually made him look a bit demented, poor man. How she would hate to be reduced before someone this way!

  Taking a breath, she tried to ease her hand from Wolfe’s grasp before her fingers became completely numb. “Sir, I fear you’ve labored under a misunderstanding.”

  Oh, the words were awful, weak and spiritless, yet what else could she say? The answer itself would devastate him, that she knew with all her heart. How she phrased herself probably mattered very little.

  Yet she could not help but try to ease the sting. “You are a very fine man, Mr. Wolfe. I’ve greatly enjoyed our conversations—” That was a vast overstatement, but it would do. “And I have nothing but the utmost respect for you—”

  “Oh, my darling!” He pulled her to him, his arms overcoming her startled resistance so easily that she doubted he had even noticed it.

  �
�Mr. Wolfe!” She squirmed, but he held her without difficulty. She’d never tried her strength against a man’s. It shocked her how simple it was for him to subdue her struggles.

  “Mr. Wolfe, let me—”—go!

  His mouth came down on hers as he pressed her back in the seat, his weight trapping her helpless beneath him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Graham drew back on the reins of Somers BootheJamison’s splendid, lovely horse. The animal had maintained top speed through all of Graham’s false starts and dead ends. Now, at last, he saw the phaeton ahead, its side lanterns bright even on this moonlit night.

  Dismounting, he tied the horse several yards behind the vehicle and started forward. He didn’t see anyone inside—had he misjudged that Wolfe fellow? Sophie could very well be safe at Brook House at this moment—

  A rustle, a gasp. Sophie’s strained voice, full of dismay tinted with fear. “Stop this!” The unmistakable sound of a fist hitting flesh and bone.

  “Sophie!” Graham didn’t recall running. All he knew was that he was on top of the man in the carriage in an instant, pulling his fist back to bloody the bastard’s . . . the bastard’s bloody nose?

  Startled, he turned to look at Sophie, who was gazing at him with perplexity while shaking her right hand in pain.

  “Where did you come from?” She flexed her fingers and winced.

  Suddenly a bit weak in the knees, Graham dropped his chokehold on Wolfe’s collar and sank to the padded seat beside Sophie. He looked back and forth, from the unharmed—if one didn’t count bruised knuckles—Sophie to the vividly bleeding Wolfe, who now had his handkerchief pressed tightly to his nose. The man’s eyes gleamed, but it was too dark to see with what.

  Graham was fairly sure that his own were gleaming with amazed respect. “You defended your own honor.”

  Sophie shrugged. “Mr. Wolfe’s . . . affections overwhelmed him.” She frowned at the man. “I’m very sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to harm you, but you simply wouldn’t listen to me.”