Sex and the Single Earl (3 page)

“Don’t call me Puck.” Her reply was automatic. He had taken to calling her that many years ago, likening her to the mischievous sprite from her least favorite of the Bard’s works.

“I’m sure Robert could find you another bracelet just like it,” he said in an excruciatingly kind and patronizing voice.

“I don’t want another one! I want that one.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, as if he struggled to tamp down his impatience.

“Sweetheart, you can’t go off on a wild-goose chase through the streets of Bath as if you were a child in the woods at your grandfather’s estates. I know we’re not in London, but there are unsavory elements in this town who wouldn’t think twice of harming a gently bred lady. You must learn to control your impulses.”

Sophie retreated into a stony silence, aware she was acting like a child but unable to help herself. The last thing she needed on this day—of all days—was another lecture from him.

Simon turned his head to gaze out the window, seemingly unperturbed by her attempt to ignore him. After several useless minutes spent trying to regain her dignity, Sophie realized she might as well climb down from her high horse. Nothing could ever pierce Simon’s implacable reserve.

“When did you arrive in town?” she asked.

“This morning. I had only just left my rooms in Milsom Street when I saw you dashing down the street like a madwoman.”

Sophie ignored the last part of his answer. “You’re not staying with your aunts?”

Normally when Simon came to Bath he stayed with his elderly aunts, Lady Eleanor and Lady Jane, at their elegant townhouse in St. James’s Square. The two women were also Sophie’s godmothers. After Robert and Annabel’s wedding, they had asked her to come for an extended visit in Bath. Sophie had leapt at the opportunity, hoping the change in scenery would ease the restlessness bedeviling her.

“No,” Simon replied. “I thought it best to take lodgings of my own, since you are staying with them for the next month. I do not wish to intrude on your privacy.”

Her gloom deepened. No doubt he wished to take his own rooms so he could see his latest mistress while in town. Or else he found her so irritating he had no desire to reside in the same house with her.

The hackney pulled to a stop in St. James’s Square. Simon handed her out, escorting her up the honey-colored terrace steps to the front entrance of his aunts’ house. Sophie made a halfhearted attempt to smooth down the front of her demolished skirt as he knocked on the door.

“You will want to come in, I assume, to call upon your aunts,” she said.

“Not right now. Please tell Aunt Eleanor I’ll wait on her first thing tomorrow. I have some urgent business to conduct in town. I was on my way there when you accosted me.”

“‘Accosted you?’” she snapped, irritated by the gratuitous poke. She drew in a breath, preparing to unleash her standard lecture on his lack of familial devotion, when the door behind them swung open.

“Good afternoon, my lord, Miss Stanton. Would you care to step inside?” asked Lady Eleanor’s butler.

“No, thank you, Yates. I was just leaving,” Simon informed him. Yates, though, was perusing Sophie’s dress with an expression of barely repressed alarm.

“My lord, your aunts long to see you,” Sophie insisted. “It’s been ages since you’ve been to Bath. Now that you are here, why cannot you step inside for a few minutes?”

Simon’s eyebrows drew together in a heavy scowl. He reacted like that whenever she lectured him, especially in front of the servants. He thought it yet another example of her lamentably unladylike behavior.

“As I explained a moment ago,” he said in that same patronizing voice, “I have an urgent appointment in town. Now go inside, Sophie, and get cleaned up. You look like something dragged you backward through a bush.”

Her temper finally broke free. “Oh, go to the blazes, you pompous ass!” Spinning on her heel, Sophie stalked past a stunned Yates. Glancing over her shoulder, she felt a surge of satisfaction at Simon’s outraged look.

Well, he deserved to feel her temper. And at least this time, she had truly gotten the last word.

Simon made a point of always knowing what he wanted, and what he wanted right now was to haul Sophie into his aunt’s drawing room, pull her across his lap, and paddle her round little bottom. Naturally, being the disciplined man that he was, he controlled the impulse.

After a brusque nod to Yates, Simon strode back to the waiting hackney and directed the driver to take him to his bank in High Street. Perhaps he could have taken a few minutes to call on his aunts, but he had no intention of facing them—or Sophie, for that matter—until his temper had regained its normal equilibrium.

He muttered under his breath, recalling the way she had glared down her small, straight nose at him, spectacles askew across her flushed cheeks. How did the exasperating little thing always manage to make him lose his temper? She’d been doing it for years, and he found himself no closer to an answer. He must be insane for even contemplating what he was about to do.

But then he thought of her pretty eyes and the sadness in them when she told him about her bracelet, and the familiar, almost primitive urge to protect her swam up to the surface.

Sophie had wonderful eyes—amber, shot through with flecks of green—and they sparkled with whatever emotion she felt at the time. Spectacles usually hid their depths, but Simon had learned to ignore the gold frames long ago.

Her few suitors had called her an angel or, even more extravagantly, a fairy queen. For an angel, though, Sophie could be appallingly bad-tempered, a character flaw he’d been aware of since the day he had pulled her from the lake on General Stanton’s estate.

She had been twelve at the time, rowing in a small boat near the shore with her brother Robert, giggling and shrieking with the annoying high spirits so often displayed by girls of her age. Simon had just returned from a hard ride across the downs, passing by the lake on his way back to the house. When Sophie stood up to call to him, the boat had rolled, tipping the girl and her brother into the lake. Robert had popped up immediately, but Sophie slipped under the surface of the water.

Simon’s heart had seized with fear when he saw her bright mop of auburn hair disappear from view. But he threw himself into the lake and found her immediately, cradling her against him as he swam to the nearby shore.

After she had recovered, Sophie had been mortified. When he tried to cheer her up, telling her she looked like a drowned rat, she stared at him with red-rimmed, unblinking eyes. Then she lashed out and kicked him—actually kicked him—in the shins. It had hurt too, since he had pulled his boots off before diving in, and her sturdy half-boots were heavy with water. She pulled herself from his arms and stomped off to the house, her little stick figure rigid with fury.

Sophie was definitely more sprite than angel, and he’d acquired several bruises from her over the years to prove it.

The carriage came to a halt before his bank. He absently paid off the driver, his mind returning to the problem of Sophie and her bracelet. In spite of what she thought, he did understand what the loss of her trinket meant to her. After all, he had helped Robert pick the damn thing out not a month after her father died. But he wouldn’t allow her to risk her safety or her reputation, for any reason. This latest episode provided ample evidence that she simply couldn’t be trusted to take care of herself.

Sophie would balk at his interference, but she’d have to get used to it. He’d come all the way to Bath with the firm intention of wedding her, and even though he wanted—no,
needed
—her lands, that didn’t mean they couldn’t have an agreeable marriage. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d mold her into a suitable and contented wife. For her own sake, as well as his.

Lady Eleanor St. James looked up from her perusal of the
Bath Chronicle
and glowered at Sophie from across the drawing room.

“Don’t be silly, my girl. No thief-taker in the world would be interested in such an insignificant trinket. Besides, this is Bath, not Bow Street. You really must try to rid yourself of these ridiculously romantic notions.”

It took only an instant for her godmother to demolish Sophie’s plans to recover her bracelet. Lady Eleanor had a knack for doing that, and was famous for a ruthless logic that had reduced many an unwary victim to quivering silence. Sophie had hoped to keep the knowledge of the theft from the old woman, but her dramatic entrance into the house yesterday had occurred just as Lady Eleanor stepped from the drawing room in search of her sister Jane. The ensuing interrogation had not been pleasant, but at least she had convinced her godmother that it was only her coral bracelet that had been stolen, not the Stanton family heirloom.

Sophie sighed, retrieving a dainty scrap of partially embroidered linen from the bottom of her sewing basket. She found herself sighing quite a lot these days, a melancholic habit she had always found annoying in other people. Her mother would say it was nerves, but that was absurd. Sophie never had the vapors or suffered from fits of the blue devils, except for that awful time after her father’s death.

“Are you listening to me, Sophia? I insist you give up any idea of recovering your bracelet. I know Robert gave it to you, but it is not, after all, an heirloom, or even very valuable. What’s that you said?”

“I didn’t say anything, my lady,” Sophie replied, cursing the gasp that had escaped her lips.

Lady Eleanor looked suspicious, but carried on. “You must not make such a fuss over something so insignificant. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. That has always been my motto in life, and it serves me well. You would do best to adopt it. In any event, how would one even go about recovering such a thing?”

That was exactly the question Sophie had been pondering for the last twenty-four hours. But a quick inspection of Lady Eleanor’s jutting chin convinced her she best keep those thoughts to herself.

“I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am. Can I cut you another slice of plum cake? It really is delicious.” As she reached for the older woman’s plate, Sophie tried desperately to think of a topic that would divert attention away from her cursed bracelet. “By the way, my lady, is there any particular book you would like me to pick up for you at Barratt’s today? I understand there are some new volumes by the author of
Waverly
.”

Lady Eleanor’s sparse brows twitched together, her narrow but shrewd eyes staring back at her. But Sophie was spared any more lecturing by a light tap sounding on the drawing room door.

“Enter,” Lady Eleanor bellowed.

Sophie rose and fluffed out her soft muslin skirt, preparing to greet the day’s first visitors to St. James’s Square. She loathed the idea of having to be social, but at least it would divert her godmother’s attention from yesterday’s fiasco.

“The Earl of Trask,” intoned Yates.

Simon strode into the room, casting a glowering look her way before turning his attention to his aunt. He bowed gracefully, the fabric of his bottle green riding jacket clinging to his massive shoulders. Sophie ducked her head to hide the flush of heat climbing up her cheeks, silently lamenting—not for the first time—her ready response to his intense masculinity.

“Good morning, my dear aunt. It is a great pleasure to see you again.”

“Well, if it’s such a great pleasure, nevvy, I wonder why you don’t avail yourself of it more often. It’s a miracle I even remember what you look like.”

Sophie grinned, relishing the look of discomfort that flashed across Simon’s imperious features. But it vanished in an instant.

“Forgive me, aunt. Business in town has kept me much occupied.”

Offering no other explanation for his behavior, he unleashed a charming smile on Lady Eleanor. Sophie felt a stab of irritation at his easy dismissal of his aunt’s reproach. But even though his casual neglect of his aunts never failed to annoy her, she still had the insane urge to defend him from the stern old woman’s impending reprimand.

But instead of ringing a peal over her wayward nephew, Lady Eleanor’s grim expression softened into an affectionate smile as she invited Simon to join her by patting the overstuffed silk divan on which she sat. Irritation faded from her wrinkled face, replaced by an expression of doting fondness. As usual, all Simon had to do was walk into a room and every woman melted into a puddle of warm custard, including his crusty old aunt.

“What nonsense, my dear boy.” Lady Eleanor trilled a surprisingly good imitation of a girlish laugh. “I have no doubt there were other things besides business that kept you in London. I suppose I should be grateful you found the time to visit your old aunties, especially now that the Little Season has commenced. Whatever will all those fine ladies of the ton do without you to squire them about?”

Lady Eleanor gave her nephew a knowing wink.

Sophie choked back a horrified laugh as Simon threw a glance her way. Although she returned his glare, she somehow managed to clamp down on the caustic remark that threatened to force its way past her lips.

“I hope I find you well, my lady,” he replied, ignoring his aunt’s outlandish gesture. “Indeed, you look to be in fine trim, in spite of all this damp weather. How is your gout?”

As Lady Eleanor launched into a detailed account of her various treatments at the baths, Sophie wandered to the window, wishing—as she had a thousand times before—that Simon would someday get the set-down he deserved.

She pushed back the heavy silk curtains draped across the tall, elegant windows, and gazed out into the quiet street. The golden limestone of the terraced houses reflected the gentle rays of the October sun. A matronly looking woman, dressed in last year’s fashions, strolled down the pavement, trailed by a maid struggling with a bundle of parcels. Two men appeared at the top of the street, carrying a Bath chair. It disgorged its contents—an elderly man who limped up the steps of the townhouse opposite, leaning heavily on the arm of one of the chairmen as he nursed his gouty foot.

The whole scene was as tranquil and genteel as anyone could imagine. And utterly boring. As boring as it had been yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.

Except for the theft of her bracelet, of course. But that hardly counted as an amusing diversion.

As she listened to Lady Eleanor drone on about her medical treatments, Sophie worried that it wasn’t nerves she suffered from, but incipient madness brought on by boredom. Ever since Robert and Annabel’s marriage three weeks ago, she had been consumed by a restless and vague emotion that grew worse with each passing day. The feelings that troubled her now were like nothing she had ever experienced before.

“Sophie, I failed to ask yesterday after Annabel and your brother. I hope you left them in good health.” Simon’s polite comment broke into her musings.

She pinned a smile on her face before turning back to respond. “I quite wonder why you forgot to ask me. Something must have distracted you, although I can’t imagine what. Oh, wait. Perhaps it was the theft of my bracelet. Or the fact that I smelled like a slop bucket.”

“Sophia, stop teasing the earl and answer the question,” commanded Lady Eleanor. “Really, my dear, you must learn to curb your tongue around your elders. And don’t think I have forgotten your actions of yesterday. We will conclude that discussion at a later time.”

“Don’t trouble yourself on my account, my dear aunt.” Simon’s handsome features took on a grim cast. “I, too, wish to discuss Sophie’s behavior.”

“Well, now that the topic has come up,” Sophie replied, screwing up her courage, “I would actually like to discuss it with you as well. I need your help.”

The grim look turned wary. “My help for what?”

“To get my bracelet back, of course.” Sophie had decided last night, after many sleepless hours, that Simon was the only person in Bath who could help her. Whether he
would
was another question.

“And how do you propose we go about doing that?” He didn’t even bother to mute the sarcasm in his voice, but she was used to that. At least he had asked the question.

“Well, Simon, I was hoping you could hire a thief-taker to find the boy for me. Not to turn him over to the magistrate,” she added hastily when she noted the startled expression on his face. “Simply to track him down. I know the Bow Street Runners are very experienced with this sort of problem. Surely there’s someone in Bath who could perform a similar office. Perhaps a local constable?”

“Sophia,” Lady Eleanor’s sharp voice interrupted. “I’ve already explained why that is impossible. Simon, perhaps you can make the foolish child see reason before she creates more scandal than she already has. Lady Connaught already sent me a note asking if that was Sophia running like a demented creature down Milsom Street yesterday.”

Sophie set her jaw, meeting Simon’s thoughtful look with a defiant stare. He rose slowly from the divan and crossed the room to stand before her. She tilted her chin, resisting the urge to lose herself in midnight eyes that contained a surprising amount of commiseration.

“Listen to me, Puck. I understand your loss. I know how much that bracelet means to you. But trust me when I say that you’ve set yourself an impossible task. There are too many street urchins and thieves in Bath to count, and your coral bracelet is not remarkable enough to excite any attention in the criminal underworld, or in the pawnshops of Holloway or Avon Street.”

Sophie schooled her features to remain expressionless. Simon had no idea how much interest her bracelet would generate. But it wasn’t only the loss of her bracelet—and how her family would react—that had kept her awake for most of the night.

“It’s…it’s not just the bracelet,” she stammered, finally yielding to the nagging little voice in her head. “I’m worried about the boy, Simon. He was so small, so frightened. How could a child so young be a hardened thief? Something terrible must have happened to force him to steal from me.”

“Good Lord, Sophia, you mustn’t be so naïve,” scoffed Lady Eleanor. “These children are bred to be thieves. They begin stealing at a very early age. I have no doubt they imbibe their wicked nature in their mothers’ milk. Even if you were to find the boy in question I’m sure his character would be beyond redemption.”

An image of the child’s grease-smudged, terrified face leapt into her mind. Something terrible had hurt him—damaged his spirit. She was certain of it.

“I refuse to believe any child is inherently evil,” she retorted. “It’s too easy for us to blame the poor things. How can any child living in such poverty and despair be expected to act otherwise? How else could he survive? No, my lady, I won’t accept that one so young is beyond salvation.”

Lady Eleanor’s taffeta skirts rustled with indignation, but Sophie refused to back down. She knew she was right about the boy. He was an innocent lost in a ghastly underworld, and something inside insisted she help him, even if Simon and Lady Eleanor were dead set against it.

Her ladyship’s eyebrows started twitching again, a sure sign of an impending outburst. Sophie held her breath in preparation for the coming explosion.

“I’m sorry to disagree, Aunt Eleanor, but I think Sophie has the right of it,” Simon broke in. “I’ve heard any number of reports to the Select Committee in the House. It’s most unfair to blame these poor children, and I don’t believe they have an innate propensity to crime. It’s a failing of the government and magistrates that we can’t seem to reduce the number of young criminals roaming our streets.”

Sophie’s mouth dropped open. Simon had actually agreed with her.

“Don’t get too excited, Sophie,” he said dryly after glancing her way. “I agree with Aunt Eleanor that there’s nothing you can do. These boys go into the trade very young. There are hundreds of them in Bath. It has a very large population of thieves for a town of its size.”

“It’s all the wealthy visitors who come to the baths,” interjected Lady Eleanor. “The thieves come down to the resorts from London—better pickings for them during the warmer months.”

“Can’t we at least try?” Sophie pleaded. “The slums aren’t very big. We should be able to find one little boy without too much bother. I would know him again in an instant, I assure you.”

Simon made an impatient sound under his breath. “Sophie, you’re not thinking. The slums may be small, but they’re very crowded. And Holloway is little better than a colony of beggars. I would no sooner risk taking you there than I would the stews in London.”

She turned from him, staring blindly out the window into the street. Why couldn’t he understand? She had to find the boy, as much for her own sake as for his. Sophie knew what it meant to be frightened and alone, and the boy’s pinched face would haunt her until she could help him.

Taking a deep breath, she turned around to confront two disapproving faces. Nephew and aunt stared back at her, jaws set in identical lines of determination. She met Simon’s eyes, cool and fathomless, and wondered again how she could love him as much as she did.

“I’m not naïve, in spite of what you might think,” she said, trying to speak reasonably. “You know Mamma has worked with charitable associations and orphanages for years. I’ve been visiting them since I came out. I’m not afraid, and I’ve seen more than you can imagine.”

“You’ve seen nothing,” Simon replied in a stern voice. He covered the distance between them in two strides, took her wrist in a gentle but unyielding grip, and towed her over to an ornate walnut chair.

“It’s not the same, Sophie,” he said as she sank into the chair. “Your mother confines her charitable work to reputable institutions run by respectable churchmen. She never let you see anything that was not appropriate for you to see. You have no idea of the filth and depravation of the rookeries, the squalor. The inhabitants would sooner cut your throat and leave you bleeding on the pavement than speak to you. If you were ever to go down there by yourself…”