Chapter 12
“Ah, Lady Sophia.” The Dowager Countess of Bramfield offered a warm smile. “Your mother has been extolling the virtues of the Damask rose. I confess myself nearly converted.”
“Lady Bramfield is a devotee of the Alba rose,” her mother added with a laugh.
“Indeed, though I fear I must take my devotion home before my driver grows mutinous.” Lady Bramfield gathered her reticule and rose with surprising grace for her years. “Lady Brimsey, Lady Sophia, it has been a delight. Do call upon me when you are next in town.”
“We will,” Sophia’s mother promised.
The countess departed with a rustle of silk, leaving them alone in the parlor. The moment the door closed, Lady Brimsey gestured the maid forward.
“Oh, what a relief! Look, Sophia, good as new.”
The maid kneeled at her mother’s feet, applying the damp cloth to a dark stain that marred the hem of her gown. Most of it appeared to have been removed already.
“What happened?” Sophia pressed a hand to her chest, willing her racing heart to slow.
“A clumsy footman with a tray of wine.” Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “Completely my fault. I turned without looking. This kind girl spotted me in the corridor and offered to help before the stain could set.”
The maid rose and curtsied. “It should dry within the hour, my lady. The silk is unharmed.”
“You are an angel.” Lady Brimsey pressed a coin into the girl’s palm. “Thank you.”
The maid departed with another curtsy. Sophia sagged against the doorframe, relief and residual panic warring in her chest.
Her mother was safe and nowhere near Drakeston.
But the taste of the Duke’s kiss still lingered on her lips, and her hands refused to stop trembling.
“Sophia?” Her mother’s voice sharpened with concern. She crossed the room and took Sophia’s hands. “Darling, you are white as a sheet. What is the matter?”
“Nothing.” The lie came automatically. “I was worried when I couldn’t find you.”
“I was only gone a few minutes.” Lady Brimsey studied her face. “Something has happened. You look as though you have seen a ghost.”
Sophia thought of moonlight on a balcony. Of powerful hands cupping her face. Of a kiss that had set her blood on fire and then left her standing in the cold, dismissed as a mistake.
“I have a headache.” She pressed her fingers to her temple, and the gesture was not entirely false. Her head throbbed with the effort of maintaining composure. “It came on suddenly. Would you mind terribly if we left early?”
Her mother’s expression softened. “Of course, my darling. Let me fetch our cloaks.”
“I’ll meet you at the entrance.”
Sophia waited until her mother disappeared down the corridor before allowing her composure to crack. She pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes, breathing through the tightness in her chest.
What had she done?
She had kissed the Duke of Heatherwell. Or rather, he had kissed her, and she had kissed him back with an enthusiasm that made her face burn. She had tangled her fingers in his hair. Had pulled him closer. Had wanted more, so much more.
And then he had apologized.
I should not have done that.
The words echoed in her memory with each repetition, a fresh wound. She had agreed with him, of course. Had called it a mistake. Had walked away with her chin high and her dignity intact.
But the truth sat heavily in her stomach like a stone.
She had not wanted it to be a mistake. She had wanted him to kiss her again. She had wanted him to say that the kiss meant something, that she meant something, that the fire between them was more than proximity and danger and the thrill of almost being caught.
Foolish. Reckless. Dangerous.
She was supposed to find him a wife. A proper duchess. A mother for Oliver. Not to entangle herself in feelings that could only lead to heartbreak.
Sophia pushed off the wall and smoothed her skirts. She would bury this. Lock it away in the same dark corner where she kept her fears about Drakeston and her grief over Jane and all the other things she could not afford to feel.
She was Lady Fairhart. She matched other people’s hearts, not her own.
And the Duke of Heatherwell would never know how thoroughly he had undone her with a single kiss.
“Christ, man. Are you trying to kill him or court him?”
Hugo’s voice cut through the roar of the crowd as Edward drove his fist into his opponent’s jaw. The man crumpled to the sawdust, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Edward stood over him, chest heaving, knuckles split and bleeding.
The rage still burned in his veins, unsatisfied, demanding more.
He wanted another opponent. Another fight.
Another excuse to stop thinking about green eyes and kiss-swollen lips and the soft sound she made when he deepened the kiss.
Grimsby signaled the end of the match. The crowd dispersed, muttering about the duke’s foul temper, collecting their winnings or cursing their losses. Edward unwrapped his hands and let the bloodied strips of linen fall to the floor.
“You know what to do with it.” He nodded at Grimsby and climbed out of the ring.
Hugo waited at a corner table, two glasses of whiskey already poured. He slid one across as Edward dropped into the opposite chair.
“You look like death warmed over.” Hugo raised his glass. “Cheers.”
Edward drained his whiskey in one swallow. The burn did nothing to dull the memories.
“Another?” Hugo waved at Grimsby for the bottle.
“No.” Edward stared at the empty glass. “Yes.”
Hugo poured. His eyes glittered with the curiosity that always preceded an interrogation. “I have not seen you fight like that since the night your father died. What demon has crawled under your skin?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” Hugo leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Is it the boy? Has something happened with Oliver?”
Edward shook his head. Oliver was the same as ever. Wary. Distant. Lighting up only when Lady Sophia entered the room.
Lady Sophia. Even her name sent heat curling through his belly.
“The ball, then.” Hugo’s voice sharpened. “Something happened at the ball. I saw you disappear after the first set, and when you returned, you looked like a man who had either committed murder or received terrible news.”
Edward looked away. The cellar felt too warm, too close. The smell of sweat and sawdust clogged his throat.
“Edward.” Hugo leaned forward. “Tell me.”
The silence stretched between them. Edward turned his glass in his hands, watching the amber liquid catch the lamplight.
He shouldn’t say anything. He should bury this like he buried everything else. But Hugo had known him since boyhood, had seen him at his worst, and had never once judged or betrayed a confidence.
“I kissed her.”
Hugo went still. “Kissed who?”
“Lady Sophia.”
A grin spread across Hugo’s face. “You kissed the matchmaker. The woman you claimed to despise.” Hugo’s grin widened. “This is delicious. Tell me everything. Where did it happen? How did it happen? Did she slap you?”
“No.” Edward’s jaw tightened. “She kissed me back.”
Hugo let out a low whistle. “Well, well, well. The plot thickens. And then what? Did you confess your undying devotion? Propose marriage on the spot? Carry her off to Gretna Green like your brother?”
“Enough.” Edward slammed his glass on the table. Whiskey sloshed over the rim. “It was a mistake. It can’t happen again.”
Hugo’s smile faded. He studied Edward with the shrewd gaze that lurked beneath his frivolous exterior. “Why not?”
“Because I am supposed to be finding a wife. A proper wife. Not tangling myself up with the woman who is helping me find one.” Edward dragged a hand through his hair. “It complicates everything. The arrangement. The search. Oliver.”
“Or perhaps it simplifies everything.” Hugo poured himself another drink. “Lady Sophia already knows Oliver. The boy adores her. She meets every requirement you listed. And apparently, there is heat enough between the two of you to set a ballroom on fire.”
“She isn’t suitable.”
“Why? Because she challenges you? Because she refuses to simper and flatter you like every other woman in the ton?” Hugo snorted. “Those sound like points in her favor, not against.”
Edward stared at the table. He could not explain the actual reasons.
He couldn’t tell Hugo about the secret work, the printing office, the predawn visits to places no lady should venture.
He couldn’t admit that Lady Sophia lived a double life, and that knowledge felt like a weapon he did not want to use.
“It doesn’t matter.” He pushed back from the table. “The kiss was a moment of weakness. It will not be repeated.”
“Edward.” Hugo’s voice softened. “You are allowed some pleasure in this life. You aren’t a monk. You are a man with needs, and there is no shame in pursuing them.”
“My needs are irrelevant.” Edward pulled on his coat. “What matters is finding someone to care for Oliver. Someone stable. Someone without complications.”
“Someone you don’t actually want.”
Edward paused, his hand on the back of the chair. The words landed like a blow, precise and painful.
“‘Want’ has nothing to do with it.”
“Doesn’t it?” Hugo rose and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You can lie to yourself all you like, my friend. But I have known you for years. I have never seen you look at a woman the way you look at Lady Sophia. And I have certainly never seen you kiss one on a moonlit balcony in the middle of a ball.”
“I didn’t say it was a balcony.”
Hugo grinned. “You didn’t have to. Moonlit balconies are the only acceptable venue for dramatic romantic encounters. Everyone knows that.”
Edward stared at him. Then, despite everything, despite the guilt and the confusion and the ache that had settled beneath his ribs, he laughed.
It emerged rough and rusty, as if his body had forgotten how to produce the sound. But it was real.
“You are insufferable.”
“And you are in love.” Hugo’s grin softened into something warmer. “Or at least on your way there. And before you protest, I will say only this. Your brother found happiness by following his heart. Perhaps you should consider doing the same.”
The laughter died in Edward’s throat. Leonard’s face flashed through his mind.
Bright with joy on the night he announced his engagement, defiant as their father raged, and then gone.
Vanished into the night with Jane on his arm and nothing but the clothes on his back and the coins Edward had given him.
Leonard and Jane had built a life together, had a son, and found the happiness their father swore they never would.
And then the carriage accident had taken it all away.
Edward had destroyed enough men with his fists to know what such violence did to flesh and bone.
He tried not to imagine it done to Leonard. To Jane.
“My brother followed his heart, and it killed him.”
Hugo’s smile vanished. “Edward—”
“Goodnight, Hugo.”
He walked out of the cellar and into the night, leaving behind his friend, his whiskey, and the ghost of a kiss.