Lorena turned to them. “It is too much.” Her bright blue eyes met Sophia’s as if waiting for her to agree but Sophia would do no such thing. Sophia had been wearing daring clothes since she was sixteen. She decided to skip having a debut and asked her father to change her closet. She’d had no hope of marrying a gentleman, or any man for that matter, so didn’t bother with parading herself in front of them. Instead, she’d decided to live a life that shocked everyone who saw her or read her column in the paper.
“It’s gorgeous.” Genie moved further into the room.
Sophia couldn’t wait to see the reaction of the ten men who waited downstairs. She thought about this as the conversation continued around them.
Lorena was the daughter of a duke and was engaged to an earl named Ashwick— if one asked him. Lorena had yet to give him a true answer, though she was desperately in love with him. He happened to be a member of a brotherhood called the Men of Nashwood. Sophia had only met Ashwick and another of the men named Calvin. She’d found them both to be handsome and had been told that the other eight men were just as beautiful.
Her father walked into the room to view his work and there was more commotion about the dress. Lorena was slightly uncomfortable with it, so everyone worked to encourage her until she gave in.
Sophia followed the group downstairs and smiled to herself, envisioning Ashwick’s face.
“Ashwick is going to swoon,” Genie whispered to her, a small devious smile on her lips, her pale green eyes glittering. She was petite and, from what Sophia had gathered, was Lorena’s best friend. Genie and Lorena had known most of the Men of Nashwood all their lives, causing trouble for him, trouble that had included burning down Lord Ashwick’s London mansion a few days earlier, though Lorena swore it was someone else.
They arrived in the drawing room and Ashwick did not disappoint. He’d had his back to her but, at one of the men’s exclamation, he turned and his expression was an explosion of love and lust.
Sophia laughed as she watched the men crowd around her friend but then she stopped as something brushed her neck, the feeling that someone was watching her. She touched the spot and turned to glance around the room but saw nothing.
A deep voice filled the room and Sophia felt it like a hand caressing her spine, sending a shiver through her. “Don’t settle for anything else than a dukedom, Lorena.”
She turned and watched the most beautiful man she’d ever seen smile down at Lorena. He was in profile and Sophia took him in from head to toe. He was tall and something about his posture was so compelling, it demanded her to take note of him. She held her breath as she studied his dark locks and the arrogant grin. She wondered silently if God had known what sort of creature he’d created when he formed him. He was so gorgeous it was tragic that only one woman could have him at the end of the day.
Though more than one woman could have his child.
She blinked as she realized where her mind had gone. Was she truly willing to take a man’s seed after one look and the sound of his voice?
Dear God, she was.
She wanted him.
Desperately.
“That’s Morris Kidd, the Duke of Cort.”
Sophia swung to look at Maura and found her friend smiling at her. She was Lorena’s cousin and they shared many of the same looks, the blue eyes and soft golden hair but Maura was slimmer and quieter than all the other women. Aunt Tilda, as she wished all the girls to call her, was Maura’s mother.
Sophia had known Aunt Tilda for years since she’d been her father’s only female model besides herself but Sophia had only met Maura a week ago.
She wondered what the other woman had seen on her face, yet not one to be shy with her words, she spoke honestly. “I think I want to have his children.” And Sophia had never wanted children before.
Maura grinned, laughing quietly, the sound nearly drowned by the conversation at the door.
Sophia refused to look in the duke’s direction again. “Don’t tell him.”
“I won’t say a word to anyone.” Maura took her hand. “Come, you must be introduced.”
Sophia moved further into the drawing room with a nervousness she’d never felt before and in her own home no less.
“I think I’m falling in love,” her father said as he stared at Lorena in the dress he’d created.
“You’re always falling in love,” Sophia told him because the words were true. It was not Lorena as much as it was about what he’d done to her. He thought himself a god with needle and thread.
Her words prompted everyone to look at her and the feeling at the back of her neck returned.
Her father stood and did the introductions and Sophia forced herself to meet the eyes of every man who took her hand. After the first flirtatious wink, meeting one right after the other began easily. The men were all charming and teased in a way that left Sophia feeling like her confident self.
She knew it would take her a few days to remember who was who but when Morris appeared before her, she knew she’d be whispering his name in her dreams for weeks.
Morris gave her the full pressure of his blue-green eyes as her father said his name. She curtsied quickly on unsteady legs and held her breath as he took her gloved fingers into his own. His hand lock around hers, further grabbing her attention, and his mouth lowered toward her hand. When it was just a mere half inch away, he grinned and lowered her hand without letting it go.
Sophia was confused. Conversations began to bloom again around them and her father began to speak to Aunt Tilda, all but abandoning her. Morris’ eyes continued to hold hers, and her slippers remained rooted on the ground. Her senses were heightened by his nearness. She was aware of the smell of his cologne, the pressure of his hand on hers, the light that his body blocked, the laughter or their friends. His tanned face, the widow’s peak that set off his black hair, his straight nose, strong jaw, and hooded eyes that would have made her think he couldn’t care less about the world except for the life that flowed in his irises.
“What do you call that?” she asked.
He lifted a dark brow. “What?”
“Your eyes,” she whispered. “What color do you say they are?”
He grinned with the certainty he knew who beguiled her. “Blue.”
“But they’re not blue,” she told him. “I mean, they are, but they’re not. Lorena’s eyes are blue.” She looked around and realized that both Lorena and Ashwick were gone.
“Green then.” His thumb swept over the back of the hand he still held.
Sophia gave a small start and turned to him, once again falling into his spell. “No. They’re not green either.”
“Your eyes are green.” It was a simple fact, yet it was like he spoke it into existence. Had her eyes been any other color before, they were definitely green now.
“Yes.” Do you think our children will have green eyes? Would you like to make them now?
He leaned forward. “Most people say my eyes are teal but they can look different in candlelight. I could show you.”
Sophia knew her shock showed on her face but prayed her answer didn’t. Yes. Yes. Yes. She cleared her throat. He wasn’t the first man from the brotherhood who’d flirted with her that evening. She had to keep a hold of herself. “There will be candles at dinner. I suppose I’ll see them then.” She offered him her most innocent smile when she usually gave a gentleman her very best alluring grin. But she didn’t feel comfortable doing so with this man. This man might take the bait and, even worse, she’d allow him to do so.
His gaze fell to her mouth and his smile fell away. “Ashwick and Calvin said Lorena's new friend Sophia was pretty. They were wrong.” He tucked her hand into his arm and started to stroll them around the room.
Sophia had met Calvin Lockwood, a wealthy landed gentry man on the night she and the other women had visited a tavern. Calvin, not knowing Sophia, had thought to set her to set her straight on a few matters, making it clear that women of Society were not to be see
n at taverns, but she’d shown him her fury, which he’d not been prepared for, and in the end set him straight by advising he never offended her again. He’d grinned when she’d finished and escorted her, Maura, and Genie home.
Calvin thought she was pretty. She liked that, though she realized that Morris’ opinion mattered more to her.
She straightened. “I’m not pretty?”
His gaze moved to her lips then back to her eyes. “No, you’re so much more than that.”
Her cheeks stung as color moved to her face. “I believe I just heard you tell Lorena to not settle for anything less than your dukedom.”
His expression changed and his jaw tightened. “Lorena will marry Ashwick.”
“Does that upset you?”
“No, I don’t love her but I must marry a woman like her.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I have to marry the daughter of a peer.”
She took a deep breath and allowed his words to settle into her shattered heart.
Obviously, she’d not be having his babies after all. How unfortunate that her father had been born second and her mother a mystery. Her father had told her about most of his past and the truths she needed to know the most but she knew there was more to the story, far more to the case of her abandonment. It had all made her fear becoming a parent herself.
Hadn’t she vowed to never marry anyway? “I’m not the daughter of a peer.”
“But you are very beautiful.” He said it with a conviction that forced her to believe it.
“Yet you didn’t kiss my hand,” she countered.
He smiled then. “The first time I set my mouth on you, I plan for us to be alone.”
She stopped walking just as they reached a dark corner of the room. There were so many ways she took offense to his words, beginning with the assumption that they would kiss and the added assumption that they would do it more than once. “You’re very arrogant.”
He turned and nearly pressed her into the wall. “Don’t worry. You’ll like it.”
Heat made her press her legs together, and she swore she would not let this man take liberties with her. He had already informed her that he had no plans to marry her, so their relationship could go nowhere.
“We won’t be kissing.” Even to her own ears, she sounded breathy.
He chuckled. “Now, the only question is exactly where to start.”
She hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when I kiss you. Where should I start?” His eyes swept her body and when they returned to hers, his dark expression made her toes curl.
“Good Lord,” she whispered as her mind immediately pictured the places she wished for his mouth to go. The burning in her cheeks spread down her throat. “You can’t say that to me.”
“Why ever not?”
“I’m gently bred,” she told him, though that wasn’t truly the case. She knew far too much for an unmarried woman of wealth.
“You’re not a virgin.”
Her lips parted but nothing came out of her mouth. She wanted to ask him how he knew.
He spread his fingers against her belly, backing her into the wall, burning her through her clothes. The move was unseen by the rest of the room, the view of his hand blocked by his own body. His eyes became predatory. “I saw it in the way you looked at me when you first entered the room. You’ve eaten the forbidden fruit and have enjoyed it.”
It was true. She’d been intimate with a man before, a man she’d loved, but it was only that one man and it had been nearly a year ago. This man, the one who stood before her, was not him. “You’re right. I’ve slept with a man before, however, your analogy is wrong.”
His eyes darkened. “How so?”
She placed her hands on his wrist at her stomach. “I am the forbidden fruit, and you’ll never have me.” She shoved his fingers away.
He groaned and let loose a chuckle. “I like you.”
“I don’t like you.” She started to walk away but he still held her other arm and easily set them back into the motion of circling the room.
“Oh, I’ll have to change that.” His smile made her heart flutter.
“I don’t think you can.” She was embarrassed to have revealed something so intimate on their first meeting. She’d never told any man but her father the truth and while Sophia could handle herself where men were concerned, there was something different about Morris, something ungentlemanly, that made her forget where they were, make her picture them in a time and place where a man could simply throw a woman over his shoulder and claim her as his own.
His voice broke her from her thoughts. “You don’t want to challenge me.”
“This is not a challenge. This is me stating what is. I don’t like you and I never will.”
The footman’s announcement of dinner gave Sophia reason to snatch her hand back and move away from him. She sprinted from the room and no longer had to wonder at what the sensation at the back of her neck was. His eyes were on her, and Sophia tried to think of a way to ensure they were the only part of him that ever touched her again.
* * *
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ALSO BY CHARLOTTE STONE
The Spinster’s Society
Book 1 : Lady Lorena’s Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 1 - Lady Lorena’s Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Ashwick . Lady Lorena
Book 2 : Alice’s Shameless Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 2 - Alice’s Shameless Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Calvin . Alice
Book 3 : Genie’s Scandalous Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 3 - Genie’s Scandalous Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Francis . Genie
Book 4 : Sophia’s Spirited Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 4 - Sophia’s Spirited Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Morris . Sophia
Book 5 : Florence’s Stupendous Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 5 - Florence’s Stupendous Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Rollo . Florence
Fire and Smoke
LINK: Book 1 - The Earl’s Unforgettable Flame
LINK: Book 2 - The Duke’s Ever Burning Passion
LINK: Book 3 - The Viscount's Blazing Love
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This book is copyright © 2017
by Charlotte Stone
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Published by: SHERMANBROOKS PUBLISHING HOUSE LLC
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Florence’s Stupendous Spinster’s Society Page 22