Kasey Michaels (13 page)

“A simple solution? And so,
so
much healthier than too much cherry brandy. At least that’s what my dear mother told Uncle Horace when she suggested just that solution to him. You might want to think about that, yes?” Sophie offered, then danced away, waving gaily as the duke approached, his face dark as any storm cloud.

“Where are you headed, Wally?” his Grace called out as he stopped in front of Sophie, looking over her head at Sir Wallace, who was moving away from them rather than joining them.

Sir Wallace waved his hands in front of him as he backed toward the path, as if to say he had no time to dawdle, no time to answer questions. “Miss Winstead—farewell, and thank you. Thank you so much! Give my farewells to the other ladies, won’t you, Bram? I’ve just remembered something I have to do, that’s all. Then I’m off for home. Tomorrow is Wednesday, remember? I have to make sure my man knows to get my knee breeches ready for Almack’s.”

“Posies, Your Grace?” Sophie pulled a sadly crumpled bunch of buttercups from inside her muff, offering them to the frowning duke. “All the best-dressed gentlemen are wearing them this Season, you know. Or at least I hope they are, or Sir Wallace is going to feel extremely silly when he finally realizes that he’s running about London with a clutch of them stuck in his buttonhole.”

The duke looked down at her accusingly, his eyes steely, his jaw firmly set. “What did you do to him? What did you do to Wally—to Sir Wallace?”

Sophie sighed, shrugging her shoulders. He really should smile more. It would bring out those lovely crinkles around his eyes. But, then, he was probably suffering the tortures of the damned this morning, which fairly well served him right. Not that she’d let him see how much
she’d
suffered last night, reliving his unexpected kiss, her impossible-to-describe reaction to that kiss. “
Do
to him, Your Grace?” she now asked innocently. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying. I don’t
do
anything to anybody.”

Bramwell pushed his palm against his mouth, squeezing his cheeks as he turned his head to one side, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her any longer, then dropped his hand and glared at her once more. “I knew better, you know. I knew better than to leave the two of you alone.”

“Is that why you’ve come back, Your Grace? To effect a rescue?” Sophie asked, longing to slap him until his eyes rolled in his head. Goodness! She had to do no more than come within ten feet of the man for her temper to flare to life, for her fingers to itch to throw something. With every amount of will she could command, she suppressed the red wall of anger surging within her and returned to their verbal battle. Because she really did enjoy teasing the duke. She enjoyed it very much. “Because you’re
afraid
of what I might do, yes?” she went on with a smile, prodding her dimple into evidence. “How many times must I tell you? I’ve not set out to harm anyone; I only want to make people happy. I
do
make people happy. Sir Wallace looked happy to you, didn’t he? Surely you can’t say he looked unhappy?”

Now His Grace looked as if he could slap
her
. “You dazzled him, didn’t you?” he ground out accusingly as they began to walk back toward the pathway. “
How
, Miss Winstead? Wally never walks when he can ride. And he most certainly doesn’t run. But you? You’ve got the fool
skipping
! Just tell me how. How did you do it?”

Sophie’s smile widened, and she knew that smile to be nearer an unholy grin. She could even feel her nose crinkling up. Should she tell him? Should she tell him that she had known who Sir Wallace was all along, thanks to her mother’s marvelously detailed journals, and known of his family, of his problems—even of her mother’s positively brilliant solution to those problems? Should she tell him that she had only done what she had been taught to do—tried to make those around her happy? Or should she fib, make up some farradiddle about giving Sir Wallace a sad, depressing sermon on the evils of drink and the joys of sobriety?

She saw that the landau had stopped ahead of them on the pathway. The door was open, Lord Lorimar standing on the ground, awaiting her pleasure, offering her sanctuary. “Very well,” she said at last, deciding on a half-truth, an explanation that fell somewhere between fact and an outright fib. “I’ll tell you.”

“You will?” Bramwell said, sounding more surprised than angry now—which would change the moment she opened her mouth.

“Yes, I will,” she said as she judged the narrowing distance between herself and Lord Lorimar, and decided it was safe to speak. “I simply suggested a way to make Sir Wallace’s mother and aunt happy. I pointed out to him that if they were happy, he could also be happy—so much so that he might not need such copious amounts of cherry brandy to put a rosy haze around his life.”

“And what would that
way
be?” the duke prodded, as Lord Lorimar removed his curly-brimmed beaver and executed an elegant leg in Sophie’s direction.

Sophie measured the distance between herself and the landau once more, just to be certain. “I am nothing if not a student of my mother, Your Grace. So, as would quite naturally follow, I simply told Sir Wallace to find his unhappy mother and aunt lovers. Once
they’re
happy, Sir Wallace will find his own life much less oppressive.”

“You—you did
what
?” Bramwell shot another look over his shoulder, to where Sir Wallace had been but was no longer, and then glared, narrow-eyed at Sophie once more. “I don’t believe you.”

“Oh, don’t fib, Your Grace. Of course you believe me. It’s just what you expect of me,” Sophie answered with a quick giggle, then ran ahead to launch herself onto the steps of the landau and lightly vault onto the cushioned seat, the baron close behind her. “Have I kept you waiting? Oh, what a lovely parasol you’ve just opened, Miss Waverley,” she said breathlessly, feeling Bramwell’s eyes boring into her even as he stomped off to remount his horse. “Yes, it is quite the prettiest parasol I’ve ever seen. I must have one, I simply must. A dozen couldn’t be too many. Do you think you could arrange an outing to Bond Street, Aunt Gwendolyn?”

“I imagine so,” Lady Gwendolyn murmured absently, turning on the seat to look back over her shoulder, watching her nephew. “Now, what do you suppose is the matter with Bramwell? I vow I’ve never seen his face quite so red.”

Sophie lifted the ermine muff to her face and buried a smile in the soft white fur. Kiss her, would he? Confuse her, befuddle her, break down her carefully built defenses and release the temper she had done so well to hide beneath her happiness—her hopes for a lifetime of happiness.

Silly, silly man. He couldn’t win against her. No man could win against her. Not if she did as Desiree said, as Desiree had taught. Not if she remembered that all men were ruled by their lusts, their desires, their
needs
.

All she had to do was to hold on to her heart, keep it safe. That’s all she had to do, and her life would be wonderful. And, unlike her
maman
before her, she would never, ever cry.

Bramwell glanced at the small clock on his desk, then slipped the gold watch from his pocket and consulted it as well. He straightened the blotter on the desktop, aligned the ornate silver inkwell and sanding set an eyeball-measured five inches from the right edge of the desk, moved the humidor a fraction, and carefully, precisely, folded his hands on the blotter.

He would have occupied himself in turning his favorite paperweight over and over in his hands, but Aunt Gwendolyn’s larceny had saved him from that bit of fidgeting.

Still, something else was wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something else was wrong. Out of place. Or missing.

Missing? He jerked his hands away from the desktop as if the surface had turned into a hot stove. He pulled open the center drawer of the desk and began a careful search that soon evolved into a frantic shuffling of papers.

Missing
. It was missing. It had been written out, sanded, and left lying on the desk. Right here. On the desk. On
this
desk. And now it was missing.

“Damn Lorrie all to hell and back!” the duke exclaimed, opening and closing the remaining drawers, knowing it was an exercise in futility. The list was gone.

“Aunt Gwendolyn,” the duke growled just as there was a rather cheerful, loud rapping at the study door, and Sophie Winstead entered, as ordered. Bramwell quickly pulled his chair and himself forward to reassume his practiced pose, then just as rapidly shoved himself back from the desk again as he shot to his feet, remembering—only fleetingly—that he was a gentleman. “I said seven o’clock, Miss Winstead. You’re early,” he said accusingly as Sophie took up a chair directly in front of the desk, allowing her skirts to billow and fall where they might as she broke into a sunny smile.

“I am? I hadn’t thought so, Your Grace.” She laid her hands on the arms of the chair, obviously preparing to rise. “I could go out and come back, yes?”

The small clock on the desktop began chiming out the hour, striking seven times as Sophie breathed a small “Ah,” then folded her hands in her lap and continued to smile. Innocent. Happy in her innocence. Not reproachful at all in the face of his accusation, his clumsy, bumbling incivility—making him feel ten times the fool he already knew himself to be.

It wasn’t fair, that’s what it wasn’t. Even the damn clocks had turned on him.

And look at her. Dressed all in China blue silk, a wide fall of ivory lace foaming along the neckline of her low bodice, a triple-strand choker of perfect ivory pearls, accenting her long, slender throat, disappearing beneath her artlessly tumbling curls that were so out of fashion. Or they would be, until she entered Society, at which time every lady’s maid in Mayfair would be wielding hot curling sticks under the direction of a small battalion of frantic, clucking mamas.

Her gown wasn’t the usual debutante’s gown, although it was not so old-fashioned or so obvious or so
outré
as to cause her to be shunned. It was simply different, as all of Sophie’s ensembles were different. A little “more” here, a little “less” there. The richest fabrics, the finest laces, the most clever arrangement of bows and ribbons.

Her jewels were also her own. Pearls were, of course, one of the few acceptable means of adornment for a debutante, and Sophie was wearing pearls. Only, on her, they looked like precious diamonds. How did she do that? How did she do any of what she was doing? How did she always manage to look like she was standing in a benevolent shower of sunlight, casting everything and everybody around her into the shade?

She was so different. So curiously unique. So completely Sophie.

Bramwell felt a sudden, insane urge to flee for his life.

He took refuge in anger instead—and he’d had ample time to build up a goodly store of it since they had last spoken that morning in the Park. Indeed, he’d already summoned up enough anger to construct a concealing wall between his conscience and his reprehensible behavior of the previous evening. Why, in another day or so, he’d probably find a way of convincing himself that kissing Sophie Winstead had been all her fault. Especially when he considered that she was acting as if that kiss had meant nothing, less than nothing... as if dukes kissed her all the time, and the exercise had been just too boring to speak about.

Which, of course, a small, hopeful voice inside him prompted, didn’t explain the brandy stain on the wall....

He remained standing and looked down his aristocratic nose at her. “I asked you here this evening to discuss your behavior this morning in the Park, Miss Winstead. It was, as you must know, reprehensible.”

“I shouldn’t have left the landau, yes? I shouldn’t have sat on the grass? I shouldn’t have picked the buttercups?”

Oh, he could murder the chit. Cheerfully. “You know damn well what I’m talking about, Sophie!” he exclaimed before he could think. Then he all but fell into his chair, wondering if a few more days of Sophie Winstead in his house would send him all the way around the bend. He certainly had lost half his wits already, and she’d only been in Portland Square for two days and one night. Had he just so slipped as to have addressed her as Sophie? Dear God, he had.

She nodded her head, smiling. “Ah, I think I know what it is. It’s what I said to Sir Wallace, isn’t it?” She tipped her head to one side, so that her curls tickled at her throat, slid forward slightly over one perfect cheek. “I’m sorry. I simply couldn’t help myself, seeing as I’d fairly well decided what was troubling him. All that cherry brandy, Your Grace—it can’t be good for one’s spleen, yes?”

“He could have sent them on an edifying visit to Italy!” Bramwell exploded. “A leisurely tour of the Lake District would have gotten the pair of old biddies out from underfoot for a time. Or he could have done any of the other things I’ve suggested over the years, beginning with straightening his spine and simply moving out, setting up his own household.”

“But he didn’t, did he? Listen to you, that is,” Sophie pointed out reasonably, leaning forward to slant the silver inkwell a fraction, making the entire desktop look—damn her—much more attractive, less rigidly proper. She then pulled the top from the humidor and took a deep breath of the aroma of fine cigar tobacco. “Would you care for one, Your Grace? I would very much enjoy watching you smoke.”