“He won’t.” Sophia examined the gown’s bust. The fabric was plentiful enough to cover her cleavage, yet hugged her in beautiful shimmering peach satin. “That would require him to speak to me.” Which he hadn’t done for three days. Not since he scurried from her room as if his heels were on fire.
The following day she’d done her best to get out of bed, dress herself in the gown she’d worn to Longcross, and secure a cart to the station. Circumstance and the estate’s inhabitants had thwarted her at every turn. A maid claimed she couldn’t locate Sophia’s boots. Another informed her that the cart and carriages were all in use or need of repair, and when Becca and Liddy heard of her plan to depart, they convened an emergency afternoon tea in her sitting room to convince her to stay.
Becca, as Lady Fennston insisted on being addressed, had urged Sophia to remain at Longcross and rest for a few more days. When cajoling didn’t have much effect, Liddy turned to begging. She spoke with heart-wrenching honesty of the loneliness of Longcross. Sophia could easily imagine how the huge estate must seem confining to a young woman of energy and spirit. Liddy also enthused about a Gothic romance story she’d written and how eager she was to speak to Sophia at length about books and publishing.
No one mentioned Grey, yet he was constantly on Sophia’s mind. Half a dozen times, she’d started toward his door across the hall, only to think better of confronting him.
Then last night, he’d stunned her by coming to her room.
He’d swung the door open and gazed at her, his eyes full of smoke and fire, fists clenched at his sides. Hunger had glowed in his gaze, a kind of desperation. But neither of them had taken the next step. She’d wanted to reach for him, soothe the struggle tensing his body, answer the question in his eyes.
But she was still waiting for his answer.
Minutes after bursting in without a word, he’d silently retreated.
“There, miss.” The seamstress who’d come to assist with the fitting of Becca’s new ball gown stepped back and surveyed her work. “I think that will do quite nicely.”
“Thank you.”
The young woman ducked her head. “I should go and assist with Lady Fennston’s fitting.”
She hadn’t meant to embarrass the girl, but Sophia wasn’t used to the kind of attentiveness from servants and staff that the Fennstons and Stanhopes took for granted. She wondered how Cate would fare in such a household. Most of all, she missed Cate’s good sense and excellent advice. Except for the parts about being adventurous. That encouragement had led her to a gilded estate she found it difficult to escape and a man she was sure she’d never forget.
“Grey may seem like a bit of a riddle, but he’s clear as day to me.” Liddy was willing to give Sophia advice, apparently. But speaking about him to his sister seemed inappropriate, if not unfair. She shuddered to think how Kit or Clary might explain away her behavior. According to Clary, she was volcanic, and she still wasn’t quite sure what the description was supposed to mean.
“Tell me about your story,” Sophia tried as a diversion. She’d been encouraging Liddy’s literary efforts and was curious how far her tale had progressed.
Liddy pealed with gusty laughter. “So he’s avoiding speaking to you, and you’re avoiding speaking of my brother altogether?”
Sophia sat gingerly on the edge of a chaise lounge, trying not to loosen any of the careful stitches the seamstress had worked so hard to sew.
“What you have to know about Grey is that he tends to walk away from anything he cares for deeply.”
“That makes no logical sense whatsoever.” Which was what Sophia was beginning to conclude about men in general.
“Richard’s the cause. Well, his death.” Liddy grew uncharacteristically somber, tucking her chin against her chest. “I was born after he died. I only know what Jasper told me. That once he’d gone, nothing was ever the same again.”
“What happened to him?” Sophia asked gently, loath to pry but eager to know about any event that had such a devastating effect on Grey.
“Only Grey knows for sure,” Liddy said, regaining her light tone. “He witnessed our brother being attacked by a gang of thieves. Jasper was gravely injured himself. The guilt colored all his choices, I suspect. Any time good fortune comes his way, he bolts. He left university on the cusp of a degree, left home when he came of age to inherit, and now . . . ” Liddy bit her lip and shrugged.
“He’ll bolt again?”
“I hope not.” Liddy lifted a finger to chew on her nail. “He’d be a fool not to see what’s right in front of him, wouldn’t he?”
Sophia sensed the girl was referring to Westby as much as her brother and tried for a reassuring smile. Westby was a cad, but perhaps she was as foolish as Liddy for imagining a man like Grey might wish to transform from scoundrel to husband.
Men can change.
Grey repeated the words to himself as he tipped back a glass of whisky and gazed out of the Westby smoking room into the quickly filling ballroom. He’d come to the Westby estate early, planning to pummel Dominic. Of course, the scoundrel knew better than to show his face.
Which left Grey far too much time to brood.
He fixed on Kit Ruthven as his exemplar of change. The man had embraced London’s diversions with Grey’s brand of abandon. Affairs and dalliances with scads of fervent feminine admirers had been his chief pursuits the moment he stepped off the train from Hertfordshire. Then he’d changed. Returned to his first love and had enough sense never to let her go again.
Marriage. The very word gave Grey the shivers, but not when he thought of Sophia. If he thought of matrimony as a means of having her in his life, the prospect became tempting. Tantalizing. His desire for her, his love for her, was no longer worth questioning.
What Grey doubted was his own nature. He could live with marrying Sophia, knowing that he did not deserve her. But did she deserve his failings, the aspects of his nature he loathed to face?
“I didn’t think you ever set foot past London these days, Winship.”
Grey turned at the sound of Westby’s voice. The man had closed the smoking room door and held a small pistol in his hand, the barrel pointed in Grey’s direction.
“Put the gun down, Westby.” The chambers Grey could see were empty and the Webley’s hammer wasn’t cocked. “You have no intention of using the thing.”
Westby lowered the pistol hesitantly. “What I don’t intend is for you to wrap your hands around my neck again. Ever.”
“Then you should keep your hands off my sister.”
The earl dropped onto a low settee and laid the pistol on the cushion beside him. “I’m sorry, Winship. Honestly. But I have no further interest in your sister. Believe me when I tell you her persistence disturbs me almost as much as your tendency toward violence.”
Grey deposited his empty whiskey glass on the liquor trolley and strode to face Westby, flexing his hands, yearning to plant a fist in the man’s smug face.
“You almost look the part of a gentleman in white tie and suit. But you and I, we both know what we are. Black hearts through and through.” Westby gestured toward the ballroom. “If you’ve forgotten, I saw one of your old paramours here. I’m sure she’ll be keen to remind you.”
“Who?” He couldn’t imagine any ladies from his past would wish to make their way to Derbyshire. The countryside was too staid for those who relished London entertainments.
Westby shrugged. “A redhead. Asked after you.”
Flexing his fingers, he pondered whether to go for Westby’s jaw or bloody his nose. Yet he knew trouncing the fool would solve nothing. Grey would appear uncivilized, and Liddy would only take the bastard’s side more fiercely.
He hated his sister’s preoccupation with the man, but he didn’t doubt her feelings. For the first time in his life, Grey understood the tenacity of love. Devotion despite every rational reason to let go.
“You’ve given Liddy false hope, Westby. That needs to end. Tell her the truth of w
ho you are.”
“Have you told your blonde beauty the truth?” He flicked his hand in Grey’s direction and chuckled. “Surely, you understand. We black hearts never reveal our hands. A friend and I were at Fleet Theater last week. Ladies in attendance burst into tears when the curtain rose, and they discovered you’d abandoned your role.” He smirked as he rose to fix himself a drink. “Does Miss Ruthven know of all the tasty pieces panting for your return to the city?”
Grey stormed toward Westby. To hell with civility. The man needed a trouncing.
“I take it you’ve found your sister, Winship.”
Mention of Liddy stopped him short. She’d never forgive him if he beat Westby as the man deserved.
“She’s at the ball tonight.” Grey caught Westby from behind, spun him by the shoulders, and gripped his lapels. “Tell her the truth, Dominic. And then keep your distance. If I see you breathe in her direction after this evening, there will be hell to pay.”
“I have no wish to speak to her.” The earl swiped at Grey’s hands and punched a palm flat against Grey’s chest. “Keep your brazen sister away from me, Winship. If she persists in her pursuit, I’ll do more than ruin her in private. I shall let everyone know she’s a little wanton. Like all the rest of the Stanhopes.”
After a final sneer, Westby scurried from the room.
Grey waited a moment before exiting. He needed to cool his rage.
He needed to see and speak to Sophia.
As he stalked into the ballroom, fifty masked faces reminded him to slip his own strip of black satin from his pocket. He’d once favored masquerade balls, at least the dissipated sort he’d put on in Belgrave Square. Now they seemed more annoyance than amusement.
Even with a golden mask held up to cover half her face, Sophia stood apart from every other woman in the room. Her gown was the hue of blushes he’d seen color her cheeks, the shade of her mouth after he’d kissed her.
Throat parched, he strode toward her like a man dying of thirst rushes toward an oasis. He did thirst for the taste of her. More than he’d ever yearned for any woman in his life.
She stood in profile, surveying the growing ballroom.
“Dance with me?” he asked as he approached her side and caught her floral scent.
“Are you certain you recognize me, Lord Winship?”
Yes. With breath-stealing awareness. “I could never mistake you.”
“So we’re speaking to each other again?” Irritation made her mouth twitch, which only made him more eager to kiss her.
A quartet of musicians began tuning their instruments in the corner of the ballroom.
Grey leaned in close. “Meet me in the library. Across the hall from the ballroom.” The music would be too loud, and the other guests too close, for them to speak during a dance.
“Someone needs to keep an eye on Liddy. She’s already searching for Westby.”
Grey glanced around the room and spotted his sister’s auburn curls. “I’ll have a word with her.” He skimmed his ungloved fingers across Sophia’s arm, finding a warm bare patch of skin above her evening gloves and below her puffed sleeves. “Then I’ll come to the library.”
Sophia glanced behind her as she exited the ballroom, hoping to avoid Becca’s watchful gaze. She spotted her sweeping around the dance floor with her husband for the first waltz of the evening.
“The library?” she quizzed a passing footman. The young man pointed in the direction of several closed doors on the other side of the Westbys’ circular main hall.
She attempted to enter one door and found it locked. Trying the next, the gilded latch gave way, and she stepped into the dark room. The air reeked of smoke, not the pleasant smell of book leather, and she wrinkled her nose. Sliding a hand along the wall near the door, she searched for a knob to turn up the gaslights.
“I prefer the darkness.”
Starting at the deep voice, Sophia plastered herself against the closed door. Grey’s voice was warmer, much more appealing. But she recognized this man’s low baritone too. “Lord Westby.”
“The beauty with the breasts.”
Though her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, Sophia saw the outline of him, heard the rustle of his movements. She turned to twist the door latch and make her escape. The moment the door slid open, flooding the room with light from the hall, he struck a fist against the panel over her head. The door slammed shut, and he crushed his body against hers.
Liquor fumes burned her eyes. The earl was soused, and she sensed he intended far worse than the boorish seduction he’d attempted in his study. He was rough and unyielding, his weight painful against her back. One of his hands came up to grip her head. He pushed her toward the door, smashed her cheek against the polished wood.
“I thought of you and pleasured myself. Imagined your sweet mouth on me.”
Sophia couldn’t breathe. She bucked hard to get an inch of space between them.
Westby laughed and gripped her hips. “Oh yes,” he slurred. “I’ll take you this way, if you like.” With one hand pressed to her back, he reached down and grabbed for the hem of her gown.
Memories rushed in. Of Derringham’s hands on her, his bulk crushing her, stealing her air as he clawed at her legs, desperate to get under her dress.
“Get off me!” Sophia braced herself against the door with her arms, using her weight to fight Westby’s hold. The man was bulky, but he was also drunk and distracted. In the inch of space she’d created between them, she lifted her heel and stomped his foot with all her might.
“Bloody hell,” he squawked, lurching away from her.
Sophia twisted the door latch and sprinted from the room. Guests crowded around the ballroom threshold, watching the dancers and sipping champagne.
She had no wish to dance or enter the fray. She needed to find Grey and headed for the only door she hadn’t tried. As she twisted the latch, Westby stumbled from the smoke-scented room, and Sophia quickly closed the door of what she prayed was the library behind her.
Definitely the library. Books lined every wall, and unlike the room she’d just exited, the gaslight sconces were lit but turned low. Unfortunately, the space was empty. No Grey or anyone else, but she spied a set of French doors ajar at the far end of the room and started toward them.
Grey stood in profile near the corner of the gaslit balcony, staring up into the starlit sky. His hair glittered like polished copper in the glow of the gas lamps, especially when he turned and noticed her approach. “Sophia.” He said her name tenderly. “I was wishing you were here to see the stars.” A warm smile began to curve his mouth.
Until she stepped into the gaslight.
His jaw dropped as he rushed toward her and curved a hand around her shoulder.
“What’s happened to you?”
Her coiffure had come loose. Westby pulled her hair at some point. She remembered that now. Reaching up, she tried her best to stuff the loose tresses back into pins.
“What happened?” he demanded as he gently cupped her cheek. “Tell me why your hair is down.” Despite the forced calm of his tone, his hands quivered against her skin.
“Westby—” Before she could explain, Grey shot past her. Sophia spun and followed him out of the library.
“Where?” he barked without looking back.
“Don’t do this.” Sophia laid her hand on the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m fine. I got away from him.”
He jerked to a stop, and she moved to stand at his side. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his arm felt hard as marble under her fingers.
“Grey, you’ll only cause a scene.”
His mouth softened a fraction, and he cast her a tense gaze. “I’m an actor, sweetheart. Creating scenes is what I do best.” He reached for her, hooking two fingers under her chin and caressing her jaw as if she was precious. “He’ll never touch you again. I promise.”
“If you resort to violence, you’ll be no better than he is,” she reasoned.
A tight gri
n tipped the edges of his mouth. “Did you ever think I was better than Westby?”
“Yes.” In every way that mattered, he was a better man. On the cusp of telling him, of confessing her love, an ear-piercing boom rang out.
Grey sprang forward to position his body in front of hers.
“What is it?”
“A gunshot.” He started toward the sound and called back. “Stay put.”
Sophia ignored his command and followed him to the room where Westby had assaulted her. Grey grimaced at the threshold when he noticed her at his back.
“You’re not walking into danger with me,” he insisted.
Sophia nodded and forced herself not to follow when he pushed the door open. A young woman’s desperate cries rebounded off the walls.
“Liddy.” Grey retrieved a revolver from the carpet and slipped it into his jacket pocket before kneeling beside his sister. On her knees, she bent over Westby’s prone body, weeping uncontrollably.
Sophia stepped inside the room and closed the door on a group of guests attempting to peer inside. Bile rushed up her throat when she drew close to Grey. Blood pooled on the floor near the earl’s head.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” Liddy rasped. “He laughed at me. Called me awful names.”
Grey gently pushed his sister aside and leaned over the earl. After a moment, he let out a gusty exhale and glanced back at Sophia. “He’s fine. All the blood seems to be coming from a nick on his ear.”
“He fainted,” Liddy explained. “I only meant to give him a fright. I tried not to aim at him.”
“How did you know to cock the hammer?” Grey stared at his sister, a dumbstruck expression slackening his jaw. “Where did you even learn how to shoot?”
“Penny dreadfuls,” she said, hitching an eyebrow as if the answer should have been obvious.
All of them turned when the smoking room door swung open and the elderly Countess of Westby planted herself on the threshold, securing the door at her back.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Westby’s mother lifted a quizzing glass to her right eye and inspected each of them one by one. A gasp escaped when she pointed her lens at her son. “Dominic, whatever are you doing on the floor?”
A Study in Scoundrels Page 24