The Secret Lover (16 page)

"Did you?" she asked, and smiled softly, so softly that it permeated straight through to his heart.

"After what transpired yesterday afternoon, I thought… I must apologize, Sophie. I did not intend to ruin your picnic. But when I saw my father sitting there, I could not let the opportunity slip by."

"Oh," she said softly, her smile fading.

He sighed heavily, looked away for a long moment. "I owe you an apology and an explanation. Come on then, will you walk with me?"

She nodded; he put her hand protectively in the crook of his arm. They walked in silence for a few minutes, around the pond, to his house. As they climbed up the knoll on which it sat, he noticed that it was beginning to take shape, to grow and mold itself into the image he had held in his mind for so many months—a house of happiness. Perhaps even one day, a house with children, and his father.

His father.

"I have made several attempts to see him," he said at last.

"Have you?"

He nodded solemnly. "I am unable to count the number of times I have tried. Trevor has turned me away at every opportunity. I've even gone so far as to follow him around the park here, but the one time I attempted to see him, the so-called footman kept me from him. I did not want to make a scene publicly, so I have kept my distance."

"A footman kept you from him?" Sophie asked, clearly confused.

"Yes. Trevor is determined our father will not see me."

She withdrew her hand from his, forcing him to stop, and peered up at him with wide brown eyes. "But… why should he be so determined to keep you away? You've no
real
claim to your father."

Meaning no legitimate claim. It was funny that after thirty-five years, those words could still affect him so, make him feel somehow less a man.

Caleb sighed, took her hand in his. "There is much I would tell you, Sophie." He began walking, led her inside, to the ballroom again, where sheets of muslin were draped over workbenches and the floor.

Sophie walked to the middle of the room and impatiently pushed the sagging flower from her temple. "The work is almost done," she remarked, and looked at Caleb.

He tossed his hat aside, onto a workbench, and hands on his waist, returned her gaze for a long moment before speaking. "I beg your patience, Sophie, as I must start at the beginning."

She turned so that she was facing him fully, and nodded solemnly.

What he told her was that he was the product of a true love match between a Frenchwoman—his mother having died several years ago—and Lord Hamilton. After his birth, Lord Hamilton returned to France several times to see his son; through the years, they formed a deep attachment to one another. He told her he had understood at an early age who he was, that as the illegitimate son of an English nobleman, he had no claim to his father's wealth. He even knew there was another son, Trevor, and had even seen the miniature portraits of his half-brother through the years. And while Caleb confessed he had often envied Trevor his legitimate name, he had never begrudged him the Hamilton estate. That was because, he insisted earnestly, his mother had some wealth in her own right. They had lived comfortably—not to the degree of his father, certainly, but it was enough. He insisted that he wanted nothing more than a relationship with his father, and had exactly that up until a year or so ago, when the viscount's visits to Caleb's home in the Scottish borderlands had abruptly ceased.

What Caleb did not tell her was how panicked he had felt when the first letter had been returned to him under Trevor's bold signature, unopened.

How he had felt the world falling out from underneath him, for he had realized at that moment his father was the only thing he held dear in this world, and he could very well lose him. Nor did he tell her how angry it had made him,
still
made him, or how his anger had built into an unrelenting, helpless fury when he had endeavored to find out why his father was being taken from him, only to be blocked at every turn.

"I learned he had suffered a seizure quite by accident, from an acquaintance who happened to be in Edinburgh. I went to Hamilton House straightaway, but was escorted off the estate by a constable."

"Oh my," Sophie muttered, the empathy evident in her voice.

"I had no choice but to leave," he said, looking off into the distance.

"Trevor has quite a lot of power in Nottinghamshire. If he had wanted to see me locked away for good, I daresay he could have done it."

"How awful for you!" Sophie exclaimed, and reached for his hand.

Caleb grasped her hand firmly. "Would that you had been there. I was in desperate need of a friend."
I'm still in desperate need of one
…

"What happened then?"

"Oh," he said, flashing a wry smile. "Trevor thought to move Father to London, presumably to seek better medical treatment." He did not add that he suspected Trevor wanted the world to see his father infirm, for reasons that still escaped him. "The moment I heard he had brought him to London, I followed. And again, I have made several attempts to see him, but Trevor refuses me entry. I must see for myself that he is receiving the proper care—I don't trust my brother."

That admission clearly surprised Sophie. "I beg your pardon?"

Caleb gazed at her sweet face—she didn't understand the cruelty of man, how could she? "I don't trust him," he said again. "My father seems to have gotten worse in his care from what little I have seen, not better."

"Surely you are not implying—"

"I don't know what I would imply, truly," he interrupted, feeling the exasperation of his situation. He was a bastard—to some, that equated to blackguard, swindler. "All I know is that my father's health seems to have deteriorated, and Trevor refuses to allow me access to him. What can I think?" He looked at Sophie again. "What must I think?" he muttered again.
What could he think yesterday, seeing her with him, realizing
that she had declined his offer for Trevor
? "Do you understand me?"

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

As much as he had wanted her to say yes, she understood, her candid answer was another one of the many things he loved about her. Caleb smiled, reached up to push the flower from her temple. "Lovely bonnet, Miss Dane," he said, chuckling when Sophie blushed. "
You
are lovely… far lovelier than I have a right to want. I will not lie. When I saw you with him, I was envious. Deeply envious."

Her blush deepened to a dark rose; she nervously fidgeted with her glove. "Really?" she asked shyly.

His smile faded; his gaze caught hers and held it. "Really," he said softly. "I've come to understand how mad my passion is for you, Sophie. I think you beautiful and charming and—"

"I am divorced."

Her words stunned him; it was the last thing he had expected to hear, the last thing he would have suspected of
her
. He tried to speak, but no words would come. It was so unheard of—

Sophie's face fell—she abruptly turned on her heel and walked purposefully for the door.

The door suddenly seemed miles away. Why,
why
had she said it?

She should have known how he would receive such news, and it was humiliating.

But Caleb's quick reaction startled her; he caught her before she reached the door, his hand clamping firmly on her arm. "Just a moment, where are you going?" he demanded.

"I have obviously offended you," she said tightly.

"Offended me? You have surprised me, Sophie, but you could never offend me." His answer astonished her—she was so sure… Caleb relaxed the pressure of his grip on her arm, but he did not let go. "I want to know, Sophie. I want to know what happened to you."

The tenor of his voice was sincere. It was almost unearthly, but he seemed to know instinctively that something terrible had happened to her, that hers had not been a match of convenience that had become inconvenient for her husband. Cowering from his intent gaze, Sophie looked down. She had said the worst of it, hadn't she? Admitted she was a pariah? Could she bring herself to say more than that? She had not spoken of it to anyone in years.

He slipped his arm around her shoulder, and the comfort of it was almost more than she could bear. She wanted to bury her face in his collar, cry one last time at the ancient events that had ruined her, cry for the damage done to her life.

"Come on then," he said soothingly. "I'll make a pallet. We can sit there." He led her to a spot just below the windows of the ballroom, took several muslin cloths, and bunched them up to make a sort of padding on the polished wood floor. They sat, Sophie's legs crossed under her skirts, Caleb's legs stretched out in front of him, his back propped against the wall.

Unable, at first, to speak her shame in more than a whisper, she began softly. But as she spoke, as the memories tumbled out of her mouth and soul, her voice grew stronger. She told him how she had met William Stanwood, how he had courted her in earnest and convinced her that her brother Julian was her enemy. It had been an easy charge to believe when Julian had taken her to Kettering Hall and left her there. And when William had come, she had thought him so terribly gallant—she told Caleb how she had fled Kettering Hall with him, how they had run to Gretna Green and married there.

When he did not seem particularly disgusted with that, she continued cautiously, hinting at what had been a nightmare, a marriage in which her husband had loved her money, not her, and how, when things became unbearable, she had finally escaped with her maid Stella and had gone with Claudia to the house on Upper Moreland Street.

What she did not tell Caleb was that she had discovered the violent horror that would be her marriage on her wedding night, when he had forced himself on her then slept like a baby. Nor did she tell him that William had paraded her, broken and battered, in front of Julian to extort her inheritance, pound by pound, until there was hardly anything left of it.

He remained silent when she told him that Julian had sent her to France while he sought a divorce on her behalf. "A parliamentary divorce,"

she clarified. "The most cumbersome and public of them all. But it was the only way I could be completely free of him."

His reaction was strange—he did not seem repulsed or even shocked by her confession as she had expected, but indignant. Terribly indignant. For a moment, he sat gazing at her, as if seeing her for the first time. After a long moment he grimaced and asked, "Do you know where he is now?"

Sophie shook her head, fidgeted with the bonnet in her lap. "I have heard he is in Spain. Julian once mentioned America. I don't know really, and I daresay I don't
want
to know."

"I want to know," Caleb muttered. "I want to break his neck."

Sophie smiled weakly at his bravado. "You mustn't say such things. It's over—"

"The hell I shouldn't," he interjected irritably. "To think that someone did that to you, lifted even one finger…" He paused, glanced heavenward as he ran his hands through his hair. "God, Sophie, to look into your sweet face and know that you were so egregiously duped—it is
maddening
.

Infuriating! Of course I realize there is nothing I can do to change it, but it does not lessen my fury in the least. You are simply too beautiful, too charming, and—"

The laughter caught in Sophie's throat, sounding more like the honking of a goose than a shriek of disbelief.

Caleb jerked his gaze to her in alarm. "Dear God, are you quite all right?"

That only caused Sophie to snort with more laughter; she instantly covered her mouth with one hand, waved the other one at him as if to convince him she was all right until she managed to get a grip of her hysteria.

When she at last stopped laughing, he arched one brow. "Better now?"

She nodded.

"Do you think you might be able to speak?"

She nodded again and held her breath, raising one finger in a silent request to wait until she was certain the next gale of laughter had subsided. "There," she said at last. "It's quite gone, I think."

"Then perhaps you might share what you find so amusing?"

She reached for his hand, squeezed it affectionately. "What I find amusing," she said with deliberate care, "is that you find me beautiful…"—

the laughter was bubbling in her again—"or
charming
…" She giggled, clamped a hand over her mouth again.

Caleb smiled wolfishly. "Do you doubt me?" he drawled. "Then I must be allowed to convince you." He caught her by the wrist and pulled her across his lap, into his chest and arms, dousing her laughter quickly and fluidly with his lips.

Sophie was lost in the moment before it had even begun. His lips were soft and full, gently gliding over her mouth, molding hers. His touch was so light yet so heated that she felt as if she were floating, her body suspended somewhere just beyond his lips, anchored only by the weightless pressure of his hand on her back. He touched her with his tongue, languidly slipped inside her mouth.

Sophie couldn't help sighing with pleasure; that seemed to turn his kiss molten—she could feel it dripping down, pooling in her breasts and her groin. Never had she felt a kiss to the very tips of her toes. Never had she felt a yearning run so quiet and deep within her, stirring the chaos.

He reluctantly lifted his head, stroked her cheek. "Have I convinced you?"

Oh, he had convinced her, all right. Convinced her that she had never desired a man so thoroughly. Her mind was racing with wickedly provocative thoughts. She leaned deeper into the circle of his arms, longing to know his weight on her, feel him move inside her, feel his warm breath on her breast. It was a lust that was beginning to consume her, one she thought of constantly when she was with him, constantly when she was not. A desire so strong that it made her weak, impossibly weak.
Who
was she
? What sort of woman felt such prurient yearning? And how was it possible for her to feel it? Had she not all but shriveled up in the last eight years? Was there anything left of her but this craving?