by Darcy Burke
“Hang it all,” she said again, and raised her lips to his. Because if she could not be wise, she would be expedient; and if she could not be safe, then she would be greedy.
Julian made a noise when she kissed him; hoarse, between a whine and a grunt. Desperate, as she felt. She yanked on his lapels. He pulled her up, his elegant hands hard on her waist, skirts tangling as she kicked and rucked the heavy fabric up. The fur blanket fell away as she straddled his lap, balancing precariously on the high bench under the yellow sun in the honey-scented air, all around her a scene of sublime beauty now reduced, by a strange inversion, into the mere echo of her fierce, wild joy.
She kissed his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids. Their arms tangled; she hooked her hands around his neckcloth, flattening the backs of her fingers against the soft skin of his neck, and whimpered as need spiked.
“Sophie.” Julian cupped her cheeks in his hands, holding her still as he licked and nibbled at her lips, plunged his tongue between them to slide against hers. “You’re shaking.”
“Then hold me tighter.” She nipped at him. “Make it stop.”
“Make it worse,” he countered. He dropped one hand between his legs, rustling through her skirts and then skimming his hand up her drawers, through the open seam to the soft curls at the delta of her thighs.
Sophie bit her lip and Julian rewarded her with a sly, satisfied smile, teasing his fingers through her folds now, dipping the tip of one finger—cool, dry, a little rough; bigger than her own, for all that he had elegant, long-fingered hands; foreign, most of all—inside her to collect moisture, with which he traced a path to the hidden, hooded curl of flesh at the crown of her sex.
He played her like an instrument, plucking out the notes of a melody, building higher and higher, every release of tension a deeper ache. Sophie pressed her forehead into his, their breaths mingling. She gripped his shoulders. A flare of sensation tugged at her womb, exquisite and half painful. She moaned, a tense, needy, dissatisfied sound, and Julian jostled her—hooking fingers inside her, holding her tighter.
“That’s right,” he urged. “Just like that.”
And then she remembered: he’d always liked it when she made noises, when she struggled and writhed. She undulated against him, moaning again, and he snarled back at her, his upper lip curling. Sophie shivered. Gall and vinegar, she’d forgotten that too: how he urged her on, how his enthusiasm fed hers.
She reached for the placket of his trousers, felt him hard and ready, but he snatched at her wrists. “No,” he said, and bit her neck, his teeth easing along the strained tendons. Sophie moaned and thrashed; Julian held on tight and worked his slippery, agile fingers even faster, finally pushing her over the edge. He held her tight when she would have broken free, watching her with slitted, greedy eyes as she shuddered and keened.
“Dregs,” Sophie muttered. She’d been freezing before; now she wanted to tear off her dress and roll naked on the ground, craved cool air on her flesh instead of layers of stifling linen.
“Thank you.” Julian smoothed one of her eyebrows, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
“Thank me?” Sophie began to laugh, drooping to the side and then tumbling back onto her side of the bench. “Thank me,” she said again, and laughed harder.
Chapter 17
“Is Mr. Malcolm Roe receiving?” Julian asked the butler. He kept his hand on Sophie’s elbow, urging her to remain silent. The vestibule of Broadstone Cottage hadn’t changed much since he’d last been a regular visitor, ten years ago. The same two small chandeliers hung from the ceiling, the same drab painting from the “school” of Rembrandt that the master had likely never touched hung on the wall opposite.
Sophie had not wanted to ask for Mr. Roe’s permission, but neither her age nor her inclination changed the etiquette. As he’d explained in the phaeton, “He’s the sort who will want to be asked, and he’s not going to object. No harm and some good, Sophie. That’s an easy decision.”
She hadn’t replied, but he’d read disagreement in her thinned lips and narrow eyes. And could guess why, too—knowledge of her uncle’s crime had overshadowed her interest in diplomacy. She wanted to be out of his house, out of his sphere, and she didn’t care who she offended on her way.
Yet.
But she would, in time. Mr. Roe controlled access to both Mrs. Roe and Bettina. Malcolm Roe could take away her family, if he had a mind to.
So Julian had insisted. And Sophie, who couldn’t refuse without telling him about her uncle’s betrayal, had chosen not to confide. A timely reminder that marriage and trust were not, alas, inseparable entities.
Malcolm Roe strode into the vestibule, upright and pinched as ever. The man looked as though he’d been born sucking on a lemon, but he was no fool—he sized up the situation at a glance and motioned Julian in the direction of his private study.
Julian let go of Sophie’s elbow and took a step in Mr. Roe’s direction, but an unexpected throb of fear made him stop and turn. She looked lovely, her heart-shaped face pale but for the wind-chapped flush on her cheeks and lips, her curly hair double the volume it had been when she’d climbed into his phaeton. Only her eyes, dark and unreadable as they followed him, spoiled the effect.
Julian had to fight to keep his arms at his side. To turn away and follow Malcolm Roe. He was right to consult Mr. Roe. He only had her well-being in mind. But what if he’d offended her enough to give her second thoughts?
“Our house is honored by your visit,” said Mr. Roe, offering Julian a dark brown, leather-upholstered armchair. He’d arranged his share of private space at Broadstone Cottage in imitation of a London club, dim and masculine, paintings of hunting scenes on the walls. All of it as dull and pretentious as the room’s owner.
“We’re family now.” Julian sank into the cushioned seat and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “No need to stand on ceremony.”
“Of course, we all appreciate your condescension.” Malcolm sat in an identical chair at a forty-five degree angle from Julian. The window behind his desk cast stripes of bright noon sunshine across the carpet that muffled the wooden floor. “How are you settling in?”
“With the greatest of ease.” Julian laced his fingers loosely over his knee. “The landscape has changed since I was last here. People rush to accommodate me; I have little occasion to practice even patience. The weightier virtues seem quite out of reach.”
“The perquisites of rank.” Mr. Roe chuckled, close-mouthed. “You’ve been in London this long while, though. Padley must make quite a change—the slower pace of life, the dearth of excitement.”
“Perhaps it will seem so eventually.” Julian hesitated. Mr. Roe was hinting at something and he wanted to find out what, but he couldn’t pursue it. He needed to finish this conversation, lest Sophie suspect some sort of collusion. “At present, however, I find my thoughts much occupied by your niece, Miss Sophia Roe.”
Mr. Roe reclined into the chair, propping his elbow on the plush armrest. Distancing himself; losing interest. “The renewal of your affection has been a welcome surprise.”
“Then you’ll be pleased to learn that she’s accepted my proposal of marriage.” Julian held up a hand, checking an immediate reply. “While I thought it right—considering her age and our history—to bring my suit first to her, I could not proceed without your blessing. May I count on it?”
“A union between the two of you is everything that we had wished for her, and feared lost long ago. In light of your new title… no, of course I don’t object.” Malcolm stood and offered his hand. “You have my blessing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Roe.” Julian rose and returned the handshake. “I haven’t forgotten your support ten years ago. I look forward to a happier conclusion to this engagement—for both our sakes.”
“As do I.” Mr. Roe slapped Julian lightly on the back and nodded toward the door. “Shall we go upstairs? My wife will want to congratulate you.”
Julian followed Malcolm, wond
ering what they’d find. Had Sophie shared the news, or would she wait for someone else to make the announcement? She’d seemed eager enough in the bluebell wood—better than eager; unrestrained and passionate as he hadn’t seen her since his return, though he could call up dozens of such memories from their youth—but all that could change.
Christ, he was a duke. Newly minted, but he should get his priorities in order. If he were going to do something as out-of-caste as marry for love, shouldn’t he pick a bride who loved him back? Of all the foolish choices he could have made…
And then he crossed the threshold of the drawing room and saw Sophie seated against the far wall, the dark eyes he’d set aglow not two hours before somber now, her skin milk-pale but her lips still swollen, and he stopped reading himself sermons.
He would have her, and he would keep her.
Mrs. Roe jumped to her feet and—drawing upon the age-old rights accorded to mothers over all the adults they’d once dandled as babies—threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely.
Thank God.
Sophie had told her news. She hadn’t tried to hide or prevaricate or change her mind.
“I knew it!” Mrs. Roe squeezed with all her strength before drawing just far back enough to beam at him. “The moment I saw you dancing, I knew.” She clasped her hands at her bosom. “Sophie and Peter, both married in one year. So much happiness, in such a short span of time.”
Julian followed Sophie’s absent, dreamy stare to the ensemble by the window—Peter Roe seated on a long fainting couch, flanked by Lady Honoria on one side and Bettina on the other. Young Mr. Roe had the puffed-up, proud look of a man who’d first discovered that his prick was good for something other than soiling linen, while Lady Honoria cooed and tittered, alternately preening and blushing under the combined regard of the family.
Ten years ago, that had been Sophie and him. But sex had made her more confident, and confidence had made her sly, a little vicious. He’d loved it. He’d probably learned it from her. The way she’d smile with her deep red lips, cheeks as round as apples, and he’d read wickedness in her eyes.
Poor Bettina heaved an exaggerated sigh and yawned.
Recalled to the present, Julian crossed the room and took a seat at Sophie’s side. “Wishing you could turn back time?”
She jumped in her seat. Whatever her thoughts, they’d been far away. She turned to consider him with a cool gaze that slid like melting snow from his crown to his neck.
Julian rarely had cause to doubt his own charms, but for a moment he was terrified. He would set himself happily against almost any other man on God’s green earth, but his confidence faltered in a competition with his younger self. He’d been a different and lesser man, but also a kinder and brighter one. A man he could never be again, and of whom he would always feel the loss.
“No,” Sophie replied, and Julian breathed a sigh of plain relief before he castigated himself: Sophie might be a walking palimpsest to him, a hundred versions of her layered one atop the other, but she saw him in the present.
She saw him in the present.
And she’d still agreed to marry him.
Mother of God.
Julian tried on a twinkling smile, a jester’s look. “You’re sure you’re not jealous?”
But his Sophie wasn’t fooled. She kept her eyes straight and solemn on his; the pupils a little dilated, it was true, but she’d lost most of her reluctance to look at him, somewhere along the way. “I like you better now. I see you better.”
Julian’s breath caught; to fight it, he chuckled and resumed his patter. “We thought we’d outsmarted everyone but… just look at them.” He nodded to Peter and Lady Honoria. “We must have been deluded. Anyone who can’t guess has never made love.”
“And what are they whispering about us right now?” Sophie swept the room with a glance.
“Vile things,” replied Julian. “Innocence is little more than an ill-founded faith in the ignorance of our elders, isn’t it?”
Sophie chuckled. “Did you set a date with my uncle?”
“That’s entirely up to you, my beloved,” Julian replied, with a scroll of his hands. “Banns or a common license?”
“Common license.”
“We could be married in a week,” he said.
Sophie took another look at the room and spoke with a laconic drawl. “What about half that?”
§
Julian returned from his visit to the Bishop at Lichfield with an ordinary license in his pocket and a solicitor in tow, an elderly gentleman currently seated in a position of prominence behind the desk in High Bend’s drafty ducal study.
Sophie had taken the seat opposite the solicitor, where she could watch him write.
One of the solicitor’s clerks sat next to Vasari Jones at a small desk introduced to the study for the duration of the meeting, while the Dowager Duchess slouched in a chair by the door.
Malcolm Roe had not been invited.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Julian said, interrupting Sophie and the solicitor’s discussion of the marriage settlement. He had been remarkably quiet up to this point. “Why must you have this factory in Derby?”
Sophie twisted in her chair to look at him. Julian reclined full-length along a sofa. He spoke with his crooked arms pillowing his head, one leg fully extended, heel on the sofa’s padded arm, the other bent with foot planted on the floor. His loose limbs and slack posture sent a clear message—he might be present for the discussion, but he had nothing to contribute.
Indeed, thus far the solicitor had cheerfully jotted down every one of Sophie’s demands—that she keep her inheritance from the ninth Duke of Clive, that she retain full control over Iron & Wine—without even looking to Julian for comment.
“I plan to start selling nibs as well as ink,” Sophie answered. “For that, I require employees. And a place to put them.”
“I know that. My question is: Why Derby? Would a factory here, near High Bend, be inadequate? Do you have some reason to prefer Derby to London? The duchy came to me complete with Mayfair townhouse. You’d at least have a home in London.” Julian frowned. “Jones, do I own any property in Derby?”
Jones began rifling through the piles of paper he’d assembled. “A great deal of it, Your Grace.”
“Do I own any factories?”
“Naturally. Several. None with a lease you can legally break,” Jones replied, with some asperity. “Nor, I am sorry to say, do you possess there any homes fit for a duchess.”
“You see?” Julian raised his eyebrows. “So why Derby? Have I failed to grasp some practical necessity?”
“It seemed the logical choice at the time,” Sophie replied, smoothing her skirts. Logical when her first priority had been fleeing her uncle and Julian—though now she’d accomplish the first through marriage, and the latter not at all.
She knew the lie of the land in Derby. The city was familiar to her, its shops and industry, and it lay close to the sources of steel that would furnish supplies for Charlotte’s nib making. Not to speak of the highways that carried her ink as far north as Scotland and as far south as Plymouth.
But if she could manage in Padley with ink, she could certainly manage here with nibs. “What about the old smeltery over by the Balk Wood? The one on Littlemoor Lane?”
“What about it?” Julian asked.
“Unless Clive the Ninth sold the property, it belongs to you now. The smeltery is the right size, and unused. I could adapt it for my purposes.”
“Give me a minute,” said Mr. Jones, rifling through a different stack of papers. After a moment, he nodded. “Yes. It was included in the entail.”
“Excellent,” Julian said. “Take that property. Altogether more convenient.”
“But what if Iron & Wine outgrows it—or practical necessity requires that we relocate to a larger city?”
“May I suggest a solution?” interposed the solicitor. “I could note in the settlement that, so long as His Gra
ce possesses a suitable property, he will make it available to Miss Roe for her use at a reasonable rate.” He glanced at Sophie. “But that, should his wife so choose at any time, he will guarantee a property she selects, at any alternate location.”
“Sophie?” Julian asked.
Sophie nodded. “That’s quite satisfactory.”
“What else is there to decide?” Julian asked. “If you have any further requests, Miss Roe, now is the time.”
Sophie frowned. Julian had made such a show of disinterest that she’d been afraid to ride roughshod over him. Instead, she’d taken it upon herself to be reasonable in her demands. She’d safeguarded herself and looked to the future, to the possibility of a family, but no more.
With Iron & Wine she’d been selfish, but she didn’t know any other way.
“I have nothing more to ask for,” she said. It felt strange to say those words. Ominous.
“One moment.” The solicitor handed the document he’d scribed to his clerk, who quickly made three clean copies in neat, no-frills cursive. When they were complete, Julian, Sophie, and Vasari Jones all signed the agreements.
“A pleasure.” The solicitor collected two copies. “And may I wish you happy?”
The clerk whispered to the solicitor as they began to file out of the room and the older man turned with an apologetic cough. “My clerk would like to know the source of the ink you supplied this afternoon—was it Iron & Wine?”
“Indeed.” Sophie smiled. “Please take a moment to visit our shop in Padley before you go. You can tell my assistant, Mr. Max Dawe, that I offered you a complimentary bottle.”
The solicitor and clerk exchanged a look; the solicitor shrugged before making his exit. Vasari Jones followed behind.
“I’ll give you two a few minutes of privacy,” the Dowager Duchess said, gliding toward the door. She rolled her fine, dark eyes at Julian. “Maybe you can explain to your fiancée that peddlers are a class of people duchesses enjoy the luxury of avoiding, not one that we aspire to join.”