Midnight Pleasures

by Eloisa James

  But suddenly, with a sharp twist, Sophie slipped out from under him. Small, determined hands pushed him over and down on his back on the wide divan.

  His wife’s eyes were shining with a mischievous gleam that matched Patrick’s own. Their eyes found each other’s, each bright with laughter and desire, daring the other to protest. Sophie perched herself on top of Patrick, pressing his shoulders to the velvet surface of the sofa with her palms.

  “Now we’ll see how you like it,” she whispered against his mouth, her breath sweetly falling on his lips. She wriggled against him with a movement perhaps more inexperienced than seductive, but it was fire to Patrick. He gasped involuntarily, and Sophie grinned.

  She wriggled farther down Patrick’s body, enjoying the feeling of her breasts against his hair-roughed chest. Her lips found his nipples and she imitated what he did to her, blissfully tracking his rough breathing and the feeling of his racing heart under her fingertips.

  Then she tipped herself off the couch, her gown falling down over her bare bottom with a silky swish. Every nerve in her body was alive, demanding. Sophie bit her lip, schooling herself to patience. She took him in her hands, giving him a butterfly kiss.

  “Sophie!” Patrick’s voice had an agonized roughness that she had never heard before. She grew bolder, ignoring the fact that his hands were straying over her body and had somehow yanked up her dress again, even while she knelt on the floor. Tentatively she flicked him with a small pink tongue, opened her mouth and caressed him.

  A ragged moan rewarded her.

  So she gave him a little nip, just the sort of small bite he seemed to love when she kissed his nipples. But the response was not a moan, but a yelp.

  “Sophie!”

  Patrick rolled off the couch so fast that Sophie didn’t know what was happening. In one second she was flat on her back on the thick carpet, her dress swept to her waist and her legs instinctively clenching Patrick’s waist as the lovers came together in a great primal, beating dance. Sophie’s broken cries drifted into the room, punctuated by Patrick’s harsh breathing groans.

  “Oh God, Sophie, Sophie,” Patrick shouted. She strained up toward him, catching at bliss as every nerve in her body lit and burst into fire.

  The silence which followed was not at all like the silence before Sophie had entered the library, Patrick thought. He rolled over, pulling Sophie onto his chest. She was still breathing in tiny pants, her body shaken by slight tremors.

  “Patrick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you dislike it when I, uh, bit you?”

  “Yes,” Patrick said firmly. He settled her more carefully into the crook of his arm. “We’ll practice.” His tone was resonant with anticipation.

  “I have something to confess,” Sophie whispered. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you.”

  Patrick listened lazily to his wife’s sweet voice, hardly paying attention.

  “I didn’t interrupt you only because I realized that I … I had to resolve the problem with my drawers. I wanted to enchant you. It was all I could think about this morning.”

  Patrick didn’t answer. His arm pulled her tighter, crushing her small sweetness against his chest. Oh God, what a wonderful thing it was to have a wife, to make love to one’s wife on the loading bills, and on the couch, and on the library floor. To have a wife who thought all morning.

  It wasn’t until much later that afternoon that a thought of his own strayed into Patrick’s mind. Without even noticing it consciously, he was replaying the moment when he pulled Sophie’s loose dress to her waist. It almost made him groan just to think about the way her breasts overflowed in his hands, their rounded plumpness begging for kisses.

  They’ve grown, he thought. Sophie’s breasts have grown. From caresses? Slowly the thought trickled into the rational part of Patrick’s brain. The truth was likely a good deal less romantic.

  Patrick’s back suddenly grew rigid. The image of Sophie’s curvaceous body entered his mind. Unconsciously he stood up, and desperately counted in his head. The night he first went to her room—Jesus, when was that? Over three months ago.

  He was an idiot, an outrageously stupid idiot. He had protected women from pregnancy hither and yon … women he didn’t give a toss about. And now, when he had found a woman whom he loved—why not admit it? He loved her, loved Sophie, with all his soul and heart. Now he had her, and he was wooing her, and it was working, he knew it was working…. He deliberately, stupidly, had put her in the greatest danger a woman could face.

  “Idiot! Idiot!” Patrick didn’t even realize that he was howling, face up to the elaborate whorls of plaster ornamenting the ceiling.

  In the back of his mind, Patrick had meant to talk Sophie out of the idea of having a child. She was too small, too petite, the lovely woman he’d taken to wife. In his mind’s eye he could see her slender hips, her waist, so small that he used to be able to span it with both hands. How could he be so witless? All the evidence was there.

  She would never survive a birth. Look at his sister-in-law. Charlotte was much taller than Sophie, and she had almost died. Hell, compared to Sophie she was an Amazon. His mother … Even the Indian woman he had seen die in childbirth had been larger than Sophie.

  He came bellowing into Sophie’s bedchamber. “Sophie! Sophie!”

  She looked up hopefully as her husband thrust open the door. After having lost her Turkish grammar to the waves, Sophie was still adhering to her self-imposed ban on languages. Unfortunately, except for when she visited Madeleine, her days were painfully dull. She talked to the housekeeper or went shopping. Given that the season wasn’t in full swing, many of her friends were still in the country.

  At the moment she was reading through the plays of Ben Jonson, in a rather haphazard fashion. She couldn’t make head or tail of the old-fashioned dialogue. In fact, Sophie admitted to herself, I’m no scholar. I have only one skill, for languages.

  Patrick crossed the room in one bound and dropped to his haunches next to her chair. “Listen to me, Sophie! I climbed the ladder to your room three and one half months ago! Have you—did you—bleed during that time?”

  “Has it been that long?” Sophie hadn’t figured out the likely dates.

  Patrick’s face softened. “Yes, it has,” he replied. “I’m afraid, Sophie, that unless you are a very irregular sort of female, we are expecting a child.”

  “It’s odd, isn’t it?” Sophie said rather dreamily. “It doesn’t seem possible. Why, we haven’t been married nearly long enough.”

  “There’s no enough,” Patrick said. “One day is enough.”

  “That’s not true!” Sophie retorted. “Why, my mama told me …” But then she fell silent, remembering the talk of maids who undoubtedly knew more of the practicalities of conception than did her poor mama.

  Patrick misunderstood her silence. “Some women have trouble conceiving. Perhaps your mother is one of those sort, and that is why you are an only child. I’m sure your parents have tried to have another child, given that titles pass only to males.”

  He straightened up and walked restlessly to the window, looking out.

  Sophie contemplated her parents’ separate—extremely separate—bedrooms in silence. It felt like betrayal to blurt out the truth.

  The room fell into stillness. Sophie’s mind was racing. She had delayed telling Patrick about the baby. Their recent happiness seemed so fragile that she hadn’t wanted to disturb it. And yet a corner of her mind blossomed with pure joy every time she thought of the babe. It was time that her husband knew he was expecting a child.

  A tiny bit of that joy withered when she turned her head and caught a glimpse of her husband’s face.

  He looked about as happy as a cat thrown into puddle water. His face was rigid, his eyes angry.

  “What’s the matter?” Sophie steadied her voice just before it trembled.

  Patrick looked at her almost as if he didn’t see her. When he finally spoke, his voice was cold
and distant. “I told you before, Sophie, I’m not the sort of man who howls with joy to hear that he has procreated. I’ve always been damn careful before this point to make sure it didn’t happen!”

  “But we’re married!”

  “What excuse is that?”

  “I thought we agreed to have one child,” Sophie said warily.

  “We did,” Patrick snapped. He knew he was behaving like an ass, but he couldn’t stop himself. From the moment the knowledge sank into his mind, he had been paralyzed with fear. Why, why didn’t he control the whole situation better? Why on earth had he blithely deserted the habits of a lifetime and made love in such a feckless and stupid fashion?

  “Then why are you so angry?” Sophie was completely baffled.

  “I’m angry at myself,” he said, and then added irrationally, “Damme, Sophie, you must be as fertile as a rabbit!”

  Sophie turned white. “That’s a cruel thing to say,” she said slowly, her eyes searching his face.

  Patrick turned around and stared out the window again. “Let’s just leave it, shall we? I see no reason to discuss the situation further. The die is cast.”

  Sophie nodded, but Patrick didn’t see her. She felt as if she were speaking through a sheet of ice. “In that case,” she observed, walking over and pulling the bell rope, “I shall call Simone. It’s time for my bath.”

  Patrick looked over at his wife in bewilderment. Her face was relaxed, even pleasant. But she stood by the door looking expectantly at him, so he stamped out. It was hard to maintain rage in the face of such utter … pleasantness. Every step he walked down the stairs peeled off his anger, leaving cold, bitter fear at the base.

  Pulses of rage and fear ran through his body like charges of lightning. He jerked open the front door, brushing past the footman who had moved to open it.

  Then he stamped down the front steps and hailed a passing hackney without pausing for breath. He had to get out. Out of the house, away from the house.

  Two hours later, the central stage in Jackson’s Boxing Salon was lined with curious, cheering gentlemen, watching Patrick Foakes demolish yet another partner.

  “Coo!” One of the professional boxers said to Cribb, as they stood at the corner of the ring. “He’s not bad for a swell, is he?”

  “Strips well,” Cribb said absently, his eyes watching Foakes’s arms intently. “Lead with your right, sir,” he shouted.

  “He don’t need any advice,” the boxer said, half resentfully. Sure enough, with a final solid thunk, Foakes had knocked out yet another of Cribb’s boxers.

  Foakes looked over at Cribb, panting, and gestured. Cribb shook his head.

  “Thank ye, Lord,” the boxer next to him murmured. It was his turn in the ring next, to face whichever of the paying gentlemen wished to strip down and fight before an audience.

  “Fightin’ when you’re angry,” Cribb said to Patrick, “is not a good idea.” He turned away, focusing on Reginald Petersham, who was just climbing into the ring.

  Patrick stood next to the ring, letting compliments swirl around his head as he rubbed the sweat from his face and chest.

  What’s done was done. Sophie was pregnant. Treacherously, an image crept into his mind of a little girl with her mama’s curls and beautiful smile.

  He dropped the towel and headed for the dressing room. Unless he missed his guess, Sophie hadn’t seen a doctor. He needed to find the best doctor in London—someone from the Royal College—and Sophie must see him tomorrow.

  Patrick scrawled a note on Jackson’s Boxing Salon stationery. He gave a boy a crown to deliver it to the house of his lawyer, Mr. Jennings of Jennings & Condell.

  A half-hour later, Jennings looked at the message perplexedly. “Determine who is the best doctor for birthing babies in London,” it said. That was it, barring Patrick’s characteristically bold and scrawling signature.

  Why was it delivered tonight? What on earth did Foakes think Jennings could do about a doctor that couldn’t wait until tomorrow? And why had he sent it from a boxing salon rather than from his own house?

  Jennings jiggled uneasily in his high-backed library chair. He would greatly dislike it if Foakes had taken to fathering children outside his own home. Messy financial transactions, those were, the ones dealing with illegitimate children. He, Jennings, should know, given that Jennings & Condell had the honor of being lawyers to the royal family.

  So far, Foakes and his small household had been a joy to represent, with nothing more intricate to establish than a generous settlement on his wife. But now look: only married a few months, and already Jennings & Condell was being made party to some sort of immoral doings.

  Jennings pursed his lips disapprovingly. He was a fierce Methodist, and although he unhesitatingly fought bitter lawsuits on the side of his dissolute, aristocratic clients, he saw no point in privately condoning their behavior.

  It was only on the way home that Patrick remembered the unpleasant way he had parted from his wife. Lost my temper again, he thought. At least Sophie didn’t get angry. Or did she?

  The memory of her smiling face as she held open the bedchamber door flashed into his mind. Something about his wife’s eyes. She had said he was cruel. He remembered that. And then suddenly she was smiling at him, as if they were about to go to a garden party. But her eyes weren’t smiling. I should remember that in the future: Sophie’s eyes speak the truth.

  He climbed the steps and walked into Sophie’s bedchamber cautiously. It was a wet evening, just cold enough that there was a fire lit in the fireplace. Sophie was sitting next to the fire, wearing a nightdress of thin lawn.

  Patrick walked over and dropped into the other rocking chair. He stretched his legs out before him and then looked up. Sophie smiled at him, but her eyes were a dark, wary blue. Patrick felt a small pulse of triumph. He’d learned how to read his wife: that was good. An unknowing male might think she was perfectly happy, but Patrick knew better.

  “I apologize,” he said.

  Sophie nodded. “I would have told you, Patrick, if you had asked.” Her hands were twisting in her lap.

  Another way to read Sophie, Patrick thought. Her face looked sweetly placid, but her hands were anxious. She said nothing, shifting her gaze to the flames trotting along the logs in the fireplace.

  In fact, Sophie was stiff with rage. But what could she say? If she opened her mouth, she would scream reproaches at him for being so callous about their unborn child, so stupid in general. Better to say nothing. She clenched her hands together so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

  “Have you consulted a doctor, Sophie?”

  At that she looked up, startled. “No.”

  Patrick frowned. “I’ll find one, then.”

  After a moment he stood, took one large step, picked Sophie up, and plopped into her chair. His wife’s body tensed, then relaxed against his chest.

  “A wife and a baby,” Patrick whispered against her neck. He wound his arms around her, as if he could always keep her safe. They sat like that, together, for a long time.

  Chapter 22

  In the beginning of May, the gentry began to flood back into London. Knockers appeared on formidable oak doors, and dust covers were pulled from damasked furniture. Housekeepers anxiously checked the number of wax candles and the state of the linen.

  Butlers complained among themselves over the irresponsibility of the young, and sent desperate messages to employment agencies: “Lady Fiddlesticks must have four experienced footmen by next week.” “Without two good upstairs maids—and we would prefer girls from the country, mind you—Baron Piddlesford’s housekeeper will surely lose her mind.” “Lady Brimticky searches for a matched pair of footmen, with the same hair color, weight, and height, to wear her livery and stand behind her carriage. She would prefer dark hair; redheads are not invited to apply.”

  The season was due to begin. Having spent the last month poring over the pictures in La Belle Assemblée, ladies summoned the mantua-maker of th
eir choice to the house, and spent uncomfortable hours being pricked by pins. Gentlemen visited their tailors, or bought new pairs of hussars, so highly polished they could adjust their intricate cravats in the shine of their boots. The more intrepid, or perhaps the more vain, tried out the newest leg and shoulder pads, acquired by their valets in circumstances of great secrecy. With calves swollen to a fashionable size, they strolled by White’s or visited the House of Lords.

  Within a week carriages crammed Piccadilly and the Royal Exchange. High-perch phaetons tooled around Hyde Park, only occasionally spilling their inhabitants onto the damp ground. The fruit merchants of Covent Garden grew cheerful; lavender sellers began trotting down the streets of Mayfair and around Hanover Square, hoarsely selling sweet bouquets.

  Henri was packed off to begin the spring term at Harrow, sporting a new wardrobe and a sprinkling of English oaths, learned from Patrick’s stableboys. He left with his dark eyes shining; with the effortless resilience of youth, Henri had put the traumas of war behind him and was ready for the excitements of a gentleman’s schooling. And Sophie and Madeleine were drawing their lessons to a close. Madeleine had become far more than just “ladylike.” She absorbed knowledge like a sponge. After one afternoon with Debrett’s Peerage, Madeleine knew more about the noble families of England than Sophie had ever bothered to learn.

  The most difficult aspects of ladyhood came naturally to Madeleine. She knew to an inch how to depress a presumptuous servant, and she wielded her fan like a dangerous, if delicate, weapon. She took to dancing like a duck to water. Dressed in the height of French fashion, she looked like a member of the royal family, and not in the least like a horse trainer’s daughter.

  So why am I not happy? Sophie asked herself. Her project was a success. In Sophie’s estimation, Madeleine would make a countess par excellence. Tonight Sophie and Patrick were hosting a dinner at which Sophie would launch Madeleine on the ton.

  But Patrick … Patrick never mentioned the baby. Not once after he delivered the name of a doctor.