The Millionaire Rogue (28 page)

An enormous crack, round and deep as thunder, reverberated through the vehicle, the horses screaming as the cobblestones shook beneath their hooves.

Hope flung out his arm, pinning Sophia to her seat; in her lap, Violet's head lolled openmouthed, limp. The hack drew to a sudden, violent stop, and in a flurry of movement Lake was leaping from the hack, his voice hoarse as he called to the driver.

What the devil? What happened? What the devil was that?

Sophia shook in her seat at the driver's reply as the acrid odors of smoke and splintered wood filled the hack.

“Can' rightly say, sir, but all ov a sudden I seen a big explosion like, out there in th' river.”

She looked down at Violet, smoothing the hair from her face, and blinked at the unexpected prick of tears. The ship on which Cousin Violet and the earl had hoped to reclaim the French Blue was sunk, or, at the very least, had erupted into a ball of fiery flames.

Sophia reached across the bench and took Lady Caroline's hand. Her brother was on that ship, as was Sophia's family's fortune, their future, too. The dowager duchess sat still as a statue, her long, swanlike neck bent toward the window. Lake and Hope stood outside, hands on their hips, their heads turned toward the black pit of the Docklands.

Sophia wanted to offer Caroline words of comfort, declare her brother was, surely, far too wily to be caught flat-footed on an exploding ship. But in her mouth her tongue felt thick and dry as ash. There would be no comfort for Caroline, not until she knew her brother the earl was in one piece, and in her arms.

And so Sophia merely squeezed her hand. How many times Violet had done the same for Sophia before stepping into Almack's, or a wedding breakfast attended by far too many eligible dukes, she could not count; but the small gesture had always calmed Sophia's nerves. An unspoken promise of support, a pledge to gossip shamelessly about said dukes' foibles and follies when the breakfast was done; it was hope and faith when Sophia needed it most.

Lady Caroline squeezed back.
Thank you
.

Sophia watched out the window as Hope pressed a handful of guineas into the driver's palm; a moment later he was at the door of the hack, his blue eyes hard.

“I've given the driver instructions to take you home,” Hope held up a hand as Sophia leaned forward to protest, “under pain of death. Lake and I will see to things here. Go home, Sophia, and take care of your cousin. If—
when
.
When
Harclay returns, he will come to the house for Violet. You'll do that for me, won't you, Sophia? Keep watch?”

Sophia bit her lip. He was right, of course. Thomas was
always
right.

But as she was
always
wont to do, Sophia longed to stay. And though she usually longed to stay for the promise of adventure and port, tonight she wished to say for an altogether different reason.

She wanted to stay with
him
. Her heart ached with it, with the knowledge that this would be their last night together, before they won or they lost and went their separate ways. It would end here, tonight. And she didn't want to let him go.

“Sophia.” Thomas's voice was soft now, his eyes, too. “You must do this.”

Falling back against the seat, Sophia swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yes. I'll do it.”

“Thank you.”

A beat of silence passed as their eyes met. Behind Hope, Sophia was vaguely aware of Lake's rather vile curses, something about bloody time and not having bloody enough of it. But Thomas, all but oblivious, leaned into the hackney, opening his mouth as if he might speak.

Sophia, too, was leaning forward in rising anticipation. Would he confess undying love? Pledge his heart and soul to her honor? Say he could not bear to be away from her for more than a moment, reach for her and fling her over his shoulder and begin their grandest, most daring adventure yet?

Instead Thomas fell away, looking over his shoulder to shout, “All right, you cranky old goat, I'm
coming
!”, before meeting Sophia's gaze one last time.

Sophia's belly turned over, and turned over again, at the smoldering desire burning his eyes a darker shade of blue.

With a stiff bow he closed the door, banging his fist against the side of the hack to signal the driver.

The horses jerked into motion. In Sophia's lap, Violet moaned; Lady Caroline bumped and jolted in silence beside her.

And then Thomas was gone.

Two weeks later
The Residence of the Marquess of Withington
St. James's Square

S
ophia toyed with the thin strand of matching yellow diamonds that snaked about her wrist. The bracelet was lovely, understated yet glamorous, and of the latest fashion; yellow diamonds were, it seemed, all the rage this season. Considering feathered turbans and a ghastly shade of puce were also a la mode, Sophia had good reason to be wary of such a gift; but it
was
a gift, and from a marquess at that.

Even so, Sophia could not summon the gasps of gratitude and virgin blush with which any debutante worth her salt would accept such a gift. She was no virgin—a fact that, conversely,
did
made her blush—but more importantly, the diamonds,
of course
, made her think of Hope.

Mr. Hope, and the extravagant diamond they together filched from the Princess of Wales. Sophia remembered the silence that settled over Caroline's puce-painted drawing room (really, that dreadful color was
everywhere
!) as Her Royal Highness opened the lacquered box. She remembered the way the French Blue glittered in its puddle of white silk velvet, its watery transparency taking captive Sophia's imagination.

She remembered being afraid to touch it; foolishly she believed it cursed, the apple in the Garden of Eden. Surely something so beautiful, so transcendently indulgent, was not meant to be plied by mere mortals. She wondered at its story, the first stirrings of a tale coming to life as she'd looked upon it, Hope at her side.

And his history! How they'd laughed that night in his study. An adventure to end all adventures, surely, if not a bit overzealous in its style and sense of doom.

“Sophia, my dear.” Withington flushed pink, twitching nervously on the settee beside her. “May I call you ‘my dear'?”

Sophia swallowed. “Of course you may.”

He jerked his head to the side, brow furrowed as he looked at her. “Do you not like it? We might bring it back to Rundell and Bridge, if you'd like, and exchange it for something better suited to your tastes?”

Sophia looked up from the bracelet, and tried again to swallow the tightness in her throat. Here was a marquess, offering a diamond bracelet to match the diamond
ring
he'd given her. Very earnest, very expensive tokens of his affection.

Here, sitting anxiously with his hands on his knees, was exactly the sort of man, offering exactly the sort of match, for which mere months ago she would've sold her soul.

Sophia stiffened her spine, and tried to ignore the throb of pain in her chest.
Remember who you are. Remember what you want, all that you've fought for
.

“It's lovely,” she said, extending her arm. “Would you put it on?”

Withington brushed the sliver of exposed skin at her wrist as he took the tiny gold clasp in his fingers. After several failed attempts, he slid the clasp into place and pulled away with a sudden jerk, as if she'd burned him. His blush went from pink to purple, rising from his clean-shaven neck up to his cheeks and, impossibly, to his forehead.

“I'm . . . er, terribly sorry, Sophia.”

She wiggled her arm so that the bracelet caught a beam of late afternoon sunlight, blinding them both as the diamonds flashed and winked, throwing a spray of translucent shadows about the walls. “You've nothing to be sorry for. They're beautiful, Withington. A beautiful gift.”

From the far corner of the drawing room, Lady Blaise exclaimed her pleasure, the dowager marchioness cooing a reply. Withington glanced over his shoulder as if to admonish his mother, and Sophia watched with a smile as the ladies returned to their tea with suspect scrupulousness, Lady Blaise going so far as to compliment the biscuits around a mouthful of said confection.

Withington let out a long sigh, turning back and smiling at Sophia with a roll of his dark eyes. “Shameless, aren't they?”

“Terribly. I've had your cook's biscuits, and I mean no offense when I say they are anything
but
deliriously delicious. My mother, you see—she has a flair for the dramatic.”

“
Your
mother? Your mother's a warm, fuzzy puppy compared to my own.”

Sophia's grin deepened. “I sympathize, I do.”

A beat of silence stretched between them as the marquess's gaze wandered to the base of her throat, where his diamond ring rested in the small cleft between her collarbones.

“I thought I might take a page from my mother's book and be a bit shameless myself.” He looked down at his hands, clenched over the balls of his knees. “I was hoping the bracelet might convince you to wear my ring on your finger at last. They will look better together, after all.”

Sophia's heart turned over. By now Withington's face was the color of an eggplant.

His willingness to bare his heart to her, to be honest and kind and good, was lovely, and more than a little endearing. So much so the lump in Sophia's throat grew until it was large as the moon, her heart in her chest so swollen with affection for this new companion she could hardly breathe; with affection, and a special kind of self-loathing that she would drag
his
heart, as honest and kind and good as it was, through the mud of her own indecision.

Withington deserved better than a woman who loved another. She wanted more for him; she wanted him to know the wild, senseless love she knew for Thomas. Withington deserved to be the
one
. He deserved to love fully, and
be
loved fully in return.

He deserved better than what Sophia had to offer him.

Even now, with her family on the brink of bankruptcy—the diamond was still missing, as was the Earl of Harclay and his butler, Mr. Avery—even as Violet quietly dismissed their household servants and sold off their possessions; even as she debated putting the house up for auction; even then, Sophia could not deceive her admirer the marquess.

Not like this. Not with his pride, his future, his heart in the balance.

She brought her fingers to her neck, tangling them in the fine gold chain. With a gentle tug she pulled it from her throat, folding the ring in the palm of her hand.

The marquess, brow furrowed, watched Sophia reach for his wrist, pulling out his hand. She unfurled her fingers and dropped the ring into his palm, curling his fingers around it. As the chain wrinkled into his grasp, Sophia felt her heart gasp for air as the great weight of her indecision was lifted from it.

She was nameless and even poorer than when the season began some months ago.

She'd never felt more free, more sure, or more frightened than she did at this moment.

“But.” Withington's eyes flicked from his hand to Sophia and back again. “I don't understand.”

Sophia held his fist in the cradle of her hand. She leaned forward, ignoring her mother's pointed look of warning over the slope of Withington's shoulder. “You honor me with your proposal, Withington, and your friendship. I hold you dear in my heart. I adore that you love port. I adore your easy laugh and the kindness you show your family. I adore our conversation and your good nature. I adore you, but—”

“But,” he repeated.

“But,” she said thickly, “not like you deserve to be adored. Whomever's heart you capture—it won't be long for you—she will love you as you should be loved, and you will understand me then.”

Withington scoffed, meeting her eyes. “But I want you.”

Sophia's face pulsed with heat. She blinked at the sting of tears. “One day, very soon, you'll be glad it
wasn't
me. It was a close scrape, our courtship. A scrape with disaster, unhappiness. You must believe I am saving you from these things.”

For a moment Withington was very still. At last he began to nod slowly, his shoulders sagging. Behind him, the matrons gave up all pretense of tea and conversation
about
tea, and were watching Withington and Sophia with naked interest.

“Sophia. Sophia!” Lady Blaise's voice rose with panic. “Is everything all right? I hate to see his lordship distressed thus—”

Withington turned abruptly and offered a tight smile over his shoulder. “Quite all right, Lady Blaise,
thank
you.”

Sophia's mother flushed and turned back to the dowager marchioness, applying herself with great care to her teacup.

“Hardly fair, that my mother listens to you,” Sophia whispered. “Tell me, how do you manage it? Witchcraft? Deals with the devil?”

The marquess's smile loosened. “I would gladly trade my soul if it meant mother dearest kept her pretty nose out of my affairs. Alas, I do not think my soul would prove sufficient payment. It
is
a lot to ask.”

Together they scoffed; and then that terrible silence again. Withington's fingers flexed and unfolded around the ring in his hand.

“My only wish is that you find happiness, Sophia.” Withington kept his voice low. “If I am not the man with whom you find it, so be it. As long as you are content—that is all that matters to me.”

For a moment, Sophia was speechless. He was a good man, Withington, and a better friend.

Friend
. Sophia wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. No self-respecting debutante made
friends
with the season's most eligible bachelor; it was akin to the spider befriending the fly before ensnaring him in her web and eating him for supper. Women and men were not
friends
.

Not in England, anyway.

But here they were, Sophia and the marquess, laughing mean-spiritedly at their mamas, confessing wishes for each other's happiness, reminiscing over their shared love of port.

It was enough to make a girl cry.

And that's exactly what Sophia did.

“Thank you.” She grasped his hand and squeezed. “I wish the same for you, Withington. And I have no doubt you will find great happiness. I can think of at least a dozen debutantes who would gladly consider—”

Withington held up a hand and laughed. “Please, for the love of God, spare me! There's a reason I chose you, Sophia. A reason I chose you above all the others.”

He made to rise, jerking to his feet, but Sophia pulled him by his sleeve back onto the settee. “If I may be so bold—why
did
you pick me?”

Withington sighed, running a hand through his close-cropped hair as his blush crept back up his neck. “It's rather simple, actually. You are . . . different from all the rest. I knew the moment I met you that you were not cut from the same cloth as the fortune hunters, the heiresses. You wanted so badly to be ambitious, Sophia, to make the same match that all the others wanted. But you are too honest. Too passionate. I like that about you, very much.”

He scoffed, shaking his head in that abrupt, nervous way of his. “I suppose those are the same reasons why you
won't
wear my ring. But that doesn't . . . doesn't mean I admire you any less, Sophia. To do the honorable thing, the hard thing, is no small feat. You could very well be the best friend I've got, considering the scalawags and seducers that populate the clubs these days.”

By now, tears fell so profusely from Sophia's eyes she could hardly see. Somewhere in the blurry dimness of the room, she heard Lady Blaise's cries for smelling salts and a snifter of brandy; none of it registered as she flung herself into Withington's chest.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you for all that you've done, and all that you are.”

Withington was stiff at first; but then he reached around and patted her gently on the shoulder. He stood, pulling her up with him. He stepped away, holding her by the arms, and smiled into her eyes.

“Save your tears for Lady Blaise.” His gaze flicked to the tittering ladies across the room. “I think you're going to need them.”

Sophia took a deep breath, returning his smile; and was about to gather what was left of her mother when the glint at her wrist stopped her short. “Oh. Oh, here, don't forget this.”

She unclasped the bracelet and held it out to him.

“Keep it,” he said, waving her away. “It is my gift to you.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “You know me better than that, Withington. I can't keep it.”

“I insist.”

“And I insist you take it back.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Perhaps give it to the dowager marchioness; who knows, it might buy you a little luck. I think you're going to need it.”

Withington smiled, taking the bracelet with a sigh of defeat. “Until next time, then.”

Sophia reached out and squeezed his hand. “I look forward to meeting all those scalawag friends of yours.”

“Scalawag. Such a diverting word.”

“More so over a bottle of port. Let's skip the theater next time, shall we?”

Withington groaned with pleasure. “I thought you'd never ask.”

Sophia released his hand. His brown eyes were kind but full; and not everything she saw there was joyful or relieved. Even so, he bowed low, tucking the jewelry into his waistcoat pocket; and when he rose, he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss into her cheek.