Midnight Pleasures (15 page)

He stood there staring at the beautiful woman before him. Sophie’s father would have been amused to see his future son-in-law now. Every vestige of the modish buck about town was gone. Patrick’s eyes had gone black as midnight, and he was breathing quickly, the only thought in his head a fierce desire to pull Sophie down onto the hearth rug and make love to her then and there.

“Bloody hell,” he finally said through clenched teeth, running his hand through his tousled hair.

Then he met Sophie’s bewildered eyes. Involuntarily his eyes dropped to her swollen crimson mouth and he reached out again, pulling her soft body against the rock-hard mound in his breeches.

“We have to be married immediately, Sophie,” he muttered into her neck. “I think I’ll die if I don’t get you into my bed soon.”

Sophie smiled a bit, into the curve of his shoulder. Then she raised her head, winding one slender white arm around his neck.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t wait a few months before getting married,” she said saucily. With her free hand she touched his lips with her fingertips, giving a little gasp when her index finger was suddenly engulfed by moistly demanding lips.

“You’ve forgotten one thing, love,” Patrick said in a voice as smooth as French velvet. “We have to be married immediately.”

A smile trembled at the corners of Sophie’s mouth. “Because of this?” With a heady sense of daring she leaned forward, just slightly, so that her body suddenly came into full contact with Patrick’s breeches.

Patrick groaned. “No!”

But he took the invitation, and suddenly Sophie was the one unable to think clearly as Patrick’s large hands meandered around her bottom, fitting her body to his as if they were a pair of nestling spoons.

Yet she managed to gasp, “If not because … then why?”

Patrick pulled away from her. “Get thee to a safe distance, wench! Because of last night, of course.” He turned back to catch Sophie’s mystified look. “You might be carrying a babe, Sophie.”

“Carrying a babe!” She colored. Of course she knew that. She certainly had heard enough tirades from her mother about her father’s absence from the marital bed and her resulting lack of children. Not to mention the more pungent comments of maids who seemed endlessly to discuss various ways to prevent conception.

“Actually, we should be more careful in the future.” Patrick frowned. “You aren’t truly one of those women like Braddon’s sister who are obsessed with having children, are you?”

Sophie hesitated. She wasn’t obsessed, but … what did he mean? Of course she wanted children. And didn’t every man want a son? Even Braddon had said flat out that he needed an heir.

“Are you uninterested in children, sir?”

“For God’s sake, Sophie, call me Patrick. After last night—”

Sophie blushed again at the mocking look in his eyes.

“And no,” he continued, “I am not very interested in the idea of children. In fact, I’d just as soon not have any.”

Sophie stumbled into speech. “But … but, no heir?”

Patrick gave her a flippant smile. “I don’t have a title for a boy to inherit, so why should I worry about it? And my brother has two children, with more, I’m sure, on the way. So there will be plenty of family members to inherit my millions,” he said with a distinctly ironic cut in his voice.

Sophie was bewildered. “You don’t want to have
any
children?”

Patrick caught the tone in her voice and looked at her. Then he took her hand and drew her over to a low sofa.

“Are you very attached to the idea of becoming a mother? If so, I am even more sorry about what happened last night. I assumed that you shared Braddon’s rather matter-of-fact attitude toward children. In my experience, very few well-bred ladies are interested in offspring.”

Sophie swallowed. She didn’t know what to say. Should she reveal the belly-deep, longing ache that she felt when she saw Charlotte with her babies? Patrick seemed to have such a dislike for the idea, and she found that the idea of
not
marrying him was more than she could bear.

“I always thought I would have children,” she said, her voice faint.

Patrick clasped Sophie’s hand, trying to see into her eyes, but she fixed them resolutely on the rose pattern of her gown.

“Perhaps we could have one child,” he said after a silence. “I don’t want to act as a tyrant in our marriage, Sophie. If you want a child, then we’ll have one.”

One? As an only child, Sophie had always planned to have many children, so that they could be playmates to one another. Oh, she didn’t want ten children, as she had frivolously told Braddon’s sister, but she definitely wanted more than one. She had spent her childhood sitting about her nursery, with no other children to play with.

But then, look at all the childish plans she had put to the side in the last twenty-four hours. She had thought never to marry a rake, and she was marrying one of the most notorious rakes in London. So she would marry the rake, and have only one child.

Sophie raised her blue eyes and met Patrick’s black ones, and what she saw there warmed her resolve. It was better to marry Patrick and share him with other women than not to have him at all. And if they only had one child, so be it. She would cherish that child so much that he or she would never be lonely.

Patrick looked a bit anxious, so Sophie smiled at him reassuringly. “One child would be fine, Patrick.”

He felt a wash of relief. He didn’t know why his mother’s death in childbirth had affected him so much—it appeared not to have affected his brother, Alex, at all. But Patrick was terrified by the idea of watching a wife go through childbirth. Even after nearly losing Charlotte when she gave birth to Sarah last year, Alex was still happily counting on having a boy the next time. But Patrick didn’t ever want to put a woman at risk of death simply to produce babies. Children weren’t worth it—not by any measure that he could think of.

Patrick gathered up Sophie’s hands and trapped them just under his chin. “Would you like to take a trip in my clipper for our wedding trip, Sophie? I fear that Napoleon has precluded our making a civilized journey to the Continent.”

Suddenly Sophie remembered something and snatched back her hands.

“Aren’t you going to marry Daphne Boch?”

One of Patrick’s eyebrows flew up. “The French girl? Well, I compromised her, but I compromised you
more
, don’t you think?”

Sophie stared at him in shock.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Patrick half shouted. “Of course I didn’t compromise Daphne Boch! The girl was stung by a bee and had to be taken off to get a mudpack. If I were affianced to Daphne, I certainly wouldn’t have stayed in your room last night, Sophie.”

She quirked an uncertain smile. She was glad to hear that Patrick wasn’t supposed to marry Daphne. But she discounted his other reason almost entirely. Of course he would have stayed in her room. She had practically thrown herself at him, hadn’t she? The details of last night were beginning to filter through her mind. What on earth was she thinking, welcoming a gentleman into her bedchamber? She must have been deranged!

Although, to be fair, she was expecting Braddon to climb the ladder, and Braddon hadn’t even wanted to kiss her. Braddon wasn’t a likely candidate for the event that had happened last night.

Patrick stared at his wife-to-be in frustration. Sophie obviously saw him as unhesitatingly eager to compromise two young ladies in a single week.

“Sophie, you are the
only
young lady whom I have ever compromised in my life, either with a kiss or a longer encounter.”

Sophie smiled at him reassuringly, but Patrick was no fool. Her eyes revealed a complete lack of trust. Well, she could learn to trust him after they were married.

“How does Thursday fortnight sound to you as a wedding day?” he asked.

“So soon?”

Patrick was a little startled himself at the suggestion. There would be no harm in waiting a month or even six weeks. But he found a deep impatience inside him at the idea of nights spent without Sophie.

“There will be a scandal anyway,” he offered. “Why not be married and on our wedding trip before the
ton
grasps that you have broken your engagement to Braddon?”

Sophie thought this over. “I shall have to send a message to the Earl of Slaslow.”

Patrick grinned. “It’s generally considered de rigueur to inform your betrothed when you are planning to marry another man. But in this case you needn’t if you don’t want to. I told him myself last night.”

“Last night!” Sophie’s eyes flew to Patrick’s. “Did you tell him everything?”

Patrick’s eyes had a cutting edge. “No, I did not tell him everything. I simply explained that you had decided to marry me instead.”

Sophie was unpleasantly shaken by the sudden chill in the air. “I’m sorry,” she said humbly. “I didn’t mean to imply that you boasted. What did he say?”

Patrick met her strained look and his eyes grew even colder. Could it be that Sophie
was
sorry not to be marrying Braddon? Could Braddon be right in his ranting and raving about how Sophie adored him?

“He was naturally dismayed that you no longer chose to marry him,” Patrick said carefully.

“The devil of it is, Sophie, that we can’t do a thing about it now.” Suddenly he swung about and picked her up effortlessly from the sofa. “You’re mine, Sophie. I can’t give you back to Braddon. Things will never be the same as they were.”

Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. She was exhausted from lack of sleep and confused by the turn in the conversation. When Patrick swore softly and pulled her into his arms again she raised her mouth for consolation, trying to pretend that the whole conversation had never happened.

“Kiss me, Patrick, please,” she breathed against his lips.

With a small moan, Patrick complied. He managed to back her up against a chair and her body was responding to his rhythmical touch in a way that suggested mindless pleasure. For a moment Patrick took objective stock of the small whimpers coming from Sophie’s lips, the way in which her arms were holding him close with all her strength. Whatever unrequited love she might feel for Braddon didn’t really matter. Patrick had been on the receiving end of quite a few whispered vows of love, and in his view it was only a matter of time before Sophie felt the same thing for him, given the passion that flared between them now. Women seemed to feel it necessary to explain physical pleasure by babbling about love—and Sophie and he were likely to share that pleasure in abundance.

So when they drew apart, following the marquis’s discreet knock on the library door, Patrick looked keenly at Sophie’s flushed face, her trembling fingers, and her swollen lips. She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly kissed and had enjoyed every minute of it. He’d woo her, that’s all. In no time Sophie would be in love with him rather than with Braddon, resolving this uneasy feeling of guilt he felt about having taken her virginity.

Yet even after Sophie went upstairs to talk with her mother, and Patrick sat down with the marquis to draw up plans for the marriage settlement, he still felt curling pulses of guilt in his stomach. Finally he shrugged it off, naming a settlement figure that made the Marquis of Brandenburg’s eyes bulge.

“My God, man, are you some sort of a nabob?” he finally asked.

“Something like it,” Patrick answered laconically.

George had no particular desire for his only daughter to marry a man of money. Far more important was that Sophie find someone of birth, and someone she might love. But there’s no parent in the world who doesn’t feel a small thrill of satisfaction to find that his daughter has fallen into the way of marriage with an extremely wealthy man.

“I’ll have my lawyer draw these up,” George said as they shook hands. Then he glanced at Patrick’s eye and the bruise on his jaw. “I apologize again for striking you.”

Patrick said nothing but smiled with more than a hint of irony. “I deserved it,” he repeated. “Luckily one of my uncles is a bishop. I shall arrange for a special license this afternoon.”

“A special license?” The marquis was startled. He had thought the marriage might be held in haste, but this was paramount to an elopement.

“I have decided,” Patrick said, “that the best way to survive the scandal with a minimum of unpleasantness for Lady Sophie is to get married in the very near future and leave London on an extended wedding trip.”

“Oh, I see,” George said, not really seeing at all.

“It will be accepted among the
ton
as a love match,” Patrick said patiently.

“Oh, I see,” George said again.

Patrick hesitated for a moment. Should he tell his future father-in-law about the title that Parliament might grant him? Better not, until it was official.

He bowed his farewell. “Shall I return tomorrow, my lord?”

“Oh right, yes indeed,” George replied. “Join us for dinner, and we’ll have the contracts all sewn up. Then you can marry my girl whenever you please.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Patrick bowed again and departed.

George stared after him, somewhat stunned by the events of the morning. Damned if he wouldn’t have thought that it
was
a love match, if he didn’t know better. Something about the way Patrick’s eyes glowed when he said he wanted to marry Sophie immediately.

George pulled down his vest thoughtfully. He remembered very well the burning desire he had had to marry Eloise out of hand. The hours he had spent trying to persuade her to elope with him! But no, Eloise was always a stickler for convention, he thought. An unwilling smile lit his eyes as he remembered his younger self almost sobbing with lust over Eloise’s white bosom. Ah well, things change.

Chapter 11

S
ophie pushed open the door to the nursery and found Charlotte, the Countess of Sheffield and Downes, sitting on a stool next to the fireplace while a small, very round girl seriously pulled a comb through Charlotte’s curly black locks.

“Pippa! Ouch! Sweetheart”—Charlotte twisted about slightly so that she could look into her daughter’s eyes—“you must be
very
gentle if you wish to become a lady’s maid someday.”

Sophie laughed. “Charlotte, aren’t you afraid that Pippa is looking above herself?”

Charlotte looked up and beamed. “Look who’s come to visit us, Pippa!”

The intent hairdresser dropped her comb and threw herself violently against Sophie’s knees.

“Lady Sophie! Lady Sophie!”

Sophie leaned down, laughing, and swept Charlotte’s stepdaughter, Pippa, into the air. “My goodness, Pippa. If you grow any larger, I won’t be able to pick you up like this!”

Pippa clung tightly to Sophie’s side. “Did you know that I’m going to be three soon, Lady Sophie?”

“Is that true?” Sophie dropped a kiss on Pippa’s nose. “And here I thought your birthday wasn’t for a long time … until the summer had come and gone.”

“Summer’s happening soon,” Pippa replied in a serious voice. “Why, Christmas is almost here, and then it’ll be summer again before you know it!”

Sophie laughed again. “When did you become so wise, Pippa?”

Pippa’s little chest swelled with pride. “Sometimes I’d rather have been born a bird, ‘specially a swallow, but Mama says she likes the way I was born, like this.” She pulled disparagingly at her rosy lawn dress.

Sophie gave Pippa a tight squeeze and put her down. Her eyes met Charlotte’s, brimming with laughter.

“So, Charlotte, you’d rather have a daughter who wears a gown than one who wears feathers, hmm?”

Pippa plumped herself down on the floor next to her mama’s knee.

“Mamas are like that, Lady Sophie,” she announced. “They like their babies to wear dresses and stay clean. Someday you’ll have your own baby, and then you’ll know!”

“What if I have a little boy?”

“Little boy?” Pippa’s brow wrinkled. There wasn’t much thought about little boys in the nursery. “Mama and Sarah are girls,” she said reprovingly. “And so is Katie.” Sarah was the baby, and Katie was the girls’ nanny.

“I know that, Pippa.” Sophie’s eyes were dancing. “But what if I have a baby and it’s a little boy? He may not wish to wear dresses forever.”

“You won’t.” Pippa was absolutely positive. “You’ll have a little girl, just like us. Do you think you’ll have one soon, Lady Sophie?”

Charlotte giggled.

“No!” Sophie said hastily. “No, I’m not planning to have any babies, girls or boys, in the near future.”

“Why not? Katie said that the party Mama gave was for your ‘gagement ‘cause you’re going to move into your own house, and then you’ll have lots of room for a baby. Who are you marrying? Is he nice?”

Sophie sat down in a chair, her eyes twinkling at the little girl leaning on her mama’s knee.

“I was planning to marry a very nice man named Braddon.”

From the corner of her eye Sophie saw Charlotte’s head swing up, her eyes narrowed.

“Well, won’t nice man Braddon want to have a little girl right away?”

Charlotte laughed, breaking in. “Pippa will persist all night once she’s got hold of an idea, Sophie.” And then: “Did you say
was
planning?”

“The truth is, Pippa,” Sophie said, carefully not looking at Charlotte, “I’ve changed my mind about marrying Braddon, so he’ll have to find a baby somewhere else.”

Charlotte grinned exuberantly, and Pippa stopped her line of questioning and clambered over, on her knees, to pat Sophie’s hand.

“You know, Lady Sophie, since you’re not going to have your own little girl soon, perhaps Mama would let you take Sarah home. Since she’s got two girls, she could give you one.”

“Pippa, I told you to stop offering to give Sarah away!” Charlotte wrinkled her nose at Sophie, her eyes twinkling. “I’m afraid you aren’t the first recipient of Pippa’s generosity. So far she’s offered Sarah to Katie’s sister, to most of the servants, and, several times, to my mother.”

Sophie tried hard not to laugh at the unrepentant child before her. “If I do have a little girl someday, I’ll borrow you occasionally. You could visit us and teach her how to keep her dresses clean.”

Pippa scrambled to her feet, revealing the creased and messy front of her dress. “I can do that, Lady Sophie! When you
do
decide to get married, I’m going to wear my best dress and be very good.”

The nursery door opened and Katie’s plump face appeared. “Here’s the little lamb now, my lady,” she crooned, cradling a sleepy bundle. “Just woke up.”

Charlotte stood up and lovingly took Sarah. “Time to feed you, sugarplum. And”—she swung around and leveled a mock glare at her best friend—”I would like to speak to you, Sophie York. So why don’t we take tea in my sitting room?”

“Me, me, I want to go too,” Pippa shouted enthusiastically.

“But, sweetheart, I think Katie needs her hair attended to,” Charlotte said to Pippa, who scooted over and picked up her comb, torn between the idea of tea downstairs with Lady Sophie and practicing the beloved art of hair design.

“Now do look at that gown, Lady Pippa!” said the girls’ nanny.

Pippa looked down inquiringly and carefully straightened out a few of the creases. “Well, I was careful, at first, Katie. Then I forgot.”

“Oh my goodness,” Katie exclaimed. “There’s me with my hair all a mess, and I didn’t even know it! Thank goodness Lady Pippa is here to help.” She sat down and plucked off her cap, and Pippa began carefully pulling pins from the smooth coil of Katie’s hair.

Sophie stooped and rubbed noses with the little sprite. “May I borrow you for an afternoon soon? We’ll have ices, and you can tell me how a lady goes along. It will be good practice for when Sarah needs your help.”

“All right, Lady Sophie,” Pippa said happily. “Papa says ices are my vice. Do you know what that means?”

“It means that you like ices very, very much.”

“What’s your vice, Aunt Sophie?” Pippa’s black eyes looked at Sophie inquiringly, her beautifully arched eyebrows the picture of her father’s—and her uncle’s.

The wish for a little girl who looks just like you, Sophie thought, unbidden. And everything that might lead to that wish.

“She shares your vices, Pippa.” Charlotte’s voice came from the door. “Sophie wishes for ices, and that’s enough of vices!”

“Vice … ice … mice!” little Pippa shouted, waving her silver comb.

With a final wave Sophie slipped from the room, following Charlotte’s slim figure down the stairs to the countess’s sitting room on the first floor.

The minute Charlotte was inside the door she dropped into a rocking chair by the fireplace and arranged her loose morning gown so that she could nurse Sarah. Sophie wandered restlessly around the sitting room, a room entirely without the manicured formality of the majority of ladies’ sitting rooms. Of course, this wasn’t where Charlotte did her real work—she had a painting studio on the third floor—but the rose sitting room was the center of their family life. It was a warm room that tolerated a certain tumbling of books on the shelves and an occasional litter of papers by the fireside. It also tolerated the unprecedented affront of a mistress, a countess, who nursed her own child
and
without retiring to the darkest recesses of her bedchamber to do it.

Finally Charlotte looked up, bright eyes expectant.

“Well?”

Sophie had been watching wistfully as Sarah snuggled against her mother’s breast, one small fist clutching a stray piece of bodice lace.

“Well …” Sophie repeated teasingly. “I jilted Brad-don.”

“Oh, Sophie, that is
so
wonderful!” Charlotte crowed. “Braddon wasn’t intelligent enough for you. He would never have understood you, and in his own way he is quite strict in his notions, you know. You would have scandalized and terrified him at once. He is a very nice man, of course, but
not
the right one for you.”

“And who is the right one?” Sophie’s eyes were full of mischief.

Charlotte was prudently silent. If Sophie didn’t want to marry her brother-in-law, that was all there was to it. Never mind that they were perfectly suited to each other, at least to Charlotte’s mind.

“Oh dear,” Sophie said with mock lamentation. “I’m afraid you won’t approve of my new betrothed.”

“Your
new
betrothed!”

“You couldn’t possibly think that the most talked-about woman in all of London—at least since you’ve become so domestic and stopped making scandals—would settle for being
unengaged
for a whole twenty-four hours!” Sophie giggled as she danced tiny pirouettes around the sitting room. “Naturally I discarded Braddon only when I had a new applicant in hand.”

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Don’t,
don’t
be so cynical, Sophie! It isn’t like you at all, and I hate it when you put on the airs of a matron twice your age.”

Sophie stopped pirouetting and smiled, acknowledging Charlotte’s rebuke. “I don’t mean to be flippant,” she said, then stopped. It was so embarrassing to admit that she had agreed to marry Patrick after all her protests to the contrary.

So she flew over to Charlotte’s armchair and bent over Sarah. “Oh, look at Sarah’s little ear!”

There was a moment of silence as they both looked at Sarah’s fuzzy round head and Sophie traced a delicate caress with one finger.

But Charlotte looked up, frowning in mock admonishment. “Don’t try to change the subject, Sophie York! You tell me whom you have promised to marry.” Then she looked dismayed. “You didn’t accept Reginald Petersham, did you?”

Sophie laughed. “No. He’s an agreeable man, but the oddest creature! Any other suggestions?”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. She was not,
not
, going to bring up Patrick’s name again, given that Sophie had so firmly dismissed him as a possible candidate only a few nights before.

“What do you think of the Duke of Siskind?” Sophie asked impudently.

Charlotte looked aghast. “Oh, Sophie, you didn’t! Why, he’s ancient, and he has eight children!”

Sophie stroked Sarah’s head again. “But I love children, Charlotte,” she crooned, hiding her eyes so that Charlotte couldn’t see her merriment.

“No, no,” Charlotte moaned. “He must be sixty-five if he’s a day!”

“I didn’t accept him,” Sophie admitted. “I’d like to have my own children.” Child, she silently corrected herself. “Actually, I decided to take Patrick,” she said carelessly. “He seemed quite insistent.”

For a moment Charlotte didn’t understand her. Then she half shrieked with delight. Startled, Sarah began to wail, so Charlotte had to stop talking and jiggle her babe until she settled back at the breast.

Finally, Charlotte was able to look at Sophie. She threw her arm around Sophie’s shoulders, drawing her close.

“Now you’re my sister,” she said, her face alive with joy.

As an only child, Sophie had longed and longed for a sister … and now she had one. “Sister,” Sophie agreed softly.

Questions were bubbling up inside Charlotte like a wishing well hit by an early spring storm. “But how? And when? Where will you go on your wedding trip? Oh, and did you tell him about your languages? And what
does
your mother say about it?”

“Mother,” Sophie said wryly, “had approximately three fits of hysterics over my ingratitude yesterday, but today the affront has shifted to my future husband’s stubborn nature, given that Patrick thought to hold the ceremony one fortnight from today. Mama refused to contemplate a ceremony earlier than three months. In the end, it appears we will be married in six weeks. We are being married by his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester.” Sophie looked confused for a second. “Actually, I suppose you know that your uncle-in-law is a bishop.”

As Charlotte smiled, Sophie held her breath. Was Charlotte going to delve into the reason for their scandalously brief engagement? Was there ever such a thing?

She rushed back into speech. “Mama is frantically planning a grand wedding. My father did his best to dissuade her, but she is convinced that flamboyant display is the only way to save me from certain social ruin. All the maids are making horse blankets from pink taffeta. Mama wants the invitations delivered in proper style.”

Charlotte was drawing her own conclusions about Patrick’s demand for a hasty marriage. “My goodness, Sophie.” A smile lurked at the corners of her mouth. “When Henrietta Hindermaster broke her engagement to Baron Siskind, even
she
allowed three months to go by before she married her parents’ butler!”

Sophie felt an uncomfortable pink rise in her cheeks. She had adapted an exterior sheen of sophistication for so long that it was surprising to find how very much she minded making a scandal. Lord, her scanty dresses had been scandalous ever since she attended her first ball.

Charlotte smiled sympathetically. “Poor Sophie. I shouldn’t tease you. The only wonder is that Patrick didn’t climb up the balcony to your room and sweep you off to Gretna Green!”