The Scoundrel Takes a Bride: A Regency Rogues Novel (25 page)

“Oh yes, of course. You were always busying yourself with your portraits. I’d forgotten.”
Nicholas stared down at the gardens of Petworth House. Designed by Lancelot “Capability”
Brown, they were, he’d been told as a boy, the finest in all of England. He hadn’t
cared one crown about the flowers. No, he’d sat on the window seat and watched Sophia
with her mother, the two picking blossoms for summer bouquets and dancing about like
faeries.

Or swans.

The sun emerged from behind a cloud and Nicholas held up one hand to protect his eyes
from the suddenly bright light. Something off to his left caught a stray beam and
reflected it brilliantly. He moved closer and squinted in order to see the source.

Nicholas reached out carefully, almost certain that if
he were to move too fast, it would disappear from the windowsill. “I’ll be damned.”

He lifted the tiny, delicate crystal swan and stared at it for a moment, the bevels
in its wings creating glorious rainbows where the sun refracted off the fine-crafted
form. “I believe I’ve something else for you to smile about.”

He walked to Sophia, sitting with her legs tucked beneath her and the sketches spread
out all about her on the floor.

“And what is that, Nicholas?” she asked dubiously, tracing the arch of her mother’s
brow on the sketch she held.

“This,” Nicholas said simply, crouching down next to her and holding out the slim,
fragile swan. “She was here all along.”

18

Sophia was afraid to touch the fragile glass. She simply stared at the swan, perched
on Nicholas’s palm as if it belonged there. It had disappeared from her mind the moment
she’d realized her mother was dead. And now it was as if she’d never been without
the crystal bird, the sharp yet surprisingly soft contours of its delicate body as
familiar to her as her own face.

“One of the servants must have found it on the floor and set it on the windowsill
for safekeeping,” Nicholas guessed.

“How could I have forgotten her?” she murmured aloud, reaching out to touch the swan’s
expertly carved beak. “She was a gift from my mother—to remind me how very special
I was to her.”

Nicholas looked at the figurine in his hand as if seeing it for the first time. “How
have I never seen the swan? We four were together every minute of every day. Surely
we boys would have attempted to steal her from you.”

“And she would have met a horrible fate in your hands.”

Understanding dawned on his face. “Ah, I see. Then you hid the swan from us in order
to keep her safe?”

“Yes,” Sophia confirmed, finally feeling brave enough to take the swan in her own
hand. “And no.”

She stroked the swan’s head lightly with her forefinger, the sensation of cool, sleek
glass beneath her fingertip
achingly familiar. “I wanted something of Mother that was just for me. I suppose it
was selfish, but when she gave me the swan it seemed the perfect secret between the
two of us. Does that make any sense?”

Nicholas picked up the sketch of her mother that Sophia had been studying. “It makes
perfect sense. And I must say I admire your ability to keep it hidden.”

Sophia looked at the portrait in Nicholas’s hands, then at the other drawings she’d
examined and set aside.

“What is it?” Nicholas asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sophia replied honestly, worrying the crystal figure between her fingers.
“There is something missing—a piece that I’ve forgotten. I was certain everything
would come together here at Petworth.”

She looked about the room and frantically searched for something she must have missed—a
clue her mother wanted her to find.

“Come,” Nicholas said to her, his hands taking hold of her wrist and pulling her to
stand.

Sophia attempted to turn away, intent on remaining in the room.

“Listen to reason, Sophia. Come away from here,” Nicholas urged. “Continue questioning
the staff downstairs—hell, dig up that bastard butler, for all I care. But please,
leave this room now. For me?”

Sophia’s mind stopped spinning for a moment as she considered his words. “You’re right.
I have lost my perspective.”

Nicholas took up her hand and lightly skimmed his lips against her soft skin. “Then
let me help you find it.”

He was counting down the minutes. Nicholas looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel,
then to the bottle of
brandy sitting next to the candelabra on the small table near his bed.

“You’re pathetic,” he told himself with derision, returning his gaze to the window.
It was a dark, moonless night. Petworth Manor and the grounds were cloaked in blackness.

He pressed his forehead to the cold glass, the sensation almost painful. Earlier in
the day, Mrs. Welch and a senior footman who’d begun his service at Petworth as an
errand boy had managed to remember the play that the traveling acting troupe had planned
to perform—
Dido Queen of Carthage
. Actors never forgot their parts, and if any one of the troupe was still alive, they’d
find them in Drury Lane.

He looked back at the clock. Two minutes until he could open the brandy bottle. Since
Sophia’s observation about his tremors, Nicholas had made a point of going longer
than eight hours between each drink.

Sophia. He stared broodingly out the window once again. With each passing hour he
felt more and more intimately linked with her, Petworth affording them the time and
space to make up for all the years they’d lost.

Still, he hesitated to go to her now. Was he so weak that he needed her to seek him
out instead of the other way around? To know once and for all that she desired him,
body and soul, as much as he did her?

Nicholas turned away from the window and stalked toward the fireplace, ready to throw
the clock across the room should it not show him the time he desired.

“You will live to see another day,” he told the timepiece as it chimed the hour.

“Who are you speaking to?”

The soft, feminine tones startled him. Nicholas spun on his heel, relief and a profound
thankfulness flooding his senses at the sight of Sophia in his chamber. She wore a
blue silk wrapper, her bare toes peeping from beneath
the hem, and her hair was loose. The dark wooden panels of the closed door outlined
her slim curves.

“Sophia?”

“I waited for as long as I could, Nicholas.”

She rushed toward him. The wrapper was unbuttoned below mid-thigh, and the white night
rail she wore beneath was nearly transparent. Nicholas’s mouth went dry at the clearly
visible shape of thighs, knees, calves, and ankles as her swift movements pressed
her legs against the thin linen. It wasn’t until she reached him that he realized
she held a large book clasped to her chest.

“What is that?” His voice was gravelly, even to his own ears.

“I was stalking about in the dark—as I am wont to do—and wandered into the library.”
Her eyes glowed with excitement, her face flushed. “I found this book of maps on the
desk. When I was a little girl, my father let me press flowers and leaves in it. And,
apparently, other things.” She caught his hand and drew him to the small table near
the bed.

She lay the book down and opened it. Tucked between the pages was a sheet of drawing
paper.

Carefully, she lifted the sketch and showed it to Nicholas.

The picture, clear and concise, showed the Afton drawing room. A boy lay on a settee
near the window; and outside, two children played in the snow. A girl stood next to
the reclining boy, watching the others tossing snowballs just beyond the glass.

“I remember this day,” Nicholas said, smiling at the fond memory. “Your mother wouldn’t
let me go outside. You volunteered to stay in and keep me company.” The skirt of her
wrapper brushed against his bare feet. He glanced at her. Her lashes were lowered
as she studied the sketch in his hand.

She looked up and several dark strands of her loose mane of hair caught on the linen
of his shirt. Her smile faded, awareness turning her eyes darker as she stared at
him.

“If there is one sketch hidden away in Petworth, there may be more,” she whispered.
Her gaze flicked from his eyes to his mouth and her lips parted as she caught her
breath. “Perhaps that is what I sensed in the nursery.”

Neither of them moved.

“Is that the only reason you are here?” He barely breathed the words.

“No,” she admitted, softly. “As I’ve already told you, I waited as long as I could.”

His gaze on hers, Nicholas laid the sketch on the open book. Then he slowly lifted
his hands to cup her face.

Her skin was soft and warm, so warm. He closed his eyes.

“We can’t do this,” he managed to get out. “We can’t betray Langdon.”

Sophia lifted her hands to cover his.

“Nicholas.”

Her voice was a quiet command. He opened his eyes and looked into hers. He saw fierce,
raw conviction in the green depths.

“I cannot marry Langdon. My feelings for you forbid it, in every way. Even if you
make me leave this room, even if you never speak to me again, I will not marry him.”

He believed her. The nearly violent joy that shook him was instantly followed by a
wave of guilt.

“If I hadn’t come home from India—if we hadn’t begun the search for your mother’s
killer …”

“Stop.” She laid her fingertips over his lips, effectively silencing him. “I do not
love Langdon as a wife should. Whether or not you had returned, that wouldn’t have
changed. And I’ve come to realize that affection isn’t
enough for me. I want to spend my life with someone who feels much more for me. I
want passion in my life.” She smoothed her fingertips over the curve of his lips before
her palm cradled his cheek. “I want what I feel with you, Nicholas. I want you—all
of you.”

“You deserve a far better man than me,” he told her. “But I am yours. I’ve always
been yours.”

She was his. His heart constricted with the overwhelming knowledge. Every single point
in his life, whether glorious or agonizing, had contributed to this moment.

He bent his head, his lips brushing against hers in brief, tasting kisses. Each kiss
was longer, the press of his mouth against the soft, lush cushion of hers harder.

Her hands slid around his neck, her fingers threading into the hair above his nape
as she held him closer. Beneath his lips, hers heated.

Nicholas cupped the back of her head in one palm, her hair a mass of silk beneath
his fingers. He slipped his other arm around her waist to gather her closer. Her lush
curves pressed against the harder angles of his and she shivered, her lips parting
in a soft, breathy sigh of surprise.

He slipped the buttons free on her wrapper and pushed the edges aside to give him
access to the smooth, bare skin of her shoulders. She hummed with pleasure, tilting
her head back as he licked the curve of her throat. His lips traced the upper swell
of her breasts and her fingers clenched in his hair.

Nicholas pulled her arms from around his neck and with swift efficiency shoved her
wrapper off her shoulders, forcing the blue silk lower until it pooled at her feet.
Sophia skimmed her hands over his shoulders and tugged at his shirt. Nicholas finished
freeing the buttons on her night rail and yanked it up and off over her head, going
still.