The Millionaire Rogue

by Jessica Peterson

  “Oh, dear.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Did I say something? What is it, Sophia? Please. Please tell me. Seeing you cry makes me want to—to—”

  He looked down at the dagger he held in his hand.

  “It makes me want to pry out my eyes with this dagger. I’ll do it, I will!”

  “I’m not,” she snorted, weeping with greater vigor, “crying. It’s just—just—put that thing away, Thomas.”

  Sophia took a great pull of air, letting it out slowly as she closed her eyes in an apparent attempt to calm herself. She dropped his hand.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Hope leaned back into the chair. “Don’t be. Violet will come home, Sophia. Harclay knows what he’s doing. He wouldn’t let her come to any harm. Besides, he’s an earl, for God’s sake. No one crosses an earl. It’s tantamount to being God, or at the very least Jesus—”

  “That’s not—” She looked down at her hands, thinking better of what she was about to say. “Thank you, Thomas, for your words of comfort. She’ll come back, I know she will. She’s Violet. Very much like being God, as you say.”

  The fire before them was dying; its merry crackling had subsided to small, silent licks of flame.

  Silence stretched between Hope and Sophia. A silence filled with all the things he should say. All the things he wanted to say.

  He pulled his thumb and forefinger across his closed eyes. This waiting, it was terrible; he felt Sophia’s pain as if it were his own. He’d lost more than his share of loved ones.

  And he did not wish that kind of suffocating grief on anyone.

  Least of all the lovely creature on the settee beside him.

  Hope felt as if they were wasting precious time. They were alone, they were close, they had nowhere to be. Such moments were fleeting; he knew in the coming days and weeks there would be fewer and fewer of them.

  And like the fool he was, he opened his mouth and spoke the first words that came to mind.

  Sophia, too, moved to speak, their words tangling as each of them stopped, only to start at the same time yet again.

  “So, the marquess—”

  “Do you usually attend Almack’s—”

  A clap of thunder sounded outside, rattling the windowpanes. Sophia leapt to her feet, eyes wide; when the pounding became louder, halting abruptly seconds later, she dashed through the drawing room door. Hope followed a few steps behind; he wanted to be close enough for comfort, but not too close so as to intrude upon a moment between cousins.

  He was relieved to hear, just before he stepped into the front hall, a muffled cry of relief, followed by a curse as Sophia squeezed the air out of Violet’s lungs in a tight embrace.

  Hope closed his eyes and sighed. Thank God.

  Violet was back. She was back, and in one, foulmouthed piece.

  Thank God.

  * * *

  Lady Blaise held Violet’s face in her hands one last time, smiling tearfully as she pinched her niece’s cheeks. Mr. Hope had long since left, wishing them good evening; now the ladies were free to touch and prod and tease one another as they pleased.

  “I hope this means we’ll never have to attend Almack’s again,” Violet said, grimacing after a particularly poignant pinch.

  “Once Sophia makes her match,” Lady Blaise winked at her daughter, “we shan’t step foot in those dreadful rooms. Shouldn’t be too long now.”

  Violet arched a brow. “You’re really going to do this, then? Marry that marquess—Worcestershire? Withering?”

  “Withington. You know it’s the Marquess of Withington, Violet. And no. Yes. Nothing is as yet set in stone. We haven’t talked much of our intentions, much less an engagement.”

  “Haven’t talked much?” Violet said. “That means you have talked about it. What did he say?”

  “Yes, what did he say?” Lady Blaise dropped her hands from Violet’s face and turned to Sophia. “I saw him speaking to you during the cotillion. Poor man, he blushed so furiously I feared blood might spurt from his ears!”

  Violet and Mama crowded round her, their faces upturned as they waited for a reply. Sophia swallowed, feeling stifled as the ladies drew yet nearer, the air between them thrumming with anticipation.

  “Well.” Sophia cleared her throat. “It was nothing, really. A few words about feelings—”

  “Feelings! Gah.”

  Sophia’s shoulders slumped. “That’s lovely of you, Violet, really lovely—”

  “Oh, come here, you silly goose.” Violet laid a hand on Sophia’s cheek. “I don’t mean to make light of your feelings, dearest. It is your feelings that concern me most. I know you’ve always been a snob about whom you want to marry—”

  “Violet,” Lady Blaise warned.

  “Let her finish, Mama. Violet offends everyone; we must not take it personally. You may proceed.”

  “Thank you, Cousin.” Violet all but rolled her eyes. “As I was saying. I know you’ve always dreamed of making a splash, and marrying your marquess at St. George’s before the queen and all that. But I’ve seen you with Mr. Hope—”

  “Violet!” Lady Blaise sputtered in disbelief. “Really, now you go too far—”

  “All right, all right,” Violet demurred. “But I do wonder, Cousin, if having known Mr. Hope hasn’t changed those dreams of yours.”

  Sophia drew a shaking breath. Was it anger that now rose in her chest, or something else—something akin to pain? Her throat suddenly felt tight; she wondered if she had any tears left. First Hope, now Violet—honestly, how many people would make her weep tonight?

  She felt exquisitely tender, and very tired. Weary, as if her heart might give out beneath the great burden of all she’d felt and witnessed these past hours.

  Sophia narrowed her eyes at Violet. “Did your captors steal your soul, too? Since when is Lady Violet Rutledge, cardsharp and self-declared spinster, a romantic?”

  Violet returned her gaze steadily. Sophia had never seen her blue eyes so soft, so full of—dear God—was that love?

  It shocked Sophia to see Violet thus altered. Shocked her, because she recognized that look in her cousin’s eyes.

  Sophia had seen it in her own, glancing in the mirror as Fitzhugh had dressed her earlier that evening.

  The words left her lips before she could stop them, hand flying to her throat. “Good heavens!”

  “What?” Lady Blaise’s eyes went wide. “Tell me, Sophia, what is it?”

  Sophia looked to Violet. A small, knowing smile crept across Violet’s lips. She turned to Lady Blaise, looping arms. “Come, Auntie George, it’s been one hell of a day. Let’s to bed, shall we?”

  “We shall.” Lady Blaise looked pointedly at her daughter. “Cousin Violet’s nerves are on edge, Sophia, after a traumatic event. Tomorrow she won’t remember a thing she’s said, and neither should you. Like the ravings of a deranged lunatic, Violet’s words are nothing but meaningless jumble.”

  Violet scoffed, leading Mama up the stairs. “Deranged lunatic. Such an imagination you have, Auntie George! Come along, now.”

  With one last, piercing look at Sophia, Lady Blaise turned and followed her niece upstairs.

  For several minutes Sophia stood unmoving in the front hall. In the center of her being her heart worked furiously, sending waves of sensation to every corner of her body. The weariness she’d felt earlier dissipated as readily as a summer storm, replaced by a fierce restlessness that demanded action.

  She needed to see him. Now. Tonight.

  Before decisions were made and futures decided, she needed to see him.

  Him, the man she loved.

  * * *

  Door, stairs, cloak, boots.

  Sophia stole out into the darkness, working through the route to Duchess Street in her head. She moved quickly, breathless with impatience as she ducked in and out of
shadow. Worried her courage would desert her, she moved yet faster, all but oblivious to the sights and sounds of the night around her as Thomas took captive her every sense.

  So consumed was she by rather explicit imaginings of a half-naked Hope that she nearly missed the patter of footsteps just off to her right.

  Sophia plastered herself against a nearby wall, waiting with bated breath as the footsteps drew nearer. A shadow passed not six inches from where she stood, so close she thought it certain she’d be found out; but the shadow moved on, quickening its pace as it drew out into the street. The scent of tuberose hung in its wake.

  Out of the darkness another shadow approached, this one vaguely familiar: tall and broad, with a loping gait and confident, almost cocky, swing of his arms.

  Was that?—no, it couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  Sophia watched wide-eyed as Cousin Violet flung herself into the Earl of Harclay’s outstretched arms. For several heartbeats they clung to one another, heads moving rapturously as they kissed the sort of kiss to end all kisses.

  Sophia drew back against the wall, heart pounding. Violet was doing more than fraternizing with the enemy; and by the way she kissed him, she was doing more even than that, too.

  How like Violet to be in love with the man she hunted. Sophia rolled her eyes. They stood to lose everything, all of them, and here was Cousin Violet, assaulting the thief’s lips as if they, and they alone, were responsible for the crime.

  Perhaps it was all part of Violet’s plan. Perhaps she was drawing the earl close so as to better aim her dagger. Violet was, after all, far more cunning than even the devious Harclay.

  Perhaps.

  Besides. Sophia was in no position to judge. Wasn’t she the one courting the attentions of a marquess while stealing into a banker’s bed at night?

  That deuced diamond had thrown them all into a state of chaos. Sophia hadn’t felt like her status-obsessed self since she first laid eyes on the French Blue that night in Princess Caroline’s drawing room. Perhaps there was truth to Thomas’s History; perhaps the diamond was cursed, and they were all doomed to suffer poetically gruesome deaths.

  When at last Cousin Violet and Lord Harclay came up for air, he tucked her into the crook of his arm and together they stalked down the street. Doubtless he would take her to his pile in Hanover Square and ravage her thoroughly in the comfort of his enormous four-poster bed.

  Which brought Sophia back to her own intentions to ravage and be ravaged in turn. If Violet and Harclay were to indulge in a doomed affair, then by God Sophia would not be left behind. She had her own hopeless, foolish, irresistible liaison to see to.

  By the time she reached Duchess Street, she thought she might burst with anticipation. If she had known how thrilling illicit love affairs would be, Sophia would’ve dreamt of them rather than miraculous matches with viscounts. It was too late for that. Too late.

  But she had one last chance. Here, just for tonight, she would forget all that. Just for tonight, she would give in wholly, indulge every whim and fantasy.

  And then tomorrow she would return to said miraculous matches, her mama, the marquess and his affections, his proposal, which she knew would come any day now.

  Tonight, however, she would be Hope’s. Her body, her heart, her every wish and desire—she’d surrender everything she had. Just this once.

  Just tonight.

  If, that is, Sophia could actually get to Hope.

  She should’ve known the house would be a fortress following the theft. Surveying the property from a nearby corner off Duchess Street, Sophia picked out at least a dozen men patrolling the crescent-shaped front drive. The tall iron gates on either side of the house were closed; toward the back of the building, Sophia picked out two windows glowing with low light. Otherwise, the house was dark.

  Moving with as much care as her screaming pulse would allow, Sophia stole across the street, hiding in the shadow of a stone pillar that marked the corner of Hope’s property.

  She was about to turn and make for the mews, when she was grabbed from behind. Her assailant spun her around with such force it knocked the wind from her lungs, her hood falling back from her face.

  “Please,” she managed, panic filling her chest as her eyes fell on a familiar face.

  “Miss Blaise!” Daltrey whispered, his white hair glinting in the moonlight. “What are you doing here, and at this time of night!”

  Relief rushed through Sophia at the sound of his voice, even as she wondered why Thomas’s butler was playing sentry in the wee hours of the morning.

  “I don’t trust these fellows,” he said, reading Sophia’s thoughts. “Not after those men betrayed Mr. Hope at his ball. I keep watch on them while they keep watch on the house. Come, let’s get you inside. Mr. Hope will be pleased to see you.”

  Daltrey ushered her through the servants’ entrance at the back of the house. He led her up a narrow set of stairs to a small drawing room on the second floor. Aside from the fire in the grate, there was no light.

  “I’m not waking him, am I?”

  “Psh!” Daltrey removed Sophia’s cloak and carefully draped it over his forearm. “I think Mr. Hope’s forgotten how to sleep, poor fellow. He will be curious, however, as to the purpose of your visit. It isn’t safe to be about, and without chaperone, so late.”

  Sophia swallowed, her clasped fingers coiling over and through one another. She couldn’t very well tell Daltrey the true reason for her visit; she could just imagine him fainting from horror as she said, “I have come to seduce his lordship, Mr. Daltrey. Might you point me in the direction of his bedchamber?”

  And so, recalling with no small fondness the evening she’d spent in the Princess of Wales’s drawing room, Sophia scrunched her face and stuck out her lip and let out the most pitiful sounding sob she could muster.

  “Oh. Oh, heavens, Miss Blaise, I did not intend to upset you.” Daltrey took a step forward, holding his arms awkwardly out before him as if he would embrace her. “There, there, Miss Blaise, there, there.”

  “It’s just”—sob, along with a hysterical heaving of her bosom—“it’s been so. So very difficult. My delicate sensibilities have been assaulted, yes, assaulted, and I—oh, dear, I feel a fainting spell coming on!”

  Mr. Daltrey tapped her lightly on the shoulder, prodding as if to make sure she were still breathing. “Well. Er. I am terribly sorry, Miss Blaise, for whatever distress I have caused you. I shall lead you to Mr. Hope straightaway so that he might—er, address whatever it is that. Um. Assaults you so. There, there, come with me.”

  Sophia held up a hand to hide her smile of triumph as Mr. Daltrey steered her from the drawing room and up another flight of stairs.

  At the end of a wide paneled gallery, Daltrey paused before a door. He leaned his ear against it, listening for a moment before pulling away in a huff.

  “He’s not here. Wait inside, Miss Blaise, and I shall locate the master of the house directly.”

  Daltrey held open the door. With a nod of thanks, Sophia slipped into the room, the door closing behind her with a small, quiet click.

  For a moment she stood at the threshold, marveling at the room around her. Wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, she nearly laughed at the exquisite beauty of Hope’s bedchamber.

  On the near wall, a dying fire burned in a stone fireplace as high and wide as Sophia was tall. The small circle of light it emitted was bruised red, almost purple. Beyond that was utter, complete darkness.

  Even so, she could make out the shape of the room’s sumptuous appointments: the biggest bed she had ever seen, its pristine coverlet ironed and fluffed to a most welcoming proportion; Persian rugs of every color and shape; carefully curated paintings, hung from silken tassels to cover every square inch of the walls.

  Sophia took a step forward, her heart soaring as the audacity of her action
s settled upon her for the first time.

  She swallowed her fear. She’d come this far. She was not about to go back. Not when she felt like this.

  She swam to the darkest corner of the room, running her hand along the smooth, hard surface of a bedpost, the stack of leather-bound volumes on a bedside table.

  “Sophia.”

  She started at the voice, nearly knocking the volumes to the floor. Turning, she saw nothing but darkness.

  “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have come.”

  His voice was low, strained; as if something strong, something he wanted to repress, coiled inside him; as if he were a bowstring pulled taut, waiting for release.

  She took a step toward him; he made no sound. Though she could not see him, she felt the stirring between their bodies, that familiar anticipation rushing through her with blinding force.

  “I came for you,” she said.

  “It is foolish of you to be out alone, and at this hour.”

  “I don’t care, Thomas.” She paused. “I came for you.”

  “Please, Sophia—”

  “No.” She wished he would come forward so that she might see him. She wanted nothing more than to see him. “Please, Thomas. I did not come to talk.”

  She heard his sharp intake of air, sensed his mind racing under cover of darkness. For a moment she hesitated. Would he refuse her? He would be right to do so, of course; this was a bad idea, a dangerous idea, and he knew it.

  Sophia waited for what seemed like an eternity, her limbs beginning to tremble as if she’d bared to him her body as well as her soul.

  There was a rush off to her right, the air suddenly alive with his scent; and then his hands were on her shoulders, brushing her skin as they moved up her neck. She nearly cried out at the tide of sensation that slid through her, his touch firm and impatient as if he owned her.

  As if she were his and no one else’s.

  Twenty-six

  As soon as Thomas drew near, his impatient hands drawing her close, he disappeared, leaving her reeling in the darkness.