by Anna Bradley
He couldn’t put it into words, but he could show her how he felt, how much he wanted her. Slowly he reached for the hem of his shirt and tugged it over his head, his breath catching at the expressions flickering across her face.
Desire, hesitation, anticipation…
“Oh.” Her chest rose and fell rapidly as his naked skin was revealed. She cast him a shy look from under her eyelashes, then she reached for him and dragged her fingers across his bare stomach, letting her fingertips slide just beneath the waistband of his breeches.
Tristan sucked in a breath, his head falling back at the sweet caress. “Yes. Touch me, Sophia.”
She did as he asked, watching his face as she learned his body, pausing to linger on the secret skin behind his ear, the base of his neck—wherever her tentative strokes made his breath catch, or his eyes drift closed.
When he couldn’t take another moment of her sensual exploration without going mad, he took control, turning her gently in his arms so her back was pressed against his bare chest, and slid his arms around her waist. He brushed a kiss over the nape of her neck, then moved lower, following the path of her spine with his lips, testing each of her vertebrae with his tongue. Her skin was hot, but she shivered under his touch. By the time he pressed a final kiss to the base of her spine and drew away, she was quivering.
He traced his fingertips down the graceful line of her back, following the path his mouth had taken before pausing to brush his lips over her hair. “Your hair, Sophia. Take it down.”
Her hands were shaking as she pulled her hairpins out one by one. Tristan waited until every pin was gone before he gathered the thick locks of her hair into his hands then let it fall loose, watching the dark waves spill over her back. “I love it loose like this. Like a waterfall.”
Sophia let her head fall back onto his shoulder with a sigh, and Tristan buried his face in her wild curls, inhaling the sweet scent of honeysuckle. “I want to see your hair against your bare skin,” he murmured into her ear. He fingered the edge of her black tunic. “Take this off for me, pixie.”
She caught her breath at the nickname, but any hesitation she might have felt earlier, any misgivings she had seemed to have faded away, and she turned to face him. His breath grew harsh as she slowly drew the black tunic up her body, revealing a flash of the tempting skin of her belly, but he only caught a teasing glimpse of the lower curves of her bare breasts before she stopped, hiding herself from his avid gaze.
“Let it drop, Sophia. Let me see you.” Tristan hardly recognized his own voice it was so raw and hoarse.
She did as she was bid, but she wouldn’t have been Sophia if she hadn’t shown just a hint of teasing defiance. Slowly, so slowly Tristan was certain his knees would give way before she was finished, she raised the tunic, revealing inch after inch of smooth, olive-tinted skin.
A small smile curved her lips as she watched his gaze follow her progress, swallowing as each bare inch of her was revealed. Her trim waist, the delectable curves of her breasts, and higher still, her…
Tristan drew in a sharp breath.
The plump, dark pink buds of her nipples, swollen from the caress of his fingers and lips. Tristan’s tongue touched his bottom lip as a powerful tremor of desire shook him. God, he wanted to taste her there, without the barrier of her tunic between them.
He squeezed his eyes closed and prayed for control.
That was something that couldn’t happen. Not tonight, not after what Sophia had been through, and not when the promises he’d made to his mother about his future still hung over his head.
A future that didn’t include Sophia Monmouth. It wasn’t a future Tristan wanted.
He wasn’t a man who broke promises, but with each passing day Oxfordshire, his mother, and Lady Esther felt further away from him than they ever had before.
But with every breath he took, every stroke of his fingers over Sophia’s warm skin, she grew more real to him. Not a shadow, and not a ghost, but a living, breathing woman, one he desired more than any woman he’d ever known. But a gentleman of honor didn’t take a lady to his bed when he had nothing but his desire to offer her. He’d never make love to Sophia only to abandon her.
“Tristan?” Sophia’s uncertain voice pierced his daze. He opened his eyes to find her staring at him, her tunic once again shielding her nakedness. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I—forgive me.” He tore himself away from her with an effort, then reached behind her, plucked up a blanket from the bed, and wrapped it tenderly around her shoulders. “I want you so much, Sophia, but you’re injured, and I didn’t think you…I didn’t think we’d…”
She pressed her fingers to his mouth to hush him, a playful smile quirking her lips. “A gentleman, Lord Gray, turns a lady away from his bed before she takes her tunic off. But when I left home this evening, I didn’t intend to spend the night in your bed. Neither of us expected this to happen, and really, perhaps it’s just as well if it doesn’t.”
Tristan tipped her chin up so he could see her eyes and murmured, “It’s a few hours until morning. Stay with me here, Sophia.”
It wasn’t safe for her to venture out in the dark. Sophia’s attacker could be watching Tristan’s townhouse, waiting for her to emerge so he could finish what he’d started tonight. That alone was enough reason for Tristan to keep her with him, but it wasn’t the only reason he wanted her to stay.
He just wanted her.
She considered him for a long moment, her eyes unreadable, but then she smiled and reached out to brush a finger over his upper lip, tracing the tiny white scar near the corner of his mouth. “If I stay, will you tell me how you got this scar?”
He caught her hand in his and pressed a sweet kiss to her fingertip. “No.”
* * * *
Every lady is the heroine of her own story, Sophia.
Sophia gazed out into the darkness, one elbow resting on the windowsill. Such a lovely sentiment, and perhaps there was even some truth to it, but what Cecilia hadn’t said was every lady, heroine or not, wasn’t destined for a happy ending. Sophia’s own story, well…it might be a drama or an adventure, a comedy or a fairy tale, but it hadn’t ever been a romance.
That hadn’t changed tonight, for all that her lips were still swollen from Tristan’s kisses, and her skin still tender from his caresses.
She glanced over at his sleeping form. He’d dropped off soon after he’d gathered her against his chest and urged her head onto his shoulder. He’d felt warm and solid against her, and she thought she’d drift to sleep at once with the steady beat of his heart under her cheek, but that hadn’t happened. Her eyes remained open as one hour after the next passed, until at last she slid out from under the coverlet and padded over to the window.
She didn’t belong here.
He was the Earl of Gray. An aristocrat, a gentleman, and a Bow Street Runner, and she was an illegitimate street urchin born in Seven Dials to an unknown father and a prostitute mother. A girl who’d grown up to be, if not quite a criminal, not an innocent, either, and certainly not a heroine.
Perhaps even more telling, she’d never aspired to be either. A woman like her had no business being in Tristan’s bedchamber or in his bed, but she’d persuaded herself to forget that truth for a few stolen moments in his arms.
But the truth would out. It always did. That had been the lesson of some other heroine’s story, hadn’t it? She couldn’t recall the heroine’s name now, or if she’d had a happy ending.
Sophia dropped her chin onto her hand and waited for the first shy streaks of light to illuminate the sky. She’d promised Tristan she wouldn’t leave while it was still dark. A bit absurd, given she’d spent endless hours creeping about in the night. She knew how to manage the darkness. What she didn’t know how to manage was a stubborn, overbearing, irresistible earl whose touch left her breathless.
It was a
lucky thing, then, that she hadn’t promised him she’d stay past the first hint of sunrise. Really, she should have left hours ago. She’d spent the night away from No. 26 Maddox before, but Lady Clifford and Sophia’s friends would be wondering where she was.
She rose to her feet, set aside the blanket she’d wrapped herself in and hurried into her tunic, which she found in a crumpled heap on the floor. She paused by the bed before creeping from the room, unable to leave without taking one last look at Tristan.
He was asleep on his back, his eyes closed and his breathing deep and even. Sophia drew in a long, slow breath as she gazed down at him. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead. It made him look younger, even boyish. Her fingers itched to brush it back, but she was afraid to touch him. If he wakened, he’d try and coax her to stay, and all it would take was one kiss, one touch for her resistance to crumble.
So, she left Tristan sleeping and stole into the hallway. She crept down the stairs, but paused once she reached the entryway. Her attacker would be long gone by now—criminals tended to scatter like rats as soon as the sun rose—but after last night’s near miss, Sophia had vowed to herself she’d take to heart Lady Clifford’s warnings against unnecessary risk.
The front entrance to the townhouse was riskier than the servants’ entrance, so she ducked down a set of stairs leading to the kitchens, and made her way toward the door that let out into the mews.
Sophia opened the door, ready to dart out and hurry back to Maddox Street, but she stopped short on the threshold, her eyes widening. She’d assumed the mews would be deserted at this hour, but a smart, bottle green carriage with yellow wheels was there, standing in front of Lord Everly’s stables.
She paused just behind the kitchen door, foot tapping as she waited for the carriage to leave before she ventured outside. The servants would be stirring soon—any moment now she could be caught out by Tristan’s scullery maid—but she was reluctant to leave the safety of the kitchens while the carriage still lingered in the mews.
With her dastardly luck, Peter Sharpe was probably in it.
If the kitchen hadn’t been so quiet, she might have missed the low murmur of voices.
She lifted her head, eyes narrowing. The voices were coming from what was presumably Lord Everly’s carriage, with Lord Everly presumably inside it. How peculiar that his lordship should find it convenient to conduct his business from his carriage, at dawn, hidden from sight in the mews. Of course, he could be just returning from an evening of debauchery, and the voices nothing more than a squabble with his mistress, but it sounded as if…
Yes, it was.
Two male voices, one slightly raised. Lord Everly’s, if she wasn’t mistaken. She’d heard that nasal whine before, droning orders at his servants.
She hesitated, biting her lip.
Approaching the carriage might be considered by some to be an unnecessary risk, but given the strangeness of its appearance in this place, at this time, Sophia deemed it a calculated one. Fortunately, the respective locations of Tristan’s and Lord Everly’s stables meant the carriage was facing away from her, so she kept low, out of sight of anyone who happened to glance out the back window.
Step by step, slowly, closer, and closer still…
“…don’t like it, this shifty business with Ives.”
Sophia froze at Jeremy’s name, a chill rushing over her skin.
“I don’t know why you’re in such a fuss over Ives. He’d dead, and we’re better off for it. Good riddance to him, I say.”
It was Lord Everly’s voice, sounding bored. Sophia clenched her hands into fists. Bored, as if the question of Jeremy’s life or death wasn’t of the least consequence.
Because to him, it wasn’t.
“So ye say, but Ives was taken out afore a single soul at Newgate could see ’is corpse, my lord. Only way to make sure ’e’s dead is to see ’im swing at the end of a noose,” another voice growled, this one harder and colder. “And we’ve that other matter to take care of.”
What other matter would that be? Sophia inched closer. She was almost certain she hadn’t heard the second voice before, but she didn’t dare peek through the back window of the carriage to check.
“I told you, it will be dealt with soon enough.” Lord Everly again, this time with an irritated huff.
“When will that be, my lord? If this thing goes wrong, it’ll be my neck on the noose. If I swing, I’ll see to it yer right beside me, Everly.”
There was a brief silence. When Lord Everly spoke again the languid note in his voice had disappeared. “Tomorrow night, then. I’ll give Sharpe his orders. Make sure you’re at the church in good time, and in the meantime, don’t come back here again. I told you once before I can’t be seen talking to you.”
The other man’s only reply was a muttered curse. Next came the unmistakable click of a latch, then the carriage door was thrown open. Sophia paused long enough to see a booted foot and the tip of a cane emerge, then she scurried back to the safety of Tristan’s kitchen as quietly as possible, taking care to keep low. She ducked through the door and pressed herself against the wall, her heart pounding.
When no one came after her, she peeked around the edge of the door, hoping to get a look at Lord Everly’s partner—the man, she was certain—who’d executed Henry Gerrard.
Unfortunately, Lord Everly’s blasted carriage was still there, blocking her view of the mews. By the time it rolled into the stables, she only had time to catch a glimpse of a tall, wiry dark-haired man, dressed all in black, disappearing around the corner.
He were biggish, and thinner…tall, with black hair.
The fourth man.
Between Jeremy’s description of him and the snatches of conversation she’d just overheard, Sophia knew it must be him.
The fourth man had been talking with Lord Everly—scheming with him.
Lady Clifford had suspected all along there was someone else involved in this business, pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Someone with much more power than Peter Sharpe.
Someone like an earl.
Lord Everly, a member of the House of Lords, a devoted supporter of William Pitt’s government, and a respected peer of the realm, was involved in a murder.
Chapter Fifteen
Something had woken him, but this time, it wasn’t a nightmare.
Tristan cracked one eye open but remained still, half-afraid if he moved, the nightly terrors that had haunted him these past weeks—ghosts and white marble crypts, blood-stained corpses and an innocent boy clad in prison irons—would reappear, and drag him down once again into his nightmares.
But the terrors didn’t come. For the first time in weeks, all remained peaceful and quiet.
What had woken him, then? A sound, so soft he felt it more than heard it, a slight weight settling on the edge of the bed, the subtle shift of the coverlet sliding over his bare skin, and then…stillness, and silence.
His eyes snapped open, but he didn’t have to look to know what he’d find.
An empty bedchamber.
Sophia was gone.
Fool that he was, he’d expected to wake with her beside him, wrapped in his arms, her warm curves pressed against him, the scent of honeysuckle teasing his senses.
He gave a hopeful sniff, but not a trace of honeysuckle remained.
She’d taken that with her, too.
He struggled upright and reached for the coverlet she’d been wrapped in when she fell asleep beside him last night. It was cold, much as his bedchamber was. The servant hadn’t yet been in to build up the fire. A thin slice of moon was still visible in the sky, but the sun’s first rays were driving it back as they crept over the edge of the horizon.
She’d left when it was still dark, then. Given he’d been wrapped around her when she fell asleep, she must have been stealthy indeed to slip from his bed wi
thout waking him. But then he already knew she was stealthy. If she could climb to the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment, then she could certainly leave Tristan’s bed without his knowing it.
Perhaps it was just as well she’d left. He was…well, not quite betrothed yet, but only because he’d remained in London. If he’d gone to Oxfordshire as his mother demanded, Lady Emilia—that is, Lady Esther—would be well on her way to becoming the Countess of Gray.
If he’d been another kind of man, he might have tried to coax Sophia into a passionate affair regardless of a betrothal, but Tristan didn’t trifle with young ladies, or indulge in scandalous liaisons. He was no rake, and he wouldn’t become one now, no matter how much he desired Sophia Monmouth.
She’d done the right thing, leaving him alone in his bed this morning. It was better for them both this way. He lay back down and dragged the coverlet up his chest. The only reasonable thing to do was go back to sleep. The sun hadn’t even fully risen, and he’d gotten precious little rest the night before.
He squeezed his eyes closed and waited, but sleep had fled his bed, much as Sophia had. He rolled over onto his back, then shifted onto his side, then his other side, squirming and kicking at the coverlet until it was tangled so tightly around him his legs began to tingle from lack of blood flow.
Only his legs, though. His cock seemed lively enough. It was wide awake and throbbing maddeningly. He slid his hand under the coverlet and gave it a comforting squeeze, but it refused to be pacified.
It wanted Sophia. He wanted Sophia, a lady he had no right to want, and no claim on. It occurred to him with a jolt of panic he might never want anyone else, ever again. Certainly not Lady Emil—Lady Esther. Perhaps if Lady Esther did become the Countess of Gray, he’d be able to remember her name.
As for Sophia…
Tristan couldn’t understand how things had come to such a pass so quickly. He wasn’t the sort of man who lost his head over a woman. He’d had liaisons before, but they’d always been discreet, tidy affairs with discreet, tidy widows. He’d never lost control with any of them—it had been rather like scratching an itch. Satisfying in the moment, but forgettable.
