Impassively, she began to smooth the oil lightly over the hard knotted muscle and scar tissue. His face never changed, but yet she felt his intensity, his active acceptance of the agony this must cause. She bent, moving her fingers up and down his thigh. It was like trying to catch an eel with your fingers, she decided, feeling the heavy muscles stretch and retract under her ministrations. They were their own universe.
Beneath Sophy’s probing fingers, the tight muscles of Seth’s leg began to relax and the pain eased from his body. She continued to stroke outward, exerting slow pressure, gently rubbing and patting the injured tissue. His whole being seemed to focus and fuse into her touch. The silver pendant swung like a pendulum, spinning in time to the movement of her magical fingers.
Seth shuddered as if with the ague. His chest heaved. Pain was all-pervading. It rode his thigh like an expectant predator. With a muffled groan, he acknowledged the victory. A sane, sensible part of him told him to stop her. But when he tried to move, nothing happened. It was as if his body were no longer obeying his brain.
Bereft of coherent thought and reason, he could not think, just feel. He focused on the gently swinging pendant. It was right in front of him. A blur of silver. It made him feel apart, independent, free.
His body was invaded with a sweet lethargy that was shot through with red threads of anticipation. His mind had suddenly become an immense vacuum that seemed to be filling with flood after flood of hot blood, which raced from his head down to his thighs.
Sophy’s fingers continued their stroking, softly but insistently. A muscle high up in Seth’s thigh jumped and she gasped. The subtle scent of the sandalwood oil mixed with the hot, masculine smell of his hair-roughened skin invaded her nostrils.
Breath caught in her throat. Her lips parted a little, but she worked on and on with agonizing slowness. The tips of her fingers were numb when, at last, he shuddered convulsively and gave a fierce, startled cry that seemed to rip through his entire body.
She looked at her husband, and all the love she felt for him rose in her in a single wave. His features were somehow different from what they had been earlier, calm and serene. His eyes glittered like glass, quite opaque, from another world entirely.
Within moments, he was in a sound sleep. She was pleased that somehow she had helped to dissipate the demon of pain that had been planted in him. To undo was far more difficult than to do.
The silver pendant was the key. Shimmering, glittering, vibrating, it lured Seth’s pulsating senses into uncharted realms. Of reality and illusion. Of dreams and fantasies. Seth felt as if he were sinking into a visceral microcosm, where nothing but carnality mattered.
With each shiny swing of the pendant, new energy seemed to pulse through him. He was rushing toward some unknown destination. His heart pounded. The pumping blood sounded in his ears. He started to feel dizzy. He could only watch the pendant, and let his mind flow like a river to its source.
In his mind’s eye he rearranged Sophy’s ministrations. He felt the palms of Sophy’s hands, her fingers sliding over his flesh. He saw the fierceness in her face, the determination. Lightly, with just one oil-slick finger, she traced a line from his throat, over the soft dusky hair of his chest to his tapering midsection, down over his belly, until she reached the top of the cloth. His body strained up, rigid.
The fabric moved restlessly. It seemed to have a life of its own. His desire was a tangible entity, which was both disturbing and exciting. In his illusion, her fingers trailed the line of his scar, slid with satin softness under the cloth. Her fingers closed around him intimately, warm and caressing. His body trembled.
Of their own volition, his hips pressed forward, and his head arched back. Each breath was an effort. He heard himself gasp for air, the sound raw, shaky. He convulsed upward like a rearing stallion, bucking into the heat of her firm rhythmic strokes. Unbearable pleasure washed over him, as, with a harsh rush of air, his senses claimed victory, and his body exploded in spasms of white-hot flame.
Chapter Ten
A
s Seth passed the big grandfather clock on the staircase, it chimed nine o’clock. Sophy’s influence was unmistakable, he noted with amusement. A bevy of bright-cheeked maidservants in print dresses, neat little caps and frilly white aprons were busy with domestic chores, polishing, scrubbing and dusting.
The girls were all too well trained to stare, but Seth knew they peeped at him as he passed through the hall to his study. He acknowledged their surprise with a whimsical smile.
It was not often that they were rewarded with a view of the master of the house descending the stairs at this late hour of the morning. Punctilious to a fault, Seth Weston kept to the Spartan discipline acquired in the army.
An early riser, he would normally have departed on business several hours ago. This morning he had woken late, illogically disappointed to find himself alone.
Fleeting recollections of the previous night unsettled him. The movement of Sophy’s pendant had set the lights flickering madly. Her face above him had swung crazily, her eyes clear and so deep that they seemed to go on forever.
Last night, Sophy had offered comfort and practical assistance. Her touch had been gentle and soothing. His agony had merged into desire the minute she touched him. Never had his body reacted with such instinctive passion, such overwhelming release.
Today, he walked stiff legged, and somewhat awkwardly, true, but strangely sure of his balance. The immediate sensation was one of enormous freedom. He felt healed and renewed. Energy tingled his flesh. Today, he was uneasily conscious of an obligation.
Through the welter of sensations that he had experienced since his first meeting with Sophy, both physical and mental, he suddenly realized that everything about his relationship with her took on overtones of chance.
Looking back, it was chance that they should marry. Having married, it was inevitably chance that his bride was a loving and generous woman who threw herself into every project she undertook with unbounded optimism and enthusiasm.
Sophy could be downright single-minded when she decided what she wanted. It seemed he had become top priority on her project list. She was just waiting for a chance to ambush him.
The dangerous part was that he was enjoying the anticipation, and had every intention of letting her succeed. Her talents could only be an asset to Weston’s Textiles.
In the short time he’d known Sophy, he’d seen just how skillfully she managed her finances. Her shrewdness overlaid a sweet honesty that appealed to his own basic integrity.
Seth looked down at the tiled floor as if it held some undeniable truth. Something curled inside of him, a subtle tightening of his body, something that bad nothing to do with passion, when he thought of Sophy.
It was like a seed buried deep in the earth, being coaxed out into the warmth of the beloved sun. Inexplicably, then, it seemed chance was not finished with him. It lay in anticipation, lurking, waiting to entangle his soul, draw him out of the darkness and engulf him in a loving embrace.
As if spurred by random chance, Seth crossed the hallway and turned toward the study.
Curled up on the long recessed window seat, legs tucked under her, Sophy was engrossed in some intricate calculations when she heard the study door open. She did not turn her head, hoping that whoever it was would not see her and would go away.
“So this where you hide.”
At the husky sound of her husband’s voice, Sophy laid aside her book, held out her hand and smiled brilliantly.
“Good morning, Seth!”
Blood rushed in his ears like a battle cry. He was thrown out of his stride by the genuine delight in her greeting, and stared at her.
Cheeks bright, eyes sparkling, Sophy seemed full of life and vitality. She wore a deep violet silk gown embroidered with self-colored piping and fringe trimming. Her gleaming black hair was drawn tightly back from her face, exposing her slender neck.
Seth stood ramrod straight, concentrating on controlling his breathing. It was an effort to ignore the sound of the hammering of his heart, which felt as if it had lodged in his windpipe.
He paused, searching for some emotion deep inside himself as a guide. Until the previous night, he had begun to think he was immune to the wiles of a woman. There had been no question of love being involved in his marriage. No illusions of it on either side.
Last night, Sophy had changed the ground rules. She had relegated their war to another battlefield. Here he would either survive or perish emotionally.
The experience reminded him of the hallucinatory ecstasy engendered during the ritualistic chewing of cacao leaves he had witnessed in primitive tribes. During the war, when drugs were unavailable, several doctors had used hypnotic trances to anesthetize patients for surgery.
Could Sophy have hypnotized him? He slid her a probing glance, a smile edging his firm mouth, as he realized how foolish he was. No. Never in his life had he experienced the phenomenon, but he was aware hypnotism required the willing cooperation of the subject.
He took the hand that unfolded like a flower reaching for the sun’s warmth. Around Sophy, he seemed prepared to let chance have its way, to take a few risks. A smile playing along his lips, he gently kissed the delicate fingertips before returning it to her lap. Something intense glittered in the violet-gray eyes.
“Working on a secret weapon, Sophy?”
There was a faint humor beneath the words, as Seth nodded at the book resting on the braided edge of her silk skirt. Sophy’s smile faded slightly. Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt something inside her trembling like a leaf before a rising wind.
“In sort of a way.” She ran her palm lightly over the cover of the ledger, unsure of where this was going. When she spoke, her voice was so soft it could have been the night wind. “I was calculating what percent of the market Weston’s Textiles needed to capture before they posed a threat to importers of French fabrics.”
She tilted her head to one side, studying him. Eyes wide and reflecting an appeal of which she wasn’t aware, she waited for his reaction.
Seth was leaning his arm along the mantelpiece, and had been looking down into the fire, but at that he raised his head sharply and shot a penetrating glance at Sophy. What was she up to now? What new game was this?
Innate caution restrained him, prompted him to fence. “Why should that be of such importance at this hour of the morning?”
Sophy’s hands flexed around the ledger. Lord above! How handsome and vital he was in the navy velour jacket with its brass buttons, which set off his smooth skin, dark sideburns and vivid blue eyes. Her chest had tightened uncomfortably, as if she had forgotten how to get air into her lungs. She took a deep breath.
“W. H. Carryl’s Philadelphia store has just been taken over by Walraven’s. As you know, they were this country’s main importing house for French fabrics.”
A curious tension hovered between them. His eyes were bright chips as he acknowledged this fact. Sophy clasped her hands in front of her, the fingers tightly interlaced.
For just an instant, she felt her heart contract in her chest at the thought of Seth’s possible reactions to her plan. She tightened her mental stays. She would need all her ingenuity to win this skirmish.
She forced herself to continue. “What you may not know is that I am the major shareholder of Walraven’s.”
Seth made a harsh, discomforting sound. He stood there, a dark frown pulling his brows together, his eyes hooded and unreadable. He seemed to be debating the issue in his mind. The only thing Sophy could be certain of was that his earlier good humor had evaporated.
Seth lowered his voice. “As the transaction seems to be a fait accompli, there is no point in discussing the ethics involved. Congratulations, Sophy, on such an astute business deal.” The repressed ferocity in him was unsettling.
“Oh, Seth. I could
shake
you at times!”
Sophy sprang to her feet in exasperation, her hoopskirt billowing. A strange desire to save this man’s pride was insidiously eroding her resolve.
She closed the distance between them, moving like a wraith across the room. Heart thundering within her rib cage, she prodded the top button of his stylishly cut waistcoat with the tip of one finger.
“Get it through your thick skull, I am not trying to undermine Weston’s! My father always told me never to allow one’s private life to interfere with one’s business judgment. He was right.”
Bright blue eyes became as penetrating as gimlets. It would be a considerable challenge to discover what lay behind this captivating creature’s motives in going into direct competition with her husband’s firm.
A desire to ruin him? The notion was ridiculous. Still, he must be cautious. But a part of him didn’t want to be cautious. A part of him longed to trust her.
Mouth suddenly dry, he attempted a smile. It went wrong. His lips curled like those of a friendly wolf.
“That’s always reassuring to hear, of course.”
It was Sophy’s turn to become wary. She felt her insides tremble involuntarily, pierced by that basilisk gaze. There was tension in the way he rested an elbow on the carved marble mantelpiece. A tension that signaled marginal success for her campaign.
She bent over and took a deep, deep breath, on the pretense of jotting a note in her ledger. “When Carryl’s import contract was signed, it included a proviso that the Alsatian manufacturers must provide the fabric within one hundred days.”
A slight pause followed, while Seth absorbed the significance of Sophy’s curious statement, mulling it over in his mind. He looked down with an odd expression on his lean features, as if this were a new concept to him.
“Are you suggesting Weston’s go into the import business? Gather our heavy artillery and breach the opposition’s defenses?” His voice was arctic. “That’s quite impossible!”
Sophy shook her head once in a sharp negative. Eyes glinting, she smoothed full, wide skirts.
“War makes impossibilities plausible, doesn’t it? Fortunes of war sometimes turn out for the better. The War between the States has turned society upside down. Many old rules and standards are being forgotten.”
Her voice changed, sounding blunt and businesslike. She tapped her chin with the end of her pencil. “I’m suggesting it seems a propitious moment for Weston’s to take stock of the situation and use it to the best advantage. Snap up the slack in the import market.”
Again she came under that hard scrutiny. Seth leaned his face close to hers, jawline jutting and firm as carved marble. She had cut him to the quick without realizing it.
“Calculate and rationalize as you will, Sophy, I doubt whether the Archangel Gabriel and the Twelve Apostles, plus all the labor they cared to summon, could accomplish such a miracle in so brief a time.”
His terse manner somehow gave Sophy confidence. She sought to press her advantage. She allowed a full smile. “What about using tactics of war?”
She stood bolt upright, clasping her hands tightly together against her chest, and hesitated, just a beat. She had yet to learn the secret of patience.
“Think, Seth! What battles were successful? Why? Which ones were unsuccessful? Why not? Was there some point when the losers could have won? What significant moment did they miss? You’re an old campaigner. Use the same harsh logic in business.”
Sophy tried to drawl lightly to counteract the latent resentment and skepticism in Seth’s expression with something approaching amused affability. The words came out all wrong. They sounded provocative, eager. She was doing it again. Rushing in where angels feared to tread!
Seth was so much taken aback that for a moment he did not say a word. He looked at her doubtfully, scanning her face with care. From the first moment he’d seen her, it had been as if she had some secret hold over him.
The pale morning light fell full on the wide planes of her face, bleaching it to a colorless effigy. Yet the lips, mobile and full, were those of eternal Eve, and the eyes, soft and liquid, like the moon on a wild and cloudy night, were those of the temptress, Delilah.
How curious that this appealing elfin woman should maintain such an unerring sense of aloof self-possession in business, but was also able to retain a genuine gaiety and radiant warmth that could plunge him into complicated throes of passion. It was as if some mysterious force bloomed inside her, something he could not name.
Suddenly such a wave of desire for her flooded his veins that he felt light-headed. It was as though all his essential rational props had been pulled away.
It was hard to resist the sweet appeal in her eyes, or the temptation of those soft parted lips. But he had to face the hard fact. Someone was out to bleed him dry. Someone who didn’t mind using scare tactics to slow down the hunt.
Getting Sophy involved held a lot of potential risk. She could be in danger if he allowed himself to indulge her in this. Something convulsed sharply inside him. He had to find the culprit, fast. Then, and only then, could he allow Sophy to have her way.