by Eloisa James
Sophie almost gasped as the large cloaked figure swung his leg over the windowsill. Then he seemed to catch sight of her sitting on the bed and stopped for a second. Sophie could almost feel Braddon’s eyes moving slowly over her body, even though she couldn’t see his face at all, since it was buried inside the hood of his cape.
Finally he swung the other leg over the sill and jumped lightly into the room. He said nothing but simply leaned back on the windowsill, his cloak giving a tiny billow behind him and then settling around his broad shoulders. Sophie gulped.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m not ready to elope.” She stopped for a moment. “The reason I asked you … well, I asked you to come up here, Lord Slaslow,” she said in a rush, “is that I’ve decided that I’ve been a complete peagoose and I know you’ll be as mad as fire over it, but I just can’t go down the ladder with you, not tonight and not … not anytime.” Sophie tried to see Braddon’s face but only the silhouette of his body was visible in the window. His cloak was really quite annoying.
“Oh?”
She hurried on. “I’ve been miserable all day, and I’ve thought and thought; I know how excited you were to elope, so I didn’t want to simply tell you in a note, but I can’t elope—and I don’t wish to get married, either!”
At that, her betrothed—whose large frame was really starting to intimidate her, Sophie thought—crossed his arms over his chest.
But all he said was, “Why?”
“I know how much this means to you, to get married, that is, because of your mother, and I am so sorry about it, but … it just wouldn’t be right!” Sophie ground miserably to a halt.
Something about the menacing silence in the window forced her back into speech, and all the thoughts that had been revolving in her head during the day tumbled out willy-nilly.
“You see, I had thought that we could scrape along in a marriage famously because we don’t … we don’t feel anything for each other. Well, that’s not exactly correct,” she added punctiliously, “because I like you very much, Braddon, er, Lord Slaslow. But we—I—don’t have the kind of feelings that a wife should feel for a husband!”
There was a moment of silence. Then: “No?”
“No!”
“Ah.”
There really was something odd about Braddon’s voice, Sophie thought. Surely it was much deeper than normal. And it had a velvety resonance that made her stomach feel a bit quivery; perhaps it was because it was the first time they had been alone together, unless she counted the garden when he’d said he didn’t want to kiss her. The memory recharged her determination.
“Do you remember when we were in the garden and you didn’t want to kiss me, because you don’t think of me ‘that way’? Well, a husband should think about his wife that way!” Sophie finished defiantly.
Still no response from the window. Then he rose with a fluid movement and walked a few steps toward the bed. Sophie stared hard at his face, but the cloak had such a deep hood that she couldn’t see a thing. Hard hands cradled the back of her head, and she felt, rather than saw, a dark form bend over her.
“Experiment,” a husky voice murmured, and lips descended on hers … hard, forceful lips that invaded and pleasured, caressed and conquered.
“Oh!” Sophie gasped. Now Braddon was bending her backward—or was she falling backward? Her lips parted naturally to his and his tongue raided her soft mouth, making liquid fire rush up her limbs. No one had kissed her like that except for Patrick … so a part of her mind said defiantly, See? There’s nothing special about Patrick Foakes! Then niggling little thoughts about voices were lost in a sea of sensation.
For his part, Patrick wasn’t thinking at all. He’d finally got Sophie where he wanted her, on a bed, and the discovery that her soft lips were just as intoxicating as they had been earlier was not one to inspire rational thought. His mouth burned over her skin. With a warm tongue he traced the outline of her lips, descended into the depths, kissed her until her body trembled and arched instinctively toward him, her fingers clenched in his curls.
He leaned over her, weight propped on one arm, then pulled back slightly and feathered kisses over her lips, teasing her until she moaned, a tiny broken noise that drifted into the midnight stillness. Sophie turned her head and tried to capture his lips, tried to bring him back, make him take her mouth again. Patrick’s lips burned on hers, but lightly, danced up her cheekbone, pressed kisses on her eyelids, returned to her lips. She gasped, the breath hot in her chest as he finally took her mouth again, his tongue stabbing in and out, his thumb roughly rubbing her nipple through her nightgown.
A strangled whimper burst from her throat, and yet … and yet … Somewhere in the depths of her, she didn’t want to feel this with Braddon. Even if Braddon was—somewhat surprisingly—capable of arousing this passion, she still didn’t want to be Braddon’s wife.
So she turned her head, sharply, and half croaked, “No!” When his lips pursued hers, and his tongue swept liquid fire down into her belly, Sophie sobbed or panted, but still she whispered “No,” and “No, no, no.” Finally small hands pushed at Patrick’s chest and she sat up, staring straight ahead. Her betrothed stayed where he was, balanced on his side, propped on one elbow. She could feel his thoughtful gaze on her, but she didn’t look.
“It doesn’t make any difference, Braddon,” Sophie gasped, catching her breath. “I don’t know why … why we’re doing this, but I still don’t want to marry you.” She stared ahead rigidly, not moving as large hands moved delicately among the long curls hanging down her back. When there was no answer she finally, reluctantly, turned.
Her heart stopped.
The hood was gone, and in the faint moonlight … Well, her body had known it wasn’t Braddon all along, but now her eyes saw the sweep of long eyelashes and silver-tipped hair, the devil-bent eyebrows and square jaw…. Her mind grasped slowly what her body had known long ago, if only from the touch of his hands, from the press of a hard-muscled thigh through her gown.
“Oh,” she whispered, the word falling on the night like a baby breathing in his sleep.
Patrick smiled back at her lazily, one eyebrow raised, his right hand still caressing her hair. Then the hand wrapped itself in silken strands and tugged, gently, pulling Sophie’s warm body back onto the bed.
“I promise,” said a smoky voice just at her ear, “that I feel that way about you, Sophie.” A wicked, seductive tongue toyed with the delicate curves of her ear, warm breath igniting the burning warmth between her thighs again and numbing the surprise in her brain. Despite herself, she relaxed as Patrick drew her face toward his, lips descending to inflame hers. Oh, this was right; this was so right. She abandoned the tangled thoughts of cloaks and elopements, marriages and engagements, which had so plagued her during the day.
The moment Sophie’s small fingers lightly touched his cheeks, running down the angles of his chin, something in Patrick relaxed as well. Her lips opened to his with the eternal allure of the seduced who seduces the seducer.
He almost growled, rolling over and pinning her beneath his body. Sophie gasped as his muscled male weight settled on her. Instantly, he rolled back on his side, lifting his weight.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” The words drifted to her ear through a cloud of disappointed sensation. “I forgot what a little bit of a thing you are.”
Sophie didn’t bother to answer. Something within her was longing, aching, for his body to lie back on hers again, to press her down into the bed with his intoxicating weight. She reached up and tugged fiercely on his shoulders, straining up to meet his lips, her mouth open and inviting. So Patrick half rolled on top of her, one leg pinning her to the bed, his mouth caressing her lips.
His hands started to migrate over her body, pulling aside the soft gathers of her bodice, exposing the perfect cream of her breasts to the night air.
“Oh God, Sophie, you’re so beautiful, so beautiful,” and then Patrick’s voice trailed off as it was smothe
red against her soft flesh, and the next sound was Sophie’s whimper as his mouth followed his hand. She was writhing against him now, uttering weak murmurs that set Patrick’s blood on fire. He swept a hand under her gown and twirled his fingers in the soft curls there, loops that looped around his fingers with a softness that gave way to dewy promise.
Sophie’s body went rigid.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was panicked, shaky with passion but afraid, and a small hand gripped his wrist like steel.
Patrick stilled instantly, but left his fingers where they were. The sensation sank into Sophie’s bones like wildfire and her eyes blurred, looking at him through the pale, incandescent moonlight in the room.
“I won’t do anything you don’t like, sweetheart.” His voice was a husky promise, his lips sweeping over her face, licking her lips apart, plunging into her mouth with a gesture that made her understand, suddenly, all those details that she’d heard tell of, things that happened between men and women. And his fingers moved, dipping restlessly, driving her into a frenzy of sensation.
“Oh Lord,” Sophie whispered suddenly. “You’re making love to me.”
Patrick’s mind was leaping from fact to fact, putting together Sophie’s untutored caresses, the surprised leap of her flesh every time he touched her somewhere new, and the shocked amazement in her blue eyes. He’d made the mistake of thinking that she was as sophisticated in sexual matters as she was in dress and conversation…. He let his fingers drift to the soft flesh of her thighs.
“Sweetheart, I can hardly see you.” He kissed her nose lightly. “May I light a candle?”
Sophie stared at him in fascination. “Simone, my maid, said that the moon was as thin as a mouse’s whisker tonight,” she finally replied.
“Hmm.” Patrick gave her lips a brief kiss, as a reassurance and because he couldn’t bear not to. Then he rolled to his feet and struck a match, sending a flame flickering around the room. He lit the candle on Sophie’s bedside table and sat back down on the bed, his weight pulling down the mattress.
“How you look at me!” Sophie whispered, half shy, half cross. She sat up sharply, tugged up the bodice of her nightgown, and pushed the skirt back over her knees.
“I look at you the way a man looks at the woman he wants more than anything in the world,” Patrick said, his tone light but his eyes fierce.
“Oh,” Sophie whispered. Patrick had thrown off his cloak; underneath all she could see was a fine lawn shirt, the collar lying open against his chest.
“I’ve never seen a man’s shirt without a cravat,” she said irrelevantly.
A wisp of a smile crossed Patrick’s face. Then in one swift movement he tugged the shirt from his breeches, pulled it over his head, and threw it down beside the bed. Sophie’s eyes widened. The candle flame danced and bent in the sudden breeze as the shirt fell to the floor. Orange shadows played on bronzed skin, flickered over ridges of muscle.
Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it again. The only thing she could think of to say was “oh,” and she was tired of sounding like such a nitwit. So she said nothing, but she took courage from Patrick’s dark eyes and reached out to touch his chest as he had touched hers. They were sitting side by side on the edge of the bed now, almost primly, Sophie thought, except … except. She spread her hand flat on his chest and brought the other up to meet it. Her little finger rubbed across Patrick’s nipple and he drew in his breath suddenly, his eyes dark with desire.
Sophie’s eyes darted to his and a little smile turned up the corners of her mouth. She repeated the movement, slowly, with both hands, then slid her thumbs down to the same position. She felt Patrick’s heart beating under her hand like that of a small mole she had found once in the garden at twilight.
Suddenly, just as she was relaxing into a sense of power, Patrick’s hands dragged her from the bed and she found herself sitting on his lap, her hands crushed against his chest, her heart beating wildly. He smelled like a midsummer night, like the midsummer madness that was racing through her veins like potent canary wine; he smelled male and faintly like brandy. She held her breath and just … waited.
Patrick looked down into her trusting eyes and momentarily closed his own, resisting a wave of passion that threatened to turn him into a satyr who would thrust her back on the bed and leap on her. Instead he kissed her little nose.
“You’re marrying me.”
His voice was deep with unstrained conviction.
Sophie gave an assenting little sigh, a little, fuzzy, unargumentative puff of breath. And so, without a moment’s further thought, she consigned a thousand childhood oaths to oblivion.
Patrick tipped up her chin with his knuckles.
“Sophie.”
“All right,” she said, not pettishly, not irritably. “All right, I will marry you.” But the question didn’t really interest Sophie at that moment. She was aware of the rosy glow in her cheeks and a matching glow of warmth low in her belly.
“Patrick?” Her eyes were caught on his.
He lowered his head so that his lips were a whisper from hers, his warm breath caressing her as he spoke.
“It wouldn’t be proper, Sophie,” he said, his voice husky with desire. “We must wait.”
But wells and springs of joy were washing over Sophie’s body. She was marrying a rake, yes. But she was marrying a rake whom she loved, so surely…. Daringly she reached up and ran her tongue along the chiseled outline of his mouth. He tightened his grip, but said nothing. Her hands slipped from around his neck, down to his chest, running again over the planes and angles, down to where a small feathered arrow of hair disappeared into his waistband.
She risked a glance at him. His face had taken on an erotic languor, and a sensual promise hung in the darkness of his eyes and the shadowed curves of his cheeks. Sophie smiled.
Reluctantly Patrick smiled back.
“You’re a hell-born brat,” he murmured.
“Oh dear.” Sophie pursed her lips teasingly. “Are you an archbishop?”
Patrick’s hand found its way back to the generous undercurve of Sophie’s breast. She gasped and her head fell back; Patrick pulled her head toward his for an aching kiss, and another, and another…. Somehow they found themselves flat on the bed again, and this time when Patrick pulled up Sophie’s gown she did naught but shiver with anticipation.
He rose for a moment and came back without clothes.
“Oh my,” Sophie said, her eyes wide. “You’re … you’re without a stitch!”
Patrick’s eyes lit with laughter. “So are you.”
Sophie looked down at her body in confusion. It didn’t feel like her own body anymore, and she hadn’t really marked the disappearance of her garments. The pink creamy expanse of her skin had become a maze of sensations and hot aches, unlike anything she had known or dreamed of. As she watched, Patrick’s hand lazed its way over her breast and down her belly, and then Sophie couldn’t watch anymore.
She looked at him instead. Even as Patrick’s hands wrought magic, and his lips made her shake and tremble, she looked at the parts of his body she could see.
A small voice broke the erotic haze in the bedroom. “This isn’t going to work,” Sophie said precisely. “I’m afraid that we are not appropriately, ah, sized.”
Patrick desperately pushed back waves of lust. He was hanging on to control by a thread, by a glimmer of a thread. Somehow he found himself propped on his elbows above the rosy, yet frightened face of his own Sophie.
“You have to trust me, sweetheart.” He brushed his lips back and forth against hers, persuading and cherishing, all at once.
Sophie gasped, but managed to reply, “In this instance, I think I am a better judge of my capabilities.”
“Logic,” Patrick murmured. “Logic is for widgeons. God made our bodies to go together, Sophie.”
She felt his treacherous persuasion between her thighs; every inch of her was screaming for him to continue. Her mind raced. Patrick kissed her
eyes, tenderly pressing them closed, letting his body continue its silent seduction, an urgent, infamous demand.
Breathless, Sophie opened her lips.
“It is true,” Patrick murmured against her lips, “that it doesn’t feel very good for women, the first time.”
But Sophie was past caring.
Her arms clenched around his neck and her body arched up against his in an unconscious plea that broke through his last reserves like fire hitting a thatched roof. He took her mouth and her body in the same breath, catching Sophie’s cry in his throat, staying absolutely still for a moment.
“I’m sorry … I’m sorry.”
Patrick really did sound sorry, Sophie thought, her mind drawn away from the sharp pain that accompanied his entrance. So she concentrated on the rustling, tender words that he whispered into her hair, and her ears, and against her throat.
Then he started a slow, thrusting rhythm that at first stung and hurt. But slowly, slowly, the pain fell away, or at least became partnered with something else, and small whimpers started to fly from her mouth.
And when Patrick, still holding on grimly to his self-control, pulled back and slipped his hands under Sophie’s bottom, she began to writhe under him, her body rising to meet his, her mind narrowed to a single point. Finally that elusive spark burst, shedding light that wrenched its burning way down Sophie’s arms and legs, driving her body up against Patrick’s like a tidal wave hitting the shore.
Patrick’s restraint turned to a shout of thankfulness as he lunged forward, in the grip of an ecstasy of which he had never felt the like. He surrendered with a prayer, a half-strangled, “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie,” smothered in the long, tangled curls spread over the bed.
And on the bedside table the candle dipped and swayed again, visited by the vague caress of a midnight breeze from the open window.
Chapter 9
Down the hallway, Sophie’s mother sat bolt upright in the palatial splendor of her bed. Eloise had there alone since discovering her husband in the arms of a housemaid some two months after their wedding. Her harsh command never to visit her bed again had been met by the marquis’s stiff agreement. Since then, the only noises that disturbed her at night were caused by her husband’s late arrivals in his chamber and, very occasionally, by errant servants.
