What a Duke Dares (34 page)
His darling was here. He was alive again.
Three afternoons he’d waited since Pen had delivered his note. Three afternoons alone in this neglected house left empty for years while Aunt Isabel toured the Continent. In this middle-class neighborhood, nobody was likely to discover him with Sophie.
He kissed Sophie’s lips, chin, cheeks, nose, brow. Hundreds of words tumbled out, boiling down to three essentials.
I love you.
I missed you.
Don’t leave me.
He took far too long to realize that Sophie was crying. He caught her face between his hands. “Sweetheart, what is it?”
She sniffed and regarded him with swimming blue eyes. “I’m just so happy to see you. I thought James might leave me in that frozen wilderness until he drove up with Desborough and forced me into the chapel for the wedding.”
“You said your brother wouldn’t bully you.”
“He’s so set on this match. Desborough is coming to propose tomorrow.”
Dread oozed down Harry’s spine. “Hell.”
She nodded. “If I say no, I’m afraid that James will send me away again.”
“But your aunt has left Northumberland.”
“There’s always Alloway Chase.”
He strove to lighten the atmosphere. “At least it’s not in Northumberland.”
Sophie didn’t smile. “It may as well be. It’s in the middle of the Yorkshire moors and my mother will watch me like a hawk.” She stared at Harry as if he had every answer. If only he did.
“Can you put Desborough off?”
She shrugged unhappily. “Given that his suit is an open secret, any delay will make James suspicious.”
Harry hated to see Sophie so defeated. He kissed her until she clung. By the time he’d returned to earth, she looked less distraught.
“Play for time.” He seized her hand and stripped off the glove. He pressed a fervent kiss to her palm before leading her into the heavily curtained drawing room.
Sophie’s spurt of hope faded. “It’s only delaying the inevitable.”
“Say you’re considering the proposal favorably. It might make Leath less vigilant.”
“If I marry Desborough, all is lost.”
On a stage, the statement might sound melodramatic, but she spoke nothing less than the truth. His Sophie wasn’t made to be his mistress. She deserved better than to become an adulterous wife.
“We’ve only got an hour,” she said bleakly, slumping onto the chaise longue.
“I’d hoped for longer.” Harry catalogued each fair feature. An hour? It seemed too cruel. Although only a lifetime would suffice. Even then, he’d feel cheated.
“It was difficult enough getting away from Lady Frencham’s tea party. The duchess said she wanted to take me to her modiste.” Sophie removed her second glove. “Although anyone with half a brain must realize that Her Grace hasn’t been in London long enough to recommend a dressmaker.”
From what he’d seen of Pen’s drab ensembles, no girl of style would take up her offer. That gray monstrosity she’d worn at the Oldhavens’ would frighten the horses.
The mention of clothing focused his attention on Sophie’s costume. “Good God, is that a tent?”
Despite her turmoil, a broken giggle escaped. She untied
the toggles fastening the cloak. “Your sister lent it to me, as well as the bonnet and veil. But she’s so much taller than I am.”
“You look like you’re drowning.” If they only had an hour, he didn’t want to spend it stewing over their tribulations. “I doubt your own mother would recognize you under all that material.”
Gracefully Sophie slipped the cloak from her slender shoulders. In this cheerless room, her pink muslin gown was as fresh as cherry blossom. Harry could no longer bear to keep his distance. In two paces, he was on his knees beside the chaise, her hands in his. “Now you look like my girl.”
“Your sister is wonderful.” Her sweet, brief kiss made his heart caper. “She looks like you.”
“Poor thing.”
Sophie giggled again. He was pleased to see the back of her tragic air.
“Stop fishing for compliments.” The amusement drained from her expression. “She’s very good to help us. I can’t imagine her husband approves. Last night at the opera, James and Sedgemoor glared at each other like a pair of snarling lions.”
Harry sighed. “My sister couldn’t have married anyone less likely to raise me in your brother’s favor.”
Sophie’s hands tightened. “It’s so unfair that Uncle Neville’s wickedness has blackened anyone called Fairbrother. Especially as I never liked him and James positively despised him.”
“You know how society works, Sophie. People still talk about Sedgemoor’s parents, and he’s always been a model of propriety.”
“Harry?” Sophie asked uncertainly. “What are we going to do?”
He suspected she wanted him to come up with a long-term solution. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found one yet. “Pen’s given me a key for this house. Night or day, I can meet you here.”
Sophie looked no happier. “James watches me.”
“He’ll grant you more freedom if you agree to marry Desborough.”
Sophie wrenched her hands from his and lurched to her feet. “I can’t marry Desborough. Not when I love you. How can you ask it?”
Harry stood and swept her into his arms, feeling how she trembled. “I’m not asking it.”
“Then you want me to lie?”
He growled low in his throat. “Once we’re married, there will be no more hiding, no more secrets.”
“I hate it too,” she whispered, nestling into him in a way that made his heart expand with pride. How had this glorious creature come to love him? He wasn’t worthy, although nothing in heaven or hell could stop him loving her.
“We can’t go on like this. It’s tearing us both to pieces.”
Tears filled her eyes. “And our hour must be nearly over. I’m so lonely without you.”
“Me too,” he said glumly, tightening his embrace and kissing her.
Sophie’s lips were so soft and her sighs so sweet that minutes went by before Harry recalled that he had something important to say. And not much time to say it. He smiled into her flushed face. She looked like she floated in a blissful dream.
He heard a church clock in the distance strike the hour. “Sophie, we must make plans. If Desborough proposes, say you don’t want to rush things with him.”
She gripped his waist as if resisting their parting. He
prayed this separation would be brief. “I
don’t
want to rush things with him.”
“Well, that’s good,” Harry said with a short laugh. He kissed her quickly, but withdrew before heat engulfed him.
She looked displeased. “Kiss me again.”
“I dare not. This is an empty house and that chaise longue fills my head with naughty thoughts.”
“I don’t mind.” Her voice wobbled. “Harry, I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t want you to go. But you must.” Very gently, he wrapped her in the voluminous cloak and replaced her bonnet, arranging the veils. “Pen’s outside.” He’d heard the rattle of the carriage a few minutes ago.
“I know,” Sophie said miserably.
“Be brave, my love.” He kissed her hands tenderly then passed her the gloves. “I swear we’ll find a solution.”
“I hope so.” He couldn’t see her expression, but he heard how emotion thickened her voice. “Because, Harry Thorne, you’ve been reckless with my heart.”
“Never,” he said in shock.
Her tone hinted that she smiled through tears. “You’ve made me fall so deeply in love that I can’t live without you.”
“Oh, Sophie…” His voice wasn’t much steadier than hers.
She whirled away and rushed down the hall. He didn’t follow. Instead he stood in the empty room and listened to the door click shut.
B
ad blood will always out, you know.”
The low, insinuating female voice reached Pen on her return to the crowded ballroom from the ladies’ retiring room. Shock more than curiosity made her pause. The tone was repellently malevolent. Just hearing it made her want a thorough wash.
What on earth could engender such spite?
A palm tree concealed the speaker—Lady Frencham’s soiree had a tropical theme—so Pen had no idea who she was. Even after a fortnight in London society, she had difficulty identifying people. Although if she’d heard that nasty voice before, surely she’d remember it.
A second woman replied before Pen could do the decent thing and move out of earshot. “He’s done a grand job of convincing the world to forget his slut of a mother. I’d mention his father, but nobody knows who that is. There are two likely candidates. But given the late duchess’s depravity, hundreds more could have sired him.”
The late duchess?
Although no names had been mentioned, a sick foreboding coiled in Pen’s belly.
“He gives himself such airs that one might almost believe him the gentleman he apes. Almost.”
“Until he turned up with that Thorne strumpet.”
Dear Lord, they
were
talking about Cam. And her.
Horror kept Pen trapped beside the palm tree. Was this what everyone thought?
She flattened a trembling hand against the wall and told herself to leave. The proverb about eavesdroppers hearing no good of themselves came to mind. That clearly counted double for hearing no good of those one loved.
“A marriage in Italy? I for one don’t believe a word of it. Don’t tell me she wasn’t sharing his bed. After the shipwreck, the game was up, so they married in haste. I see trouble already. They act more like strangers than newlyweds. There’s more Rothermere scandal ahead, my dear. That hussy Penelope Thorne won’t limit herself to one man. And Sedgemoor will tire of her soon enough and seek entertainment elsewhere. It’s in the family line, isn’t it?”
Humiliated color seared Pen’s cheeks. The witch’s remarks contained enough truth to cut. She and Cam had struggled so hard to contain any gossip about their wedding. She supposed it was inevitable that they’d failed. But this squalid meanness nauseated her.
“I heard they were at it like rabbits even before she went abroad.” Pen wouldn’t have believed that the first speaker’s voice could become more waspish, but it did. “Everyone knows why she left England before her debut. You mark my words. There’s a Thorne bastard with Rothermere eyes somewhere in France or Italy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s talk in a few years of them adopting some obscure cousin’s child that nobody’s heard of. A bastard spawning another bastard. It would be amusing if it wasn’t such a blow to society’s standards. Heaven knows, one pays respect
to the title when one meets the villain face to face, but it becomes tiresome pretending to honor a mongrel, whatever his noble pretensions.”
Pen could take it no longer. She forgot every promise she’d made never to shame Cam. She didn’t care that the ballroom was packed with observers. Such lies couldn’t go unchallenged. Drawing herself up to her full height, she sailed around the palm tree to accost the women.
“Just as it becomes tiresome to follow the dictates of good manners,” she snapped, unfolding her fan in a single movement and waving it as though the air reeked in the vicinity of these two old cats.
To her surprise, she recognized both of them. They’d fawned over her, angling without subtlety for invitations to Fentonwyck.
“Your Grace…” Mrs. Combe-Browne rose and started a curtsy before recalling that if Pen had overheard them, the gesture was misplaced. Instead she staggered like she’d had too much to drink before landing so awkwardly on her spindly chair that she nearly tumbled to the floor. Pen felt no urge to smile.
“Ladies.” Pen focused a hostile eye on the first speaker, Lady Phillips, a woman notorious as the late Duke of Kent’s mistress. “Although I use the term advisedly.”
“Your Grace!” the woman protested. “I have no idea what prompts such discourtesy.”
Pen glared. “Don’t you?”
Lady Phillips was less easily rattled than her companion. Her eyes narrowed as she stood. “Were you eavesdropping on a private conversation?”
“No conversation audible from the other side of the room counts as private.” Pen matched tone to actions by closing her fan with a contempt that the old bat couldn’t miss. “How
ironic that a woman of your blemished reputation sees fit to malign the finest man in England.”
Lady Phillips didn’t retreat, although Mrs. Combe-Browne whimpered like a sick piglet and huddled into her chair as if trying to melt into the wall. “A noble title does not of itself denote honor. Nor in this case breeding.”
Pen stepped forward. Unfortunately Lady Phillips was almost as tall and twice her weight. This might be like confronting a bad-tempered rhino, but nothing could calm Pen’s outrage. How dare this raddled hag insult Cam?
“Perhaps a noble title doesn’t. But character and honesty and heart do. And my husband has those in abundance. If courage and intelligence and generosity form no part of a gentleman’s character, he’s no gentleman, whatever his parents got up to. And that counts for ladies too.”
“Well, I never!” Mrs. Combe-Browne bleated behind her friend.
“You never should have, either of you,” Pen snapped. “My husband is a man of influence.”
Lady Phillips sneered. “You dare to threaten me, you trumped-up whore? Don’t imagine your brazen antics across the Channel are any secret.”