by Anne Stuart
She tilted her head back, looking up at the bright circle of the moon, just as a cloud scudded over it, momentarily plunging the night into darkness, and her hands stilled, just as she was about to reach for the buttons at her throat, the so-convenient buttons that enabled her to dress and undress herself. She should go back inside. She should pack her valise, write a note for Prunella and Dickens, and then try to get what sleep she could until morning.
But the cloud moved, the silver moonlight bathed her, and the reflection in the pool called to her. Come to me. I am yours. Catch me, moonling.
She began to unbutton her dress. It dropped to the grass, followed by her loosely tied corset, her petticoats, her stockings and garters. At the last moment she pulled off her shift and pantalets, so she was shockingly naked in the moonlight, and she didn’t care. Let them look.
She laughed to herself. Brave of her, considering everyone was either asleep or gone. It was a very strange sensation, to let the night wind caress her bare flesh. She looked down into the pool. She couldn’t swim, but it wasn’t very deep. She sat down on the side and slipped into the cool, lovely water.
It felt glorious. No wonder he swam whenever he could—the feel of the water surrounding her body was a sensation so astonishing that she could stay there forever. She moved, feeling the water flow about her as sheer joy filled her heart. This water could seduce her just as surely as Alexander could, and she needed to get out, to dry herself and get dressed before it was too late.
She slid out, reluctantly, and rose, squeezing the water out of the ends of her hair. Her flannel petticoat did as good a job as a towel in drying her, and she pulled on her shift, then looked at the massive pile of clothes, including her discarded corset and her shoes. The thought of putting all that on again was too much. Without a backwards glance she left it, heading toward Bryony’s roses, her bare feet dancing across the damp grass.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALEXANDER GRIFFITHS WAS IN a strange mood. He’d left the small, discreet house in the nearby town of Whiston without partaking of any of the young ladies’ charms. He’d been more than ready to avail himself of a particularly fetching young thing, small, rounded, with blue eyes and a mass of blond hair. But the blond hair was too brassy, the blue eyes too flat, the curves too curvy, and her pretty little mouth had smiled at him instead of offering him saucy rejections. Then again, he’d been paying her for her smiles.
In the end he walked away. Damn it, he was paying Madame Sophie for her smiles, and what had it gotten him? A damned case of blue balls and an obsession that was destroying his ability to concentrate on anything else.
Which in its own way was a good thing. It gave him less time to think about Rufus and the possibility that he had survived. Faced with the possibility of Rufus’s reappearance, reality had settled in. He expected the worst—he’d learned that early on. He’d grown up with few memories of his mother and learned from Adelia’s tender mercies much about the goodness of women and the possibility of happy endings. If he’d had any doubts, his fragile, beautiful young wife had taken care of those. His marriage had been a cold, empty thing, with Jessamine flirting with every male except her own husband. She’d married him for the title, and it was taking him too long to inherit it, and a woman like Jessamine didn’t want to live immured in the country with no one to appreciate her. She’d hated him, and he’d begun to hate her.
The furor surrounding her death had finished him off. “Death under suspicious circumstances,” the coroner had ruled, and everyone had eyed him accusingly. But no one had dared say the words—he’d simply been shunned, whispered about, even as Rufus had staunchly supported him.
Then came the title, the house, and the money. The title was no surprise—his great-uncle, the magnificently wasteful second Viscount Griffiths, had never married, and Alexander’s father had been his only brother. His father had been in excellent health and could have lived for decades longer, but instead he’d died when Rufus was seven, drowned trying to save his younger son. Rufus had been a strong swimmer, even at that early age, but he’d developed a cramp, and their father had been the one to die.
For years Alexander had been saddled with Adelia and her incessant demands for money. In any other circumstances he would have given her anything she wanted, as long as she disappeared from his life; he’d promised his father he’d look after her, and for his half brother’s sake he put up with the woman. He had the cynical suspicion she’d wanted everything, including the title for her son, and he’d learned to be very careful.
If Rufus was truly dead—and Alexander still had his doubts there’d been any deus ex machina to save him—then he could finally dispense with the witch. Perhaps now she’d be amenable to a generous settlement. He’d once even considered offering her Renwick, but he’d changed his mind about that. Oddly enough, the moment he stepped inside, it had felt like home, and despite Adelia’s elaborate redecorating, he’d claimed it in his heart. Normally he wouldn’t have cared about his surroundings, as long as they were neat and clean, and he let Adelia do what she wanted in a few of the public rooms, but she was allowed nowhere near his private areas.
The change he’d made, and the most important one, was the transplanting of the rose garden and the pool. Even his father’s death by drowning couldn’t halt his love for being in the water, and his ancient Scottish nanny had told him tales of the selkies and sea people. He used to wish he had webbed toes.
The only way to make Renwick perfect would be to get rid of Adelia, and presuming Rufus didn’t return from the grave, he’d figure out a way to do it short of cold-blooded murder.
Madame . . . though it must be Mademoiselle . . . Sophie was a different matter.
He should get rid of her, too. Much as her games distracted him and built his appetite, his obsession with her was becoming too strong. He didn’t like being a slave to his senses, and he hadn’t asked for a challenge. He’d ordered a comfortable woman to ease him and stay quietly in a nearby cottage, ready to service him and to make life simpler. Instead he got someone moving into his house and his kitchen but doing everything she could to avoid his bed.
A wise man would send the girl packing. He didn’t need those kinds of complications in his life, particularly when it came to women. Every relationship he’d had with women had been fraught with hysterics and treachery and violence. He’d wanted a woman for one reason alone, and the offering Mrs. Lefton had sent him was giving him everything but.
Somehow over the last few days he’d lost control of the situation, seduced by her cooking and the addictive taste of her mouth and, yes, even her sass. The first step in regaining his life would be to get rid of her. He could even stomach the unappetizing results from the kitchen if he didn’t have this constant . . . need for her. It was a bad word—he didn’t want to need anything. Need made you weak, made you vulnerable, and then the tigers would pounce.
In the end he was glad he’d left the overscented whorehouse. The night air was warm, and the moon so bright he could see clearly enough to ride at a comfortable pace, and the moon was still high in the sky when he returned to his darkened estate.
No one was up, not even a footman. It didn’t surprise him—he’d told them not to leave someone waiting around for no reason, and when he went out on his visits it usually took him a couple of days to slake his hunger. Thinking of Sophie, he found himself grinning. It would take more than that to have enough of her.
He needed to send her away, and that’s exactly what he would do. Damn the food, damn his stripling lust. He wasn’t in the mood for adventures right now.
A sleepy stable hand appeared just as he was about to take care of his own horse, and Alexander gladly handed over the reins. He was tired; he needed his own bed.
The house was still as he entered, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Not that he wasn’t fond of Dickens, who’d been with him since just before his father died, but there were times when he really got tired of being hovered over, particularly by
a man half a head shorter than he was. He strode through the halls at a leisurely pace, dispensing of his coat and his jacket, unknotting his cravat and tossing that as well. One of the efficient maids would make his mess disappear long before anyone else awoke, though Dickens would give him a wounded look.
A glass of brandy and a good cigar would end the night to perfection. The door to his office was open, and he sat down behind his desk, pulling off his boots with a grunt. Sitting back, he stared at his moonlit office, at the sofa where he’d had Sophie beneath him for too short a time. In fact, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He needed to get rid of her, before this entire thing got out of hand.
Getting up, he went over and poured himself a generous snifter of brandy, not giving a damn that he was ruining the bouquet of it by overfilling the glass. He needed alcohol if he was going to sleep tonight, enough alcohol that he wouldn’t dream about Sophie. He tossed the contents back with a disrespectful shudder, then refilled the glass, repeating the action. The third was a reasonable amount, one he could savor, his offering to Bacchus as appreciation for the nectar of the gods.
He glanced out the French windows that overlooked the terrace leading down to the pool, and froze. There had been a flash, almost a suggestion of something white out there, something pale and ghostly, and immediately his mind went to Rufus. As difficult as it was to believe he was dead, the thought that he’d return to haunt Renwick was even more ridiculous. But then, if anyone would turn into a mischievous, vengeful ghost it would be his half brother, Rufus.
For a moment he stopped to consider why he would think Rufus would want revenge. As far as Alexander knew, his half brother adored him—he’d have no reason to wish him ill.
He moved closer to the window, looking out. He wouldn’t be seen—there was no light behind him and the brightness of the moon was blinding. He could see that almost formless white shape flit through his gardens like a hummingbird. A white, pure hummingbird, with long, golden hair halfway down her back.
She’d turned that lovely back on him. She was wearing only a shift and it clung to her body like a glove. She’d tilted her head upward, spreading her arms as if calling to the moon, her lover, to come to her. He was frozen, mesmerized, watching her. It was as if he’d happened across a fawn in the woods, a shy woodland creature. Or more likely a unicorn. She looked so silvery white in the moonlight, more like a goddess than the girl he knew she was.
She turned, not even glancing toward the house. She was practically naked—he supposed the dark heap at her feet was the rest of her clothes. She was standing at the head of the pool, watching as it shimmered in front of her, and he held his breath as he realized she was wet. The water made her shift cling to her body, outlining every curve, every valley and shadow. She’d been in his pool, and his entire body grew painfully hard at the thought. She’d been in the water, and he hadn’t been with her.
He slipped out the door silently, into the shadows before she could realize anything had changed. She jerked her head back toward the house, her eyes searching, her body tense, and then she relaxed, seeing nothing.
She was thinner than he’d realized, though still rounded in the prettiest places. He couldn’t quite reconcile the tart-tongued whore with the innocent schoolgirl act, and now the moon goddess had joined her roles. Who else could she play?
She was humming beneath her breath, so softly he couldn’t make it out. She was moving, swaying, and the song got just a little bit louder, until he could make out one of Johann Strauss’s new waltzes. She hummed, took a few steps and then turned, dipped, and moved on. She was dancing, he realized, dancing alone in his gardens, her body damp from his pool, and he wondered if she knew he was watching her. She’d know soon enough.
He kept to the shadows along the complicated system of terraces, out of her sight as her pretty voice moved on to another waltz, something slow and almost sexual. He wanted to stay in the shadows, watching her, he wanted to take her and . . . he just wanted to take her. He recognized the waltz now, and some odd, quixotic part of him made him suddenly move forward, into the moonlight, taking her in his arms and swinging her into the waltz and for a brief, unreal moment she danced with him, perfectly, like a London socialite.
And then she froze, her humming strangled in her voice as she stumbled against him, and they came to an abrupt halt. He kept hold of her, lightly, but he wasn’t about to let her go, particularly as she tried to push away from him. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said, sounding almost panicky.
The panic had to be feigned—it was ridiculous. “Why not?” he said in a low voice.
“You were supposed to be gone for at least two days.” She was calming down now, the tight edge gone from her voice.
“Where was I supposed to be?” he questioned lightly. He could smell the water on her skin, and he wanted to lick her shoulder, her neck, he wanted to pull down the wet shift and suckle her. Through the thin, damp cotton he could see nipples, dark against the sheer fabric, puckered against the cold. Waiting for his mouth.
“They told me you were off with your whores,” she said.
She sounded almost jealous, which was absurd, given that the women he would have been with were her sisters in the world’s oldest profession. “I decided I’d rather have you,” he said, holding her quite mercilessly, looking down into her dark blue eyes that shouldn’t have held so much intelligence. He put his other hand at the back of her neck, sliding it beneath her damp curtain of hair, and tilted her face up so that he could kiss her.
“Don’t you dare,” she said in a furious whisper.
He was so startled at her vehemence he almost loosened his hold on her. Almost. “Why not? You’re bought and paid for.”
If she wasn’t clamped against his body she probably would have slapped him. Her outrage was so complete that it was hard to believe it was feigned. She was so very good at this. “Bought and paid for?” she echoed furiously; her struggles, which had momentarily died down, began in earnest again. “You conceited jackass! Who do you think you are? I was told you kept your hands off the people in your employ. Clearly you think nothing of exerting that unfair advantage over me, but I have no intention of letting you get away with it. Let go of me.”
“Did Mrs. Lefton send you or did she not?” he demanded, growing weary of all this.
“Of course she did,” Sophie said instantly. “Why else would I be here?”
“Why indeed?” he murmured to the heavens. “And did she explain fully what your duties would require?”
She hesitated for a moment, and he knew exactly what was going through her head. She was deciding which of her complicated schemes she would play out. “Of course,” she said finally.
“In detail?”
“I’ve already told you, yes. In detail,” she snapped, but she was looking uneasy.
“So I’m tired of waiting. Take off your fucking clothes.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SOPHIE STOPPED PUSHING AGAINST him. The more she fought, the tighter his grip, and he was a very strong man. He was also out of his mind. What kind of employment agency would send a woman out to . . . to . . . she wasn’t even going to think his crude word, but the idea was absurd.
He was angry now—she could feel it radiating through his taut body. She was angry too, but it was getting her nowhere. Maybe he’d listen to reason. Maybe it was the time for honesty, much as she despised sinking to that level.
“My lord,” she said in a quiet, firm voice. “I see I’m going to have to explain the situation. I’m not really a cook.”
He raised one of his black, satanic eyebrows but he didn’t frighten her. At least, not much. “Oh, really?” he drawled with great sarcasm. “You astonish me.”
Sophie took a deep breath. “I’m actually a . . . lady. Well, at least I was, until circumstances changed.” She couldn’t tell him her real name—he knew better than anyone the scandal involving the Russells, the scandal that had brought him this house and possibly
his fortune.
“Ah, yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I expected something like that. It was either going to be that or the shy schoolgirl, which has never appealed to me. Innocence, even feigned innocence, is annoying.”
“Unfortunately for you, I am innocent. A virgin, in fact. So you really don’t want to waste your time with someone like me.”
Some of his anger had faded, and now he was looking faintly amused. “So I should toss you back in the stream like a fish that’s too small and go looking for something larger?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not an elegant way to put it, but yes. I’m sure there are any number of women around who’d fall at your feet.”
“Oh, would they?”
“Of . . . of course,” she stammered. He was no longer hurting her, but she knew the minute she tried to escape, his grip would tighten once more. “You’re very handsome, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” he said blandly.
She could kick him, she thought wistfully, holding still. “And you’re wealthy, and you have a title. Most women would do anything to be the recipient of your . . .”—she struggled for the word—“. . . attentions, dishonorable as they are.”
“But not you?”
“Not me. I have other plans.” Most of her momentary panic had fled, leaving her more uneasy than frightened. This wasn’t a man who’d force himself on her.
“Such as?”
She ground her teeth at his polite question. “If you let me go I’ll answer your question.”
He didn’t bat an eye. “You’ll answer the question anyway.”
“You’re a brute and a bully.”
He shrugged. “As I said, you picked the game. What are your plans?”
It wouldn’t give anything away to tell him. “I plan to marry well,” she said. “I’m very pretty, you know, and I usually have men flocking around me.”
“I imagine you do. Such a problem for people like us—all the people falling at our feet. It makes walking difficult.”