Shaking his head, Lewis shifted his stance and Sophia couldn't help but note the power contained within his muscles. Lord, she was becoming a lost cause where this man was concerned and that was not good. Not good at all. "I was an army man, my lady. I heard you approaching since the moment you moved something that made a great deal of noise, likely that large vase I noticed earlier in front of the doors. You are not exactly subtle, Sophie."
For a moment, she was brought up short by his words. "Why did you call me that?"
"What? Sophie?" Lewis shrugged. "At the moment, the name seems to suit you better than Sophia." He jerked his head in the general direction of the ballroom. "Out there? When you are the cool, beautiful and sophisticated Society debutante with impeccable manners? There you are Sophia. But in here, when you are clearly ready to give me a piece of your mind and are not at all shy about your emotions - whatever they may be? Then you are Sophie. One woman with two completely different sides."
"My friends call me Sophie," she admitted grudgingly, a little ashamed that he could read her so well. "They tell me the name makes me seem less rigid, especially before when I indulged in mischief far too often."
Lewis shook his head. "Not mischief. Just giving free reign to your opinions and showing your true self. There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. We are all two people inside. Sometimes more."
"The face we show the world and the face we wear when we are alone." Sophia understood that concept all too well.
"Precisely." Once more Lewis leaned back against the settee, his stance relaxing a bit. "Now about Lizzie Ashford. You were coming to warn me away from her, were you not?"
"I was." Sophia saw no sense in denying it.
Lewis looked genuinely curious now. "Why?"
Was the man really so dense? Sophia could not believe that he was. After all, he was with Bow Street. Or had been. Which she likely should have considered before she had come flying back here like some harridan out to lecture a recalcitrant child.
"She enjoys men," Sophia finally stated flatly. "Far too freely, or so the rumors go. She damaged her reputation when she demanded that her father force the Earl of Covington into marrying her. Lizzie knew that her step-sister Jane and Lord Covington held each other in great affection, but Lizzie desired the title for herself and demanded that her father coerce Covington into marriage. The threats were not against him, but rather against Jane. It was an ugly scene for all involved."
For a long moment, Lewis said nothing but then he smiled widely, the skin around his scar twisting. Sophia supposed that some women might find the expression disgusting or ugly. She might have at one time as well, but now? It was simply a part of Lewis and did nothing to diminish his attraction in her eyes. If anything, it actually made him more appealing to her.
"I know." There was a teasing light in Lewis' eyes now.
"You what?" Sophia sputtered indignantly.
"I said that I already know." Lewis finally pushed himself away from the piece of furniture he had been using for support. "I know all about Lord Covington and Jane and Lizzie. I am with Bow Street after all, Sophie."
She made a harrumphing sound. "So you were in no danger of falling prey to her machinations?"
"Not really, no. I might not have known precisely what she was about, but I knew enough to be wary." Then he grinned again. "But I am flattered that you cared enough about me to be worried."
"It was not about caring." Sophia's eyes flashed teal fire. "It was simply self-preservation. If you are seen keeping company with a woman like her, people will talk. They will wonder if you now only prefer women with questionable reputations, because there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Lizzie is about as far from an innocent as one can possibly be, no matter that she is still considered a debutante. And I, in turn, will be ruined. And you, Lewis, will be gossiped about further and will likely never get your job back at Bow Street."
Sophia's chest was heaving now as she had worked herself up into a fine temper. She hadn't meant to, obviously. This was something the old Sophia did. The very same Sophia who, in a fit of pique became distracted enough during a heated game of battledore that she did not see the shuttlecock heading directly towards her face and had ended up with a broken nose. That was the part of herself that Sophia was trying desperately to suppress. Sadly, she did not think she was doing a very good job of it at the moment.
Surprising her, Lewis slowly clapped his hands, giving Sophia pause. She had no idea what he was about in this moment. "Ah, there is the Sophie Reynolds that I have heard so much about. I wondered when I would truly see her again."
"Pardon me?" Had Lewis gone mad? It certainly seemed that way to her.
"When I returned to England and took up the position at Bow Street, I was tasked with reacquainting myself with much of Society, both the good and the bad. Little of it interested me, but you? Ah, there were so many stories about you in the gossip rags, about your headstrong ways and fierce opinions, yet at the same time, so many stories about you delicate beauty and perfect grace. I wondered how that could be. Certainly no woman of such contradictions could exist, could she? At least not within the woman I had danced with at her come-out ball so very long ago." Lewis knew he was skirting dangerously close to a truth that he did not wish to admit, but the fire in Sophia tonight was pushing him to reveal himself just a bit. He did not want her to lose the ground she had gained this evening. If she did, she might never recover it.
Sophia shook her head. "I still do not understand. Why would Bow Street care about me and my activities? Moreover, why you?"
"Because Bow Street cared about Selby and his activities. You were a part of that, unfortunately." Lewis would never reveal just how deeply in debt the young lord had been, so much so that the Home Office had suspected at one point that he might be selling secrets to French spies. "So because I was tasked with investigating him, therefore I investigated you."
"And what did you find?" Sophia was almost afraid to know.
Taking a deliberate step towards her, Lewis was heartened when she did not retreat, instead boldly meeting his gaze with her own. "I discovered a woman full of contradictions, one who showed a different side of herself to the world depending upon what situation she found herself in at the time."
He paused and shook his head as he gathered his thoughts, uncertain as to how much of himself he wished to reveal but knowing that he had to reveal something of what he was feeling or be damned by the emotions. "You were, by turns, so many different women all at once that you made my head spin - and the heads of my superiors back at Bow Street, as well. Yet, I could not reconcile that woman with the brash and forthright debutante I had once known, nor with the woman I saw attending balls and parties on Selby's arm without a care for what anyone thought, even her family. There were so very many sides to you that it was all but impossible to tell what part of you was real. In a way, it still is impossible. There are, Sophie, so very many sides to you, each one more unique than the last."
"Then you see more within me than most ever will." She cast her eyes down for a moment before summoning the courage to meet his gaze once again. "I know how others view me, Lewis. Vain. Foolish. Brash. Empty-headed." She smiled then for a moment. "Among so many other things, as well. It is little wonder you did not simply throw up your hands and be done with me even then."
Lewis wanted to reach for Sophia, but somehow, he found the strength to keep his hands at his sides. "Let us just say that you intrigued me far more than you frustrated me, even back then. After that night in particular, however, you were...more. It was part of the reason why I was so compelled to bring you the news of his death. I felt that you would be better served by that sort of thing coming from me than from another."
"It was better to hear that news from a friend, even though I no longer cared for him by that point. If, indeed, I ever really did care at all," she conceded before giving a snort of derision. "I was foolish where Selby was concerned from the very first moment we met. So very foolish. I know th
at now."
Sophia bit her lip when Lewis took another step forward yet she continued on. He had a right to know what she had only now come to realize so clearly. "I was also confused back then and did not know my own mind," she confessed. "I stumbled about being so many different people because I believed that I could not afford to be wrong. About anything. Even my heart. So I was everything to everyone, even though now, I know that was wrong of me. And I have also begun to think that I liked the idea of Alex Selby simply because he was forbidden to me, because my brother and my family hated him. Not because I truly loved him."
"You would not be the first young woman tempted by forbidden fruit." Lewis had seen that same scenario play out so often that it was no longer surprising to him. "And Selby was handsome. I will grant you that easily enough." He took another step forward. If he could finally get Sophia past what Selby had done to her, then they could end this madness. Then he could retreat from her before he was so deeply ensnared in her web that he could not get free.
Sophia sniffed disdainfully. "He could also be an idiot. Such as the night he left me at a ball just before a waltz so that he could visit a gaming hell. The next morning, he was found in the streets of St. James, nearly naked and with a prostitute."
"Yet you forgave him." Another step. So close that Lewis could reach out and touch her. Not that he would. He did not dare. Not yet, at least.
"As I said, I thought I was in love and I have been raised to believe that women in love forgive their husbands much. Even gambling, whoring and drinking." This time it was Sophia who took a step forward. The air between her and Lewis was heated now, charged with emotion and so much more that it fairly crackled between them.
"He was not your husband." Lewis' eyes all but glittered with anger in the dark.
"I thought he was going to be." Sophia took another step, refusing to back down. "Do you know that I was jealous of that woman, even though she was a whore? I could not understand why Alex bedded her so easily when I had offered numerous times to lie with him as a way to ensure our marriage." This was a truth she had never admitted to anyone before, and even now, she was not certain why she was telling Lewis. She simply felt that it was important that he know the truth. All of it. No matter how ugly.
Lewis swallowed hard, girding himself against the sheer seductiveness that was Sophia. Especially a Sophia such as the one standing before him now - raw, emotional and vulnerable. "Alex Selby was a fool. He did not recognize the blessing he had been given in you and he wasted it. He wasted you."
"He was an idiot," she agreed darkly, "but then so was I for pursuing him."
"He made you believe that he was in love with you." Lewis had seen that for himself.
"There is a part of me that knew he was not. That was, I think, the real reason I resisted him in the carriage that night. I knew even then that things between us would end badly, though I never believed he would force himself on me." She really hadn't.
Lewis' nostrils flared at the mention of that night. "He was a bastard. Were he still alive, I would break his bloody neck."
"I would beat you to it."
Sophia drew in a deep breath. It had felt so good just now, so freeing to express those feelings. As a lady, she had been taught to keep her emotions inside, locked behind a serene mask of perfection. However these feelings were too raw, the hurt too painful. If there was anyone she could confess them to without fear, it was this man. The man who had rescued her that night, who knew her secrets and did not judge or condemn her.
She was now nearly nose to nose with Lewis. At this close proximity, she could see the odd position of his left eye that no longer focused clearly. She could see where the scar on his face had not healed correctly, the edges slightly ragged and not clean as her friend Lady Julia, the Duchess of Radcliffe's, were. Julia's wounds, however, had been made by a fencing foil, not a sword on a battlefield.
Slowly, as if in a daze, Sophia reached up and touched Lewis' scar with her fingertips, and she was thankful when he did not immediately pull away. "Does it hurt?"
"Not any longer. Time has healed the worst of the injury. There is a twinge sometimes, but nothing that I cannot bear. Most days I do not notice the pain, if there is any, at all." She could see that his eyes were dilated, the black pupils pushing the indigo blue to the very edges so that they appeared almost black.
Sophia nodded, still entranced. "I believe that it will be the same for me. Even now, the wounds of that night do not hurt as deeply as they once did."
"They will never go away completely." Feeling bold himself, Lewis reached out to caress Sophia's cheek. He wished his gloves to perdition so that he might feel her soft skin beneath his roughened fingertips. He had never imagined that he would ever get this close to her as he was this night and a part of him wondered if he ever would again. "Those scars you carry are yours forever."
She shrugged, her fingers still caressing his cheek lightly. "I assumed they would be. However, I have decided that I cannot allow them to define me, either. Just as you do not."
"I am no example to anyone, Sophie, gentleman or lady." Lewis knew that he was flawed. He simply did not allow people to see that part of him. Except Sophia. Somehow, she could look at him and see all that he was. He could not hide from her as he could from others, and he had no idea why. He likely never would.
Pulling her hands slowly away from his face, Lewis knew a moment of loss before he realized that she was stripping away the offending fabric of her own gloves. When she reached for him again, this time it was with bare hands, skin to skin. He had never known any woman's touch to be so soft. Or so perfect.
"You are," she insisted as she stroked his face softly, causing sparks of fire to race over his skin. "You could have given up or become bitter and angry. Instead, you picked yourself up and moved on with your life. I started down that path, you know. I spent months in misery. Then I met you again, and in a few short days, I have come to the conclusion that I do not have to live that way. I do not have to allow that night to rule all that I am and all that I do. I can be someone different, someone better. I can carry my scars, but I do not have to allow them to define me. Just as you do."
"Sophie, I..."
However, Lewis never had a chance to finish his sentence for Sophia rose up on her toes and placed a delicate kiss on his lips.
That was all it took for the fire that he had kept banked inside of him to ignite into a raging inferno. Yet he reigned that passion back in, knowing that Sophia was still very skittish on this particular subject. However he felt that he had to press her, just a little. Yanking his own gloves off, Lewis gently cupped Sophia's face in his hands and drew her back to him as she ended her kiss.
"I have wanted to do this for so very long," he whispered. "But you must give me permission. I will not kiss you if you do not."
He remembered the night Valeria had come to him after another officer in his regiment had attacked her. She had thrown herself, sobbing, into Lewis' arms, revealing her story in halting bits and pieces. He hadn't been able to follow much of what she had said but the one thing that she kept repeating was that the officer felt he did not need to ask permission to touch her. That, as a woman, she was property. His property if he wished it.
Lewis knew that concept was prevalent in most places, but he did not subscribe to it. Nor did most of his family. Women were to be respected and cherished, not used for a man's pleasure as if they did not have thoughts and feelings of their own.
Now, standing here with Sophia, Lewis knew that he could not take a kiss from her if she was not willing to give it freely.
"I want you to touch me, to kiss me," Sophia confessed softly. "Yet at the same time, I am terrified. What I just did? That kiss? It took all of my confidence, yet deep in my heart, I know that I can trust you. You would never do to me what Alex did."
Shaking his head, Lewis pulled her closer, relishing the slight pressure of her body against his. "No, lovely Sophia, I would never do that. However, si
nce you have granted permission, I will kiss you now. If you wish."
"I think I would like that." Sophia knew that her voice was breathy and light. She felt her head spinning as she worked to keep the fear inside of her at bay, her heart warring with her brain and neither one winning the battle.
"I pray that you do."
Then Lewis drew Sophia close and lightly brushed his lips over hers. With another woman, he might unleash his passions and kiss her fiercely and deeply, just as he longed to do to Sophia. But not yet. He had to go slow, the memory of the broken, battered Valeria echoing through his mind. In their short time together, she had taught him much - including how to deal with a woman who had been forced into sexual relations with a man.
When Sophia sighed in obvious pleasure, Lewis pressed on. He did not take more liberties but instead continued to shower her with light, delicate kisses, brushes of lips over lips and the strong and steady stoke of his thumbs over the sensual curves of her face. With each caress, she relaxed into him, pressing her body closer to his so that he could feel her lush curves until she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. His fingers itched to reach for her hips and grind into her, showing her how much he desired her, but he forced himself to remain steady and almost still, the constant kisses and caresses enough for now. He craved more and he suspected that she did as well. However tonight was not the time to press for more. Tonight was a beginning. Nothing more and nothing less.
Those other things would come in time - if he chose to continue down this path with her. Even if doing so went against his better judgment. At the moment, he was thinking that seeing where this passion he shared with Sophia might lead was a rather excellent idea.
With each kiss from Lewis, Sophia felt herself relax and begin to enjoy the moment. He kissed just as sweetly as she had imagined, yet she could also feel his restraint in his lips and from the tension in his arms. He wanted more from her, yet he refused to allow himself to take what he desired or to even ask her to give it. She felt something inside of her break loose at that realization, and she sank even deeper into the perfection of the moment.
A Gentleman by Moonlight Page 14
