His hand drove between their bodies and traced her wet seam before he dipped one finger
inside her, pressing deep. His palm rotated over that tiny spot of pure sensation,
moving over her as he slid in another finger. He plunged deeper, harder, just the
way she needed right now. He always seemed to know just what she needed, what she
wanted, as if he could see into her very heart.
She shook away that disturbing thought, that knowledge he could know her as no one
else ever could, and just let herself feel. Let herself be with him.
His hand slid away from her, and he held on to her waist as he rolled beneath her
and held her on top of him, strong and steady. He turned her away from him, astride
his hips, and traced his touch down the length of her back, over her buttocks.
“Ride me, Sophia,” he commanded.
She laughed at the heady rush of his words as she raised herself up and slowly lowered
onto his erect cock, one inch at a time. She let him slide deeper, deeper, until he
was fully inside her, joined to her. She closed her eyes and let her head drop back
as she reveled in the sensation of being filled by him. Part of him. He wound the
ends of her hair around his wrist and thrust his hips up beneath her.
She let her need take her over and moved on top of him faster, harder, until they
were moving as one. She felt that hot pressure build where he touched her, slid against
her. It expanded inside her, up and up, until it exploded.
She cried out her pleasure, her back arching like a taut bowstring back over his body.
“Sophia!” he shouted, and she felt him go still and rigid beneath her, felt the heat
of his release inside her.
The energy drained slowly out of her, leaving her weak and shivering. She collapsed
beside him to the bed and listened to the harsh, unsteady rhythm of his breath.
He reached for her and drew her to his side as he covered them both with the bedclothes.
And slowly sleep crept in to claim her.
Sophia leaned over Dominic’s shoulder as he lay on his side next to her, asleep. The
moonlight cast a bar of silver light over his face and the rumpled waves of his golden
hair. He looked so peaceful as he slept, so young, as if for a moment dreams erased
the cares of life and he was free.
Sophia wished she could make it like that for him all the time. That she could give
him what he gave her that day—a fresh beginning.
As she carefully smoothed back his hair, the light caught on the narrow gold band
on her finger. It still didn’t seem quite real that she could be married again, and
to Dominic St. Claire of all people, but there was the gleaming proof.
Dominic turned over under the bedclothes but he still didn’t wake. Sophia was sure
she couldn’t go back to sleep, not with the ship rolling beneath her. She climbed
down from the berth, careful not to disturb Dominic from his dreams, and quickly dressed
in a simple day gown and jacket from her trunk. She retrieved Mary’s diary from her
bag and went up on deck to try to read for a while.
But she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. Isabel St. Claire was already on deck,
sitting in one of the lounge chairs with a blanket tucked around her and a fashion
paper on her lap as she read by lamplight.
Sophia hesitated, wondering if she should go back to the cabin and leave her new sister-in-law
to her reading. Isabel had been very friendly at the church, and even the time they
had met at the Tuileries, but Sophia felt strangely shy around Dominic’s family. Especially
after the way Brendan had glared at her during the ceremony. She usually tried not
to care what people thought; she couldn’t afford to if she wanted to be herself. Yet
she
wanted
the St. Claires to like her.
Isabel glanced up and saw her there in the cabin doorway. She smiled happily and waved.
“Oh, thank goodness someone else is awake!” she called. “I was going crazy with loneliness
here all by myself.”
Isabel’s friendliness dispelled Sophia’s qualms, and she smiled in return as she sat
down in the other deck chair. “Surely one can’t be completely alone on a ship.”
“Perhaps not, but it certainly feels like it,” Isabel said. “I know this is a very
short voyage, but I always feel somehow sad on a sea journey. All that water and no
end yet in sight—it’s terribly lonely.”
Sophia studied the horizon beyond the polished railing. It did seem like an endless
expanse of purple-black, broken by ripples of cracked moonlight on the waves.
“It does seem rather melancholy,” Sophia agreed.
“But not when you’re here!” Isabel said happily. “You must think me silly for my lonesome
fancies. Dominic says you’ve traveled a great deal.”
“Yes. In France and Germany mostly, a little in Italy. It seems strange to be going
back to England now.”
“Especially as a new bride, with your husband’s crazy family waiting to meet you?”
Isabel said, a teasing lilt to her voice.
Sophia laughed. “Especially under those circumstances. But if they are all like you,
I’m sure I have nothing to fear.”
“My mother is always perfectly kind and correct. You have nothing to fear from her.
And James already adores you, though I think he will be terribly jealous of Dominic,”
Isabel said. “My father might snap and snarl at first, but he will quickly be distracted
by a new play and will forget all about you. And Brendan is still in France. So you
have nothing to worry about.”
Sophia’s head spun thinking about all the new family dynamics she would have to learn.
At least it all seemed completely different from her own family. They might not “snap
and snarl” but they never forgot. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“And I’m happy you’re here. I’ve missed Lily so much since she left. It will be nice
to have a new sister.”
“And I’ve never had a sister at all,” Sophia said, something warm and welcome touching
her heart at Isabel’s words. “It will all be very new to me.”
“I’m glad for Dominic, too. When poor Jane died, we feared he would never marry. One
wouldn’t think it to look at him, as he is all smiles and charm, but he is really
rather lonely. I’m afraid he keeps too much bottled up inside.”
Sophia nodded. She had seen that as well, the flashes of some hidden emotion in Dominic’s
eyes, quickly
suppressed and hidden by his beautiful smile. She wished she knew how to bring those
emotions out. “I’ll certainly do my best to make him happy.”
“Well, if anyone can do it I’m sure it’s you. I wish I could feel like that for someone.”
Isabel suddenly looked wistful.
“Have you never had feelings for anyone?” Sophia asked softly. She well remembered
what it felt like to be young, to have so many emotions swirling around in her heart
that she couldn’t make sense of them. And Isabel was beautiful, passionate, an actress.
“Perhaps once,” Isabel said softly. “But it was nothing. Just a man I saw once at
an assembly. I am quite sure he didn’t even notice me, and even if he did—well, it
couldn’t be. I am me, and he is someone far above an actress. A man with a great title,
as I am sure you know in your family. But he was very handsome, and he seemed so different
from all the silly young men I usually meet. He seemed so serious and intense.” She
laughed. “I sometimes keep him in my mind when I need to pretend love onstage. Isn’t
that silly?”
“No,” Sophia answered. “That isn’t silly at all.” For hadn’t she kept Dominic in her
mind all that time after their kiss at the Devil’s Fancy? It was surely no different
for Isabel to harbor a dream of a man she once saw. Sophia wondered who it could be,
to have caught the attention of such a remarkable young woman.
“But I fear my babble is keeping you from your reading!” Isabel gestured toward the
book in Sophia’s hand. “What is that? It looks terribly old.”
“It is rather old, about two hundred years,” Sophia answered as she held up Mary’s
diary. “It’s a journal I
found on a dusty shelf in my uncle’s house years ago. I read a little bit at a time.
It keeps me company when I’m feeling alone.”
“How intriguing,” Isabel said. “I do love old books and journals. They’re like discovering
characters in a play.”
“She feels like an old friend to me now. Though I’m afraid her life was not always
a happy one.”
“Really? Who is it? What’s her story?”
Sophia remembered how Dominic had tried to get the diary from her, how he had seemed
so strangely interested in Mary’s story. She could see why, now that she had read
further in the yellowed pages and seen the unfurling of a St. Claire woman’s misery
caused by a Huntington man. But the St. Claires were meant to be
her
family now, too, and Mary’s history was also theirs.
“It belonged to an ancestress of yours,” Sophia said. “A woman named Mary St. Claire
Huntington.”
“Mary St. Claire?” Isabel gasped. Her smile faded, her eyes wide as she looked down
at the book. “That is her diary?”
“Yes. Do you know of her?”
Isabel gave a bitter little laugh. “I have heard of her since the day I was born.
Our father drilled her story into all of us.”
Sophia held on tighter to the book. Once, before she met Dominic, she had thought
Mary was hers alone. That she was forgotten by everyone else. But now it appeared
she belonged to many other people. And that they used her story for reasons of their
own.
“What story were you told?” Sophia asked quietly.
“That long ago, back in the 1600s, a young lady named
Mary St. Claire fell in love with a man named John Huntington, whom Charles II made
a duke. They were not of the same social station, as Mary’s family was only country
gentry, but they fell passionately in love. They married, but it ended sadly. They
separated for some reason—no one ever will tell me why, so it must be something terribly
scandalous. Mary died of a broken heart at being rejected by her husband, and the
duke used his social position to ruin the St. Claires. They were cast out of their
country home and had to fend for themselves in the world. All because of a love affair
gone so wrong. Is that not terribly sad?”
Isabel paused for a moment, staring out at the black sea before she finished, “And
my family has never forgotten that. I think it is our theatrical natures.”
“Yes,” Sophia murmured. “Very sad.” The St. Claires felt the Huntingtons had ruined
their lives. No—they didn’t seem to merely feel it. They felt it in their bones. It
was part of their identity as a family, just as stories of ducal greatness and responsibility
were part of the Huntingtons.
But the ruination of Mary St. Claire was
not
part of any Huntington legend. Sophia could hardly be shocked by that. To her family,
the Huntington name, the ducal title, was everything. Anything could be sacrificed
to it, and the hearts and minds of mere women could be destroyed in an instant if
they stood in the way of family honor. Sophia had known there had to be a reason for
Dominic’s desire to get the diary from her. She saw the dark and powerful enmity his
family bore for hers. It had perhaps been cracked by Aidan’s marriage to Lily, but
it was certainly not broken. Maybe it never could be. It
had been rewoven and strengthened far too much over the years.
Could she be strong enough to break it? Sophia looked down at the book in her hands.
Even Mary, with her great love for her husband, hadn’t been able to do it. And it
had destroyed her in the end.
Sophia knew she had to find a way to be stronger than that. Yet she couldn’t keep
the doubts from creeping in like tiny hobgoblins to chip away at the rare happiness
she had felt in Dominic’s arms. His proposal had been so quick, so convenient, their
marriage so hasty. Why had he really asked her to marry him? What could he plan for
her in London?
And how could she face his family?
Isabel studied Sophia’s face closely, her eyes—so very green, just like her brother’s—wide.
“Didn’t Dominic tell you about all of this?”
“He told me something of it, I suppose,” Sophia answered carefully. “He did seem quite
interested in the diary. But I had no idea there was such a complicated tale.”
“Oh, my brothers can be such fools sometimes!” Isabel suddenly burst out. “I blame
the steady diet of Shakespeare we’ve been fed ever since the nursery.”
Sophia had to laugh, despite all the dark worries and fears swirling in her head.
“Shakespeare?”
“Yes. All those feuds and revenge. It’s affected how they see everything. But they
never remember how those things always turn out—with everyone dead or mad.”
“Surely no one had died because of this feud.”
“Not yet. But I think heartbreak and lives wasted in sadness can be even worse.”
Before Sophia could answer, the ship’s captain strolled across the deck to tell them
it shouldn’t be much longer until they reached Dover.
So England, home, was very near. The place she had fled so many months ago, and had
started to return to with a tentative spark of hope.
My brother Nick was very right about why the duke came to visit. He broached the subject
of his money-raising plan while he was out hunting with John today. John seems interested.
It is something that has the royal backing, after all, and as John pointed out it
also has the backing of my family since Nick has brought our father and uncle into
the idea as well.
I told John I was not sure it is something we should be involved with, but he just
laughed and said I should not worry myself about such things. That I must only concern
myself with creating an heir again. Yet still I worry. I can’t help it—he is my love,
and I want our lives together to be all we envisioned when we wed.
T
his is your family’s house?” Sophia said as she peered out the carriage window at
the residence that loomed into sight. “It isn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” Dominic said. “That my parents lived backstage at the theater?
That it would be painted red and hung with satin curtains and gold tassels?”