Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03]

by Duke Most Wanted

  Wolfe warily slid himself up to a sitting position. His gaze flicked to Graham. “I meant no harm,” he said, his voice muffled.

  Graham didn’t believe him for a moment, but Sophie simply waved a hand. “I know that. But seriously, sir—even if I had returned your sentiments, I would not have appreciated being accosted in an open carriage on a dark road.”

  This turn of phrase gave Graham decidedly improper ideas about accosting her in a closed carriage on a dark road. . . .

  Then again, he’d likely wind up with a swollen nose of his own. He smiled at his brave, self-reliant Sophie. “Is there anyone else you need to assault this evening, my delicate flower, or are you ready to call it a night?”

  For an instant, she smiled back, then her expression chilled. “Graham, are you under the impression that I’m speaking to you again?”

  He sighed. “You’re angry, I know. At the moment, I think it’s a bit more important that I take you back to Brook House safely.”

  She gazed at the man on the floor of the phaeton, crammed as he was in the narrow space. Then she looked up at Graham, her brow furrowed.

  “What is it?” He was tired and sticky from his ride. It was time to go.

  She rubbed at her sore hand. “I’m trying to decide who is the lesser of two evils.”

  Graham gaped. “You can’t be serious!”

  She glared at him. “Mr. Wolfe didn’t do anything that you didn’t do—and with rather more honorable intentions, in the end!”

  Wolfe nodded. “I asked her to marry me!”

  Graham couldn’t believe it. “But I—!” He halted. What was he going to say? I want to marry you . . . more?

  Not possible. There was nothing he could say.

  She saw it in his eyes. Her elegant face became closed and cool again. “I will go home with Mr. Wolfe.”

  Wolfe was nodding. “Of course, Miss Blake!”

  Graham considered giving the fellow another blow to the nose. Smarmy bastard. No, he wouldn’t trust this lout with a one-sided pound note, much less with a treasure like Sophie. He swung down from the phaeton without a word.

  Sophie leaned forward, calling after him. “Graham, don’t take it so hard—”

  Graham solved the entire matter by walking around the back of the phaeton, pulling Sophie out, tossing her over his shoulder, indignant cries and all, and striding back to his borrowed mount.

  She kicked and pounded and even bit, but he had her wrists safely pinioned and his coat was thick enough to protect him from her teeth. Wolfe was another matter entirely.

  The man roused himself to run after them. “Edencourt, you brute! Put the lady down at once or I’ll turn the law on you!”

  Graham swung about, causing Sophie to give an uncharacteristically girlish squeal of surprise, and glared at the man who’d tried to assault his woman.

  “Wolfe, go ahead and call the law—if you really think they’re going to look any more kindly on your actions tonight than mine.” Then he smiled. “A solicitor’s word against a duke’s—how do you think that will play out?”

  His bluff called, Wolfe snarled, his face ugly and hard. Graham wished Sophie could see the fellow now, but he didn’t dare let her down long enough. She’d belt him one and escape into some other, even more dangerous situation, no doubt.

  No, there was nothing to be done but protect her from herself. He warily turned his back on Wolfe and continued to the horse. Tossing Sophie up into the saddle, he swung up behind before she had quite sorted herself out.

  Luckily, she wasn’t a horsewoman. Instead, she clung rather gratifyingly to his arms as he held her close and kicked the horse into a canter.

  “Wait!” Sophie cried. “You’re going the wrong way! London is back there!”

  Graham grinned into the wind and the flyaway banner of her red-gold hair. “We’re not going back to London.”

  He aimed the horse at a hard gallop—

  Straight to Edencourt.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “You don’t really expect me to continue to tolerate this treatment, do you, Graham?”

  From where he walked ahead, leading the borrowed horse, Graham didn’t answer. After the first flush of triumph when he’d stolen her away, he’d begun to wonder when exactly he’d lost his mind. Was it when he’d learned of his father’s death? Or had it been the next day, when he’d placed Sophie’s long, elegant fingers on his cheek and tingled with the electricity of her touch?

  Or had it been a process more slow and sinister, brought on by long evenings of brandy and firelight and losing too many hands of cards?

  Whenever the original lapse had occurred, he’d surely worsened matters now with his ill-thought-out kidnapping. Yet, despite the fact that he knew better, despite the fact that he was making the mistake of his life, despite the overwhelming logic of turning around and hot-footing it back to London with Sophie’s reputation unbesmirched, he’d been unable to aim his feet in any direction than that of Edencourt.

  It was interesting, being mad. As a man who’d never really had much purpose other than being as charming as possible to as many women as possible, having an undeniable compulsion driving him onward was a truly novel experience. Whatever the consequences, he must, at this moment in time, without pause, take Sophie away to Edencourt with him.

  A shoe struck him just above his ear. Without pausing, he bent to retrieve it and thrust it into his pocket along with its mate, a hair comb, a fan, a reticule and a bit of decoration pried from his saddle. “You’re running out of ammunition.”

  He heard her sigh from where she rode the horse he led. “I know. I was saving that shoe so I could strike at the perfect moment.”

  He grinned wearily but didn’t turn. “Was it as satisfying as you’d hoped?”

  He wasn’t sure if the snort he heard came from the horse or from Sophie. It might have been either, for the horse was every bit as irritated with him as Sophie was.

  It was a very nice horse, a real quality mount, but even such a fine beast was bound to tire while carrying two.

  “Are you ever going to explain yourself?” Sophie demanded.

  Graham kept walking. “I think it falls into the realm of saving you from yourself,” he said conversationally. “That’s what I have come to so far.”

  She made a noise. Yes, that was definitely a Sophie-snort. “I hardly think I’m a menace to Society.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, but you are. You’re more intelligent than most of them, so they cannot stop you. You’re also more stubborn than any other ten women put together.” He sighed. “You see what I’m up against.”

  She scoffed. “You’re making no sense whatsoever.”

  “You’re headstrong and reckless,” he stated. “Not to mention wildly unpredictable.”

  A moment of peace. Then, “I am?”

  He closed his eyes against the flattered pleasure in her tone. “That was not a compliment, Miss Blake.”

  She barked a dry laugh. “It was if you’re me.” They walked along wordlessly for a long moment. Then she started in again. “If I am such a brazen troublemaker, then why are you, of all people, the one who must rein me in?”

  Graham didn’t answer, for what could he say when he didn’t understand it himself? At his continued silence, Sophie made another equine noise of disgust and fell quiet at last.

  By the time Graham and Sophie made it to Edencourt, it was close to dawn. The moon had gone down some time ago and the sun was not yet up. After hours of galloping, then trotting, then walking, Sophie sat in the saddle, slumped in misery and exhaustion, her eyes closed and her hands clinging to the pommel as if it was the only thing keeping her from sliding to the ground.

  It probably was.

  Graham had been on foot, leading the horse, since they had crossed onto the Edencourt estate. That was more than an hour ago, yet the great crumbling house was not yet in sight.

  Since both Graham and Sophie still wore their evening clothes, this made walking some
what less enjoyable than clinging to the jostling saddle. Therefore, Graham walked and Sophie rode.

  “I hate you,” Sophie mumbled, her eyes still shut. “Just in case I forgot to mention that.”

  Graham kept walking. “I think you might have, just a few times or so.” Nothing more than he deserved, he was sure.

  She groaned. “As long as that is absolutely clear.”

  At last Graham spotted the bulky shadow of the house far ahead, just a grim dark shape against the slightly fainter darkness of the pre-dawn sky. “We’re here, love.”

  Sophie shook her head. “I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t believe in Edencourt at all, quite frankly. I think you made the whole thing up and you’re actually some sort of demon sent to torture me for my sins.”

  “Sins? You? That would take about three and a half minutes. Hardly any fun at all for a demon.” The horse, sensing an end to its wearying journey, picked up its dragging feet. Graham picked his up as well, better to have this long night done. “Now, myself, on the other hand . . . I would take a thousand years to punish properly.”

  “No trouble at all,” she snarled, her eyes still tightly shut against the pain in her posterior. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Then they were there, on the great drive that rounded a circular garden—or that now rounded a circular patch of weeds—approaching the grand sweeping steps of Edencourt.

  The horse jolted to a stop and refused to go any farther. Graham looked into the animal’s eyes and decided not to push the topic. Even the nicest, finest horses had their limits.

  Graham tied the beast’s reins to an iron ring posted next to the drive. Then he moved to Sophie’s side and put his arms about her. “Come on, love. Lean into me.”

  She whimpered in protest as her sore body refused to move, then toppled onto him. He caught her easily and hefted her fully into his arms. She wearily draped her arms about his neck and dropped her face into his shoulder. “Gray, I hurt,” she whispered.

  “I know, pet.” He carried her into the great, cold, echoing house. “We’ll get you warm and comfortable in just a moment.”

  His mother’s bedchamber was perhaps the only room in the house not too devastated by the general disrepair, for it had sat unused since her tastefully demure death thirty years ago. Graham had often wondered if perhaps she hadn’t been ill at all, but simply sick of her great brute of a husband.

  It was just as Graham recalled it, filled with graceful furniture, well covered by a previously careful staff. If the chimney wasn’t too bad, he ought to be able to make some sort of fire in there as well.

  Once in the room, he was able to deposit Sophie into a chair while he moved about pulling the dust covers away. He piled them in a corner and went to inspect the fire.

  There were no obvious signs of disrepair. When he peered upward, he saw nothing blocking the faint gleam of dawn at the top of the flue. He went to where Sophie curled into the chair, pale and drawn in the dimness. He pulled her cloak over her dangling limbs. “Stay warm,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Sophie barely heard him. She’d missed a few nights’ sleep in her life, but she hadn’t spent them clinging to the back of a horse. In fact, she’d never actually been on a horse before tonight. At some point during the night she’d thought of mentioning that fact to Graham, but there hadn’t seemed to be much point. Once upon a time, she’d rather thought she’d like to learn.

  Now, with her body aching and harsh jolts of pain running up her back and down her legs, she couldn’t imagine why someone had ever thought to climb onto the back of a horse in the first place! It was bloody unnatural, that’s what it was!

  The house was cold and dark, but it wasn’t moving so there was definite improvement in her situation. In a few moments she was going to rise from this chair and leave this place under her own power.

  After she murdered Graham, of course.

  Poison or knife attack? Poison could be quite agonizing, but then again, knives were so satisfyingly bloody.

  She fell asleep before she could make a choice.

  When she awoke, she was warm. Not only that, the room was light with early morning sun streaming in through grand and beautiful windows. Sophie blinked against the assault of such golden glory and sat up slowly and gingerly.

  What a lovely room! She instantly loved everything about it, from the delicate lines of the beautiful mahogany furniture to the ornate plasterwork running about the edge of the ceiling. Her eye followed that to the fireplace, where a bright fire burned cheerfully, gleaming off a large copper tub—

  Oh, God. What a beautiful thing. Not only was it large and capacious, but it was full of gently steaming water and dressed with cloths and soap and what in heaven’s name was she waiting for?

  As quickly as she could, she stood and began to strip off the beautiful Grecian gown that could never be worn again after kidnapping, brawling and riding all night. Thank heaven it was more loosely draped than her fairy queen costume, or she’d never have gotten it off by herself. She meant no disrespect to Lementeur’s genius, but she trampled it like the rag it was in order to get to that magnificent tub!

  Naked, she cautiously slipped one foot into the water. Oh, bliss. Easing her raw, sore bottom into the water was a bit trickier, but it wasn’t too bad if she clenched her teeth. The relief to her sore muscles made all the sacrifice worth it. She leaned back in the tub, stretching luxuriously, then lazily raised her hands to undo her hair.

  Graham backed into the room trying to balance the tray that bore some of the last edibles left in the house.

  He was in an impossible position. Last night he’d compromised Sophie rather thoroughly by all this—if anyone ever found out.

  Yet, if he did right by Sophie—this thought made him rather idiotically happy—and turned this outrageous kidnapping into a proposal, how would he be able to save the people of Edencourt?

  His mind had churned back and forth until he’d had to stop thinking entirely. Preparing her bath, puttering in the larder, had allowed him to finally still the whirling doubts in his mind. As for their borrowed mount, he’d returned to tie the horse in the center of the circular patch of weeds before the drive, since the poor creature seemed unwilling to leave it.

  In the kitchen, he found tea leaves that were still dry and still smelled of tea and some preserved pears in a jar. There had been a small barrel of pickled herring and several more jars of preserves, but the loot he was most pleased with was the ham he’d found hanging in the larder. Once he’d sliced away the rind—for he really didn’t think Sophie would like to see the gnawed areas left by the many rats that now lived in Edencourt—and cut it into awkward chunks, he’d come up with the idea that they could stick them on skewers and brown them in the fire.

  Proud of his hunting skills, he turned to present the tray of steaming tea, pears and ham with a smile.

  She was quite simply and perfectly naked.

  Her back was to him as she tipped her head back to to let down her hair, which streamed over the back of the tub and pooled on the floor like an amber waterfall. She was gloriously, outrageously surrounded by light. The morning sun danced over her wet skin like diamonds on ivory, a glowing nimbus that highlighted the lean elegant shape of her arms, her delicately muscled shoulder, her long graceful neck. It shimmered in her cinnamon-gold hair like motes of magic. She quite simply took his breath away.

  He could see just the side of one small breast when she raised her arms again. With his throat closed with stunned admiration, he watched the water sluice over that proud breast, enveloping it with reflected light. Abruptly Graham decided that anything more ample would be superfluous.

  She ran her hands over her arms then, up to uncross at her neck and then down over her body with an easy self-caress. Graham’s cock hardened instantly.

  He ought to be ashamed of himself. In fact, he was. Sophie deserved better than to have his irresponsible lust inflicted upon her private moment. />
  That didn’t mean that he had any intention of moving from this spot. She hadn’t heard him come in. She was completely involved in the pleasure of her bath. He was helpless before that simple sensuality, guilty but riveted.

  Rinse. Smooth away the water. Rinse. Smooth. Leaning back then, she raised a long achingly beautiful leg from the water and stretched it into the air. She soaped it with her hands, sliding her palms over and over her delicious skin, up and down that incredible thigh, calf, ankle—up and down—

  Bloody hell, he was about to orgasm right where he stood, with his hands full of tray!

  He couldn’t stand it. All he wanted was Sophie, the way she looked at that moment—minus the expensive gowns, without the powder and the pearls and intricate hair and newly sophisticated manners. Just Sophie.

  He hadn’t seen her until it was too late, like a buried treasure that another man found first. She was not the easy beauty, not the obvious target, but required perception and wisdom—yet he now saw the truth. She was entirely beautiful to him.

  Was the gemstone buried in the cinders any less valuable than that displayed in a fine ring? The only difference was the setting.

  If only he could have what he wanted instead of what Edencourt needed.

  He closed his eyes against temptation. Then he turned away, set down the tea tray, scooped up Sophie’s gown and cloak and dancing slippers, and slipped out of the room.

  He couldn’t look at her and not want her . . . but he could keep her from leaving until he figured out how to keep her safe from his bungled rescue attempt.

  Not to mention keeping her safe from his growing lust.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sophie didn’t leave the bath until it was nearly cold. After washing the horse off her and soaking her aching bones until her fingers pruned, she was ravenous.

  There were a few tattered but clean pieces of toweling, but nothing else. She would have to put on her gown again, unfortunately. The thought of putting the ruined thing back on her clean skin was dismaying, but not as dismaying as finding out that it was gone!