Kasey Michaels (37 page)

Sophie ran one hand up and over his shoulder, sliding her fingers into his hair. “
Maman
and Uncle Cesse once—well, you know—behind the Horse Guards.”

“I’m not my father,” Bramwell said, kissing her lips lightly, once, twice, a third time. “Not that I condemn him.”

“I’m not my mother,” Sophie answered rather breathlessly, cupping his cheeks between her hands. “But I am curious.”

“Reading isn’t knowing, Sophie,” he told her.

“Talking isn’t showing, Bram,” she replied.

Bram felt his blood running hot, even as his common sense told him Sophie had no idea as to what came next. Oh, she might
think
she did, but she didn’t. Not really. And he’d be damned if he’d show her here, stuck in this damp stairwell. “This is crazy.”

“I know,” she admitted, sighing. “And poor Giuseppe is still inside the house.”

Giuseppe! How on earth had he forgotten the monkey? Bramwell looked down at Sophie, realized his right hand had somehow come to be cupping her slim waist, and knew the answer to that question. He pulled her to her feet, then motioned for her to remain where she was until he climbed the stairs far enough to be able to peer through the wrought-iron railings, make sure the Square was empty once more.

He’d gotten to the third step from the top, Sophie close behind him, when a door opened across the Square, cutting a wedge of yellow light onto the flagway. He squinted into the distance. “Isadora?” he breathed incredulously as his fiancée appeared. Wasn’t she supposed to have been at Lady Buxley’s? What was she doing here? He watched as his betrothed’s almost invisible maid stepped down the flagway toward a waiting coach that had somehow come into the Square without his noticing it. Isadora, however, lingered on the top step leading into the town house, talking to someone as that someone held both her hands in his.

“Lord Anston,” Sophie whispered, and Bram looked down to see Sophie standing with her hands clutching two of the wrought-iron bars, the hood of her cloak thrown back to reveal her distinctive curls, her face stuck up against them. “I didn’t know he lived here,” she said, turning her head, to smile up at Bramwell.

“Then it’s the only thing you didn’t know,” he answered with new insight as he remembered Desiree’s declaration that Sophie would take care of the “mere
bagatelle
” of his betrothal—not because she was a scheming minx out to benefit herself, but simply because she wanted Isadora to be happy.

He looked at Sophie for another long moment as she grinned most happily herself, obviously more than a little pleased with what she was seeing. Then he turned his gaze back to Isadora once more. She looked positively beautiful, animated, even from this distance. As she listened to something Lord Anston was saying, a young girl with curling blond hair joined them on the portico and Isadora laughed—actually appeared to be laughing out loud and quite genuinely—then reached down and kissed the girl’s cheek.

He honestly couldn’t remember ever seeing Isadora so happy.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, smiling—and then hit his forehead against the metal railing as a fuzzy ball of fur unexpectedly landed on his back with a fair degree of force.

“Giuseppe, you’re back!” Sophie squealed, grabbing the monkey and hugging it to her. “Oh, Giuseppe, I was so worried about you!”

“Yes,” Bramwell drawled, rubbing at his sore forehead. “We were both near to tears with fear for him, the rat-faced little monster. In fact, I would most probably have gone into a sad decline had he not shown up this very moment. Does he still have the snuffbox?”

“Giuseppe,” Sophie prompted. “What’s in your hat?”

Bramwell held his breath as the monkey took off his little red cap, reached inside it, and pulled out, “a
pearl necklace
? Oh, my God, it is. It’s a bloody pearl necklace!”

“The snuffbox is already safely returned. But I’d be willing to take charge of that necklace for you, Your Grace.”

Bramwell’s head made jarring contact with the wrought-iron railing a second time at the sound of the voice coming out of the darkness. How hadn’t he noticed that the door to the town house had opened once more, spilling revealing, condemning light onto the flagway, and onto both him and Sophie? Well, he knew how. He’d been too distracted, watching his fiancée giggling with Lord Anston, that’s how. And thinking he’d never seen anything quite so charming, so edifying, so
freeing
.

“You’d be Ryland, wouldn’t you?” Sophie asked as she climbed all the way to the top of the stairs, then leaned down to rub sympathetically at Bram’s abused forehead as he remained rooted to the third step from the flagway. “Bobbit told me about you. You’re cousins, yes? Why, you know, even in this half-light I believe I can see the family resemblance. Something about the very fine shape of your chins.”

I’ll kill her
, Bramwell thought as the full import of what had happened, what was happening, was brought home to him. There had been no need for either of them to have been skulking about all evening, playing at housebreakers. A thoroughly dazzled Bobbit was firmly in Sophie’s irresistible thrall, Sophie held the butler equally firmly in her affection—and Bobbit knew Ryland. Was bloody related to the Sidmouth butler! It would have been a simple matter for Bobbit to hand the snuffbox to Ryland, and for Ryland to replace it.

But it wouldn’t have been half the fun.

He deposited the double strand of pearls in the butler’s outstretched hand, following it with a gold coin he pulled from his pocket. “You have my thanks, Ryland,” he said as the butler bowed, accepting both.

Bramwell then grabbed Sophie’s elbow and began dragging her back toward the shadows... just as he heard a loud slamming sound above them... and just as Isadora’s coachman turned the horses around the small Square in order to exit it, and he caught a glimpse of his betrothed sitting, wide-eyed and openmouthed, seemingly gawking at the pair of them.

After all, we’re living under the same roof.

Getting me alone, day or night—anytime at all—

could hardly be more convenient, yes?

– Sophie Winstead

Chapter Fourteen

I
t was nearly three o’clock in the morning before Sophie had bathed, pulled an open-fronted ivory-silk dressing gown over her creamed and powdered nakedness, and allowed Desiree to brush her hair dry as they sat together before the fireplace.

Desiree had prepared her charge for her wedding night, and no ceremony had been performed. No promises made, no vows spoken. Nor, Sophie felt with all her heart, were any needed. She belonged to Bram, and he to her. They both knew it. The words would come later, all the sweet, loving words, the promises of forever. But she would give him her love now, because it was her choice, and her love was hers to give. She knew how.

Sophie wandered about the candlelit bedchamber, picking up the odd ornament and putting it down again, stopping to peer into a mirror and marvel yet again at the faintly dreamy expression she couldn’t seem to remove from her face.

She finally settled herself on the deep window seat that looked out over Portland Square and watched as Desiree did some last-moment fussing, poking pillows into greater fluffiness on the bed, smoothing the covers, sprinkling a scattering of rose petals on the sheets. The moon that had so considerately hidden itself behind clouds earlier in the evening now shone down brightly, turning the Square into a fairyland, the room behind her into a softly lit bower of silk and satin. The air in the room was scented from the night-soft breeze, the rose petals, the many freshly cut flowers that sat in their vases.

Sophie had gone over the events of the evening with Desiree, the two of them giggling like schoolgirls about Giuseppe’s escapades, Lord Sidmouth’s inopportune arrival, poor Bramwell’s seeming inability to keep his head clear of the wrought-iron railing, Ryland’s providential appearance to save them at the last possible moment.

It was only now, as she nervously told Desiree about Isadora Waverley’s unexpected presence on the scene that Sophie turned solemn, questioning. “It’s probably all for the best, Desiree,” she ended consideringly, “I’ve known since the very beginning that she and Bram weren’t suited to each other. But now I wonder. Did I throw her at Lord Anston’s head to help her, or to help
me
? Because she’s sure to cry off from the betrothal tomorrow.”

“Ah,
chérie
,” Desiree told her as she came to stand beside her charge, pushing the mass of tangled curls away from Sophie’s face. “They would never have wed happily in any case. From the moment I first saw the duke watching you, I knew this. Just by being alive, by breathing, you doomed that mismatched pair to finding their own, deeper happiness. This is no sin,
oui
? This
Mademoiselle
Waverley, she would have been crushed to have the duke reject her. But now? Now he can allow her to go to her happiness, as he goes to his. You have done a good thing, Sophie. Your heart, your intentions, were pure.”

“Perhaps,” Sophie answered, feeling guilty heat rushing into her cheeks. “But I might also have been thinking of myself—just a little, yes?”

Desiree gave one of her most eloquent, Gallic shrugs. “This is life,
oui
? And it ends happily, even for me. It makes the heart light, to believe in love again. I did once before, you know. In Paris.
Bah
! That was long ago, and this is no night for ancient stories. It is your turn now,
chérie
. Your
maman
, she was right. I was wrong. It is the men who were wrong. Ah, but to find the right one? She did, at last, I know that now and thank
le bon Dieu
for it. And now,
ma petite
, so have you found this right man. In the end, nothing else matters,
oui
?”

Sophie sighed, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging her legs, so that her bare feet stuck out from beneath the hem of her dressing gown. “You always know just what to say, don’t you, Desiree? But I am selfish. I want him so much, love him so much. I never thought—I never knew. It’s like magic, yes?”

Desiree dropped a kiss on her hair.
Oui, ma petite,
it is like magic. The only magic.”

“Never to be alone. Never to be lonely. This is why I was born, Desiree. Why I’m living. To love Bram, to have him love me.” She sighed again, and smiled, and laid her cheek against her knees. “I must have done something right in my life, Desiree, yes? To be so lucky?”

“It is he who is lucky,
chérie
. He had only to stop, to lift his eyes up to the skies, and the brightest star fell into his hands. The sun, the moon. Be happy,
chérie
, be very happy.”

He was bathed, shaved, and dressed only in fresh hose, gray-green trousers, and a flowing white shirt, sans neckcloth. He had done without the services of Reese, not only because he was able, but because the less the nervous valet knew, the better it would be for him. Clandestine affairs made the man nervous, and not, Bramwell knew, without good reason.

He traveled the darkened corridors on stockinged feet, turned the last corner that led to Sophie’s guest chamber, and laid a hand on the door latch.

And then he stopped, reflected on what he was about to do.

Technically, he was betrothed, all but married in the eyes of the English courts, if not God. Technically, what he was about to do was to enter a virginal bedchamber and lay claim to a young woman without benefit of clergy, without promises of love, without so much as a hint of permanence. Technically, he was about to make—he believed, hoped, prayed—a willing Sophie Winstead his lover.

She said she’d begun to believe in love, even after all she’d seen of her mother’s unhappiness. She’d even teased him unmercifully with her new opinions on love, hinting that she loved him, that she knew he loved her. She said she’d realized that not all men were like the uncles, who had broken her mother’s heart, who had said they believed in love but only wished to indulge their own lust. She’d cried in happiness when she’d learned that his father had really loved her mother, had planned to spend the rest of his life with her.

And he’d been right in his own assumptions. Love did make fools of men. What he hadn’t understood was that, with the right woman, a man could be a most willing fool, and content to be foolishly happy and well loved every day and night for as long as he lived. It had taken Sophie, silly, wise, wonderful Sophie, to teach him that.