Romancing the Rogue (16 page)

When The World Proves Far Too Small A Place

“St. Agnes, here
it is,” Wilhelm announced to no one. Even Sophia slept, her head cradled in his lap, which did little to cool his interest. If the fates were kind, she would have her way with him tonight, although if it went over so easily he’d eat his boots, because nothing
ever
came easily. Not for him.

He had been watching her closely, scrutinizing her manner, trying to discern if the hint of innocence about her was genuine or the expert renditions of an actress who knew how to tempt. Now that he’d decided he wanted to go to bed with her, he could think of nothing else.

Of course that only brought maddening speculation about the men she had taken to her bed before him. How many? What were her tastes, and how could he hope to please her when she was accustomed to sophistication and experience?

Weighing on his mind was Roderick, his late older brother, a losing bettor in the game of roulette promiscuous people played. He’d paid for his indulgence with raging cases of syphilis and consumption. A gruesome combination, to slowly rot from both the outside and internally. The harrowing memory had kept Wilhelm chaste all these years; pleasure women all had the same vapidity in their eyes, a haunted look that unnerved him. But not his Sophia. She burned white hot, like a smelting fire.

Foremost, Wilhelm wondered if Sophia had been violated by Lowdry or Vorlay or both. He didn’t think he could bear to hear the tale if she had. And since she’d been ill-used by men, could she even manage bed sport with him, or would she panic? Flail and scratch, making him feel a rapist, no matter how gently he attempted? To fail at being her lover…

“And I do not love you.”
Her casual words echoed in his head, tormenting him. So if his attempt to bed her went poorly, he had what to fall back on? Her friendly regard? Hope that her need for protection would keep her at his side? That rang false, even to his subconscious. She had that legal document tucked away somewhere, the signed bill of annulment — his constant reminder that she expected him to muddle it up, that nothing bound her to him.

Not that he had an aversion to steep odds, but this was uncharted territory for him.

The dog gave a sharp bark, trotting along outside the carriage. Wilhelm saw Fritz pause and sniff the air, following a trail to the side of the road. He twitched and whined, waiting for permission to scout. Wilhelm whistled, ordering the dog to move along and follow the carriage.

So he had gypsies in his woods again, according to Fritz.

Sophia squirmed and groaned, likely discovering how impossible it is to sleep with damaged ribs. Another reason he should keep his hands off her. Boorish of him to expect her to be amorous when she still recovered from a violent attack.
You idiot, Wilhelm.
Calling her wife should satisfy him. And it would, even if it killed him.

She woke stiffly and he helped her sit up. She watched out the window, and he waited for her reaction to the hedge-lined drive, ancient rosebushes in bright orange and fuchsia. Thousands of petals reflected the golden sunset, making them seem to glow with flames. She didn’t sigh in appreciation as he expected. Her face peaked, her brows furrowed, and when the cottage revealed its ivy-covered rustic splendor, the color drained from her face. He thought she mouthed, “
Oh, no.”

“What is it, Sophia? Are you ill?”

Her eyes darted to the others, still sleeping. She leaned to his ear and whispered, “I have a confession to make, Wil. You will be so angry…”

Angry? He was too busy preening — she’d called him
Wil
again, and it would keep him afloat for hours. “I doubt it.”

“I have been here, years ago. With my mother.” She seemed to expect a reaction from him. “Because she came with
Roderick
.” She added dutifully, “God rest his soul.”

He had no placating response on hand. “Are you certain?” She shook her head slowly, not in denial but resignation. “That would have been…” He couldn’t think of anything inoffensive to say. Even allowing his brother’s twelve years’ seniority over him, still an eyebrow-raising number of years in age separated Helena Duncombe and Roderick Montegue.

Sophia looked out the window as the carriage rolled to a stop before the front entrance. “Saints, this is embarrassing.”

“What, that my brother rogered your mama in this very house? Not at all.”

Sophia made an indignant squawking sound and pinched his side, which he liked. “Then you aren’t upset?”

He couldn’t resist teasing her. “Not if you will be rogering
me
in this house.”

Aunt Louisa made a deliberate cough, alerting them to their audience. “What a charming cottage, Wilhelm,” she scolded. “Ages since I have seen a thatched roof and Bavarian doorways.”

Sophia closed her eyes, a forbearing yet mortified expression; Aunt Louisa had overheard their bawdy exchange.

Wilhelm carried his sleeping nieces one by one upstairs to their room, lost in his memories. The others thought he’d fallen into a trance and left him alone to think. He remembered being sixteen years old, lounging impatiently in a country villa, wishing he could go out riding. The dusky Madrid breeze had brought the sound of
that
song drifting through his window from the courtyard below; the singer would have been Helena Duncombe. It had drawn him like a siren call, the way it had months ago when Sophia had sung it in the woods.

Wilhelm combed his memories for anything of a young Sophia. As suddenly as the first memory came, another settled in his mind, finally connected: another visit a year later in the same countryside near Madrid. He saw a young girl on horseback approaching the villa, her long dark hair flying in the wind as she rode a spirited roan mare at a wild gallop. He watched her cut across the field, jumping over the fences. She seemed too young to be riding so dangerously, and he followed her, anxious, until she made the stables in safety.

He called for her attention and scolded her for being so careless. “I should tell your mother,” he threatened.

He remembered when she turned around; he startled to see that the girl was not so young as he’d first thought from a distance, tall and already blooming into womanhood. Thirteen, perhaps fourteen, and he a few years older.

She’d shot him a patronizing glance with a haughty raised eyebrow and stalked toward him with her finger pointed at his chest like a weapon. “You will do no such thing,” she’d ordered.

“That horse is sixteen hands
—
a fall would break your pretty little neck.”

“I fall off horses all the time. Even a Clydesdale. No harm done.”

He’d snorted in disbelief, enjoying her bristling, but then she’d sidled even closer, making him swallow hard.

“And in the dark you might have misjudged a step and lamed the horse.”

“A sure-footed, gentle beast if I ever met one.”

“Lilith? She is young and temperamental, only half-broken. Too spirited for children.”

The young Sophia had scoffed and looked skyward. “Perhaps she just doesn’t like
you.
”

“She is
my
horse!”

“And I don’t like you either.” Her tone had dripped with condescension, but then she’d glanced at his mouth. “You are meddling, ungracious, and a gangly
boy
.” She’d sounded as though being male was the worst of his offenses.

“And you need a sound spanking.”

There! She’d done it again — dropped her gaze to his mouth. She’d stood so closely her chest grazed his with every inhalation. Wilhelm had held his breath as she leaned closer, closer, and for an awful moment, he’d thought she would kiss him. His instincts screamed,
“Danger!”

Autumn-hazel eyes, old-soul eyes, with the burning strength and passion he would recognize years later. Fearing he would be snared into a trance, he’d shifted his gaze to the faint trail of freckles spattered across her nose; it reminded him of her age and his advantage, which he shouldn’t exploit. He’d shifted his weight, waiting for her to do something.

Finally she’d whispered, grazing his jaw with her lips, “I have been in the library reading, should anyone ask. Or else I might recall I saw
you
riding his lordship’s stallion.”

She’d seemed to know that trumped any argument. Sophia may have been riding Wilhelm’s horse, but he’d stolen Roderick’s, and it had thrown a shoe and split a hoof. His brother would tan his hide if she tattled.

With a feminine
humph,
she’d stormed out of the stables, and he could only stare in bewilderment for being effectively blackmailed by a little girl. Her fledgling wiles? All an act, a manipulation which he’d fallen headlong into. He remembered pitying her for losing her childhood innocence so early, and more so fearing for the male race once that female was unleashed upon it.

That was all he could recall, and he had his abnormal brain to thank for the clarity. Almost two decades and two lifetimes ago; no wonder he’d almost forgotten it. But her arched-brow look of disdain? He usually had it for breakfast.

Wilhelm shook himself into awareness and found her tucked in a chair by the fire, browsing an enormous leather-bound book probably copied in the Tudor dynasty. “Do you remember Madrid?” he asked quietly, standing behind her chair.

Long moments later she gasped. “The boy on the stallion! That was
you
?”

“Small world.”

~~~~

Sophia enjoyed a
rare moment of agreement with Aunt Louisa the next morning, but for differing reasons.

“I will not take part in such improper behavior as sea bathing, and be it upon your head, Wilhelm Montegue, should our dearly departed Isabelle Cavendish haunt you from the grave for the corruption of her daughters.” Aunt Louisa pronounced it like a curse, and Sophia wondered if she had some gypsy blood, it was so well done.

“But you will come for a bathe in the sea, my love?” He stroked her elbow and winked, playing the besotted husband. No one would ever guess he’d merely lain companionably next to her in bed the past week and a half, them both still virgins. Her injuries wouldn’t last much longer as an excuse.

She smiled back. “If you want me to dip a toe in the water, Wilhelm dear, you will have to take me farther south. As in, The Nile. English beaches are far too cold for me.”

“Nonsense. The water is refreshing. Do come, Sophia.”

“The last time I tried it at this far latitude, it numbed my brain.”

She anticipated his comment on the perpetual numbness of her brain and silenced him again with a squeeze. Aunt Louisa didn’t approve of their banter. “
Raised by wolves, the both of you,”
she’d complained more than once.

Wilhelm went off to the beach with Elise, Mary, and Madeline, while Sophia endured Aunt Louisa’s recitation of
The Duties of the Countess of Devon,
part four in a series of probably ten thousand, as though Sophia lacked the wherewithal to manage a title because of her ill-behaved parents. This time Aunt Louisa preached on the impressive holdings owned by the Earl of Devon scattered around the “empire,” all of which Sophia was obliged to visit in person within the year.

Sophia pretended to listen, nodding at proper intervals while her thoughts drifted to Wilhelm, and bed, and about possibly mixing the two. Books. That was what Wilhelm did in bed. Granted, he stoked her interest while he read, perhaps unaware of the effect he had on her. Two nights ago he’d lain on his back, spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, making him a scholarly sight in the lamplight. Turning pages at an unlikely rapid rate, he seemed engrossed in Mark Twain while one hand rubbed over her side. Up and down, following the curve from her hip to shoulder.

At first she’d found it pleasant, but the repetition had made her mindful of his warmth, of how his large hand fit over her side. He made her feel feminine and shapely. Leaning into his hand had provoked no escalation, neither had encouraging him with a few hums of interest. Eventually she’d dropped asleep frustrated, and Mark Twain had prevailed.

One thing she’d become certain of — he really was a virgin. The slightest eroticism made him breathless, and his enthusiasm was contagious. But too soon he would roll away, citing her condition as grounds for abstaining.

Even worse was his tendency to fixate on some mundane detail. Flattering, but did her navel warrant such fascination? The night before, she’d thought she had finally snared him. She’d left the medieval-style laces loose on the front of her nightgown, a flimsy French excuse for sleepwear. Wilhelm had noticed, surely enough.

He’d teased her skin through the gaps in the fabric and pulled the ribbon free. Just when she’d thought he would behave like a typical man, he’d done the opposite. No fit of passion, no Neanderthal tearing off her clothes. He’d gently traced up and down her abdomen with his fingertips, circled her navel, and lowered his lips to her skin. Long minutes he’d played, tormenting her, deaf to her encouragement. She’d finally understood it was a trance. He’d studied the angles of light and shadow on her skin, muttered about its iridescence while she’d slowly gone out of her mind.

She meant to have it out with him. Lord Devon might be half lunatic, but that was a matter of the brain, and what she had in store for him didn’t require its use. Whatever qualms he had about his marital duties, he would have to confess them. Or else.

Speak of the virtuous. Through the window she spied Wilhelm, soaking wet, plodding up the drive with Elise on his arm, Mary on his other, and Madeline waddling stiffly with her legs apart and arms held out to avoid the wet fabric of her dress. He bellowed a hearty laugh, answered by tinkling laughter from the girls.

Sophia wished she would quit imagining him as fatherly; it lead to fantastical, unwelcome ideas she was hard-pressed to purge. Especially the recurring vision of him carrying a dark-haired little boy on his shoulders, a stocky cherub with an Italian complexion but storm-grey eyes. That dream had begun haunting her shortly after the wedding.

The elderly, stern housekeeper met them at the door and herded the girls upstairs, bemoaning their dripping hair and the puddles on the floor. Wilhelm went around the back of the house to come in through the mud room. Sophia thought she would go to the water pump behind the house and rinse the sea water out of his jacket and lay it out to dry. At least that’s what she told herself to justify following him. She found him already there, rinsing his head under the faucet. He held his wet shirt wrung out in one hand.

Ah, but she did appreciate the sight of him: the wildness conveyed in his scars and tradesman-like musculature, the controlled strength. His striking features and masculine proportion, like one of the DaVinci sketches. Such a contrast to the bespectacled man who chose literature over bed play. And oh, how she wanted him. The hair on the back of her neck tingled in harmony with the distressing tightness in her stomach.

At the same time, Wilhelm paused and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. His eyes warily scanned the yard and the edge of the woods, then he stood still, listening with closed eyes. A corner of his mouth lifted in a sly smile as he turned in her direction. “Hello, Anne-Sophia.”

She surrendered, emerging from her hiding place behind the corner of the house with a timid smile for being caught spying.

“You look as though you have something to say.”

“Insightful of you, Wilhelm. I have several somethings to say to you. But I think it will go over better if you are warm and fed.”

He shook his head, flinging water like a wet dog. “Changed your mind about mankind, or just me?”

“Pardon?”

He rested his hands on his hips, and she noticed the weight of the wet fabric made his trousers hang low. Quite low, inches below his navel where his hipbones slanted in a V-shape and the trail of hair spread into a fan. She could not quit staring.

“For reasons I understand, you despise men. And I virtually forced you into marriage. I thought you wanted me not to
bother
you. However, I suspect you now lean to the contrary?”

“Tell me why
you
are reluctant, then I will answer any question you pose to me.”

He honed his gaze on her, the soul-reading one. “Truly? And without offense?”

“You expect to offend me?”

“Yes, regrettably I do.”

“Well, now I am so curious I hardly mind. Ask away, Wilhelm. Do your worst.”

He ran a hand through his hair and ground his jaw, then said quietly, “I have a fear of venereal disease. Are you healthy?”

She managed to swallow her gasp, but her eyebrows still shot up. He thought she was diseased? Like a Parisian whore? “You assumed correctly, Wilhelm. I am offended. And no, I have no pox or clap, nor anything else one might catch in a dark alley. Anything else?”

He grimaced and shifted his weight. “How many, before me?”

She wanted to shake her head in resignation. Always thought the worst of on account of her mother. She had expected better from him. “Hundreds, maybe thousands,” she drawled, letting him see sarcasm instead of injured feelings.

His eyes sparked and narrowed. “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I am jealous, I confess. But that is about my ego, when I really should ask if you believe you’re well enough to attempt it. I would hate to frighten you, my love.” A cordial way of saying, “
I couldn’t bear it if you panicked and ruined it.”

She hated the pity in his expression. It made something inside her blow, giving way to emboldening anger. She closed the few steps between them and caught his mouth in a hard, deep kiss. She bit down on his bottom lip, gratified by his throaty growl.

“I am your wife. I desire you, Wilhelm.” She grasped the front of his trousers and yanked the buttons open. “Do something about it.”