Song for Sophia (21 page)

Finally she whispered, grazing his jaw with her lips, “I have been in the library reading, should anyone ask. Or else I might recall I saw
you
riding his lordship’s stallion.”

She seemed to know this trumped any argument. Sophia may have been riding Wilhelm’s horse, but he had stolen Roderick’s, and it had thrown a shoe and split a hoof. His brother would tan his hide if she tattled.

With a feminine
humph
she stormed out of the stables, and he could only stare in bewilderment for being effectively blackmailed by a little girl. Her fledgling wiles? All an act, a manipulation which he had fallen headlong into. He remembered pitying her for losing her childhood innocence so early, and more so fearing for the male race once that female was unleashed upon it.

That was all he could recall, and he had his abnormal brain to thank for the clarity. Almost two decades and two lifetimes ago; no wonder he had almost forgotten it. But her arched-brow look of disdain? He usually had it for breakfast.

Wilhelm shook himself into awareness and found her tucked in a chair by the fire, browsing an enormous leather-bound book probably copied in the Tudor dynasty. “Do you remember Madrid?” he asked quietly, standing behind her chair.

Long moments later she gasped. “The boy on the stallion! That was
you
?”

“Small world.”

• • •

Sophia enjoyed a rare moment of agreement with Aunt Louisa this morning, but for different reasons.

“I will not take part in such improper behavior as sea bathing, and be it upon your head, Wilhelm Montegue, should our dearly departed Isabelle Cavendish haunt you from the grave for the corruption of her daughters.” Aunt Louisa pronounced it like a curse, and Sophia wondered if she had some gypsy blood, it was so well done.

“But you will come for a bathe in the sea, my love?” He stroked her elbow and winked, playing the besotted husband. No one would ever guess he had merely lain companionably next to her in bed the past week and a half, them both still virgins. Her injuries would not last much longer as an excuse.

She smiled and winked back. “If you want me to dip a toe in the water, Wilhelm dear, you will have to take me farther south. As in, The Nile. English beaches are far too cold for me.”

“Nonsense. The water is refreshing. Do come, Sophia.”

“The last time I tried it this far latitude, it numbed my brain.”

She anticipated his comment on the perpetual numbness of her brain and silenced him again with a squeeze. Aunt Louisa didn’t approve of their banter.
Raised by wolves, the both of you
. Wilhelm went off to the beach with Elise, Mary, and Madeline, while Sophia endured Aunt Louisa’s recitation of
The Duties of the Countess of Devon
, part four in a series of probably ten thousand, as though Sophia lacked the wherewithal to manage a title because of her ill-behaved parents. This time Aunt Louisa preached on the impressive holdings owned by the Earl of Devon scattered around the “empire,” all of which Sophia was obliged to visit in person within the year.

Sophia pretended to listen, nodding at proper intervals while her thoughts drifted to Wilhelm, and bed, and about possibly mixing the two. Books. That is what Wilhelm did in bed. Granted, he stoked her interest while he read, perhaps unaware of the effect he had on her. Two nights ago he had lain on his back, spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, making him a scholarly sight in the lamplight. Turning pages at an unlikely rapid rate, he seemed engrossed in Mark Twain while one hand rubbed over her side. Up and down, following the curve from her hip to waist.

At first she found it pleasant, but the repetition made her mindful of his warmth, of how his large hand fit over her side. He made her feel feminine and shapely. Leaning into his hand provoked no escalation, neither did encouraging him with a few hums of interest. Eventually she dropped asleep frustrated, and Mark Twain prevailed.

One thing she had become certain of — he really was a virgin. The slightest eroticism made him breathless, and his enthusiasm was contagious. But too soon he would roll away, citing her injuries as grounds for abstaining.

Even worse was his tendency to fixate on some mundane detail. Flattering, but did her navel warrant such fascination? Last night she thought she had finally snared him. She had left the medieval-style laces loose on the front of her nightgown, a flimsy French excuse for sleepwear. Wilhelm had noticed, surely enough.

He teased her skin through the gaps in the fabric and pulled the ribbon free. Just when she thought he would behave like a typical man, he did the opposite. No fit of passion, no Neanderthal tearing off her clothes. He gently traced up and down her abdomen with his fingertips, circled her navel, and lowered his lips to her skin. Long minutes he played, tormenting her, deaf to her encouragement. She finally understood it was a trance. He studied the angles of light and shadow on her skin, muttered about its iridescence while she slowly went out of her mind.

She meant to have it out with him. Lord Devon may be half lunatic, but that was a matter of the brain, and what she had in store for him didn’t require its use. Whatever qualms he had about his marital duties, he would have to confess them. Or else.

Speak of the virtuous. Through the window she spied Wilhelm soaking wet, plodding up the drive with Elise on his arm, Mary on his other, and Madeline waddling stiffly with her legs apart and arms held out to avoid the wet fabric of her dress. He bellowed a hearty laugh, answered by tinkling laughter from the girls.

Sophia wished she would quit imagining him fatherly; it lead to fantastical, unwelcome ideas she was hard-pressed to purge. Especially the recurring vision of him carrying a dark-haired little boy on his shoulders, a stocky cherub with an Italian complexion but storm-gray eyes. That dream began haunting her shortly after the wedding.

The elderly, stern housekeeper met them at the door and herded the girls upstairs, bemoaning their dripping hair and the puddles on the floor. Wilhelm went around the back of the house to come in through the mud room. Sophia thought she would go to the water pump behind the house and rinse the sea water out of his jacket and lay it out to dry. At least that is what she told herself to justify following him. She found him already there, rinsing his head under the faucet. He held his wet shirt wrung out in one hand.

Ah, but she did appreciate the sight of him; the wildness conveyed in his scars and tradesman-like musculature, the controlled strength. His striking features and masculine proportion, like one of the Da Vinci sketches. Such a contrast to the bespectacled man who chose literature over bed play. And oh, how she wanted him. The hair on the back of her neck tingled in harmony with that distressing tightness in her stomach.

At the same time, Wilhelm paused and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. His eyes warily scanned the yard and the edge of the woods, then he stood still, listening with closed eyes. A corner of his mouth lifted in a sly smile as he turned in her direction. “Hello, Anne-Sophia.”

She surrendered, emerging from her hiding place behind the corner of the house with a timid smile for being caught spying.

“You look as though you have something say.”

“Insightful of you, Wilhelm. I have several somethings to say to you. But I think it will go over better if you are warm and fed.”

He shook his head, flinging water like a wet dog. “Changed your mind about mankind, or just me?”

“Pardon?”

He rested his hands on his hips, and she noticed the weight of the wet fabric made his trousers hang low. Quite low, inches below his navel where the trail of hair spread into a fan. She could not quit staring.

“For reasons I understand, you despise men. And I virtually forced you into marriage. I thought you wanted me to not
bother
you. However I suspect you now lean to the contrary?”

“Tell me why
you
are reluctant, then I will answer any question you pose to me.”

He honed his gaze on her, the soul-reading one. “Truly? And without offense?”

“You expect to offend me?”

“Yes, regrettably I do.”

“Well, now I am so curious I hardly mind. Ask away, Wilhelm. Do your worst.”

He ran a hand through his hair and ground his jaw, then said quietly, “I have a fear of venereal disease. Are you healthy?”

She managed to swallow her gasp, but her eyebrows still shot up. He thought she was diseased? Like a Parisian whore? “You assumed correctly, Wilhelm. I am offended. And no, I have no pox or clap, nor anything else one might catch in a dark alley. Anything else?”

He grimaced and shifted his weight. “How many, before me?”

She wanted to shake her head in resignation. Always thought the worst of on account of her mother. She had expected better from him. “Hundreds, maybe thousands,” she drawled, letting him see sarcasm instead of hurt feelings.

His eyes sparked and narrowed. “I am sorry, I should not have asked. I am jealous, I confess. But that is about my ego, when I really should ask if you believe you are well enough to attempt it. I would hate to frighten you, my love.” A cordial way of saying,
I could not bear it if you froze and panicked
.

She hated the pity in his expression. It made something inside her blow, giving way to emboldening anger. She closed the few steps between them and caught his mouth in a hard, deep kiss. She bit down on his bottom lip, gratified by his throaty growl.

“I am your wife. I desire you, Wilhelm.” She grasped the front of his trousers and yanked the buttons open. “Do something about it.”

Chapter 18

In Which Lord Devon Obeys His Wife

Wilhelm had stared down an enemy cavalry charge with less fear.

He managed to lift Sophia in his arms and carry her into the house, up the stairs to the master suite. All while she flayed him alive with scorching kisses, heedless of his clumsy fumbling. His wife was riled, fiercely beautiful in her aggression. If she suffered pain from her injuries, it didn’t show.

He sat her on the bed and she wrestled his sodden trousers off. He reached behind her back and lowered the fastener on her dress, she kicked it over her ankles and onto the floor. “Wil,” she taunted in a wicked low voice.

Her gaze left his face, wandering slowly downward, and he felt it like a brand of fire. She looked at his chest, and she didn’t seem to see ruined flesh. If he hadn’t discerned arousal in her expression before, he wouldn’t believe he saw it now. Her downward perusal stopped at the waist of his drawers, and her lips pulled into a smile as she saw him at full mast, as a soldier would say. She stared pointedly, meaning,
Well, get on with it
.

Deliberately he pulled the string free and peeled the fabric down over his hips — no mean trick with wet silk and a woman watching to make him self-conscious. Worse than self-conscious, adolescent and on the tenuous side of his self-control.

Now what?

Sophia leaned back to prop her arms on the bed and slowly raised a leg, toe pointed. The hem of her shift slid down her thigh, and if Wilhelm allowed himself to look, he would get an eyeful of what made those shadows. She rested the ball of her foot on his leg — close enough to his groin to make him swallow hard.

Oh. That was his cue to roll her stockings down. Oh, yes, he did want to touch her legs, ever since he saw her fasten her garters that first day in the woods. He dragged his hands over her thigh down to her toes, and by the time he wrapped his fingers around the other ankle, it dawned on him that his lips could make the same circuit. He pressed a tentative kiss to the inside of her ankle. She sighed and lay back with her arms stretched over her head. Permission. Good.

He should have known she would be so responsive. Her breath hitched; she made tortured little moans, and all he did was tease the insides of her thighs. The higher he crept, the more helpless she behaved, and it emboldened him. Without breaking his kiss, he rucked up her shift, pushing it up under her arms, and she pulled it off over her head. He didn’t stop to gawk, but he wanted to.
Later
. Definitely later.

She raised a knee, so he went for it — put his mouth on her, before he could think about it overmuch.

Her back arched off the bed, her gasp sounded strangled in her throat. If he didn’t know better, he might think he was the first to do this to her. She sighed as he delved deeper, and he felt like Wilhelm, God of Bed Play. The fire in his head traveled south, consuming him.

Her fingers fisted in his hair, holding him in place. He hummed in assurance and she answered with a throaty groan. He had never been so delirious, had no idea this pleasurable drunken state existed. It felt like a trance, the opiate-like sensation, the gratifying repetition, yet he was very much in the moment —

Abruptly she seized, tossed her head back and shouted through clenched teeth. Startled, he loosened his grip on her flanks and rose to see what had hurt her. Her back arched off the mattress and her lip curled in a grimace of pain. No — she sighed then sucked in a breath, her expression altering into something he had never seen before … . an erotic little smile. His panic faded. So
this
is what it looked like to please a woman. He watched fascinated as her eyes sealed shut, her lips parted in a sensual
oh
shape, and she writhed under his hands for long seconds, minutes, hours — didn’t matter, the image branded on his brain. A moment of triumph, the single most inspiring event of his life.

Today she had spoken his name in anger and impatience, but now she breathed, “Oh, Wilhelm,” the same way she might have said
chocolate
after ten years’ deprivation. He didn’t want her to talk, so he stole the words from her lips, covering her mouth in a deep kiss. Without words he tried to tell her,
I adore you
. He confessed what he didn’t dare say aloud, that she was his light, his happiness.
I would do anything for you
.

He had imagined the sensation of lying skin to skin with her, but in reality he had underestimated the dark, addicting pleasure of it. She ripped a strained groan from his throat as she rose in his arms, gripping his shoulders, and slid herself against his chest and down one thigh, cradling his leg. He ground against her, lacing his fingers between hers to disguise his unsteady hands.