His eyes had grown dark and luminous when she reached for him.
“And so are you,” she said in a breath, “…velvet and iron and velvet again…”
She searched his face for confirmation that she was bestowing on him the same intense pleasure he had granted her moments before.
“St. Ninian, but you have the power to bewitch a man!” he exclaimed, allowing her full reign over his most vulnerable self. At length, he captured her wandering hands, pinning them against the pillow that cradled her head. When she dared repeat her passionate assault by teasing him with her hips, he responded by hovering above her, brushing against her torso with tantalizing deliberation.
“So… Miss Sophie McGann knows exactly what she wants, does she?” he noted, his features alight with amusement. “That pleases me greatly,” he murmured, parting her legs with his knees. “Because, if swathed in velvet you wish to be, my darling… ’tis velvet you shall have…”
His blue eyes blazed with a strange cobalt fire. Then, he slowly sheathed his body in hers, deliberately prolonging their pleasure in a heart-stopping demonstration of restrained but superior strength. She reached up and pulled him close, luxuriating in the feel of his weight bearing down on her as they lay in the wide expanse of their elegant bed. She found herself encased in a plush cocoon… an opulent canopy arching overhead and red velvet pressing against her back. Hunter’s muscular frame began to surge against hers, advancing, fusing them in a sumptuous, undulating universe of warmth and heightened sensation.
He plunged his hands into her hair, kissing her lips, her eyelids, the hollow at the base of her neck, each breast in turn until she had lost all notion of where her boundaries ended and his began. All that existed was a burning, glowing, incandescence that bloomed between them with unbearable intensity. Finally, he cupped his palms beneath her, pressing her body relentlessly against his in concert with the rhythm of their dance. Longing and heartbreak and reclaimed happiness and sheer carnal delight—woven from the disparate threads of their complicated lives these last fifteen years—forged the velvet bonds that linked them forever.
She cried out his name, startled to hear her voice ring in the chamber piled high with the silk and satin raiment of fictional characters whose loves and lives seemed as real to her at this moment as her own. Velvet fire roared in their ears, enveloping them in a burst of white light.
Then, the silence in the room was punctuated only by their ragged breathing. Lying in the sanctuary of Hunter’s arms, her skin slick with sweat, Sophie felt herself to be, at last, warm and safe—vibrating from an inner core of happiness she’d not thought possible.
The other nights they’d been together were merely a prelude to
this
night, she thought humbly. Yet the pleasures they had bestowed on one another seemed a mere preamble to what they could and would mean to each other in the years to come.
She thought of darling Rory and wondered if tonight, beneath the scarlet canopy of King Henry’s bed, she had conceived another bairn. She wanted another baby by Hunter Robertson, she thought fiercely, a child he would celebrate in the womb and cherish from the first day of its birth. Suddenly years of unshed tears of anxiety and loneliness poured down her cheeks and her shoulders began to heave with sobs.
“Sophie, what is it?” Hunter whispered.
“I—I am so desperately
grateful
you’re here,” she choked. “I can’t seem to
stop
cry—”
“I’m here… oh, I’m here, indeed,” he comforted her.
“Hunter, thank
God
you came back to me!” she cried, seeking his lips once more with a fervor that nearly consumed her. “Truly, I was so frightened at times,” she whispered, seeing in her mind’s eye the cool, subtle menace of Darnly’s every interaction with her.
“Shh…” he soothed. “At times I was frightened as well. You’re safe, now, my darling… absolutely safe with me.”
And for several long minutes, he rocked her in his arms as if she were a child.
***
Number 10 St. James’s Street was aglow with hundreds of candles. Carriage and sedan chairs jammed the street and sedate music wafted through open windows from a ballroom on the second floor.
As Sophie gazed at the manse jammed with merrymakers, she suddenly shook her head.
“Let’s not tempt fate,” she pleaded. “We can dance the night away another time… I—”
“Darnly’ll never guess ’tis you in this garb,” he grinned down on her, admiring her high-waisted ruby silk gown and steepled hat with its gauzy veil spouting from the crown—courtesy of Covent Garden’s production of
Taming of the Shrew.
“To me, madame, it seems the perfect choice of costume.”
Sophie smiled weakly, not wishing to dampen his soaring spirits on this first night of his homecoming.
“You have a rather warped sense of humor, sir,” she retorted, eyeing his short, padded tunic and the tight, fitted hose of a Renaissance nobleman. “Pray, don your mask. And be sure, kind sir, you’ll hear my shrewish tongue, indeed, if you dare take it off even
once
while we’re here.”
Both masked now, for several moments they observed the parade of nuns and cavaliers, harlequins and milkmaids making their way toward the earl’s elegant front door. Clearly, it was the social event of the year.
“It reminds me of the Jubilee Ball,” Sophie commented as they brushed past the majordomo who had given up all attempts at announcing new arrivals. “Except I’ll wager we’ll not be caught in a downpour on a night like this.”
Upstairs, Darnly’s ballroom was aglow with candles and crowded with revelers. Sophie and Hunter secured glasses of punch for themselves and spent several minutes attempting to identify people they knew, despite the entire company being disguised with masks.
Mavis Piggott had decked herself out in a magnificent brocaded court gown which Sophie recognized as having come from the same source as the green satin dress she had worn earlier to the theater. Darnly’s newly declared mistress wore an elaborate white wig bedecked with several ostrich plumes. The actress’s neckline plunged scandalously, displaying her two most celebrated assets to their fullest advantage. The Earl of Llewelyn was dressed in full court attire as well, looking for all the world like France’s Sun King in a red velvet coat and matching breeches embroidered with silver.
“Well, well,” Hunter said in a breath. “I return after all this time to find my old nemesis as self-satisfied as ever.”
Steering well clear of their hosts, Sophie and Hunter wandered into a room where card playing was the principal diversion.
“God’s bones… is that
Peter?”
Sophie gasped. They both stared across the chamber at an emaciated figure cloaked in a monk’s robe who was sitting at a table where three other faro players wearing a variety of costumes were demanding payment for their winnings. Peter Lindsay appeared white and shaken. Trevor Bedloe, dressed in matching monk’s garb that Sophie wagered he had worn in the beech grove at Evansmor, was dispensing gold coins to the winners from a metal strong box. Then Darnly’s employee handed Peter paper and quill with which he presumably was signing an IOU to his host who, it appeared, had staked him to tonight’s play. Quickly, Sophie and Hunter retreated to the ballroom, anxious to lose themselves in the crowd.
The string orchestra had by this time ceased playing stately minuets, and its leader announced
The White Cockade,
a lively Scottish country dance. Joining the bottom of the set, Hunter and Sophie began to execute the rollicking steps with great enthusiasm. When at length, the tune came to its boisterous conclusion, the couple laughingly collapsed on the nearest straight-backed chairs. Suddenly, a voice snarled from behind them.
“You
dare,
Robertson, to presume upon my hospitality?”
Sophie and Hunter turned to discover Roderick Darnly glaring down at them, his eyes blazing like an enraged Lucifer through the holes in his crimson mask.
“Roderick,” Sophie intervened quickly, “you were kind enough to send me an invitation… Mr. Robertson has just returned from the Colonies and I assumed after all this time—”
“Well, you assumed incorrectly,” Darnly cut in coldly. “I observed your disgusting display in the Garricks’ box tonight and the moment he took to the dance floor, I knew the identity of this six-foot rogue. I wish this man to leave my house at
once!”
“My lord,” Hunter said, rising to the full height that had apparently foiled his disguise, “I will respect your request and shall depart immediately, but I would hope, after six years, we can put our differences behind us and—”
“I should call you out, you Scottish cur!” Darnly snapped. “But to save Sophie embarrassment, I shall merely, for the nonce, take pleasure in watching you leave my house and consider what charges Rosoman and I shall renew upon the morrow.”
“I doubt you will find a supporter at Sadler’s Wells or anywhere else for legal action at this late date,” Hunter retorted. He clasped Sophie by the hand. “Come, Sophie… we shall not keep the earl from his remaining guests. We bid you good night.”
“And I bid you good riddance!” Darnly retorted.
Outside, Hunter hailed a hackney from among the lines of coaches hoping for a fare and quickly assisted Sophie inside.
“Dear God, Hunter… I felt it in my bones—we should have never put ourselves in harm’s way,” Sophie agonized. “He’ll seek to injure you… I
know
it!”
Hunter shifted his weight to sit beside her in the swaying carriage and put a reassuring arm around her shoulders.
“I spoke to Tom King about the affair only this evening,” he replied soothingly, “when we discussed my summer engagement. Rosoman long ago confirmed to Tom that Darnly was a pirate. Old Ros told Tom he thinks the earl is mental on the subject of my catching him out cheating the company’s books, and that’s why he’s putting on such a ferocious offense. But if I
wasn’t
stealing from the till, and Roderick Darnly
was
stealing from
you…
and if Rosoman was a witness to the earl’s striking me first when we fell to fisticuffs—then there’s no
proof
against me and there is proof against him!”
“Roderick doesn’t need proof…he’s an aristo,” Sophie retorted. “That’s all he needs on his side to do you harm. I’ve been through this, Hunter, and—”
“Don’t worry, sweetling,” he interrupted softly, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “I didn’t come all this way from America to let the likes of Roderick Darnly do you harm.”
Thirty-Five
On the Wednesday following the Earl of Llewelyn’s ball, Sophie paused while packing her portmanteau, alarmed by the sound of boots tramping up the stairs to her lodgings. She glanced apprehensively at Hunter, who sat at her desk with Rory on his knees. With a sense of foreboding, she opened the latch in response to the insistent pounding at her door.
“Are you Hunter Robertson, late of Annapolis?” demanded a guardsman in the king’s livery, addressing Sophie’s companion as he strode across the chamber to stand behind her.
The room was cluttered with trunks and valises in anticipation of their departure to Sadler’s Wells the following morning.
“Yes,” Hunter said, clasping Sophie’s hand reassuringly.
“Are you a king’s man?” little Rory chirped at the visitor, a look of awe playing across his youthful features.
“Aye lad… come to serve summons, I’m afraid.”
“Summons?” Sophie gasped. “For what? From
whom?”
“By the authority vested in me,” the guardsman intoned, reading from a writ he’d pulled from his coat pocket, “I charge you, Hunter Robertson, with the civil crime of Criminal Conversation with one Sophie Lindsay-Hoyt, the proof of which is a five-year-old boy named Rory, whom the plaintiff will prove is your issue, the product of your seduction of Sir Peter Lindsay-Hoyt’s true wife, depriving him of the physical congress of her person and tainting, by this spurious offspring, the future happiness of his house. The plaintiff further charges damages of ten thousand pounds for the loss of the comfort and society of said wife and the deprivation of her maternal services. On the Monday, you will appear at King’s Bench to answer this summons. Failure to appear will result in fines and imprisonment.”
Sophie leaned against Hunter to avoid sinking to her knees in despair.
“This lodging will be watched, so I wouldn’t contemplate any thoughts of flight,” the guardsman intoned, indicating the presence of a comrade who had stepped from the shadows on the landing separating Sophie’s abode from that of Mrs. Phillips.
The first guardsman handed Hunter the parchment from which he had just recited and nodded curtly at Sophie. The uniformed pair then retreated down the stairs where one of them took up his post across the road in front of Bob Derry’s Cider House.
At this point, the color had drained from Sophie’s face. She stumbled toward the chair facing her writing desk and sat down. Rory glanced with alarm from his mother to Hunter.