Two Sinful Secrets (27 page)

Unsuitable employees.
Sophia watched him, letting his threat hang heavy in the silence between them.

He nodded. “I am staying at the Hôtel des Etrangers until the end of the week. I look
forward to hearing from you there, my dear Mrs. Westman.”

Once he was gone, Sophia stumbled to the window and watched until she saw him step
into his waiting carriage and ride away. She leaned her forehead against the cool
glass, dizzy with how fast the bright day had turned dark. She had spun from being
hopeful, even giddy, to feeling trapped and alone all over again. Caught.

All the things she wanted to escape were right there around her again.

The salon door opened again, and Sophia spun around, half-afraid that Lord Hammond
had returned. But it was only Camille, smiling at her brightly.

“So, who was it?” Camille said. “Your secret suitor?”

“I have to go out,” Sophia managed to say. She felt as if the walls were closing in
around her, and she needed to be out in the fresh air, to breathe and think.

“Is something amiss?” Camille asked, bewildered, as Sophia hurried out of the room.

“Not at all,” she called back over her shoulder. She caught up her cloak from where
she and Dominic had dropped it the night before. “I just recollected an errand I must
perform…”

She made her way out onto the street and turned blindly away from the club. She hardly
noticed the carriages and carts that clattered past, the laughing people who brushed
by her. She only felt that too-familiar urge to run.

Sophia turned at the end of street and made her way to the river. She climbed to the
peak of the old stone bridge and leaned on the railing as she stared down into the
water below. Boats and barges floated beneath her, and she
wondered what it would be like to leap down onto one of those gleaming decks and float
away to some unknown place. Someplace where she wouldn’t be Sophia Huntington Westman,
but just—herself. Whoever that was.

But even as the thought drifted through her mind, she had to laugh. Running away had
never worked before; she always ran into herself. She had to stay and face Lord Hammond.

Yet how could she stay and let him hurt Camille, when all she had done was help Sophia
when she needed it the most? How could she fight him?

“Sophia!” she heard someone call. She spun around to find Dominic making his way toward
her over the bridge. He didn’t wear a hat, and the wind off the river tossed his bright
hair over his brow. He smiled at her, but it looked wary.

Sophia suddenly wanted to run to him, to hold on to him and hear his laughter reassuring
her. To feel that she wasn’t alone.

But the truth was, she
was
alone. “The St. Claires are chancers… they will always look after themselves first,”
she remembered Lord Hammond saying, and while she put no credence in his opinion,
she did know Dominic owed her nothing. That they had made love, that she feared she
had come to care for him far too much, didn’t mean he cared for her in return.

If only he did…

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he stopped by her side. He leaned his hand on the bridge
railing, his body close to hers. She wanted to lean into him. “I came by Madame Martine’s,
but she said you had gone dashing off. Luckily I saw you come this way.”

Sophia quickly swiped her hand over her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see the tears that
threatened to fall there, that she didn’t look too haggard and confused. He was the
last person she would ever want to see her that way.

“You came to see me?” she said.

“Of course. I might be an actor, but I’m not so completely ungentlemanly as to ignore
a lady after what happened last night.”

He held out his hand, and Sophia saw that he held a bouquet of violets and tiny lilies-of-the-valley
tied up with white ribbons. They were beautiful, perfect, like a new beginning between
them. Too late?

“For me?” Sophia murmured.

“Yes, of course. But if you don’t like them, I could always give them to—that lady
over there.”

He turned as if to give away her bouquet with an elaborate flourish, and Sophia had
to laugh. She caught them out of his hand and inhaled the clean, earthy scent of the
flowers. Despite her worries, the day suddenly seemed a little brighter.

“Thank you,” she said. “They’re very pretty.”

“As are you,” he answered. He took a step closer, watching her carefully. A frown
creased his brow. “But you look worried today. What’s happened?”

Sophia shook her head, suddenly remembering Lord Hammond’s visit and his threats.
How could she tell Dominic what had happened? It was not his problem.

“Madame Martine said you had another visitor this morning, that he was the one who
upset you and made you run off so suddenly,” Dominic said.

Sophia shrugged. “I have many visitors, not all of them welcome.”

“Who was he?” Dominic asked quietly. He reached out to gently touch her hand, and
even that light contact made her want to cry again.

“Did he hurt you?” Dominic said. “Please, Sophia, you can tell me. Let me help you.”

Sophia looked up into his eyes to find whether she could trust him or not. She saw
concern there, puzzlement. And suddenly she realized they stood on a crowded bridge,
close together and holding hands. Anyone could see them there. She stumbled back from
him and glanced back over her shoulder frantically, wondering if Lord Hammond or one
of his minions was watching.

“I’m not sure anyone could help me,” she said. “This is a hole I have dug myself into.”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to sense some of her fear of being watched, for
he took her hand again and turned to lead her down the other side of the bridge.

“Where are we going?” Sophia asked.

“Somewhere we can talk,” he answered. “It seems we haven’t done nearly enough of that.”

Sophia followed him past the riotous color of the flower markets and the bustle of
cafés and shops, until they found themselves in the comparative quiet of the Île Saint-Louis.
There were still people there, knots of tourists with their open guidebooks circling
the soaring shadows of Notre Dame and strolling in the gardens. They took no notice
of Dominic and Sophia as he led her through the arched doors and into the cool, shadowed
church.

Sophia had visited Notre Dame when she first arrived in Paris, taken on a whirlwind
tour by Camille and one of her gentlemen friends. The man had considered himself something
of an architectural expert and had swept down
the aisles and through the nave pointing out columns and buttresses, windows and altars.
Sophia had considered the dark beauty of it all, but today it felt different. Today
it felt like a hushed sanctuary.

Faint light streamed through the red and blue glass of the windows, beaming past arches
to cast a glow on plaster saints’ faces and a few living humans kneeling on the stone
floors. The air was cool, faintly touched with the scent of incense. Sophia felt as
if she could hide there in the light and dark, with only Dominic’s hand on hers to
hold her to the earth.

But they didn’t stop in the church. He led her to a narrow, winding flight of stone
steps, and they started climbing up and up.

“How many stairs are there?” Sophia said with a gasping laugh.

Dominic glanced at her over his shoulder, the corner of his lips quirked in a half-smile.
“Four hundred. But at the top, we can talk with no one to hear us but the pigeons
and the gargoyles.”

Sophia followed him as they climbed onward, the only sounds their breath and the brush
of their shoes on the stone. At last they emerged into the light, high above Paris.

“Good heavens,” Sophia sighed, enraptured by what she saw around her. Between the
horns of the twisted, snarling gargoyles, the whole city was laid out before her like
a silent, white, glittering fairyland dotted with the domes and tall steeples of churches.

Even the sky seemed closer here, an arch of pure blue so near she was sure she could
reach out and touch it. And Dominic was right—they were completely alone.

“This is so beautiful,” she said. She leaned past the stone balustrade to peer down
at the cobbled forecourt, where the crowds of tourists looked like scurrying ants.
“How could I have not noticed it last time I was here?”

Dominic smiled at her. He rested his hand on the stone ledge next to her, not touching
but close, keeping her safe. “Because you weren’t with me before.”

Sophia laughed. “Yes. I can believe that you always find the most beautiful, most
dramatic places wherever you go.”

“Ah, well, setting is everything.” Dominic gazed out over the city as the wind caught
at his hair. “We’re alone here, Sophia. You can tell me whatever you like. Who was
your visitor today?”

Sophia took a step back to lean against the cold wall. As she studied the tiny, faraway
city, she twined the ribbon of the bouquet around her finger. It
did
feel safe up here, alone with Dominic as he watched her calmly. He didn’t press her
or hurry her, didn’t tell her what to do. He was just there. With her.

And she was really very tired of being alone.

“Before I came to Paris, I was in Baden-Baden,” she said. “That was where Jack died.
I was alone there, no money, no place to go. And there was this man. Lord Hammond.”

“Hammond?” Dominic said, his tone startled. “He was your visitor today?”

“Yes,” Sophia said. “Do you know him?”
Oh, please, don’t let him be friends with Hammond
, she thought frantically. But that made no sense. Hammond had threatened the St.
Claires as well today.

A muscled flexed in Dominic’s strong jaw. “I have
had encounters with him. A rather unpleasant individual, quite happy to throw his
weight around.”

“Yes indeed,” Sophia agreed with a humorless laugh. “Unpleasant is one term for him.”

“Shit-eating bastard is another,” Dominic said. “If he was your unwanted caller, I’m
not surprised you ran. So, you met him in Baden-Baden.”

Sophia nodded. She told him a shortened version of the tale of her encounters with
Lord Hammond, winning his money in the card game, his pursuit of her. His unwelcome,
and most insistent, marriage proposal. It felt unbelievably relieving just to say
it aloud, to get it out of her mind and out into the world for a moment.

“How did
you
come to meet Lord Hammond?” she asked as she finished.

Dominic stared out thoughtfully over the city. His expression was calm and cool, not
betraying any reaction to her story. “He was playing cards with my brother James at
a bawdy house one night. There was a disagreement.”

“I see,” Sophia said slowly. “So that is why James returned to London?”

“Yes. And the rest of us are to follow next week.” Dominic was silent for a moment
longer, then he suddenly turned to her with a smile. “There is only one solution to
your difficulty, Sophia.”

Sophia wasn’t sure she trusted that smile. “Oh? And what is that? Murder?”

“Worse. You should marry me.”

Sophia choked out a laugh. Surely she hadn’t imagined that! She had never heard more
outrageous words. “You shouldn’t joke about such things.”

She turned away from him, but he caught her hand and
drew her back to him. He looked down at her steadily, and to her shock, he looked
perfectly serious.

“I’m not joking,” he said. “Sophia Westman, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“But we haven’t known each other very long!” she said, even as she knew that was a
silly argument. She had known Jack a month when she eloped with him.

And that was a mistake she had been determined never to repeat.

“If you count our first meeting, we’ve known each other a long time,” he answered
with a quirk of a smile.

“Our first meeting was hardly an auspicious one,” Sophia scoffed. “And why would you
want to marry me after I kneed you in the groin and ran away?”

“Because you could use my help right now, I think,” he said. “And that is a rare thing
for me, to be able to help someone.”

“It’s true I could use your help,” she admitted, remembering how alone she had felt
when she ran to the river. And now here was Dominic. Even though she was cautious
of his sudden offer, part of her wanted to reach out for it.

“But,” she went on, “marriage is for such a very long time. Once the threat of Lord
Hammond is past, and I don’t need your help with him any longer, you may be sorry.”

Dominic laughed. “Sophia, I have the feeling that even after Hammond, you will need
my help. Just as I will need yours.”

Sophia studied his face, puzzled. “How can I help
you
?”

“Once we return to London, the Devil’s Fancy will
need a hostess again. No one has been able to fill the role since my sister left,
and I think you would be excellent at it.”

“Yet you hardly need to marry me for that,” Sophia said.

“And you could make my family cease to worry over me,” he added. “Ever since Jane
died, they have been hovering around me with solemn looks on their faces. If they
think I’ve found a proper lady to look after me, I won’t have to put up with that
any longer. They’ll let us set up our own household in peace.”

Sophia laughed. “Somehow I can’t picture your brother Brendan hovering around, clucking
in sympathy.”

“Oh, he is the worst of the lot, I assure you.”

“I admit having a house of my own sounds wonderful,” she said. She was very tempted.
But what he was offering so far sounded like a business arrangement. His protection
for her hostessing and housekeeping skills. “Yet could we really live together?”

She thought about Mary’s diary, about how her marriage started with such hopes and
ended so bleakly. She didn’t want to end up like that.

“Sophia,” he said, taking her hand in his. “I think we could live together very well.
We understand each other, do we not? We could have so many adventures together.”

Adventures.
Yes, they did understand each other. With him, she wouldn’t have to fight against
her nature, as she had tried to do with her family and failed at so miserably. He
wouldn’t expect her to be what she was not.