Irresistible

by Mary Balogh

  She was no longer that placid, comfortable Sophie who was always there to cater to a man’s need for pampering and a man’s need to protect. The latter need might have been satisfied, he guessed, but she chose not to avail herself of his protection. And so the relationship had become troublesome to him, uncomfortable. It was just the sort of thing he had come to town to escape.

  He thought with regret of the two nights they had spent together, of that cozy feeling of companionship as they had lain side by side talking, of her unexpected passion, of the intense satisfaction he had got from all their couplings. He thought too about that uneasy feeling he had had after the second night—just last night—that it was a more serious affair than he had looked for.

  Last evening it had become downright ugly. For reasons of her own—her need to assert her independence, perhaps? —she had chosen deliberately to thumb her nose at them all. She must have known that they had stayed close to her, the four of them, so that she would not have to acknowledge Pinter or endure his attentions. She had shown them that she did indeed reserve the right to make her own friends.

  It did not help his mood of irritation to realize that she was perfectly right. After an affair of less than a week’s duration he was already thinking of her almost as he thought of his sisters and Lavinia, as someone who needed his protective, guiding hand on the reins of her life. Almost as if he owned her.

  It was over between them. Over before it could become serious indeed. It should never have started. An affair between friends must surely always be disastrous. Friendship was one thing and sex was another. It was foolish to try to blend the two, except perhaps in marriage. That was a different matter. But then he was not in search of a marriage partner.

  It was over. The only thing he had not decided during his sleepless night was whether he ought to tell her so, make a formal visit just for that purpose, or whether it was enough merely to let the whole thing lapse.

  He was going to begin an affair with Lady Gullis. Although she was intelligent and witty and charming, there would really be only one function to their liaison. It would be better that way. He had made an appointment to take her to Kew Gardens two days hence. He would bed her after that. Probably the best plan would be to rent a house. She would not want him in her home, though she had invited him there last night. He would not want to go to her home. Word would inevitably spread, and though no one would condemn either one of them since all would be conducted with enough discretion to satisfy the scruples of the ton, it was not the sort of notoriety he cultivated. Those days were over.

  He tried to sleep even though daylight flooded the room. But he kept seeing Sophie’s bare hand with the mark apparent on the third finger where her ring had always been. And her bare neck. No pearls. No ring. There were numerous explanations, none of which was any business whatsoever of his.

  Sophie was no business of his.

  He tried to think of Lady Gullis, to imagine ...

  Finally he threw back the bedclothes, got up in a thoroughly bad humor, and rang for his valet.

  Sophia did not sleep all night, though she did try lying in bed for two full hours before getting up and curling into the greater comfort of the chair beside the empty fireplace. She certainly could not sleep on that bed—not tonight. She had fancied she could smell him on the pillow next to her own—and had rolled onto her stomach to bury her nose in the memories before rolling back again, furious with herself, furious with him, furious with everyone and everything.

  She hated the feeling of helplessness. She hated feeling trapped at every turn. She had to do something. There was precious little she could do, though in her anger last evening she had been prepared at first to defy Boris Pinter, to break loose from his power, to dare him to do his worst.

  But Sarah had been with Viscount Perry, looking young and innocent and happy....

  There was something she could do, though, and she was going to do it. She was no longer in Spain. Those days were long over. She was a different person now. She had been on her own, ordering her own life for three years. Did they not realize that? It was high time they did.

  She had been so very happy to see them. She had thought old times could be recaptured, but they could not. Her life had only become more complicated, and much more unhappy.

  Very much more.

  She remembered the time of the morning when she had met them in the park with Sarah. She wondered if they rode there at the same time every morning. She rather believed they did. Someone had mentioned it at Rawleigh House that first evening. It would be very much more convenient if she could see them all together and soon. Then at least she could begin to put part of her life back together again.

  She would perhaps have the illusion of control for a short while. Until he “discovered” the next letter and she was forced to face the reality of the fact that there was no money with which to pay him and nothing to sell.

  She would think of that when the time came. One day at a time.

  And so Sophia went walking early and alone in the park, except for Lass, of course. Samuel had asked if she wished him to summon Pamela to accompany her and looked disapproving when she said no, but her servants were not her keepers either. She would take charge of her own life and she would do it today.

  It was all illusion, of course.

  She had been walking for all of three quarters of an hour before she saw them off in the distance, riding toward her—three horsemen, not four. She wondered which one was absent and prayed silently that it was not Nathaniel. She did not wish to have to talk separately with him.

  But it was Nathaniel. Fate was against her, it seemed.

  They had seen her, of course. They were all smiling gaily when they came close just as if last evening had not happened. But then to them, perhaps, it had not seemed such a momentous incident after all. She would not let that possibility deter her, however.

  “Sophie,” Kenneth called while Lass pranced all about them just as if the horses and riders were her long-lost friends. “Good morning. And a fine one it is for a change.”

  “All alone, Sophie?” Rex asked, looking about him as if he expected to see a maid bob up from behind the closest bushes.

  “You will notice, Sophie,” Eden said, grinning down at her, “that we are all present and accounted for except Nat. As are you. You will help us tease him, no doubt. He escorted LadyGullis home from last night’s soiree.” He winked at her.

  “For which piece of information Sophie will be eternally grateful, Eden,” Rex said dryly. “You had better not be planning to share it with Catherine too.”

  “Sophie is made of sterner stuff,” Eden said. “And I have to boast of my matchmaking skills before someone who will appreciate them.”

  They were all mightily pleased with themselves and with the absent Nathaniel, Sophia noticed, given the circumstances of his absence.

  She stood looking up at them, unsmiling. “We are not in the Peninsula any longer, Eden,” she said. “I am no longer Walter’s wife, no longer good old Sophie. Those days are gone and I would thank you for remembering the fact.”

  Kenneth grinned. Eden looked embarrassed.

  “Oh, I say, Sophie,” he said. “I am most awfully sorry. I thought you would enjoy the joke.”

  “I have not enjoyed it,” she said. “Neither have I enjoyed your determination to treat me as someone who cannot possibly live her own life or think her own thoughts or choose her own friends.” She was looking from one to the other of them, and they were all serious now. “I do not appreciate unsolicited interference in my life.”

  “You refer to last evening,” Rex said after an uncomfortable silence. “We did not wish a repetition of what happened on the night of the Shelby ball, Sophie. We did not want him frightening you.”

  “I was not frightened,” she said curtly. “The supper room was stuffy and I almost fainted. Mr. Pinter is a friend of mine. None of you ever liked him in the Peninsula. Neither did Walter. I am me, Sophie, and I like
him. I choose to have him as a friend and I deeply resent the embarrassment of last evening, when you made it apparent to both him and me that you saw yourselves as my bodyguards to keep him at a distance from me. I will not have it.”

  “Sophie—” Eden began, but she whipped around to glare at him.

  “I will not have it,” she repeated. “If I must choose between the four of you and him, then I choose Mr. Pinter. He has done nothing to offend me. You have. Perhaps you have meant well, but you have treated me as a child. No, worse than a child. You think, Eden, that I enjoy your ribald remarks, that I am just a jolly fellow. I am not. I am a woman with a woman’s sensibilities just like Catherine or Moira or any other lady. I may not be a lady, but I do have the same feelings as one.”

  “Sophie—” It was Eden again, sounding quite distressed now. “My dear.”

  “I am not your dear,” she said. “I am nothing to you, Eden. I am nothing to any of you. I believe it would be as well for you all to remember that. We were once friends, and I have enjoyed meeting you all again. I enjoyed reminiscing at Rawleigh House, Rex. I thank both you and Kenneth for presenting me to your wives. But times have changed. I want no more dealings with any of you.”

  They all stared fixedly at her as if, she thought, they expected her to burst into song at any moment or explode into dance.

  Kenneth was the first to straighten up. He touched the brim of his hat with his whip and inclined his head to her. “My deepest apologies, Sophie,” he said. “Good day to you.”

  The other two murmured something similar and the three of them rode away. None of them looked back, which was just as well, Sophia thought, or they would have seen her both rooted to the spot and shaking like a new sapling in a stiff breeze.

  She had not intended to say half of what she had. She certainly had not intended to go for Eden’s throat with her accusations of ribald vulgarity. And she had accused them all of treating her as less than a lady merely because she was not a lady. She had never even thought that. The words had seemed to come from nowhere.

  She had intended to end the friendship in a perfectly calm and rational manner—if it was possible to end a friendship in that way.

  Now she felt bereft, she thought, trying to bring her limbs and her heartbeat under control. This was what it felt like. Did it feel better or worse than last night’s misery? But she could not make the comparison. She had not yet talked to Nathaniel. It seemed a cruel fate that this morning of all mornings he was not with his friends.

  He was with Lady Gullis. He had spent the night in her bed, doing to her and with her the things he had done with her the night before. It was a horrifying realization, not just because of the intense jealousy it aroused—though to her mortification there was that too—but because it made her feel cheap.

  He had been in London just a short while, yet already he had spent a night at a brothel—had not Eden said that at Rex’s?—two nights with her, and one night with Lady Gullis.

  And she had thought there was something beautiful, something special about their nights together? She had even humiliated herself by suggesting that they have a long-term affair. How he must have laughed at the ease of his conquest of her.

  How she hated him. And herself. Herself most of all. Would she never learn that dreams—or the fulfillment of dreams, anyway—just were not for her? She was just too plain and ordinary and unexciting. Unfeminine. She hated her lack of self-esteem.

  And when she did dream of a man, she chose a blatant rake. He had never been anything else. Had she learned nothing in her years with the army?

  Should she assume that her morning’s task was now completed? she wondered. Would they go and tell Nathaniel what she had said? She did not doubt that they would. She did not need to subject herself to any more of this.

  But no. Perversely, there had been something marvelously satisfying to her bruised heart in that confrontation. It would be even more satisfying to hurl her defiance and her scorn in Nathaniel’s face. She could still see his cold eyes boring into hers last evening just before he turned away disdainfully with Lavinia, leaving her with one hand outstretched, a smile on her face, and her mouth open to begin the introductions.

  Nathaniel, how could you have done that to me?

  She turned her steps determinedly in the direction of Upper Brook Street.

  FOURTEEN

  NATHANIEL HAD GONE IN for an early breakfast, discovered that he was not hungry, and considered going to White’s to read the morning papers. He did not feel like reading the papers. To see if any of his acquaintances were there, then. Ede, for example. He did not want to see Eden—he would want to know all about last night and what had happened with Lady Gullis.

  But it was a lovely morning, he saw, standing at the breakfast-parlor window, looking out. It would have been perfect for a ride. He should have got up and gone as usual—he had not slept anyway. But he did not want to see his friends. They would all want to know about last night. And they would want to discuss Sophie.

  There was nothing to say about Sophie.

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked when his butler came into the room behind him and cleared his throat. One could always tell by the throat clearing the nature of the message. This was an embarrassed throat clearing.

  “There is a lady to see you, sir,” the butler said. “Unaccompanied, sir. I asked if she wished to speak with the young ladies though they are still abed, but she said no, sir, that she wished to speak with you.”

  A lady? Alone? Lady Gullis? But she would not be so lost to propriety, surety—or so willing to appear more eager than he.

  “And does this lady have a name?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Armitage, sir,” his butler said.

  Sophie?

  “Thank you,” he said. “I will come. Show her into the visitors’ salon, please.”

  “Yes, sir.” His butler bowed and withdrew.

  Sophie? What the devil? He frowned. Well, he had wondered if he needed to talk to her, to put a definite face-to-face end to their affair. Now the decision had been taken from him. He could do it now. But why had she come here—and so early and alone? Was there trouble? Had his first instinct—and that of his friends too—been right and it was fear that had impelled her last night as it had at the Shelby ball? Had she needed their help after all? Did she need it now?

  He strode from the breakfast parlor to the visitors’ salon.

  She was standing across the room from the door, facing it. She had removed her bonnet. It lay on a chair beside her. She looked as usual—neat and plain and practical in a mid-blue walking dress, her hair slightly disheveled. And she looked different from usual—far from appearing placid and comfortable and cheerful, she looked determined and almost belligerent.

  She looked beautiful, he thought, bending absently to scratch the ears of the collie, which had come trotting across the room to greet him with wagging tail and lolling tongue—though he did not take his eyes from his visitor.

  “Sophie?” he said. “May I summon a maid?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Did you come to see Lavinia?” he asked. “You are at least a couple of hours early, I am afraid.”

  “No,” she said. It sounded almost like a declaration of war. Was she going to quarrel with him? he wondered, his interest piqued.

  “What is it?” he asked, taking a few steps closer to her and clasping his hands at his back. “How may I be of service to you, Sophie?” He listened to his own words with some inner amusement. Was he the man who had decided quite firmly to finish with her? But when all was said and done, she was still his dear friend.

  “I believe,” she said, and her head went back and her chin jutted and she looked even more hostile, “I owe you an apology. I ought not to have tried to present Mr. Pinter to your niece. I should have directed his request to you.”

  It sounded very trivial now that it had been put into words, the incident that had so angered him last evening and that had kept him awake all
night determining to be finished with her.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “we are taken by surprise and do not have time to think out a wise course of action. I drew attention to you by reacting as I did. I should perhaps have simply spoken up. But I would have refused. I do not consider Pinter a suitable acquaintance for Lavinia.”

  “You accept my apology, then?” she asked, her cheeks flushed.

  “Of course,” he said. “And will you accept mine?”

  He had drawn his hands from his back. He was about to reach them out to her. They would clasp hands and perhaps they would kiss and the whole business of her acquaintance with Pinter—which really was none of his business—would be forgotten about for the present. Perhaps, after all, the Season had not been ruined.

  “No, I will not,” she said quietly.

  He raised his eyebrows and returned his hands to his back.

  “I believe,” she said, “you think you own me, Nathaniel. Rather as you think you own Georgina and Lavinia. There is perhaps a little more justification in their case, though not a great deal more. You do not own anyone. They are merely in your care. They are persons. I am a person. But just because I am a woman and you have been—inside my body, you think that I am your possession, your responsibility. You think you can choose my friends and freeze out those of whom you disapprove. I have never given you that power over my life. I did not give it with my body—I gave only my body. You have interfered against my express wishes.”

  He felt rather as if a whip were lashing all about him.

  “I wanted to protect you from harm, Sophie,” he said. “We all did.”

  “From harm?” she said. “From Mr. Pinter? He is my friend. He was deeply humiliated last evening. So was I. And you were the one most responsible. I cannot blame you for taking Lavinia away. You were acting, rightly or wrongly, out of your sense of responsibility to her. But I can blame you for being where you were at the time. You had been quite intent on conversing with Lady Gullis until Mr. Pinter stepped into the room. You should have stayed where you were with her. I did not ask you and Eden or Rex and Kenneth to close ranks about me.”