Never Surrender to a Scoundrel (32 page)

“Well, it was lovely seeing you again, but I've promised this glass of punch to our guest of honor. Enjoy your evening.”

Sophia turned, but a sudden hand to her arm stayed her.

“What of Claxton?” the countess blurted.

The punch sloshed. Instinctively Sophia extended the glass far from her body, to prevent the liquid from spilling down her skirts, but inside her head, the intimate familiarity with which Lady Annabelle spoke her husband's name tolled like an inharmonious bell.

“Pardon me?” She glanced sharply at the hand on her arm. “What did you say?”

Annabelle, wide-eyed and smiling, snatched her hand away, clasping it against the pale globe of her breast. “Will His Grace make an appearance here tonight?”

Sophia had suffered much during her marriage, but this affront—at her grandfather's party—was too much.

Good breeding tempered her response. She'd been raised a lady. As a girl, she'd learned her lessons and conducted herself with perfect grace and honor. As a young woman, she'd maneuvered the dangerous waters of her first season, where a single misstep could ruin her prospects of a respectable future. She had made her family and herself proud.

Sophia refused to succumb to the impulse of rage. Instead she summoned every bit of her self-control, and with the greatest of efforts, forbade herself from flinging the glass and its scarlet contents against the front of the woman's gown.

With her gaze fixed directly on Lady Meltenbourne, she answered calmly, “I would assume not.”

The countess's smile transformed into what was most certainly a false moue of sympathy. “Oh, dear. You
do
know he's in town, don't you, Your Grace?”

Sophia's vision went black. Claxton in London? Could that be true? If he had returned without even the courtesy of sending word—

A tremor of anger shot down her spine, but with great effort she maintained her outward calm. However, that calm withered in the face of Lady Meltenbourne's blatant satisfaction. Her bright eyes and parted, half-smiling lips proclaimed the malicious intent behind her words, negating any obligation by Sophia for a decorous response. Yet before she could present the countess with a dismissive view of her train, the woman, in a hiss of silk, flounced into the crowd.

Only to be replaced by Sophia's sisters, who fell upon her like street thieves, spiriting her into the deeper shadows of a nearby corner. Unlike Sophia, who could wear the more dramatically hued Geneva velvet as a married woman, Daphne and Clarissa wore diaphanous, long-sleeved white muslin trimmed with lace and ribbon.

“Who invited that woman?” Daphne, the elder of the two, demanded.

Sophia answered, “She wasn't invited.”

“Did you see her
bosoms
?” Clarissa marveled.

“How could you not?” Daphne said. “They are enormous, like cannonballs. It's indecent. Everyone is staring, even Clarissa and I. We simply couldn't help ourselves.”

“That dress! It's beyond fashion,” Clarissa gritted. “It's the dead of winter. Isn't she cold? She might as well have worn nothing at all.”

“
Daphne,
” Sophia warned. “
Clarissa.
”

Daphne's eyes narrowed. “What exactly did she say to you?”

Sophia banished all emotion from her voice. “Nothing of import.”

“That's not true,” Clarissa retorted. She leaned close and hissed, “She asked you if Claxton would be in attendance tonight.”

Stung at hearing her latest shame spoken aloud, Sophia responded more sharply than intended. “If you heard her ask me about Claxton, then why did you ask me what she said?”

Her hands trembled so greatly that she could no longer hold the punch glass without fear of spilling its contents. She deposited the glass on the nearby butler's tray. Within seconds, a servant appeared and whisked it away.

Clarissa's nostrils flared. “I didn't hear her. Not exactly. It's just that she's—”

“Clarissa!” Daphne interjected sharply, silencing whatever revelation her sister had intended to share.

“No, you must tell me,” Sophia demanded. “Lady Meltenbourne has what?”

Clarissa glared at Daphne. “She deserves to know.”

Daphne, clearly miserable, nodded in assent. “Very well.”

Clarissa uttered, “She's already asked the question of nearly everyone else in the room.”

Despite the chill in the air, heat rose into Sophia's cheeks, along with a dizzying pressure inside her head. The conversation between herself and Lady Meltenbourne had been shocking enough. With Clarissa's revelation, Sophia was left nothing short of humiliated. She'd tried so desperately to keep rumors of Claxton's indiscretions from her family so as not to complicate any possible future reconciliation, but now her secrets were spilling out on the ballroom floor for anyone's ears to hear.

“Trollop,” whispered Daphne. “It's none of her concern where Claxton is. It is only your concern, Sophia. And
our
concern as well, of course, because we are your sisters. Someone should tell her so.” Though her sister had been blessed with the face of an angel, a distinctly devilish glint gleamed in her blue eyes. “Do you wish for me to be the one to say it? Please say yes, because I'm aching to—”

“Erase that smug look from her face,” interjected Clarissa, fists clenched at her sides, looking very much the female pugilist.

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Sophia answered vehemently. “You'll conduct yourselves as ladies, not as ruffians off the street. This is my private affair. Mine and Claxton's. Do you understand? Do not mention any of what has occurred to Mother, and especially not to our grandfather. I won't have you ruining his birthday or Christmas.”

“Understood,” they answered in unison. Her sisters' dual gazes offered sympathy, and worse—pity.

Though Sophia would readily offer the same to any woman in her circumstances, she had no wish to be the recipient of such unfortunate sentiments. The whole ugly incident further proved the insupportability of her marriage and her husband's tendency to stray. Though Lady Meltenbourne's presence stung, it made Sophia only more certain that Claxton would agree to her terms. Certainly he would prefer to have his freedom—and he would have it, just as soon as he gave her a child. Seventeen months ago when she spoke her vows, she'd been naïve. She'd had such big dreams of a life with Claxton and had given her heart completely, only to have it thrown back in her face when she needed him the most. Claxton would never be a husband in the loyal, devoted sense of the word. He would never love her completely, the way she needed to be loved.

Admittedly, in the beginning, that aloofness—his very mysteriousness—had captivated her. The year of her debut, the duke had appeared in London out of nowhere, newly possessed of an ancient title. His rare appearances at balls were cause for delirium among the ranks of the hopeful young misses and their mammas.

Then—oh, then—she'd craved his brooding silences, believing with a certainty that once they married, Claxton would give her his trust. He would give her his heart.

For a time, she'd believed that he had. She closed her eyes against a dizzying rush of memories.
His smile. His laughter. Skin. Mouths. Heat. Completion.

It had been enough. At least she thought it had been.

“Well?” said Daphne.

“Well, what?”

“Will Claxton make an appearance tonight?”

“I don't know,” whispered Sophia.

Clarissa sighed. “Lord Tunsley told me he saw Claxton at White's this afternoon, with Lord Haden and Mr. Grisham.”

Sophia nodded mutely. So it was confirmed. After seven months abroad, her husband had returned to London, and everyone seemed to know but her. The revelation left her numb and sadder than she expected. She ought to be angry—
no!
—furious at being treated with such disregard. Either that or she ought to do like so many other wives of the
ton
and forget the injustice of it all in the arms of a lover. She'd certainly had the opportunity.

Just then her gaze met that of a tall gentleman who stood near the fireplace, staring at her intently over the heads of the three animatedly gesturing Aimsley sisters. Lord Havering, or “Fox” as he had been known in the informal environs of their country childhood, always teased that she ought to have waited for him—and more than once had implied that he still waited for her.

With a tilt of his blond head, he mouthed:
Are you well?

Of course, Lady Meltenbourne's indiscreet inquiries about Claxton would not have escaped Fox's hearing. No doubt the gossipy Aimsley sisters were dissecting the particulars at this very moment. Sophia flushed in mortification, but at the same time was exceedingly grateful Fox cared for her feelings at all. It was more than she could say for her own husband.

Yet she had no heart for adultery. To Fox she responded with a nod and a polite smile, and returned her attention to her sisters. While she held no illusions about the pleasure-seeking society in which she lived, she'd grown up in the household of happily married parents who loved one another deeply. Magnificently. Had she been wrong to believe she deserved nothing short of the same?

Clarissa touched her arm and inquired softly, “Is it true, Sophia, what everyone is saying, that you and Claxton are officially estranged?”

In that moment, the candlelight flickered. A rush of frigid air pushed through the room, as if the front doors of the house had been thrown open. The chill assaulted her bare skin, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. All conversation in the ballroom grew hushed, but a silent, indefinable energy exploded exponentially.

Both pairs of her sisters' eyes fixed at the same point over her shoulders.

“Oh, my,” whispered Daphne.

Clarissa's face lost its color. “Sophia—”

She looked over her shoulder. In that moment, her gaze locked with the bold, blue-eyed stare of a darkly handsome stranger.

Only, of course, he wasn't a stranger, not in the truest sense of the word. But he might as well have been. It was Claxton.

Her heart swelled with a thousand memories of him, only to subside, just as quickly, into frigid calm. Without hesitation, she responded as her good breeding required. She crossed the marble floor, aware that all eyes in the room were trained on her, and with a kiss welcomed her faithless husband home.

 

BRINGING HOME THE BAD BOY
by Jessica Lemmon

 

The boys are back in town! Welcome to Evergreen Cove and the first book in Jessica Lemmon's Second Chance series, sure to appeal to fans of Jaci Burton. These bad boys will leave you weak in the knees and begging for more.

 

 

 

HOT AND BOTHERED
by Kate Meader

 

Just when you thought it couldn't get any hotter! Best friends Tad and Jules have vowed not to ruin their perfect friendship with romance, but fate has other plans…Fans of Jill Shalvis won't be able to resist the attraction of Kate Meader's Hot in the Kitchen series.

 

 

FOR KEEPS
by Rachel Lacey

 

Merry Atwater would do anything to save her dog rescue—even work with the stubborn and sexy TJ Jameson. But can he turn their sparks into something more? Fans of Jill Shalvis and Kristan Higgins will fall in love with the next book in the Love to the Rescue series!

 

 

 

BLIND FAITH
by Rebecca Zanetti

 

The third book in
New York Times
bestseller Rebecca Zanetti's sexy romantic suspense series features a ruthless, genetically engineered soldier with an expiration date who's determined to save himself and his brothers. But there's only one person who can help them: the very woman who broke his heart years ago…

 

 

THE REBEL OF COPPER CREEK
by R. C. Ryan

 

Fans of
New York Times
bestselling authors Linda Lael Miller and Diana Palmer will love this second book in R. C. Ryan's western trilogy about a young widow whose hands are full until she meets a sexy and rebellious cowboy. If there's anything she's learned, it's that love only leads to heartbreak, but can she resist him?

 

 

 

NEVER SURRENDER TO A SCOUNDREL
by Lily Dalton

 

Fans of
New York Times
bestsellers Sabrina Jeffries, Nicole Jordan, and Jillian Hunter will want to check out the newest from Lily Dalton, a novel about a lady who has engaged in a reckless indiscretion leaving her with two choices: ruin her family with the scandal of the season, or marry the notorious scoundrel mistaken as her lover.