Chapter Thirteen
Sophia awoke bathed in warmth like a cat stretched languidly across a sunny windowsill. A strange experience, for she knew the wind pummeling the façade of her house carried the dampness of the Thames and a bitter chill. She glanced at the front windows. Moonlight seeped around the curtains, infusing the room in a subtle blue light.
The longcase clock struck five times, resonating through the house. Hayden should leave soon. Mrs. MacLean rose early, and the dailies would arrive in a few hours. Every cell in her brain told her she should wake him. Nevertheless, she pulled the quilt over her bare shoulders and nestled deeper into the crook between Hayden’s arm and chest, closer to the glorious heat his body offered.
“Sophia?”
Hayden’s deep voice rumbled beneath her ear. A shiver of awareness shot through her. He must have perceived the frisson, for his left hand, splayed on her lower back, pressed her tightly toward him as though he wished to warm her skin with his own.
She peered up at him. He looked magnificent, even with his hair tousled as if he’d ridden a fast mount through a turbulent gale.
Had she done that to him? Yes, she remembered running her fingers through the thick mass. “Good morning.” She feigned a sense of ease.
He flashed a devilish grin. “How lovely you look upon awakening.”
She probably resembled the doxies she’d seen in Whitechapel, the ones with red whisker abrasions on their faces.
God, what have I done? A vision of herself with her legs wrapped around him assailed her. She had behaved like a wanton, acting far beyond the realm of anything imaginable, all because his blue eyes had begged, and her heart—her foolish heart—wanted him.
For the first time in her life, she comprehended why many of the women who sought guidance at the mission acted so recklessly. Desire and lust, the touch of a tongue, the stroke of a finger, all conspired with the heart to overpower rational thought.
She should prompt him to leave. It would not be prudent to let anyone see Hayden leaving her house. It would herald her ruination as clearly as a town crier’s proclamation.
“You should be going. Mrs. MacLean is an early riser.”
“I shall speak to her. I assure you she will not say a word to anyone.” He stroked his hand up and down her back.
If he spoke to her housekeeper again, Sophia feared the elderly woman might suffer some malady of the body or mind—possibly both. “Mrs. MacLean will not gossip.”
His hand stilled and one dark eyebrow edged upward. “Sophia, the woman had the audacity to eavesdrop.”
“She’s tended to me since I was twelve. She will chastise me as though I am still of that age, but nothing more.”
Hayden flashed an expression of disbelief but didn’t argue the point. Neither did he appear ready to leave. She reached out and turned the bedside lamp higher. “I ran into Lady Prescott the other day. Your sister said she is to help you interview governesses today, several young women from Queen’s College. She is excited over the candidates.”
He didn’t respond.
“Hayden?”
“Just a bit longer.” His hand resumed the gentle sweep across her back.
“You realize,” she said softly, “though Chelsea may be far more liberal than Mayfair, I cannot have the wicked Earl of Westfield seen leaving my house at the crack of dawn.”
“Wicked? I don’t believe anyone has ever had the temerity to call me that to my face.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “No, I presume they wouldn’t.” She ran her fingers through the dark wisps of hair that dusted his chest.
He gave her a wry grin and rolled her onto her back. “I think I should stay and teach you deportment, my dear Miss Camden.”
“You teach me deportment?”
He favored her with another arrogant lift of his brow.
“I fancy you’ve taught me quite enough.” She gave him a slight push with her hands in an effort to prompt him off the bed. A futile attempt.
“On the contrary.” He drew the quilt off their bodies. “I wish to teach you a great deal more.” He slowly traced a finger lightly over her waist, causing her to laugh.
He grinned. “Ah, you are ticklish.”
“No, I’m not.” She sobered her expression and tried not to squirm beneath his touch.
His fingers circled her navel. The sight of his large hand touching her caused a warm yearning to grow.
His hand moved lower.
Her heart beat faster.
Lower.
Her mouth grew dry.
He froze. She followed his gaze to a light smear of blood on her left inner thigh. His brows furrowed as if he’d not expected to see the proof of her lost innocence.
Her cheeks warmed, and she quickly tugged at the blanket to cover her body. “Did you believe me anything but chaste?” she asked, her voice hollow.
He closed his eyes briefly. “I thought you’d had a child. A daughter.”
Is that what he thought? Her throat clogged. She swallowed the thickness. He’d been misinformed. Oh, how foolish she was.
After gathering the quilt around her naked body, she slipped from the bed and padded across the room to the large oak dresser. She didn’t know why she felt irate. What had she expected of him? They lived in different worlds. Nevertheless, she’d wanted him to realize what she’d given up, yet he thought her a fallen woman.
She opened the top drawer, pulled out a small flannel cloth, and slammed the drawer closed. She spun around to face him. “Is that why you bedded me, Lord Westfield?” Her stomach pitched and rolled. “Did you think me a whore who bestows her favors with ease?” She didn’t wait for his reply, but squared her shoulders and moved toward the bathing room.
Hayden leapt from the bed and reached for her.
With little forethought, she let go of the quilt and shoved him. Hard. A nerve twitched in his taut jaw, but otherwise he didn’t move.
“Do not put words in my mouth, Sophia. I said I thought you’d had a child, nothing more.”
She turned away from his steely gaze and searched the shadows of the room. “Your information is faulty. I have never borne a child or shared the intimacy of my bed.”
He took a deep, audible breath. “Look at me.”
She kept her face averted, not wishing to reveal the tears threatening to stream down her cheeks.
“Sophia, please.”
She peered at him. The hard glint in his eyes softened.
“I should not have come here last night. I should never . . . Damnation, you’re trembling.” He swept up the quilt, draped it over her shoulders, and held it closed. “When I entered you, I thought my information flawed. But you said nothing.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I wish you to know I do not go around defiling virgins.”
“Ah, such noble restraint.”
His nostrils flared. “I was misinformed. Perhaps I realized it—refused to grasp the facts—to admit what I had done. I took your silence and used it to ease my conscience. Allowed myself to believe only what I wished, not what I knew.” His fingers traced the line of her jaw. “Sophia, we both wanted this, and somehow I think it was inevitable—a beginning.” He pulled her back into his embrace.
She stood still, absorbed his words. They implied a future, but what it entailed she didn’t know.
“Tell me about the child?”
She hesitated. “Her name was Georgiana. She was vibrant and lovely, and she was my sister’s child. My niece.”
“And she lived here with you?”
“My sister, Maria, died after giving birth. Puerperal sepsis.”
His brow furrowed.
“Childbed fever.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m sorry. What of the child’s father?”
How did she explain why Maria married Samuel? That love had not factored into the equation. That her sister had married a man beneath her station to anger Great-Uncle Charles. Samuel was Maria’s pawn, and in turn, she his. “Her husband abandoned her before Georgiana’s birth.”
Talking about Maria and Georgiana always made her melancholy—amplified her loneliness. She pressed her nose closer to Hayden’s skin, seeking its soothing scent. “She didn’t have our guardian’s blessing to marry, so she ran away with Samuel to Scotland. Her letters to me were always brief until the last one, when she asked me to come to London. To Spitalfields.”
“Spitalfields?” His tone reflected his awareness of the destitution the rookery contained.
“Maria and Samuel had come to London to meet with Father’s solicitor about her inheritance. The money should have lasted them several years, but it ran like water through Samuel’s fingers, and when it was gone, so was he. My sister was left not only destitute but shamed and pregnant.”
She thought of grandfather’s landscape hanging above the mantel in her morning room. Maria had never realized how valuable their grandfather’s paintings had become. “I arrived five days after Georgiana’s birth, and three days later Maria died.” She swiped at an errant tear.
Hayden stroked his hand up and down her back, soothing her inner turmoil, buoying her courage to continue. “Maria and I grew up here, in Chelsea, with our parents and grandfather. After we were orphaned we went to Northumberland to live with our paternal great-uncle. I bought this house a few years ago, hoping to give Georgiana the life Maria and I had known here.” Her chest tightened. “I failed. Georgiana died only a year after her mother.”
“Sophia, I’m sorry, but surely it was not your fault.”
She tipped her face to his. Her tears blurred his handsome visage. “Thomas said infection caused the fever that took Georgiana.”
“Trimble was your niece’s physician?”
“Not at first. But when she took a turn for the worse, I went to his Harley Street home in the middle of the night. After he saw how distressed I was, he came here to examine her.” She dashed her fingers across her cheeks to remove the tears streaming down her face. “If only I had brought her to Thomas initially, perhaps . . .” A sob caught in her throat.
With his fingers entwined with hers, Hayden pulled her toward the bed. He sat, leaned against the headboard, and settled her on his lap.
She couldn’t stop the tears. She wept for both the loss of her sister and niece, and, if she were honest, for giving her virginity to a man with a reputation for womanizing. A rogue who’d never once said he loved her.
* * *
Sophia awoke, feeling the press of Hayden’s lips upon her own.
“Sophia, I must go. It will be light soon.”
Dazed, she looked at him. He sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed. Had she cried herself to sleep?
He cupped her face. “As you are aware, I shall be interviewing candidates for Celia’s governess throughout the day, so I won’t be able to get away. But I wish to talk to you. Will you call on me?”
She wrapped the quilt tighter around her naked body. “We do not need to talk, my lord. What happened—”
He placed a finger to her lips. “If you call me my lord one more time, I’m going to renew our acquaintance by crawling back into your bed. Now, say you will come.”
She nodded.
“Good.” He kissed her again, a long and sensuous kiss, and then he strode from the room, leaving it once again cold.
* * *
Late that afternoon, as Sophia approached the front door of Hayden’s town house, the sweet aroma of almond macarons wafted delicately to her nostrils. She leaned over the wrought iron rail and peered down the stairwell to the steam-covered windows of the basement kitchen.
Someone mopped a sleeve across the moist glass. The servants’ entrance flew open to reveal Alice and Elsie standing shoulder to shoulder over the wide threshold. “Miss Camden,” Alice called, beckoning her with an enthusiastic wave.
Sophia swung open the gate and made her way down the stairs. She entered the warm, humid room, and Monsieur Laurent glanced up from the dough he aggressively kneaded.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Camden.” The Frenchman flashed a generous smile. “What ’as brought you ’ere?”
What, indeed? Her first thought was lunacy, but then her mind visualized Hayden’s kisses as he made love to her. The truth was too scandalous to voice.
“The wonderful aroma of your macarons. I smelled their divine scent all the way in Chelsea.”
“Mais oui,” he replied arrogantly. “I was famous for my sweets in Paris. Zee people would flock to my patisserie on Rue Royale just to get zee whiff of them.” After dusting the flour off his hands, he pointed to the pastries with a pudgy finger. “Vas-y! Sit. Sit. You must try zem.”
Elsie’s and Alice’s eyes grew wide, and Sophia realized the magnitude of honor the chef bestowed on her. “I would be pleased.”
Beaming like a man whose wife has just given birth to a set of healthy male twins, he motioned her to sit at the massive wooden table that dominated the room. “Elsie,” he boomed, “get mademoiselle a dish of macarons and a cup of tea.”
As the kitchen maid scurried off, Sophia slipped onto one of the chairs that surrounded the servants’ table.
The chef plunged his thick fingers back into the dough and without looking up asked, “Are you ’ere just to sample my pastries, mademoiselle, or do you wish to call on ’is lordship?”
Thankfully, his keen eyes were not upon her, for something in his tone made her cheeks heat. “Y-yes, though I’m sure his lordship is progressing splendidly, I wish to confirm it. One can never be too careful where health is concerned.”
“Ah, he’s faring rather well, if you ask me,” Alice mumbled as she folded a pile of starched napkins.
Sophia’s gaze swung to the maid.
With an impish smile, Alice hurried to the table and slipped into the chair directly across from Sophia. She glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder. “The master was out all night. With a woman, no doubt.” Her voice sounded like an odd dichotomy of both titillation and prudishness.
The tips of Sophia’s ears burned. Monsieur Laurent’s astute gaze settled on her. A smile teased the corners of his lips, and she thought he winked. She mumbled a thank-you to Elsie when the maid placed a steaming cup of tea and a dish laden with pastries in front of Sophia.
Elsie made a tsking noise. “Alice, you best be mindin’ your tongue. If Mrs. Beecham hears you stirring scandal broth you’ll find your bum out on the curb without a letter of reference.”
“What did I say?” Alice asked.
Elsie grinned. “Wot don’t she say? Right, Miss Camden?”
Sophia smiled before she nibbled on one of the meringue treats. They tasted superb, but the dryness in her mouth made her feel as if she tried to swallow overly salted kipper.
She’d never been a competent liar. She took a sip of her tea to alleviate her parched mouth. “Délicieux, monsieur,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted. “Merci.”
“Avec plaisir.” He glanced at Alice and Elsie and heaved a heavy sigh. “You both may have one as well, but quickly before Beecham sees.” Both women’s countenances lit up as they rushed to the tray.
“Seulement un.” He held up his floured index finger. “Only one.”
Alice and Elsie chatted amiably, but Sophia only half-heartedly listened, her mind still contemplating whether Monsieur Laurent had winked at her or whether it had been a figment of her guilty conscience.