Wicked Company (55 page)

Sophie moaned involuntarily and leaned into his tall frame, unable to resist the avalanche of longing that held her in its grip. Without a word, they repeated their former ritual of taking turns to remove articles of each other’s clothing. Then, Hunter gently pulled the curtain masking his sleeping alcove and drew her down on his bed. As he gazed
at her, his brows knit together and his eyes were suddenly filled with apprehension.

“Could I injure you, so soon after the babe?” he questioned softly, his body hovering above hers, his desire rampantly obvious.

“’Tis nearly a month,” she whispered, touched by his concern.

“Then we shall be gentle…” he murmured against her hair. “Let us be gentle and kind with one another.”

With infinite care, he cradled her in his arms and began to whisper a litany of endearments. With murmured tributes to her eyes, her hair, her slender form, his lips drifted lower, brushing feathery kisses across her sensitive breasts, plump and voluptuous from nursing her baby.

“So beautiful,” he whispered wistfully, but instead of taking possession of her still-tender flesh, he slowly strafed his hand across her rounded abdomen, stroking and tantalizing every inch of her heated body until she begged for deliverance, which ultimately manifested itself in wild bursts of sensation radiating in response to the strong, rhythmic pressure of his hands. Humbled by his selflessness, she could only murmur her incoherent gratitude, bewildered and chagrined by turns.

“Hunter… what about… ?” she whispered.

“’Twould be dangerous to risk making a new baby so soon,” he soothed, resting his chin on the top of her tousled hair as he waited for her ragged breathing to even out. “’Tis enough just to touch you… at least, that’s what I’m trying to tell myself,” he laughed ruefully, as they felt the evidence of his unquenched ardor pressing against them both.

“In Bath, I had but one lesson from my dear professor,” Sophie ventured, staring into his blue eyes
,
still smoky with desire. “I’m sure you neglected some of the finer points of… ah…” she swallowed hard.

“Ah yes,” Hunter chortled. “What an eager pupil you are, my love. Lesson Two… ’tis quite simple, actually.” He seized her hand and with no hint of embarrassment, instructed her in the art of pleasuring him.

“Yes?” she asked, her eyes seeking his.

“Oh, yes,” Hunter confirmed hoarsely, all his senses ablaze as he stared into her triumphant gaze.

Then he could only close his eyes and allow incredible sensations to sweep over him until, at last, he gave up all pretense of control. For her part, Sophie exalted in the heady feeling of power he had granted her. At length, she kissed him beneath his ear and snuggled close.

“Oh, God, Sophie,” he groaned, pulling her even more tightly against him so she could feel his heart still pounding wildly in his chest. “I am filled with pity you can never experience what you just called forth from me…”

“Oh, but I can,” she responded softly. “I did.” And then, inexplicably, a sob welled in her chest.

“I should never have left you!” she blurted, tears filling her eyes as she raised her head from his chest, gazing at the face that had always been so dear to her. “Somehow we could have found a way… but now… ’tis all a dreadful muddle!” She buried her head in his shoulder once more to prevent his seeing the moisture running down her cheeks. “Soon, ’twill be summer… you’ll be going—”

“I’ll be going to Sadler’s Wells,” Hunter interrupted reassuringly, using the bed sheet to wipe the corners of her eyes. “The manager there wants me to produce the musical fare. ’Tis just an hour’s coach ride from London.”

An hour away from Covent Garden might as well be a week, as far as Sophie’s life as a shopkeeper was concerned. She pulled away from his embrace and turned to stare into the fire.

“Come with me for the summer,” Hunter said softly, lifting the hair from her shoulders and gently kissing the nape of her neck. “Bring your quill and Danielle and we can take a cottage together. There’s lovely country all around. You can write your plays and watch the bairn and I’ll support the three of us.”

A vision of sweet-smelling grass and clear blue skies like the ones she’d known in Scotland conjured up a welcome contrast to the dirt and grime she remembered from summers past in London.

“Oh, Hunter…” she sighed, turning around to face him. She was sorely tempted to accept his proposal then and there.

“Lorna can look after the shop as she did when you were in Bath,” he continued eagerly, as if he’d thought about this idea for a considerable time. “Please, Sophie… let’s not miss this chance the way we did the last time…”

“But Peter—” she began.

“Peter Lindsay be
damned!”
he said angrily, pulling himself to a sitting position and leaning his naked torso against the wall. “You can’t allow that brandy-breath blackguard to rule your life!”

“He has the entire weight of English law behind him,” she protested. “Despite his drinking and gambling and philandering, the law says that
I’ve
deserted
him!
He’s threatened to petition the House of Lords…”

“For
what?”
Hunter demanded. “A divorce? Oh, how I wish the sot would divorce you, but don’t be daft. If you were no longer his wife, he could not claim your author’s fees, nor your profits from the book shop. Besides, he’s pretending to be a baronet! I doubt the House of Lords would look on
that
nonsense with much favor.”

“He may be a counterfeit aristocrat, but he’s still a
man,
” Sophie pointed out moodily pulling the counterpane around her exposed breasts and tucking it under her arms. “He could take away my child! That Mr. Beezle told me that successful petitioners not only can legally separate themselves from their wives—they gain complete possession of all progeny.”

“Has Peter even come to
see
the bairn?” Hunter asked bitterly.

“No…” Sophie replied, “but—”

“He’s all bluster and brass…” Hunter said disgustedly. “He uses these threats to bend you to his will… when are you going to call his bluff?”

He stared at her, his handsome features scowling in frustration.

“I don’t know…” she replied despairingly. “’Tis frightening to be linked to the likes of him… he’s so unlike the man I first knew in Bath. I suppose ’tis because he drinks constantly now. He was so twisted by his childhood, so despised by his kin…”

“You actually sound sorry for the sod!” Hunter exclaimed. “Perhaps you still have some tender feelings for him,” he added, hurt.

“Dear God, Hunter, you cannot think that… not
now?”

“He’s the father of Danielle—”

“Sheer bad luck,” Sophie retorted.

“I imagine he can be extremely charming when he chooses,” he averred, and Sophie knew instinctively that Hunter was imagining the physical intimacies she and her estranged husband had shared.

“Aye… that he can… when one doesn’t notice the deception.”

“Well, my offer remains,” Hunter said stiffly. “If you wish to spend the summer with me, I wish it also, assuming you’re willing to stand up to Peter’s empty threats.”

“I
wish
to very much,” Sophie replied softly. “’Tis just I must see my way clear to… to resolving certain problems…” Suddenly she felt her breasts begin to tingle with an onrush of milk. “And now I must get back to Danielle. Thank you for being so kind about… everything… and especially Aunt Harriet,” she said earnestly as they both began to dress.

“I’ll walk you to Half Moon Passage,” he said quietly.

Despite the emotionally charged atmosphere, there now existed between them a watchful reserve. As they descended the narrow stairwell, Sophie felt an impulse to fling herself in Hunter’s arms and retreat back to his cozy chamber. She wanted to leave behind forever the problems that plagued her. Instead, she silently followed him out the door into Bow Street, now cast in shadow and blanketed with four inches of snow. Their breath became visible puffs of white vapor as they walked across the deserted Great Piazza, down Henrietta Street, and up to Sophie’s door. Mrs. Phillips’s Salvator was locked tight, as was the darkened book shop next to it. A hungry babe’s thin, high-pitched wail could be heard at the top of the stairway leading to Sophie’s chambers above.

“Good night,” she whispered at length, standing on tiptoe to kiss him gently on his cold cheek.

Hunter nodded brusquely and quickly retreated down Half Moon Passage, his steps following the white hollows they’d both trampled in the snow.

In the growing twilight, she wearily trudged up to the landing that separated her chambers from those of Mrs. Phillips. Fumbling for the latch, she stood rooted to the threshold as she gazed past the open door into her own lodgings. There, in her bed, a large body lay huddled, shaking under the counterpane.

“God’s wounds… what is
he
doing here?” Sophie demanded of Mary Ann Skene, who promptly reached for her cloak on its peg the second she had seen her flat mate open the door.

“’Tis your husband and he’s quite ill,” Mary Ann said defensively, flinging her wrap around her shoulders. “I couldn’t let the blighter freeze to death in front of the shop, could I?”

“You could send him back to his own lodgings!” she retorted.

“He’s been evicted for nonpayment, I’m afraid.”

“Where’s Lorna?” Sophie asked, raising her voice over the wails of her hungry daughter who was crying in the trunk at the foot of the bed.

“She had to deliver the placards due Drury Lane,” Mary Ann replied. “We assumed you’d be home hours sooner,” she added reproachfully, pointing at Danielle crying in her bed. “I didn’t know what to do about
that
one.”

Sophie hurried over to the child and scooped her up in her arms, unfastening her bodice while she demanded to know why Peter was installed in her bed.

She shrugged. “He collapsed in the snow. ’Tis a nasty ague, Mrs. Phillips called it.”

“Probably just the spirits,” Sophie replied bitterly, staring down at her estranged husband who was moaning faintly in his sleep
.

“Nay, feel him. He’s burning up,” Mary Ann countered.

Sophie placed her fingertips lightly on his forehead. His flesh was unnaturally flushed and hot to the touch.

“But he could give this ague to Danielle!” Sophie protested, glancing worriedly at the infant in her arms. “How could you be so thoughtless to allow him in here! Had you no care for the child’s safety,” she demanded, “not to mention your own?”

“I’ve already been exposed and am perfectly fit.”

Sophie stared at her narrowly. She took a step closer, her eyes flashing.

“Exposed by whom?” she asked accusingly.

“By… a… well, several patrons have contracted something of the sort, and I—”

“Peter was not found collapsed on the road, was he?” Sophie accused Mary Ann, glaring at the woman about to depart for her nightly rendezvous with customers at her bawdy house. “He has been your client at the Blue Periwig for weeks, hasn’t he, you trollop!” she demanded. “He became ill there and couldn’t pay and they forced you to turn him out… told you to take him to his wife and get the money from
her…
isn’t that so?”

“No! Of course not!” Mary Ann retorted, flicking a piece of imaginary lint off her cloak. “Ask Mrs. Phillips if he wasn’t about to breathe his last!”

“I’m sure she thought he was… she knows how dangerous these agues can be.”

“Well, he
is
your husband,” Mary Ann retorted, “and I’ve done my best with him. Now, I must be gone.”

Sophie stared at Peter huddled beneath her counterpane. She had deserted her husband’s lodgings on Cleveland Row, only to find him now in Half Moon Passage, unfortunately ensconced in her own.

Twenty-Two

Peter’s fever raged all that night and into the next day. Sophie got virtually no sleep as she applied moist linen rags to her husband’s flushed forehead and tended to the needs of a fretful Danielle.

“Cold compresses are the only thing to bring the fever down,” Mrs. Phillips preached across her counter the following morning. “And a bit of watered broth, if he’ll keep it down. Either the fever will break, or he’ll die.”

When Lorna arrived at the shop around noon, Sophie shouted to her that she was not to come upstairs.

“We can’t have you ill too,” she called down. “Just fetch some broth from the tavern and set it halfway up the stairs.”

For several days, Sophie divided her time between nursing Peter—who thrashed in her bed, barely conscious— printing the usual round of playbills that Lorna was kind enough to deliver to Drury Lane, and praying that neither she nor her daughter would be affected by the virulent illness. She routinely sponged Peter’s feverish body, spooned soup down his throat, and applied a few poultices left by Mrs. Phillips on the landing. She hardly heard her customers coming in and out of the book shop below, so preoccupied was she with her duties as unwilling nursemaid. As for Peter, he seemed oblivious to the fact that he was being looked after by the woman he had publicly called a shrew.