She sensed an unusual tentativeness in him, for he’d suddenly gone quite still. “I told him there are other ways, but he wants to leave England for a place where nobody knows who he is. He wants to find a place where he can live with Stewart, without having to worry about censure and scandal.”

“Stewart is his…”

“Stewart is his… valet.”

“Does such a place exist?” Sophia asked. This was all quite surprising. And harrowing!

“Perhaps. Harold thinks there may be an island in the West Indies. He would have to become something of an explorer for a while, perhaps for a few years. But he told me he’s always dreamed of setting his own course for his life. Without his father directing it, or his brother, or the ton. It would be a decision made by him and his… valet. It has not been a hasty decision on either of their parts.”

Sophia lay quietly as she considered such a plan. “It is dangerous,” she finally said.

“It is, and yet, it simplifies matters considerably. And it is a stunt we’ve done before.”

“As boys.”

“Yes. He will practice it.” She was of no doubt that Dev would as well. He would not let his younger cousin attempt it first, after going years without knowing exactly how time, and water, had affected the tunnel. “The timing, the execution. Everything will need to be done in a precise manner. And we’ll need witnesses. People willing to testify that he perished in the sea.”

“You are sad for your cousin to leave?”

“It is as much what he wants as it is what you would want. What his partner wants. And what I want. But yes, I am sad. It is so very… final.”

“And you are frightened for him.”

“I am. I have been active, what with drills and exercises these past years, but Harold has led a sedentary life. The swimming maneuver, it is not a given for him.”

Not only did Harold wish to be free of her, he needed to be free of her, and his family, and all of England! So much so that he would risk his life. “Dev?” she said finally. “Thank you for telling me all of this, for not glossing over the dangers of it. I want you to know — I want Harold to know — that if he finds he is unable to do it, we will find another way. He mustn’t feel pressure to go through with this mad scheme if he has second thoughts.”

She felt him nuzzling the top of her head.

“And that, my dear,” he said, “is why I am enamored of you.”

She chuckled. This was nice. Cuddling.

“Now, will you tell me something?”

“Anything.” She felt most open in that moment.

“You will approve if I dispatch of your stepbrother?”

He knew. Somehow, from what she had said, he’d guessed.

He had just told her everything. He had trusted her. He’d been open and honest with her. How could she be anything but with him?

“I am safe from him now,” she said.

He squeezed her protectively, but she felt a new tension emanating from him. “Thank God for that. That is why you were anxious to marry, was it not?”

“It was.”

Sophia remembered some of her first encounters with Dudley. He would pinch her, or poke her, trip her, step on her toes — anything that he could do without the adults catching on. And when she told her mother or Mr. Scofield, he would deny it, indicate that she was being overly fussy. She was a girl, after all.

“I think he resented taking on a sister. I was a baby, and he was a growing boy. He did not like that my mother had entered his life and stolen some of his father’s affection. Dudley could not treat my mother poorly, but he found me easy prey.”

“Was this ongoing? Did it happen more than once?”

He nuzzled her ear from behind. She shook her head, just enough so that he could feel her answer and then closed her eyes and remembered. “After he got into my room that one time, I locked my door whenever he was home from school. He tried, but I was diligent. And since he was away most of the time, I had breaks from… from the threat of him.”

She’d been such an idiot to ever trust Dudley!

“When he returned from school that one year, he’d changed. His voice had deepened, he had hair growing on his face, and he was taller. His friends were all taller too. Although they told me I was an annoying child, I knew things were different. And I, well, I did not find objections with much of it. They were handsome older boys. They teased me. Some of them flirted with me.”

She did not wish to keep talking about this but continued anyway. “In all honesty, I do not know for certain what happened. I struggled with him, tried to shove him away, but he struck me. When I awoke, there was evidence… but, I don’t actually remember any of it. I should not have let him enter my chamber. Since then, I always lock my door. It never happened again.”

She felt Dev swallow hard once and then again before he spoke. “You never told your mother?” he asked.

She covered her face with her hands. She’d been such a coward. She’d not told anybody until she’d met Rhoda. “I just wasn’t… I didn’t…” Oh, this was mortifying. “I told Rhoda last spring.”

Strong arms tightened around her. And then, “She is protective of you.”

“And Peaches,” Sophia added. “I do not trust him with Peaches. I caught him kicking her once. He snarled and told me that nothing would make him happier than to see her hanging from a tree.”

“So, he would hurt a pet,” Dev pointed out. “He hurt you. Might he hurt someone else?”

This man whose arms held her so tenderly wanted to dispatch of Dudley. What did that mean? Dev was a military man, a captain. He would wish to mete out some justice. Not just for deeds Dudley had done in the past, but to prevent him from injuring another. Which, as she considered it, was a reasonable possibility. Dudley was not above using violence and force, and if the lady trusted him…

“And so, you would wish to… dispatch of him. Could he not simply be punished? I would not wish his death on your hands, nor on mine.”

Dev was quiet for a moment. It was obvious he wanted to say more, ask more questions, but he was being sensitive to her feelings. “If that is what you wish, I will honor it. If you wish nothing to be done, I will honor that as well. But bullies such as he need a deterrence. They need to suffer repercussions.” Although he lay calmly, anger shook his voice.

“Then so be it,” she said. Dudley would not be allowed to hurt another.

Sophia did not want to think about Dudley. She tucked her face into his Dev’s chest. She hated the subject of her stepbrother! She would erase him from her every memory if possible.

“So, this Stewart fellow… He is Harold’s valet then? And they… love one another? Do the duke and duchess know?”

Her gown had ridden up slightly, and the wool of his pants brushed against her bare legs. She felt the strength of his calves and thighs through the fabric.

“He is. It allows them to be together in the way that they would wish. And, yes, I believe his parents know… or have guessed anyhow.”

Sophia continued, slightly in awe. “They were unclothed. The valet, Stewart, he is a handsome man. When I met him earlier, I thought he had a sort of presence unusual in a servant. I’d never considered this sort of love. Is it the same, do you think, as men and women feel?”

Dev’s hand slid along her shoulder, down her arm, to her hips… “It is difficult for me to imagine, Sophia, but it is real enough. Harold has fought it in himself for a long time. He would not have chosen such a life if it were not ingrained within him. Much like the color of his eyes, or the shape of his face.”

Sophia tilted her head back as Dev’s lips trailed down her jaw to the base of her throat.

“I don’t think I will ever understand it completely. My imaginings run more along the lines of sweet-smelling blondes. I have imagined none other but you since that first afternoon.”

“Oh,” Sophia said. She forgot what she’d been talking about for all of at least a minute.

The growth of his beard grazed her skin while the heated moisture of his mouth stoked a fire within her. Sophia felt helpless to such sensations as he kissed and then tasted the skin at her nape. A hunger to pull his head lower, toward her breasts, fought with another to urge his mouth higher, so that she could kiss him properly.

“Dev, please, please, kiss me?”

“I would kiss every inch of you, Sophia,” he whispered, and his lips trailed lower. His hands at her back, loosening her gown. “I would touch every inch of you, taste every inch of you.” Understanding dawned as to her mother’s insistence that she dab perfume in all manner of places about her body. Dev had untied her gown and was edging it off her shoulders.

Sophia squirmed, and, perhaps sensing her hesitancy, Dev took possession of her mouth again. Ah, but she could kiss him for hours. “Every inch?” she barely managed to get the words out as his tongue danced with hers.

He quite stole her breath away.

Sophia gasped when cool air hit her skin. But with him kissing her thusly, his tongue exploring her teeth, his mouth nipping at her lips, she no longer felt any modesty. One warm hand covered her breast, and all she could think was that she wanted him to pull her into him, into his hands, into his mouth.

“Every God-given inch of you, Sophia,” he whispered in the midst of this perfect assault.

But it was not an assault. He lay siege at her insistence, at her longing, at her willing.

Up until that point, she’d tucked her hands innocently against his abdomen and chest. But his words exploded a need within her, a similar curiosity to explore and know all of Devlin Brookes. She tugged at the bottom of his shirt to no avail. When it refused to slide out of his breeches, she pulled at it harder. What in tarnation? The shirt refused to budge.

Without any warning, Dev sat up and in one fluid motion pulled the damn thing out of his breeches and over his head.

Moonlight cast rippling shadows over well-toned muscles. Unlike Harold’s and Stewart’s, Dev’s skin was golden and smooth with a smattering of black hair disappearing into his breaches. His eyes burned back at her as she trailed curious fingers down his sternum, not quite stopping at his navel. Impatient and demanding, he brushed her hand away and covered her with his body once again.

“Sophia,” he growled. His mouth latched onto one of her breasts, while a warm hand molded the other.

This feeling, this hunger, was what he’d awakened that day behind the lion’s cage. It was aroused by him and him alone and had changed the entire course of her life.

She would have him pull harder with his mouth; she would have him squeeze and pinch tighter with his hands. And he did, as though her thinking commanded it. But just enough. Just the perfect amount.

Her hands gripped his shoulders. She wrapped a leg around his waist. She would be closer.

No longer two, but one.

Another growl against her breast caused a moan to roll through her. Was that her? It must have been.

“Sophia.” He stilled his mouth, but not his hands. “I would have that I’d said those vows to you today. I would want you to have no regrets or doubts when you give yourself to me.” He kissed the cleft between her breasts. “And this is going to kill me.”

“Oh, Dev.” She suddenly knew what he was about.

He was going to stop. He was going to respect her, of all things!

He lay thusly, one hand cradling her breast, the other gripping her bottom, for all of a minute before pushing himself away.

He was far more handsome than Harold’s valet.

He was hers. He would live in her heart forever. Whether she and Harold untangled their marriage or not, Devlin Brookes would always be her one true love.

With his hair mussed and his lips swollen from desire, he made her ache. This most likely was what if felt like to die.

She did not want him to stop!

She would be a temptress. She stretched her hands lazily above her head, found the end of her braid, and slid the ribbon off. As though she did so without thought, she absentmindedly unwound the braid easily and played with the long, soft strands.

“And you are going to kill me, Devlin Brookes.” Her voice came out lower than normal. That was want. That tone in her voice was her own desire.

* * *

As Dev did his damnedest to tamp down his need, Sophia lay before him like a fantasy, the belle of the ball, sent from heaven to tempt him. She was so goddamned perfect in every way.

The devil’s own debutante.

The other half of him.

Why had he stopped?

He’d had the best of intentions only moments before. But suddenly, with her long blond curls luxuriously spread about her doll-like face and petal-soft skin, his arousal nearly consumed him. She arched her back slightly, drawing his eyes to two perfect breasts. One nipple was moist, where his mouth had been; the other begged to be loved as well.

He’d never claimed to be a saint.

“You are certain?” He was surprised when his words came out a whisper. Her voice had tugged at parts of his body where a mere voice had no right to affect.

“It is my wedding night, after all.” Again, desire wrapped around him even tighter.

Her words ought to have reminded him — reminded him that she’d married his cousin earlier that morning.

But she hadn’t really.

Except for Dev, the age-old words had held great meaning, and the vows had touched him.

And so, he knelt beside her. Taking one of her hands in his, he spoke solemnly.

“I, Devlin Roderick Michael Brookes, take thee, Sophia Ann Babineaux, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward…” Somehow, he knew them by heart. He’d heard them dozens of times before. “...for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto, I plight thee my troth. With all of my heart…” He’d changed the words, for he hadn’t a ring. “…I thee wed. With my body, I thee worship, and with all of my worldly goods, I thee endow.” He looked down at their hands solemnly.

He meant every word.

She gazed back, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted.

“You needn’t say them to me, Sophia.” An awkward wave of embarrassment washed over him. But she’d seen too much of the fickleness of man. “Not until you can do all of these things openly, legally. But I wanted you to know…”

She sat up and threw her arms around him, her gown falling away to drape itself around her thighs. She pressed enthusiastic kisses along his face and neck. His hands fell to her naked waist.

This moment brought to mind the feelings he’d often experienced the night before a battle.

Sometimes a moment was a gift. It was a precious event placed in one’s life, and one must take it gratefully. One never knew what the outcome of tomorrow would be, nor the next day, or the next hour.

Sophia was his gift. This moment was a gift to both of them. They would not pass it by.

He dipped his head and claimed her mouth again.