They sank down on to the thick rug in front of the fireplace, where a huge bouquet of roses filled the hearth, kneeling face to face, kissing and touching and stroking. His coat was quickly discarded along with his waistcoat. She pulled his cravat free, burying her face in the warm skin at his throat, pressing feverish kisses that made him groan, made his breathing quicken like her own, left her in no doubt of the effect she was having on him, of how much he wanted her.
There had been no doubts with Hopkins either. He had never attempted to rein in his passion. Experience had taught her the little tricks which would bring him quickly to a conclusion. It was her only satisfaction, knowing she could play him like an instrument, make him dance to her tune.
‘Sophia?’ Jean-Luc’s eyes were heavy-lidded, his cheeks flushed, his breathing ragged, but his expression was one of concern. ‘You were miles away. Do you want me to stop?’
‘No.’ His asking the question encapsulated the difference, which was vast. She was his lover, not his mistress. He wanted to make love with her, not to her. ‘I’m fine, I promise. Don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop.’
‘Sophia.’ Her name was a caress. He kissed her. ‘Sophia,’ he said again, softly, ‘mon amour, I want you so much.’
He untied the sash of her gown, then the laces at the back, easing the muslin over her shoulders, down her arms, until it pooled on the rug where they knelt. Her chemise was next, his sharp intake of breath as he gazed at her naked breasts stilling any embarrassment. Then his mouth on her nipple, his hands cupping and stroking, making her forget everything save his touch and the mounting excitement building inside her.
Fighting it, wanting to prolong the ecstasy, she tugged at his shirt, watching with another newfound pleasure as he pulled it over his head, drinking in the sleek, muscled strength of him, her hands following her eyes, relishing the contrast of the rough hair on his chest with the smoother skin of his belly. And then her lips followed her hands, adding taste to touch and to sight, as she pressed a kiss to the dip in his chest, then dared further, to lick where she had kissed, making him moan, a feral sound that set her heart racing. He wrapped his arms around her, easing her on to her back.
‘You test my resolve to its limits,’ he said, kissing her.
She twined her arms around him, lost in the sensation of his chest against her breasts, of his mouth clinging to hers, and now the urgent clamour inside her for release. He sensed it, helping her to wriggle free of her gown, her chemise, her pantalettes. his hand cupping the heat between her legs.
She bit back a moan. He said her name. A question. ‘Yes,’ she answered, wanting, desperately wanting, afraid it would stop if she thought about it. He touched her, sliding inside her so easily, so delightfully that this time she barely managed to stifle her moan. And then his mouth covered hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth and his fingers sliding between her legs, and she struggled to cling on because she didn’t want it to stop, suddenly afraid that the memories of all those other encounters would pollute this one. But then he said her name again, and she opened her eyes and met his gaze, saw passion mixed with tenderness.
‘Jean-Luc.’
‘Sophia, ma belle.’
‘I want you so much.’
‘No more than I want you.’
And then she was lost as he kissed her again, and she kissed him back, and he stroked her to a shuddering climax, and this time she surrendered to her instincts, pressing herself against him urgently, caught up in a primal need to be part of him, to meld with him in a way that she had never before even imagined possible.
It was nothing like before. He slid inside her so easily, so carefully, each push making her muscles clench around him, and each clench making her shiver with delight. Higher, and more, his breathing harsh, his arms braced at her side, his eyes locked on hers. Time froze, and then he moved inside her, and this time Sophia couldn’t bite back her guttural moan of pleasure. And then he moved again, and she moved with him, and his mouth covered hers, and he thrust higher inside her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, and he thrust higher, and she cried out as her climax reached a second wave, lost and yet not alone, clinging to him, mouths locked, bodies conjoined, as he thrust again and again and again, each thrust a shivering delight which she never wanted to end, tightening around him, until he cried out, tearing himself away from her as he came, spilling on to her belly with a hoarse, guttural cry that echoed her own.
* * *
‘I am sorry,’ Jean-Luc said, dabbing at her stomach with his kerchief, ‘I was not expecting to make love to my wife for the first time on the floor of a hotel-suite drawing room. Your bedchamber is ten steps away, but it was ten steps too many. It is your own fault for being so irresistible.’
She threw her arms around him, burrowing her face into his chest. ‘You are so lovely.’
He laughed, smoothing his hand over her hair. ‘I think that is my line.’
She pressed a kiss over his heartbeat. ‘I mean what you did, at the end, to take such care...’
‘No man worthy of the name would do less.’
She could think of one man not worthy of the name, but he had no place here. She shook her head to banish the unwelcome intrusion on what they had just shared. ‘I feel—different somehow,’ she said kissing him. ‘In the most delightful way.’
He pulled her tightly against him, rolling on to his back to take her with him. ‘Different, in the most delightful way. Strangely, that is exactly how I am feeling.’
Astonishingly she could feel his shaft stirring between her legs. Even more astonishingly, Sophia felt herself stirring in response. She wriggled and he stiffened. ‘Jean-Luc, how you are feeling is not at all like a man who has just been delighted.’
‘Sophia, I am feeling like a man who hopes to be delighted again.’
She laughed. ‘What a good thing it is then, that I am a woman who feels exactly the same way.’
* * *
‘What did you order for dinner?’ Sophia, dressed only in a navy-blue silk wrap embroidered with improbably large sky-blue roses, was curled up on the sofa in their drawing room.
‘You said earlier you didn’t want dinner.’ Jean-Luc, wearing his shirt and pantaloons, sat down beside her, planting a kiss on her mouth.
‘That was before I ravished you. Now I am ravenous.’
‘Then it is as well that I ignored you and ordered entrecote bordelaise with boulangère potatoes, haricots verts, asparagus and peas. Does that meet with madame’s approval?’
‘Very much. I should get dressed before it arrives.’
‘Wait in here until they have served it in the dining room, then there is no need.’
‘I can’t eat my dinner in my dressing gown.’
‘I can think of nothing more delightful. Save you eating dinner wearing nothing at all, of course, though I would starve, not being able to concentrate on the food.’
‘Then perhaps it would be better if I got properly dressed. I would not want to spoil your appetite.’
‘Talking of appetites, I should warn you that I plan to undress you again, straight after dinner.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You do?’
‘With your permission.’
She looked charmingly flustered. ‘In that case, perhaps it would be best if I spared us both the effort and kept on my wrap after all.’
‘I think that is a very good idea. Then I can have the pleasure of unwrapping you.’
He kissed her again, and only a sharp rap on the main door of their suite prevented him kissing her yet again. ‘Dinner is served,’ Jean-Luc said.
* * *
Later, much later, with both culinary and carnal appetites totally sated, they lay with their limbs tangled together in Sophia’s bed. ‘Are you worried about tomorrow?’ she asked him, turning on to her side to face him.
He pushed hims
elf upright against the pillows. ‘My greatest concern is that the outcome is not definitive. Until Mademoiselle de Cressy came along, I had no reason to question my history, but since her arrival, I really do feel that I know nothing at all about myself, and I feel so—so stupid, for never having asked the many questions now rattling around in my head when my parents were still alive.’
‘Are you starting to think the unthinkable,’ Sophia asked tentatively, ‘that they are not your real parents?’
‘In all honesty, I don’t know.’ He pulled her against his chest, resting his head on the silky softness of her hair. ‘Perhaps tomorrow, this lawyer will produce some incontrovertible proof that the lost Duc de Montendre and myself cannot possibly be one and the same person, and then I can get on with my life.’
‘And I with mine.’
Which thought was even less palatable than speculating about what revelations lay in store for him at the lawyer’s office tomorrow, Jean-Luc discovered. ‘When you first arrived in Paris, you told me that you didn’t know what your plans were.’
It was a tiny movement, but he felt it all the same, a slight tensing of her body against his. ‘That’s true. I still have no fixed ideas as yet.’
‘But you are still set on living an independent life? I thought you enjoyed being married to me as much as I enjoy being married to you. Does that not give you pause for thought about being committed to a solitary existence.’
‘No, because this is not real, it’s fantasy.’ She freed herself from his embrace. ‘We have your future to settle before I can even think about mine. That should be our focus, not indulging ourselves in fanciful conjecture.’
He laughed wryly. ‘We have just indulged ourselves rather delightfully in another way. I hope you don’t view that as an unwelcome distraction.’
She plucked at the sheet. ‘Very far from unwelcome but a distraction we can’t afford, Jean-Luc. Not at the moment.’
‘As always, you are quite right. We both need a good night’s sleep.’ One step at a time, he thought, getting out of her bed. Time enough to worry about the future when the doubts he had about his past were resolved. Grabbing his shirt and pantaloons, he leaned over to kiss her softly on the lips. ‘Bonne nuit, Sophia. Sleep well.’
* * *
Sophia had taught herself how to fall sleep at an early age. How to lie perfectly still, empty her mind of thoughts, and to force her body to relax, from her toes to her calves, fingertips to shoulders, focusing only on this until she fell into oblivion. It almost always worked. An argument with her father, a long day spent nursing Felicity, a night spent enduring Hopkins’s attentions, all could be obliterated by forced unconsciousness. There were a few exceptions. The first night with Hopkins. Her only night with Frederick. The last nights of Felicity’s life and Sophia’s first nights without her.
Tonight was another exception. Hardly surprising, she thought as she watched the sun rise over the Bordeaux rooftops. Jean-Luc was exceptional in almost every way. The first man she had kissed. Not the first man she had shared a bed with, but tonight, it had felt like the first time. The first time she had relied upon her instincts, and not the instructions she had been given or the lessons she had been taught. Not one person exacting his pleasure from another, but two people pleasuring each other. Uniting, to become one. Astonishingly, it really had felt as if that was what had happened. As if they were made for each other, shaped to perfectly fit each other.
It would be easy for her to tell herself it was so very different from her other experiences because those other men had cared only for themselves, but she wouldn’t lie to herself. Yes, Jean-Luc was a generous, attentive and thoughtful lover. But it was because he was Jean-Luc that made their lovemaking just that. Making love.
Her heart sank like a stone, and she saw herself for a fool. A stupid, stupid fool. She loved him. She had fallen in love with her husband. Who could never, ever be her real husband, though just for a moment, she allowed herself to imagine it, the blissful idyll of their time in Paris, only with no end.
But if they were really married, then things would be different, wouldn’t they? Real marriage would require her to bend her will to his, it would mean she was no longer Sophia, but someone else’s property. That’s what she’d always thought. Independence, that’s why she was here, wasn’t it? To imagine herself as a wife, that was to go against everything she was working towards.
But she was Jean-Luc’s wife, and she liked being Jean-Luc’s wife, not because it wasn’t a real marriage, but because it was marriage to Jean-Luc. It wouldn’t change, he wouldn’t change, just because they made their vows in front of the Mayor.
As if that could ever happen! He might excuse her Frederick, but Hopkins—no. Even in the most sympathetic light, her dealings with him had been wholly mercenary. The plain truth was that she had prostituted herself. The body which she had shared so freely and so pleasurably with Jean-Luc, had been for two years the instrument which sated another man’s appetites, bought and paid for to do with as he saw fit. It mattered not that she had loathed every second, that every encounter was a violation. She had served him willingly. Jean-Luc would be revolted. For such a truly honourable man to marry such a dishonoured woman as she, was unthinkable.
So she had better stop wasting time contemplating it, and turn her mind to more important matters. A tap on the door preceded the maid with her hot water and morning coffee. From her sister, Sophia had learned how to live in the moment, and to make the best of what she had. What she had, she reminded herself, was a great deal more now than she could have imagined, the day The Procurer came calling. She could never be more than a temporary wife to Jean-Luc, but when this faux marriage was over, she would have the means to her independence. She would be free to live, if not free to love. She was much more fortunate than most women.
Chapter Twelve
‘Monsieur and Madame Bauduin, it is indeed a pleasure. Welcome to our humble premises. Please, step into my office, make yourselves comfortable. I must say, monsieur, your letter was something of a bolt from the blue.’
It was immediately apparent to Sophia as she sat down in front of the desk beside Jean-Luc that the rotund, luxuriantly moustached Monsieur Fallon facing them was far too young to have been the co-signatory on the marriage contract.
And equally apparent to Jean-Luc. ‘Your father is not able to join us?’ he hazarded.
‘That would require a miracle of Lazarus-like proportions, monsieur. I’m afraid my father stands before a very different jury these days. But I indulge myself in lawyerly verbosity. In a nutshell, to summarise, he is dead, sir. His case was dismissed in March of last year, so to speak, with no prospect of an appeal.’
Sophia sought Jean-Luc’s hand, an instinctive gesture of comfort, knowing how disappointed he must be. He cast a fleeting smile in her direction, as if it was she and not he who needed reassuring.
‘So it falls to me to discharge my late father’s obligations, which I will endeavour to do both humbly and with due diligence,’ Monsieur Fallon said earnestly, stroking his moustache. ‘I take it you have your copy of the marriage contract with you?’
‘There is more than one?’ Jean-Luc produced the document, placing it on the desk.
‘Three copies were made. I have one in my possession, as you see.’ A second, red-ribboned scroll was produced. ‘You have one which I think your letter indicated was held by the Comte de Cressy? And the third, naturally, would have been held by the Duc de Montendre.’
The lawyer busied himself with comparing the two scrolls. It did not take him long. ‘As you see, both are signed by my father. The contract was drawn up in this office a year after the birth of the Duke’s son, as was the Montendre tradition. Our family law firm served the Montendre family for generations, so this was not the first such contract executed here. My father often lamented the fact that it was likely to be the last, however. He was much aff
ected by the tragic death of the Duke and Duchess.’
‘Were any provisions made for the maintenance of the estates?’
Monsieur Fallon pursed his lips. ‘Were the circumstances not so extraordinary, Monsieur Bauduin, I would tell you that I cannot discuss such matters. As it is—well, you will see for yourself if you visit them. The château itself still stands, but it is a shell. There was a fire, the result of looting, I am afraid to say. When it became common knowledge that the Duke and Duchess were dead—alas, so it was with many other such estates. All the family papers, every remaining portrait, all destroyed. Of course the lands are still there, and the vineyards, and many of the farms are still cultivated, but there has been no one to collect the rents since the Duke’s man of business fled. I was too young myself to remember those times very clearly, but from what my father told me—not pleasant, Monsieur Bauduin, not pleasant at all. You know, I can’t quite believe this is happening. When I received your letter—if only my father had been here.’
‘Unfortunately he is not,’ Jean-Luc said crisply. ‘In fact, I would much rather circumstances had not brought me here at all—with all due respect to yourself—but as it is, you will understand my eagerness to hear if you have any information which can be of assistance.’
‘As to that.’ With an air of repressed excitement that gave Sophia a horrible sinking feeling, Monsieur Fallon produced a leather book and pushed it towards Jean-Luc. ‘As you can see, it is a statement of account. A lump-sum deposit was entrusted to my father by the Duc de Montendre. Here you see the record of withdrawals over a number of years. And then the closing statement in...’
From Courtesan to Convenient Wife Page 17