Kathryn Smith - [Friends 03] (13 page)

The refreshment room at Eden was a large, tastefully decorated room with buffet tables lining the far wall and dozens of smaller tables throughout the room for guests to sit, eat and converse away from the noise and heat of the ballroom.

"I do not see your brother-in-law here," Julian remarked, placing a slice of tomato on her plate with a pair of silver tongs.

"No," she replied, selecting a hard-boiled egg for each of them. "This kind of diversion would not amuse Charles at all."

Julian said nothing as he continued piling food on their plates.

Sophia could no longer keep her silence. "Forgive me, I did not get a chance to thank you earlier for what you said to Fielding regarding the marquess."

He glanced at her but briefly before spearing more cold meats for the two of them. "I did not do it to earn your gratitude."

He didn't? "Then why did you?"

Julian's shoulders sagged in a heavy sigh. "Do you have to question everything?" he demanded, his voice even lower than it had been. "I did it because I wanted to."

Obviously that was as good an answer as she was going to get, and that suited her just fine. She much preferred Julian doing things for her because he wanted to rather than out of a need to have her in his debt.

She plopped a pickle onto his plate. "Well, thank you anyway."

He burst out laughing, causing several people in the room to turn their heads and stare.

They sat with Lilith, Gabriel, Brave and Rachel, a surprisingly comfortable arrangement. Sophia knew Lilith well enough to make conversation, and Rachel was so friendly she made it incredibly easy for Sophia to talk to her.

"You were late as usual tonight, Jules," Brave teased as he sliced into a tomato.

Julian grinned at his friend and Sophia envied their easiness with each other. "You, no doubt, had been here for hours by the time we arrived."

"Half of one." His friend returned the smile. "We get out so rarely that we like to take advantage of it when we do."

Julian turned to Sophia. "Brave and Rachel are the only people ever to have had a child. The responsibility weighs on them from time to time, as you can imagine."

Sophia didn't know how to react to his joke, but joined in the laughter once the others started.

"Someday you will find out for yourself," Brave informed him with mock severity. "And then we shall all have a good laugh at your expense."

Shaking his head, Julian maintained his good-natured expression. "I am in no hurry to have it happen, my friend. I have already partially raised two. I am in no hurry to repeat the experience."

Was that true? Sophia had never met a man who didn't long for a son to carry on after him. Even Edmund, who would have been an indifferent father at best, had been bitter about his inability to sire an heir.

"I am certain you will feel different when the child is truly your own, Jules," Gabriel asserted.

His gaze narrow, Julian turned to his friend. Sophia watched as understanding lit his eyes.

"Good lord, you are with child," he blurted out.

Happy gasps and congratulations poured forth when a beaming Lilith nodded. Gabriel puffed up just like a peacock.

Everyone expressed their pleasure at the announcement, and Sophia gathered that a baby was something Gabriel and Lilith had been wanting since their marriage. She was happy for them, but not being a mother herself, she couldn't relate to the sheer joy on Lilith's face.

"Envious?" A soft voice asked.

Sophia smiled at Julian's nosiness. "More awkward than anything else," she replied honestly. "It is not something I can relate to."

He nodded, his gaze straying back to the four chattering people before them. "Did you never want children?"

She met his gaze again. "I knew when I married Aberley that he was unable to father children. I was so young and selfish I did not care."

But that was before her husband died and Julian knew that. "And now?"

She shrugged. "Now that I am a widow of seven and twenty I am becoming accustomed to the idea of never having any."

Julian said what everyone else always said when she told them how she felt about motherhood. "You are still young."

She smiled. "I am unmarried, Julian, and unless I happen to fall desperately in love with someone, have little intention of changing that. Do not," she said holding up her hand when he opened his mouth to speak, "tell me that you think I would make a good mother. It is about as convincing an argument as telling me I would make a good coatrack. There is about as much chance that I will become one as the other."

Julian chuckled at that. "I believe I know exactly how you feel."

"Perhaps we should discuss something other than children," Rachel suggested in her soft yet firm tone. "It can hardly be entertaining for Lady Aberley and Julian."

Sophia's cheeks warmed as all eyes turned toward herself and Julian. In a way, she was touched by Lady Braven's astuteness, but it also made her feel like something of a fifth wheel amongst their happy group. Did Julian feel the same?

"Oh, no," he replied with obviously false enthusiasm. "I find it vastly entertaining. I have already composed half a sonnet about it in my head."

Everyone chuckled and the mood was instantly set to rights. The conversation took a different turn— to telling Sophia amusing antecdotes about Julian as a youngster. She found the change of topic wildly amusing. Julian, however, did not. He excused himself after a few moments to fetch a drink a little stronger than the champagne the club served. Sophia watched him go out of the corner of her eye, admiring the gentle sway of his wide shoulders, the way the thick waves of his hair shone under the chandeliers.

"Sophia."

Jerked out of her thoughts, Sophia glanced up to see who had spoken. It was Letitia. A very flushed, very happy-looking Letitia.

"There you are!" The younger woman's good mood was contagious. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

Letitia nodded. "I need you to do something for me," she whispered.

Frowning slightly at Letitia's insistent tugging on her arm, Sophia rose to her feet and allowed the younger woman to lead her a discreet distance away from Julian's friends.

Letitia fixed her with a determined gaze. "They're soon going to start the last dance of the evening. I need you to keep Julian busy long enough for me to dance with Mr. Wesley. Will you do that?"

"All right." She had promised Julian the last dance anyway, so it wasn't that much of an inconvenience.

Letitia grinned. "Thank you! And when the dancing is over, I want you to tell him that I had to say goodbye to a few friends and that I will meet the two of you in the foyer."

Sophia frowned. "Letitia, what mischief are you up to? Promise me you will not sneak away with Mr. Wesley— not even for a moment."

Letitia's gaze was pleading. "It is just so we might say goodbye. Please, Sophia."

Despite her concern, Sophia capitulated. She really was too much of a pushover. Surely a few stolen minutes couldn't hurt. "Oh, all right. But if you are not in the foyer ten minutes after the last dance ends I will tell your brother exactly what you are up to."

Letitia's bottom lip jutted forward slightly. "If it weren't for the fact that I have no other way to get to the Eversham ball, I wouldn't have to worry about Julian finding out."

Sophia started. This was the first she'd heard of Letitia attending another function that night. "You are not accompanying us back to Wolfram House?"

Shaking her head, Letitia began inching toward the door as the first strains of the waltz started. "No. I have another engagement. But do not worry. The ride from the Evershams' to home is not a long one. You will not have to suffer my brother's company for long."

With that, the svelte woman slipped back out into the ballroom, leaving Sophia staring after her. She had promised Julian the last dance of the evening. They were going to waltz together— touch each other— and then they were going to be alone in a carriage where no one could see them or hear them.

Letitia didn't know what suffering was.

"So did you have a good time, or did my friends manage to make you regret coming to London?"

Smiling, Sophia leaned back against the plush squabs of the carriage and sighed. The coachman had lit the lamp inside the carriage and the flame made her delicate features a study in light and shadow. She was a dark angel, sent to test the strength of his will. That he rhapsodized about her in such a fashion was indicative of just how dangerous she was.

"I had a lovely time, but I am not used to having so many people at once interested in what I have to say." Her smile faded. "You are very lucky to have friends who care about you so much."

He grimaced. "I apologize if they offended you."

"Oh no, they did not offend me in the least."

Julian was glad. Tact was not something either Brave or Gabriel had ever learned to perfect and it seemed that Rachel and Lilith weren't much better. They had only been trying to ferret out Sophia's feelings for him— and his for her.

That suspicion had been reinforced after they finished teasing Julian about incidents from his past. That was when Brave asked Sophia to share some of her own experiences with Julian, and Julian knew that she had been accepted into their little circle.

"They liked you very much," he said. "Everyone remarked upon it."

She met his gaze with a lazy smile. "I know they did. No doubt they think I will make a good countess and give you all those sons you want even though you refuse to admit it."

His eyes widened. "You knew?"

She laughed out loud. "How could I not? All conversation this evening was engineered to determine whether or not I am good enough for you. They believe we are involved."

"Are we?" He couldn't help but ask, even though he wasn't certain he wanted to hear her answer.

"Involved? I do not think so." Her tone was hesitant as she licked her lips.

Julian shifted on the seat, trying for all the world to appear unaffected. One arm lay across the back of the carriage seat, the other was propped against the wall. He rested his head on that hand. There was the same amount of space between them now as there had been before and yet it seemed as though the carriage had shrunk around them, squeezing them even closer together.

He couldn't leave well enough alone. "What exactly do you think we are, then?"

She gazed at him in confusion. "I…I do not know."

His lips curved up on one side. "I do not know either."

She seemed surprised by that.

"I believe…" She paused. "I believe that whatever we are now, we are well on our way to becoming friends."

"Friends." His soft chuckle echoed through the carriage as he repeated the word. Surely she didn't believe that? He liked her too little and too much for them to be something so insipid. "No, I do not think we are that."

"Then it seems that we are right back where we started," she remarked with patently false lightness.

Julian smiled. "Not quite."

Sophia regarded him much like a rabbit regards a fox. "Oh?"

He sat up and leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. His folded hands were just inches from Sophia's legs. He could reach out and touch her if he wanted.

Obviously she had the same thought, because her hand was halfway to his face before she caught herself. She jerked her arm back.

His gaze dropped from her face to her hand before climbing back to her face again. He said nothing. He didn't have to. All the answers he needed were in her sweetly flushed cheeks and smoldering eyes.

His neck itched beneath his collar as the heat of the carriage caught up with him. He had to cool things down before he ignited. "I have been reading your book."

She seemed surprised by his change of subject. "I know."

His gaze held hers. "It has made me think about what happened between us. Even though your account of things is not an exactly honest rendition of the affair— "

"It is too honest!" Her mouth tightened in indignation.

Amusement curved his lips. Surely it was perverse to enjoy her pique. "On the pages where you describe the night we first met you have me asking you to dance. I admit it does make Lord Foxton— dreadful name by the way— look like more of a rake, but you know as well as I do that you approached me."

Sophia shrugged, her gaze drifting toward the window. "It was just one little incident. It hardly signifies."

Was it his imagination, or was she blushing?

"And you said that I practically had to hold you prisoner the first time we kissed." Amusement turned to something else— something that made his veins feel as though they were filled with molten lava. He remembered that first kiss with startling— and arousing— clarity.

"It was seven years ago," she replied peevishly. "You cannot expect me to remember everything I wrote."

Grinning, Julian reached out and took her right hand in his left. He hadn't bothered to put on his gloves after leaving the club and he could feel the heat of her fingers through the thin fabric of hers.

"I wager you remember the first time we kissed as clearly as I do."

Sophia swallowed— he could see her throat constrict with the effort— but she did not try to pull her hand away, even as he tugged on the fingers of her glove, pulling it farther and farther down her arm.

"If I portrayed you as more of the pursuer than you actually were, then I apologize." She lifted her chin defensively. "But I was not the one who suggested we sneak off to my father's library.
I
was not the one who left you there to face my father alone with your gown unbuttoned and your skirts hiked up above your garters."

"No," he replied. "You were not." But she had done and said plenty of other things— things that Julian didn't feel like bringing up. There were a million and one things he wanted to do with Sophia at that moment and arguing about a past they couldn't change wasn't one of them.

"You raised your hand earlier," he said, yanking her glove all the way off. "You were not planning to strike me, I hope?"

"No. Not that."