Lady No Says Yes

by Jess Michaels

  “Afraid of what?”

  Percy hesitated, and then he said, “Actually losing something you care about. Like you did your father.”

  Rowan walked away. Percy’s words cut so close to the bone. Far closer than he’d ever thought they could. Probably because there was truth to them.

  Yes, he’d watched Sophie over the years. He’d admired her spirit and her wit far more than her beauty and her dowry. But he’d never come too close. Neither had she.

  And now he knew what it was like to lose something he’d had and loved more than anything. His father had been Rowan’s lifeline, his calm ear and advice, his sharp conscience when he needed that. Losing him had been devastating. It still was. Perhaps it always would be.

  And perhaps there was some truth to the idea that it made him reach for Sophie. So that he wouldn’t lose her without even trying for more.

  So where did that leave him?

  “She’s afraid of something deeper,” he admitted softly.

  “So are you.” Percy folded his arms, daring Rowan to deny it.

  “Perhaps I am at that.” Rowan let out a long sigh. “Perhaps that’s why it will never work.”

  Percy cocked his head. “I hate to hear that,” he said softly. “That you would walk away from something because it felt too…real. That sounds like a deathbed regret I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

  Rowan shrugged. “It’s something to think about,” he conceded slowly.

  “Indeed. And I assume you are now going to excuse yourself to consider it at length.”

  “You know me too well,” Rowan said, squeezing his friend’s arm. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Percy called after him as he exited the parlor. “Call on me if you want to drink some of your troubles away during the thinking part.”

  Rowan laughed as he left his friend behind, but there was nothing joyful in his heart. It was now a jumble that he had to sort out or else risk hurting everyone involved in the situation. Something he very much didn’t want to do. For himself. For her.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m worried about you, dearest.”

  Sophie looked up from her book and smiled as Louisa entered the parlor. “Oh, you needn’t.”

  Her aunt arched a brow. “You have been sick enough to avoid all Society functions for a week, Sophie. Don’t tell me I needn’t worry.”

  Sophie pursed her lips. She felt guilty for her subterfuge in telling Louisa she didn’t feel well. It had been true when she’d convinced Louisa to leave the ball a week before. After her encounter with Rowan she’d truly been out of sorts, body and mind.

  Now her continued “headache” was a ploy. One she could clearly not continue if she didn’t want her aunt calling on doctors to bleed her.

  “Do you feel any better today?” Louisa said, taking the seat beside her and pressing the back of her hand to Sophie’s forehead.

  “I am, Aunt Louisa. My head is certainly clearer.”

  Of course, that was a lie. A week away from Society had given Sophie room to breathe and to think, but the results had been less than perfect. She couldn’t stop thinking about Rowan. About what they’d done and how it made her feel. Nothing could clear those thoughts from her mind, not even when she shamefully touched herself at night, bringing a shadow of the pleasure he had drawn from her.

  It only made it worse.

  “Do you think you might be up for an event tomorrow?”

  Sophie sighed. She couldn’t hide forever. And she knew that Louisa truly enjoyed Society. When Sophie stayed home, her aunt often did as well, so she was selfishly denying her guardian that simple pleasure.

  “Of course,” she said with a forced smile. “What are the invitations?”

  “Lady Terrington is having a garden party tomorrow afternoon at two at Mr. Sinclair’s residence.”

  Sophie nodded agreeably, but her mind emptied of everything but one man as her aunt spoke. Lady Terrington was Rowan’s mother.

  “And since it is their first hosted event since the death of the earl, I feel I must go to support my friends,” Louisa was finishing.

  Sophie was brought back to the present with those words. Rowan had not spoken to her about the loss of his father six months before, but she knew that he mourned Lord Terrington deeply. It was common knowledge how close the earl had been to his second wife and third son.

  “Of course,” she said, pushing her feelings aside for the sake of her aunt, but also for Rowan and his mother. “I’m sure they would very much appreciate the faces of…of friends in the crowd.”

  Louisa beamed. “I knew you would understand. I will send our acceptance immediately. And I think you should wear that new green gown, darling. It is stunning and makes your eyes so bright.”

  Sophie swallowed hard and nodded. The green gown had a rather daring neckline. It might very well give easy access if a man wanted.

  She pushed to her feet and paced away from her aunt and from her own troubling thoughts. She had to control herself, damn it. And this was the perfect place to practice that control. After all, she couldn’t avoid Rowan forever. Even after this Season of Yes was over, she would encounter him. She had to practice her ability to be unmoved. To forget what they’d shared.

  And tomorrow she would put that ability to the test.

  Rowan wiped his brushes clean and stepped back from his work. He stared at the image he had created in the past week when he’d been trying to figure out his tangled emotions. What he’d painted spoke more volumes than he could have done in a month of deep conversation.

  He sighed and slung a cover over the piece as his mother entered his studio. He smiled at her when their eyes met. Deep within them he saw her grief, lingering since the death of her beloved husband.

  “You don’t need to have this party,” he said as he moved toward her and kissed her cheek.

  She laughed softly and wiped a smudge of paint from his face. “Your older brothers are swirling about town, creating their own narrative about your father. I feel I must react so that everyone sees the love that is still felt for him.”

  Rowan pursed his lips. His older brothers had been talking about their father. Cruel little backhanded jabs meant to make the earl seem less decent than he had truly been. Nasty comments about Rowan’s parentage or legitimacy.

  God, how Rowan hated them for it. Not for himself, but for the woman before him. The mother who loved him and adored the man she lost. She didn’t deserve this extra pain.

  “Perhaps I’m being unfair to you, though,” she said. “Having this event here rather than at my little home. You’ve been avoiding Society for the past week, I know. I recognize you may not wish to play host now.”

  “You know I’m happy to do whatever you desire,” he assured her.

  She reached up to touch his cheek, and through the sadness she still carried on her shoulders, he saw all her warmth and love. All her support. He had not told her about his brothers’ removing his settlement. She would try to share her own, and she barely had enough as it was.

  And he somehow doubted she would approve of his pursuit of Sophie. At least not the ulterior motive of her fortune. His mother had never been that kind of woman, no matter what his brothers said to the contrary.

  “I’ve had several more acceptances for tomorrow’s event,” she said, stepping into the room to look at his paintings. They were propped against walls and balanced on easels in a haphazard way. She smiled at the landscapes that represented the flowing hills around their old country home.

  The one he doubted the new earl would ever let them visit again.

  “Who has accepted?” he asked, not truly interested but filled with a desire to support her.

  “Lady Wintergreen, Mrs. Swarthart, and Lady Louisa and Lady Sophie.”

  He froze and lifted his gaze to his mother’s face. She reflected no ulterior motive of her own as she glanced at him.

  “I didn’t realize you had invited Lady Louisa and Sophie,” he
said, hoping he sounded nonchalant. Fearing he did not.

  She smiled. “We are both a friend to Lady Louisa, and I’ve heard you and Sophie have been becoming friends of a sort yourselves as of late. Are you not pleased?”

  He bit his tongue. Oh, he was so very pleased at the idea of seeing Sophie. Too pleased. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her. It was all he’d thought about in the past week.

  “I know it will be a very happy party, Mama. And I’m always glad to see my friends.”

  She didn’t answer, for she had moved across the room to stare at a portrait he’d finished about ten days before. She had not visited his studio since, and now he saw how much the picture moved her.

  “Your father’s painting,” she whispered, her hand fluttering out as if she could touch the canvas and feel her late husband’s cheek beneath her palm.

  He moved to stand beside her and wrapped an arm around her. They stared together at the portrait of the man himself. Rowan had painted him as seated, his arm slung back over the chair, looking toward what, he wasn’t certain. It was a casual pose, one that reflected the hint of a smile.

  In what he had painted, Rowan saw his own eyes, his own jaw. He saw everything his father had been, heard the voice he loved so dearly echo in his ears. Still there, but perhaps not remembered as perfectly as it once had been.

  “It’s for you if you’d like it,” he said softly. “If it does not hurt you too much to see it.”

  She pivoted toward him, her eyes bright with tears and her face lit with a smile. “I love it as I loved him. Of course I would want to have it. It is a treasure.”

  She leaned up to kiss his cheek and then wiped her eyes as she moved away from the picture. “And what is your latest project?” she asked, moving to pull the tarp from the painting he’d been working on when she entered.

  “No!” he cried, stepped forward to stay her hand gently. “I-I am not ready for that one to be seen.”

  She faced him with a look of concern, and then she nodded. “Very well, love. Now come, I have a few details I’d like to discuss about tomorrow with your butler, and I feel more comfortable if you are there to approve or disapprove my arrangements.”

  He followed her from the room, but couldn’t help his backward glance at the painting he had not revealed to her. Not yet. Not to anyone.

  Because showing what he had created on canvas would reveal what he’d written on his own heart. And he wasn’t ready for that.

  Sophie smoothed her skirt after she stepped from her aunt’s carriage onto the circular drive at Rowan’s estate. She looked up at the home with interest. She had never been here before. Truth be told, she wasn’t certain she wanted to be here now. In his home? That felt like enemy territory.

  Which was ridiculous. This was a test, that was all. One she just simply had to pass. There was nothing else to it.

  Louisa smiled as she stepped down beside her, and the two women linked arms as they came up the steps to be greeted by Rowan’s butler. The man led them inside and took their wraps and hats and gloves, then guided them through twisting halls.

  Sophie drank in the surroundings as they walked. It was not a large home, but it was beautifully appointed. She was especially impressed by the large number of paintings that adorned the walls. Landscapes and portraits, as well as scenes. She didn’t recognize the artist, but she longed to stop and look at the details.

  Those thoughts fled her mind when the butler took them through a parlor and an open set of French doors that led to Rowan’s garden.

  “Lady Louisa and Lady Sophie,” he announced. Everyone turned, and Sophie’s gaze swept over them. She knew all in attendance, of course. Lords and ladies she had interacted with almost all her life. Some she’d count as friends, but in this moment she saw none of them. Not really. They were all blank faces until her eyes found Rowan.

  He stood near the terrace wall, dressed impeccably, looking as beautiful as he ever had. And he was staring straight at her, his hand gripped in a fist at his side, his expression impossible to read.

  Her heart dropped into her stomach, her toes curled in her slippers, and suddenly her mouth felt dry as a desert.

  “Louisa!” Sophie jolted as Rowan’s mother, the Countess of Terrington, appeared from what felt like nowhere and embraced her aunt briefly.

  “Darling, you are beautiful,” Louisa said, reaching up to touch the black fabric of the countess’s mourning gown. “How are you holding up?”

  Lady Terrington smiled, and Sophie saw the sadness in the expression. “As best I can. It helps to have friends near. Sophie, you are lovely as always.”

  Sophie reached out to squeeze the other lady’s hand. She knew Lady Terrington only peripherally, as a friend of Louisa’s, but she’d always liked the countess.

  Of course, now she found herself wondering if the lady would be so kind and welcoming if she knew the wanton surrender Sophie had given into in the greenhouse with Rowan.

  “Come say hello, dearest,” Lady Terrington said, motioning past Sophie’s shoulder.

  Sophie stiffened, not ready to turn around. Rowan was there, she could feel him even if she didn’t see him. She was keyed in now to his presence, the weight of him when he was near. The smell on the air, the way her body reacted. Damn him.

  “Ladies,” Rowan’s deep voice said as he stepped up to his mother and forced himself into Sophie’s line of sight. “Welcome. So nice to see you both.”

  Louisa moved forward first, taking Rowan’s hands as she said something to him. Sophie had no idea what it was, for she was too lost in that moment in Rowan’s bright eyes. They held hers even as he talked to Louisa. Sophie stared at how his mouth moved. That wicked mouth that could do such wicked things.

  “Sophie?”

  She blinked as she realized Louisa was speaking to her. “I-I’m sorry. I was woolgathering,” she stammered as heat flooded her cheeks.

  “Rowan was just asking if you would like a drink,” Lady Terrington said with a gracious smile. “Our cook has created a marvelous punch for this warm day.”

  “Certainly,” Sophie said with a quick glance at Rowan.

  He bowed solicitously and then moved into the crowd to find their refreshment. Louisa and Lady Terrington began to talk again, and Sophie drew her first full breath as she took a step away to gather her composure.

  She needed to stop this. Being around Rowan could not make her a ninny. What had happened between them was a mistake, but she could rectify it. There was no need to allow herself to be forever changed.

  She wouldn’t allow that.

  As she made that vow to herself, she watched as Lord Benton walked toward her through the crowd. He was a young man, not unhandsome, with an earldom to come to him when his father passed. She’d never thought much of the man, in truth, but now she forced a smile as he joined her and thankfully truncated her spiraling thoughts of Rowan.

  “Good afternoon, my lady,” he said.

  “Good afternoon,” she returned. “And what a lovely afternoon it is.”

  He nodded. “I agree. It is why I came to ask you if you might walk with me in the gardens below.”

  Sophie stiffened. Her duty was to say yes to this man even though she had no desire to do so. She was exhausted after all her sleepless nights and troubling thoughts during the past few days.

  But as she pondered that, she caught a glimpse of Rowan coming back through the crowd, drinks in hand. His smoldering gaze fell on her, and there her body reacted again. Out of control, thrilling and so inappropriate.

  She caught her breath. “Yes,” she burst out, the loudness of her tone making both her and her companion jump a little. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  The viscount smiled and offered her an arm. As she took it, she watched Rowan’s expression shift a bit. His smile fell, replaced by a scowl, and his expression pinned her. Now not seductive, but accusatory.

  She ignored it and pivoted, all but dragging Lord Benton from the terrace and down the stair
s toward the gardens. She refused to look over her shoulder to see what Rowan was doing. She didn’t care. She shouldn’t care. She was not going to care.

  If it took a hundred viscounts to make that clear to herself, then she would walk with a hundred viscounts.

  And none of them would move her as much as Rowan Sinclair did.

  Chapter Eight

  Rowan couldn’t help but narrow his gaze as he watched damned Lord Henry Benton reach out to pluck what looked to be a petal from Sophie’s hair. And she smiled. She smiled at him. Henry Milquetoast Fucking Benton, who had never said anything interesting to anyone in his entire damnable existence.

  The jealousy that burned in Rowan’s chest was hard enough to handle. He wasn’t used to such a strong, angry, twisting emotion. But it was that he didn’t deserve the jealousy that cut him all the deeper. Aside from stolen ecstasies in the hothouse, he had no claim on Sophie. He’d made none yet. She was making it very clear she didn’t want those advances.

  Except that every once in a while she glanced up toward the terrace, toward him, and he saw the flicker across her face. The reflection of his own desire, the conflict that matched the one in his throbbing heart.

  At last, the pair turned toward the stairs and ascended back to join the rest of the party. Benton leaned over her hand and kissed it before he stepped away. Rowan had never wanted to punch a man more.

  The moment Benton stepped aside, Rowan moved. He didn’t plan to move, it just happened as he strode across the distance between him and Sophie. She stiffened, folding her arms and straightening as he reached her.

  “Come with me,” he ground out through clenched teeth as he clasped her arm in his hand and drew her across the terrace. He felt the curious eyes on them as he took her through the doors, through the parlor, into another where no one could see or hear them.

  She wrenched away from him and watched as he inappropriately shut the door behind him. He leaned against it, trying to regain a bit of control and composure before he spoke.