Chapter Twenty-Six
Banallt held out his arm, and even though Sophie placed her hand on his elbow, he actually hesitated, expecting her to demand that Mr. Jenkins be the one to return her to Havenwood. She didn’t, despite the fact that she’d lost all color to her cheeks. Well. And so. She ought to be ashamed. Not one word from her in the days since he’d left Havenwood; no replies to his letters, no correspondence from her, leaving him wondering if her post was being intercepted or worse. “I assure you,” he drawled, looking at her but speaking for Jenkins’s benefit, “you’ll be home in time for supper tomorrow.”
Jenkins laughed, and that seemed to reassure everyone within earshot that their beloved Mrs. Evans wasn’t consigning herself to a kidnapping and ravishment at the hands of the notorious Earl of Banallt. He had no illusions that the residents of Duke’s Head weren’t protective of Sophie. They were. To a man, woman, and child. “You’ll call on us, won’t you, Mrs. Evans?” Mr. Jenkins said. “My wife would dearly love to see you again. We’ve missed your visits, you know.”
Her eyes were deceptively calm. “Yes, I will.”
Jenkins beamed at her. “And bring your young gentleman with you?”
Sophie glanced at Banallt. He kept his reaction muted. “Anything for Mrs. Evans,” he said with a bow in her direction. “Including presenting myself at every home in Duke’s Head.”
“Have you time for that, my lord?” Sophie asked, having, apparently, and thank God for it, decided it was best to follow his lead and adopt a bantering tone.
“Certainly.”
“Most excellent.” Jenkins grinned then cast an eye at the sky, which was at the moment a clear blue. There were clouds on the horizon, though. “Best take that drive before the weather comes in, my lord.”
Ten minutes later, Banallt had Sophie at his side and his pair of grays heading east on a narrow oak-lined lane. For some time, they didn’t speak. He was content with that.
“You don’t really mean to call on Mr. Jenkins, do you?” she asked.
“Yes, I do. For one thing, I want a look at his yearlings.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Need you ask?” He watched her face, but she was expert at hiding her emotions. A trick she’d learned while married to Tommy, devil take the bastard. “Are you with child?” She turned paler yet. Her hand clenched a handful of her cloak. “Well?” His heart thudded hard. “Sophie. This is not a question you can refuse to answer.”
Her fist unclenched and clenched. “I don’t know.”
“When will you know?” But he’d already done a calculation of his own. If she didn’t know yet, then there was reason for concern. “I thought you’d put me behind you,” he said. Now was not the time to push her. Not yet. “When I heard Tallboys had been here and come back without an announcement—” What Banallt had thought was that Sophie wouldn’t marry Tallboys if she was pregnant by Banallt. Either way, he needed to see her. “I came here to marry you,” he said.
That made her laugh. “No, you didn’t. You came here to find out if you’ve had a convenient escape.”
He drew a breath and controlled his temper. “You know that’s not so.”
She gave him a stony look. “What gentleman wishes to marry a woman who won’t read his letters?”
“Nor answer them,” he said.
“What lady wishes to involve herself with a gentleman whose name is connected with so many lovers? Mrs. P. Lady W And I can’t recall how many others.” She dangled a hand over the side of his curricle and then leaned over the side, staring at the ground.
“There are no other lovers,” he said.
“How fast do they go?” she asked. “The horses, I mean.”
He flicked the whip, and the grays responded with a smooth canter. “They are not yet at top speed. I made nearly fourteen miles per hour when I drove here from London.”
“Really?” She leaned over the side again, staring at the ground.
“Sit up, Sophie.” When she did, he flicked the whip. “Too fast?”
She tilted back her head and let the wind blow past her face. His heart thumped in his chest. “Can we go faster?”
Easily. He urged more from the grays. Sophie kept her head tilted back. “We’re flying,” she cried.
“Not yet. Do you want to?”
“Oh yes.”
Cold air blew past them and threatened to send his hat whirling away. If it went, he didn’t give a damn. They reached a straight section of road, and he let the grays go. The curricle flew. Beside him, Sophie raised her arms to the sky. Her laugh vanished in the thunder of hooves and wheels. Banallt laughed, too, a deep bass rumble that ended on a whoop as he took them around a corner with hardly a decrease in speed.
When at last he slowed them down, Sophie said, “That was wonderful. Thank you for that. Thank you.”
“Reckless, are you?” God, he hoped so. He wanted her body under his, wrapped around his. He wanted her breath low and on the edge of control, her voice capable of nothing but a ragged echo of his name.
“I am today.”
“Have you driven before?”
“Many times.” She leaned forward, hands on her lap, turning her head to look at him. “Does that shock you?” she asked, so openly curious that he realized she’d not understood what he meant. “Did you think I’d never been in a phaeton before?”
“I mean, have you ever held the ribbons yourself?”
“Oh. That.” She sat back. He knew immediately her thoughts were back at Rider Hall and some recollection of her husband, that worthless bastard Tommy Evans. “No.”
“I’ll show you how if you like.” Tommy had ignored Sophie as much as he could, and when he hadn’t, he’d played a heavy hand on a woman who needed gentle treatment. Banallt presented her with the whip and with a few quick motions taught her the light touch his grays required. When she had that, he handed over the traces. She gripped the reins like a drowning man would a rope and gave him a sideways look. “You’ll catch on quickly. Do as I say,” he said when she tried to give them back. “Or I must conclude you are a coward.” At that, her back stiffened anew, but not, this time, with disapproval. “My wife, Sophie, must be a dab hand. I can’t have a ham-fingered countess driving my cattle through London.”
“Shall I have a phaeton like this, then?” she asked, laughing, but not as if she believed him.
“If you like.” His easy agreement got her attention. He kept a smile off his face. “Eyes on the road, Sophie. I won’t allow you so much as a pumpkin with wheels until you prove you can drive without risk of breaking your neck or injuring the animals.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The day was fine with very little wind, despite Jenkins’s worry for the weather. Excellent conditions for a drive. He slid his torso partially behind her, arms around either side of her in order to adjust her hands. Alarm flared in her eyes. Stiff as a board. In answer, he loosened his hands over hers. Christ, she was skittish.
“Like so.” He pressed his chest against her back but stopped when he felt her stiffen again. “Not so hard. There. Yes. You’re doing well.” He lowered his head. Thank God she wasn’t one of those women who favored clumps of feathers in her hats. The inner surface of his coat sleeves brushed the sides of her bosom. His balls tightened pleasantly, a natural reaction to his proximity to the woman who’d been in all his erotic dreams since the day they met. “Put your hands here. Just so.”
Her frock fell in a straight line from just beneath her bosom to her hips, but her body did not. Well. And so. She had the kind of lines an artist drew to render a gown more flattering in depiction. “Relax, Sophie.” He skimmed his cheek along hers and shifted closer. Soft skin. He remembered touching her, stroking her body, covering her with his, sliding inside her. He drew in a long breath. A faint scent, light, clean, and floral. “Darling,” he murmured in her ear. “I cannot instruct you in the mystic skill of handling the ribbons if you sit there like a lump of cold butter.”
She gave him a killing glance, but she did relax. Her back curved against his torso, and the horses settled down.
“Much better,” he said. Jesus, but he wanted her. Eventually, he leaned away from her, withdrawing his hands. When she concentrated, she had the habit of sticking the tip of her tongue into the corner of her mouth. She was doing that right now, and given his state of mind, the images in his head were not polite ones. Sophie always had affected him that way, from the very first moment he set eyes on her.
She settled to the task of handling his team, and her anxiety faded, replaced by concentration and then delight. “They’re doing most of the work,” she said of his pair.
“An indication, Sophie, that you have got a talent for driving. You’d probably be as gifted on horseback.” There went her tongue again. He spread his legs, and she was concentrating too hard to notice his thigh pressing against hers. “Do you ride?”
She spared him a glance. “We’re to be married, and you do not know the answer?”
His eyebrows rose. “Are you suggesting, my darling Sophie, that you have previously told me the answer and I have failed to recall?”
“No, my lord.”
“I merely assume your answer is yes, but that you have no animal of your own.”
“I don’t ride often.” Her mouth tightened. “I did as a girl.”
“Watch the turn here.” He placed his hand in the small of her back. “Well done, Sophie, well done.” He removed his hand, but he left his thighs spread and crowding her since she didn’t seem to mind and he liked the contact a great deal. They followed the lane for another mile before coming to a narrow bridge. She gave him a panicked look, but he pretended not to notice and let her cross without remark.
“How did I do?” she said when they were over and her tongue was back behind her lips. The grays were in stride again, at ease with their guide.
“Perhaps a phaeton is in order. I’ll order you one like this one.”
She laughed. The first genuine laugh he’d heard from her.
He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Considering your instructor, I expected no less.” She rolled her eyes, and he was glad to see she wasn’t tolerating his nonsense. The lane widened then continued straight. On either side fields stretched to the horizon. “Withypool is half a mile on,” he said. And from there, just a mile and a half to Castle Darmead. “Do you want to drive so far?”
“It’s a pleasant day,” she said. Carefully. “But it’s late. I’ll be missed.”
“I’ll have you home in time, my word on it.”
They drove in a companionable quiet. Thank goodness she was not one of those women compelled to fill every silence with inanity. Presently, though, she said, “Withypool is just around the corner.”
“Let’s turn around here.” At his signal, she brought the curricle to a slow stop in front of a cottage with a driveway large enough to turn around in, though he was prepared to help her if she hadn’t the strength in her arms. She did, and besides, his pair was well-trained.
The cottage looked empty. It was tidy, with a flagstone path, a thatched roof, and the crossbeams typical of a house built in Elizabeth’s time. The flower beds were grown wild, however, and the thatch was years past replacing. Behind the cottage the fields swept out into brilliant green. “A lovely view,” he said. The turrets of Darmead were visible at the horizon. As a girl, Sophie must have cut through that very field to get to Darmead.
She glanced from the house to the sky and then at last at him. “I was shocked to see you at church. I thought you were here to have the banns read.”
“There’s no time for banns.”
“For you and Miss Llewellyn.”
“Sophie.” Her attention moved back to the view, and he sighed. “Sophie, look at me.” She did, and for a moment his stomach threatened to fly away with his heart. Instinct told him now was the moment to take her in his arms, to touch his mouth to hers. He didn’t, though. Acting on his instincts had gotten him a reputation that did him no good with Sophie. Instead, he clenched his hands into fists. “I’m not going to marry Fidelia.”
“It’s true,” she said.
“What?”
“That I used to tell stories about Castle Darmead and your ancestors. I used to pretend I’d marry the master of the castle one day.” Despite himself, he set a gloved hand to her cheek. A light touch. Her cheek turned pink. “I did tell Mr. Jenkins’s daughters I would marry the Earl of Banallt one day. I was ten, I think. I absolutely believed I would.”
“And that absurdity persisted until?” He kept his hand on her cheek.
She closed her eyes. “Until I married Tommy.”
“I wish I’d met you first.” He had no time to regret his hasty words, because Sophie’s eyes popped open. Hell, but he was perilously close to kissing her. That would spoil everything.
“You’d never have looked at me twice.”
“Probably not. But I’d have heard you speak and understood you were the woman for me.”
Her mouth curled into a crooked smile. “I had spots. And no bosom to speak of.”
“You certainly developed one later,” he said. He drew a finger along the bridge of her nose. Up and over the arch. “And yet your mind was first-rate. That can’t have changed.” But she was right. If he’d met her when he was twenty instead of when he was thirty, he’d never have gone close enough to her to hear her speak. He was proud then, callow when it came to women, though he would have denied the accusation since in those days he’d believed sexual experience and appreciation of women were one and the same.
She curled her fingers gently around his wrist, but not, he noted, to disengage from their contact. “I was a foolish girl, Banallt.”
“You are determined to disagree with me at every step, aren’t you? That’s vexing of you.”
Her smile deepened. “And what would I have thought of you if I’d met you before Tommy?”
He put his other hand on her cheek, too. “You would have thought, there stands a man to make my pulse race,” he whispered. He stroked his thumbs along her cheeks. He wished he didn’t have on his gloves and that she wasn’t so bloody damn wary of him now. “The Earl of Banallt and the master of Darmead. No doubt you’d have wanted to marry me straightaway. I’d only have needed to crook my finger at you.”
“You ought to write a novel of your own.” She drew back, but he tightened his hands on her face.
“I tried that once, as you may recall. Such a hideous failure I’ll never unleash on paper again. Don’t,” he said, keeping his hands on her to prevent her from looking away. “Let me look at you a little longer.” With his thumbs, he stroked her eyebrows, followed the strong line of her nose, and at last traced the sensitive curve of her mouth. Her eyes slowly closed. She was going to let him kiss her; he knew it because he was a connoisseur of women and their sexual responses. He didn’t do it because he was afraid of what might happen if he did. He had only one chance left with her. One only.
“Let us get down and walk, Sophie.”