Simon’s hawklike gaze touched on Mr. Crawford before settling on her face. Suspicion narrowed his eyes.
“Mr. Crawford, do forgive us.” Sophie winced when her voice cracked. Unlike the curate, she was an awful liar, at least in front of Simon. “The earl and I were just leaving. He suffers from terrible headaches, you know. The heat in the Rooms often triggers one.”
She pulled Simon away, ignoring Mr. Crawford’s kindly expressions of regret for the earl’s uncertain health. If the situation hadn’t been so appalling, she would have laughed at the outraged look on Simon’s face.
“Wait here, my lord. I’ll retrieve my cloak and be with you in a moment.”
Sophie fled to the safety of the anteroom and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. After a few minutes, when her pulse had finally settled into something approaching a normal rhythm, she accepted her cloak from a serving girl and returned to Simon. His broad shoulders backed against a supporting column, his scowling gaze directed at his feet. He looked like Atlas in a greatcoat, holding the weight of the world on his powerful back.
She sighed, preparing herself for the lecture.
“I’m ready, my lord.”
He plucked the heavy velvet cloak from her hands and draped it over her shoulders, drawing it with an oddly protective gesture around her throat. She lifted her eyes to his dark face, startled by the tenderness she saw there.
“You’ve been out in the rain already today. I don’t want you to catch cold,” he said gruffly.
He steered her out the entrance and onto the paved street. Once free of the press at the door, he signaled for a chairman as he wrapped a brawny arm around her shoulders.
Suddenly, Sophie had no wish to hurry home. The night had turned fine—bright with a full moon, sparkling clear after the rain-washed day.
“Oh, Simon, do let’s walk back to St. James’s Square. It’s a beautiful night now, and it was so stuffy inside.”
He hesitated, weighing her request. She waited patiently.
“Will you be warm enough?”
“Oh, yes. My cloak is very warm, and I’ll put the hood up.” She raised the satin-lined hood around her face as she spoke.
“Very well. The walk isn’t long enough to harm you.” He tucked her hand back in his arm and led the way up Bennet Street.
Her spirits began to lift. She loved it when they were alone like this, as they had so often been when she was a child, and before Simon had become such an important man. It seemed as if they were embarking on a grand adventure, even though they were only walking home through the quiet streets of Bath.
They strolled toward the Circus, not talking, simply enjoying the night and the peace that surrounded them.
“All right, Puck. It’s time to cut line. What exactly is bothering you?”
Well, at least she had been enjoying the night. Simon obviously had other ideas.
“I’m sorry, Simon. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not a fool, Sophie. You were in tears back in the ballroom, and I know very well it wasn’t because Bathsheba was rude to you. Why are you so upset tonight, and what does the Reverend Crawford have to do with it?”
“Really, Simon, why can’t you just enjoy the walk home? Why must you always assume something is wrong?”
“Because I know you, Sophie. Something is wrong. Does this have anything to do with your bracelet, or the thief who stole it?”
Her stomach lurched at the thought of having to lie—again. If she didn’t find her bracelet soon, she’d have to confess everything. But not tonight. Tonight she’d take the coward’s way out.
“Goodness, the Circus looks wonderful in the moonlight, doesn’t it? Just like a fairyland.”
Even through the layers of his clothing she felt his muscles bunch into frustrated knots.
But though Simon’s mood grew worse by the second, she couldn’t resist the lure of the magical setting. She moved slowly away from him to stand in the center of the circling houses.
The pale stone of the Circus glowed under a bright harvest moon, highlighting the elegant arc of the vast open space between the graceful terraces. She loved it at night, and on sunny days too, when the three-tiered façade of the townhouses, with row upon row of gleaming windows, reminded her of a gigantic tea service.
“Sophie, don’t try to change the subject. You were up to something with Crawford today, and it had nothing to do with the parish orphanage. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” she cried, stung by the truth of his accusation. “I did go to the orphanage today, and I would never lie to you, at least not if I could help it.”
Too late, she realized what she had just blurted out.
He crossed the ground to her side in two strides. Grasping her shoulders, he spun her around. Shadows hid his face, but she could hear the quiet menace in his voice.
“So, you went looking for the boy today, didn’t you? What else don’t you want me to know about? Where did Mr. Crawford take you? Tell me right now—the truth, Sophie.”
Her heart began pounding again, but not from fear. Simon would never hurt her. But his words triggered a flood of images she had been trying to repress all night. A cold sweat gathered on her neck at the memory of what she had seen in the workhouse.
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “What did you do?”
“I went to the Refuge for the Destitute,” she whispered.
He jerked back, as if she had slapped him. “You went to the workhouse?” His deep voice echoed like distant thunder around the terraces.
“Simon, hush! You’ll wake everyone and bring the watch down on us.”
He let loose a rapid string of curses, most of which she had never heard before, and certainly not from him. He released her shoulders and grabbed an elbow, towing her around the arch of the Circus. She hurried to keep up.
“I swear to God, Sophie, you won’t be able to sit for a week by the time I’m through with you. And by the time I’m finished with that bastard Crawford he’ll never set foot in a church again. What the hell were you thinking to expose yourself in a place like that, with its filth and disease? And what if someone saw you?”
She wrenched her arm out of his grasp, furious that she had been stupid enough to tell him. How could she have forgotten the Earl of Trask belonged to the most scandal-averse family in England?
“You will leave Mr. Crawford alone, Simon. I gave him very little choice in the matter, I assure you.”
“That I can well believe,” he flung back. “Someone needs to have the schooling of you, my girl, before you do yourself a real harm.”
“You’re not my brother or my father,” she yelled, no longer caring if anyone heard them. “You have no right to lecture me or tell me what to do!”
“No, I’m not your father, thank God. But aside from Robert, I’m the closest thing you have to family in this town. Someone has to be responsible for you, and it might as well be me.”
She turned her back on him and stomped off toward Brock Street. The ring of his heels on the pavement followed closely behind. His hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to a halt.
“What would your mother think, Sophie? To know you had been to a place like that? Can you even begin to imagine her dismay?”
“She would have felt as I did, I’m sure of it. Devastated, furious that human beings could be so ill used.” She wiped angry tears from her eyes. “Do you have any idea what goes on in those places, Simon? You accused me the other day of naïveté. Well, perhaps it’s true, but I think the whole country must be blind to turn its back on such things. You wouldn’t treat your animals that way. Why do men allow such things to happen?”
She stopped as hot tears choked off the words.
He loomed over her, looking like a demon in the night, his greatcoat swirling about him like a cloud of ink. She should have been frightened, but right now what she most wanted to do was pummel some sense into him. But she’d tried tha
t before—on more than one occasion—and it never worked.
She sighed as the fury suddenly drained away, overcome with a weary longing to crawl into bed and be done with this day.
“I can’t fight with you anymore, Simon. It’s been a terrible day, and I just want to go home.”
He took her arm in silence and led her toward the Crescent. As they approached the open space at the top of the street, a gust of wind blew her hood back on her neck. Simon paused to draw the heavy material up around her face. His arm settled over her shoulders, pulling her against the side of his powerful body.
Sophie tensed, every nerve jumping at the intimacy of the gesture. But then she relaxed against him. Part of her wanted to push him away, but another part longed to burrow into his seductive warmth, the gentle embrace soothing the ache in her heart.
“Sweetheart, I do know what goes on in the workhouses. I’ve seen it.” His voice had dropped to a quiet rumble. “They are slices of hell on this earth. But there’s little that can be done, at least not without large-scale reforms. Most in government and the church believe the poor must be forced to seek employment. If the workhouses were not places to fear, to be avoided at all cost, most believe the parishes would be overwhelmed with paupers and their families.”
“Mr. Crawford says no decent man would choose to take his family there,” Sophie ventured.
Simon’s voice grew hard. “We will leave Mr. Crawford out of this discussion, if you please.”
They emerged from Brock Street onto the commanding heights of the Crescent. Lights burned in some of the houses, but all was still. Only the wind moaned quietly in the night, sending little dust devils playing about the hem of Sophie’s cloak.
They stopped and gazed down the Crescent Field toward the Lower Town, the river, and Avon Street—and abject despair.
“I want to find my bracelet, Simon. It’s important to me. But it’s more than that. It’s about that frightened little boy. I know I can help him. I may not be able to help those other children, but I can save him. I know it.”
She had to. She had to find her precious bracelet and rescue that helpless, lonely child.
The wind swirled hard, tossing her hair out from under her hood and sending it whipping across her face. Simon pushed the strands back with a gentle hand.
“I agree there is much to be done to help the unfortunate, especially those men and their families who were affected by the wars on the Continent. Some of us are working to do just that. But you must give up trying to find this boy. Follow your mother’s example instead. Confine your work to the appropriate charities. You can’t change the workhouses, and you must promise me that you’ll never go down to Avon Street again.”
Disappointment weighed her down—heavy and sullen. “You could do something, Simon. You’re a powerful man. Men like you and my cousin Silverton—you could make them change.”
He fell silent. In the darkness she couldn’t tell if her plea affected him at all.
“If only you could have seen the children,” she whispered, unable to stop the flow of images. “They were grinding bones into dust. Human bones, Simon.”
His arm tightened around her shoulder, but he remained silent.
“The dust…it was everywhere. On the walls, the floors, floating through the air. It coated the children’s faces. It got in my hair, Simon. When I got home I scrubbed and scrubbed, but I feel like it will never come out.”
She broke off, ashamed of her trembling voice. Simon growled something low in his throat, and his strong hands pulled her around in front of him. He tilted her chin up and searched her face.
“Don’t cry, Puck. I’ll see what I can do to find your boy.”
She stared into his shadowed eyes, wishing she could read what was in them. He rubbed a single tear from her cheek, then brushed his gloved thumb across her lower lip. Her heart stuttered into a mad rhythm as electric prickles raced across her skin.
“You’re so sweet, just like an angel,” he murmured. “I can’t bear to see you cry.” He slowly lowered his face, brushing his warm lips across her wet skin. Sophie could swear she felt a spark leap out from the place where he kissed her.
Unbelievably, her hands crept of their own volition up the front of his coat and curled themselves into his collar. Any moment now he would push her away. But instead his hands slid around her waist, pulling her firmly into the sandalwood scent of his body. Despite their multiple layers of clothing, the heat between them felt scorching.
Sophie’s mouth dropped open as his lips continued to feather over her cheeks. Her heart beat so erratically she thought she might drop to the ground in a dead faint. She took a deep breath, forcing her head to clear. She wasn’t about to miss a second of this.
“Is something wrong, Sophie?” Simon’s voice—an unfamiliar husky growl—made her legs tremble with a delicious weakness.
“No, Simon,” she breathed. “Not a thing.”
“I’m glad.”
His lips moved over her cheekbone and down her jawline, trailing fire all the way. She clutched at the collar of his coat, trying to pull him to her mouth.
“Simon.” Her voice whispered the plea.
The next moment he swooped, covering her lips in a kiss so devouring that she almost swooned from the sheer joy of it. There was nothing gentle about his mouth on hers. His tongue demanded—and she granted—entrance into her mouth. Its hot sweep filled her with a deep ache, an ache matched by a quiver low in her belly.
She hesitantly answered back, touching her tongue to his, then nipping his lower lip with her teeth.
He gasped and drew back. Even in the shadows she could see the look of shock on his face. Shame flooded every part of her being. How could she have been so bold as to bite him, actually bite him! Was she demented?
“Simon, I’m so sorry. I don’t know…” Humiliation strangled her voice. She began to pull out of his embrace.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he growled. His steely arms yanked her hard against the massive wall of his chest. His mouth claimed her lips again, tongue stroking, lips nibbling, driving her to respond as she did before.
Sophie stretched up on her tiptoes, her cloak falling back from her shoulders. She tentatively rubbed her chest against the rough wool of his coat, trying desperately to understand the sensations flooding her body. How could an ache, especially an ache in her breasts, feel so wonderful?
Simon growled again, and a tiny part of her mind startled to the knowledge that he sounded like a wild beast of the forest. But a second later that alarming thought was blasted from her mind as his hands slid from her waist to grab her bottom, cupping in a hard grip.
She squeaked into his mouth, but he didn’t let go. And she didn’t want him to. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers forever, his tongue stroking hot, wet caresses onto her tingling lips, and deep inside her mouth. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, and everything she had ever dreamed of.
She arched into him, desperate to bring every part of her body into alignment with his. Something wild began to grow inside her, as his hands cupped and kneaded her through the soft layers of her gown and chemise. The shocking thought flashed through her mind that she wished his long fingers were stroking her naked flesh.
Bang.
Behind them a door slammed open against a wall. They sprung apart, and Sophie almost tumbled to the ground at the sudden release from Simon’s arms. He yanked her back on her feet, keeping a firm grip on her elbows.
Two fashionable young men, obviously in their cups, staggered down the steps of the townhouse across the way.
“Oh blast it, Freddie. It’s too early to call it a night. I know the sweetest little hell this side of the Avon. The whores and the dice are both clean, so what’s say we give it a go?”
“Lead on, dear fellow, lead on.”
The young bucks swayed down the street, hollering and singing on their way to less appetizing parts of town.
“Damn it all to hell.” Simon swore unde
r his breath as he dragged her in the direction of St. James’s Square.
“What’s wrong, Simon?” Sophie had to skip to keep up with him.
“What’s wrong? Are you mad?” He scowled straight ahead. “I was kissing you in the middle of the Crescent.”
He hurried her along to the Marlborough Buildings, which stretched past the Circus and up the Commons like a long, elegant ribbon.
“I don’t mind that you were kissing me. Really I don’t.” If he didn’t stop rushing her, she was bound to get a stitch in her side.
“Well, I mind. You will surely drive me to Bedlam one of these days, Sophie. You really will.”
Sophie let out her own little growl. If she hadn’t been working so hard to keep up with him, she would have kicked him in the shins for ruining the most wonderful moment of her life.
“Really, Simon, it can’t have been that bad.”
“It would have been, if someone we know had seen us. Put your hood up, Sophie. Your reputation is fragile enough as it is without something like this happening to you.”
He towed her along to St. James’s Square, lecturing her all the way. As she hurried to keep up, she listened with half an ear as the chill wind from the heights leached into her bones. The warmth of their embrace had fled, and only questions remained. Why had he kissed her in the first place? Was it only because he felt sorry for her?
“Hurry up, Sophie. It’s late. After the day you’ve had, you should have been in bed hours ago.” His tone was clipped, almost angry.
Sophie reached the depressing conclusion that when it came to Simon, no matter what happened between them, some things would always remain the same.
Chapter Six
Mr. Puddleford’s monotone almost drowned out the boisterous chatter of the crowd in the stalls around them. Sophie directed a smile at the earnest widower, even as she strained to hear the latest gossip Lucy Whipple was imparting to Annabel.
“…and that, Miss Stanton, is why one must only divide lilies in the late fall, and never in the spring.”
Sex and the Single Earl Page 7
