“No more,” he said hoarsely. He pulled back from her and pushed her back down to the
bed. He spread her legs wide and thrust inside her.
Sophia dug her nails into his strong shoulders as she silently urged him closer, faster—deeper.
He drove into her again and again, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Everything
was only feeling. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and drew him even
deeper.
She found her release again, a hot wave that washed over her and made her forget the
whole world for an instant. Above her, Dominic’s head flung back, and he shouted out
her name. His body arched into hers, and there was nothing at all between them. Nothing
keeping them apart.
He fell down onto the bed beside her, their limbs tangled together. Sophia trembled;
she was completely exhausted. She curled herself around him and he wrapped his arm
around her waist to hold her close. She pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder and listened
to the steady, strong rhythm of his heartbeat.
And she couldn’t help but wish the night could last just a little bit longer.
The duke has arrived in suitably grand state, with a trail of carriages and mountains
of luggage. Our house has never seen such business before, all noise and motion! It
is terribly exciting, I have to admit, and has done much to lift me from my sadness.
He has not brought the duchess, but there is a startlingly lovely woman who seems
to be with him at every moment. Except when she is talking to John.
John is also much happier than I have seen him in a long time. At the banquet tonight,
he was so charming, just like when we first met, so full of smiles. I hope this will
continue when the duke leaves.
Y
ou have a visitor in the salon, Madame Westman,” the footman announced.
Sophia looked up from the papers she was perusing with Camille, her heart suddenly
leaping with excitement. Perhaps it was Dominic. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking
about him ever since had kissed her at dawn and slipped out of her apartment before
the house awoke. He had said he would see her later. Surely it had to be him waiting
in the salon.
“A visitor?” she said, surprised that her voice sounded so calm while inside she felt
anything but.
“
Oui.
He was most urgent he had to see you,” the footman answered. “But he did not give
his card.”
“Ah, a secret admirer!” Camille teased. “How very intriguing.”
Sophia laughed. “How secret can it be if he came to see me in my own home?”
“But you have so many admirers! Which one can it be? Perhaps I can guess…”
Sophia shook her head. She was glad the curtains were half-drawn across the windows
so her blush wasn’t so
obvious. It felt silly to actually blush after everything she had done with Dominic
last night. But it also felt good to do something as normal, as feminine, as laughing
about suitors with a girlfriend.
“Go on and talk to your suitor,” Camille said. “I will finish up these accounts.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course—go, go! It is much too pretty a day to think about anything except romance.”
Sophia laughed and hurried out of the office. She felt so light, so ridiculously giddy,
that she wanted to run down the stairs. Maybe even to slide down the banisters and
twirl around and around. But she made herself walk in a calm, ladylike fashion.
At the landing she paused to glance in a mirror that hung there. She smoothed her
hair, braided and looped in a knot in the latest fashion, and shook out her skirts.
She hadn’t been able to face wearing black again after her beautiful pink dress, so
she wore her only other colored dress, the yellow muslin from the picnic. She was
glad now that she had pulled it out of her wardrobe, for it matched her mood.
She spun around and hurried down the rest of the stairs to the foyer. Here the windows
and doors were thrown open to the sunny day, and the maids worked at scrubbing the
marble floor and dusting the giltwork before that night’s guests came flooding back
to the club. La Reine d’Argent had been a great success so far, as the numbers in
the account books attested.
Yet another reason to feel hopeful, Sophia thought with a smile. She wasn’t so very
useless after all; she could be good at business.
She pushed open the door to the salon and rushed inside, wanting to invite Dominic
to the club that night after the theater. But the man who stood silhouetted against
the window was not Dominic at all. Sophia froze, unable to believe what she was seeing
as Lord Hammond turned and gave her a smile.
“Mrs. Westman,” he said, his words as warm and friendly as if they were long-lost
friends. They did not match the chill of that smile. “How lovely it is to see you
again.”
Sophia softly closed the door behind her and leaned against it as she studied him
warily. She had hoped that he had returned to London, as he had said he was going
to do after their last meeting. But she should have known better. A man like him did
not give up so easily. Sophia thought about the money she was carefully saving from
working for Camille and wondered if she could return the money he had wagered.
But she knew it wasn’t really the money he wanted.
Beyond the door she could hear the bustle of the servants, and it gave her a slight
feeling of security. She remembered the way Lord Hammond used to look at her, as if
she was a possession he had the right to claim, and part of her wanted to leave the
door open as an escape route. But she was sure she wouldn’t want anyone else to hear
whatever he had to say.
He came slowly toward her, still with that chilly smile on his thin lips. He was just
as impeccably dressed as she remembered, just as austerely handsome. Her skin prickled
as she watched him come closer, and she rubbed her hands over her arms through the
thin muslin sleeves.
Sophia realized something as she studied him. Dominic had a similar air of confidence,
almost arrogance, but
his sense of self seemed to exude from fun and laughter. He drew people to him because
they wanted to be part of that sheer exuberant
life.
Hammond held people captive by the force of his will, like some ancient warlord.
Sophia had never wanted to be his prize. And she was no longer as scared and lost
as she had been in Baden-Baden. She pushed herself away from the door and stood up
straight as she forced herself to smile at him.
“Lord Hammond,” she said. “What a surprise. I didn’t know you were still in Paris.”
“I couldn’t leave yet, not with you still here.” He stepped close to her, too close.
She could smell his expensive cologne, and the cloying scent of it seemed to wrap
around her like tentacles. He watched her closely, as if he tried to read her every
flicker of thought and emotion.
Sophia summoned up every ounce of acting skill she had learned at the card tables
and held out her hand to him. He raised it to his lips, his kiss lingering on her
skin until she slid her fingers out of his grasp and turned toward the sofa near the
fireplace.
“I hope you have not stayed in Paris merely to see me,” she said. She sat down and
arranged her skirts around her. Lord Hammond remained standing, leaning lazily against
the marble mantel as he watched her. “I thought we said everything we needed to last
time we met.”
“I had some business to attend to for my cousin, the Duke of Pendrake,” he said. “But
I must confess I could have avoided the errand if I had not wanted to see you again,
my dear Mrs. Westman. I don’t care to play games with you any longer.”
Sophia slowly rose to her feet, and she found that her legs were shaking. “Then let
me see you out…”
Lord Hammond suddenly moved, quick as a striking cobra, and caught her wrist in his
hand. His fingers tightened until Sophia was just at the edge of pain. She gasped
and tried to wrench away, but she found she couldn’t move.
“I know that you are in no position to be so haughty, Lady Sophia,” he said quietly.
“I have made inquiries about you. Your family has turned you out and you are alone
in the world, a gambler, a wanderer. You should think twice before you turn me away
again.”
Sophia’s mouth felt dry, and she swallowed hard as she looked up into his cold eyes.
“It’s true I no longer see my family, but I am not so friendless as that.”
Lord Hammond laughed and tugged her an inch closer. “If you are thinking of the St.
Claires, I wouldn’t count on them, my dear. They are some of the biggest chancers
in London, and they will always look after themselves first. They would abandon you
without blinking. But I could be your very best friend in the world, if you would
only be a smart girl and let me.”
Sophia stared at him, appalled. How did he know about the St. Claires? About Dominic?
Terrible images flashed through her mind, of Dominic bruised and bleeding on her doorstep,
James suddenly and inexplicably shipped home. Did Lord Hammond have something to do
with all that?
She made herself laugh carelessly. She gave her wrist a sharp twist, and he finally
let her go. She fell back onto the sofa, her legs too weak to hold her up. “The St.
Claires? What would I need with
their
friendship? They are only theater people. They could never help me get back into
my family’s good graces.”
“I’m glad you can see that, my dear.”
“Of course I can. My uncle is a duke. The St. Claires can do nothing for a Huntington.”
“Is that what you want? To be accepted by your family again?”
“I—I have considered such a thing,” Sophia said slowly. Better for him to talk about
the Huntingtons than the St. Claires.
Lord Hammond sat down beside her and reached again for her hand. His touch was gentler
this time, his fingers almost caressing her wrist.
A cold nausea almost choked Sophia, but she forced herself to remain still.
“I could help you with that,” he said. “I could give you so much, Sophia. You need
only ask.”
Sophia laughed bitterly. “My family would surely never speak to me again if I returned
to London as your mistress.”
“They wouldn’t dare shun Lady Hammond.”
“L—Lady Hammond? But I thought you were married,” Sophia stammered. He
had
caught her off-guard. He had suddenly changed whatever this tug-of-war was between
them, and she had to figure out how to respond to fend him off.
“My wife has sadly passed away in the last few weeks. She was never very well. I require
a proper wife now. And if you were my wife, your family would accept you again. You
would have your proper place in Society again.”
“But in Baden-Baden…”
“I asked you to be my mistress, to let me keep you in the lavish style your beauty
deserves. But I can see now I was wrong. You are different.” He frowned as if it pained
him to confess he could possibly be wrong. “A man in my position needs a wife, someone
to run his home properly and help him in Society. With your looks and breeding, you
should do very well.” He suddenly smiled, and that smile seemed even more terrible
than his anger. “And you would have to be grateful. Yes, an excellent solution.”
Sophia certainly didn’t think it was any sort of solution. She felt frantic to escape
him now, to get away from his cold, hard certainty. His arrogant expectation that
she would be grateful for his benevolence. He was everything she had fought against
all her life.
“I thank you for your great generosity, Lord Hammond,” she said quietly, rising to
her feet. “But I don’t intend to ever marry again. I like my life just as it is.”
She rose to her feet. “And now I bid you good afternoon.”
Lord Hammond stood up beside her, his face set in lines as hard as granite. Sophia
felt afraid again, but she couldn’t bear to be near him another instant, even to maintain
her facade. As she spun around to flee, he caught her arm and dragged her against
him. She was too frozen to struggle.
“You ungrateful, stupid little bitch,” he growled. “I offer you everything, even my
name, and you are too foolish to take it. Perhaps you require another lesson or two.”
That frozen fear suddenly crumbled in a flash of burning temper. How dare he come
here again, telling her what she would do with the rest of her life? He was just like
her father, like Jack, pulling her every which way to suit their whims.
And she was sick to death of it.
“I require nothing from you,” she said. “I told you—I will make my own way in the
world now.”
Lord Hammond’s lips twisted in a hard smile. “As a gambling club dolly? But what if
this lovely little establishment was closed—and no other would hire you? Then what
would you do? Your skills and attributes are limited, my dear, and while I am in a
position to make use of them, most men are not.”
“Lord Hammond, I must go…” Sophia gasped, and desperately tried to pull away from
him.
His other arm came around her, and he held her unmoving as his lips brushed her hair.
“Please don’t make this unpleasant, my dear. I could be a good husband to you. I could
give you everything. But you must obey me.”
Sophia twisted around hard and reached out for the bellpull that hung just within
her grasp. She pulled it as hard as she could, and when there was the sound of footsteps
outside the door, Lord Hammond at last moved away from her.
“Madame?”the maid said.
“His lordship is just leaving,” Sophia said breathlessly.
Lord Hammond tugged his coat into place and smoothed his hair, just as imperturbable
as ever. He gave her a cool smile. “I will go now. You need time to think about what
I have said, my dear. I understand that. It has been unexpected, and you are of a
very passionate nature. I do enjoy that—to a point.”
He reached for her hand. Sophia pulled it back before he could kiss it, and his smile
tightened. “This is a lovely place,” he said. “I should so hate to see a misfortune
befall it. Which understandably would happen if Madame Martine continued to maintain
unsuitable employees.”