As Luck Would Have It (10 page)

It took all Sophie’s self-control to keep a straight face. She thought she was safe once the couple turned their backs to leave, but then Mirabelle shot a look over her shoulder of such exaggerated innocence that Sophie was forced to make for the nearest balcony doors.

It was a convenient escape, and one she might need to utilize later in the night. She’d already made the prerequisite trip to the washroom, and discovered the only locked door in the main hall was, unfortunately, directly across from the billiards room. It was safe to bet that the room was already packed with gentlemen seeking a respite from the ballroom. There was no way she could sneak into the study through the door.

There were also Mrs. Summers and the other chaperones to contend with. They had claimed a strategic corner of the room that allowed their charges free range of the ballroom, but left no chance of one of them sneaking down the hall or out the patio doors into the garden without being seen. The chaperones’ view of the dance floor was somewhat limited, but they definitely had both exits covered.

Sophie sighed and peered over the edge of the balcony. It wasn’t more than a six-foot drop to the ground. She could manage that well enough. Of course, it might be easier to enter the garden from the other side of the ballroom and work her way around, but it was dark out and some of these larger homes had hedge mazes. The possibility of becoming lost in a dark maze was too nightmarish to consider.

Besides, it was a private little balcony, and she was less likely to be spotted than if she had to trudge through God only knew how many well-lit garden paths.

Sophie peeked back into the ballroom. The orchestra had moved on to a new dance, and Mirabelle had moved on to another partner. Beyond that, little had changed. Which, to Sophie’s mind—and absolute disgust, translated neatly into this: a certain gentleman had yet to arrive.

She really—really and truly—needed to stop concerning herself over Lord Rockeforte. She ought to be giving her full attention to saving Whitefield. She was being paid by the Prince Regent himself after all, or at least on his behalf, and here she was fretting, not over her newly acquired position as spy, and not over her tenuous grip on her ancestral home, but
over a man. A man who, no doubt, viewed her as just another conquest.

Sophie straightened her shoulders, hauled up her skirts, and began maneuvering over the balcony railing. She was going to break into Lord Patton’s study, and then she was going to go home.

The prospect of wasting a perfectly good evening in an overcrowded room making inane conversation with people he generally disliked usually caused Alex to break out in a mental cold sweat. But after Sophie said she’d planned to be at the Patton ball, Alex had immediately sent his regrets to the Wycotts for their musicale.

He hated balls. Well and truly hated them.

There may have been a time in his youth when he looked forward to such an event, to dance and flirt with all the pretty young misses, to tease and shock all the staid matrons, but what ever joy he might have once found in such activities had disappeared long ago under the onslaught of matchmaking mamas, simpering debutantes, and toad-eating idiots, each and every one of them enthralled with his title and wealth without having the slightest idea of who he was or what he did.

Having people trip over themselves to please you is a grand thing indeed at the age of ten; at twenty, it’s amusing; by thirty, it’s embarrassing and offensive. Admittedly, there were some exceptions to the rule. There were people, like Mrs. Peabody, who remained singularly unimpressed with the notion that an individual’s finest attributes could be accomplished at birth. Alex’s close friends were similarly uninterested in his title, unless they could somehow work it into a joke at his expense.

And now Sophie. The British miss in her automatically relied on proper decorum when dealing with a peer of the realm, but with the right encouragement, that facade slipped away to reveal an opinionated and, he rather fancied, passionate woman.

To night, he was actually looking forward to a ball, and she was the reason. He wanted to see that woman emerge again. And again…and again. And he wanted to be the one who brought her to light.

He arrived at the ball fashionably late. It would have been a fair bit past fashionable if he had been anyone other than a duke. First, he had been required to change his cravat after dribbling some port on it in a very unducal manner, then change his shoes after stepping in a puddle on the way to his carriage, and finally to wait for a change of carriage after the first was discovered to have cracked a wheel.

He
was
a duke, however, and therefore quite fashionable regardless of the time he might deem to arrive. Arrive, he eventually did, and with a smile on his face. Even the eve ning’s misadventures had failed to dampen his good mood.

After a half hour of trying and failing, however, to locate Sophie, Alex’s smile had descended to a grimace. If one more bloody fool asked him where he had gotten his cravat pin…

“Why do you come to these events, then stand there looking as if the effort has caused you physical pain?”

The sound of Whit’s voice brought him out of his musings. He was behaving irrationally. Probably the girl had gone to the ladies’ retiring room and gotten caught up in a bit of gossip. He’d find her eventually. He just needed to exercise a little patience. He could do that.

Surely, he could do that.

“Ah, much better,” Whit commented in an exceedingly jovial, and therefore exceedingly annoying manner. “You were starting to upset the young ladies, you know.”

“Not nearly enough to keep their mamas away.”

Whit continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “I was beginning to fear you might go for someone’s throat.”

Alex threw his friend a quelling glance. “Don’t tempt me, Whit.”

“Speaking of throats, is that a new pin?”

To hell with patience. “Have you seen Sophie?”

Whit shrugged. “Not recently. I saw her step onto that balcony a while ago. Alone, in case you’re interested, but I’m sure she’s gone by now. Have you seen the imp?”

“Mirabelle? No, why?”

Whit grimaced. “I promised my mother I’d dance at least once with the little hellion to night.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you put aside your grudge?”

Whit looked genuinely surprised at the notion. “What ever for?”

Alex resisted the urge to slap the back of his friend’s head. “She’s an unmarried female with a drunken uncle for a guardian, Whit. She needs a champion.”

Whit looked at him as if he were a complete stranger. A completely insane complete stranger. “Are we speaking of the same girl? Brown hair, brown eyes, tongue of an adder? Because she
has
a champion—I believe he goes by the name Lucifer.”

Alex knew he wasn’t going to win this argument.

“Go dance, Whit.”

“Determined to find fair Sophie, are you?”

Alex nodded curtly. If she’d been in the ladies’ retiring room, she should be done by now.

“Happy hunting,” Whit chimed jovially. “I’m off to slay a dragon myself.”

Alex headed toward the balcony without bothering to reply. Whit’s little joke had struck a nerve. His obsession with Sophie was becoming absurd. It was one thing to look forward to seeing her, but chasing her like a hound after a fox was another thing altogether. It was ridiculous, laughable. Damned humiliating. And he fervently hoped no one else would notice, because he had no intention of stopping until he ran her to ground.

It wasn’t going to happen on the balcony. Just as Whit predicted, Sophie had already abandoned that sanctuary. In his frustration, Alex began making wild plans to storm the retiring room—most of which would have involved taking out
his temper on the door—but eventually the cool night air managed to clear his head, and he decided on the more tactful, and infinitely less embarrassing, approach of asking Mirabelle to go in and have a look.

Alex turned to leave, but a movement in the darkness below him stopped him short.

Sophie. Alone in the garden and looking rather lost. Alex smiled slowly and wondered if he looked anywhere near as predatory as he felt.

“Tallyho,” he whispered. Then with the grace of a large cat, he slipped over the side.

Sophie heard the whoosh of air just before Alex hit the ground not three feet in front of her.

“Good Lord almighty!”

“Hush, someone will hear you.”

At the moment, that possibility seemed much less important than willing her heart back to its natural rhythm. It took several moments to accomplish this. Her next priority was to beat the laughing man standing before her to a bloody pulp.

“Ouch! Stop that!”

“Stop that?”
Whack.
“Stop that!”
Thump.
“That’s all you can say?”
Whack.
“Hush and stop that?”
Thu—

“Enough,” Alex laughed, grabbing her flailing wrists in his hands.

“You nearly scared me to death!”

“I don’t think that’s possible. Unless you have a weak heart. You don’t, do you?” He didn’t look overly concerned by the notion. Amused was more like it. And tidy, the bastard. He had landed on his feet as if jumping off balconies were routine exercise. She had rolled right into the hedge grove.

And all for what, exactly? She hadn’t found a blasted thing in Mr. Patton’s study. She had climbed through the window, gone through every drawer and cabinet, and come up empty-handed. Then, she’d had to climb back out the window only to discover the two ser vice entrances at the back of the house
had actual servants milling about on the other side. And that had forced her to come all the way back around—

“Sophie?”

She glanced up. Alex looked a little anxious now. Good. She should let him stew a bit, it would serve him right. She stifled a sigh. No, it wouldn’t. For all she knew, his mother might have died of heart failure.

“Soph—”

“No,” she snapped, pulling her wrists free, “I do not have a weak heart. Although you should have considered the possibility before leaping out at me like some sort of crazed orangutan.”

“Crazed what?”

“Orang—”

“I heard you actually. I was just surprised. Most young ladies have never even heard of an orangutan, let alone used one in a simile.”

“I am not ‘most young ladies.’”

“So I’ve noticed,” he said, rubbing his chest ruefully. “Who taught you how to throw a punch?”

“Mr. Wang.”

“He must be a quite an instructor. That thing you did with your knuckles…impressive.”

“He’s a master, and he had a dedicated pupil. If I had really wanted to hurt you,” she sniffed, “I could have.”

Alex grinned at her. “I don’t doubt it.”

It took considerable effort to force her face into a scowl.

Now that the shock of his dramatic appearance was wearing off, it was becoming difficult to stay mad at him. There was something delightfully wicked in being alone in a garden with a known rake. Especially when that rake was doing his best to charm her.

And she
was
rather proud of the skills Mr. Wang had taught her.

“So, tell me, my little pugilist, what were you doing all alone in the garden?”

A little devil whispered in her ear at just that second, and it must have been persuasive because she schooled her face into a slightly haughty expression and, in an uncharacteristically coy voice, said, “How do you know I was all alone?”

Alex’s grin was gone in a flash. “Weren’t you?”

She shrugged nonchalantly and, turning her back to him, walked a bit away to inspect a rose bush. It was a silly affectation in a silly game, but it garnered the most interesting results.

“Answer my question, Sophie,” he snapped.

Ooh, but this was fun.

She shrugged again and bent down to smell one of the blooms. “Maybe I was, and maybe I wasn’t. What concern is it of yours?”

She thought she heard him growl something that sounded like “good question,” but she was too intent on acting disinterested to insist he speak up.

She did hear him swear though.

“Who is he, Sophie?” he barked from behind her. “One of those ridiculous fops, or that libertine Lord—
Stop
shrugging your shoulders at me!”

He was upon her in two quick strides. She hadn’t even time to fully straighten before he grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her around, and pulled her roughly against him.

“Who?” he demanded.

“Um…” Although the game was still interesting, she wasn’t certain it still qualified as fun.

“You are not, I repeat,
not
to meet men,
any
man, in
any
garden alone,” he ordered with a high-handedness that almost equaled his temper. “Do I—”

“Except you, of course,” she pointed out. Any sensible girl would have known that now was a good time to keep her mouth firmly shut and simply nod in agreement. Sophie had always thought herself a reasonably sensible girl, but at the moment she was willing to reconsider. Alex’s fingers tightened on her upper arms. His head bent until their faces were
inches apart and she could see the outline of her reflection in his green eyes.

“Do I make myself clear?” he ground out.

She swallowed, or tried to, as her mouth had suddenly gone rather dry. “Yes,” she rasped.

“Good. I forbid it.”

Well now,
that
just begged for a response.

“Well now,
that
—”

Alex bent his head and kissed her. Whether it was to silence her, or simply because he wanted to, she didn’t know. Nor did she care, because
this
was her first real kiss.

And it was amazing. It wasn’t the gentle pressing of lips she had always imagined kissing to be, and to be honest, she had done a good deal of imagining. No, this kiss was forceful, wild, incredible. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her against him, molding her form against his length. Sophie lost all sense of reason, all sense of time and place, lost everything but the ability to feel.

Her hands found his chest, his neck, his face. Her fingers speared into his hair, brushing through that endearing lock in front that she’d wanted to touch for days now, and tangling in the back as she struggled to bring him closer. She could never be close enough for this, close enough to him. He groaned and nipped her bottom lip. Something hot settled in her chest and spread down to her toes.