Chapter 33
“You are glowing.” Alice settled onto the settee beside Sophia, her eyes bright with curiosity.
The drawing room at Heatherwell House bustled with afternoon callers, ladies who came to pay their respects to the new duchess, but Alice had claimed the seat closest to Sophia with the determination of a woman on a mission.
“I am not glowing.” Sophia smoothed her skirts. “I am simply well rested.”
“Well rested.” Alice’s lips twitched. “Is that what we are calling it now?”
Heat crept up Sophia’s neck. She busied herself with her tea, avoiding her friend’s knowing gaze.
“The visit to your father’s house seems to have done wonders.” Alice sipped her own tea with exaggerated innocence. “Thomas mentioned the duke has been in remarkably good spirits since your return. Smiling, even. Thomas nearly fell out of his chair.”
“Edward smiles.”
“Edward.” Alice’s eyebrows rose. “Not ‘His Grace’ or ‘the duke.’ Edward.” She set down her cup. “Something has definitely changed.”
Sophia could not deny it. Something had changed.
Everything had changed. The man who had once seemed so distant, so cold, so determined to keep her at arm’s length, now reached for her hand across the breakfast table.
Now appeared in her sitting room in the afternoons simply to see how her day was progressing.
Now looked at her as though she were the answer to a question he had spent his entire life asking.
“We are finding our footing.” Sophia chose her words with care. “Learning to be married.”
“Learning to be married,” Alice repeated the phrase with a smile. “I am happy for you, Sophia. Truly. You deserve this.”
Before Sophia could respond, the door opened, and Edward appeared. He crossed the room, nodding politely to the assembled ladies, and stopped beside Sophia’s chair.
“Forgive the interruption.” His eyes found hers. “I wondered if you might spare a moment. There is something I wish to show you.”
The request was perfectly innocent. His tone was perfectly proper. But something in his gaze made Sophia’s pulse quicken.
“Of course.” She rose, setting aside her tea. “If you will excuse me, ladies.”
She caught Alice’s grin as she followed Edward from the room. Her friend would have questions later. Many questions.
Sophia found she did not mind.
The days that followed blurred together in a haze of discovery.
They took breakfast together each morning, lingering over coffee and toast while Oliver regaled them with his dreams from the night before.
They walked in the garden when the weather permitted, Edward’s hand warm at the small of her back.
They dined together each evening, and their conversation flowed more easily now, and their laughter came more freely.
And at night, in the privacy of their chambers, they learned each other in different ways.
Sophia discovered Edward was ticklish along his ribs, a fact he vehemently denied. She learned he preferred to sleep on his left side, his arm draped across her waist. She found out that he read poetry when he could not sleep, dog-eared volumes hidden in his bedside table.
He discovered her in turn. That she hummed while brushing her hair. That she could not resist a freshly baked scone. That she talked in her sleep, fragments of conversations and half-formed thoughts that made him smile in the darkness.
They were building something. Brick by brick, moment by moment. Something that felt dangerously like a life.
The Ashworth ball was the first event they attended as a properly united couple.
Sophia descended the staircase in a gown of midnight blue, Edward waiting at the bottom in evening dress. His eyes swept over her, and heat flickered in their depths.
“You look…” He cleared his throat. “We may be late.”
“We will not be late.” Sophia took his arm with a smile. “The ton is already whispering about us. Let us give them something worth discussing.”
The ballroom was a crush of silk and candlelight. Heads turned as they entered, whispers rippling through the crowd. The Duke and Duchess of Heatherwell, married in haste, and the subject of endless speculation.
Let them speculate, Sophia thought. Let them see.
Edward led her onto the dance floor for the opening waltz. His hand settled at her waist, firm and possessive. They moved together in perfect harmony, the steps coming naturally now, their bodies attuned to each other in ways that went far beyond dancing.
“They are staring,” Edward murmured near her ear.
“Let them.” She smiled up at him. “I rather enjoy being stared at when I am on the arm of the most handsome man in the room.”
His lips curved. “Flattery, Your Grace?”
“Truth, Your Grace.”
He pulled her closer than was strictly proper. She did not protest.
Later, Hugo appeared at their side, his grin insufferable.
“Well, well.” He looked between them with theatrical satisfaction. “It seems my matchmaking instincts were correct after all.”
“Your matchmaking instincts?” Edward raised an eyebrow.
“The dance at your house party.” Hugo buffed his nails against his lapel. “Provocation is a form of matchmaking, is it not?”
“Provocation is a form of insufferability.” But Edward’s voice lacked any actual heat.
Hugo laughed and bowed to Sophia. “Your Grace, you have worked miracles. The man is practically cheerful. I did not think it possible.”
“I am standing right here.” Edward pointed out.
“Yes, and smiling.” Hugo shook his head in mock wonder. “The world has truly turned upside down.”
He sauntered off before Edward could respond. Sophia laughed, tucking her hand more firmly into her husband’s arm.
“He’s not wrong, you know.” She glanced up at him. “You are smiling.”
Edward looked down at her, and something soft passed across his features.
“I have reason to.”
Sophia continued her work as Lady Fairhart.
Twice a week, she slipped out in the unmarked hackney, the duke’s driver delivering her to Mr. Colborne’s office and waiting to bring her safely home.
The work felt different now. Lighter. She was no longer laboring under the weight of desperation, and no longer counting coins to pay off a monster’s demands.
She matched couples because she loved it. Because she believed in it. Because there was magic in watching two people find their way to each other.
“You seem different.” Mr. Colborne observed one evening, peering at her over his spectacles. “Happier.”
Sophia smiled, thinking of Edward waiting for her at home, probably pretending to read while listening for the sound of her return.
“I am.”
Mr. Colborne nodded with satisfaction. “Good. You deserve it, Your Grace. You have earned it.”
She returned home that night to find Edward in the entrance hall, as she had expected. What she had not expected was the way he pulled her into his arms the moment the door closed, kissing her until she forgot her own name.
“I missed you,” he murmured against her lips.
“I was gone for three hours.”
“Three hours too long.”
She laughed and kissed him again. This, she thought. This was what happiness felt like.
But the laughter barely faded before something in him shifted. His hands tightened at her waist, sliding lower, then back again as though reassuring himself she was truly there.
“Sophia…” Her name left him like a warning to himself.
“What?” she breathed, smiling up at him.
Instead of answering, he bent and lifted her clean off her feet.
She gasped, clutching at his shoulders. “Edward!”
He was already striding down the corridor. Not toward the staircase.
“Edward,” she said again, breathless with surprise. “The bedchamber is the other way.”
“Too far,” he growled softly, not slowing.
The study door swung open with a decisive push of his shoulder. He carried her inside, kicking it shut behind them. The fire had burned low, the room warm and shadowed, his desk a broad expanse of polished wood beneath the lamplight.
She laughed again, though it came out unsteady. “You are entirely unreasonable.”
“Hopelessly,” he agreed, setting her on the edge of the desk but not stepping away.
There was no careful unfolding this time. No measured patience.
He kissed her like a man starved, hands framing her face before sliding to her waist, drawing her closer. The urgency in him pulled a soft sound from her throat, half protest, half surrender.
“Edward,” she whispered, fingers tangling in his hair.
“You said you were happy,” he murmured against her mouth. “Let me show you how happy you make me.”
The desk creaked faintly as he pressed closer, his mouth trailing to her throat, his breath warm against her skin. Her earlier composure dissolved entirely, replaced by heat and laughter and breathless little protests that carried no real conviction.
“Someone might hear,” she managed.
“Let them,” he said roughly. “They’ll know their mistress is adored.”
Her hands slid over his shoulders, holding him to her as firmly as he held her.
The world beyond the study door ceased to matter.
There was only the scrape of wood beneath her palms, the warmth of his body, and the way he looked at her as though she were something fierce and precious and entirely his.
He lifted her skirts and entered her with one swift thrust. Sophia bit back a cry of pleasure. She slid closer to the edge of the desk and wrapped her legs around him.
Edward rocked hard and fast into her. And Sophia let him take her, grasping his hips with her hands and pulling him into her until the flame of desire became a firestorm in her core.
She arched against him as her body merged with his in a frenzy.
Their desire for each other flared with the firelight, savage and urgent.
Later, when the lamp flickered low and the room settled into quiet again, she rested her forehead against his.
“Three hours,” she murmured.
He brushed a kiss to her temple, still breathless. “Never again.”
One afternoon, Sophia found Alice and Thomas in the drawing room with their daughters.
Rosie and Nancy had descended upon Oliver like a pair of benevolent hurricanes, and the three children were now engaged in an elaborate game involving Thunder the horse, a tea set, and what appeared to be a diplomatic negotiation between two warring kingdoms.
“You cannot tax the horses!” Oliver declared; his small face scrunched with outrage. “Horses are sacred!”
“Every kingdom needs taxes.” Rosie crossed her arms. “Papa said so.”
“Tax the dragons instead,” Nancy suggested helpfully.
Thomas watched the proceedings with a mixture of pride and bewilderment. “I am fairly certain I said nothing about taxing horses.”
“Children have selective hearing.” Alice patted his arm. “You will learn.”
Edward appeared in the doorway, drawn by the commotion. He watched the children negotiate their treaty, his expression softening in a way that made Sophia’s heart clench.
He caught her eye across the room and smiled.
She smiled back, and the world felt impossibly full.