“And you know what else?” Braddon continued with a burst of confidence. “I quite like the idea of marrying Sophie York. She’s got backbone. Perhaps she can even hold my mother off. Perhaps they’ll have an argument and my mother will refuse to visit the house.”
He beamed like a man granted a view of heaven.
“You’d still have to contend with her mother,” Patrick drawled. He himself quite liked the old martinet, the Marchioness of Brandenburg, but she would terrorize Braddon.
Braddon shuddered visibly. “I won’t be around much. I think I’ll buy Madeleine a house in Mayfair. What do you think?”
Patrick felt uneasiness stirring again. “You can’t do that,” he snapped. “Your house is in Mayfair. Buy Miss Garnier a house in Shoreditch.”
“No.” Braddon’s long jaw set.
Patrick’s heart sank. He’d seen that look before, whenever Braddon had decided on a plan of the utmost idiocy.
“I want Madeleine near me. I’m not ashamed of her.”
“It’s not a question of your shame,” Alex put in. “One would hate to offend the feelings of your future wife. When Lady Sophie becomes your countess, she might meet your mistress face to face every week.”
“That’s why I picked Sophie York,” Braddon said triumphantly. “She’s up to snuff. It won’t bother her at all. In fact, I have a mind to introduce them, after a bit of time has passed.”
Patrick stared at him, nonplussed. His old friend had finally lost his mind. That was the only explanation. Who would want a mistress when he could have Sophie?
And Sophie! What would happen to her when her mutton-brained husband started flaunting his mistress all over the street? Patrick’s chest tightened to think of it. He cast a wild glance at his brother.
“I’ve seen quite a bit of Sophie York in the last year,” Alex said rather slowly. “She is my wife’s closest friend, you know. I wouldn’t describe her as worldly. If anything, she is remarkably naive for a woman who has been out for two years.”
“She may be naive,” Braddon replied with some impatience, “although I don’t believe it myself. You must have heard the tales about her—my God, you’d think she’d kissed every man in London. Not that I care. Anyway, she may be naive, but she’s certainly knowing when it comes to marriage. Look at her own father! She can’t have missed his activities.
“And I do not intend to be anything like her father. Madeleine wouldn’t want to go to society affairs. She’s not that sort of woman. So I won’t be waltzing around the ballroom in front of my wife with my mistress. In fact, I foresee a very peaceful home life. I will be careful not to embarrass Sophie or demand too much. I’ll go my own way, after the heir, and we will stay friends. After all, ladies don’t like to have children, ruins their figures. Maybe we’ll be lucky, have a set of twins like you on the first go-around, and then we wouldn’t have to bother anymore.
“Doesn’t that sound like a good plan, Patrick?” Braddon looked at him appealingly.
Patrick’s eyes glowered at him with an unmistakable threat. He said nothing.
After a second Braddon’s lips quivered into an unmistakable pout. “You’re a dog in the manger! A dog in the bloody manger! You didn’t want Arabella anymore—bloody hell, you went right off and left her at a house party without even saying good-bye. And you didn’t come back for six days. Six bloody days! What’d you expect? You didn’t care at the time, so why do you care when I leave her?”
“Why the devil would I care whether you left Arabella?” Patrick shouted back. “This has nothing to do with Arabella!” His words rolled around the empty ballroom. He was blazing with rage.
Braddon jumped to his feet, taking a few agitated steps. “Then why are you so angry at me? What do you care whether I set up a mistress, if you’ve never even seen Madeleine before?”
Patrick blinked. He was conscious of his brother’s interested gaze from his right. What a mess.
“I care,” he said, picking his words carefully, “how you treat Sophie York.”
“You are a dog in the manger!” Braddon burst out, his eyes bulging a little with anger. “I know you didn’t offer for her! I heard all about you groping Sophie in an empty room, and then you didn’t think she was good enough for you! Well, I don’t have your standards, Patrick Foakes. Sophie’s good enough for me.”
Even Braddon’s foolish long face could gain a bit of dignity in a pinch, Alex thought cheerfully, crossing his legs.
Patrick came to his feet in an instant. “You blithering idiot!” he shouted back. “I offered for her, you ass. I offered for her!”
There was a moment of silence. Braddon blinked at him, biting his lower lip. Which only increased his likeness to a bulldog, in Alex’s uncharitable opinion.
“You offered for her? You? And she wouldn’t have you?”
Patrick grinned suddenly. Who could stay angry with a dunderhead like Braddon? He sat down again.
“That’s right. I marched up to the front door the next morning at ten o’clock, only slightly fortified with brandy. Got the question out pat with her father. But it didn’t fly with her.”
Patrick felt a curious rush of protectiveness, remembering Sophie’s large uncertain eyes. She hadn’t expected him to come, that was clear. Which didn’t say much for his reputation. But there he was declaring his intentions. And she’d said no. He didn’t really want to discuss why she refused him.
“I can’t believe it,” Braddon said in a numbed voice. “I—I, Braddon Chatwin, took a woman from one of the Foakeses? I mean, I don’t count Arabella. Remember!” he said, rounding on Alex, who was grinning away in his armchair. “Remember when you came back from Italy and I told you about the most beautiful woman in London, the one I wanted to marry, and damned if two weeks later you weren’t engaged to her?”
Alex laughed. “My wife,” he said, bowing his head ironically. “I owe it all to you, Braddon.”
“Sophie York turned you down and accepted me?” Braddon asked Patrick.
Patrick rolled his eyes. For a minute he thought his friend was going to cut a caper.
Alex came to his feet. “Gentlemen, I regret to say that, fascinating though this conversation is, I must go home.”
Patrick looked up at him. “Henpecked?” he asked.
His twin smiled at him unashamedly. “Charlotte worries if I’m out too late. Sarah is still occasionally waking up to nurse at night—”
“Ugh!” Braddon broke in. “I can’t fathom why you have allowed your wife to nurse the child herself, Alex. It’s disgusting.” His lower lip jutted out, a sure sign of deep thought. “I shan’t allow Madeleine to do anything of the sort, I warrant you. A good wet nurse, that’s the ticket. I won’t have Madeleine turn herself into a milk cow.”
“I shall ignore the implication that my wife is a cow,” Alex murmured. His eyes met Patrick’s. “Will I see you at dinner tomorrow?”
“Of course he’s coming,” Braddon broke in. “He’s my best man, isn’t he? He has to come to the engagement dinner!”
Patrick rolled his shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I? I want to see those little calves of yours, brother.”
“Ugh,” Braddon repeated, with emphasis. Then he looked alarmed. “You don’t suppose that Sophie will pick up this nursing business from your wife, do you, Alex? Because I won’t have it. Not in my house. It’s disgusting.”
Alex looked at his twin warningly.
Anger was burning a hole in Patrick’s backbone. But he took silent note of Alex’s unspoken opinion. Sophie York, and the way Braddon talked about Sophie York, was not his business.
“Well.” Braddon pulled down his embroidered waistcoat cheerfully. “Would you like to go around and say hello to Arabella, Patrick? You know she’s appearing at the Duke’s Theater in Dorset Garden these days, and I’m sure she’d like to see you. She’s playing Juliet, a pretty good role for her, eh? Although Bella’s no Juliet to die for love. Do you know that when I broke off our attachment she wrote me a n
ote, as cool as you please, saying that I was her life and joy, or some such nonsense, and since my passion for her had decayed, she felt the need for security—and the upshot of it all is that she wants me to give her a house. Vixen.”
Patrick was striding ahead of him, out of the ballroom. “And are you?” he tossed over his shoulder.
There was a pause. Patrick threw Braddon an amused glance. “You’re an easy target, aren’t you?” He fell back a pace and walked next to his friend. “You tell me when she’s found a house and I’ll plunk down the blunt for half,” he said as their boots clattered through the empty marble halls. Viscount and Viscountess Dewland had long ago retired to bed and only a weary-eyed butler bade them good night.
“I can sport the blunt,” Braddon said, his tone defensive.
“Well, I can buy and sell you,” Patrick drawled, “and I’d like to contribute to Arabella’s house.”
Braddon looked at him, his light blue eyes unenvious but curious. “So did you really come back from India as rich as a nabob, then?”
Patrick shrugged, tossing his hair back from his eyes. “M’father sent me out East by myself, you know. Not much fun raising hell without Alex. It seemed to come naturally.”
And it had. His mercurial, mocking nature took infinite pleasure in the delicate rhythms of Indian negotiation and export.
Designing trade routes, finding rare spices, loading the holds of ships with delicate gold bird cages, rippling silk so delicate that it tore at the touch of a fingernail, and casks of peacock feathers, pleased him. He took great risks and received greater rewards. At the moment, his fortune was to be rivaled in England only, perhaps, by those of his brother and a few others. Those London gentlemen like Braddon who limited their financial ambition to training a horse for the next Ascot were a dying breed.
Alex stepped into his carriage with a wave. Patrick shrugged off Braddon’s plan to visit the back door of the Duke’s Theater and then, in a sudden decision, waved off his own coachman as well. He stood in the deserted street, watching his well-slung carriage disappear around a corner.
A light rain had begun to fall. London was ripe with the smell of settling dust and horse manure. Patrick settled his cloak and started down the street, his legs eating up the pavement. As he walked, tension uncurled from his leg muscles and his stomach lost a knot he hadn’t been aware of. His scalp eased.
Patrick had walked the hot breathless alleys of Whampao Reach, Canton, strolled under the delicate arches of Baghdad, tramped the byways of mountain villages in Tibet. It was when he was ambling along a small back street in Lhasa that he’d heard a chorus of avadavats singing: the small black and red songbirds that he had later exported to England, and that had become the rage in London.
He wasn’t much of a sleeper at the best of times. It was while walking that ideas floated into his mind, unbeckoned. But now Patrick brooded rather than thought. Even the memory of the sweet curves of Sophie York’s breasts—exposed to the whole world in that ridiculous gown she was wearing!—made his loins tighten. And so he strode on, telling himself to cut Sophie from his mind.
For God’s sake, he had had a mistress in Arabia, what was her name? Perliss. Until a pasha took a liking to Perliss, and she to him, and within a few hours his mistress became an honored wife, the twenty-fourth, or was it twenty-fifth? He hadn’t turned a hair, although he missed Perliss’s undoubted skills and graceful long legs for a few days.
But now! He’d kissed the chit only a few times, for God’s sake. Held Sophie in his arms once before kissing her, but that was when his sister-in-law was almost dying in the next room. Even then he’d been conscious of what he held, although he knew that Sophie had no awareness of him whatsoever. She was grieving for Charlotte’s death. Except that Charlotte, of course, hadn’t died.
Patrick had bided his time. Sophie returned to her family the day after Charlotte’s child was safely born. Patrick was no stranger to the hunt. He deliberately didn’t follow her. Instead, he waited until the gentry began returning to London, in late November.
But then, when he had awakened her, turned a sleeping beauty into a flushed, silently begging woman who had pressed herself into his arms, she had turned him down. Not that he really wanted to marry, of course, but given the circumstances …
Weeks had passed since his proposal of marriage. He’d hadn’t been with a woman since and he hadn’t stopped thinking about Sophie’s body. Obviously it was frustration. Simple sexual frustration, and if he had any brains he’d walk himself over to the Duke’s Theater and see if Arabella would take him to her bed for old times’ sake.
But his feet didn’t listen. They headed home, ignoring the tigerish frustration that pulsed up and down his muscled limbs. He’d be damned if he’d let Sophie marry Braddon. Patrick’s eyes narrowed as an image flashed across his mind, unbidden: Braddon punctiliously removing his embroidered waistcoat and preparing to do his duty—but only until he got an heir.
What was Sophie supposed to do after Braddon had his heir? Become one of those shallow, bored society matrons who took on lovers from the ton or, worse, slept with their gardeners?
Patrick found himself in front of his house. The walk hadn’t done its magic tonight. His heart was pounding and his hands were clenched.
The engagement party. He slowly climbed the stairs, his grateful butler almost running toward the servants’ quarters and his own bed. Patrick walked into his bedroom unseeingly, dismissing his sleepy-eyed valet with a wave.
The dinner that Charlotte was giving for Sophie.
I’ll talk to her, Patrick thought. Talk, my ass! His thumbs itched to rub themselves over the tender arch of her nipples. He longed to pull Sophie against his hard body, an intoxicating encounter of muscle and yielding softness, bumps and curves that were made to be linked together.
I’ll talk to her, Patrick decided. I’ll talk to her, that’s all.
Lord Breksby went to his bed that night in a glow of self-satisfaction. He lay back, hands tucked behind his head, which was trimly covered in a nightcap.
“I tell you, m’dear,” he told his sleepy wife, “sometimes I fancy myself a genius. I really do.”
Lady Breksby had no complaints with that assessment—in fact, she merely grunted—so after a moment Lord Breksby composed himself for sleep.
He dreamed of ruby scepters; she dreamed of roses.
Patrick dreamed that he was dancing with Sophie York while wearing a huge insignia proclaiming that he was a Duke of the Realm. Lady Sophie dreamed that she was kissing her future husband, Braddon Chatwin, when he suddenly turned into a lop-eared rabbit and hopped away, somewhat to her relief.
Only Alex had no dreams that night. Baby Sarah was teething and cried half the night. “We should be glad that she has sound lungs,” his wife observed sleepily at three in the morning. Alex merely sighed and turned to walk back to the nursery. If the Earl of Sheffield and Downes daydreamed of sailing to the Ottoman Empire with his brother, far from the damp and wailing child in his arms, who would blame him?
Chapter 5
By the time Sophie had been bathed, gowned, coiffured, and placed in a carriage tooling its way to her engagement dinner, she was feeling a burst of happiness. She was alone. The carriage would drop her at Sheffield House an hour early so that she could visit with Charlotte. She leaned back comfortably on the salmon-pink velvet.
Her mother, the marchioness, invariably sat forward, her back stiffened as if by a steel rod, her gloved hand clenched on a wall strap. Whereas, Sophie decided, my back naturally curves into seats.
She felt recklessly sensual, the prickling call of nerve points making her heart dance, reminding her that the source of this giddy happiness was the slim, paltry, ridiculous fact that Patrick Foakes would be at the dinner party. She would see him and perhaps, if there was informal dancing afterward…. She rather fancied there would be. Then he might, would, hold her in his arms. After all, Charlotte loved to dance. And Charlotte was more than a little inter
ested in Sophie and Patrick’s future. Not that I have a future with Patrick Foakes, Sophie quickly reminded herself.
The carriage rattled on. It clattered over rounded paving stones and swung around a corner altogether too fast. Sophie had to make a quick grab for the strap, and even so she was thrown against the padded wall. It was the pity of being so small. She couldn’t brace herself against the corner the way men could. André was driving too fast again. He thought of himself as a cross between a coachman and a courtier, and he had even adapted the trick of a Corinthian: He caught his whip as it coiled back through the air.
The horses trotted on and the carriage resumed its normal creaking rattle and sway. Sophie stuck out a foot in front of her, thoughtfully regarding her slipper. She was wearing a gown the color of bronzed gold—which was the closest she ever came to white. She never wore white. White was her mother’s preference. White was the preference of virtually every other unmarried girl in London. White, for innocence, engagements, and virginity. Sophie dropped her foot in exasperation.
Gold was not innocent. What was the name of the play she’d seen last week? Eros Undoubted? That didn’t sound right. Cupid Defeated? No, it wasn’t Cupid, it was Eros. Cupid was the god of love, but Eros was the god of desire. At any rate, Eros had been wearing a little toga of pale gold as he trotted around the stage shooting people with his gilt arrows. The play itself was terrible, one of those tragedies in which a pious young woman fell in love with a scoundrel (thanks to Eros). In the end she threw herself—in a remarkably unconvincing manner, to Sophie’s mind—off a bridge.
That’s what I need, Sophie thought. One little god in a toga to match my gown, and could he please plant a big fat arrow in Patrick Foakes’s back? Although now that she thought of it, Eros had done just that to the scoundrel in the play—and then the man had blithely left the heroine with a small child.
A secret smile tipped the corners of Sophie’s red lips. She had little fear that Patrick lacked desire for her. She could read it in the way his eyes darkened when he saw her. So what she needed was not Eros but Cupid…. That’s right. Cupid, wearing a pure white virginal nightshirt, to shoot Patrick Foakes with one of his arrows. Because if there was one certainty in life, it was that rakes never fall in love, especially with their wives, and if they do, it isn’t for long.