The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne Page 7

  But he’d pay for what he’d done to her, the truth he was drawing from her. He’d pay dearly.

  Deliberately lifting a hand to Bramwell’s smooth cheek, then drawing her fingers lightly down to his chin, Sophie summoned her most winning smile, and said, “Since I’ve already warned you against me, out of my affection for Uncle Cesse, I suppose I owe you all of the truth, yes? Very well. You’re wrong, and you’re right. I am very fond of my fellow creatures, Your Grace. In my own way.”

  “In your own way? I dread thinking what that might mean, Miss Winstead,” Bramwell interrupted, and Sophie gave out a soft gurgle of laughter. He disapproved of her. That was obvious. But he did not step away from her, or ask her to remove her hand from his face. Of course he didn’t. She hadn’t expected him to. He was a man, wasn’t he? Her touch didn’t repel him. It fired something base and entirely male within him, as Desiree had explained, robbing him of everything but his own wants, his own needs. In fact, he stepped even closer to her now, their bodies all but touching.

  He disgusted her. Her reaction to him disgusted her.

  “I find other women quite genuinely likable,” Sophie said, beginning her explanation. “But,” she continued quickly, sensing that he was in her power now, “I am fond of gentlemen most of all, because they are heartless little boys and can’t be hurt—not really. I’m also fond of laughter, of gaiety, of lighthearted days and exciting nights. I fully intend, Your Grace, to dance and laugh and enjoy myself to the top of my bent for as long as I live. Without any regrets, without any sorrows. Without,” she ended, dropping her hand to her side, “any real attachments to anyone save the children I hope to have one day. Even Uncle Cesse would have left my mother in the end, you know. They all leave, they all left. But I won’t care when anyone leaves me, because I will be happy when they are near, happy when they go—happy all by myself. No one, you see, will ever make me cry.”

  Sophie then shut her mouth quickly, calling herself ten times the fool, for she had said too much, gone on a sentence or two too long. The veiled insult about men being heartless little boys was to have been enough. Why had she said so much? Perhaps it was because the ninth duke so resembled his father? It had always been so easy to talk to Uncle Cesse, confide all her girlish secrets in him. Uncle Cesse had promised her a Season, promised to dance with her at her very own ball, promised to be the father she’d always longed for and never had. And then he’d died, and her mother along with him, and Sophie had been left alone, to mourn.

  “Well, that’s that, isn’t it?” she said brightly, putting her hand on Bramwell’s as he stood staring down at her, silently hinting that he release her arm, end this suffocating closeness that had so muddled her mind. “Shall we rejoin the ladies?”

  “My father made you cry, didn’t he?” Bramwell asked quietly, still holding tight to her arm, keeping her where she did not want to be. “All those men who came into and out of your life—all your uncles who played with you as a child, gave you gifts, and petted you, and then left you. They all made you promises, and then they all made you cry. So I’m at least partly right, as you said, at least when it comes to men. For all your charms, all your smiles, all your protestations that you only want to live a life of happiness, you’re out to hurt as many of us as you can, without ever letting your own heart be touched in any way.”

  Sophie wanted to hit him, he was that infuriating. How could he think so poorly of her? Because she couldn’t hurt anyone—not ever. She knew, all too well, how much the pain of rejection hurt. Didn’t he understand anything? “You dolt!” she cried out, spinning out of his arms and picking up the brandy snifter, sending it to shatter against the wall, somewhere depressingly left of the fireplace. “Now look what you made me do! You thick, stupid, infuriating, dolt! I would never put it before myself to hurt anybody—never. I couldn’t!”

  Bramwell looked to the rapidly spreading stain on the wall, then to Sophie, who couldn’t believe she had been so foolish, so revealing of the one thing Desiree had most admonished she hide. Her abominable temper.

  “Well, now, Miss Winstead,” the duke said silkily, wiping one hand against the other as if he’d just done something wonderful. “Perhaps you’re not so perfect after all. Although I must say, I somehow find this side of you more than passing dazzling, in its own odd way.”

  He stepped closer as her feet refused to move. Her body betrayed her by leaning forward slightly, making it easier for him to capture her in his arms. She watched, all wonder and confusion, as he lowered his smiling mouth, sealing his warm lips over hers as his arms came around her back, pressing her against him.

  She felt the shock down to her toes. Her first kiss. Begun in amusement and, as he pulled away from her, ended in much the same way. “Why—why did you do that?” she asked, her head spinning.

  “Why, Miss Winstead?” he asked in return, a frown now marring his smooth forehead. “Why not?”

  She shot a look at him, deliberately wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “Just as I’ve always suspected, already known in my heart. You’re a fickle lot, the whole of you men. With a fiancée upstairs while you paw another woman all but under her nose. Lustful, rutting, unfaithful dogs. That’s what you are, to a man. But not, Your Grace, to me. Not now, not ever.”

  “Oh, God, Miss Winstead, I’m sorry,” Bramwell said, taking hold of her arm, trying to guide her to a chair. “The smiles, the hand to the cheek, the knowing glances. You play the game so well. You seem to know the steps, each deliberate move. I thought you had been offering to have me join you in the game. Obviously I was wrong. You were only practicing, weren’t you? It’s just as you’d warned me. I’m off-limits, was never meant to be one of the players. Forgive me.”

  Did she have any choice? Not if she were to remain under his roof, go into Society, have the Season her mama had craved for her, the Season she craved for herself. She had to forgive this man, this typical man, this lustful, taking, rutting boar of a man who was like every other man in creation. Much as she realized, with a pain that tore straight through her, that she’d hoped Uncle Cesse’s son might be different.

  “We won’t mention this again, Your Grace,” she said at last, lifting her chin and smiling her most practiced, natural smile. “We’ve both learned a lesson that will stand us in good stead over the next weeks. I won’t dazzle you again, and you won’t kiss me again. For neither action serves any good purpose, yes?”

  He bowed over her hand, pressing his lips against her skin. “You’re too kind.”

  “Probably,” Sophie said with a lilting giggle that cost her more than he would ever know. Then she escaped to the hallway, stopping just outside the doorway to compose herself. She walked toward the stairs, her head held high, her smile bright. Determinedly bright, so that no shadows could be seen.

  You may all go to pot.

  — Oliver Goldsmith

  Chapter Four

  The comfort of one’s oldest and dearest friends during times of trial is one of life’s blessings, or so the ninth duke had always believed. Which did nothing to explain his current hope that Sir Wallace Merritt and Baron Marshall Lorimar would disappear into the hole His Grace was wishing would appear at their feet.

  However, as the duke of Selbourne did have more than a modicum of fondness for his two friends, the fact that no hole appeared in the study floor could only be termed a good thing. Even if it made for a quite uncomfortable morning, although not as uncomfortable as the interlude he had spent in this same room the previous evening. He had been most especially unnerved when Sophie had asked why mankind was here, if not to be happy.

  When he’d nearly replied, “We are here to be earnest,” he’d realized that perhaps, just perhaps, Sophie Winstead wasn’t all fluff and nonsense. And that he, Bramwell Seaton, might just be turning into a bit of a stick.

  Which was why he’d kissed her. That had to be why he’d kissed her. To prove to himself that blood still flowed through his veins. Hot blood. Hotter, and much
more uncomfortable than he’d expected.

  But not, it appeared, as hot as Sophie Winstead’s quick, unexpected temper. He bit back a smile as he remembered the brandy snifter suddenly taking flight, smashing against the wall. He looked at the stain now, still fairly damp where one of the housemaids had done her best to sponge it from the Chinese wallpaper.

  Had her mother taught her that? To appear the perfect woman, biddable, eager to please—then with this other, darker, most surprising, intriguing side? Not that it mattered. Because he wasn’t interested. Even if her lips had tasted of honey and promise, had all but branded him, marked him as both vulnerable and pathetic, a man who could be turned from his most rational thoughts and decisions and thrown into turmoil without the first notion of how he had come to be so unbalanced.

  God, but he wished he’d never heard of Sophie Winstead. He didn’t need this complication in his life. His well-ordered, well-thought-out life with his suddenly not quite so clear plans for the future.

  “So? Out with it, man?” Sir Wallace commanded, holding tightly to the arms of the straight-back, leather-bottomed chair, the better to keep his relaxed, brandy-greased body from gracefully sliding to the floor in a heap. “Is she or ain’t she?”

  “Bram’s not going to answer you, Wally,” the baron pointed out, watching the trio of smoke rings he’d just puffed through his pursed lips as they ascended toward the ceiling. “He’s a gentleman. Ain’t you, Bram?”

  “A gentleman? I suppose so. But he wasn’t always,” Sir Wallace responded before Bramwell could answer, then slapped his knee. “No, he was not! Why, I remember the time we were on leave in Dover. You remember that, Bram?” He turned to the Baron. “There we were, Lorrie, stuck in port until the tide turned, and bored to flinders. And drinking a bit. I won’t lie and say we weren’t. So Bram here takes it into his head to steal us a pig. Oh, not a big one. Just a little one, he says. Our own private, sea-going pig. We’ll hide the thing away until we’re sick of the garbage they feed us aboard ship and are ready for a feast. Think of it, Lorrie—heading out to sea for God only knew how long, to face all sorts of dangers, to maybe get blown to Hell and beyond—and Bram here is worrying about our bellies. Well, it seems a fine enough plan to me anyway—o’course I’m drunk as a wheelbarrow at the time—until he tells me he wants to take the pig aboard alive!”

  Bramwell bent his head and bit on the inside of his cheek, wishing his friend silent.

  “He tells me the pig we find is too little to make much of a meal. We’ll have to take him with us, Bram says, hide him well, and then fatten him up once he’s on board. So I say to him, ‘I say Bram, how’re we to do that?’ And he doesn’t even blink. He says, he says to me, we’ll call him Ensign Porker. And we do! Give him space in our own damn cabin! Feed that damn pig, fatten him up, clean up after it—and that’s no fun, let me tell you. And then Bram here decides he loves the thing, and won’t kill it. Two months of feeding and mopping up after that damnable pig, hiding it from everyone, and now he won’t eat it.” He turned to his friend accusingly. “You still have the thing somewhere, don’t you, Bram?”

  Bramwell rubbed at his forehead, embarrassed, then reluctantly smiled. “Ensign Porker resides most happily at Selbourne Hall, yes. But you didn’t want to slaughter the animal either, Wally, in the end. I believe you even went so far as to say it was fratricide.”

  “Yes, well,” Sir Wallace explained, puffing out his rosy cheeks, “I was also fairly deep in my cups at the time, celebrating the end of the war, as I remember, and feeling overly sentimental.”

  “You’re always fairly deep in your cups, Wally,” the Baron broke in kindly enough, handing his friends what would be their first glasses of wine for the day—well, his and Bramwell’s that was. Sir Wallace was already at least a half bottle of wine and several snifters of cherry brandy ahead of them. “That’s why your nose is so red. By the bye, it looks like you forgot to powder it again this morning. I believe, if I sat close enough, I could read by the shine on the thing.”

  “Don’t deny a man his only pleasure,” Sir Wallace said gruffly, then downed the contents of his glass in a single long swallow. “Ah, that’s better. Now, where were we?”

  “We were asking Bram here to tell us about his new ward,” the Baron supplied helpfully, earning himself a quick, withering glance from the ninth duke.

  “She’s not my ward, Lorrie, and well you know it,” Bramwell corrected, wondering how he was going to warn his friends that they were about to go out for a morning drive with a young woman bent on breaking their hearts. Bent on breaking the heart of every gentleman she met.

  The baron smiled, exposing two rows of very even white teeth. “Yes, Bram, I well know it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t delight in watching you wince every time I prod at you with that particular pointy stick. Now, tell us the whole of it. I saw the Widow Winstead once, remember, when I was home on leave. Oh, she was older than me. I was still young and faintly fuzzy, and would have given up my hope of Heaven to have her smile at me. So—what’s the daughter like? Give us a hint.”

  “Dangerous,” the duke heard himself saying before he could monitor his thoughts.

  “Ah! Well, I like that!” Sir Wallace fairly shouted. “Dangerous, is it?” He turned to the Baron. “Either she walks about with a sword between her teeth, Lorrie, or we’ve got us another Constance Winstead. And, from the look on Bram’s face, I’d say it was the latter, wouldn’t you?” He sat up straight, rubbing his palms together. “Lead me to her, lads, and then make yourselves scarce.”

  The duke would have told them then, told them the whole of it; everything he’d learned, everything he’d supposed. But that would have been betraying secrets Sophie had told him in confidence, secrets she had purposely told just to him, just to infuriate him. Confuse him. Confound him. Keep him awake half the night, not knowing whether he should toss her out on her fairly provocative rear, or try to comfort her for all the times the child in her had been hurt, been betrayed.

  But there was something else, something that still bothered him. What if she hadn’t been so artless in her truths after all? Perhaps she had simply found a new way to dazzle him, a new way to charm herself into his sympathy and good graces, the way she had discovered his aunt’s weaknesses, Isadora’s weaknesses—and then used them to her own advantage.

  After all, if he felt compassion for her, she could count on him to go out of his way to see that she wasn’t snubbed by anyone in society.

  He just didn’t know, couldn’t be sure. When she told the truth he wasn’t sure. When she lied, he was even less sure.

  And when she smiled? When he’d kissed her?

  He really didn’t want to think about that.

  “Bram? I say, Bram—you’re not answering me.”

  The duke blinked away his thoughts and looked at Sir Wallace inquiringly, hoping the man would repeat his question. “Forgive me, Wally. I was woolgathering, I suppose.”

  “Yes, Bram, we know. That’s what I just said. Woolgathering. Actually, I said you look sunk in a funk. Don’t tell me Miss Winstead frightens you? Not the same man who climbed into the riggings, cutting loose a mangled sail in the midst of a Channel storm.”

  Lord Lorimar held up his hands, motioning for Sir Wallace to be silent. “What is it, Bram?” he asked, cocking his head to one side. “There’s something you’re not telling us. What’s the matter? Is the girl a complete loss? Is she so fat she needs to be rolled into a room? Picks at her teeth at table? Or is it something else? Perhaps she’s the beauty her mother was before her, and Miss Waverley wants her shot at dawn?”

  Bram’s head shot up. “Isadora is not a jealous sort.”

  “Ah-hah!” Lord Lorimar exclaimed. “And there you have it, Wally. The chit’s beautiful. Probably gorgeous. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, now is there?”

  “That would depend on how she plans to go on,” Bramwell pointed out, doing his best to say what he meant without really saying anything. “If
it’s marriage she’s after in coming to London, as she says, then her beauty can only be considered a help—along with her very impressive personal wealth.”

  Sir Wallace shook his head as if trying to rattle his brains into action. “Wait a moment. As she says, Bram? You don’t believe her? Why else would she be here? Why else are we bombarded with young misses and conniving mamas every Season, all powdered and primped and dressed to the nines—if not for the purpose of leading any number of us happy, carefree bachelors into marriage?”

  “Just remember that when you meet her, Wally,” Bramwell answered warningly. “And you, too, Lorrie. Because the girl is out for marriage. As my aunt has already said, I believe we’re in for a siege. I wouldn’t want either of you trampled in the rush of gentlemen callers breaking down my front doors once Miss Winstead is presented. She’s going to break dozens of hearts, and I don’t want two of them to be yours.”

  He knew he wasn’t being entirely honest with his friends, but what else could he say? He couldn’t say that he worried Sophie’s aim might be to go into Society in order to seek out some of her “uncles” and then embarrass them, even blackmail them—not because she needed the money, certainly, but just because she wanted to hurt them. He couldn’t say that she might be entering Society in order to purposely break hearts, to lead on as many men as she could, just to give back some of the pain she’d felt each time she watched another man leave her mother—leave her. He couldn’t say that she was here, in London, to play her own little game, run her own small rig on Society, then pick a titled gentleman to act as stud for her legitimate children—an older, titled peer who would then conveniently expire, leaving her to return to Society and wreak havoc with even more gullible gentlemen.

  He couldn’t say any of that because, in his heart of hearts, he couldn’t really bring himself to believe any of it. He could only think about everything Sophie had said, about the way she had said it, about the way she had vehemently denied his accusations.