She awkwardly climbed out of the sidesaddle, falling on her arse in the snow before she stumbled to her feet again. “I just wanted jewels. And grand cloth … No, I have nice dresses. Not here, of course, but that’s all part of my plan. Because being your mistress would mean I could do all sorts of things I can’t do now.”
The chill in his gut began to fade a little. “Things like what?” he asked, looking down at her.
“Things. Like … Copper. I have a horse, now. I can ride through Hyde Park.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “And if I had two horses and a carriage, I could drive through Hyde Park. For the next six weeks, anyway.”
He turned his gaze across the snowy landscape. Sophia didn’t have a fine life. Having money would gain her a measure of security, some hangers-on from the fringes of Society, the ability to more openly live the scandalous life she hadn’t created for herself in the first place. But with Hennessy threatening the Tantalus if she didn’t do as he said, being his—or anyone’s—scandalous anything would do her no good. Just the opposite.
He at least knew her well enough to realize that she wouldn’t allow anything to hurt her friends at The Tantalus Club. Even he could see that she’d adopted Lord and Lady Haybury and the rest of the employees there as her family. That was what she wanted, and that was what she was going to lose, regardless of her actions. She certainly didn’t require anything from him to achieve failure.
Frowning, he looked back at her. “Sophia, I apo—”
A very large snowball splatted into his jaw and left shoulder.
“That was not funny,” he growled, spitting out snow.
When he caught sight of her straightening, a second snowball packed in her gloved hands, her expression wasn’t amused. In fact, she looked angry. Furious, even. Adam ducked out of the saddle, and the snowball whizzed over his head.
“Stop it,” he ordered, stomping around Zeus to reach her.
“You are a stupid man!” she retorted, backpedaling and flinging loose snow at him as he approached.
He swiped the freezing stuff off his face. “I was attempting to apologize.”
“I don’t care! Your sister says awful things. The ones she says about you certainly aren’t true, but you’ve decided what, that she must be telling the truth about me? You know she’s only attempting to make trouble for you! Why would you listen to your sister about either of us?”
Three days ago he hadn’t been all that certain Eustace hadn’t been correct about him. He still wasn’t. But the way Sophia simply dismissed his sister’s words as being of no consequence at all—it made him feel … warm inside. Not bleeding and molten, but … alive. Soph—”
Another ball of snow smacked wetly into his front. Clearly logic had flown south for the winter. Bending down, he scooped up a handful of the white powder, patted it into a hasty ball, and threw it at her.
It caught her in the chest, and she blinked in surprise. “You hit me!”
“Likewise.” He pelted her again.
In a moment the flurry of flying snow half obscured both of them. Snow caked his shoulders, knocked the hat from his head, and trickled coldly down the inside of his waistcoat. Adam grinned, and another one caught him in the teeth.
At her responding, breathless snort, he launched himself forward, tackling her around the waist. She thudded backward into the snow with him on top of her. “I agree,” he panted, brushing snow and hair out of her face as he looked down at her.
“You agree with what?” she prompted, pelting him as best she could with her arms half pinned.
“At times I am a stupid man. Her accusations about you were—are—ridiculous.”
Sophia nodded. “Yes, they are. And so are her accusations about you. I mean, I don’t know precisely what she said to you, but an argument either makes sense or it doesn’t. A person is either credible, or she isn’t. And Lady Wallace isn’t.”
Adam wanted to kiss her, the desire surprising in its sudden intensity. He held himself where he was, six inches above her face. “I agree.”
“Good. Then stop trying to begin a fight with me. I don’t like it. If you don’t wish to call yourself my friend, then tell me so. My feelings will be wounded, but I’ll certainly survive. And being hurt is much better than being lied to.”
“I consider you my friend,” he said. “And I won’t abuse the honor again. I swear it.”
A tear ran down the corner of her eye toward her ear, and he brushed it away before it could freeze there. Then he did kiss her, because he was that kind of friend, and he wanted her to know it.
She crushed a fistful of snow into the back of his head, because clearly she was that kind of friend. He’d never had one quite like her. Adam laughed against her mouth. He liked this kind of friend.
“Well, I can’t go into Hanlith now,” she said as he sat and pulled her up beside him. “I’m all wet.” She eyed him speculatively. “And cold. I think I need a hot bath.”
Luckily his servants were accustomed to carrying a ridiculous number of hot water buckets upstairs for a ridiculous number of people during the course of one of his holiday parties. “What a coincidence.” Adam stood, brushing snow off himself as he did so, then took her hands and helped her to her feet. “So do I.”
SEVEN
“Thank you, Udgell. That will be all.”
The butler inclined his head. “Very good, Your Grace. I’ll send in Felton.”
“Not necessary. I’ll manage.” Adam followed the retreating servant to his bedchamber door. “And I’m not to be disturbed.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Once Adam had closed and latched the door, Sophia rose from her seat in the deep windowsill. “Who’s Felton?” she asked.
“My valet.” The duke shed his jacket, draping it across the back of one of the myriad comfortable-looking chairs that littered the large room. He continued forward, stopping in front of her to unknot the scarf from around her neck.
Arousal and anticipation skittered through her veins. Thank goodness they were friends again, so they could do this very thing. Three days of him avoiding her had been a very long time, after all. When he slowly slid the heavy material from around her throat, goose bumps rose on her arms. More complex and troubled than she’d realized or not, Adam Baswich was an exceptional lover.
He opened the top button of her waistcoat. “Lady Haybury should consider making this the official uniform of The Tantalus Club,” he mused, his gaze lowering to her chest. “I can almost guarantee the club members would be more generous with their tipping, and less cautious with their wagering.”
“I don’t quite understand the allure,” she admitted. “The members seem to prefer that we wear low-cut gowns. In a suit I’m dressed from my soles to my chin.”
Adam finished with her waistcoat, but rather than pushing it off her shoulders, he merely pulled it open. Then he ran his palms from her waist up her stomach to cup both her breasts. “You’re more covered,” he returned, “but you’re also more revealed. Your very long legs, for instance, and your slender waist and curved hips. In a gown little of that is visible except during the occasional twist or step.”
She drew an uneven breath as he untucked her shirt and ran his hands up beneath it. His thumbs brushed across her nipples before he pinched them lightly, and she shivered. “I’ll write to Diane and suggest it, then, shall I?”
“Yes. Pull off your waistcoat. My hands are full.”
Oh, she’d noticed that. As she lifted her arms it altered the pressure of his hands on her breasts. Sophia half closed her eyes, savoring the sensation. Once she was free of her waistcoat, Adam wadded up the bottom of her shirt and then lifted it off over her head.
From the tented material at his crotch, he was enjoying undressing her as much as she was. She smiled, her hands going to the fastenings of her trousers until he pushed them away and did it himself. Then he squatted down and took one of her boots. Sophia braced her hands on his shoulders for balance as he pulled off on
“You’re being very quiet,” he noted, drawing her trousers the rest of the way down so she could step out of them.
“Am I?” she returned as he straightened. “You distracted me, then.”
Adam grinned. “Did I?” Abruptly he dipped and swung her up into his arms. While she clung to his neck a bit breathlessly, he carried her over to the iron-cast bathtub and lowered her into the steaming water.
At the sensation of warmth encircling and seeping into her, Sophia sighed and closed her eyes completely. Almost immediately she opened them again, however; she wasn’t about to miss the sight of an aroused Duke of Greaves stripping off his clothes.
His arousal was even more impressive in daylight. She suspected that he would have been a popular lover even if he hadn’t been a wealthy duke. When he paused at the side of the bath to drag a chair draped with cloths and towels closer, Sophia reached over to circle his cock with her fingers. Adam froze.
Grinning, her gaze on his face, she shifted closer to run her tongue along him from base to tip. Then she took the velvety head into her mouth. He dug his fingers into her pinned-up hair, his hips making an involuntary half-thrust forward.
For a long moment they stayed there, her gently sucking, and him with his head thrown back. With a shuddering breath, he pulled her face up again. “Stop that or you’ll end me right here,” he rumbled. “Warn a fellow before you do that, next time.”
Somehow the idea that he assumed there would be a next time was very exciting. Shiver inducing, even. “Come in here, then.”
Adam stepped into the bath and sank down into the water. The steaming liquid rose within an inch or two of the rim as he leaned forward and kissed her, hot and openmouthed. Their legs tangled, and she slid her arms around his shoulders.
She’d had more deliciously hot baths here in Yorkshire than she’d ever had at the club; tepid was the general temperature there, simply because the kitchen was too busy to allow for hot bathing water for the four dozen employees. And as pleasant as a hot bath in cold weather was, sharing one with Adam Baswich was even better.
Still kissing her, he fitted her legs around his hips and slowly drew her forward until he was fully inside her. She groaned at the fullness of the sensation, the tight, erotic slide of flesh against flesh. She moved, rocking back and forth on him as he surged into her.
Water cascaded onto the fine wood floor in waves that matched the rhythm of their motion. “We’re making … a mess,” she panted.
He kissed her deeply once more. “Don’t care.”
Tension drew through her, then let loose in a delirious rush. Sophia lowered her head against his shoulder as with a deep groan he sped his own pace. At the last moment he leaned back, pulling out of her, and grabbed a wash towel, releasing himself into it.
Sophia kissed his shoulders and his throat, working her way back up to his mouth. He felt even warmer against her, around her, than the heated water. With a low chuckle he tossed the cloth into a basket and wrapped his arms around her.
“What’s so amusing?” she asked, though she rather felt like smiling, herself. Sex and heat and holiday—oh, yes, smiling was very appropriate.
It occurred to her, not for the first time, that even if her next Christmas was to be spent in the company of a man who wanted her only because he wanted to change her, this time, this moment was worth it. At least she would have memories of her very good friends at the Tantalus, and a very unexpected, arousing one of her time here at Greaves Park.
“Snowballs?”
Shaking herself, she slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “You made me angry.”
“I’m glad we weren’t near a rock quarry, then.”
“You should be.” She untangled her arms from his. “We should clean up the floor.”
“That’s why I have servants,” he returned, offering a hand to help her step out of the bath.
She sighed. He said it so matter-of-factly. The air felt doubly cold now that she was bereft of both the bath and him, and she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She strolled over the wet floor to the window as Adam exited the bath and shrugged into a heavy dressing robe. “It’s cloudy,” she said, taking in the sight of a sky that seemed to begin just beneath the window and spread out forever in a blanket of uniform white.
“It’ll be snowing by nightfall,” he commented, moving up behind her. “Harvey Jones felt a twinge in his knee.”
Sophia pursed her lips. “Is this Harvey Jones’s knee very accurate in predicting the weather, then?”
“Evidently.” Adam left the window again and walked over to place another log on the roaring fire in the hearth. “Should we make another attempt at ice fishing, or would you rather retrieve your new shoes? Or we could have a go at the sleigh the grooms just finished polishing.”
A sleigh ride? She’d never even thought to do such a thing. But he’d mentioned fishing, first. And given the way their previous attempt at it had gone, perhaps he wanted to erase it from his memory, or at least bury it beneath more pleasant recollections.
“Ice fishing,” she decided.
“Excellent choice. I’ve a taste for bream baked in lemon juice.” He made his way over to the door and pulled it open. “Udgell!”
“Yes, Your Grace?” the butler’s distant voice returned.
“We’re going ice fishing. Have Mr. Daily find us a good spot on the lake and prepare it.”
“I’ll see to it at once, Your Grace.”
When Adam turned around, Sophia had dropped the blanket to the floor and was pulling her man’s shirt over her head. He’d told her how much he appreciated seeing her long legs in those trousers, but she looked almost even more delectable with the shirt hanging down to her thighs and her bare legs beneath. Lust stirred in him yet again.
He’d decided over the course of the last hour that the reason Eustace’s theories and accusations had troubled him even more than they generally did was that he still couldn’t quite figure out Sophia White. In his experience everyone wanted something, be it power or wealth or status or security. Sophia might have decided to venture to Yorkshire because she wanted to experience one grand Christmas before the inevitable chains of propriety dragged her away, but other than that, she didn’t seem to want anything. And certainly nothing he could provide her.
Neither could he decide where she fit in the hierarchy of his friends, lovers, mistresses, and sundry acquaintances. She was a duke’s daughter, placing her above most every other female he knew, but she was illegitimate and unacknowledged, which knocked her completely off the page. She chatted with servants and wore outlandish clothes, would sleep with him but didn’t care to be called—or treated as—a mistress. She did as she pleased, which he found refreshing, but clearly she had her own unique compass which she followed regardless of whether it annoyed him or her or anyone else. And the Duke of Hennessy was a fool not to find her spirit and independence admirable, and instead to remove her from the life she’d made for herself.
“You’re staring,” she commented.
Adam shook himself. “I’m gazing admiringly at your legs.”
“Well. Continue, then,” she returned, grinning as she sat to pull her trousers on over them, “but they’re getting a bit cold.”
“You’ll need a heavier coat if we’re going to be on the ice,” he decided, fastening up his own trousers and making his way into the dressing room that connected the sitting room to his bedchamber. “Most of mine are too broad across the shoulders, but they’ll keep you warm.”
Inside the sitting room he could hear her sifting through their clothes to find the ones that belonged to her. “Surely Milly or someone has a coat that’ll fit me,” her voice came. “Of course it won’t match with what I’m wearing, but I won’t feel like I’m dragging half of it across the ground.”
A muscle in his cheek jumped. She wouldn’t let him purchase gowns for her—which he was doing anyway, but that was neither here nor there—and she insisted on purchasing the horse he wanted to give her. And now she wouldn’t even borrow one of his coats. What the devil was the point of being wealthy and powerful if he couldn’t shower a female—a friend—with a few frivolous gifts?
He dug into the back of one shelf and pulled out a multicaped dark gray greatcoat. “Try this one,” he insisted, returning to the sitting room. “I think I was fourteen the last time I wore it.”
She took it from his hands and held it up. “You kept this?”
“Not so much kept it as forgot about it. I imagine if I looked hard enough, I could locate some of my old short pants and an infant’s blanket.”
Rather than smiling as he expected, Sophia took on a thoughtful expression. “I forget that this has always been your home.” With a sigh she put the coat over the back of a chair to finish dressing.
“When did you last have a home?” he asked, though from her wistful tone her idea of a home was much different from his experience in one.
“I lived with my mother above a dress shop in Surrey until I was nearly nine years old,” she returned. “I suppose that was the last time, until the Tantalus, which isn’t quite the same, but at least it feels—felt—safe.”
“You stayed with your aunt and uncle after your mother’s passing, did you not? I seem to recall you told me that, once.”
This time she flashed a smile. “Yes, they took me in, until they realized that the solicitor who distributed my monthly stipend wouldn’t allow them to spend the money on themselves. After that there was no point in keeping me there, so they sent me off to boarding school. Boarding schools.” She rolled her shoulders. “Now, lest I find myself in dire need of strong drink, I think we should go fishing.”
That was the closest he’d ever seen her come to being … unhappy with her past. For the most part she simply seemed to accept it as something that had occurred and no longer signified. Briefly he wondered how long it had taken her to learn how to do that. It was a lesson he could do with himself.
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