“You deserve better than a furtive courtship,” he said helplessly, even as his other hand snaked around her slender waist to arch her against him. “But since the day we met, I’ve dreamed of you.”
Her sigh conveyed wonder. “Really?”
His voice deepened into urgency. “I’ve dreamed of kissing you.”
And other things, but he couldn’t sully her innocence with his wanton fantasies.
“I’d like to make your dreams come true.” She leaned closer, her breasts grazing his chest. “Will you kiss me, Harry?”
“Sophie—” Her scent filled his head like wine, overwhelmed thought. His hand tightened around her waist.
“Don’t you want to?” she asked in a small voice.
“Of course I bloody want to,” he said roughly, then dragged in a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m not acting the gentleman.”
This time her sigh was disgruntled. “You’re acting too much the gentleman.”
“Sweetheart—”
She interrupted before he pointed out that he cared for her reputation. After all, how convincing could any avowal sound when he embraced her in a cupboard in the middle of a ball?
“I don’t want to hear it.” Her voice softened. “Unless it’s ‘Kiss me, Sophie.’ ”
Oh, hell. How could he resist? “Kiss me, Sophie.”
Harry lashed her to him and pressed his mouth to hers. Her lips trembled beneath his. Her fluttering uncertainty hinted that this was her first kiss. Tenderness stabbed at his heart.
Automatically he gentled, nipping and licking at her, until her breath hitched and she leaned closer. His tongue slid into her mouth, tasting her fully. Her flavor blazed through him like lightning.
The world beyond Sophie’s clumsy but ardent responses vanished. All Harry knew was her warmth and the way her tongue danced around his. Her broken moans. Her soft, quivering body pressed into his.
It took him longer than it should to realize that she’d stopped participating. He raised his head and struggled to see her through the darkness. “What—”
“Shh!” Her hands formed claws in his shirt. Now she trembled not with passion, but with terror.
There were voices outside. Damn. His arms tightened and he drew Sophie against him. Anyone within a mile’s radius must hear his heart. He wasn’t frightened for himself but for her. Only a bloody fool would risk this encounter.
He strained to hear if the people outside mentioned the Marquess of Leath’s sister. They discussed supper arrangements. If Harry hadn’t been thickheaded with delight, he’d have recognized his hostess’s voice immediately. She seemed to be talking to her butler.
Fleetingly, he relaxed. Until he wondered if the butler needed supplies from this tiny storeroom.
In vibrating silence, Harry and Sophie clung together until the voices faded. Eventually he whispered in her ear. “I need to get you out of here.”
With a trust he didn’t deserve, she laid her cheek upon his chest. “I thought I’d die when I heard them.”
“I shouldn’t have brought you in here. But I’ve been desperate to see you, and your brother’s like a collie with a ewe lamb.”
“He’s terrified of fortune hunters spoiling his plans.”
“To be fair, that’s his duty.”
“But you’re not a fortune hunter.”
“I’m not.” He paused. “I’m not?”
“A fortune hunter wouldn’t hesitate to ruin me to force a marriage.”
Marriage? The word clanged through him like a great bell.
The malaise dogging his heels disappeared in Sophie’s company. The sight of her turned his day to brilliance. That left the choice of taking himself off and leaving her to the man her brother chose. Or ruining her. An idea which made every cell in his body revolt.
Or marriage.
“Harry?” she asked on a thread of sound. “What’s wrong?”
It was too early to mention lifelong commitment. Already she’d surrendered more than he’d hoped. His heart kicked as he remembered those wondrous kisses.
He eased his grip. “We’ve been here too long.”
“Yes.” Regret weighted her voice. “Will I… will I see you again?”
Despite the last fraught moments, he couldn’t contain a laugh. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I’m not experienced with flirtation.”
Another pang of painful tenderness. He wasn’t experienced with love. In this glorious new world, they were both innocents. “When can I meet you?”
“The park.” She sounded relieved. “I ride tomorrow morning.”
“With your brother?”
“He’s away this week.”
“I’ll find you.”
“I hope so.” He caught a quiver of uncertainty.
“I swear it,” he said.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
How he basked in hearing that, however difficult it made this parting. “I don’t want to let you go. But I must.”
He kissed her quickly. He meant the contact to be sweet and brief, but he found himself drowning again.
Luckily for failing willpower, she broke away and opened the door a crack. “Tomorrow,” she whispered, slipping outside.
“Tomorrow,” he confirmed, then waited in the dark while she shut the door with a soft snick. Right now he wasn’t fit for civilized company. He hoped Sophie was. He had a horrible feeling that she’d look mussed and thoroughly kissed.
Chapter Seven
Fontana dei Monte, Italian Alps, February 1828
It was snowing again. As this purgatorial week proceeded, Pen began to think that the world contained only snow and ice and wind. And flea-ridden inns. And rude servants.
And men who tried to push her around.
Or more accurately, one man who pushed her around. His overbearing Grace, the Duke of Sedgemoor.
Pen and Cam traveled as Lord and Lady Pembridge, using the Sedgemoor heir’s courtesy title. She supposed that now they left the mountains behind, the inns would become busier. She and Cam would need to be more discreet than ever in case they met someone who knew them.
Their coach bumped its way into the tiny hillside village where they would spend the night—or rather where the man who had assigned himself lord and master had decreed they’d stay. Idly Pen wondered when she’d finally break. Would this be the day when she pushed Cam headfirst into one of the towering snow drifts lining what was optimistically termed a road?
Cam sat beside her now, staring out the window as if the acres of white formed a glorious vista considerably more appealing than his companion. They’d had a long day. Not that they’d covered much ground. It was discouraging how much time they took to traverse every mile. Cam had been right, much as she hated admitting it. Crossing the Alps in February had been an asinine plan.
Over the last days, the temperature inside the carriage had been colder than outside. In public, Cam might treat Pen with deference that set her teeth on edge, but their infrequent private conversations had been stilted and tinged with hostility.
The coach shuddered to a stop, jerking Maria awake on the seat opposite. Pen had developed enormous envy for her maid’s ability to sleep through anything. Strangely Maria had immediately accepted the news that her mistress and the duke traveled as a married couple.
Desperate to stretch her cramped legs, more desperate to escape the oppressive atmosphere, Pen opened the door and jumped out before Paolo, their new coachman, could help her. Despite herself, she glanced back at Cam, expecting the usual disapproval.
But the expression in his watchful green eyes troubled her. In another man, she’d interpret the gleam as reluctant interest. But Cam treated her as a troublesome obligation, not a woman he wanted. Still, that level gaze made her shiver like someone brushed an icy hand across bare skin.
After weeks of rough travel, Cam was no longer a polished specimen of British manhood. His linen was grubby, his clothes crumpled, his boots cloudy with dirt.
And he looked tired. He pretended that he rose above human weakness, but the man in the carriage looked exhausted to the bone. She’d always thought his impossible pursuit of perfection made for a lonely life. Right now, he looked heartbreakingly alone.
She resented Cam’s bossiness. She resented, much good it did, his inability to love her. Even so, he’d undergone considerable trouble for her and she’d rewarded him with a fit of the sullens. Her tone was friendlier than usual. “Cam, are you coming inside?”
Paolo disappeared to secure rooms. Cam regarded her with familiar coolness. “Of course.”
He sounded assured and dismissive. Much as he’d sounded all week. She bit back a sigh. Their easy communication had gone forever. She should be glad. The last thing she needed was a reminder of what a wonderful companion Cam could be. But good sense was difficult when one was stuck with a grumpy nobleman on an endless road to perdition.
“Well, do it soon. I’m freezing.”
Grim humor lit his face as he left the carriage and extended his arm. “As you command, my lady.”
Reluctantly she laid her hand upon his forearm, disturbingly aware of the muscles beneath her gloved palm. His physical reality was a perpetual torment. Over the years, he’d faded in her memory to an over-idealized cipher. Real Cam was more complex, more powerful, and more compelling than any fantasy.
Paolo chose that moment to return, his round, good-natured face troubled. “Milord, milady, there is a question.”
Surprised, Pen turned to the man she’d learned to respect for his ability to make the best of unpromising circumstances. However arrogant Cam had been to dismiss the craven Giuseppe without her permission, he’d unearthed a treasure in Paolo. “What is it?”
“A storm has hit the inn and only one room is fit for sleeping.”
“That’s unacceptable,” Cam said sharply while the nightmare ramifications of Paolo’s news invaded Pen’s mind.
Paolo flinched at Cam’s displeasure—and looked understandably puzzled. He’d never shown any curiosity when his employers requested separate rooms. He probably attributed it to English eccentricity. But surely at a pinch, a married couple could share a bed.
A freezing February night with deteriorating weather counted as a pinch.
“We shall travel on,” Cam said coldly.
The prospect of driving further prompted even imperturbable Paolo to protest. “Signore, the next village is ten miles away, over the mountain. There will be heavy snow tonight.”
“With fresh horses—” Cam began in his “I won’t shift even for stampeding elephants” tone.
“Cam, we can’t go on. It’s dangerous.”
“Your courage fails?” He turned a supercilious expression upon her and Pen suppressed a shiver unrelated to the rapidly dropping temperature. “You were all set to drive single-handed across every glacier between here and Paris.”
Oh, how she itched to shove him into the snow. Deciding that convincing Cam would take too long, she spoke to Paolo. “If there’s only one room, we’ll take it. Thank you for your care.”
Paolo went pink with pleasure. “Grazie, milady.”
“Shall we go inside, madam?” Cam continued in an undertone, “I thought you’d be the last person to welcome tonight’s arrangements.”
She snatched her hand from his arm and cast him a fulminating glare. “It’s stupid to struggle on in the dark through an ice storm.”
“It’s stupid to share a room.”
“Perhaps you can sleep in the taproom,” she said sweetly.
“Perhaps you can,” he sniped back.
Fortunately the innkeeper arrived to greet his distinguished guests, rescuing Pen from divulging her opinion on that suggestion.
After a surprisingly good dinner in the taproom, Cam climbed the oak staircase to the single habitable chamber. So far, this establishment proved an advance on the other places they’d stayed.
Apart from that one impossible circumstance.
That one impossible bedroom.
Despite his threat to make Pen sleep in the public room, crammed with stranded travelers—Paolo had been right about the snowstorm—Cam had always intended her to have the bedroom.
Which left him at a loss.
He’d checked if the damaged rooms were as damaged as reported. They were. He’d tried to sleep in the taproom, but it was unbearably crowded and his failure to join his wife in comfort and privacy upstairs stirred curiosity that, even in this obscure hamlet, he wanted to discourage. English travelers attracted enough attention anyway. An English husband refusing to sleep with his beautiful wife became a little too remarkable.
The irony was that he’d cut off his right arm for the right to sleep in Pen’s bed. Desperately, he summoned thoughts of Lady Marianne Seaton. While he was yet to propose, his marked attentions had signaled his intentions to the lady, her family, and society. Nobody would be surprised when Cam returned to London and requested the Marquess of Baildon’s permission to marry his daughter.
But during this journey, Marianne became increasingly difficult to remember as more than a shadow. The only face in Cam’s mind was Pen’s.
Damn it all to hell.
And damn his protective urge. His fellow travelers looked exhausted, but villains might lurk among them. So here he was ascending the stairs. Expecting a scolding for his good intentions. Pen wouldn’t want him sharing her room. Even if he wasn’t the first man to enjoy that privilege.
He’d spent far too long stewing over her lovers. Surely he was better off not knowing details. But not knowing allowed imagination free rein. He loathed where his imagination roamed.
Outside the closed door, he inhaled deeply and reminded himself that he was a gentleman. He’d hoped that the rigors of travel would stifle this inconvenient yen. He’d hoped that Pen’s unfeminine independence and sharp tongue would shift fascination to dislike. He’d hoped that his managing manner would keep her at a distance.
There at least he’d been successful.
The unwelcome truth was that a prickly Penelope was just as alluring as a polite Penelope. God help him if she moved from politeness to amiability. His goose would be well and truly cooked.
She might choose her lovers where she pleased, but she was still a girl from a good family. If the Duke of Sedgemoor bedded Lord Wilmott’s daughter, he’d pay with a wedding ring. Standing outside her room all hot and bothered, he almost thought that price might be worth it.
On a sudden fit of temper—confound her, she treated him like a beggar—he crashed the door open and barged into the candlelit room.
And stumbled to a standstill as if struck with an ax.
Rising from a small wooden tub like a goddess from a spring, Pen was all gleaming white skin. Naked as the day she was born.
His heart slammed hard and heavy. Lust pounded in his ears.
Her back was to him. Her thick dark hair gathered untidily, revealing her elegant neck. The straight, stubborn shoulders. The graceful spine. The subtle curve of her hips. And God help him, a perfect pear-shaped arse.
His hands curled at his sides, preparing to frame that luscious roundness. He’d never seen anything so beautiful as Penelope Thorne in the bath.
Until she turned.
Perhaps he’d made a sound, although the breath jammed in his throat. Perhaps cold air eddied through the open door.
“Maria, I—” Black eyes huge with horror, she stared at him.
For a second that extended into eternity, they regarded one another. He should leave. He had no right to absorb every glorious, forbidden detail and imprint it on his mind to remember forever. The wet skin shining like a pearl; the high breasts crowned with beaded raspberry nipples; the delicate triangle of dark hair guarding her sex. Cam had never suspected what bounty lurked beneath her dark, plain jackets and narrow skirts.
Outrage replaced her shock. With a dizzying mixture of relief and disappointment, he watched her fumble for the worn towel on the small table beside her.
Without shifting his attention, he reached behind him to obey. Penelope’s violet soap scented the air. Until now, he hadn’t realized how her perfume had permeated his senses.
“With you on the other side,” she said sharply, hitching the towel.
He could have told her that she wasted her time covering herself. Transparent with dampness, the skimpy towel extended from breasts to thighs. She looked more sexually available in the strip of linen than standing naked.
Her throat moved as she swallowed. She eyed him as if expecting him to pounce.
“I’m sleeping here,” he said gruffly.
“Over my dead body,” she snarled, trembling hands gripping the towel.
Perhaps discretion was the better part of valor. “I’ll come back in ten minutes.”
“I don’t want to see you tonight.”
He shrugged. It felt unreal to argue as they’d argued so often on this journey, while she stood before him like every dream come to vibrant life. “If you’re asleep, you won’t see me.”
She grabbed for the soap dish and raised it in a threatening gesture. He just reached the corridor before pottery shattered behind the hurriedly closed door.
Damn her for a shrew.
A beautiful shrew.
A shrew whose eyes, for one blazing moment, had flared with desire.
Even as Pen lay in bed struggling to sleep, she was still blushing. Despite his threat, Cam hadn’t reappeared. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or piqued. And still those incendiary moments played over and over in her mind, making her stomach lurch with horror. And forbidden excitement.
For one stolen moment, she’d read desire in his eyes.
In that searing instant, she’d seen endless hunger beneath his cool manner. Then good old common sense had asserted itself. She was a naked woman. His reaction was a purely physical reflex.
On that sour reflection, she sat up and reached for her thick blue robe. It was a bitterly cold night. Even in this room with its fire and blankets, she shivered. Cam might want her, but she trusted his self-control. It was churlish to leave him freezing while she kept the bed.
What a Duke Dares Page 6