Jilting the Duke (25 page)

He paused, wanting to rush in, but knowing he had to remember the pattern first. Even so, his first few turnings led him to a dead end. He was forced to double back, his hands fisted at his side. Starting over, he forced himself to move slowly. Left, left, right. Left? Or was it right again? He made his way farther and farther in.

At the middle, though, he found nothing. No Sophia. Only an empty bench where he had prayed she would be. Fear tasted bitter on his tongue. He turned in his tracks, then back again, trying to get his bearings. He would have to retrace his steps, or lose even more time.

As he began to leave the middle, he heard a soft motion down a path to his right. He waited, hoping to hear it again. But a bird hopped from the bushes, regarded him, then flew away. Not Sophia. But down the path he saw the edge of a fountain in a partially hidden alcove. If she were not there, then she was likely taken, and he had failed to protect her from her enemy, failed her, failed Ian, failed the Home Office. He wanted to run to find her, to take her in his arms, but he was afraid it would be only one more place that Sophia wasn't. Instead, he walked slowly, silently, down the lawn path.

And there, in an alcove, he found Sophia, a box of books at her feet, lost in reading. Safe. Suddenly he could breathe again.

His first impulse was to embrace her, then rail at her, but he knew she would not understand. He barely understood himself; he had not realized how important just the sight of her had become to him over the last weeks. He stood watching her, letting his emotions pass over him: fear, then anger, then relief, and finally desire. Then he waited still, allowing his pulse to slow, keeping track of how long it took before she realized she was no longer alone.

She lifted a hand, tucked her hair back behind her ear, all the while absorbed in her reading. It wouldn't do to tell her she could have been in danger; she would just tell him that she wasn't. His logical Sophia.

His.
The word surprised him. All along he had been telling himself that he wanted her to trust him again so that he could gain his revenge. But in the course of protecting her, something had changed. The truth was that he wanted her to trust him—not for revenge, not because he was obligated to Tom or Ian or even the Home Office, but because he wanted her again to be . . . his.

He shifted his weight, and the gravel crunched under his feet.

She looked up, her face troubled. “I've been reading my mother's journals—my uncle sent them to me this morning. Phineas was always embarrassed by her because she would never let an injustice pass by. After her death, I thought I should be embarrassed too. But I see it differently now. She was Judith's age when she died; I was Ian's. She was always brave, choosing her own conscience.” Sophia looked down again. “I haven't been brave for a long time.”

He sat next to her on the garden bench, but facing her, one leg on either side. He pulled her into the circle of his arms, and she leaned her head against his chest. “You sat in an opera box with a knife to your neck, and you thought to remember the shape and design of the blade. Bravery comes in many forms.” He kissed her hair.

She let his comment go by. “I would have liked to remember her as brave before this.”

“You weren't allowed to. Phineas, your aunt—they couldn't let you.”

“I suppose not. But I want to be more like her. I spent too many years letting Tom make the decisions and, apparently, take the risks.”

“Tom was always one for a secret. He likely thought he was protecting you and Ian.” Aidan pulled her in more tightly against his chest. Somehow the mention of her life with Tom no longer troubled him.

“Perhaps.” She was silent. “In with the journals was a key. My uncle sent it. I know what it opens, and it's not far. Will you come with me?”

“Yes.” Whatever her secrets were, he wanted to know them, wanted her to share them all, to trust him fully as she had once long ago.

“Thank you.” She leaned down and slid the box under the stone bench to protect her mother's notebooks from the elements. She looked into his eyes. “I should apologize. I know I shouldn't have come to the garden alone. I wasn't thinking until I was already here. So, I made sure to sit where no one could see me.” Her soft smile made his heart warm. “Anyone from outside the estate would have made too much noise trying to find me. But I should have thought first.”

“I have considered putting a leash around your ankle as if you were a falcon, and tying you to my wrist, so you couldn't wander.”

She smiled and kissed him, a tender, sweet kiss that reminded him of their first. She started to stand, and he pulled her back, kissing her once more, a kiss of fervor and passion, igniting the fire in her eyes.

She put her hand on his chest and looked into his eyes. “Tonight. I promise. But come with me first.”

He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “Lead on, my lady.”

* * *

Tom's estate extended past the gardens through an orchard and, across a deep stream, a hay meadow. At the farthest corners, the forest that led to Annie's house edged the property. The forest lay primarily on her uncle's land, but Tom's land and her uncle's abutted briefly there. Sophia and Aidan did not enter the forest, but walked around its edge, onto her uncle's land, and then up a hill to a ruin built sometime in the middle of the last century, when ruins were all the rage. In the meadow, the folly offered an elaborate but small fortress: a central hall, decorated in the family colors, and above that, four corner turrets.

The door to the main hall was unlocked, the air of the dining hall grown stale. Sophia walked to a wall tapestry covering most of the back wall and pulled one edge back to reveal a door.

“Can you hold this out for me? I'd rather not have to brush spiders from my hair.”

Aidan held the tapestry, and she took her uncle's key, turned the lock, and pulled the door back. It resisted only briefly.

“Do we need a candle?”

“No, there will be plenty of light. We just have to manage the first two turns of the stairs in the dark.”

“Cobwebs?”

“Cobwebs. But . . . Yes, here it is. A broom.” Her voice caught. “It's almost as if no one has been here, but that doesn't make sense.”

“It doesn't?”

She didn't answer. She brushed away the cobwebs before her as she ascended the stairs. He followed, wondering why she had never brought him here before.

After two turns in darkness, the stairwell grew lighter as they ascended. The staircase ended in a single room with two windows, the smaller one facing the countryside, the other one, larger, facing in to the center of the folly. On the inside corner stood a small fireplace, long unused. Next to it, a door led out onto the roof of the main hall. In the middle of the room, an easel held a canvas shrouded by a heavy cloth. Along one wall about twenty finished canvases leaned against one another.

There was little else: a padded chair next to a small table, a larger table covered with paper and drawing pencils, a set of shelves holding books. All covered with a thick layer of dust. Sophia surveyed the room. She walked to the outer window, silent.

Aidan recognized some quality about her that refused any questions, so he turned to the paintings along the walls. The first canvas was unpainted, but he tilted it forward to reveal the next. Several still lifes with fruit, a landscape of the countryside from the view of the small window; all good but unremarkable, indicative of a developing but not mature talent. The next stack were portraits, of Sophia's cousins in their teens; one of her uncle and of a woman in middle age who Aidan assumed to be her aunt Clara; one of Clara alone; one of another woman in plain dress, perhaps a governess. Each showed increasing promise; Sophia's gift was for capturing expression. Her cousins, never still, were positioned at angles from one another, almost as if they were in motion; her aunt held in her lap a lattice-topped pie, her mouth offering a bare hint of a smile, while her eyes glinted with secret humor. Why, he wondered, did Sophia move to watercolors and to scientific illustration? Why had she two portraits of Tom, but neither by her own hand?

Sophia had moved to the table, shifting one layer of paper to reveal the next, all sketches.

He wondered about the portrait on the easel, and he moved to it. Taking up the corner of the cloth, he pulled it away just as Sophia cried out “no.”

Of all the pieces in the attic, it was her best work: the face was still young, not yet fully formed, but the detail was remarkable. The lines around the mouth suggested generosity, the eyes good humor, the chin firm and a bit stubborn. The texture of the hair was rich, each strand containing a range of blacks and blues to give a sense of life and energy. The expression was thoughtful with a hint of mischief. This was no lifeless rendition; it was one that revealed the emerging character of the young man being painted. Even Aidan could see that it was a portrait of the man she loved. If he had any questions before of how she had felt about him, this would have dispelled them.

“I didn't know you painted me.” He reached out his hand and took hers. “You must have done it from memory. I don't remember sitting for you.” He pulled her into his side and held her against him.

“You sat a thousand times. Every day we were together, I memorized your features. The angle of your head when you were amused, or angry, or puzzled. I knew the bones in your cheek, the line of your jaw, the way your hair curved in front of your ear. It made it hard to forget you; I knew your face so well. It haunted my waking and my sleeping, until I realized if I didn't dull the memory, I'd go mad.”

“I didn't forget you either.” He reached into his boot and teased out a folded piece of oilcloth. “I have the same pocket sewn into the lining of every pair.” He held out the oilcloth, and she unfolded it to see the portrait she'd given him when he left.

Tears welled in her eyes, but they did not fall. “I didn't think you would have kept it. Not after . . .”

“I tried to get rid of it, but I couldn't. I kept thinking somehow it wasn't true, that you hadn't really left me. I went a little bit mad, thinking you hadn't loved me. Perhaps I've never recovered.” His eyes never left the portrait.

“I did love you, Aidan, with all my heart. I never stopped loving you.”

Aidan pulled her more tightly to his chest and kissed the top of her head, then stroked her hair as she leaned her face into his chest. They stood silently for some time, their hearts too raw for them to speak or move.

Sophia broke the silence first. “But we are together. After all that has happened to separate us, we are together now, and whatever happens . . .” She pulled out of the circle of his arms to look into his face, her eyes searching for some confirmation.

“We will be together,” Aidan assented.

Smiling, she took the oilcloth from his hand and covered the portrait. “If we leave soon, we should arrive in time for supper.”

“Did you find what you wanted to learn here?”

“Yes. I was never the unwanted responsibility. My uncle gave me this room when he married again. I thought it was just temporary, an apology for his wife's narrow-mindedness. I assumed he would give it to his own children when I was gone. But nothing has been moved, not even my pencils on the table. The cobwebs . . . He left them to let me know that. I just wished I'd known then.”

“Would it have changed anything?”

“I don't know.”

“Does it change anything now?”

“Yes. And no.”

* * *

They talked about mundane things on the way back to Tom's park: the beauty of the forest; the state of the orchards and the crops. They retrieved Sophia's mother's journals from beneath the stone bench. Aidan insisted on carrying the box; Sophia insisted on taking some books from the box to share the load.

She'd called for a bath to be prepared before dinner, and the maid had just finished filling it when she returned to her room to change. She instructed the maid to prepare Forster a bath as well.

They both arrived at dinner in evening dress, or at least evening dress for the country, to eat a hearty country meal of roasted duck, rice pudding, stewed apples, and greens.

They ate largely in silence, separated by a long table and by memories no longer held at bay. He'd seen in the portrait the truth of her heart.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When Sophia returned to her room after supper, she unlocked the adjoining door and left it ajar.

But she had no idea how to prepare to begin an affair. She thought to change out of the gown she'd worn to dinner, but into what? She had only serviceable shifts for night wear, and none of them in silk, none of them remotely beautiful. When they were young, it hadn't mattered what she'd worn. She hadn't worn anything for long. But she wasn't young anymore.

What if her body, older by a decade, reshaped by a child, was a disappointment? What if he found her uninteresting? She was a woman of little experience, welcoming a man—Ophelia's words rang in her memory—known for his skill in the bedroom.

Her marriage had been companionable, but Tom had never looked at Sophia with desire, and—still in love with Aidan—she had been relieved. Over time, her friend the Countess d'Abrennes, pitying her, had offered suggestions on how to attract a man's attention. “Why deny yourself,
ma cherie ?
” the countess would coo as she threw the bocce ball. “Grasp happiness wherever you find it. If you find it with a lusty young Adonis,
où est la mal?
I could introduce you, no?” The countess had sent her a book of engravings that Sophia found more intriguing than shocking. She had begun to sketch copies of some of the engravings, but stopped. She could never see them without imagining herself and Aidan in each pose. But she'd seen enough to know how little she knew.

Certainly the passion had run hot between them since his garden, and his long looks at dinner had just begun the night's seduction. But no matter how much she wanted him, no matter how much she still loved him, she had no expectations that once the night was over, he would want her again.

Now she simply waited. She'd loved him her whole life, and she couldn't allow herself to care if it was a good idea or not. She only wondered what his response to her would be.

* * *

Aidan stood before the mirror in his room, imagining all the paths to Sophia's seduction. The room was darkened, and in the mirror, the shifting shapes of the oil lamp reflected, making cold bodies of flame. It reminded him of their passion, hot then cold, but never absent, always reflected back in memory. He could see her again as in his dreams, their limbs entangled. His dreams merged with their kisses in the garden and his carriage. In the half-light he wondered if he was sleeping or awake.

Was he really going to her room or was this simply another version of the dream come to torment him? It felt real. It felt like all the dreams of holding her close were about to become real in the next room. But this time he would not lose her. He put his hand out and placed it on the doorknob, but paused. Once he opened the door, it would begin. They would possess each other once more, touching that place within each other's souls that had once joined them more than any words. And nothing would pull them apart again.

He stopped to examine himself, looking objectively at his body, a decade older. He considered how it would be best to approach her. He was still dressed in his evening clothes. Should he draw out the tension by meeting her clothed? He'd already imagined how he would undress her, but should he expect her to play valet? Some women liked to undress their men, but would Sophia? Would it excite her or make her shy? No, he wished to leave no possibility she would change her mind. He would dress more simply, leaving no need for her to interpret his desire.

The women of his past disappeared as he thought of Sophia, and the memory of those liaisons faded in his renewed desire. His dreams of Sophia had, if nothing else, kept their lovemaking fresh in his memory. For a decade, he had compared all other women to her, and now, he was to have her again. He hoped, forever.

* * *

Aidan came to her in undress, a silk banyan buttoned loosely at his waist. A rich yellow, the long dressing gown was embroidered with an elegant, curving vine pattern. She wondered if he greeted all his mistresses thus. From the adjoining door to their rooms, he walked to the hall door, turned the key in the lock, then placed the key on her dressing table. They would not be disturbed or interrupted.

A triangle of smooth flesh visible where his banyan crossed over his chest revealed that he wore no clothes beneath the gown. Her desire increased. She waited for him to approach her, not because she was playing coy, but because she could think of nothing else to do.

Without touching any other part of her body, he leaned his mouth to hers, first kissing just with his lips; then, when she had opened her mouth to him, he opened his own. With just that one kiss, her desire flamed like fire.

Her dress was of the same design as the one she had worn in his garden, a round dress with drawstrings, though this one added small buttons up the front of the bodice, giving a better fit to her figure. His fingers fumbled at the buttons at her bodice, and she put her hands on his, unbuttoning for him. When she'd finished, he kissed each fingertip, and her heart brimmed at the tenderness of the gesture.

She wished to lose herself in sensation, in the moment, forgetting obligation, forgetting the danger that surrounded her. She wanted only to love him once more. Releasing the fabric over her chest and pushing it aside, she felt the warmth of his hand as he cupped her breast, then bowing his hand to her chest, he kissed her tenderly, rolling her nipple between his lips. She felt the tension in her body tighten, until she could no longer hold back her moans of pleasure. Smiling, he moved back to kiss her mouth as his hands loosened the drawstring. She helped him slip her arms free of the material, then felt exposed and aroused as he folded the dress down to her waist.

Her hands, through the banyan's silk, caressed the plains of his chest. She let the sensations overwhelm her, until every cell of her body coveted his touch. “More,” she whispered, and he stilled, as she greedily unbuttoned his waistband, and pushed his banyan open, revealing a line of bare flesh from his chest to his waist. She let her fingers explore the plains of his body, the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his upper chest, the narrowing of his waist, the cords of his hips. His skin felt like silk over iron, soft and hard at once. Growling at her touch, he pulled her close, pressing her now sensitive breasts against the plains of his chest, skin to skin. She opened her mouth to him, let his lips tease hers and his tongue invade her mouth once more. She felt demanding, wanting him again, no matter the consequences.

Next he touched her lips with his fingers, then kissed her lips. It was a teasing sort of game, her never knowing where his fingers would take his lips next. Her jaw, then down her neck, between her breasts, the fire of her passion following his fingers, until all the fires united in the middle of her belly. There she felt him release her dress fully until it fell in a circle around her feet. As the fabric fell, she watched the passion flare in Aidan's eyes and on his face. His beautiful face.

* * *

Aidan lifted Sophia from the circle of her clothes and set her on the edge of the bed. He drank in her beauty, the rise of her breasts, the curve of her ribs, the gentle smoothness of her belly, the down that led to the seat of her passion. He placed his hand on her belly, below her ribs, and felt her breath come and go. He trailed his fingertips between her breasts, to her collarbone, to the crease where her neck met her shoulder. He opened her legs and stepped between them, felt the pressure of her hands, pulling him close, her lips kissing his neck and chest, nibbling at his breasts.

“Not enough,” she demanded, and with both hands, she pushed the banyan fully from his chest. Aidan allowed it to fall behind him as he pushed her back onto the bed and climbed over her. With her lying before him, he began to trace the lines of her body, gently with just the tips of his fingers. And with each caress, he felt like he had returned home.

He slid his hand between her thighs, caressing until she moaned softly, deeply. He kissed her again, more deeply, more firmly, until she returned the kiss more passionately than before, and her legs parted for him. He kissed her chin, her neck, her chest, moving slowly, carefully, down her body.

She clutched his hair with her left hand, almost as if she intended to slow the line of his kisses down her belly. But he persisted, kissing her, offering light flicks of his tongue, until she relented. He felt the exquisite torture of her fingers stroking his back, of her running her hands over his shoulder blades, then back up to his head. She lingered stroking his hair, then clutching it with her fingers. Then she stroked his back once more. Everywhere that her hands touched him, his pleasure bloomed.

He kissed her belly, then her hip, and the fold where her leg joined her body, delighting in the sight of her. He brushed the soft flesh of her thigh with his cheek. Then, surprising her, he moved his mouth to the warm lips of her sex, reveling in her gasps and sighs. He tasted her, teasing her flesh with his tongue. When she pressed herself against his groin, his passion grew. His control weakened in the pleasure of her response.

He wanted to possess her, all at once, all of her. He explored her sensitive skin with his mouth, while his hand stroked her stomach, her breasts, her cheek. With his other hand, he kneaded her thigh, her calf, her foot. As his hands moved across her body, he realized that the difference between this joining and that in his dreams was Sophia's pleasure: her soft moans, her tensed muscles, her eyes searching his. He had thought the dreams just replayed their lovemaking. But he had been wrong. Sophia's responses were the treasure the dreams had lacked. And he wanted nothing more than to give her pleasure again and again.

As her body moved beneath him, he brought both his hands up her sides until he could cup both her breasts. Softly kissing her as he rose, he caressed once more down her shoulders and her arms. When his hands reached hers, she grasped them, and pulled him upward, toward her mouth. His body rested fully on her now, firm between her legs. Their limbs entangled and entwined.

“We have to be wise. If we were to create a child . . .”

He took her hand and guided it to between her legs, leading her fingers to feel the smooth skin of a French condom.

“Neither of us wishes for a child—just pleasure, just passion.” He kissed her neck in a line to her cheek, back to her mouth.

“Now. I want you. Now,” Sophia demanded, and he met her demands, joining her in passion, giving her his heat, as she gave him hers.

Sophia felt their need for one another stronger than it had been in their youth, the ache of passion more insistent. They moved together slowly, gently at first, and Sophia matched his rhythm. Again and again she pressed herself against him, heightening both of their pleasures. His arms held her firmly. She felt his breath on her neck, his lips grazing her face. She was lost in time, floating, yet aware of her body, of the heat, of their passion.

It felt like they had never been apart, like the years separating them had collapsed into a breath. His hands knew her body as hers knew his. His shoulders were broader, his chest fuller, but it was still the Aidan she had loved. Her body had not forgotten his.

As the passion rose between them, she felt the years, the decade of separation, melt away. She looked in Aidan's eyes, saw the young man she'd loved, the young man she'd intended to marry, to live with, to love. His older face melted into her memory of him. And she believed it was the same for him. His eyes told her that he was seeing her as she had been then and as she was now.

At that moment, her body moved faster and stronger against his. Her back arched her into him, until there was no space between them.

Together they were lost in the rapture of waves of pleasure. She moved against him, pulling him even closer. She wrapped her legs around him, holding him, willing them to remain in the moment. As his body stiffened, hers relaxed. They both crumpled together into the sheets, holding one another in an embrace so close that they appeared of one flesh.

She drifted to sleep, sated, Aidan's arms holding her, his hands still caressing her body.

* * *

Hours later, Aidan lay awake, Sophia sleeping curled into his side. He listened to her soft breathing. Somehow, despite all the lies and misunderstandings, they had found a place of trust and reconciliation. They'd accepted their past; now it was time to create a present together—and a future. Aidan imagined all the things at his childhood home that he wished to share with Sophia, the pond he'd loved as a boy, his favorite views. But most of all, it would be a new start.

First, though, he imagined another day together. The tasks that Seth had left him had given him more insight into the things she valued. She and Tom had forged a companionate marriage, and he found he wanted to know her mind as well as he already knew her body. He wanted to have things over which they would argue as intellectual equals. He had avoided marriage, he realized, not because of her betrayal, but because none of the women he'd met could read Greek or Latin, knew all the plants and their properties, or could debate the advantages of the various systems of draining lands. He hadn't married because none of the women were Sophia.

She stirred, awaking, and he nuzzled her neck with his cheek.

“I have a very important question.”

“And it is?”

“What was your favorite part of Italy?”

She laughed, arching her neck to allow him to turn his caresses to kisses. “That's impossible to answer. It's like asking what flower is my favorite to paint.”

“Then what do you miss?” He blew softly on her neck, then kissed her again.

She grew silent. He paused, waiting for her response.

“I had a salon. It drew from all quarters: the tourists and expatriates; women of the old Neapolitan families and some whose husbands were in the Austrian government. We discussed art, literature, music, agriculture, medicine, science, and politics sometimes, depending on which factions were present at the time. But we also helped each other when help was needed. When Tom grew too frail for guests, I had to let it go. I'd forgotten how much I loved those conversations.” She leaned her head back onto his shoulder.