All I Ever Needed (5 page)

When Sophie captured that portrait in her mind's eye, it was much harder to see how Eastlyn might be different.

She did not know a great deal about the marquess, although she would have had to have lived abroad these last three years not to know something of the man he was. He played at cards, she knew, and wagered often with his friends. He was a member of several clubs and kept a box at the theatre. He was welcomed at Almack's, though it was not his habit to attend, and he was invited to every function of note by every hostess who desired her gathering to be well attended. The particulars about his life were unexceptional, including the fact that like so many of his peers, he kept a mistress in town.

Sophie doubted anyone intended she should know this last thing about him; it was not the sort of detail one discussed in front of the rumored fiancée. Even had the engagement not been fiction, Sophie still thought she would want to know about a mistress.

There was nothing to be gained by not understanding the place she would have in her husband's life. If he meant to regularly commit adultery, it was something worth coming to terms with, no matter that it might cause her some distress in doing so. On the other hand, if she did not love her husband, a mistress might serve her very well, keeping her husband occupied while she was engaged in the activities that gave her pleasure.

Eastlyn regarded Lady Sophia's perfectly cast features with some consternation. Her expression was now one of absolute serenity, yet East had the distinct impression she was no longer aware of him in any substantive way. It was just as she had said earlier: he was unable to fix her attention.

Devil a bit, but it bothered him. It was not an admission he particularly wanted to make, and having made it, not one that he wanted to dwell on overlong. In what way could it possibly matter that Lady Sophia Colley was as uninterested in him as he was in her? Surely that was the best of all circumstances. Everything was made so much simpler by her easy acceptance of their situation. She did not blame him for any part of it, though she must suspect it was someone he knew who gave the rumor its sharp teeth. She was not in anticipation of a real offer of marriage, or even a sham engagement to satisfy the rumor mill until one of them was in a position to make a dignified exit. He would have insisted that she be the one to cry off, of course, and lay the blame for their dissolution at his feet. His reputation would not suffer unduly. Lady Sophia would not be so fortunate if she were cast as the one doing the injuring.

It was all moot. There would be no engagement, in truth or in fiction, and that was certainly as it should be. Eastlyn did not welcome the prospect of carrying out his work while observing all the tedious conventions that an affianced couple must needs endure. There might be less pleasurable ways to pass part of one's life, but they didn't come immediately to East's mind.

That was why it surprised him when he said, "You know, Lady Sophia, in some quarters I am considered a desirable partner."

She did not so much as blink. "At cards, you mean."

"At marriage."

"But you play cards."

"Well... Yes, I do." Eastlyn wondered at her point, for it seemed to be completely at odds with his.

"And you make wagers."

"Yes."

"You drink to excess."

"I may start soon."

Her mouth flattened rather primly.

"Very well," East said, entertained by her disapproving mien, and not proof against it either. "I admit to being foxed on occasion."

"You have called men out."

His amusement vanished. "One man."

Sophie gave no indication that she was in any way intimidated. "You shot him."

"Yes."

"And killed him."

"That was the purpose of shooting him, yes."

There was a brief pause as Sophie considered the necessity of her next words. She had not conceived that she might have cause to say these things to Eastlyn, but the remembrance of things past had shaken her. Mayhap the marquess did not deserve such a setdown, yet Sophie felt compelled as if by some force outside herself to deliver it. "And there you have it," she began with a gentle matter-of-factness. "By your own admission you are a gambler, a drunkard, and a murderer. With so much to recommend you, it is little wonder you are sought by mothers in want of a husband for their daughters. These qualities have a certain cache among the ton, do they not? Gaming indicates a willingness to risk, drinking to excess, a surfeit of confident recklessness, and—"

"And murder?" he asked.

While Sophie suspected he was out of all patience with her, she went on as if there had been no interruption. "Murder suggests a resolve to act. In your particular case, a regard for principles and the necessity of upholding them."

Eastlyn pretended to weigh her words carefully. "It is your estimation, then, that I am embraced by mothers and their daughters, indeed, by all of the ton, not because I am regarded as a model of rectitude and good sense, but because I am the very opposite of those things?"

"That," she said, "and the fact that you are rich as Croesus."

"Richer."

"Just so."

Eastlyn dusted off his palms, erasing all trace of the blade of grass he had ground between them. He leaned back so that his weight rested on his braced arms and extended his legs, crossing them casually at the ankle. His boots were layered with a fine coating of dirt from the long ride from Battenburn, and a similar dusting had attached itself to his jacket and trousers. He had not stopped at his town house to bathe or change his clothes, not because he did not think Lady Sophia deserved that measure of respect, but because he believed that it was more important to have this misunderstanding behind them. In hindsight, Eastlyn allowed that he had been more anxious to relieve himself of responsibility than he had been strictly sensitive to Lady Sophia's feelings.

It was clear he had offended her in some way, though how he had managed to accomplish it—and so decisively—remained a poser. Perhaps she cared more for appearance than he had considered. It did not recommend her to him, for he often found too much was made of how one was turned out and little enough attention paid to what was turned in.

"I fear I must apologize for the poor state of my attire," he said. "I came here directly from Battenburn."

Sophie stared at him. It was no easy thing to follow the line of his thinking. "My lord," she said with some emphasis, as though speaking to one thick-witted. "It cannot have escaped your notice that only a few moments ago I called you a gambler, a drunkard, and a murderer. What sort of maggot do you have in your brain that would make you think I care a whit for your fashion?"

Eastlyn sighed. He thought rather fondly of the pistol lying snugly between his stockinged calf and the soft leather of his dusty boot. He had a mind to use it—on himself. It would put a period to the maggot. "You are not a restful sort of companion, Lady Sophia."

"I should hope not."

"I had thought quite differently," he said. "Even said as much to South and Northam."

"You spoke of me to your friends?"

He was fairly certain he had stepped into it once again, but since he had never quite managed to extricate the first misplaced foot, Eastlyn was comfortable having then both in the same place. His situation might be less than ideal, but at least he had regained his balance. "Of course. I speak of many things to my friends. Nothing would be served by making an exception in your case, and they were curious about my engagement. I had said nothing of it at all to them, you see, because I had not known I
was
engaged. They learned of it from some of the guests at the baron's estate, just as I did. It is quite an experience to be congratulated for something one knows nothing about."

Sophie nodded slowly. Her experience had not been so different. "I had not imagined the rumor would have traveled so far."

His shrug was indifferent. "From town to country. It is the usual way of these things. With so many parties dedicated to the third anniversary of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, it was inevitable the tale would spread as quickly as the plague."

"It is not a pretty metaphor."

"But it is apt."

Sophie did not deny it. She fingered the material of her dress just above the knee, pressing a fold together, then smoothing it out. It was an absent gesture, one she engaged in when she was neither as composed nor as incurious as her placid features might suggest. "You told them you were not engaged, of course."

"Of course."

"They believed you?"

"I should hope so."

"Then it was not your friends who first raised the story of our engagement?"

Eastlyn looked at her sharply. "Did you think so?"

"It occurred to me." She paused, waiting him out. Patience had always been her strong suit, but she was learning the limits of it with the marquess. When she could tolerate his silence no longer, she asked, "Am I wrong?"

"Yes." He waited now, anticipating her next question, though he could see that she was loath to put it to him. When she artlessly caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried it gently, Eastlyn found his eyes drawn to the line of her mouth. She did well to show some reticence, he thought. Her angelic looks be damned, the most surprising things came out of that perfectly sculpted mouth.

Aware of his scrutiny, Sophie released her lip, touching the teeth marks she had pressed to the soft underside with the tip of her tongue. She was made further self-conscious by the small crease that appeared between Eastlyn's brows and the darkening of his eyes. "You are scowling at me."

He wasn't, but he was not unhappy that she thought so. She was perhaps as innocent as he always thought her to be. That would prove to be her best defense should he imagine an attraction toward her. Eastlyn relaxed the line of his brow and returned his attention to her faintly accusing eyes. He was coming to understand that in Lady Sophia's company his balance was a rather precarious thing. If he was not stepping where he shouldn't, then she was knocking one leg out from under him. "I beg your pardon," he offered with clipped politeness.

Which brought Sophie back to the matter at hand. "About your friends," she said carefully. "Do you believe their denials?"

"You are assuming I asked them if they began the rumor. I did not. I think I know their character well enough to know this type of trick is not done by them. You may believe me or not."

"I believe you."

Both of Eastlyn's brows rose slowly. "Why? Can it be you have changed your estimation of my character? Gambler? Drunkard? Murderer? Am I absolved of all these things?"

"Not at all," she said with disarming frankness. "But I never imagined you to be given to untruths. If I had entertained such a notion, you would have put it quickly to rest when you answered my questions with such forthrightness."

He grunted softly, thinking of his pistol again. There was an odd sort of logic to her thinking that he couldn't quite grasp and wasn't certain he wanted to. "So the fact that I have admitted the flaws in my character also makes me an honest man."

"Yes."

Eastlyn simply collapsed back on his elbows and briefly closed his eyes. Slim beams of sunlight through the parted branches warmed his face and eased the set of lines across his brow and at the corners of his mouth. He breathed deeply, finding the small ache that had begun behind his left eye could be suppressed if he did not overtax himself.

"My lord?"

Her voice was proof that she had not disappeared. He opened first one eye, giving her a long, considering look, then the other, doubling the effort. "You are certainly a perverse creature, Lady Sophia. Have I mentioned that?"

"I believe you said I was not a restful person. There was no mention of perversity."

His mouth crooked to one side. She was having fun with him now, and the marquess found he did not mind. Still, there was the coil of this false engagement to settle and his desire to make certain Lady Sophia emerged unscathed by any scandal. Eastlyn pushed himself upright, then drew himself to his feet. He held out a hand to Sophie, who regarded him with some surprise. "A walk, if you will," he said. "After so long a journey on horseback, it cannot help but improve my thinking."

Sophie felt compelled to point out, "It is but a very small garden, m'lord."

"Yes, but then I have a very small mind."

This last did not raise Sophie's smile. Slipping her hand into his, she allowed herself to be helped to her feet. She accepted the crook of his arm, keenly aware that from somewhere in the house they were being watched. Eastlyn could not help but know it himself. It was not fear of impropriety that dictated there be a modicum of supervision. Sophia was of an age where it was not unseemly for her to be alone with a male acquaintance in a setting such as this. The reason she and Eastlyn were being observed was exactly the opposite. Within the house at No. 14, there was the most fervent hope that matters would proceed in a most improper manner and that Sophie could be forced to change her mind about marriage.

Eastlyn and Lady Sophia stepped onto the narrow path of crushed stone. Sophie's fingertips grazed the velvet petals of a pink rose as they walked through the lattice arbor. For a moment their features were shaded from the sunlight.