The atmosphere changed. She didn’t understand how or why, only that it had. Banallt hadn’t moved. Nor had she. He couldn’t read minds, after all. They were alone, but not private. The noise of the ball was audible. Music, laughter, people talking. The door was open, and all they’d done was come in here to look at a book. But everything had changed.
Was it she who was different? Of a certainty, she noticed the deep claret of his jacket against the embroidered bronze of his waistcoat and the way his jacket fit his shoulders, the paleness of his skin in contrast to the inky black of his hair. She was aware, viscerally aware, of a warmth deep in her body, of a longing of her body for his. Or was Banallt responsible for the change, with his pewter eyes lingering on her face? Drinking her in. Taking her places that frightened her.
He tipped his head to one side, gaze moving from her head to her toes and back, and when he was done with that long and slow perusal, he said, “Sophie, darling, come here.”
And she did. Because he was Banallt. Because she was widowed now, and so was he. Because he wanted her and no one else ever had. Not even her husband. She went to him because she wanted to feel his arms around her, his hair slipping through her fingers. She wanted to know what would happen to her if she let him take her in his arms.
When she stood before him, wondering if she’d lost her senses and even whether she dared go through with whatever he had in mind, she lifted her chin and fell, lost immediately, into the tarnished silver of his eyes.
Banallt brushed her cheek with the side of his thumb. He’d taken his gloves off so his bare skin touched hers. “My feelings have not changed, Sophie.” He gave a short shake of his head. “No. Please, say nothing just now. All I ask is that you give me a chance.”
“To break my heart?” She didn’t pull away from him.
“To prove myself.” He slid his hand along the edge of her jaw, and then his fingers curled around her nape and drew her toward him. She had to take a step forward to keep her balance. His other hand slid around her waist. “If you fear for your heart, then you give me hope, and that, Sophie, is more than I expected.”
“John had no right,” she said.
“We shouldn’t,” he said. “Your brother will never forgive me.”
“I’ll make my own friends, thank you.”
His hand slid up her spine, bringing her closer to him. Up her spine and over her shoulder until he stood with both hands cupping the sides of her face, thumbs sliding along her cheeks, his fingers spread over the sides and back of her head. “I won’t promise never to make you angry. Friends sometimes argue, whether they are acquaintances or man and wife.” His voice dropped. “Or something else.”
Something else. Sophie was horribly aware that she longed for something else in her life. Something other than what she’d had with Tommy. For months she’d known she wanted something more. She hadn’t understood what until now.
Banallt lowered his head and pulled her toward him. At the last minute, her courage failed her. She looked away. Her body wanted him, though. Desperately.
“Now, Sophie,” he murmured. He put a fingertip to the underside of her chin and tipped her face so that she had to look at him. “You’re no coward.”
“It’s not whether I’m a coward, Banallt.” The words came out too breathless for either of them to pretend she wasn’t under his influence. “It’s whether I’m a fool to let this happen between us.”
He smiled at her, and her heart dropped to her toes. “Just once in your life, Sophie, forget whatever foolishness keeps you from living. You’re a passionate woman. Stop living as if you are not.”
“Did you know when you arrived here tonight, I didn’t recognize you?” His eyebrows lifted. “It’s true.” His finger slid from her chin to just beneath her lower lip. “I saw you as if you were a stranger.”
“And?” He traced the bottom of her lip.
“And I thought to myself, whoever that beautiful man is, he’s dangerous.”
His mouth curved. “What do you think now?”
“The same.”
“Your instincts have always been good,” he murmured.
He meant to kiss her. She knew she ought not permit it. But she did. Because she was twenty-six years old and had never been kissed by a man who wanted her. And she wanted that. She wanted that with Banallt because he’d always been forbidden to her. Because he had never once lied to her about his desire for her.
The pressure of his fingertip beneath her chin drew her near. She looked at him from under her lashes. She wanted him to kiss her. The air thickened. Sizzled, almost. She could have leaned back, but she didn’t. She wanted to know. She needed to know what it would be like.
He shifted his weight. She heard the scrape of his foot sliding on the floor, the whisper of his coat accommodating his motion until only the barest inch separated them. He touched one of her hands, they both dangled uselessly at her sides, and his fingers intertwined with hers. His eyes drifted closed; both his hands drew her nearer yet. Perilously close. But this feeling of anticipation, the giddy drop of her stomach was precisely what she wanted to feel.
Too close, Sophie thought, right before his mouth brushed hers. His breath warmed her skin. Oh.
Only a light touch. Practically not a kiss at all.
Then, his mouth touched hers again, parting, pressing against her lips, then moving away. His fingertip moved from her chin to the side of her jaw, joining the rest of his hand, and pressing gently upward, toward him. Their breath mingled, they were so close. Their mouths touched again. He was kissing her. Lord Banallt was kissing her, and it was as wicked and soul-stealing a kiss as she had ever imagined. His mouth probed, nudging her lips apart.
Anxiety surged through her. As if he knew, he tightened his hold on her forearm. Not hard, just firm. He leaned toward her and his mouth covered hers even more firmly. She stopped comparing him to a man years gone and let herself think of him as he was now. He smelled good, she thought, and his mouth was astonishingly soft. Banallt’s mouth was soft.
Time stopped, collapsed on her. During that compression of past, present, and future that might have lasted no time at all or an eternity, Sophie was incapable of thought. And when she could think again, she was without the aid of her wits. His tongue slid along the seam of her lips, and, without the slightest hesitation, she opened her mouth. His touch turned firmer; his hands tightened. His tongue moved past her lips, smoothly, intimately. Dizzyingly intimately. Her stomach did a flip-flop. The world balanced in that instant.
He withdrew, though he still held the side of her face and his fingers remained curled around her arm. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment. She heard him take a breath. He pressed his mouth to her cheek, to a spot close to her ear, then to her forehead. His fingers slipped from her face as he leaned back. But his hand on her arm slid down to enfold hers.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. “I never intended to.”
Was she imagining that his voice sounded as shaky as she felt? Probably. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I didn’t bring you here for that,” he said.
“I know that.”
He laughed. “Are you going to slap me? I deserve it, I know.”
“No,” she whispered. She couldn’t quite believe she’d let Banallt kiss her or that she’d let things get so…out of control. No wonder he’d cut a swath through half the women in London. He’d made her dizzy with wanting him. She stared, knowing he was too close to her, and that she was going to fall under his spell. If not tonight, then eventually. The only question she wished she could answer was whether the scandal could be managed when she did.
Chapter Seventeen
Hightower House, Gray Street, London,
April 2, 1815
Banallt was far too aware of Sophie. He had years of practice in not staring at a woman who interested him if his doing so might arouse suspicion. The skill he’d honed to an art form eluded him now. His p
resent circumstances were fundamentally different than in those days. Before Sophie, his interaction with women had been, in essence, about him. His choices. His reactions. His anticipation. Back then, he didn’t gaze endlessly at a woman who struck his fancy, because if he did, his seduction of her would have been thwarted by gossip or someone’s interference. With Sophie, the compulsion to stare came from someplace deep inside him, and he could no more stop himself from looking at her than he could stop breathing.
The kiss they’d shared at Harpenden’s ball haunted his dreams. He was afraid he’d ruined everything by kissing her like that. God, it had not been a chaste kiss at all. Oh no. He’d kissed her greedily, holding back nothing. And God save him, she had responded to him, answering once and for all the question of whether she could feel passion in his arms. In the three days since then he’d had no opportunity to learn her thoughts on ending up in his arms, then or again. A coincidence? He thought not. The moment had gotten out of hand, and he counted himself lucky she was still speaking to him. Now she was here, by happenstance, at Gray Street. While she’d not greeted him warmly, she hadn’t by any means been cold to him.
Mercer noticed him staring and was not pleased. Of course Mercer wanted to discourage him from Sophie. An earl was nothing when you thought your sister might actually be married off to a duke.
At the moment, Sophie was curled up on a sofa with her dainty pink slippers off and her feet under her legs. A book lay open on her lap, but she’d stopped reading some time ago. They were at Hightower House because Vedaelin had taken John and Sophie to luncheon at the Pulteney Hotel and from there they had come to Gray Street, where Banallt’s attendance at tea had been firmly required by Mrs. Llewellyn. His was a command appearance. One supported one’s family, after all, and his presence at her tea brought a certain cachet to the event. Mercer’s appearance at Gray Street was for different reasons, but Banallt didn’t doubt that Fidelia’s presence had everything to do with it.
Now, however, tea was hours over. Many of the gentlemen had stayed past tea and made the move to this smaller, more intimate, parlor he preferred when he was not formally entertaining. His cousin and Fidelia had left some time ago to make calls. Those who stayed, which were most of the older gentlemen, dined in, King having brought in and set a table with a quite excellent dinner. Castlereagh, with his packet of dispatches from Wellington, had departed the previous hour. The vice chancellor, Mr. Thomas Plumer, had only just left for another engagement. That left Vedaelin, Mercer, and Sophie. A very cozy gathering now. Conversation continued along the same subjects, though: politics and Bonaparte, which they had discussed with Sophie soaking up everything.
Confidence in the Bourbons surviving the French crisis was low. Banallt, having been recently in Paris, had no confidence whatever that Louis XVIII would manage to keep his throne. Wellington had been ordered to leave Vienna and make his way to France. The news now was that Soult had been dismissed as minister of war on suspicion of loyalty to Napoleon. Banallt personally saw no hope of avoiding a war, and even less that Louis XVIII might actually field an army capable of standing against Bonaparte. Soult was probably on his way to the Corsican now.
“The question,” said Mercer to Vedaelin, “is whether Wellington will have specie to pay the troops before morale suffers unbearably.” Mercer had loosened his cravat, as had the duke, and Mercer’s hair was touseled from his habit of scrubbing his fingers through his curls. “The Continental Army will be asking for money as well, mark my word on it.” They were sitting at a table that had been used earlier in the afternoon to sketch out Paris and its environs. The surface was covered with sheets of paper and pencil leads. Vedaelin had drawn out various routes to Paris on one of the sheets.
“They will be paid,” Vedaelin said, waving a hand. “Castlereagh has it well in hand, I assure you.”
“An army fights on its stomach, but it needs cash in its pockets, too,” Banallt said dryly.
“Hear! Hear!” Mercer said, lifting his wine in Banallt’s direction. The second bottle was nearly empty. Banallt ordered another. Neither Mercer nor Vedaelin was aware of Sophie any longer, Banallt realized. Fools, the both of them. She’d dropped from the conversation an hour or so ago and set herself to reading on the little sofa by the fire. Vedaelin had since slumped in his chair, a fresh glass of wine in one hand. Mercer’s empty one was on the table holding down a crude map of Paris and its main points of entry. Banallt had accepted a second glass of wine, but the unfinished drink was on the mantel, where it would remain, but for the time or two he might pick it up and pace with it in hand. His reputation as a hard drinker was, ironically, born of the fact that he rarely drank while his former associates drank so much they didn’t recall how little he’d actually consumed. They only knew he seemed to keep a clearer head than they.
From where Sophie sat, she had a view of all three of them. He had no idea if she was watching him or Vedaelin or even her blasted brother. The book she’d fetched from his library lay open on her lap, though to his knowledge she’d not turned a page in the last hour. The sofa was at an angle from the fire, and though she could see the table where her brother and the duke sat, she had to turn to one side to deliberately watch them. Which she had done. Vedaelin was a blockhead, bringing her here and then ignoring her for hours. Mercer, too, for pity’s sake. Fortunately, Sophie was nothing if not adaptable. He forced himself not to look at her.
Banallt left his chair to pace in front of the mantel and back, at a diagonal from where Sophie was, hands behind his back. Every so often he stood just so, where he could be said to have his attention on Mercer and the duke and yet have his view of Sophie remain unimpeded. The light from the fire put her face partially in shadows. She took his breath.
She was not beautiful, not by any objective standard, and yet somehow her features fit together in a way such that he could not help staring, enraptured. The years since their horrible parting at Rider Hall had sobered her. And him as well, or so he liked to think. Tonight her clothes were more splendid than usual, though. Mercer seemed to have realized at last that he needed to force the issue of a new wardrobe on his sister. Her frock was a new one, a deep blue, slightly green so as to recall her eyes, with a scalloped neckline that more than hinted at her bosom. Her taste was impeccable. Banallt, unfortunately, had dressed for a social tea. Gray breeches, top boots, blue coat, and cream waistcoat. An entirely middling bit of linen for a cravat. If he’d known he was to see Sophie, he would have found something better to wear.
As this thought entered his head, he turned during his pacing, and with his thoughts so thoroughly on her, naturally his gaze swept over her. Their eyes connected, though not in a fashion that required either of them to admit it had happened. She had been staring at him, he was sure of it. The devil! She lowered her gaze. She went back to her book, and Banallt knew he was ruined for the rest of the evening. His concentration was gone.
“Mrs. Evans,” he said. “I’ve asked that rooms be made up for you and your brother. I’m sure they’re ready now, if you’d like to retire.”
“Go on, Sophie.” Mercer waved a hand. Yes, now he remembered his sister. Damn the fellow. Mercer had had an afternoon in which to make eyes at Fidelia. “No need to wait up for us. We’ll probably talk the night away.”
She rose, tucking her book under her arm, and made her good-byes. Vedaelin bestirred himself to take her hand and wish her a good night. If the duke wanted to win Sophie’s heart, he would have to do better than this. As for Banallt, he nodded; she did the same—all very proper and cold under her brother’s watchful eye—and then she was gone with the servant who came to show her the way. You’d never think he’d kissed her like he had three days ago. Jesus.
None of them lasted long after Sophie left. When Vedaelin rose, yawning, Mercer stood, too. Banallt walked upstairs with the two men, stopping first at Vedaelin’s room. At the door to Mercer’s room, Mercer ran his fingers through his hair. “I ought to take her home, you know.”
“You may of course,” he said. “Any of my carriages is at your service. But why wake her from what must now be a sound sleep?”
Mercer rested his back against the wall and sighed loudly. “All I want is that she be happy.” Mercer turned his green eyes on him. “I don’t doubt you would keep her safe, but how, my lord, can you ever make her happy?”
“We want the same thing for her.” He smiled, but it wasn’t one of his good-natured smiles.
“I won’t see her in another marriage like she had with Tommy Evans. I just can’t. Not for anything.”
Banallt held back the obvious vaguely threatening remarks about Mercer’s hopes for Fidelia. “Do you think I could persuade her against her inclination?”
“If you put your mind to it, yes.”
“Then you are mistaken.” He bowed. “Good night, Mercer.”
Mercer frowned at him. “Good night, my lord.”
Banallt didn’t go immediately to his room. Instead he headed for the library to get something to read. One of Sophie’s books, he decided. The last book she’d published before he’d gone and spoiled everything. First, though, he returned to the parlor to fetch his wine from the mantel. As he walked through the silent house he wondered how long it would be before he proposed to Fidelia, just to be done with things. What a jackanapes of an idea. He’d wait until Tallboys or Vedaelin convinced Sophie to remarry. Until then, he had hope.
He went into the library and found he didn’t need to light a candle, because there was already one burning. Sophie was fast asleep on a leather chair. Her book, a different one than she’d had in the parlor, had fallen off her lap. He pulled up a chair and sat, wineglass in hand, contemplating her and his future. They didn’t have one. Not the one he wanted, anyway. Perhaps it was time for him to court Fidelia after all. A courtship would take his mind off what he couldn’t have.
Banallt finished his wine without deciding whether he ought to wake her. Better, he thought, if he called a maid to look after her. He didn’t get up, though. He set his empty glass on the floor beside his chair. Her lashes were thick, a sweep of sable against her cheeks. Asleep as she was, her face lacked the lively quickness that had originally attracted him. The familiar shape of her nose made him smile. Before long, his eyes drooped, and five minutes later, he was asleep and dreaming of Sophie. His was not a polite dream.
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