That was good enough for Alex. He reached for her.
“I’ll show you the rest.”
He pulled off her chemise and laid her back down against the blankets.
He took his first look at a fully unclothed Sophie and sucked in a tortured breath.
“Lovely,” he whispered dropping down to lightly kiss one nipple. “Beautiful.”
Sophie moaned and drew his head up to kiss him until they were both panting. He used the distraction to disrobe completely, thinking it best to do it while her eyes were closed and thereby accustom her to his body in stages.
Finally, finally, when they were both naked, he gave himself over to the task of pleasuring the both of them. His hands and lips wandered over her restlessly until she was writhing beneath him.
One hand slid down between them to tease the curls at the apex of her legs.
Sophie tensed immediately.
“Shhhh,” he crooned. “Let me, sweeting. Trust me.”
She did, relaxing as his hand continued down to tease at the hidden folds. Slowly, he slid one finger deep inside her. Watched her face as her breath hitched and her mouth opened in a silent moan.
“So wet. So perfect,” he murmured, leaning down to feast on one breast. If he kept watching her, he would be finished before they even started.
Patiently he moved his finger in and out, listening as the sounds of her desire grew higher in pitch. He wanted to take her right then. He wanted to bury himself to the hilt in one solid stroke and never leave. But even more than that, he wanted to make this good for her.
“Alex, I can’t….”
“You can. Let it happen, sweet.”
She arched her back and cried out, her muscles tensing around his finger.
Alex would have grinned in triumph if his own desire hadn’t swallowed up every other thought. He settled between her thighs and groaned when she instinctively brought her legs up to wrap around his own and caress his calves with her feet.
“Perfect,” he whispered again, pushing persistently deeper into her with each slow stroke. “You’re perfect.”
Again and again he pressed into her, until he reached the proof of her innocence.
Alex grimaced and kissed her lightly. “This will hurt, Sophie.”
“I know,” she replied with quiet understanding. “It’s all right.”
Alex lunged once, sheathing himself fully inside her.
“Dear God,” he groaned. She felt like heaven, and every instinct screamed out for him to move, to pound into her until he reached blessed relief. But he held still, waiting for her to accustom herself to his invasion, praying she would do so quickly. The last remnants of his willpower were slipping away quickly.
“Sophie,” he murmured kissing her lips, her nose, her forehead. “Sophie.” He reached between them and rubbed gently at her most sensitive spot until finally she relaxed, then moaned and began to writhe beneath him.
Silently thanking every deity he could think of, Alex began moving in shallow strokes, reveling in every gasp of her breath, every lift of her hips until his resolve to go slow and be gentle was lost to the all-consuming desire to spill his seed deep inside her and mark her as his.
He thrust harder, faster, silently promising to gentle his movements at the first sign of her distress, and wondering how he could manage it. He could hear her cries growing louder and higher in pitch. Her hands grabbed frantically at his back.
She was so close. If he could just hold off a moment longer—
She screamed. Her muscles rippled around him and pulled him over the edge.
He made one final shove and let out a hoarse shout of his own.
When he regained some semblance of control, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled them both to their sides.
“Are you all right?” he whispered worriedly as she buried her face against his chest.
She bumped his chin when she nodded.
“Are you certain, because—”
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Better than fine. I….”
“Then why are you hiding from me?” he asked, trying to work a hand down to her chin to bring her face up. “Sophie? If I hurt you—”
“It’s not that, truly. I’m just a little…”
Alex smiled. “Embarrassed?”
She nodded again.
He wrapped his arms around her tighter. “Sweetheart, don’t be. What we did was perfectly natural.”
She snuggled closer. “I know. I’m simply not used to it.”
“Well, we’ll just have to work on that,” Alex answered, sliding a hand down her hip.
“Now?”
“No,” he chuckled, although he certainly wouldn’t have minded accustoming her to the joys of lovemaking right away. “You’re new to this yet, and we’ve had a long day. You need to rest. Sleep now, and I’ll find something for you to wash with when you wake.”
She yawned hugely. “Stay with me?”
“Always.”
Sophie decided to worry about “always” tomorrow.
Twenty-seven
It was night when she awoke in a tangle of bedsheets and Alex’s arms. For a while she lay silently with her face resting against the muscled expanse of his chest, watching the candlelight dance about the room, and reflecting on what had happened that evening.
She’d made love with Alex. Incredible.
Sophie had heard tales of what it meant to share a bed with a man. Whispers of the pleasures that could be found with the right man, but she had always been more interested in learning the specifics of the act than the possible results.
Now she wished she had paid more attention to the other details. Had she reacted appropriately? Had she moved too much? Not enough? Made too much noise? She didn’t recall having much choice in the matter, but maybe there was a trick to being subdued, something young ladies learned before their wedding nights from the women in their families.
Sophie smiled a little at the thought of prim Mrs. Summers educating her on proper conduct in the marriage bed. And decided she didn’t want to learn what was proper and what was not. To night had been perfect as far as she was concerned. Alex certainly hadn’t complained.
She must have smiled even broader at that thought, because Alex stirred and reached up a hand to stroke her hair. “Are you awake, sweet?” he whispered.
“A little,” she mumbled.
She felt the soft rumble of his chuckle against her ear. “Well, see if you can manage a little more. It’s time to get up.”
She tilted her head up a bit for a better look out the windows. “It’s still fully dark outside.”
“Western windows,” he informed her. “It’s nearly dawn. How far is the nearest village?”
Sophie snuggled deeper into the blankets. “Three, maybe four miles I think. Not too far. We can wait until it’s light at least.”
“It’ll be light on the other side of the house soon enough. I want to get you safe to London and find out who’s behind our attempted kidnapping. And for that we need horses.”
It’d been a bit more than attempted kidnapping, Sophie thought, and he wasn’t going to be looking into it alone, but she didn’t feel like arguing with him. Nor was she going to be able to go back to sleep, she realized. Her mind was spinning now with thoughts of her upcoming marriage to Alex, their kidnappers, her cousin, her work for…whoever it was she was working for. Which reminded her…
“Alex?”
“Hmm?”
“The man at the war office, the one you work for, what is his name?”
“William Fletcher. Now rise and shine.”
She bolted straight up.
“Stocky man with a bulbous nose and a love of brandy?”
“You know him, I take it?” Alex asked.
“I know a Will Fetch, as a solicitor! He’s my contact for the Prince Regent!”
“Was,” he corrected automatically, reaching for his breeches.
She ignored him and grabbed her chemise. �
��Why would he lie to me, to both of us? And why bother with such a minimal change in name?”
He pulled on his shirt. “I don’t know.”
She wiggled into her gown and strained to reach the buttons in the back. “Does this mean I work for the war office or—”
“As of yesterday morning, neither.” He reached for his boots and she resisted the urge to pick up one of her own and toss it at his head. She was tying the top bow on the second boot when she realized he had finished dressing and was now pacing. It would be a bit then, she thought, before they left. She settled back on the blankets and watched him for a moment longer before losing herself in her own thoughts. She had spent weeks picking locks, climbing in and out of windows, and rifling through the personal articles of several prominent members of society—all on the assumption that she was doing the bidding of the Prince Regent himself. Now that the identity of her employer was suspect, she wondered if she was nothing more than a common thief.
Good Lord, had she traveled all the way to London to become a criminal debutante?
Sophie hastily dismissed the notion, only partially because the idea was so unpalatable. Clearly the war office knew of her activities, and their involvement provided at least some measure of validity. Why then, had they made a point of keeping their involvement a secret? And why had they not wanted her to work with Alex? Things would have been a great deal easier if she’d had someone to create distractions, watch outside of doors, read letters written in French.
Sophie smiled a little at the picture of Alex in the role of assistant spy.
The sound of shattering glass in a distant part of the house broke the fantasy.
Alex was pulling her to her feet before she had time to fully register what the sound meant. He bustled her toward a large nearby storage closet, his expression cold.
She balked at the door. “I can’t,” she whispered. “It’s dark.”
“There’s a window, Sophie,” he answered. He pulled back the curtains to allow the light of the setting moon into the little room. It was just enough to keep her terror at bay.
“Stay here,” he ordered, pressing the knife she had given him earlier back into her hand. She wanted to tell him to take it, he was certain to need it more than she, but he was gone before she could open her mouth to speak.
He left the door cracked open several inches. It took her a moment to realize he had done so on purpose—nothing looked quite so suspicious as a closed door—and then she noticed the way the light from the dining room began to dim. He was blowing out the candles. Sophie gripped the knife tighter and huddled into the far corner of the closet. It was going to be very, very dark in that room.
The sound of splintering wood reverberated into her little hiding spot. Sophie pulled her knees up tightly against her chest. She heard masculine voices. Then the telltale sounds of a scuffle. Shouting, swearing, the sound of bone meeting flesh. How many were out there? How outnumbered was Alex?
Get up! she ordered herself.
Can’t. Too dark.
Get up!
I can’t!
Something smashed. Someone yelled, then grunted in pain.
Death was out there.
Alex’s death. He was out there fighting for his life, for her life, while she sat cowering in a closet.
Get up, damn you!
Alex was going to die, and if she didn’t move, she was going to let it happen.
Something inside her snapped at the thought. She gripped the knife in her hand and slid from her hiding spot to crouch against a wall of the dining room. It took a minute for her eyes to become accustomed to the dark, and in that minute she felt the terror threaten to overwhelm her. She battled it with every ounce of courage she owned. But it wasn’t enough, so she thought of Alex instead. The fear abated. Her eyes focused.
Someone moved to her right. A faint outline of someone short and stocky betrayed itself against a beam of moonlight that had snuck around the edges of a curtain. He wasn’t watching her. He hadn’t seen her.
She saw his arm raise and point a pistol at the struggling forms at the far side of the room. Without stopping to think about it, she sprung up and threw the knife.
He screamed and lurched. Glass shattered. The pistol fired. Someone else screamed, but it wasn’t Alex and that was all that mattered.
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the sound of heaving breathing across the room.
“Alex?” she whispered.
“Sophie!”
She heard him move toward her. Then he had her by the shoulders in a brutal grip.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Sophie couldn’t answer him. Now that the danger had passed and Alex was safe, she was beginning to feel the darkness weigh in around her.
“Do you think…?” She licked dry lips with a dry tongue. “Can we light a candle now?”
Alex swore viciously, then grabbed her hand and pulled her from the room. They crossed the foyer swiftly and headed out the front door. Sophie relaxed considerably at the sight of the first hints of dawn in the eastern sky. Alex pulled her along until they reached a small shadowed recess against the house. Abruptly, he pushed her into the little corner.
“Stay here,” he ordered, holding her against the wall. “Do you understand me? Stay here. Do not move from this spot.”
She nodded.
“I will have your word, Sophie.” His face was an unfamiliar mask of stone.
“I promise,” she whispered.
“Don’t ever break your promises to me.”
“I won’t.”
She watched him until he disappeared around the side of the house, then took in her surroundings. The darkness in her little corner didn’t extend much past the tips of her toes, and she could make out the expanse of the side lawn clearly. It was enough.
And she felt stronger now, besides. She would probably always be afraid of the dark, but to night she had fought that fear and won. Maybe now, she could control it well enough to keep from truly panicking, from losing herself like she had at the cabin.
Someone yelled in the distance.
She instinctively took a step toward the sound.
No. She’d promised. She forced herself back into the corner, balling her hands into impudent fists at her sides. Damn that promise. And damn Alex for insisting on it. What good did it do either of them if he died for it?
What good would she be able to do if she broke it? She no longer had her knife, and she wasn’t confident she could bring down a fully grown man with her fists. She was better at fighting then most women, yes, but probably not better than most hardened criminals, certainly not the homicidal type.
Of course if she found a weapon of some sort…
Sophie’s eyes scanned the yard. She’d just settled on a particularly sturdy-looking stick, deciding that she would rather have Alex alive and hating her, than Alex dead and she hating herself for allowing it to happen, when he appeared from around the corner of the house leading two horses.
She waited diligently until he reached her side, then said, “Are you hurt? Were you followed?”
“No.”
“Thank God,” she breathed, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you ever, ever ask me to promise something like that again.”
He shot her a look that would have made her fear for her safety if she hadn’t already been overwhelmed with fear for his. “I cannot believe you would make me wait here while—”
“Get on the horse, Sophie.”
“—you run off to certain danger. You could have been hurt or—”
“Now!”
Every instinct screamed at her to run at the horse and vault on top.
Sophie was more than a little sick of her instincts. He was not going to witness her jumping to do his bidding like a cowed servant. She tilted her chin up and walked, not ran, toward the horse. She had briefly considered arguing with him, but she was aiming for brave, not stupid.
Apparently, Ale
x didn’t feel she was being brave quickly enough. He reached over, picked her up by the waist, and fairly tossed her into the saddle.
They rode in silence for the first quarter of an hour, never setting the horses at more than a trot for fear they might stumble into a rut on the shadowed road.
Sophie spent that time searching for an advantageous opening to the argument she felt was coming. She was weighing the pros and cons of simply sidling her horse up beside his and giving him a healthy shove, when suddenly he was next to her. He grabbed her horse’s reins and brought them both to a stop.
“You’re angry with me,” she stated quickly, figuring she might as well get in the first word, even if it wasn’t particularly brilliant.
“I told you to stay in the closet,” he snapped.
“I’m not a child or a soldier to be ordered about, Alex.”
“No. You are my betrothed. Very soon you will be my wife, and you will not put yourself in harm’s way again. Do I make myself clear? It is my duty to protect and—”
“You were worried about me?”
He shot her the sort of disbelieving look usually reserved for the terminally stupid or criminally insane. “Have I not been making that clear?”
“No. What you’ve made clear is how much you dislike being disobeyed. But I’m warning you now, Alex, I have no intention of standing aside if your life is in danger—”
“I wasn’t in danger of dying,” he snapped. “You, however—”
“I saved your life!”
“You did nothing of the sort. I saw the pistol. I intended to pull my attacker into the line of fire.”
As it happened, Sophie’s knife had caused the shooter’s arm to jerk wildly, sending the bullet into Alex’s assailant’s leg rather than his head. Alex had been obliged to knock the man unconscious.
“Oh,” Sophie whispered. “Oh. I thought…I thought I’d saved your life. I thought…”
She thought she’d fought death in the dark and won. But she hadn’t. Alex was alive, yes, but what of the other men? She’d killed one herself. She’d heard the knife hit, seen the shadowy figure fall. She hadn’t beaten death at all. She’d lent it a helping hand.
Disgusted with herself and uncertain what to say to Alex now that her anger had turned to shame, she nudged her horse forward into a slow walk, intending to think the matter through.
As Luck Would Have It Page 27
