The Millionaire Rogue (13 page)

And then he was lowering his head, brushing his lips to the inside of one thigh, then the other, moving closer, closer, so very close . . .

Her eyes fluttered shut at the featherlight touch of his mouth on her sex. A new wave of pleasure coursed through her, potent but different somehow; it was forbidden, erotic, the idea of it alone enough to make her moan aloud.

His lips, his tongue, were moving faster now, circling again and again that bit of flesh. His teeth nicked her, gently pulling, caressing to the point of pain.

She watched his head moving between her legs, earnestly, slowly, her fingers once again finding purchase in his silken curls, now damp with sweat. He groaned against her; her desire spiked at the vibration of his lips, the vibration of her own.

The rising tide of heat inside her—it was impossible to escape.

It was coming now, whatever it was that came next; she felt the muscles in her legs tense, her shoulders flatten against the desk. She took a shallow breath in, closing her eyes as she searched in vain for something, anything to hold on to.

Her eyes flew open as the rush came, a tumbling, pounding thing. She cried out as pulse after pulse of sensation rounded through her, the ripples of pleasure slowly fading into a satisfaction so immense she felt limp beneath its weight.

Sophia sputtered for breath, pushing aside wisps of hair from her slick forehead with shaking fingers.

Dear God. Even La Reinette's stories hadn't prepared her for
that
.

Thomas's eyes appeared over the ridge of her sex, blue and serious; his mouth came next, not quite a smile; his lips glistened with her arousal. He waited for her verdict.

When her gaze met his, a warm happiness rolled through her. She longed to reach out, to touch him and hold him to her. But while his eyes were serious they were wild, too; she recognized the rising tide in him, those excruciating last moments before the crash.

She did not trust her touch. His hands and his lips were knowledgeable and fast. Hers would be clumsy. Where to even begin? Perhaps it was best to defer to Thomas.
He
would know what to do next.

And so she grinned, palms held fast to the desk. “Yes.” She breathed. “Yes!”

He returned her grin. His eyes gleamed wickedly; and then he was sinking down again, moving toward her.

Sophia started at the feel of his fingers on her sex. She fought the urge to squirm; but as his hands began to move in earnest, she relaxed, the spark of her desire ignited again.

There was more? But how? Could she possibly do that
again—

Just as she felt herself swelling against him, Hope suddenly froze, his thumb poised just below the jointure of all this delicious sensation.

Sophia did not dare to breathe, listening instead to the racket that reverberated just beyond the office door. Grunts, heavy footsteps, a shout or two for good measure.

Christ in heaven. Not this again.

Their gazes locked, eyes wide as the racket drew nearer.

In the space of a single heartbeat Hope was on his feet, gathering her slippers and stockings and undergarments in the crook of his elbow. With an efficient tug at the scraps of her costume he covered her breasts, her legs, wincing as that curious hardness between his hips brushed against her.

“I'm terribly sorry, Sophia.” His voice was hushed. He met her eyes, holding out his free hand. “Seems we've become fast favorites of thugs and thieves and the like. I wonder who it could be this time.”

Sophia blinked, virtually blinded by the haze of desire that hung between them. With no small effort she swung her legs over the back of the desk and with Hope's help ducked into the alcove occupied by his tall-backed leather chair.

“Please,
please
do as I say for once and stay here,” Thomas said, handing her the misshapen bulk of her unmentionables. “There's a pistol in the top drawer there.” He paused. “Though, on second thought, you may want to leave the shooting to me.”

If Sophia's thoughts weren't still storm-tossed she would've stuck out her tongue at his jest. Her heart worked furiously as alternating waves of disappointment and relief and fear crashed through her.

Disappointment that she and Thomas could not finish what they had started. It seemed with every new sensation his body wrought she always yearned for more, and more yet. What heavenly part of him came after his fingers and his mouth?

Relief that she did not, in fact, experience said part. She was not entirely ruined. Not yet.

And fear—well, fear for the obvious reasons. Thugs, thieves, the revelation of her carefully guarded secrets.

Secrets that now included a rather heady, half-naked interlude on Mr. Thomas Hope's desk.

“Sophia.”

She met his eyes once more. Licking his port-stained lips, Thomas's face momentarily softened, his eyes very full as he struggled to find the right words. “Sophia, I—”

She jumped at the slam of the door. Thomas darted upright; she saw him yank at the crotch of his breeches before stepping in front of the desk.

A familiar voice rang out across the chamber.

“W
e found them.” Lake shoved a short, broad-shouldered figure into the room, the man's face blackened with soot. “Acrobats from a traveling troupe playing at Vauxhall. Ran 'em down in a tavern in Cheapside.”

Hope carefully arranged the knot of his hands in front of his legs and tried to think of anything,
anything
but Sophia.

“And you're sure these are the men who attacked my house?”

Lake stepped forward, waving his pistol at the perpetrator's enormously calloused hands, his thick, corded neck. He pulled back the sleeves of the man's shirt, revealing the bulge of his forearms that were nicked with dozens of small, oozing cuts.

“I've never been wrong.” Lake winked. Hope bit the inside of his cheek to keep from throttling him. “We've a few of his friends waiting outside.”

“Good.” Hope turned and made for the sideboard. All the better to hide the rather alarming condition of his breeches, a condition he could not subdue no matter how hard he tried. “We cannot interrogate them here; no one at the bank can know of this, not yet. Though I'm sure the gossip will be rife by morning. Take them to my house and wake the kitchens. I'm going to need coffee. A
lot
of coffee.”

“Consider it done. I assume you've all the accouterments available there—pliers, hot pokers, an axe?”

Hope tried not to smile at the acrobat's high-pitched squeak of terror.

“No pliers, I'm afraid, but Cook does keep a rather interesting collection of paring knives. Might we experiment with those?”

“Oh, yes, let's do.” Lake shoved the man back into the hall outside the office where the rest of his officers waited.

“Well?” he said after a moment, waiting for Hope at the door.

Hope waved him away. “I'll meet you back at my house. I've a few. Ah. Matters to which to attend here first.” He pretended to busy himself at the sideboard. For the first time in his life—well, no, that wasn't true, exactly—suffice it to say he could not remember the last time he went green at the very sight of liquor.

Of course today would be that day.

As if on cue, the clock on the mantel struck five o'clock. Hope glanced out the window to see darkness fading to gray dawn.

The night—this night, spent in the half-naked company of Miss Sophia Blaise—was over.

But his troubles.
They
were just beginning.

Hope looked over his shoulder to see Mr. Lake backtracking into the room, moving too noiselessly, and with far too much finesse, than his injury should allow. His eyes took in Hope's coat, laid out before the crackling fire, lingering a moment too long on the Botticelli above the mantel. At last his gaze landed on the massive expanse of Hope's desk.

“I say.” Lake furrowed his brow and bent over to retrieve something from the floor. “What's this?”

Hope watched in horror as Lake dangled a satin garter between his thumb and forefinger.

The banker reached out and snatched the garter before Lake could get a better look. “It's mine.”

“It's yours? What the devil do you mean to do with it,
Miss
Hope? Use it to tie up those b
eau
teous curls of yours?”

Hope cleared his throat as he shoved the garter into his waistcoat. “Jealous, are you, of my flowing locks?”

“Ha!” Lake snorted. “I may be ginger-haired, old friend, but the ladies certainly don't seem to mind.” He leaned over the desk, eyes narrowed, nose in the air. He was a bully, yes, but Lake was no fool. If Hope did not stop him, he would sniff out Sophia. And when he discovered her pink-cheeked, her costume in telling shreds, she would surely die of shame and embarrassment.

And, lest Hope ever forget, there was Lake's wrath to consider. There was no telling what the man would do once he discovered Hope was further jeopardizing an already complicated plot.

“Well, then,” Hope said briskly. He took Lake by the shoulder and turned him away from the desk. “Remember the coffee. And have those little bastards brought down to the kitchens; I don't need to tell you that no one must know they are in my house.” Lake opened his mouth, but Hope pushed him out the door before he could speak. “Oh, and send for Lady Violet. What with the diamond being stolen from about her neck, she might shed some light on our proceedings. I shall join you directly,
old friend
.”

Hope shut the door and leaned against it, clamping his fist around the knob. He waited, heart thudding, until he heard Lake's staccato shuffling down the stair.

He let out a long breath. “The coast is clear,” he called out softly, making his way to Sophia. “You may come out now.”

Hope helped her to her feet, trying all the while not to stare at her adorably disheveled appearance. Her hair was askew, lips bright red. Attempting to straighten her costume, Sophia only made the damage worse and revealed, to Hope's delight, far more bosom than was polite.

“That was close,” she said, stepping into her slippers. “We're off to your house, then?”

Hope looked at her. She blushed. Adorably, of course.

His shoulders sagged. “I don't suppose I could convince you to end our adventure here, could I?”

She leaned in, a small, suggestive smile on those damnably alluring lips. “Not if you want to keep that garter as a souvenir. Besides, we've already come this far. The more ears you have to the ground, the better chance you have of recovering the French Blue.”

Hope sighed. He couldn't say no, not when she stood before him in the gown he'd torn to shreds. Not when she smiled at him like that.

“All right. I've got to write a few letters to my friends at the papers. Buy us some time before word gets out of the theft. Once my clients hear of it—those who weren't at the ball, anyway—they'll panic. Then we'll send for your mother and meet at my house.”

Only as he sat down to pen said letters did Hope realize he'd said
us
—“Buy
us
time”—as if he and Sophia were true partners in crime.

It seemed Sophia was now an integral part of the plot, whether Hope wished it or not.

*   *   *

D
espite Lake's supposed expertise in such matters, the interrogation of the acrobats proved a failure.

Until, that is, Lady Violet strutted into the room. A fuming Lord Harclay—what was
he
doing here?—at her side, she trailed perfume and the promise of forbidden things in her wake. The baby-faced men, their hands bound behind their backs, sat up straight in their chairs. With a strategic batting of the eyes, Violet squeezed the story out of them in five minutes flat.

Interestingly, while the acrobats admitted to crashing Hope's ball, they knew nothing about the French Blue.

“We was down the pub, yeah?, when a man wiv a fake-like beard, teeth rottin' out ov his head, yeah?, sat down,” the lead man said. “Said he'd give fi'ty pounds to the each ov us for making a right nice mess of your fancy-pants party. Twen'y-five before, twen'y-five after.”

“And what of the other twenty-five pounds the man owes you?” Violet asked. “Have you received it yet?”

The acrobat shook his head. “Nah. Seein' as we been caught, we ain't expectin' to see the rest. Though that ain't exactly fair now, is it?”

But when Violet asked them about the diamond, the man responded to her question with a blank stare; his companions, impossibly, appeared even more puzzled. And unless they were better actors than they were acrobats, Hope could tell they spoke the truth.

Across the room he met Lake's gaze.

So now they were looking for a man disguised in a strap-on beard and, from the sound of it, ill-fitting wooden dentures.

A description that encompassed a solid half of the inhabitants of London during the bustling months of the season.

Splendid.

“Discover any further information about this man,” Hope said, knowing all the while his offer would come to naught, “and I will gladly pay you the twenty-five guineas he still owes you.”

Head throbbing and heart sunk, Hope charged from the room.

“Keep them in your custody,” he growled over his shoulder as Lake followed him out into the servants' hall. “In the extreme unlikelihood that we find this bearded, gap-toothed son of a bitch, those acrobats of yours might help us untangle his plot.”

Without waiting for a reply, he mounted the stairs two at a time. He needed more coffee and a bath; as it was Friday, a goodly amount of paperwork awaited him at the bank before the start of the weekend.

Mr. Hope sighed. He wasn't used to dreading the day like this. His work was difficult and often frustrating, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. It was what he did, and who he was. He rarely, if ever, desired to be anywhere but the offices of Hope & Co. on Fleet Street.

And so the tug to remain at his house, and take his coffee in the upstairs drawing room where Sophia now waited, shocked him.

That he imagined taking more than his coffee, even with her mother there in the room—well, it quite frankly
petrified
him.

In his rational mind he knew there was no time for such things, and besides, his relationship with Sophia had progressed far enough. Too far, even.

As much as Hope loathed Lake's habit of barging in uninvited, thank God he interrupted Hope's interlude with Sophia before they'd done something they would both regret. Hope knew he would have done it, and done it again and again and again. And where would that leave the two of them today?

He dare not imagine the possibilities.

And so off to his study he went, nodding at a footman along the way for a pot—no, make it two pots of coffee and whatever potion Cook had on hand for a headache.

Slipping into the quiet, tobacco-scented calm of his study, Hope was about to close the door behind him when a sudden, inelegant movement at the desk caught his eye.

The Marquess of Withington sprang to his feet and dipped his dark head in a single, elbowy jolt. He held his hat in his hands.

Hope's mouth went dry as he ran a hand through his curls. A visit from one of his largest investors and clients before nine o'clock on a Friday morning was
not
a good sign.

That said client was also courting Miss Sophia Blaise, procurer of impeccably timed sobs, temptress of Hope's restless dreams, had nothing to do with Hope's rising ire.

No, absolutely nothing at all.

At least that was what Hope told himself as he attempted a smile.

“My lord! Welcome. What an—
unexpected
pleasure. You must forgive my mess; it's been a busy morning, as you might imagine.” Hope made for his desk. “Please, do sit.”

Withington nervously eyed the leather-backed chair, but did not move. “My apologies for visiting you unannounced, and at so ungodly an hour. Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Hope. I shall make quick work of the business I have come to discuss, though I confess it—well, I'm afraid it's rather. Um. Unpleasant.”

“Rather the opposite of capital, then?”

Missing the jibe, Withington furrowed his brow. “Capital? Heavens, no.”

“Go on, then.”

Withington jerked his cravat into disarray; his face burned pink. “The events of last night were. Um. Rather terrifying, actually. My mother lost her wig and her dignity and was up half the night howling like a madwoman because of it.”

Good Lord. As if Hope didn't feel bad enough. “I do apologize for any grief her ladyship has suffered on my behalf. I understand it is no comfort, but I take full responsibility for last night's events. My clients—” He swallowed. “My clients are very important to me, my lord. You've my word I will do everything in my power to see that justice is done, and her ladyship compensated for any trouble I may have caused.”

Withington passed his hat from one hand to the other. He looked as if he would burst into tears at any moment. “You don't know my mother, Mr. Hope. There is no compensating her. Not when she's. Er. In
this
sort of state.”

Hope stood awkwardly beside his desk and cast a longing glance toward the sideboard. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “I've been on the hunt for the stolen jewel since the moment it was taken from me. Make no mistake, Lord Withington, I
will
find the French Blue. It's only a matter of time now. And you will be glad to know this whole—er, series of
unfortunate
events will have no impact on your funds.”

Well. At least he could
hope
there'd be no impact. But if he and Lake didn't find the jewel, and soon, all hell would break loose—

“I'm sorry!” Withington blurted. “You have always done right by my family, Mr. Hope. If I had it my way—well, I'd have a different mother, I tell you that much. But I'm afraid I've no choice in the matter. I must.” Oh, God, the man was going to faint. “I must move my accounts to—er—a different bank. I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Hope,
terribly
sorry.”