The Scoundrel Takes a Bride

by Stefanie Sloane

  He crossed his arms over his expansive chest. “Do stop wasting my time, Sophia. Tell me what you’ve come for.”

  She peered down at the planked floor, wincing at his impatience. “Very well,” she began, looking up and fixing him with a somber stare. “Now that Dash is married, someone will need to help you in the search for my mother’s killer. And that someone, I believe, must be me.”

  Nicholas uncrossed his arms and propped his elbows on his knees, a menacing glint in his deep brown eyes. “No.”

  “I’ve valuable experience,” she explained earnestly.

  “Let me see if I understand: a bit of clerking at the Bow Street Office somehow qualifies you to hunt down a monster—who’s ordered the killings of numerous people, one of whom, you just found out, was your mother,” Nicholas lashed out, raking both hands through his hair until the rumpled black locks stood up on end. “Did you know that Smeade attacked Lady Carrington? Nearly choked the life from her because he’d been paid to do so. His superior will stop at nothing to preserve his anonymity. And you suggest I take you on—a woman, for Christ’s sake—of all people?”

  Sophia jumped up, kicking back and sending the chair skittering across the scarred floor. “You’ve no right …” she spat out before forcing herself to breathe deeply. “I understand the danger, Nicholas,” she started again, her tone controlled. “It’s precisely why I did not ask for Langdon’s help. He never would have agreed to—”

  “But you think I will? Am I that careless, then?” Nicholas interrupted bitterly.

  Sophia reached out to him, flinching involuntarily when Nicholas moved away to avoid her touch. “No, you misunderstand me,” she begged, her restraint slipping. “Carelessness is not the issue here. I am asking you to do what you know is right.”

  “You cannot ask this of me,” Nicholas shouted, standing up from the bed and roughly grabbing hold of her arms.

  Sophia instinctively jerked back, the sensation of Nicholas so close troubling to her rattled mind and body. A raw, pleasing heat ignited where his fingers and palms touched her. Warmth traveled in rivers through her, her skin suddenly tingling with sensitivity and need. She fought the urge to lean forward, to experience more of the new, unsettling feeling that quickened her breath and sent her heart pounding. He loomed over her, too close, too male, and impossible to ignore. She willed herself to be still, refusing to retreat.

  He loosened his grip on her bare skin and closed his eyes. “Please.”

  “We’re alike, you and I,” Sophia said with quiet conviction, though her heart raced with an aberrant thrill. “Somehow Dash managed to escape. And Langdon can see a future—in the distance, true, but it’s there. As for the two of us? We can’t let go of the past. And we’ll never be able to until my mother’s killer is captured.”

  Nicholas rubbed his thumbs over the sensitive bare skin of Sophia’s inner arm. Her eyes fluttered closed, the scent of his spiced soap surrounding her. The slow, sensual drag of his thumb was intoxicating. She ached to feel his skin on hers in more intimate places. She angled her head slightly so that the slim column of her neck was exposed to him.

  “Don’t do this, Sophia.”

  Sophia forced her eyes open to find Nicholas staring at her, the potent mixture of anger and strong conviction that shadowed his face effectively weakening her will.

  But not breaking it.

  “I have to, Nicholas. You know that I do.”

  Nicholas let go of her arms and pointed to the door. “Go,” he ordered, his voice raw.

  The sudden release from his hold was disorienting. Her body mourned the loss of his touch, as if he had held her spellbound, enchanted, for those too brief moments. She trembled and her mind searched for an explanation that would provide a reason for her overwhelming response to him. Sophia found none that she could accept.

  She stumbled backward, desperate to put distance between them. “You will return to London?” she asked, bracing herself for rejection. “I’ll have your word.”

  Nicholas lifted his hands and began to methodically rub his temples as if in pain, barely nodding in agreement.

  “Your word, Nicholas,” Sophia pressed, regretting the childish demand the moment it flew from her lips.

  “Go!” he roared, pointing savagely at the door.

  Sophia started at the guttural cry and ran for the door, not pausing even once to look back.

  3

  “You look as if you’ve seen a wraith.”

  Sophia glanced nervously out the window of her carriage at the Primrose, then turned to her companion, Lettie Kirk. “Not a ghost, no. Perhaps a demon? Or a warlock of some sort.”

  The wheels of the carriage began to roll, stuttering briefly in the spring mud before settling into a slow, steady pace.

  Lettie lowered her chin and looked pointedly at Sophia. “You speak of Mr. Bourne, I presume?”

  Sophia held her still trembling hand aloft. “None other.”

  Lettie pursed her lips, her fifty-plus years on earth evident in the fine, feathery lines deepened by her disapproval. “He always did possess the tongue of a viper. What did he say to upset you this time?”

  Sophia peered outside to the rutted road behind them. She was just able to make out the Primrose’s tidy yard before a copse of yew trees obstructed her view. She appreciated Lettie’s concern. More than that, she relied on it. For fourteen years the two had been inseparable, the nanny becoming her maid when Sophia grew too old for the nursery. Lettie was eventually assigned as a trusted companion when neither could bear to part. Lord Afton understood little of his own daughter, the heartbreak and mental anguish caused by his wife’s death keeping him isolated on his estate in Wales. Lettie knew everything about Sophia. Better yet, she loved her all the more for it.

  “It wasn’t his verbal barbs as much as him,” Sophia replied, lowering her hand though her troubled gaze remained fixed on her trembling fingers. “I’m not quite sure how to describe … His … Something has changed—no, he has changed. Nicholas is not the man I knew.”

  “Yes?”

  Sophia looked up at the sound of Lettie’s voice as if she’d been distracted. “I apologize. I don’t know what, precisely, I expected his response to be. Oh, the yelling and carrying on was standard fare from him. And he used his usual weapons—sarcasm, self-loathing, volume.”

  “Well, that definitely sounds like the man I know,” Lettie replied, softly taking Sophia’s hand in hers.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Sophia agreed. “Maybe I have it all wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t Nicholas. Perhaps it was me?”

  She’d never succeeded in giving up on Nicholas, and he’d offered her ample opportunity to do so. Throughout the years Sophia had held fast to the idea that she was acting in her mother’s place, protecting the boy Lady Afton had often referred to as her young warrior with a heart of glass.

  This latest round of feverish quarreling made Sophia angry. And aroused. Never before had her body betrayed her in such a demanding manner.

  “No, my lady. I’m certain Mr. Bourne is to blame. You’ve always had a soft spot in your heart for that man,” Lettie countered knowingly. “Either way, one thing is clear: you would do best to stay away from Nicholas Bourne. Let him continue the search for your mother’s killer alone, as the viscountess requested.”

  “I cannot do that, Lettie,” Sophia said, her heart pinching as the older woman’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I have prepared for this moment my entire life. Nicholas’s involvement cannot keep me from moving forward. You must understand.”

  Her companion’s face fell as she struggled to accept Sophia’s decision. “I see. And you are sure Lord Stonecliffe must not be told?”

  Sophia had entrusted her companion with all that she knew, save for the Young Corinthians. It had been a burden, but one worth carrying; revealing their existence would have put Lettie’s life in danger.

  “As I explained during our ride to the Primrose, it is absolutely essential that Langdon remain unawa
re,” Sophia replied, her fingers grasping hold of Lettie’s. “There is Nicholas, though.”

  Lettie released Sophia’s hand and eased her tall frame against the cushions. “Cold comfort, my dear.”

  Nicholas waited impatiently in the common room of the Primrose. Mrs. Brimm was enthusiastically reprimanding a kitchen girl for burning the muffins.

  He’d hurriedly packed his things and was prepared to leave. He simply could not remain another moment in the room. It reeked of Sophia’s delicate floral soap. He’d found her shawl, a pale pink strip of fabric hardly useful against the cold, lying in a silken pool atop the rickety wood desk. And no matter where he fixed his gaze, she was there; leaning over his bed as she roused him, pity straining her beautiful face. Standing directly before him, her body shaking with the need to be anywhere else but in that room. And disappearing out the door, fear and disappointment fueling her escape.

  Nicholas gritted his teeth in an effort to stave off the humiliation. He had no need for her pity or disappointment, or his own self-loathing that would accompany it; he’d managed a lethal level of abhorrence for his very existence quite well over the years and saw no need to add to it.

  Mrs. Brimm sent the young maid off with a vigorous shaking of her finger, and then turned to Nicholas. “Impossible to find good help these days, Mr. Bourne. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  He nodded in agreement, in no mood to converse.

  Mrs. Brimm levered her sizable girth forward and looked over the oaken bar that separated them within the Primrose’s common room. “Checking out, are we? Not like you to let a lover’s spat get in the way of your fun.”

  Nicholas flinched as she dramatically winked not only one beady eye, but the entire left half of her pockmarked face. It was grotesque. And infuriating.

  The woman assumed Sophia was his lover, come from London to demand his return.

  And why wouldn’t she, you lackwit? No more than an hour had passed since Sophia had gone. Yet here he was, bags packed, ready to settle up and be on his way.

  The phrase “add insult to injury” appeared in Nicholas’s mind. Somewhere, most likely hell, the Roman writer Phaedrus is having a good laugh at my expense.

  Sophia had no information to go on; every last notation and detail concerning the case were neatly stowed away in the bag at his feet. His delayed return would give her time to reconsider her ridiculous request.

  Moreover, it would afford Nicholas the opportunity to reclaim a portion of his manhood. Sophia was not his. She never would be. It was high time he accepted the fact and acted accordingly.

  “Do you know, Mrs. Brimm, I’ve changed my mind. Put me down for one more night,” Nicholas instructed the innkeeper. “And I would like a new room. The old one is far too full of quarrelsome spirits.”

  Mrs. Brimm cackled with delight. “You’re a wicked man, Mr. Bourne.”

  “So they tell me.”

  4

  May 28

  THE ALBANY

  PICCADILLY

  LONDON

  Nicholas spent not one, but two additional nights at the Primrose Inn. He’d locked himself in his room and revisited the sheaf of papers concerning Lady Afton’s murder, searching for something—anything—he may have missed.

  And still, as his mare Guinevere jogged toward his London lodgings, a solution to the problem that Sophia presented was nowhere in sight. He slowed the mare to a stop in front of the Albany. Located just off Piccadilly, the elegant building was considered by the fashionable ton to be choice rooms for a bachelor uninterested in maintaining a larger house. Nicholas didn’t care whether society approved the residence. He stayed at the Albany because it had been used by Langdon and therefore was ridiculously easy to secure.

  “Thomas,” he called out in greeting to the groom who’d appeared as if from thin air, ready to take Guinevere.

  Thomas waited for Nicholas to jump down then took the reins from him. “Mr. Bourne, welcome home.”

  “I trust all is as it should be in the great city of London?” Nicholas asked, patting Guinevere on the neck.

  “You could say that.”

  Thomas had always been a man of few words. But mysterious? Never.

  “Should I be concerned?”

  Thomas clucked to the mare and kindly urged her on. “Depends upon your outlook, I suppose.”

  Nicholas decided to ignore the groom’s cryptic words. He’d slept very little the past two nights, his ass ached from the saddle, and really, he wasn’t a terribly patient person to begin with.

  “She’s earned extra oats, Thomas,” he said, slapping Guinevere’s rump before mounting the steps of the Albany and stepping across its threshold.

  He strode down the hall of the main floor, reaching his door and opening it. At once, he knew that something about the interior of the fashionable apartment was different from when he had last been there, though he didn’t immediately perceive what it was.

  Just to be safe, he pulled a slim stiletto knife from his boot, then stepped into the room and kicked the door closed. The thud was rather satisfying in his disgruntled mood. Tossing his beaver hat on a walnut side table, he crossed the entryway, entered the salon, and collapsed onto the soft gold sofa. If there was an intruder, he would have to come to Nicholas rather than the other way around.

  The fading light slanting through the mullioned windows caught only the faintest trace of rising dust motes.

  “Oh God,” he muttered, closing his eyes with annoyance. Clearly, his housekeeper, Mrs. Fitzroy, had seen fit to take advantage of his absence from London, and tidy up his quarters. An impressive multitude of dust motes should have been leaping and dancing through the air at that very moment. And the sofa cushions, he noted with a frown, were rather plumper than they ought to be.

  And then he smelled it. The rich, thick odor of champa incense that evoked instant memories of India. He knew of only one person who would have invaded his rooms and filled the air with the intoxicating sandalwood scent.

  “Pavan Singh!” Nicholas yelled. “I warned you what would happen should you follow me to London, didn’t I?”

  “Breathe deeply.” The melodic, accented words were spoken in an all-too-familiar calm, soothing tone.

  Nicholas pushed up from the comfortable sofa, eyes narrowed as he searched the room.

  Singh waited near the door to the hallway, his small frame swathed in the traditional loose white dhoti loincloth and a bright orange cotton overdress known as a kurta in his native India. “How could I forget, sahib Bourne? You threatened to disembowel me and leave me to the ravens.”

  “And yet, despite my threats,” Nicholas commented as he crossed the carpeted floor, his curt tone hiding the surge of pleasure he felt at his old friend’s presence, “you are here, in England, in my quarters at the Albany. And burning incense, no less,” he added, looking at the small brass burner on the sideboard.

  The older man raised both hands palms-up. “I had no choice, sahib Bourne. You saved my life and those of the villagers. I am bound by duty to serve you. And I do so happily.” Beneath the snowy white of the turban covering his black hair, his brown face held an expression of innocence. His black eyes, however, twinkled with amused affection.

  Privately, Nicholas reluctantly agreed that Singh spoke the truth—at least the bit about how he’d saved the man’s life. Work in India was easy enough to find—unscrupulous, ill-principled work, that is. Mercenaries were in high demand and Nicholas possessed all of the required traits: strength, intelligence, and the ability to not give a damn for his own safety.

  Unfortunately, he also owned a conscience. And even more troubling, a moral code. Thankfully there had been men like Singh’s village elder who found themselves in the unenviable position of doing battle not only with English interest in the form of the bloody East India Company, but also defending their people against bandits who saw the ruthless British taking what wasn’t theirs and decided to follow suit.

  The Maharajah of Amanphour had hired Nic
holas to protect his people and their land; a land whose hills held a fortune in buried jewels. The task had proven to be the most challenging undertaking of all his Indian adventures. Still, Nicholas and his men subdued even the most powerful of the Maharajah’s foes. In doing so, they saved countless lives and protected the ruler’s precious jewels—including Singh.

  Pavan Singh was a holy man, of sorts. Nicholas hadn’t the patience for his own religion, never mind those of the rest of the world, so he could not be sure where Singh sat in the order of Hindu importance. But none of that had mattered. Singh’s peaceful countenance and friendly nature had drawn Nicholas. When not fighting, he could be found in Singh’s humble home, enjoying the benefits of the aromatic incense and listening to the man prattle on about destiny and other lofty ideas.

  As luck would have it, that was exactly where he was when bandits surprised the village with a late night attack. Had Nicholas not been in the hut, Singh would have fallen to one particularly nasty soldier and his wicked tulwar knife.

  So, in theory, yes, Nicholas had saved the man’s life. Because it was his job. The jewels the Maharajah had given him as payment for service well done were quite enough, as far as he was concerned.

  He’d earned a bloody fortune in India.

  He hadn’t any need for a holy man.

  Clearly, Singh did not agree.

  “England is a cold land, Singh—foggy, rainy, and miserable in winter months. You will never be able to bear it,” Nicholas protested, reaching for a pitcher of water on the sideboard and dousing the incense.

  Singh sighed, his gaze following Nicholas’s movements with resignation.

  He pressed his palms together as though he was readying to thank one of his gods. “I will wrap myself in the warmth of your friendship, sahib,” he said solemnly.

  “The food will not be to your liking—not at all.”

  Singh bowed his head. “Vishnu provides nourishment for my soul, and will surely do so for my body.”