The Wedding Duel (The Dueling Pistols Series) (37 page)

The carriage stopped.

Her eyes flashed white in the dim interior, too much white, like a frenzied horse. "Hush, Mary Frances, I'll stop. Shhhhh, hush. Don't hit me."

He reared back, dodging her snapping teeth.

Sophie handed her wrap to the butler while Keene stood in the doorway looking out after the carriage he'd sent away with Victor and Mary Frances in it.

"Would you like a tea tray sent to the drawing room, sir?"

"No, Blythe, we are retiring for the evening. Would you have Letty sent to Mrs. Davies's room."

"Very good, sir. Your valet?"

"I won't be needing him."

Sophie didn't wait for her husband to close the door. No doubt he intended to go out again. Otherwise, why would he refuse his servant? So many times he'd brought her to the brink of desperate yearning, then left her all alone. She flew up the stairs, her slippers pounding the steps beneath her feet. She heard his voice behind her, but didn't stop to listen.

She didn't think she could stand another time of watching him slip back out the door as if he couldn't stand to remain in the same house with her.

Keene watched Sophie's headlong flight up the stairs with amused interest. She was either very eager, or very energetic. Both, he hoped. They still hadn't resolved the pregnancy issue, but he no longer cared. He would coax a confession from her in the aftermath, but he could barely stand the delay to let her maid help her undress.

He should have volunteered to play lady's maid but he felt too impatient to deal with the tapes, ties and pins of her clothing. Better to maintain the proprieties and only contend with her nightgown. Because he was quite sure he would very likely rip her evening gown from her lovely body.

He crossed into the library and poured himself a brandy. Not because he needed it, but because he feared he would sprint up the stairs himself. His hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips. How could he go slowly enough for her, if he felt this desperate for her touch?

Each tick of the clock sounded loud to his ears, and echoed in the taunt tenseness of his body. One second closer, one second closer, but the minutes were like eons. The quarter hour he forced himself to wait grew to an eternity.

His brandy sat on the desk in the library. He left it after one sip. He ascended the stairs, forcing himself to take each tread and not bound over a single riser. Anticipation pounded in his gut. Desire and need made him hard as stone and would have made his valet's help to undress a rather embarrassing proposition.

He forced himself to remove each article of clothing slowly and methodically. He stood naked in his cool room, praying for control, before he pulled his dressing gown around him and headed for the connecting door to Sophie's room.

There was no response to his soft knock, but he knew she couldn't be asleep yet. He cracked the door and peered around. Lamplight filtered over the turned-down empty bed. He stepped into the unoccupied room, desire crashing into disappointment. Where was she?

* * *

"Stop it, Mary Frances." Victor grabbed for the fist she managed to jerk free while he avoided her bite.

Her name was too damn long. She cuffed him in the head before he managed to get it out. "I'm not hurting you. And I'm not letting you go until you calm down."

"You're trying to ravish me."

"I'm not trying to ravish you. I was trying to seduce you."

"'Tis a fate worse then death."

"It is not. It's a rather enjoyable thing we'll do together when we're married."

She didn't look convinced, but at least she was listening, although her hair covered half her face like a wild woman from the Amazon.

"Now will you stop kicking and biting?"

She gave him a mean stare. Bloody hell, did he really want to marry this vixen? Did he have any choice? He needed her father's money. Damn it, one minute she'd been enjoying his kisses, the next she was thrashing around like a trapped wildcat.

"Now stop this, for I need to see why the coachman has stopped."

The fight went out of her in a whoosh. "We must be at my home."

No chance of that. The coachman had been given explicit instructions to keep driving until he had Victor's signal. Still, there must be some impediment to the carriage's progress. He tentatively let go of her wrists.

She covered her face with her hands. He pulled her to a sitting position, backing off of her in the same motion.

"Why?" she whispered. "Why would you seduce me? I don't have the lineage or powerful relatives to protect me. My only recommendation is my fortune. I am only a daughter of a wealthy tradesman. Without my virtue I have little value."

A wave of tenderness swept over Victor, in spite of the sting in his cheek. "That's not true. You have beauty to recommend you. I should desire you if you were penniless."

"But you shouldn't marry me."

"But we are to marry. We've settled that, haven't we?"

"I don't know. I don't understand. I know that more than anything it must be my fortune that draws you."

He pulled her hands away from her face. "It is, and I need it quickly, love. But I do think that we can find a way to love each other in spite of my title being what draws you."

A knock sounded on the carriage door.
What the devil was his coachman about?

"Mary Frances, I should be glad to approach your father the minute we reach your house. I do mean to make you my countess, but I should like it done quickly."

He could be making the biggest mistake of his life in being candid with her, but he sure as hell thought Keene and George were going about marital honesty all wrong.

"Why quickly?"

The knock sounded on the door again.
What the devil was up?
"I have quite a few outstanding debts, love. I'm rather in the suds and cursed close to being tossed in debtor's prison. I don't want a devilish long delay in marrying you, and your father is known to drive a hard bargain. A certain urgency in needing to marry might give me an edge in negotiations. Plus, I did think we might have a bit of pleasure in creating a pressing need to marry quickly."

He leaned over and opened the door. "Why the devil aren't we moving?"

"Begging your pardon, sir. We do seem to be in front of your friend Keeting's house and there does seem to be a bit of a to-do."

Mary Frances pulled her long sable hair back from her face. "So I am just a commodity to you?"

"You are much more than that. You are to be my wife. I don't take that lightly." He turned to his coachman. "What kind of a to-do?"

* * *

Sophie eased around the door into Amelia's room. The light peeping through the threshold indicated she was still awake. And Sophie was far too keyed up to fall asleep alone in her bed.

"How are you doing?"

Amelia put her finger in the book she held in her lap and closed it. She patted the bed beside her. "As well as can be expected, I suppose."

The puffy redness around her eyes spoke of tears.

Sophie stepped closer to the bed and folded her arms behind her back. "Are you upset that I suggested we see your daughter? It went worse than I thought it would."

Amelia raised her knees under the bedcovers and leaned forward. "I was glad to see her. And how should I ever know how it would go if I never tried?"

"Well, waiting hasn't changed much." Sophie took another step closer to the bed. "I do think I owe you an apology."

"Not for suggesting I visit my child. I am so glad I saw her and held her again. Besides, I am sure you are right. It is better to do something rather than wait endlessly for someone else to do something."

Sophie folded a leg underneath her and sat beside Amelia. "You mean your husband?"

She nodded. "It doesn't appear that my absence has made his heart grow fonder."

"I don't know, gambling to excess does not sound like the move of a contented man." Of course, her father would lament gambling in any form. "Perhaps he doesn't like you being away from him any better."

Amelia shrugged and the sheet slipped down a bit.

"But I do owe you an apology, for I mistook the situation. I thought that the father of your baby—"

"You mean Victor?" Amelia plucked at the sheet.

"Well, yes, but that wasn't what I thought. I thought Keene—well that you and he—I thought he'd fathered your baby. And I do believe I was rather cool to you."

"Oh, no, not Keene, and you have never been cool."

"Have you and he . . .?"

"Never." Amelia's expression was incredulous. "I can't believe you have said this to me."

"I'm sorry."

Amelia's blue eyes sparkled. "No, it is wonderful. Even if I thought such a thing, I shouldn't say it, ever. I do so admire your forthright manner."

"Rather leads me to trouble more often than not."

Amelia reached out and tapped Sophie's shoulder. "We all have our weakness. I should say that if Keene had been interested, I would have. . . . But he has eyes for no one but you." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "I am quite jealous, if you must know."

Sophie studied her houseguest wondering if Amelia was being honest, but there was something so intimate and open about sitting together in their nightclothes discussing things. "I fear there is little of which to be jealous. Keene is quite oblivious to my presence."

"No, he is not. I have seen how he looks at you."

"How does he look at me?"

"Like he wants to . . . you know, bed you again and again." Amelia blushed. "Heavens how I miss that part of my marriage. I could take George's distaste for me if he would just welcome me back into his bed."

Midnight confidences and all that, Sophie felt she had to confess. "Keene's never . . . I, he has never shared his bed with me. What is it like?"

"He what?"

"We've never—at least I don't think we have. We've kissed, but he always stops before it feels as if we're through."

"Sometimes it takes a while. Gentlemen tend to finish first."

"How long? For I should like to . . ." Sophie thought of that curiously hard part of his anatomy that had been pressed against her abdomen earlier and faltered when she didn't know the words to use to describe it. ". . . have more. I mean, he kissed me earlier at the ball. But always when we come home, he goes to his room and I mine, and there we stay. I wait for him in my bedroom, but he never comes to me. He often leaves the house."

Amelia stared at her in disbelief. "Fustian!"

Sophie shook her head and to her dismay a big fat tear rolled down her nose and dripped on the bedspread.

"Oh, my poor, Sophie." Amelia leaned over and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "Perhaps he is being cautious with your inexperience. Did you give him the impression his urges scared you?"

"Well, after the wedding when Victor told me Keene had shot him, I did flinch a couple of times, but I was never scared of the . . ."

"Making love," supplied Amelia.

"I was never scared of that." With her head dipped down, Sophie noticed that Amelia's night clothing was very different from the long flannel gown she slept in. She leaned back and examined the revealing lace-edged scoop neck of the nearly sheer gown. "What are you wearing?"

"A nightgown. George did so like my nightgowns." Amelia pushed back the covers and slid her legs out of bed. "I had one made up for after I recovered from having the baby. Although why, I shouldn't know. Because it always ended up on the floor far too quickly to be worth the effort of tying all the ties."

Sophie's face flamed. "On the floor?"

Amelia swiveled around and stared at her. "Stars above, Keene really hasn't made you his wife yet, has he?"

Sophie shook her head.

"You want him to, don't you?"

"More than anything."

"Then you shall have to show him you are ready. George was rather shy at first, but I wouldn't have thought . . ." Her voice trailed off. Amelia opened a drawer and pulled out a frothy concoction of lace and ribbons. "Here, wear this and go to him. He'll understand."

Sophie clutched Amelia's nightgown to her and stared at Amelia. "What is it like? Is it as wonderful as when he kisses me?"

"Better."

"I can't take your nightgown."

"I'm not using it. It's not the sort one wears when sleeping alone. Here, I'll help you put it on, and there's a wrapper, too." Amelia's gaze swept over Sophie's nightgown. "Besides, you look like a nun in that. Is it any wonder Keene stays away?"

* * *

Keene paced around her room like a caged tiger. Finally, he conceded defeat with a growl. He couldn't prowl the house looking for her while wearing only his silk dressing gown. He slammed into his room and grabbed his breeches from the neatly folded stack, shoved his legs into them and then sank down to a chair and fisted his hands in his hair.