Song for Sophia (16 page)

“Tell me you feel it, too.”

“Always, Wilhelm.”

He moved; she felt it rather than heard it. He knelt over her and pressed his lips to hers. Slowly, in painstaking increments so she was aware of every moment and breathed in rhythm with him. When he finally rolled his lips over hers and took her mouth in a deep kiss, it shattered what she thought were her convictions. Kiss him back, only that. Same as his music; stormy, demanding, with a consuming energy that would soon drive her to drastic actions.

Already her hands roved greedily, squeezing the muscles bunched in his shoulders, raking down his arms, pulling him closer. He responded with low sound probably meant to be a word which didn’t make it past his throat. Wilhelm cradled her head in his hands and angled his mouth over hers in a hungry ill-behaved kiss that stole her breath. It made her want more of him, all of him.

Difficult to heed her better judgment warning,
You are issuing an invitation you have no intention of honoring
, when the rest of her demanded,
More!
She relished his warmth, his strength, the exciting feel of him brimming with leashed energy. Thrilling to provoke and tease his restraint while she counted on him to control himself. He had tugged her sleeve over her shoulder, but while he dared kiss the skin in the hollow between her shoulder and her collarbone, he had not opened her bodice or touched her breasts. She knew he wanted to; she had practically invited him to do it.

He pulled away with a sound of complaint, as though she had pushed him. Wilhelm sat back on his haunches and hung his head. Short of breath, he cursed again. “What are we to do about this?”

She waited to calm her own breath. “Nothing at all. Or I can go. I should have left here long ago.” She risked adding, “I have probably endangered you, and especially with your nieces here, I had no right.”

After a long pause he finally spoke, his tone tea-time casual, “You have given me much to puzzle out,
Miss Rosalie
. What would you say if I told you I already know everything?”

“I doubt that.”

She hated his vainglorious smirk, how he read her expression. “I have resources. And you give much away, darling.” He lifted a hand to tickle to corner of her mouth with his finger, daring her to smile when she would rather bite him. “Humor me. I will tell you what I suspect, and you deny it while I read the truth on your face.”

“If I am so sloppy that you somehow know everything, then it hardly matters — ”

“Because bad men are searching for you. You fear they will find you.” He seemed less daunting kneeling before her, at eye level. The unsettling factor remained his piercing storm gray eyes, and how intensely he watched her. People simply didn’t look at each other in such a soul-baring manner, only Wilhelm.

“In truth I have grown tired of our little farce, Miss Duncombe.”

Of course she startled as her name rolled off his lips.

“Miss Anne-Sophronia Varanese Rinaldi Duncombe, missing from your estate in Hampshire nearly a year. What a naughty girl you are, making your poor father ill with worry, supposing you had been abducted by gypsies. Or worse. Some whisper that you have been very naughty indeed, and you eloped with your lover, ashamed of carrying his brat.”

Damn him, he smiled. “What is this I see? Anger? Indignation?” Wilhelm smoothed the tension between her brows where a headache had started to throb. His voice lowered, “I truly loathe assumptions, Miss Duncombe, don’t you?”

Oddly, she felt none of the mortification she expected. Only relief. Why? She finally answered, “You seem pleased with yourself. By all means, continue.”

“I much prefer facts. Lord Chauncey is the worst financial blunderer I have ever seen. How he managed to gamble away the titles to entailed properties is a mystery. I wonder what sort of pressures his creditors are laying on him. I hear the gambling hells of Bangalore
adore
English officers who cheat and skip town on their debts.”

“How do you know this? No one — ”

“I told you, I have resources. While I do not spread gossip, Miss Duncombe, you do realize sooner or later your father will unravel himself? Quite publicly, I fear. I don’t care about that. What interests me is why Lord Chauncey would hire Vincent LeRoy to find his daughter.”

Sophia shook her head. “Who is that? One of his investigators?”

Wilhelm snorted. “Bounty hunter. Thug, murderer, thief. LeRoy should know better than to set foot on Rougemont property. It will be his last step.” His cold half-smile gave her chills. “I said it interests me, not concerns me. What concerns me is why Anne-Sophronia Duncombe — daughter of a viscount and society darling — would turn up at a country estate so close to home, posing as a lowly housemaid.

“And what makes me insane is wondering who hurt you, who instilled the fear of a hunted animal in you.” His voice lowered but remained calm. “I do not look to a higher being for the administration of punishment. I specialize in this brand of justice — for those who know how to escape the law.”

Sophia sat stunned at his confession. “Oh, my — You are serious. You mean to kill — ”

He hissed and put a hand over her mouth. “Damn all, woman. The first thing you must learn in matters of conspiracy is to interpret vagueness. The second is caution.” She had no idea if he was making sport of her, or deadly serious. “I am asking you to let me handle your little problem.”

Oh, that pirate-smirk! She had suspected before, but there really was little charming and much wolfish about it. She should have been more frightened of him before; she certainly felt it now.

“You are a man who deals in bargains, Wilhelm. What do you want in return?”

“First, your name. Anne-Sophronia is a mouthful I cannot manage, and I have lacked any desire to address you properly for months now. Tell me, what does a man whisper in your ear at night?”

She couldn’t resist the chance to tease him. “I could hardly say. When they shout in delirious ecstasy, however, the word is Sophia. Incidentally my friends, few as they are, use the same.” His bewildered expression and the resulting flash of what may have been jealousy, was worth letting him assume scandalous behavior of her.

“Sophia,” he echoed, lifting her hand to his lips. Now that he had recovered himself, she could not read his expression at all, unless she allowed the comparison of a wolf.

“I do not care for that look, Wilhelm. Perhaps you had better tell me what you want from me, in exchange for your protection.”

“A simple matter, really.” He paused to kiss her hand again, slowly, his gaze burning her with icy fire. “Marry me.”

Chapter 14

In Which History Repeats Itself

“I declined, of course.” Sophia hid her mouth behind her wine glass and nodded in concert with the circle of drawing room guests. Lord Devon’s neighbors, again. She wore a blankly pleasant expression while her heart groaned — she had injured Wilhelm yesterday with her refusal. Her being the single most ineligible woman on earth hadn’t seemed to daunt him. It mattered to
her
a great deal.

Aunt Louisa rustled, reminding Sophia of a dragon flexing its scales. “I cannot say which is worse; your living in sin for all the world to see, or you — a
Duncombe
— as Lady Devon.”

Sophia muttered
sotto voce
to Aunt Louisa, “Do keep your smelling salts near, ma’am, but I must tell you the Duncombe family has held its title since Cromwell. So, I believe, has the Montegue family.”

“It is not your family’s
title
I object to. Merely your family.”

“On that front I must agree. I rather object to my family as well. As I did have the nerve to be born into it, I prefer reserving the right to insult it, if you don’t mind. Furthermore, if you insist on comparing dreadful reputations, it is possible Lord Devon’s trumps mine.”

“Falsehoods!” Aunt Louisa hissed. “All of them! Born of jealousy and spite.”

Sophia whispered, “Then you understand the burden of an undeserved reputation.”

Aunt Louisa scoffed too loudly, and a few guests turned to see what was the matter. She ignored their glances and spoke behind her handkerchief, “I knew who you were nearly the moment I laid eyes on you, girl.”

“Ah, so you are Lord Devon’s
resource
.”

“You look so like your mother, at first I imagined it was she.” Sophia noted Aunt Louisa’s disdainful choice of words;
your mother
instead of
Lady Chauncey
.

Wilhelm caught her gaze and shot her an expression meaning,
Do you mind?

Oh. Her argument with Aunt Louisa had grown conspicuous. Sophia looked sideways at Aunt Louisa and widened her eyes in exasperation.
Your aunt started it
.

Sir Vorlay’s cold stare was aimed at her again. He sat next to Lord Devon, watery-eyed with a sallow complexion under his riot of bristly whiskers. He looked like he belonged in a seedy East London pub. She remembered him leering at her the last time he visited.

“Why is that man tolerated here? I thought he was on the outs with Lord Devon?”

Aunt Louisa clucked. “I detest him as well. Blame Wilhelm’s dratted sentiment for his old battalion mates. Any member is welcome at Rougemont, so he says, and some take advantage.”

“I don’t like the look of him.”

“If he spills whiskey on the sofa once more, I might box his ears myself.”

Sir Vorlay glared at Sophia again, and she pointedly turned her gaze to Lord Devon. She watched him take a gulp from his snifter, of something too clear and too amber to be claret. He drained the glass, his throat working as he swallowed, then kept his eyes closed, supposedly while the burn washed over him. Definitely not the sherry she had set out in the social rooms in effort to aid his temperance.

“Oh, no,” Aunt Louisa groused. “He is drinking again. ’Tis your fault, Miss Duncombe. He must be taking the rejection badly, fool that he is.”

Sophia had the same thought. “So you would rather I married him?”

“Perhaps you should, after all.”

Sophia coughed, hiding behind her linen. “Just like that? Now you think I should marry him?”

“A thought occurred to me just now. If it took Wilhelm thirty-and-five years to choose a woman, I can scarcely wait another thirty-and-five for him to find another. Philip is a nincompoop, bless his heart — he shan’t have Rougemont. Wilhelm is the last of the Montegue family line. And I want grandbabies.”

Sophia hardly knew what to say. She finally answered, “I fear I would prove a disappointment on all counts.”

Wilhelm caught her eye as he shifted in his chair, bored by his guests.
Do something, or I will
, his expression warned.

Sophia rose and went for the service tray on the buffet. She placed her own half-f wine glass on the tray, then lowered it as she approached Lord Devon so he could discard his empty snifter. That detestable Sir Vorlay leaned over and placed his snifter on the tray too, a few swallows of odorous whiskey left swirling on the bottom. Sophia dug the toe of her slipper into the rug and staged losing her balance. Wilhelm grabbed her arm to steady her, which sent Vorlay’s whiskey down the front of her dress while the tray toppled into Lord Devon’s lap, spilling her wine right on target.

Wilhelm shot out of his chair, drawing the eyes of every guest to his soaked groin.

“Lord Devon! Forgive me, I am so clumsy!” Sophia pressed a hand to her throat, making an effort to appear aghast while remembering her false French accent for the benefit of the company.

“The fault is mine, my lady. Alas I have ruined your lovely dress.”
Allow me to remove it for you
, his eyes said. He turned to his guests, taking Sophia’s arm. “Do excuse us.”

Us? Us!
Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. Certain every guest imagined precisely what Lord Devon implied, she left the room on his arm, silently cursing him with every name she could conjure.

“Thank you.” He kissed her temple.

“I am sorry about your trousers.”

“It was worth it.” He unlocked the door to his apartments and led Sophia inside as though it was perfectly normal to do so. “Does this gown have one of those automatic fasteners?”

“Don’t even think of it, Wilhelm.”

“That whiskey has the finish of a rotting corpse. You may change your mind out of necessity, darling.”

“I can manage, thank you,” she said through a clenched jaw.
If I have to cut it off myself with a rusty saw
. If she let Wilhelm open the back of her dress, she knew what would come next.

“At least unfasten my buttons for me. Martin is busy with the drawing room guests.” In turn he dropped his tie, vest, and jacket onto the floor.

“You want me to undress you?”

“Blasted contrary motion.” His expression betrayed no sinister intentions, and he did need help with his clothing, she supposed.

The six steps she took to close the space between them felt like walking the pirate’s plank. Sophia returned Wilhelm’s challenging look, opening his collar then tugging the shirt tails from his trousers to expose the row of buttons. The hair on his chest narrowed from the fan across his blocky muscles into a trail to his waistband, and her knuckles brushed it all the way down as she opened the buttons.

He stood still, the sound of his even breath loud in the silent, cavernous room. She pushed his shirt over his shoulders, down his arms, and stifled a gasp as she saw his torso bared in the lamplight.

Disfigured
, his gossiping neighbors had called him. A gross exaggeration, but something dreadful had happened to him. Many somethings. Wilhelm stood frozen, allowing her to study him, gape at him. Most noticeable? The jagged red line around one shoulder disappearing down his back and a circular scar high on the other shoulder. A bullet wound? Reflecting pale silver in the light were thin knife cuts and burn marks scattered over the whole of his torso, and other marks she could not identify. She remembered noticing a few on his face and neck before, but she had never imagined this kind of abuse.