My Seductive Innocent (41 page)

She pounded the walls, the bed, and the floor with her fists until they throbbed with pain.
Good!
Pain in her fists meant less pain to travel to her heart.

He was a...he was a...pre-cuckolder! Yes, that’s what he was. She didn’t give a damn that there was no such word. He truly was a blackhearted devil. No, that was too good. He had no heart!

He saved you
, her hated inner voice shot back.

She screamed until the voice faded. She screamed so long that Mary Margaret rushed to her bedchamber and begged her to take laudanum. She refused and sent her lady’s maid away.

She wore a path in her carpet and thought of the millions of ways Nathan had likely been laughing at her.

I love you,
she had said like a supreme fool.

You do not love me,
he had replied.
You desire me. There is a difference.

She didn’t stop there.
No.
She had persisted like a naive country girl who’d never encountered a sophisticated, acerbic libertine. Because she’d foolishly hoped for love.

He’s not a libertine,
that dreaded voice whispered.

She began to hum to tune it out. She would hate Nathaniel Ellison, Marquess of Deering, the fifth Duke of Scarsdale until the day she died. She would hate him because he had made her love him. And then his death had nearly destroyed her. And now he had humiliated her more from the grave than any of Frank’s beatings, verbal attacks, and withheld love ever had. She’d never expected more from Frank, but Nathan... Sobs wracked her body. She’d dared to hope as her mother had encouraged her. More the fool, she was.

Sophia stormed across her bedchamber, ripped open her dresser drawer, and yanked out her mother’s letter. She tore it into tiny pieces and watched them flutter to the ground in a mess at her feet. The bits of foolscap blurred as she stared and remembered.

I do desire you, but I love you,
she had said.

She didn’t want to remember how he had answered but there was no way to hold it back.

It will fade,
he had replied.

She raked her hands through her hair until her scalp stung, and she forced herself to stop. She could not even properly hate him because he had warned her. There was no denying it. Her blasted memory would not let her forget what he had said:
You need to know I have no desire for love.

He had not lied about that. He had been very clear, and she had refused to listen.

She cried until there were no more tears, and then she sat and stared out the window, unsure what to do with herself and the rest of her life, now that she no longer had a mission to be the perfect duchess.

On the seventh day of her self-imposed isolation, among the dozens of notes from Amelia, Aversley, Lord Harthorne, and even Jemma, begging her please to allow them to see her, she received a letter from Harry:

Something about the letter did what her week of carrying on had not. She read it, and she knew what she had to do. She had to get up and go on with life for Harry’s sake, and for her sake, as well. She had been given the chance to provide Harry with a grand future, and she would not ruin it by having people whisper that she was the mad duchess or by neglecting to make the social connections that would help him.

She picked herself up and smoothed her hair. She would attend the house party Amelia had planned and she would make friends. But she would never, ever again, allow herself to fall in love with a man. Love was a wretched thing, and she wanted no part of it. If Nathan could train himself not to feel love, then so could she. She didn’t need love to be happy.

In fact, the sooner she took a lover the better. She wanted to wipe the memory of Nathan’s body from her mind, and what better way than to replace it with the memory of another man’s? Her cheeks heated at her thoughts, but she simply fanned herself. She knew widows of the
ton
took lovers without being ostracized. It was practically fashionable.

She marched across the room and yanked the bell cord to summon Mary Margaret. She
would
become an Incomparable. She
would
be happy. No man would ever look at her again and think her pathetic or unworthy of his love. She was going to amaze the
ton
. And when she was finished bedazzling the most eligible gentlemen, she would pick the coldest-hearted rake as her lover, for he would not desire that which she no longer cared to give―
her heart
.

N
athan stood on the open deck of
Queen’s Splendor
with his face toward the oncoming wind. The simple joy of being free to move his arms and legs made him smile. He took a deep breath and turned to Jean Luc, who stood silently beside him, clasping his friend on the shoulder. Nathan had almost died trying to break the Frenchman free of his chains when the slave ship had been under attack, and while he may have saved Jean Luc, the act of doing so had saved him. He had not been sure he had enough humanity left in him to care about anyone but himself, but he had. Nothing had ever felt as good to learn.

Jean Luc raised an eyebrow at him, and Nathan chuckled, realizing he’d been staring at the man. “I smell England.”

Jean Luc shook his head and pointed ahead. “That’s France, my friend. I’m almost home. Do you know what I’m going to do when I get there?”

Since Jean Luc was not married but had a woman whom he loved deeply, Nathan had a fairly good idea. “I imagine you will be asking Isabella to marry you.”

Jean Luc grinned, and then his smile faded. “What if she has married another? It’s been fourteen months. I’m sure she thinks I’m dead. Aren’t you worried your wife has found someone else?”

The thought had crossed his mind, but he had dismissed it with a single memory of the way she had looked when she had told him she loved him. He saw her shining, love-filled eyes every night when he went to sleep. She had loved him. She would have mourned him. He was sure of it. And he would wager his life that she would not seek out the company of another man so quickly.

“No,” he finally said, his voice thick with emotion.

A deep voice came from behind him. “It must be nice to have such faith in a woman.”

Nathan turned and smiled at Worthington. “It’s a feeling I never believed possible for me.”

Worthington moved to the railing. He popped the cork off a jug, took a long swig, and handed it to Nathan. “I’ve been saving this. It’s my father’s finest whiskey. I took it when I left because he told me he’d drink it when looking down at my grave. He was sure I’d end up there for my foolishness in becoming a privateer.”

Nathan took the jug and drank. The whiskey warmed his throat as it went down, then swirled into his belly with a satisfying burn. “What were you sure of?”

“I was sure that if I kept on the course I was, I would no longer be able to live with myself. I’d lost my honor. Becoming a privateer who captains a ship that hunts down slavers gave me my honor back. I like to have a drink of my father’s whiskey every time I return home.”

Nathan passed the jug to Jean Luc and then looked out to the sea, thinking on how things change. He’d never been as shocked to see anyone as he had been when Worthington had boarded the slave ship and overtook it. And Worthington had further shocked him when he’d confessed to thinking he had killed Nathan, since it was Worthington’s ship that had sunk Ravensdale’s ship. He was supremely glad Worthington had become a privateer. He’d likely not be standing here now, if he had not.

Jean Luc passed the jug back to Nathan, and when he did, his friend nudged him in the arm and winked. “I wager I know the first thing you will do when you return to Whitecliffe.”

“I’d wager you’re incorrect.”

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t plan to take your wife to bed.”

Oh, he did. Most definitely. But first he was going to tell her he loved her. And then he was going to tell her again. And again. And again. And then he was going to beg her to forgive him for being so foolish as to have stayed silent the very first time she had told him.

B
ecoming an Incomparable had been far easier than Sophia had imagined. It had taken her precisely one week of careful observation to come to the conclusion that most people in the
ton
were vain, caustic aristocrats who were desperately bored and hungering for something different than what they knew. So she gave it to them.

When most of the ladies would agree with whatever one of the yapping, pompous gentleman of the
ton
was saying, Sophia would disagree. When other ladies spoke of the weather, or embroidery, or the pianoforte, she spoke of politics, poetry, and the future of England. Coming from a lower class, she had a burning desire to one day see those class differences obliterated. She was careful to temper those opinions when she spoke, of course, but not so careful that those around her didn’t understand that she thought simply having a title and money did not make one person better than another.

Her behavior, which might have gotten someone else ostracized or cut directly, drew ladies to her because they were in awe of her boldness, and drew men to her because they were in awe of her beauty, or so they said. She knew better. They perceived her as unattainable; therefore, she was a prize to be won.

She was slyly propositioned many times a night but always answered with a kind smile and a little shake of her head. Eventually, she became the most whispered-about person in the
ton
and wagers started to fly on who would win the hand of Scarsdale’s widow.

Only Amelia and Madame Lexington knew that Sophia did not want a husband. And
no one
knew that she desired a lover to obliterate the memory of Nathan’s hands on her body. She fervently prayed her plan would work, because while she could control her thoughts of Nathan in her waking hours, when she slept he filled every second of her dreams. And what was sweet in dreams tormented her when she awoke.

“Might Ah join ye?”

Sophia blinked out of her daze and scooted over in the circle of people she stood among to allow the tall, handsome redheaded man to saddle up to her. She knew of him, but they had not been properly introduced. But as his light-blue eyes drank her in, she was suddenly supremely glad that Jemma, who was less concerned with English rules than even Sophia was, had invited the self-made railroad tycoon—who the
ton
gossiped was ruthless in business and unparalleled as a lover—to her grandfather’s home for her ball. Sophia also had the annoying thought that Nathan’s eyes had been more compelling in all their simmering darkness, but she shoved that thought away and concentrated on the feeling of intrigue that was stirring.

Lord Barnes tried to step between them, but Mr. Frazier cut him off with the grace of a fox outmaneuvering a pack of hounds.

“I think Lord Barnes might have been trying to speak to me,” she said in a low voice, not wanting the odious man to hear her. She was only trying to ferret out if Mr. Frazier was interested, not bring Lord Barnes back to her side. Frankly, she was glad he no longer stood beside her. Earlier, the gentleman had not understood why it mattered if poor children were used as chimney sweeps. She may want a coldhearted lover but not a stupid one.

Mr. Frazier leaned toward her, and his scent—a pleasant enough one of leather and soap—surrounded her, but also stirred a memory of Nathan’s scent of pine. She shoved that blasted memory to the ground, too, and then mentally stomped on it.