Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03] (24 page)

What if she continued the lie forever—for all the rest of her life!—and never, ever confessed to anyone that she was not, in fact, Miss Sophie Blake, great-granddaughter to Sir Hamish Pickering? What if she never went back to being who she truly was, a mere servant girl, a lady’s companion to the fretful, demanding Mrs. Blake—who was, in fact, mother of poor, sickly, long-dead little Sophie?

What if she married Graham and won the Pickering fortune for him and all his desolate, neglected people?

There was no time to hesitate, to mull over her choices. Just as before, when she’d opened the post as
usual and found the money sent from Lady Tessa for Sophie’s debut, the moment called for immediate action.

Deirdre was about to become the Duchess of Brookmoor. It might already have happened, which thought brought new panic to Sophie’s chest. No, she had to believe that she’d been brought here to see this place, this need, for a reason.

Deirdre didn’t truly need the money. Calder was a wealthy and generous man.

You can diminish it all you like, but there’s no avoiding the fact that you’ll be stealing from someone who trusts you. You’ll be robbing one of the few people on this earth who has ever cared about you at all
.

Moira’s thin face appeared in her mind, gray with fatigue and wear, though the woman had confessed that she was actually younger than she herself was!

No, it was necessary, all of it. If she didn’t force Graham to wed her before the elderly Duke of Brookmoor died and made Calder duke in his stead, she wouldn’t be able to help any of them.

Not even herself.

BY THE TIME
they reached the manor the day was gone. All that was visible was the long white drive in the moonlight and the dark lump that was the sleeping horse in the green sward. Graham laughingly helped Sophie back through the open window, but when the walls rose hushed and vast around them he became silent.

His helping hand slid from hers slowly, as if he were being pulled away. Sophie didn’t cling, though she felt
colder without him next to her. There was time enough, she hoped. Together they walked up the graciously curving stair in the darkness. Graham walked her to “her” door, then stopped.

She couldn’t see him but she could feel his tension as if he were tied to her. When he spoke, his voice was low and full of regret.

“This isn’t right, Sophie. Tomorrow we must return to London. Perhaps we can persuade the Brook House staff to believe you’ve been at Primrose Street all along.”

Sophie closed her eyes to better feel his mood. Was it regret that they must return, or regret that they were there in the first place? It didn’t matter. Soon enough they might both have something to regret. She only hoped he would forgive her when she won the inheritance.

“Goodnight, Graham.”

He hesitated, then she felt his palm, warm and large, cup her cheek. It was a kiss, of sorts. Her hopes rose. Perhaps he might forgive her sooner than later?

Then he was gone, a mere shadow in darkness. She heard the next door open, then shut behind him. Only then did she put her hand on her own latch and let herself into the duchess’s bedchamber. Once inside, she could see very well, for the moon poured through the window much the way the sunlight had this morning. In that light, she rinsed her face in the cold bathwater and used a bristle brush she found in the vanity to tame her tangled hair. She ought to have been cold without a fire, but her plan heated her through every time she contemplated it.

At last she deemed enough time had passed. Stripping herself of all but Graham’s shirt, which fell nearly to her knees, she shook out her hair and straightened. She didn’t have Lementeur’s magic to dazzle him with, or Patricia’s skill to hide her flaws, but the darkness would hide most of that. She would have what she truly needed.

Loving Graham had come so easily to her that she wasn’t sure precisely when it had transformed from a longing to a fantasy to a need so powerful that she would toss her already shabby ethics into the chamber pot in order to have him. She could lie to the world, but she was done lying to herself. Her heroic mission to save his people was a dim flame next to the inferno of her own selfish desires.

So be it.

At the last moment, she stopped to kneel next to her hearth. After a search with the poker, she found a live coal among the ashes. She scooped it out with the ash shovel and dropped it into the half-filled scuttle Graham had left there earlier. She may not have been feeling the cold but Graham might.

Then she eyed the adjoining door set into the elegant paneling of the wall, the one a duke might use to visit his duchess. Taking a deep breath, she put her hand on the latch and pushed.

GRAHAM HAD GONE
to bed cold and hungry and desperately conflicted. The combination was enough to give him the strangest dream.

First and foremost, he was warm. Delicious heat shimmered on his skin, making him stretch languorously. Then there was a delightful soft weight upon him, stretched along one side of his body. Soft against his hardness—and by God he was hard!—a touch stroked over his pectorals, teasing the hair there, then traveled slowly and tantalizingly down . . . down . . .

It slowed, then stopped short. He writhed upward, pressing into it, impatient for those long, teasing fingers to wrap themselves around his throbbing cock.

This was one of his favorite dreams ever.

The hand spread warm and gentle over his belly, but didn’t truly retreat. Yes, anticipation was better.
Make me wait. Make me ache
.

Then the lips came to his. He moaned then, the sound echoing strangely through the dream. What?

A soft wet mouth opened over his and he forgot his uneasiness instantly. So teasing, so giving and wet—damn, he loved Sophie’s mouth!

In that instant he realized that he’d had this dream before. In the past months he’d dreamed it again and again, but it had never been so real, so hot and damp and breathless until the sound of their mingled panting echoed from the high walls of the duke’s bedchamber—

What?

Wait. No, don’t wake up. Don’t be an idiot. Keep dreaming
.

Too late.

Awareness came crashing in like a cold ocean breaker. He was at Edencourt with Sophie. Worse yet, he was in bed with Sophie.

No, it got worse. He was
tied up
in bed—trussed by both wrists to the bedposts, by God!—with Sophie spread onto him like jam on toast, her hands roving shyly but hungrily over him while her mouth teased his.

He drew back from her lips, his expression aghast. “Sophie?”

The horror in Graham’s eyes could not be mistaken. Sophie’s insides turned to ice.

A plain stick like you
—
who’d want you?

No man wants a giraffe
.

No, of course he wouldn’t. Her skin crawling at the revulsion he must be feeling, she slid from the bed, pulling the coverlet off to wrap about her. She wanted to blurt apologies, she wanted to cry, she wanted very much to not be standing in his room in the middle of the night with the silk cold against her bare, repulsive skin.

Her borrowed shirt lay pooled on the floor at her feet. She knelt, awkward in her haste, to pull desperately at the wad of linen. It tangled instantly in her hands, of course, then blurred completely. She stopped pawing at it and let her head drop to her bent knees, her eyes burning in defeat and humiliation.

Sophie Blake had done it again.

God, she hated Sophie Blake.

“Ah . . . Sophie . . .”

She flinched at Graham’s voice. “Never speak of this. Ever.”

“Sophie—”

She flung up a hand, her head still bowed. “I’m serious, Graham.”

“God damn it, Sophie, untie me this instant!”

It was a rasping whisper, not a bellow, but it had much the same effect. Startled, Sophie overbalanced completely, sprawling on the carpet in a tangle of coverlet and nudity.

From where he lay on the bed, Graham saw a stunning flash of long elegant limbs leading up to a deliciously pert bottom, all bound in porcelain skin and amber silk. The momentary glimpse of sinuous waist and small, high perfect breasts came as a delightful second course as she scrambled to cover herself with the shimmering curtain of her ginger hair. The erotic jolt to his already taxed self-control made his eyes glassy and his breath come short.

Then he clenched his eyes shut against the sight of Sophie—his
Sophie!
—naked on the carpet of his bedchamber.

When he felt cold fingers fumbling at his bonds, he dared to crack one eye open—no, no good. She’d bound herself so tightly in the coverlet that her bosom pressed high, right into his vision as she leaned over him to reach the bedpost opposite. Praying that God would have mercy on him and dilute his raging erection sometime in the next several seconds, he kept his eyes dutifully shut against all the things he should not be seeing.

That didn’t help against all the things he should not be feeling, like the way she pressed one knee between his in order to reach across, spreading his thighs apart and ensuring that the dragging silk of the coverlet swept across his swollen cock with her slightest movement.

Or the way her skin smelled of plain soap and water—practical, no nonsense Sophie—and how that crisp scent did absolutely nothing to hide the darker perfume of heated, aroused woman.

Would he ever be able to smell soap again without an immediate rush of heat to his groin?

Would he ever be able to look at Sophie in her demurely sweeping skirts and not remember how long and lean her thighs were, or how her small breasts were topped with the most delicious ruby pink nipples he’d ever have the pleasure to dream fruitlessly about for the rest of his life?

And what about that age-old question, the one pondered by men the world over, the one he’d shut his eyes before answering to his satisfaction—were the silken curls between those lovely thighs composed of the same ginger gold as on her head?

It might not be too late to find out
.

Lecher.

Oy! I’m the one tied up here. It wouldn’t be my fault if I had to open my eyes, just for a second, and the silk slipped again, just for a second
—
do you think she’d drop it again if I startle her?

Reprobate. This was
Sophie
.

Yeah, I know. Naked, damp, stunningly assembled Sophie . . . in my bedchamber in the middle of the night of her own volition. Who’d know?

He would.

Well, there’s that. And I suppose Sophie might remember it as well. I suppose I’ll just have to list this one under “Opportunity Missed.”

Bloody right.

It’s a pretty short list. I’m not actually all that honorable, you know
.

He was now.

Am I going to keep this inner argument up for long?

Only until she finished untying him and was safely off the bed.

Good, because the old pistol is pretty close to firing
.

Don’t remind me
.

Then he felt the loss of her heat and scent and felt her slight weight leave the mattress, mere seconds from causing him to embarrass himself rather thoroughly. His hands, now unbound, were still clenched in fists of sheer will not to touch her. He kept them that way as he slitted his eyes to make sure she was safely away.

She was across the room with her back pressed to the door and her bundle of shirt and coverlet clutched protectively before her. Her head was turned, her face hidden by shadow, her hair reflecting the coals with copper glints. She looked both fierce and captive, furious and demoralized.

Sweet stubborn Sophie.

Delicious Sophie.

This was, indeed, a pickle.

Graham threw back the remaining covers and swung one leg over the edge of the bed, putting one foot to the floor. At his sudden motion, she startled like a deer.

And like a deer, long-legged in its fright, she scrambled suddenly for escape.

He tackled her, catching her in mid-flight and swinging her around to trap her against the door, his hands pinning her wrists over her head. He didn’t wish to hurt her but he knew that if she made it out of the room, her imagined rejection would harden to stone and become permanent in that stubborn mind of hers.

She struggled fiercely, writhing against him. She wasn’t weak but he merely used his big body to capture her resistance. Pressing her to the door, he laughed. “Play nice, Sophie. Don’t force me to tie
you
up!”

She went perfectly still but her heart began to race next to his. He felt her nipples harden in a blink, poking into his pectorals like faceted rubies. An image filled his mind of Sophie, clad in something skimpy and trimmed in lace, her long, elegant limbs tied spread-eagle on his giant bed, blindfolded and submissive while
he had his wicked way with her over and over again. His cock hardened, pressing to her belly with only the silk of the tenuously lingering coverlet between them.

Would she like that? The faint sound that came from her throat made him think perhaps she might.

I am surely going to hell
.

Then enjoy the ride. Grab the reins and race into the night. Stop stalling and fidgeting and pretending there is anyone else in the world you could spend your life with. Mount and ride, lad
.

Could it be that easy?

Why . . . yes, it could.

His conflict melted away like snow in the sunlight. He had no choice. She had, with one act, quite efficiently decided the matter for him, hadn’t she?

Thank God.

With nothing more than a slight movement away from her, he let the meager obstacle of the coverlet slip from between them, leaving her bare and shivering and completely in his power.

Or perhaps it was the other way around.

Without setting her free, he took another step back and gazed at her nakedness frankly. Even in the firelight he could tell she was blushing furiously.

Sophie shut her eyes tightly and waited. She’d humiliated herself and assaulted him and now she must pay the price. As the moment lengthened and nothing else happened, she couldn’t help but twitch impatiently. She felt the gust of Graham’s laughter warm against her cheek.