His cock throbbed, reminding him he had been without a woman for months. Yet now, as he thought about it, he only wanted one.
The worst thing about it was he knew why he wanted her. It was the thrill of the chase yet again – knowing Sophia was so unattainable. She didn’t want him. She was in love with Cappleman – or so she believed. What little he’d seen of the wealthy young man didn’t impress him. He seemed weak. Indecisive. Sophia deserved better than that. If a little harmless flirtation made her realize she ought to have a man worthy of her, then that was all for the good.
It made her safe. It made him safe.
*
Sophia had never seen such a retinue in her life. A group of thirty men walked past the hotel to a palazzo that overlooked the harbor, just up from the Hotel de France. They appeared almost comical, dressed in large, red pantaloons, their shirts colorfully embroidered and topped with long, open robes.
One would mock at their peril, however – the men carried dangerous looking scimitars and equally angry-looking faces. Others trailed behind, carrying boxes and elaborately decorated trunks; some of them she was sure covered in real gold and cabochon gemstones. The procession seemed to stretch all the way back to the harbor.
“Who is that?” Laura breathed. “I’ve never seen such a spectacle.”
“The man is an envoy to the Kingdom of Sicily from the Ottoman Empire,” said Uncle Jonas.
“Do we know who he is?” asked Sophia.
“His name is Selim Omar; he is the first cousin of the Sultan of Turkey.”
“And when did you become so well informed?” she gently teased.
“Lord William is back from harrying Corsica, and it seems everyone is interested in the war with France. They want to know when this war is going to end – and who the victors are going to be. There’s no harm in being on good terms with both sides.”
“That’s dreadful!”
A new voice interrupted their conversation. “That’s diplomacy.”
Sophia’s heart leapt when she heard the voice, then the traitorous organ expressed disappointment when she turned because the face she saw wasn’t Kit Hardacre’s.
“Samuel!”
Laura squealed, throwing herself bodily into her brother’s arms. “When did you get here? Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”
Sophia stared at Samuel for a moment, looking at a face at once familiar and dear to her, but somehow not.
Samuel released his sister and accepted Uncle Jonas’ outstretched hand.
“I jumped straight off the ship the minute we docked, my luggage is still onboard,” he said, his face bright and, dare she say it, almost giddy, like a schoolboy. Somehow, he seemed so much younger than she remembered.
“I have some news I can’t wait to share!”
“Don’t keep us in suspense, tell us!”
He shook his head. “Not here; not in the street. Such news is worth celebrating properly.”
Laura clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh, you are such a tease to make us wait. Will you not give us an inkling?”
“Well,” he started, before pausing for dramatic emphasis. Laura swatted him on the arm. “As you know, I’ve been doing serious contemplation about my future, and I’m delighted to say I have come to a happy conclusion.”
“But—”
“—No. Nothing more until after I’ve fetched my luggage and had a chance to turn myself into a respectable gentleman instead of a travelling vagabond.”
Sophia stood aside and listened to the chatter, estranged from the very people she called family. She could disappear from their eyes right now and not be missed.
Uncle Jonas excused himself, holding up a satchel. He was on his way to the university but promised faithfully to meet them at a trattoria in the center of the city. Finally, Samuel’s notice fell on her.
“Cousin Sophia! You look far too serious. Are you not pleased to see me?”
She found it within her to give a smile and to put her hands into his outstretched ones.
“Samuel, of course I’m pleased to see you. I was just away with the pixies,” she said, her voice low. On impulse, she leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Nothing. Her breath never hitched. She didn’t feel her heart quicken. Nothing.
But then, Hardacre had kissed her – and on the lips. Perhaps, that had something to do with it. She followed Samuel and Laura as they walked arm in arm, chattering away while she remained a couple of steps behind. It felt like the story of her life.
A freshening breeze sprung up from the east. She breathed in the tangy salt air and immediately started to feel better. There should be no reason to mope on a day as glorious as this, when the clear blue sky seemed to stretch to heaven and beyond.
She raised her face to the sun for a moment and basked in its splendid heat. No matter how many creams and ointments she used, no matter how much she bathed her face in lemon juice, her olive skin was not going to suddenly change its color. She would never have the milky white complexion of her cousin – the type of dewy freshness that seemed to turn the heads of all the men. Perhaps, she should simply embrace who she was. A spinster – and one with an unfeminine interest in ancient history.
Activity at the harbor had nearly ceased. Cargo had been unloaded, passengers disembarked, crew on shore leave. Dockworkers and sailors had been beaten back by the midday sun, its heat exhausting. Those remaining kept in the shade, mending ropes and lengths of canvas, or listlessly swabbing decks. Ahead of them, neatly stacked together, were Samuel’s trunks and several smaller portmanteaux.
“Where the deuce are the porters around here?” he asked. “How am I supposed to get my luggage to the hotel?”
“They’re all at lunch, I expect, to escape from the heat,” answered Sophia. “Is there someone aboard your ship who could help?”
Laura tilted back her parasol and peered up to the ship. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone on deck.”
“Ahoy!” Samuel called and ventured a few steps up the gangplank. “I say, is there anyone aboard?”
“Can I be of service?”
Sophia started at the voice behind them. This time, there was no mistake. She turned.
Standing there was the captain of the Calliope with a lazy smile that seemed turned on just for her.
Chapter Fifteen
They walked past the Calliope not noticing the ship on which they had travelled less than two months earlier, but Kit had spotted Sophia almost immediately and was surprised to see her cousin arm-in-arm with a young man until he noticed it was Samuel Cappleman. He saw they shared the same hair color, the same features – particularly the shape of the chin, which on a woman was pretty and delicate, but on a man looked weak.
He rubbed a hand across his own face and felt the coarse stubble from two days without a shave. He was tempted to shout down to Sophia, but something made him hold back and watch.
She tilted her head up to the sun. It illuminated the slender column of her neck, the proud shape of her nose, and the way her lips parted slightly…
She really did have a bewitching mouth. He watched as Sophia then lowered her head and trailed behind the Cappleman siblings. Something hit him in his gut. Was this the way it had always been for her? Trailing behind, half-forgotten?
The thought gave him nothing but contempt for Mr. Samuel Cappleman. Sophia loved this man? The buffoon was clueless. Or perhaps he did know and was callous. Either way, Kit was singularly unimpressed.
He called across the deck to Jonathan, “The Calliope is in your hands, I’m going ashore.”
The navigator nodded and returned to his charts. Elias also raised his head and peered over the railing and then back to Kit. A play of amusement worked its way around his lips. Yes, he knew he was in for a ribbing from his friend, but he’d deal with it later.
He strolled toward the party. Cappleman had made it halfway up the gangplank of his docked ship when Kit made his offer of help.
He kept
his attention on Sophia. He witnessed surprise and, he hoped, a momentary look of delight before her expression shuttered. She turned her back to him without acknowledgement. Disappointment doused him cold. And yet, whatever emotion gripped her, indifference didn’t factor into it.
Realization dawned – for some reason she was mad at him. The thought pleased him even more than an enthusiastic greeting.
Miss Laura had kind words for him. “Captain Hardacre! Finally, a friendly face. It seems there is no porter here to help my brother with his bags. Could I oblige a couple of your men to help us?”
Kit glanced at the luggage. The man had as much as his sister, and that was still twice as much as Sophia had brought with her.
“Laura, I’m sure the captain has other things to do.” The frost in Sophia’s voice would quail the hardiest of souls, but never let it be said Kit Hardacre didn’t relish a challenge.
“On the contrary, it would please me greatly to be of service.”
The spark in her eyes when he contradicted her, and the slight pinking of her cheeks he was certain only he noticed, delighted him to no end. He strolled past her and hoisted the largest and heaviest of the trunks on his shoulder, leaving the second one, slightly smaller but no less heavy, he would wager, for the young Cappleman pup to pick up.
It would do him good to haul some weight like a man.
The trunk pressed heavily on his bruised shoulders, a legacy of the fight with Sharrouf, but it was worth it to show up the Englishman, who followed along behind him huffing at the brisk pace he set on the quarter of a mile walk to the Hotel de France.
Cappleman nearly stumbled and dropped his case heavily in the foyer. When he righted himself, the young man’s face was red.
“Much obliged to you, Sir,” he wheezed.
Kit bowed as though it were a trifle.
“Ladies.”
He picked up Miss Laura’s hand and bowed. He turned to Sophia whose eyes registered their mistrust of him. He took her hand and felt a small amount of resistance, enough to show her displeasure, but he knew instinctively she would not make a scene – not in public. This hand he brought to his lips for a brief kiss. Oh, those big, brown eyes were shooting daggers at him. He was thrilled. Kit would love her to make a scene, to see those layers and layers of self-control fall away one by one. But part of being a showman was knowing when to bid his adieu and exit the stage.
He whistled to himself on his return walk. At seeing Sophia again, more than one weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
*
“I think you’ve teased us long enough, Sam,” announced Laura. She dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin and dropped it purposefully on the table.
Sophia twisted hers, keeping it on her lap where it could not be seen. She made a special effort to dress for lunch; she even allowed Laura to convince her to wear a little lip rouge. For the first time, she wore one of her new dresses, the blue one, from the fabric purchased in Lisbon.
And yet, none of it had any effect on Samuel. The man looked right through her. To make matters worse, Captain Hardacre made a spectacle of himself and embarrassed her today. Really, the man’s behavior was unconscionable.
Laura’s sharp intake of breath forced Sophia back to the conversation.
“Who?”
“Lady Victoria Hampton-Wyck. Her father and I have just come to terms.”
Sophia covered her shock by reaching for a glass of water. She knew the young woman, of course, and found her to be very kind and pleasant, but she had no idea Samuel had been serious about an attachment. She was supposed to know everything about him. She kept his accounts and his diary, even his household – how could she have been so blind as to miss the signs of a burgeoning romance right under her nose?
Uncle Jonas slapped Samuel across the back.
“Well then! This calls for champagne! Er, have I met this young lady of yours?”
“She was at our Easter picnic, Uncle,” interjected Laura. “Remember, she was a lovely young woman with the prettiest strawberry blonde curls you ever did see.
“You remember her, don’t you Sophia?”
Sophia eventually found her voice “Yes. Lady Victoria, she sat and talked with us about gardens – particularly the roses.”
Uncle Jonas nodded as though he remembered, but she knew him well enough to know he still hadn’t a clue.
“So you came to terms with Lord Maxwell,” Laura continued. “What brought the old man around?”
“My income of five thousand a year, gifting him a parcel of shares in our company, and an agreement that everything Victoria inherits from her family remains under her control.”
Well, if one was going to treat marriage as an exchange of chattels, one might as well be up front about it.
The conversation at the table stopped dead. Three sets of eyes, round and alarmed, stared at her.
She returned the expression, bemused, until a prickling started at her scalp and worked its way down until the soles of her feet felt stabbed by needles.
Oh God. She’d actually said those words aloud!
Sophia prized her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Samuel. That was unforgiveable of me. Lady Victoria is a lovely young woman and I’m sure you and she will be very happy together.”
She put her tortured napkin on the table and rose with as much dignity as she possessed.
“I will take my leave of you now and retire to the hotel.”
It was a wonder she could walk at all, because she couldn’t feel her feet. Outside and into the open air, out of sight of the family, she paused and put her palms to her heated cheeks.
What on earth had possessed her to say such a thing? It was cruel, unkind and ungrateful to the very people who had put a roof over her head for twelve years. Not only was she jealous, but also willfully blind – everyone had known except for her. She was sure even Kit Hardacre, a man who had known her less time than anyone, recognized it.
She walked unseeing down narrow cobbled streets. The fastest way back to the hotel was through the markets of the via Ballaro. Sophia paused to catch her breath as a market vendor pulled a cart across to load his table with fresh, pungent onions.
No one paid her any mind and, for that, she was glad. If they had stared, she would be the wretch she knew herself to be. Were her cheeks still red? It wouldn’t hurt to check. Sophia turned to a shop window to catch her reflection. It was the ironmonger’s shop, the one Hardacre had sent her to. Two figures inside moved, distorted by the uneven glass, but she recognized the shopkeeper – and then the other, who turned as though aware he was being watched.
Kit Hardacre looked directly at her and strode toward the door.
Sophia pushed herself back into the crowd, allowing it to pull her away like a riptide until the eddies of shoppers leaving the precinct deposited her in front of the Fontana Pretoria where nude statues of Twelve Olympians – the pantheon of Greek gods, shamelessly faced the piazza.
“You seem in a hurry, little one,” A voice in heavily-accented English but with sardonic amusement cut through clearly.
Before her stood a man in his late-thirties with skin darker than hers. His slick, black hair shone. He wore European clothing of the finest fabric and cut, but there was something about the way he wore them, as though it was a costume. If his identity was not already apparent, then his three companions – big men dressed in pantaloons gathered at the feet, jeweled daggers on their belts shining in the sun– made it so. Sophia guessed the blades were not simply ceremonial.
“Your Excellency,” she said before dropping a curtsy. She wasn’t even sure whether she had greeted the Ottoman envoy by his correct title. She didn’t even know what name to call him.
Sophia frowned. “How did you know I was English?”
“I always make it a policy to know about the guests invited to your ambassador’s reception. You would be…” the man’s brow puckered, recalling a detail. “Miss Sophia Green, a
female relative of Professor Jonas Fenton.”
“You have me at a disadvantage, Sir.”
“You have the honor of being introduced to Sheik Selim Omar, the cousin of Mahet the second, Caliph of Islam, Amir al-Mu’minin, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.”
Sophia felt compelled to drop another curtsy. She made a quick glance behind her to ensure Kit Hardacre was not following. Making a fool of herself just twice in a day was more than enough, thank you very much. And besides, she could have sworn she had just heard her name called.
“You should not be walking on your own,” continued the sheik, his censure softened by an amused upturn of his lips. “You are too delicate a flower to be treated in such a way. Allow one of my men to escort you back to your hotel.”
“Sophia!”
No, it hadn’t been her imagination. She had heard her name. She slid a glance to the envoy’s bodyguards. She would rather walk on her own than with a pair of, what? Colossus. Two Colossus. Colossuses? Were they Colossi? Now her mind was rambling.
“Sophia, wait!”
She stumbled another curtsy, mumbled an apology and sidestepped the men. She walked as quickly as she could, even breaking into a trot when the streets were clear of passersby. Sweat beaded on her lip, the heat of the late afternoon sun beat on her head. She turned the corner past the university building. The buttery yellow facade of the Hotel de France shone like a beacon.
Her composure crumbled the moment the door of the suite closed behind her. Sophia wept – the first tears she had cried since she was a little girl when she learned her papa would not be visiting anymore because he had gone to join her mother in heaven.
Sophia’s misery was bone deep. She fairly ached with it. Her chest heaved and the tears rolled freely down her cheeks. With shaking fingers, she removed her day dress and placed it over the dressing table chair. There, propped against the mirror were two heavy cards, her name and Laura’s written in flowing blue script – they must be the invitations the emir had spoken of.
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 149