The Millionaire Rogue (7 page)

Hope paused. She felt the heat of his gaze as a stifling silence filled the carriage. She hadn't meant to insult him; heavens, he'd shown her a grand time, and a goodly bit of his rather delectable body besides. It wasn't as if Hope had any intentions toward her, the interest in his eyes and the warmth of his touch notwithstanding.

So why did Sophia feel as if she'd just delivered a ringing blow to his handsome cheek? That she'd hurt him in some unknown, but still visceral, way?

“The sort of gentleman you
need
to marry?” Hope carefully released her hands. He sat back and placed his palms on his knees.

Sophia shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “You know my family's circumstances. I don't have much choice. A good marriage will go far to repair our fortunes, and our reputation.”

“But you do have a choice. Your family is in the care of Lady Violet's capable hands. She is a savvy investor, Sophia, and sees to your family's fortunes most ably.”

Sophia looked out the window. She swallowed. “It's not that I don't trust Violet. It's just—”

The words caught at a sudden, ominous swell in her throat. Good Lord, how many times was she going to weep tonight?

Only this time she wasn't trying to make a scene.

“It's just?” Thomas said softly.

Sophia waved a hand through the air. “Nothing.” She pulled a long breath through her nose, hoping to still her wildly beating heart. Across the carriage she met Hope's eyes and managed a tight smile. “I'm sorry, Thomas. I don't mean to burden you with my. Ahem. Dramatics. Most unseemly of me, isn't it?”

To her very great relief, a smile broke out on Mr. Hope's face. “Let us not forget it was your dramatics that saved our arses tonight. Begging your pardon, Sophia.” He patted the lacquered box beside him.

Sophia nodded in the French Blue's direction. “So. What's next for you and Mr. Lake?”

“Well.” Mr. Hope sighed, an exhausted sound. “London is crawling with old Boney's spies, so it shouldn't be difficult to turn him on to our scent. The more people who learn of the diamond's discovery, the better chance we'll have of getting the highest price from that blackhearted scrum.”

“Perhaps you should host one of your balls.” Sophia tapped a finger to her lips. “They are the most famous event of the season. Last year's was one of the few events mama allowed me to attend, and I'll never forget the crush. Or how ridiculous you looked dressed up as that Borgia pope. Almost as ridiculous as Violet in the guise of Lucrezia. She drank so much wine that night she fell down the stairs, do you remember?”

They laughed at that, Hope slowly shaking his head. “How could I forget? If I hadn't been there to catch her, I daresay she'd have a very different nose than the one she has now.” He took the box from the seat and held it in his lap. “But I do believe you're on to something, Sophia. Perhaps this year's theme could be ‘Great Jewels of the World.'” He paused, a small smile creeping across his lips. “Though there might be some confusion as to what sort of jewels I'm referring to.”

With startling clarity, Sophia recalled the scratch of her quill against a half-empty page, recording in badly translated English La Reinette's tale of a smuggler's jewels. Their great size, a “treasure trove the likes of which she'd never seen.”

Sophia suddenly understood the madam was not talking about rubies or emeralds.

Her face flooded with a violent rush of heat, and she was grateful for the blurring darkness that hung between her and Thomas.

“Yes. Well.” Sophia swallowed. “I'm sure you'll think of something.”

She turned her head and nearly started. Familiar stuccoed facades filled the window, slumbering Mayfair mansions rising on either side of a wide, well-kept lane. The smells of London—close air, smoke, and a vague, medieval sort of stench—filled her nostrils.

She blinked as a wave of displeasure spread through her.

Tonight's adventure, it seemed, was over.

It was all she could do not to curse aloud. But she wasn't ready for it to end! Not now. There was more to be done. More to know and discover. More danger, and touching, and kissing—

Her gaze darted back to Mr. Hope, who was pressing his beaver hat onto his mess of curls.

“If you are in agreement, I thought Lake might drop us behind the mews,” he said. “I dare not imagine what your poor mama would think if the horses jolted her awake to a face like his.”

Sophia grinned. “I don't think she would ever recover.”

Hope pounded twice on the roof; Mr. Lake coaxed the horses to stop. Hope removed the diamond from its lacquered box and carefully tucked it into his waistcoat pocket before disembarking. He turned and helped Sophia out onto the street, pulling up her hood against the drizzle that had begun to fall.

Lake looked over his shoulder, his one eye glinting in the dark. “Shall I wait?”

Thomas held out an elbow to Sophia. “No. Good evening, Lake.”

Lake's eye narrowed. “Are you sure? I don't mind, really—”

“Lake.” Thomas pulled Sophia against him. “
Good evening
.”

Lake sighed, shaking his head. “Very well. Until tomorrow, then. Miss Blaise, it's been a pleasure.”

With a low whistle, he jostled the horses into motion and was gone.

Together, Sophia and Thomas turned left and made their way down a dark, narrow alley. Hope held her fast, their legs brushing with every step they took. Neither of them spoke, Sophia's thoughts scattered by the heady thumping of her heart.

Ahead, the familiar grim facade of her family's London house loomed where the alley came out onto the lane. If it weren't for Thomas's close—very close—presence, she would've buckled under the full weight of her disappointment.

It really was over. The adventure, her interlude with Thomas, the kissing and the intrigue, the
kissing
—

Hope suddenly turned to her. He tugged none too gently on her arm so that she faced him and stepped forward, pressing his body to hers. She fell back against the wall, her simmering blood at last ignited by the impatience of his movements.

“Sophia.” His voice was barely above a whisper; she felt his breath on her face. Even in the darkness she could see the intent in his eyes. They were serious. Warm.

“What were you doing at The Glossy?”

She looked up at him, too terrified, too enthralled, to reply.

“Sophia. I'll have an answer. La Reinette is not the sort of company a lady like you should keep, adventurer or no. She is alluring, certainly. But dangerous, too. Any deal you have made with her will only come back to haunt you.”

Sophia swallowed, hard. “I. Well. I. I'm not at liberty to say.”

Hope stared at her. Again he stepped forward, pressing his arm to the wall beside her head, and leaned down so that his face was half an inch from hers.

He surrounded her, his enormous shoulders blocking the night from view. Around them came the growing patter of rain.

“Sophia.” His voice was little more than a growl. “A debutante in search of a brilliant match doesn't dally about in whorehouses. Tell me. What business do you have at The Glossy?”

The rain was coming down with great intent, rolling off the brim of Hope's hat into her face. In a swift, impulsive movement, Hope pulled his hat from his head, his curls falling rakishly across his forehead.

Sophia let out a breath. If Hope wasn't holding her up with his weight, her knees would have
definitely
buckled. Good God, never did a man look so delicious in his looming as Mr. Thomas Hope.

“Sophia,” he repeated.

She ran her tongue along her bottom lip, suddenly alive with sensation.

The words came before she could stop them, a defense against his questions; a plea of desire.

“Do it again.”

Thomas paused. “I beg your pardon?”

“Kiss me. Like you did for the princess. Do it again.”

His eyes searched hers, moving from one to the other. With every sense she implored him to action, tilting her chin so that her lips waited just beneath the soft curve of his own. The air between them tightened, pulling them slowly toward one another.

Sophia vaguely heard Thomas's hat dropping to the ground beside her; and then his hand was cupping her face and his hair was falling into her eyes and his skin brushed against hers. He took her lips with his own, an urgent but luxuriously careful caress that drew a moan from the back of her throat.

He moved ardently over her now; no time, no need for introductions or assurances, just desire, sure and swift, beating between them.

Taking her bottom lip in his teeth, he opened her mouth to him, his tongue sliding along the slick insides of her lips. In her veins her blood pounded.

For the second time that night she surrendered to the ruin of Hope's expert touch, his hands and his shoulders, and dear God, this
kiss
.

I
t was her curiosity that did it, the challenge that sparked in her eyes.

That, and her damnably luscious lips. While Miss Sophia Blaise wasn't entirely guileless—she had, after all, helped him swindle the French Blue from Caroline's grasp—the debutante-cum-actress hadn't the slightest idea how alluring she could be.

Especially with that bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Then there was her sudden, impulsive request.
Do it again
.
Kiss me.

Good Lord. What was a decent man to do but oblige the lady, and oblige her most thoroughly?

As for his fear that he'd forgotten how to kiss—it boded well, didn't it, if Sophia asked for another?

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew she was using the kiss as a weapon against him, a way of avoiding questions she quite clearly did not wish to answer. Her presence in La Reinette's chamber was, to be fair, none of his business.

But when it came to Sophia, Hope did not feel like being fair. Fair was for business, for money, for duels. For cards and the races. For ledgers and war and the shops on Bond Street, the grocer, the steward. Fair was predictable and dull.

No. There was certainly nothing fair about Sophia; her egregious loveliness, her scent. There was nothing fair about the way she stoked his growing desire for her with every word she said, her unexpected bravado and the full, honest sound of her laughter.

He would find out what she was up to with La Reinette, come hell or high water.

Just after he kissed Miss Blaise senseless. Yes. He would find out then.

This time he held nothing back. He kissed her with a passion that was at once foreign and intoxicating, driving deeper, softer; the more of her he possessed and discovered, the more of her he wanted. He felt wild, his body and his heart pushing him forward, his hands cupping her face as he coaxed her lips apart with his tongue.

He'd forgotten just how lovely kissing could be.

Sophia yielded to his caresses, parting her lips. Their kiss deepened, slowed for a moment as he gently explored her warmth. Beneath him she shifted, running her palms up over his chest to land on his shoulders. She slid a hand up the side of his throat, and he groaned when she buried her fingers in the curls at the back of his neck, pulling him closer. With her thumb she gently stroked the cut on his cheek; her touch was featherlight, soothing the wound's sting.

He sensed his own fingers tingling for the feel of her bodice as her breasts pressed far too invitingly against his chest. The impulse—it was nearly impossible to resist. He hadn't expected her to be so willing, so curious, so passionate.

If he didn't stop soon, he knew he'd devour her whole. And while he knew the adventurer in her would very much like to be devoured, the debutante had a reputation to protect, and a certain sort of gentleman to marry.

With one last, lingering stroke of his tongue, he pressed his lips, hard, to hers. And then he pulled away.

For several beats they stood, foreheads touching, his hands still on her face as they gasped for air. Her breath was hot on his face; he slid his last finger down to her throat and felt the ecstatic screaming of her pulse. Her skin was scalding. An invitation for his lips to finish what his hands had started.

He did not want to let her go.

The rain began to fall in earnest, fat, insistent drops that fell straight from a low sky. It was a summer rain, and yet not quite. Not yet. The water was calm but cold.

Not yet.

He slid a wet ribbon of hair from her brow. “You are as a nymph, Sophia. So lovely. So tempting.”

Hope dropped his hands from her face. He shut his eyes against the shouting of his blood to kiss her, touch her, take her, and stepped back, releasing the tension between their bodies.

“I am writing her memoirs.”

Hope's eyes flew open at the sound of Sophia's voice. Through the rain he could see the gleam of her eyes, her breast rising and falling as she caught her breath.

Out of all the things she could've said, Hope was certainly not expecting her to say
that
.

“You're a writer?”

Sophia shrugged. “I am no Lord Byron—”

“Thank heaven for that.”

“But when I was young, I lived in books. They were an escape.” She looked down at her hands. “An escape from my family, the chaos of our house. It wasn't long before I began to write. Stories at first, small things, always in secret. I wrote about romance, adventure, pirates of course. When I was seventeen, my governess discovered one of my pirate melodramas I'd foolishly hidden beneath my pillow. Imagine my shock when, rather than rapping my knuckles with her stick, she asked me to pen her memoirs.”

Hope blinked as understanding dawned on him. “Your governess wasn't—”

“Yes.”

“Not that Miss Entwhistle, surely—”

“Yes.
That
Miss Entwhistle.”

“Dear God. I remember those memoirs caused quite the stir that year.” Hope tugged a hand through his curls. “Surely your pirate melodramas were less, er,
explicit
than Miss Entwhistle's tales.”

“Not really, no.”

Forget his curls. Hope gave his cravat a ruthless tug and cleared his throat. “Well, then. How did you come to work for La Reinette?”

“Miss Entwhistle wrote me some weeks ago, said a friend of hers sought a writer for her memoirs. I had every intention of refusing, I did. But from the moment we met, La Reinette enthralled me. I couldn't say no. The stories she tells! Sometimes I feel
I
ought to be paying
her
.”

Thomas furrowed his brow, swiping back his curls with his hand. La Reinette was his friend and, a decade ago, more than that; she was enthralling, yes, all too aware of the hypnotic power of her beauty.

“Does she mean to publish these memoirs?”

Sophia pushed back her sodden hood. “You know how popular memoirs are these days. The more scandalous, the better.”

Thomas stepped forward. He hooked his thumb beneath her chin and lifted her face. Her eyes met his.

“Take care, Sophia. La Reinette may be glamorous, but she resides in a world much different from your own.”

Sophia grinned. “If I'm old enough to make my debut, then certainly I'm old enough to look after myself, Thomas.”

“I hope you recognize the irony of that statement.”

“Please.” She placed her palms on his chest. Beneath her touch his heart leapt. “You mustn't tell a soul. I am sworn to secrecy. I shall take care, I promise. Besides, La Reinette guaranteed discretion, protection, too.”

“Did she.” Thomas frowned. He covered her hands on his chest with his own and sighed. “Very well. But remember what you promised me. And should you find yourself in trouble, you must come to me straightaway.”

Pleasure pulsed through him as her grin deepened. “Hm. I think Mr. Lake, with that vicious little eye patch of his, might be better at protecting my prized virtue than a scoundrel like you.”

If they weren't standing pressed knee to navel in an alley in Mayfair well past midnight, Hope would've thrown back his head and laughed.

“I've been called many things, Sophia, but never a scoundrel. Though I suppose it
is
scoundrelly to kiss debutantes in dark alleys.”

“Scoundrelly, yes. But only in the best of ways.”

Her grin was saucy now, playful; her eyes gleamed with pleasure even as drops of rain rolled down the smooth planes of her cheeks.

In the very center of Hope's chest, a puzzling lightness took shape. A lightness he recognized, vaguely, but could not name.

He sighed, biting back the impulse to lean in and proceed with the devouring he'd reluctantly halted a few heartbeats ago. Instead he stooped to pick up his hat and, holding it above Sophia's head, held out his elbow.

Hope sensed her reluctance as she looped her arm through his.

So. She was no more eager for the night to end than he. Hope smiled. He'd done his job, and done it well.

Together they skipped across the lane, the rain mercifully obscuring the sound of their boots on the cobblestones. Sophia led him down the sloping walk that ran along the side of the house, and drew up at last before the kitchen door.

She released his arm and stepped up onto the stoop, turning to face him.

“Well.” She clasped her hands. “Thank you, Mr. Hope, for a marvelous evening.”

“Thomas. You must call me Thomas.”

His name on her lips came out in a soft whisper. “Thomas.”

They looked at each other. The lightness in his chest threatened to burst through his entire being. Around them the rain pattered noisily, an opaque curtain that hid this moment from the rest of the world.

Without thinking, Hope leapt forward onto the stoop. With his hand he cupped her face and, drawing close, pressed his lips to her cheek. It was a simple kiss, quick and tender; he couldn't help but kiss her with feeling.

Sophia inhaled, holding her breath as he looked down at her.

“Good night, Sophia.” His voice was foreign to him, soft and rough all at once.

Beneath his hand he felt the working of her throat as she swallowed, her eyes never leaving his. “Good night, Thomas,” she breathed.

And then, as if waking from a dream, she blinked; she turned and noiselessly scurried into the house.

In her haste, she'd left the door open a crack. He reached for the handle and for a moment allowed his hand to linger there, the metal alive with the memory of her touch. Bowing his head, he closed the door softly behind her. Then he turned and stalked into the darkness.

He took the familiar route in long, hard strides, heart thudding, throat suddenly tight, the pouring rain a welcome antidote to the heat that pulsed beneath his skin.

Thomas.

It had been so long. So very long since he'd been anyone but Mr. Hope, creditor, investor, banker, businessman. Casual acquaintance, trusted but distant friend. This
Thomas
, this man on the lips of a lovely woman, this adventurer—he couldn't possibly exist beside the likes of Mr. Hope. There wasn't time enough in the day, and too many memories besides. Memories he'd spent more than a decade trying to forget.

Hope had left that man behind for a reason. And thus far, forgetting Thomas had served him well.

But now.

He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath through his nose.

Now all he could smell was the clean, fresh scent of Sophia's skin, the sweet hint of wine on her lips. All he could see were her green-gold eyes, the way they slanted so invitingly as she teased him. He could feel nothing but the warmth of her skin, the opening of her lips, her fingers tangling in his hair.

Could hear nothing but the soft breathlessness of her voice as she said his name.

Thomas.

Nymph indeed.

*   *   *

City of London
Fleet Street
Three days later

M
r. Hope held the diamond up to the thick, golden afternoon light that streamed through his office window. He turned the French Blue over in his fingers, wincing as the jewel blinded him with a particularly vicious spark of radiance.

He was thinking of her again. With a smile he recalled Sophia's theatrical sobs, and her wonder at seeing the diamond for the first time. Afterward he'd kissed her, right there in front of Princess Caroline—

“Forbidden fruit, old friend.”

Hope started at the sound of the voice, grappling after the diamond as it tumbled from his grasp.

“Dear.
God!
” He caught the French Blue and held it fast in his palm. He looked up and met Mr. Lake's narrowed eye. “Damn you, Lake, how'd you get past my men? This sneaking about has gone on long enough. You're lucky someone hasn't shot you yet.”

“Trust me, they've tried. No one's come close, of course—”

Hope rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

“But I'm deadly good at this ‘sneaking about,' as you well know by now. And besides. I like the challenge. Front doors are for ninnies,” Lake said, setting a familiar black lacquer box before Hope on the desk.

“If by ninnies you mean normal people, then yes, I concur.” Hope carefully placed the diamond back in Princess Caroline's box and shut the lid with an agitated
thwack
. He put his elbows on his desk and clasped his hands. “So. Assuming you haven't come to mock my
History of the World's Greatest Diamond
yet
again
—”

“That's not what I was talking about.” Lake crossed his bulging arms and from his considerable height stared down at Hope.

Hope blinked, furrowing his brow. “I don't understand.”

Lake continued to stare. “Oh, I think you do.”

“Actually, I don't.” Hope blinked again.
Forbidden fruit
. What the devil was Lake talking abou—

Ah.

Lake was talking about Sophia.

His face rushed hot, and Hope snapped his gaze to the lacquered box on his desk. Lake was a man of many skills; Hope didn't know until now that mindreading was one of them.