Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (12 page)

The butler cleared his throat. “Miss Winters? Shall I tell him you are receiving visitors?”

Sophie caught her lower lip between her teeth. There had to be some motive behind Christopher’s sudden attention.

“Miss Winters?”

“Uh-yes, that would be fine.”

The servant inclined his head and hurried off.

Sophie jumped to her feet. Her book lay forgotten on the floor as she recalled her mother and Geoffrey’s wishes—their desire to see her and Christopher wed. Sophie had been so convinced that Christopher would sooner see her to the devil than court her, that she’d not taken Geoffrey’s demands at all seriously.

Nor did Sophie believe for one moment that Christopher truly wanted to court her, let alone wed her. Not that either of their wishes were of singular importance in their status-driven Society. Most unions were forged on a good deal less than the connection shared by her and Christopher’s families.

She sighed. Mother had said she could do a good deal worse and Sophie knew most of the
ton
would be in agreement. After all, to Society, Sophie was nothing more than the plump, unwed, and unsought after sister to Viscount Redbrooke. She’d rather not spend the rest of her life amidst Christopher’s perfection, being reminded daily of all her many inadequacies.

She paced the Aubusson carpet. “What could he possibly want?” she muttered to herself. “He can’t possibly want to court me.”

“Who couldn’t possibly want to court you?”

Sophie shrieked and spun around.

Christopher stood in the doorway, arms folded across his broad chest, a knowing half-grin on his sculpted lips.

She pressed a hand to her racing heart. Had his mouth always been so very wickedly seductive? Sophie forcefully shoved aside such silly ponderings. “How do you manage to do that?”

Christopher advanced in the room as bold as if he owned the garish Red Parlor. “Do what?”

Sophie gave her head a shake. He’d always possessed a remarkable sense of hearing. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

He came to a stop several feet from her and arched a single, black brow. “Aren’t you going to offer me a seat? Refreshments?”

She cocked her head. “Is that why you’ve come? For a social visit?”

He chuckled and without standing on gentlemanly ceremony, settled into the nearest sofa with his long legs, sprawled out in front of him. “What if I say I’d come for your company?”

Sophie snorted and crossed over to him. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “Then I’d say you’d surely developed a fever, my lord.”

She gasped when he caught her hand in his. He raised her palm and studied the intersecting lines upon it with a singular intensity. “Wh-what are you d-doing?” she squeaked.

“Courting you?”

At the flinty edge to his words, she frowned and jerked her hand away. Yes, it was as she’d suspected. There was more to Christopher’s visit than any real desire for her company. The thought settled like a stone in her belly.

Sophie gave a flounce of her curls. “La, you’ll turn my head with such a sweet tone. If you used such
charm
with Emmaline then it’s no wonder she chose Lord Drake.”

His lips snapped into a firm, hard line but he said nothing.

A tendril of guilt snaked around her stomach. Taunting Christopher over Emmaline’s rejection of his suit was unpardonable. Even if he was an ill-mannered lout, he still didn’t deserve to be the victim of meanness.

To escape his frigid stare, she spun away and marched over to the window. She pulled back the brocaded curtains and peered down into the streets below. “I assume you are here at your father’s urging?”

His silence served as confirmation.

She dropped her brow against the sun-warmed windowpane. “You needn’t court me out of any sense of obligation.” She winced at thinking of his courtship that way. Sophie might not desire a match with him but it still chafed to admit that her one and only suitor was motivated by pity.

From the glass pane, Sophie observed the way Christopher drummed his fingers along the sides of his chair. “I came to apologize for last night, Phi.”

Sophie dropped the curtain back into place and spun back around to face him. Her mother and brother would hardly believe it…but Christopher had managed to render her speechless. Suddenly, she felt shamed by her earlier unkindness. “I…for what?” she blurted.

He met and held her gaze, penetrating her with the hot intensity of his eyes. “I abandoned you on the dance floor. It was unpardonable.” His frown grew. A dark look filled his eyes, then lifted so quickly, she wondered if she’d imagined it.

Sophie walked back over to him and claimed the vacant King Louis chair nearest his seat. She folded her hands in her lap and studied the interlocked digits. “The next thing you’ll have me believe is that you’d consider marriage to me.”

She suspected that if he hadn’t been sitting, her statement would have knocked him over. He grimaced. “Egads, no.”

Her brows dipped. Oh, the lout. “Say what you’ve come to say and be done with it, Christopher.”

“I came to see if you were the same girl I remembered.”

“And?” Her breath caught as she awaited his response. It shouldn’t matter what Christopher thought of her, and yet, oddly, she wanted him to approve of the woman she’d grown into.

He passed an assessing gaze over her figure. His eyes lingered overly long on her embarrassingly plump décolletage. A flush heated her skin. Oh, why couldn’t she possess the trim, gentle figure favored by the
ton
?

“No, you aren’t.” And when he said it in that husky whisper, her rounded curves didn’t seem like such a bad thing, after all. “But nonetheless…you seem to be the same, impertinent, cheeky chit who tormented me during my younger years. Lady Ackerly keeps quite a reporting on your escapades.”

Sophie clenched her jaw so hard, her teeth rattled. She pressed her fingers along the line of her temple and rubbed.
Bloody Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet
. If Sophie found out the identity of the woman, why, she swore she’d do more than destroy the hem of her gown or set the unknown harridan’s table aflame. The scandal sheets had become the bane of Sophie’s existence. It had fueled Geoffrey and Mother’s impatience with her marital state and
scandalous actions
, as Lady Ackerly titled them.

Christopher continued. “Lady Ackerly also indicated—”

“Tsk, tsk. Never tell me you’ve come to rely on scandal rags as a reliable source of your information.”

He sat up in his chair. “Hardly. Still, it is my understanding that there is in fact some truth to the information reported.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s
entirely
true.”

He grinned. “You didn’t shoot an arrow through Lord Avondale’s thigh?”

She felt a sting of heat slap her cheeks. “It was hardly my fault that he ran out to inspect his arrow’s position when it was my turn to shoot.”

Yes, that story had found its way into the scandal sheets. The gossips had devoured that tasty morsel much the way Duke did Cook’s hambone.

Sophie was convinced that particular incident had been the final impetus her brother needed to see her wed to whomever he could manage to pass her off to.

She looked to Christopher. Mother and Geoffrey believed him that man. That is, if she couldn’t snare the attention of a duke.

Sophie sighed. “You are here to court me. Well, let’s get on with it, then.”

Christopher blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“Yes, a courtship by you should begin with an apology, but let’s get on with it.”

“Get on with what?”

Sophie dashed a hand across her eyes. When she removed it, she found him studying her with an inscrutable expression. “You indicated you were here to court me. My brother would be amiable to a union between us.” She motioned to the book she’d dropped earlier. “Will you read me sonnets?”

Christopher’s cheeks went a ruddy shade of red. He tugged at his cravat. “Don’t be foolish.”

Sophie wagged a finger at him. “You mustn’t call the young lady you are courting foolish. That will earn you no one’s affection. A walk in the park?” she asked, interrupting him before he could respond to her previous statement.

“I’d say after you and your dog’s recent escapades at the park, we should avoid that particular location.”

She bristled at the dry humor in his tone. “Well then, why don’t you tell me how you intend to court me?”

He leveled himself upright in his chair. “I am visiting, aren’t I?”

Sophie pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “That does not a courtship make.”

“Oh, and why don’t you enlighten me, Phi?”

A knock sounded at the door.

Sophie and Christopher’s gazes swung toward the front of the room. The butler stood framed in the entranceway with a silver tray.

“You’ve a visitor, Miss Winters.”

“I do?”

“She does?”

She glared at Christopher, resenting the shock in his question.

As if on cue, the Duke of Mallen materialized behind the butler.

“The Duke of Mallen to see you, Miss Winters.”

Sophie’s mouth fell open. “Whatever are you doing here?” The words escaped before she could call them back. She clamped her fingers over her lips.

The duke grinned and held out a bouquet of pink roses interspersed with yellow freesia and ivy. “I’ve brought flowers.”

Her heart sped up. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d proffered a fistful of weeds or blooms from a hothouse. They would have been glorious for what they represented. No man had ever before brought her flowers.

Christopher muttered something under his breath, diverting her attention away from the duke.

She glanced over at Christopher with a small smile. “
That
is how you court a lady,” she whispered for his ears alone.

***

Christopher frowned at the flowers Mallen held in his hand. What the hell was the meaning of this? He’d enlisted his friend’s aid to thwart his father. The duke had agreed to a pretend courtship of Sophie. The arrangement did not require Mallen do something as foolish as buying the young lady flowers.

He glanced down at his own empty hands, feeling incredibly foolish for his less than impressive courtship. Even if he was only here at his father’s urging, no man liked to be thrown over for another chap.

Last evening, he’d believed Mallen’s rescue of Sophie on the dance floor a flawless touch; a perfect deterrent to Christopher’s father’s plans.

This morning call from the Duke of Mallen, however, was a bit too much.

He settled back against his seat and studied the exchange between Sophie and Mallen.

Mallen bent down and retrieved Sophie’s forgotten book. He thumbed through the pages. Suddenly, his fingers stilled. He didn’t remove his gaze from Sophie’s as he began to recite one of the poems.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow…

Of all the nonsensical drivel. A snort escaped him and cut into Mallen’s recitation.

Sophie and Mallen looked to him.

Sophie frowned at Christopher with disapproval to rival the tutors he’d tortured over the years.

“Something the matter?” Mallen drawled. “You don’t care for Lord Byron’s work?”

Christopher bit back an angry snarl, resisting the ungentlemanly urge to toss Sophie over his shoulder like he were some kind of barbarian and hide her away from Mallen’s appreciative eyes. He’d asked Mallen to take her for ices or for a walk, not this…this…romantic drivel that spouted from his mouth. Sophie would be no match for the duke’s full-charm. Hell, no lady would.

“There is nothing the matter,” Christopher bit out. Now was neither the time nor place to challenge Mallen’s actions.

“Where was I?” the duke murmured.

“But tell of days in goodness spent,” Sophie supplied without even a glance at the page.

Mallen inclined his head. “Ahh. Yes. But tell of days in goodness spent…”

Christopher allowed his mind to wander down a path that involved him bloodying Mallen’s nose and he managed his first real smile that afternoon.

Christopher might have perfected an image amongst Society as capable, sought after young lord…but his image had been as carefully constructed as a baker’s sugary treat; one hot sun away from destruction. Mallen, on the other hand, possessed a title, intelligence, and power to rival the king himself. He’d never begrudged Mallen those things. Until now.

Watching him read out of that bloody book to Sophie did something to him. It made Christopher want to throw his head back and rail at the unfairness of life. It reminded him of all his inadequacies. It reminded him that his father was right and he was a failure as a man.

Mallen murmured something to Sophie; the words lost to the intimacy of his hushed whisper. Sophie giggled.

“May I read another?” Mallen offered.

“Oh, please…”

“Please spare me,” Christopher muttered.

Sophie and Mallen looked at him.

Christopher hooked his ankles and propelled back on the legs of the Trafalgar chair he occupied. He sighed. “Very well, then. Another poem.”

Sophie frowned. “You’re being most disagreeable, my lord.”

Yes. Yes, he was. He didn’t give a jot about it, either.

Mallen quirked a single brow in his direction and then proceeded to recite
Solitude
by Lord Byron.

If Sophie weren’t present, Christopher would have extended his finger in a most ungentlemanly manner for his friend’s benefit.