Page 53 of To Woo and to Wed
“Briar will be much more at ease once he is old and gray, I think,” Sophie said, a note of amusement in her voice.
West turned to look at her, then inclined his head in the direction of the library, from which they’d just come. “Would you like to speak privately?”
Sophie walked toward him slowly; she was wearing a gown of red velvet that sat tantalizingly low on her décolletage, and her cheeks were a bit flushed from sherry and laughter. Her golden hair was piled high atop her head, a few curls having been allowed to frame her face, and he curled his fingers against his palm to resist the urge to reach out and tuck one of those curls behind her ear.
“All right,” she said simply, coming to a halt when she was close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. “Or… we could go upstairs?”
She looked at him directly as she said it, the faintest hint of a challenge in the words. She was testing him, he realized. She wanted to see how far he was willing to take this.
He lifted a brow at her, then offered her his arm. He saw the faintest hint of surprise register on her face before she took it, and he led them up the stairs.
Theclickof the door as he shut it behind them sounded loud in the silence between them as they entered his suite of rooms. It was a warm evening, and there was no fire in the grate; lamps were lit about the sitting room, encasing them in a rosy glow, and Sophie wandered around slowly, coming to a halt before one of the large windows overlooking the back garden.
Slowly, she began to remove her gloves; West, standing on theopposite side of the room, could not have torn his eyes from the motion of her hands if his life depended on it.
She glanced over her shoulder. “I take it you wanted to speak to me about my… proposal?” Her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “Otherwise, we’ve shocked Violet and James for absolutely no reason, if this is a conversation that could have waited until morning.”
He began to take slow, measured steps toward her, thethunkof his cane muffled by the thick carpet. “I don’t believe Violet and James are very easily shocked. He did compromise her on a balcony on the very night they met, after all.”
Sophie turned back to the window, leaning down to drop her gloves on the armchair situated before it. “True.” Her voice was amused. “Perhaps that’s what I ought to have done, the night we met.”
“Compromised me?” He was only a few feet away from her now, and he paused to appreciate the straight line of her back, the slight curves hinted at beneath her dress.
Still, she did not turn, though she must have been aware of his proximity. “Yes. Ruined the reputation of the upstanding Marquess of Weston, turned you into a despoiler of virgins—we’d have been engaged before your father could have taken it into his mind to have an opinion on the matter.”
“I was a bit less upstanding back then, if you’ll recall.” He’d had a brief phase of wild-oat-sowing prior to meeting her, an attempt to relieve the pressures of his position.
She cast him a saucy glance over her shoulder. “Idorecall, thank you. Who would have thought that the alcove behind a potted fern could be so terribly… educational?”
He recalled the interlude in question with almost painful clarity. It was the first time he’d got a hand beneath her skirts; looking backon it, it had been terribly risky, but they’d been young, and as good as engaged, even if he hadn’t officially asked her yet.
If only he’d asked her.
He’d been a fool.
He shook his head to clear it.
She turned now, and the suddenness of the movement did not give him time to carefully school his features into the more neutral expression he usually tried to adopt in her presence. One that would not frighten her—not make her realize that he felt the same way about her now as he had seven years earlier.
Except…
He was growing weary of pretending.
Sophie’s gaze skittered off of him, and she began a deliberate perusal of the sitting room. He watched her take it in: the polished mahogany furniture; the blue wall hangings; the stack of books on one of the end tables; the open door behind him that led to his bedroom.
“Shall we have something to drink?” she asked, her gaze having alighted on the sideboard beneath an ornate gilt mirror. Without awaiting his reply, she made a beeline for the decanter of brandy and the bottles of wine arrayed there; in the mirror, he could see the faint furrowing of her brow as she reached for one of the bottles, scrutinizing the label. “Perhaps a glass of claret?” she tossed over her shoulder, waving the bottle in question.
“If you wish,” he said, approaching her slowly; she turned at the sound of his footsteps, bottle still in hand. He watched her for a moment, then cleared his throat. “What are you doing?”
“I am opening it for you,” Sophie said, her hands busy.
“I am not certain that is, in fact, what you are doing.” Sophie, for all that she was generally a lady for whom the word “competent” seemedto have been invented, was struggling with a corkscrew—this was clearly a task with which she had limited experience.
“Did you want any help with that?” he asked after another moment.
“No,” Sophie snapped.
“All right,” he agreed politely.
