Page 66 of To Woo and to Wed
“Yes,” West agreed gravely, climbing up beside her. “I shall certainly support you in that endeavor, should I ever notice a ruffian attempting such a thing.”
Sophie bit back a smile, then cast him a glance out of the corner of her eye. She hadn’t seen him in a couple of days, he having been called out of town on a matter of business overnight; he looked in incredibly good spirits, and she could not suppress the smile that crossed her own face at the sight. He was so often stern and solemn that his good moods always proved infectious to her; no doubt they presented a picture of a blissfully joyous affianced couple to any members of thetonthey might have unknowingly driven past.
The park was full of other riders and carriages, and their conversation was frequently interrupted over the next three-quarters of an hour by the numerous acquaintances they had to greet. When at last they pulled up before Sophie’s house, however, she turned to face him full-on.
“Would you like to come in?” she asked.
His gaze flicked to the houses that surrounded hers; he was no doubt envisioning unseen eyes peering through the curtains down at them. “I wouldn’t want to cause any gossip that might damage your reputation,” he said, a faint crease appearing between his eyebrows. She wanted to reach out with her thumb and smooth away that crease.
“I think it is acceptable for a man to pay a call upon his fiancée for a few minutes,” she said, smiling at him. She leaned forward and added in an undertone, “It just means that we’ll have to be fast.”
She wondered, for a moment, if he would take her up on thisoffer—they had not gone to bed together since the night of his dinner party, and the quarrel that followed. Their discussion after dinner with Alexandra and Blackford a few days earlier had not resolved matters; if anything, it had left Sophie more confused than ever. Some reckless mood seemed to have West in its grip, however, and so in short order Sophie found herself pressed up against the door of her drawing room, being kissed within an inch of her life. Her hat had been tossed aside, her gloves discarded, and a sudden breath of cool air on her thighs made her realize that, while she’d been distracted by his mouth, he’d been inching her skirts up her legs. She hooked a leg around his hips, pulling him closer, feeling his hardness against her stomach. Her hands were in the short hairs at the nape of his neck, and she tore her mouth away from his to let out a shuddering gasp when she felt his fingers between her legs.
“Perhaps—the settee?” she said in his ear, and he allowed her to pull back enough to drag him by the hand across the room and shove him down before her on the emerald-green brocade settee. There was color in his cheeks, and his dark hair was mussed from her hands. His green eyes were darker than usual, and he was looking at her with naked want. He looked utterly delicious.
“Unbutton your breeches,” she said, barely recognizing the commanding note in her voice, and his hands immediately went to the placket on his breeches. “Now touch yourself,” she added, and he obeyed, stroking with a sure hand. She could wait no longer, however, and lifted her skirts into one hand as she climbed onto his lap, her knees straddling his thighs, took him in hand, and sank down onto him. A groan tore from his throat, a low, broken sound, and she pressed her face to his neck, tugging at his cravat to loosen it enough that she might inhale the scent of his skin. From there, it was a fast raceto completion, no words exchanged between them other than breathless gasps and moans. He slid his hand between them, stroking with his thumb, and she shattered around him; moments later, he withdrew and spilled onto her thigh.
For a minute or two, there was no sound but their breathing. West’s arms were loose around her waist, her face still pressed to his neck. At some point, he began to stroke up and down the length of her back, his fingers running gently over the knobs of her spine. One hand toyed with a curl that had come loose from her coiffure.
“Are you aware,” Sophie asked thoughtfully, when at last she’d recovered the power of speech, “that your butler and your valet are conducting an affair?”
She felt his mouth curve into a smile against her hair. “How did you work it out?”
“You know?”
“Of course I know—I live in the same house with them. How oblivious do you think I am?”
Sophie paused diplomatically; West very nearly spluttered. “It’s notyou,specifically,” she reassured him as she attempted to extract herself from his lap, rather inelegantly. West pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and handed it to her, which she quickly made use of. “It’s, well… men don’t tend to be very observant about these things,” she explained as she fluffed her skirts around her and attempted to regain as much dignity as was possible when one had recently had the fingers of the man one was conversing with between one’s legs.
“Well, perhaps I am a bit more observant than the average man, then,” he said, a hint of smugness in his voice. “A fact that you may have, on recent occasions, had cause to appreciate.”
Annoyingly, he was not wrong. He was the third man she’d goneto bed with, and she had not known it was possible for a man to pay such closeattentionto her in the act of love. She felt, when she was lying beneath him (or above him, as was more immediately relevant), as though he was paying attention to every movement, every sigh she uttered, making a careful note of what she liked. It was…
Well, it was rather nice, she thought primly.
“Perhaps,” she allowed, with a slow hint of a saucy smile.
He cleared his throat. “In any case, yes, I’m aware—Hawthorne and I were friends in boyhood, you know.”
Sophie nodded; he’d spoken of him on more than one occasion, when they’d been courting when they were younger.
“We were… well, we were as close as two boys of such vastly differing stations could be, and when it was time for me to go away to university, I took him with me as my valet. Village life had become a bit… untenable for him, by then. It’s not an easy place to be, if you’ve a secret to keep.”
“He told you?”
“I caught him,” West said. “With the valet of one of the houseguests my father was hosting, when I was sixteen or so. I promised him I’d never tell anyone, and I was happy enough to take him with me—I needed a valet, and he needed an escape. And it was nice to have someone who knew me asme, rather than as a future duke, which I’d pretty quickly learned was how almost everyone else saw me.”
“And Briar…?”
“I needed a butler when I came down to London to set up my own residence, and he is Wooton’s nephew,” West said, naming James’s butler, who had originally been employed by the duke. “So I took him on, even though he was young, because he was damned good, and it wasn’t long before I became aware of a certain number of lingeringlooks in my household. It’s no bother to me, so long as Hawthorne doesn’t become so lovestruck he stops being able to tie my cravat or shine my shoes.”
Sophie recalled noting, on her first visit to West’s London residence, how small a household he maintained for a man in his position, and wondered if this was part of the reason—a certain amount of discretion would be desired. And then, too, the thought struck her that things like this—small, private things about West that most of society was unaware of—had always represented, to her, the non-ducal side of him. Proof, in her mind, that they could be happy if only he were not to one day be a duke—did not have the responsibilities that went with his position. Now, however, it occurred to her how wonderful it would be, knowing that such a thoroughlydecentman was a duke. How much better the lives of the people who relied upon him would be, once he inherited his title. And thatthis—his small kindnesses, and his weightier responsibilities, and his inherent decency—was all part and parcel of who he was, and why she…
Why she loved him.
“Dare I ask what on earth Briar and Hawthorne’s relationship has to do with anything?” West asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Sophie did not pause to consider before answering with complete honesty. “I was trying to think of something to say that might distract you before you could ask me to marry you.” She paused. “Also, I’ve been meaning to ask you about it, and haven’t found a good time until now. It seemed… thematically appropriate.” She gestured at their disordered clothing.
