Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03] (6 page)

She pulled it away slowly. Something serious was afoot. “Graham, are you all right?” She started to lift the blindfold. “What is it?”

“Nothing . . . nothing at all.” Graham pulled her fingers away from the blindfold and returned her hand to his cheek and held it there.
Not yet. It is not real yet
. Closing his own eyes, he concentrated on the feel of Sophie’s cool hand on his cheek.

Sophie lived so safely, so sheltered. So much unknown. Did she even know the difference between a man’s skin and a woman’s? Had she ever felt a cool-running stream against her bare, summer-heated skin? That was only the innocent sensuality of childhood. What of the satin slickness of hot skin, open lips, the volcanic heat of flesh on flesh?

His trousers tightened at such thoughts—damn, it had
been weeks!—and without realizing it, his fingertips changed their intent from innocent demonstration to practiced seduction. His hand slid down her wrist to the sensitive inner elbow, his touch slow and purposeful.

Sophie couldn’t breathe. His hands were all she could feel. One pressed her palm to his cheek, tugging slightly but implacably. She gave in instantly, eagerly, unable to do anything else. The other hand was flame on her skin, leaving trails of shimmering embers behind it as it moved higher, until the back of his hand brushed the side of her small breast.

Her lungs might not be in service but her heart was racing. She felt her skin wrapped about her as she’d never known it before. She could feel the throb of her own heartbeat in her ears, in her throat, in the pulse that fluttered beneath his exploring fingers.

Wild, furious desire swept her, making her belly tremble and her toes curl inside her slippers. Flesh tightened and throbbed and dampened in ways new and exciting—and frightening, too, for she never wanted it to end. Dreams never dared, wants never acknowledged, longings she had choked and imprisoned burst free, vengeful in their intensity. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think—

With a flailing motion of her other hand, she pulled the blindfold off. Her eyes flew open, locking gazes with his. Her dry mouth worked to unstick her tongue. “
Please
. . . ”

The shock of intensity in Sophie’s eyes reverberated through Graham.
All right. Yes
.

Then . . .
What are you doing, you rotter? Why
are you seducing this girl
—
to take your mind off your debt?

Oh God, he was a bounder, through and through. Too many hours closeted with her, too many evenings of freedom and casual intimacy. He drew back, shutting away his reaction to her plea, revising it, deliberately misinterpreting it. “Yes, of course. I’m stopping. My apologies.”

He stood slowly, willing his near-erection to subside before he made it all the way upright. He needn’t have worried, for Sophie’s gaze was now locked on her hands, tightly twined in her lap.

Fool! Silly, stupid, unrealistic fool!
Thank heaven he’d misunderstood her patent begging. She was obviously not as immune as she’d thought, but she hadn’t realized that she would spread herself on the carpet for him at the slightest touch!

Why worry about such a thing happening? He was bored
—
playing a child’s game. He doesn’t want you
.

Graham turned away, ashamed of himself and worse, reminded of what he’d been trying so hard to forget. The brief moment of respite had only made matters worse, for the totality of his situation came crashing down on him like the crumbling stones of Edencourt itself.

He rubbed both hands over his face. “Ah, Sophie. I’m sorry. I’m . . . I’m not myself today, I fear.”

She cleared her throat behind him. “Why . . .” He heard her move, the rustle of her plain muslin gown moving away from him. As she should, after that display of selfishness on his part.

She continued. “Why aren’t you yourself?”

He laughed shortly. “A funny thing happened after I left here last night . . .” He didn’t want to say it out loud. Telling Sophie had a way of making things real—but perhaps it was time to do so. “My father is dead.”

“Oh, how terrible!” Her voice warmed again, which only made him feel worse. “No wonder you’re not being the Graham I know.”

That made him laugh out loud, a sharp bark of near hysteria, if she knew the truth of it. “My eldest brother died with him.”

Now she moved before him, putting a hand on his arm. “Oh, Graham!”

He covered his mouth with one hand, pressing back more hysteria that pressed upward. Now she was gazing at him in wary confusion. “A double tragedy,” she said. “How sad.”

Laughter, desperate and panicked, began to fight its way free. “There’s more—!”

Sophie drew back and folded her arms, staring at him. “Gray, just spit it out.”

“They’re all gone.” His voice, strained already from resisting the laughter, broke oddly on the word “gone.” He rubbed at his face again. His hand came away wet. He inhaled deeply, alarmed by his own lack of balance.

And then Sophie was there, taking his hand in hers, leading him to a seat—nearly shoving him, actually—and kneeling at his feet.

He was about to thank her for staying close when he realized that he had her hand tightly in his. His knuckles were white with force but she made no sign of pain. He eased his grip. “I’m sorry.”

She reached toward him. He leaned closer.
Yes
. She placed one hand on his chest—and pulled his handkerchief free of his breast pocket. “Here,” she said calmly. “You’re dripping.”

He was dripping. It didn’t seem right to use the word “weeping,” for he felt calm enough except for the remaining unbalanced laughter and the tendency for his eyes to leak.

He looked at Sophie. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

She nodded in unruffled sympathy. “Yes. You’re all alone now.”

He tamped down on more wild hysteria. “No. I mean . . . yes, I’m alone. But more importantly, for I’ve virtually been alone all along . . . I’m the new Duke of Edencourt.”

Sophie had always wondered why people used the word “heartbreak.” Hearts raced and sometimes stopped, but how could a muscle break?

Completely without effort, it seemed.

She’d thought herself immune. She’d arrogantly assumed that because she didn’t have a lover that she wouldn’t feel love.

What an idiot she was.

Through the pounding in her head and the roaring in her ears, she heard Graham say her name. He sounded so far away.

He is, farther than he’s ever been
.

And he’s not coming back
.

The room that had once seemed a refuge against a hostile world now surrounded Sophie in all its tawdry dilapidation and deceit. Her sanctuary was only a room in a cheap, rented house and her prince was simply a man she couldn’t have.

“Of course, there isn’t a penny to be had,” Graham was saying lightly, as if it were of no consequence. “All that land and not a bit of it offering up my just deserts as duke.”

Money. He was talking about money—when he ought to have heard the crystalline shattering of her heart from across the room?

What did you expect of a man like him and a woman like you?

“So it seems,” he went on to say, “that I must marry immediately and marry rich, if I please to continue living in the manner to which I am accustomed.”

Well. Thrice an idiot in a single afternoon. She’d thought her heart could break no more. She was truly going to have to learn not to make such naive assumptions.

“Marry,” she repeated flatly.

“Yes.” His gaze was on the view through the window—or perhaps much farther than that. All the way to Lady Lilah Christie’s house?

“Who?”

He blinked, his surprise bringing him back to the parlor, back to her. He grinned crookedly and shrugged, his hands held wide. “I haven’t the foggiest notion, I fear.” He tried to bring back his former teasing tone. “Why don’t you pick for me, lover? Preferably someone I can stand for more than an hour at a time.”

He didn’t mean to be cruel. She had to believe that. If she’d needed further illustration of just how far out of her reach he was, all she had to do was look in a mirror!

Enough!

She stood abruptly. When had she seated herself? She couldn’t remember. “I’m sorry, Graham—ah—Your Grace. I just realized the time. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve so much to do today . . .”

Ridiculous excuse, when he’d caught her napping on the windowseat not an hour past. He was too polite to say so, but only bowed and made the proper apologies for keeping her. She nodded, trying to keep the frantic need to flee from her manner.

“If you don’t mind showing yourself out—?” A swing of her arm toward the door and the porcelain vase—which had never been in any danger in all the hours they’d spent together in this room—sailed several feet to shatter against the wall.

Sophie jerked away from the crash. No. Not now.
Please not now
.

It was no use. In her hasty withdrawal, she sent the small side table toppling, the crystal inhabitants of its top smashing themselves on the floor as well.

“Sophie—”

She felt his hand warm on her arm, the concern in his voice—or the pity?

Unbearable
.

She jerked away from him, sending the embroidered footstool shooting across the room with a random spasm of her ankle, then tripping over the edge of the carpet to nearly plant her face in the wood of the parlor door.

“So sorry, must be off—” She had to get out get out get out—

Then she was on the stairs, skirts held high in one hand, feet mercifully sure on the narrow treads. Her chamber, as bare as a cell in a convent, was blessedly empty of breakables.

Good-bye, Graham
.

She wished she was the sort of female who could throw herself across the bed and weep copiously. Alas, she could only sit, cold hands twisting in her lap, as she faced the end of a dream she hadn’t even realized she had.

She’d thought herself adjusted to the idea that he would never be more than a lovely fancy and she’d determined to enjoy it for as long as she could, then walk away with no regrets. She’d thought herself realistic, yet though she’d known he would never want her, she hadn’t a clue how devastated she would be when he chose someone else.

Good-bye forever
.

He would find someone soon, for what more did any rich family want but to use their money to purchase a title?

Just like Sir Hamish Pickering.

Sophie paused as it dawned on her.
No
. She couldn’t do it. There was no possibility that she could convince Graham to marry her without breaking the conditions of the will by telling him—which would cost Deirdre her chance as well.

No, the money was Deirdre’s, not hers. It was as good as decided, for Deirdre’s husband would be duke soon enough, and Deirdre had won him without cheating in the slightest. For Sophie to now steal it away with tricks would be too unfair.

The quiet of the room pressed down on her. Silence. Isolation. She ought to be accustomed to it by now.

She’d best become so, for she wouldn’t have much of a future if the world found out how she’d taken the money sent by Tessa to come to London without telling a soul, unaccompanied and unallowed. Unwanted.

The future of a woman alone in England was an uncertain and dangerous one. Sophie had seen how the orphanage near Acton had turned its grown girls out with nothing but a dress, a meal tied in a handkerchief and barely enough reading ability to follow signs on the road.

Some found work in the fields or even in Acton’s kitchens, and some disappeared entirely. Some traveled to find work in the factories—hard, filthy work that left young women old before their time. Some reemerged later as victims of violence and murder and
some became pale faces in the windows of bordellos in the city.

She had a few more advantages than that. She had a lady’s education and a lady’s standing. That standing actually worked against her, however, for a relative of the Duke of Brookmoor would hardly make an acceptable governess. She might secure a place as a lady’s companion, but that too closely resembled what she’d run away from in Acton.

She could sponge off Deirdre or Phoebe, be their household fixture as she aged and stultified. She could just see herself now, her spectacles thick from too much reading, her curling hair gone grizzled, her mind frayed from a lifetime of not mattering to anyone, lurking in unused portions of the great house, mumbling translations to herself.

Mad Cousin Sophie, the Wicked Witch of the West Wing. After all, the nobility wouldn’t be the nobility without the required mad relative or two, would it?

Unless she did something about it first. . . .

After all, there was no reason she shouldn’t take advantage of her final weeks here to find a husband of her own. Not love, certainly, but she couldn’t stay here and she couldn’t return to Acton.

There were men . . . out there. Men who might not mind a hardworking, plain sort of woman who wasn’t too good to step foot in a kitchen.

“You could wipe them all from the minds of Society if you wished it, my darling. All you need do is say the word and I will make you my muse, my
pièce de résistance,
my masterpiece!”

A wild recklessness rose in her as she remembered the words of the premier dressmaker in all of London. She’d had that feeling once before, when she’d opened the first letter from Tessa proposing the Season and secretly arranged her own future.

All you need do is say the word
. . .

He was mad, of course, a master of exaggeration at least. Lementeur’s very name translated from French to “the Liar.”

Tessa had sniffed and said that no one had ever heard of the man a few short years ago—he’d simply
appeared
, creating gowns for some of the most influential women in London. A poseur, she had put forward, convincing all that he was the best in the business when he was probably just some tailor who’d lifted himself up from the gutter.

Naturally, Tessa had been quick enough to take the gowns when offered. How could he be a fraud when his gowns were so very beautiful and had made Phoebe look like a princess and made Deirdre look like a goddess?