Jilting the Duke (15 page)

“There's somewhere I thought you might like to visit before returning home.”

“Do you intend to tell me where?”

“I'd prefer to surprise you, if you are willing. Dodsley knows we will be late returning.”

Sophia nodded her assent and watched out the window, trying to imagine where Aidan might be taking her and even more why he would wish to surprise her. They were traveling south toward the river. She could smell the water in the air.

Only a few minutes later, the carriage turned down an alley, faced on one side by a long brick wall. The coachman opened the door. Aidan jumped down and held out his hand for her to join him. An inset door in the brick wall opened to a garden beyond. “If my memory serves me, you once said you wished to visit the Apothecaries' Physic Garden in Chelsea. I hope that is still the case.”

She was stunned. She didn't ask how he had remembered; in some ways she didn't dare. If he felt her marriage was a betrayal, then she didn't dare open those old wounds. But if he
had
felt betrayed, why would he reveal that he remembered their conversations about what they would do together in London? It was a puzzle. At first she had been relieved not to have to address the question of their past, but in the last few weeks, she'd wished she could broach the subject. If it were true that he held no animosity for her decisions all those years ago, perhaps they could start anew—even if only as friends. Her heart lifted in a way she had thought no longer possible. Before she could answer, before she could thank him, he continued.

“Ian told me you have met few other gardeners since your return to London. In about an hour, William Anderson, the curator here, will meet us for a tour. Until then, I thought you might like to wander. To our north are the greenhouses, the hothouses, and the library; to the south, from here to the Thames, open beds with specimen plants.”

“I don't know how to thank you. . . . Of all the places in London . . .”

“Then don't thank me. Whither will you go first, my lady?”

She looked down one of the garden paths faced by perennial herbs of varying colors and textures. “I want to see everything. Let's go that way.”

The garden, though only four acres, was lush with plants. The first section—thirteen long beds ranged horizontally to one another—held the perennial plants and herbs, and after that lay a large section of twenty vertical rows of tender and annual plants. Each section was bordered by box and other edging plants. Between the annuals and perennials were glass cases that provided artificial heat to succulents and other tender exotics.

As they walked down the rows, Sophia pointed out interesting plants or read to him the label of an unfamiliar one, interpreting the technical information into layman's terms with ease. She frequently pointed to a plant she was considering for his garden and asked if he liked some aspect of it, its color, or leaves, or texture, or height.

Surprising himself, Aidan grew increasingly interested in how she thought about the plants, what characteristics appealed to her. At the same time, his attention was repeatedly drawn to her, to the way she moved gracefully down the rows, to the scent of her hair, to the tapered length of her fingers as she pointed to one plant, then another. But it wasn't just the physicality of her body. It was also the clarity of her expression as she talked about the plants, the extent of her knowledge. And he found he wanted to know more of her, of how she had changed since their youth, of who she had become as a woman. “Tell me what you see in the plants as we pass them.”

“Do you really wish to know?” Sophia searched his face for an answer.

“I would not have asked if I didn't. . . . And how can I resist learning from such an authority?”

Her soft smile pulled at his heart and his loins.

“Designing a garden is both an art and a science. First you must think about how the color and texture of one plant's leaves complement those of another. Then, you have to imagine the influence of time on the plants, how the plants will grow across the season and how one season of color will give way to another. This bed is arranged by family, showing the apprentices the various habits of the plant. See how these leaves are small with rounded edges. In my garden I'd want more contrast, so I'd put that next to a plant with a different leaf shape and texture, and if possible, a different color. And to give interest, I think about theme and variation, so I might put the same plant at each end of a bed, or at key points across the garden, to unify the garden, without being monotonous.”

Halfway through the upper part of the garden, they sat to enjoy the prospect down to and out over the Thames. The seat was just large enough for two.

“How are you liking the physic garden?” Aidan asked.

“It's lovely. I haven't enjoyed myself this much since . . .” She paused, pensive. “For a very long time.”

“Since when?”

“Tom wasn't sick yet. He and I were collecting plants in the mountains, some beautiful native flowers I'd never seen in bloom. I had my chalk and watercolors, and I was trying to match the hues. This sort of luminescent white with a touch of pink at the center, very delicate. Ian was little, perhaps two; he'd just learned to walk. He was forever slipping away from his nurse to hide in my skirts. I kept having to stop and give him back to his nurse, until Tom came and caught Ian up in his arms, and turned him in circles over and over. Ian laughed and laughed. And I was able to match the colors. Then, Tom and Ian sat and watched me paint. Tom sitting cross-legged on the ground, with Ian standing in his lap, pulling on his face, as children do. The sky . . . the sky was a cornflower blue with almost no clouds.”

“What happened?”

Her face shuttered. “Tom fell ill, we made no more excursions, and Ian grew up.”

“I hadn't intended to bring up sad memories,” he offered, surprised to find he meant it.

“It's not your fault; it's the day. That sky is almost the same color, and we're sitting beside marigolds, such gaudy plants, but Tom's favorites. Their acrid smell never fails to remind me of him. It wasn't possible for me to come here and not think of Tom. But it's still lovely. And I've always wanted to visit.”

“I'm glad I remembered correctly then.”

They had only examined the top half of the garden when a servant arrived to escort them to their meeting with Anderson and their tour of the greenhouses and library. Flanked on either end by greenhouses, the main building offered a symmetrical arrangement popular fifty years before. It rose three stories, and the ground floor was divided visually by three sets of three arched colonnades, with a triangular pediment over the middle three arches. “I've told him you are the illustrator of Lord Wilmot's works and a botanist in your own right,” Aidan whispered as they approached the entrance where Anderson, a tall, burly Scotsman, stood waiting to meet them.

Anderson's generous heart compensated for his rough manners, and before five minutes had elapsed he and Sophia were chatting like old friends about gardens in London. “Do ye know ol' Lord Whitney's house, empty now? It's within a block o' two of ye. The caretaker could let ye see it. Give him my name. Before ye go today, I'll show ye the plans of his great iron conservatory, built to entertain his guests. His wife Alisoun hated the guests to see the servants stoking the stoves during her parties, so the old lord put the stoves and woodsheds on the sides with their own servants' entrances. Last thing he did afore he grew too frail to come to town was to install a giant statue of Flora atop all that plate glass and iron.”

By the time the three took their tea by the sea gate, Sophia and Anderson had determined what plants they could trade, when she would visit again, and who in the community of plantsmen she would most enjoy meeting. Aidan's servants had laid out a small feast—apples, oranges, and nectarines, lemon sponge cake, jam tarts, cheese, and bread—in the shade of one of the two Cedars of Lebanon, both over two-hundred years old. This Sophia was more like the girl Aidan had known, confident, assured, lively. Gone was her wary reserve, melted away by the rows of plants she had greeted as old friends and by the love of botany she shared with the gruff Scot. When the time came to return home, Sophia and Anderson parted with clear regret.

* * *

Aidan handed Sophia into the carriage, then went to speak with his driver. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall of the carriage. Something subtle had changed between them. Or perhaps she had simply decided to let their relationship play out as it would. Thinking of Tom in the garden, she had realized he had been right to appoint a second guardian. If anything happened to her, Ian would be safe from Phineas, safe with Aidan. She was finding it harder and harder not to trust Aidan. Or, to be honest, it had always been too easy to trust him. When he was kind, he reminded her of his youthful self, and she found herself less and less able to maintain a cool reserve. Despite her reservations at the guardianship, things might still be well—if only she could forget her memories of his touch.

At some point she would broach their past, apologize, if nothing else. But every day she seemed to find a reason to postpone the possible conflict. And this day, this companionable day, was one she wanted to remember untouched by recrimination.

* * *

When Aidan stepped into the carriage, Sophia was sitting with her eyes closed, breathing deeply. He watched her chest rise and fall, let his eye follow the line of her décolletage down across her chest, stomach, and legs. He wanted her. He'd felt it all day in his stomach and his loins, felt it when he'd seen her that morning wearing black, felt it in Elise's shop when he'd imagined her in new dresses (and out of them). But their conversation in the garden had evoked the hottest part of his desire. Over the years he'd forced himself to forget her quick wit and the easy banter of their two agile minds. He'd forgotten the allure of her intellect. He would have to forget it again after their affair ended, but now he knew it would be difficult.

He seated himself across from her once more, again taking the backwards seat, and settled in for a quiet drive, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the side of the carriage. But as soon as the carriage started moving, she leaned forward and reached out her hand to touch his. “This has been a marvelous day. Thank you.”

“I'm glad finally to have been able to fulfill the promise I made you.”

“I never expected you to remember. It was so long ago, and so insignificant.”

“None of the promises we made were ever insignificant.”

And there it was . . . the past laid present between them. She couldn't avoid it.

“No. They weren't insignificant. And I have no excuse. Only that I could not have remained in my uncle's house any longer. So much changed after you left, and Tom offered me an . . . escape. Can you forgive me?”

His pause was long, as he sat, his arms still folded across his chest, regarding her intently. In the silence that stretched between them, she could almost hear Tom's voice whispering,
“Patience.”

“Yes.” His voice was firm, deliberate.

“Yes?” she repeated in surprise. “I didn't expect that.”

“We were young, too young perhaps to know our minds.”

She wanted to object: She had known her own mind. She simply hadn't been allowed to follow it. But his was an easy answer, one that didn't require other explanations. So she let it stand.

“Thank you.” She touched his hand once more, covering it with her hand. “I must apologize for resenting that Tom made you guardian. Ian adores you, and you have been exceptionally kind, not just to him, to both of us.”

“Tom was a good man. If nothing else, his request made me realize the time for holding grudges had long past.”

“Then perhaps we can be friends,” Sophia offered cautiously.

“Perhaps we can be.” Aidan offered her a wide smile and was repaid by hers in turn. “It occurs to me, if you would consider it, that when I return to my estate with Ian, you might wish to go with us. The house is large, or if you are concerned about the proprieties, I could send word to open the dower house. I even have another garden in disrepair that you could take in hand.”

“I would like that very much.” She knew she spoke too quickly, agreed without even a moment's pause. But it was a lifeline, a way to hold on to Ian just a little longer.

By the time they returned to her house, they had sketched out the details. They would leave shortly after Phineas's dinner party and spend the rest of the summer and fall at Aidan's distant ducal estate in Monmouthshire.

Chapter Eighteen

When Sophia awoke, streaks of color were not yet brightening the dark sky. But her dreams, influenced by the Apothecaries' Garden, had been filled with color: purples by yellows, oranges and reds, blues and whites all in one. It was cacophonous, and jarring . . . and beautiful. It was her vision for Aidan's garden, but not what she'd originally planned.

The lines had all been there in her drawings, but not these particular details. It wasn't a design she would normally create. The long stalwart lines of the Italian cypresses rooted in raucous beds of color. But having seen it in her imagination, she wanted it.

She picked up the sketchbook and colored in the plants with a bag of pastel crayons she kept near her dressing table. Tom had joked that she couldn't be long without paper to sketch on, and he'd kept her supplied with blank-page account books. This was the last one he'd given her, and she'd resisted filling the last dozen pages, but she began to draw today without thinking. She sketched quickly, preserving the outlines of the beds and colors from her dream.

When she was done, she moved to her wardrobe. She needed to see if the garden she imagined could actually take shape in Aidan's yard, or if it were one of those ideas possible only in a dream world.

Since she knew the mostly private path to Aidan's yard, she saw no reason not to use it.

She wouldn't run the risk of meeting Aidan—he'd said he intended to spend the evening at his club—but she still should not be noticed. Sally had laid out a morning dress, but she ignored it. Instead, she drew from the closet a dress she had often worn in Italy when she walked the hills searching for botanical specimens. Now dyed black, it was more of a shift than a dress, with two drawstrings to pull the heavy cotton in above and below her bodice. The top drawstring pulled the puffed sleeves of the dress in to cover her shoulders. It was a plain dress more suitable for a servant than a woman of rank, but she would only be slipping from one garden to the next. With a black lace fichu, she covered the exposed skin between her shoulders and the nape of her neck.

She slept with her hair braided, and now she simply pinned the braids against her head and placed on top an oversized poke bonnet that hid her face. Over it all, she draped a long cloak with a hood, and she pulled the hood over her head. She stood in front of the mirror to test her appearance: no one could recognize her.

Tucking her sketchbook and pencils under her arm, she ran down the stairs and into the dark.

Within five minutes, she had slipped inside the door at the bottom of Aidan's garden. She'd seen no one. It was too early yet. The darkness had lifted only enough for her to find her way.

It felt exhilarating, like those years long past when she had slipped out of her uncle's house to watch the stars on the lawn, or to hunt for night-blooming plants in the forest, or—much later—to meet with Aidan.

She wished she hadn't remembered that last. It brought him too close to the front of her mind. But she pushed his image away, focusing on the lines of the dream garden she could still see in her memory. She began to walk the garden, testing her plans, oblivious to the sounds of the houses coming alive and the horses in the mews stirring in the lifting darkness.

* * *

Aidan had been standing at the window for at least an hour. He had come home half-drunk from his club, stripped down to his underclothes, and put himself to bed.

The dream began as always, with pleasure, then Sophia had disappeared, and he'd dreamt of Tom. This time Tom stood near a pond, hand outstretched, pointing at the body of a dark-haired child floating facedown. Aidan plunged into the water, searching, but the child had disappeared. In the clear water, he saw bodies floating beneath the surface. Men from his regiment, their horses, Ian, Sophia, his brother Benjamin. He tried to pull them to shore, but they turned to skeletons in his arms.

He'd awoken in a sweat, gasping with grief, his heart drumming fast. He tried to distract himself from the dream, by imagining Sophia in his bed, his hands running down her body. But the grief and fear remained and the sense of impending danger.

The light of the sunrise was only beginning to streak the sky, tinging the tops of the houses as it approached him from the east. In the garden below him darkness began to lighten gradually, revealing glimpses of movement in the trees. A figure in a long cloak walked in and out of the shadows. For a moment, uncertain in the half-light, he wondered if he were awake or sleeping. He threw the last of the whiskey to the back of his throat, and the burn called him to himself. Someone was in his garden. He picked up the folding knife he kept on his dressing table, wishing he hadn't left his pistols in his study.

His balcony was supported by broad columns and a trellis, an easy route to the garden, quicker than running through the darkened house.

He had no slippers, but the grass was soft. He walked stealthily, staying in the shadows, keeping his attention on the dark figure near the trees. He was close; he could call out, demanding the figure identify itself, but then he might risk being shot if his intruder had an accomplice. The figure turned toward the back of the yard and the gate.

He moved swiftly. Taking hold of the back of the cloak, he flung the intruder to the ground and himself after. He heard a sharp breath as the weight of his body knocked the wind from the intruder's lungs. Only when holding the intruder down on the grass, did he smell it: lavender. Sophia. And not a dream.

He pulled back the cloak, only to be frustrated by her bonnet twisted half-round. He pulled the string under her chin and pushed its sides away from her face. She looked at him, half in fear, half in expectation.

There was no resisting his passion, the call of the dreams too strong. Her body was beneath him, its curves soft against his legs and chest. He could feel himself grow taut, primed by dreams and danger. He kissed her—not the tentative kiss he'd imagined as a start to his seduction, a sweet kiss that would disarm her. No, this was a kiss that spoke of years of longing. Of seeing her again in the half-light of his dreams.

But the urgency in his kiss surprised them both, and for a moment she didn't react. Then, as if giving in to some inner debate, her body answered his, returning the pressure on his lips, her legs moving against the confines of the cloak to arch slightly against him.

He kissed her again, less hard but no less desperately. Tasting her lips, the inside of her mouth, he waited for her to push him away, but she didn't. Instead, she matched his fervor. He didn't stop kissing her, didn't dare risk giving her a moment to reconsider. He slipped his hand between them, under the thick material of the cloak. Untying it at the neck, he felt below it the thinner material of her dress. He kept his kisses deep and rocked gently against her lower body. When he pulled his mouth away from hers to kiss her neck, she traced her own line of kisses across his forehead and into his hair.

His hand found her breast, gently caressing the side. Then moving to the center, he felt the lace of a drawstring and pulled it. She wore no other undergarments. His hand rubbed soft flesh between his fingers. She gasped and struggled, but not against him; her arms were tangled, he realized, in the cloak between them. He pulled at the material with her, releasing her arms, and she pulled him closer, rubbing her hands up and down his back, pulling his hips against hers.

His one hand still cradling her breast, he kissed down her neck, smelling the lavender water on the skin below her ear, then moving farther still, down the center of her chest, kissing the line of her décolletage, then taking the center of her other breast in his mouth. She arched against him again, as he teased her with his teeth and then with the thumb and forefinger of his hand. She was breathing soft, thick pants as he pulled the second drawstring and slid his hand down her belly. The material gave way enough for him to caress the intimate folds beyond her soft tufts of hair, and beyond that to slip his fingers into her core.

He wanted to undress her there. Bury himself in her body. Claim her once more for his. But he also knew that this moment of unthinking passion was too fragile. The sun already lit the garden, leaving only their patch below the trees in half-light. The birds had already begun calling to one another; the horses in the mews had begun to whinny for their breakfast. Sophia with her eyes closed had not realized the change, but the moment she opened her eyes, she would withdraw from their passion.

Had her legs not been entangled in the cloak, he might have had a chance. But to undress her farther he would have to move off of her, and that would break the physical contact that held her out of time and thought. Though everything within him said “try,” he gave up the thought of taking her in the garden.

But he could at least leave her satisfied. He kissed back up her neck to nuzzle her ear, whispering, “Let me give you pleasure, Sophia,” as he pressed his palm against her mound. She arched her hips into his hand, and he covered her mouth once more with his lips. Caressing with tongue and fingers, he waited until she shattered in his arms.

She kept her eyes closed for some minutes, as the heat of her body calmed. He watched her, forcing himself to breathe deeply, wanting to appear in control when she came back to herself. And in truth, he had found satisfaction in proving she was not impervious to him and that he could use her passion to his ends.

“You've been drinking. I could taste it on your lips.”

“That's not why I kissed you.”

She put her hand to her lips, feeling them, the heat still lingering, her flesh swollen with passion. “That was more than a kiss.”

“It's still not the reason.”

“Why then?”

“Because you came to me, and I remember . . . how it felt. Be my lover again. Here, in my garden or in my bed.” Though he knew she would refuse, he added, “We could go there now. With your cloak, no one would recognize you. This was just a taste of the pleasure I can give you. Come with me.”

Sophia looked to the house, her silence revealing her temptation. “But Ian?”

“Isn't here. He doesn't even know you are gone. In fact, given that garb, I would bet no one knows where you are. Not clever, my Sophia.” He pressed his lips hard against hers once more, whispering against her cheek. “I could make this house a seraglio with you its only concubine, and no one would ever suspect.” He pressed another kiss to her lips, until she matched him kiss for kiss. “Besides, why did you come here in the dark if not to become my lover?”

“The garden . . . I dreamt about it. I wanted to see . . .”

“You came to see my garden,” he repeated, disbelieving, but he knew it was the truth. Nothing else explained her movements in the dark.

“Yes. The garden.”

“You understand how I could have misunderstood.” He nuzzled the skin of her neck.

“I thought you would be at your club.”

“It doesn't matter; we can't ignore this.” He brushed her hair back under her bonnet and tucked her curls behind her ear. “Perhaps before, but not now. Will you consider it?”

“Consider what?”

“Becoming my lover.” Her breast was still exposed, and he cupped his hand around its fullness and leaned over to kiss it, pulling hard against the nipple until she gasped with renewed passion. “If you are worried about disclosure, we could wait until we arrive at my estate. I've already sent word to open the dower house. Malcolm and Audrey have a house close by. It would be easy for Ian to spend a day . . . or a night with their boys.”

The moment he took his lips from her breast, she began to redress. He watched as she put on reserve and civility with each layer of her clothing. When she was finished replacing her dress, fichu, and cloak, she held out her arms for Aidan to help her up. He rose, then pulled her up after him, setting her off-balance at the same time, drawing her into his arms. He kissed her once more, a gentle persuasive kiss.

He set her back from him with regret, his body still taut with desire. He had been carried away by the passion that rose so swiftly between them and by his own heated responses to her body under his. But on the chessboard of his seduction, he could not have planned a better move. She had come to him—her reason was irrelevant. And now, he could begin a more active pursuit. Until they left for his estate, he would distract her with stolen kisses and torment her with gentle touches. And then, once they were far from interruption, he would remind her of exactly how enjoyable an affair with him could be.

* * *

Sophia looked down at the ground where they had both lain, the imprint of their bodies still visible in the bent grass, then she turned away toward his garden door, walking quickly. Aidan was right: the passion had been there. She simply hadn't realized it was smoldering on his side as well as hers. She was grateful her clothes were black, no green stains to reveal their tryst. And it had to be only a tryst. He was too dangerous to her peace and calm.

Once at his garden door, she thought to object to his proposal, but as if reading her thoughts, he interrupted. “What do you plan for the garden?”

“That seems so insignificant now, after . . .” She looked back at the garden.

“I told you yesterday: nothing between us has ever been insignificant.” Aidan pulled her bonnet up around her face, then lifted the hood of her cloak to conceal her face entirely. He followed her out into the alley and walked behind her toward her house.

“I don't think I can describe in words what I've imagined. Will you promise to let me work until the design is fully executed? Not critique or complain before the thing comes together?”

“I'll leave the garden to you, but in return you must promise not to make a decision before we get to my estate.”