Sophia Ruthven never intended to plaster her palm against the man’s shapely backside.
In fact, she hadn’t intended to encounter the Earl of Westby at all. True, she had stolen into the man’s private study. But his sister, Lady Vivian, who’d invited Sophia to speak at her weekly ladies’ book club tea, insisted her infamous rake of a brother was not at home.
How could Sophia have known that a simple request to use the ladies’ washroom would lead her past the half open door of the earl’s study? Who could blame her for succumbing to the mingled aromas of smoke and book leather wafting out of the room?
The chance to inspect a notorious scoundrel’s lair was simply too tempting a prospect to ignore.
Purely for research purposes, of course.
For months, Sophia had been working on a story about her fictional lady detective, Euphemia “Effie” Breedlove, but the details weren’t right. Her rakish villain lacked verisimilitude. A sheltered upbringing in the countryside had provided few opportunities to observe scoundrels firsthand.
Now her hand was pinned between the room’s dark wood paneling, a firm muscled posterior, and the green velvet curtain she’d hidden herself behind. The man and his companion had burst into the room as Sophia stood inspecting the items on the earl’s desk. Thankfully, the long drape-covered bay window had been near enough to offer concealment.
“Now. Right here on my desk. You’ve kept me waiting long enough, sweetling.” The man’s husky tone drew a moan from the young lady, interspersed with the squelching sound of wet kisses. Who gave with such fervor and who eagerly received, Sophia couldn’t be sure.
But she was sure of one thing. The feminine voice beyond the curtain belonged to Miss Emmeline Honeycutt, a fellow guest at the ladies’ tea. Sophia had been introduced to the girl not half an hour ago. She guessed her to be quite young, not many years older than her own seventeen-year-old sister, Clarissa. She couldn’t stand by and allow the girl to ruin herself.
Shifting her hand, she pushed at the heated swell of the man’s derriere.
“What’s that?” He stilled, pressing his weight against Sophia’s palm. “We don’t wish to be caught out, little minx. Seems we must wait a bit longer. You should get back to my sister’s gathering.”
After a few moments of whining protest and what sounded like the thud of dainty feet stomping thick carpet, Miss Honeycutt retreated with the swish and click of beaded fabric. When the study door slid shut, Sophia reached up to stifle a sneeze. She couldn’t get the taste of the earl’s pungent cologne off her tongue. Spicy and overly sweet, the scent was laid on so thick it tickled her nose.
“You can come out now, whoever you are.” His voice had taken on a hard edge, as firm as the contours of his backside. Not at all the warm murmur he’d offered Miss Honeycutt.
Thankfully, he’d moved enough to free Sophia’s hand, but she still hesitated a moment before pulling back the curtain and facing the man she’d read the worst sort of stories about in the gossip columns.
With one push at the drapery, she managed a step forward, keeping her chin up and back straight, lest he think her as brazen as the young woman who’d just left his arms.
“My lord, I can explain . . . ”
But she was apparently going to have to plead her case to an empty room. He’d gone, leaving her with nothing but flame-filled cheeks and the knowledge that, in future, she needed to stem her raging curiosity and keep out of scoundrels’ private spaces.
A clock chimed over the mantel and panic set in. She’d been gone too long. Even longer than the silly girl who’d nearly given herself to the earl on his desk.
Starting toward the door, she tripped on the velvet drapery clinging to her ankle.
A vice grip enclosed her wrist to keep her upright. No, not a vice. A hand, large and long fingered, and exceedingly strong, judging by how her own fingers had begun to numb.
“Lord Westby.”
With his dark clothing, the man blended into the room’s shadows. He’d been watching without her sensing him at all. Cursing her flawed powers of observation, Sophia snatched her arm from his grip. He released her and she quickly righted herself, yanking her boot from the drapery and moving toward the center of the room.
“You’re a foolish woman,” he whispered, “but I suppose men forgive that once they get a look at your face.” He stalked toward her until he was close enough for her to see the glint on his obsidian eyes. Moving slowly, he began circling her like a predator, deciding how he wanted to begin consuming his prey. “And those breasts.”
“I must return to your sister’s tea, my lord.”
“You should have considered as much before hiding away in my study.” He drew closer, looming at her back. As his damp breath rushed against her neck, the cloying sweetness of his cologne caught in her throat and burned her eyes.
“I allowed my curiosity to get the better of me, my lord.” Sophia started toward the door. “A mistake I shan’t repeat.”
Westby came around to stand before her, blocking her progress.
Sophia studied the scoundrel for the first time. Dark hair, coal-black eyes, and an arrogant smirk above a strong, squared jaw. Symmetry and sensuality conspired to give the impression of male beauty, as long as one ignored the coldness of his gaze and the cruelty in the set of his mouth.
He seemed to enjoy her perusal. Lifting his arms out at his sides, he urged, “Do your worst. How may I satisfy your curiosity? With a body like that”—he fixed his gaze on the overly ample bosom she’d spent most of her life trying to bind and conceal—“satisfying you would be no burden.”
Sophia took his fixation on her breasts as an opportunity to escape. She started past him, gathering a handful of her skirt to keep from tripping on her hem. By the time she reached the study door, he’d sprung into action, rushing up to slam a palm on the panel above her head and pin her against the wood.
“Don’t you want a taste before you go? One kiss to remember me by?” He drew his fingers across her cheek and chills raced down Sophia’s spine. “I certainly want to taste you,” he whispered, his lips hovering near her ear. “Are you the flavor of honey, like the shade of your hair? Or strawberries, like the flush in those perfect lips?”
Blood raced in her veins, flooding her cheeks, heating her chest and neck and the tips of her ears. Her skin pulled taut, muscles cramped.
She’d never been kissed, but she’d been this close to a dangerous man once before.
Flirtation and seduction meant nothing to Westby’s sort. But to Sophia, her first kiss was more than an item to tick off the list of all that she’d yet to experience in life.
She still hoped for marriage and even had a prospect in mind. Research for her book was not worth forfeiting favors to a blackguard who reeked of oversweet cologne.
“I’ve been gone too long,” Sophia insisted. The rush of blood in her ears wasn’t enough to block the ticking of the clock. Why had no one come to look for her after all this time?
Lord Westby tucked a hand around her waist, twisting her to face him. With one brusque slip of his hand, he palmed her breast, pushed until he’d pressed her back against the door.
“I’ll have a kiss before you go.” Westby hooked a hand around her neck, sliding his fingers into her pinned hair.
She was on the verge of stomping her foot as Miss Honeycutt had done, but forcefully and on his toes, when Westby dipped his head. A current of shock rioted through her when he swept his tongue across the seam of her lips.
She recoiled, pressing at his chest with one hand and lifting the other to swipe across her mouth. Something had to eclipse the soppy wetness of his tongue, like a warm slug slithering across her lips.
“You do taste like honey,” he enthused.
He tasted like cigar smoke and the rose water he’d apparently licked off the lady he’d been kissing moments before.
“Enough of this nonsense, my lord. Let me go.” She twisted her body, pushing at him with her hip to create distance between then.
When she finally had the man at her back and the study door latch in her hand, he gripped her arm and whispered, “Did you hear that?”
Somewhere in the house a woman raised her voice. A man shouted in reply, though Sophia couldn’t make out his words. Heavy footsteps shook the floorboards, louder as they continued, growing closer to the earl’s study.
“Get behind the drape.” The earl shoved her toward the window. “Don’t look at me like that. You were quite content there a moment ago.”
Sophia loathed his dictatorial tone and rough handling. She rubbed at the spot where he’d left a bruising sting around her arm.
“Look, you little fool,” he growled, “a forced marriage will never be my fate. And I trust you don’t wish to ruin your reputation entirely. Get behind the damned curtain.”
Sophia scowled at him as she sheltered behind the velvet drapery. The moment she drew the fabric across her body, the study door swung open.
“Winship?” the earl called out. “Good God, man, it’s been an age. I wasn’t sure you were still among the living.”
“That must be why your housekeeper was so reluctant to admit me.” The visitor’s voice was as rich and smooth as warm honey. But there was more underneath, a note of barely leashed ire.
“Well, you’re here now. Care for a scotch?” Westby seemed oblivious to the thread of fury in the man’s tone.
The clink of crystal indicated the earl had turned his attention to the liquor trolley. Sophia sensed the other man moving, the rustle of clothing and thud of his footsteps as he circled the room.
“Did you rip this ribbon off a lady, or did she offer it as a token?” The visitor’s voice was humming with anger.
Westby let out an ugly bark of laughter. “Let the fripperies fall where they may, I always say.”
Sophia held her breath. She needed to hear the stranger speak again. Something about his voice was oddly familiar.
“You bloody knave, where is she?” He no longer attempted to hide his anger, and Sophia no longer doubted his identity. Westby might call him Winship, but the man’s appealing voice gave him away as Jasper Grey, her brother’s theater friend.
“What the blasted hell. I don’t—” The earl began to sputter before his words cut off, followed by a sickening wallop of flesh colliding with bone.
“Phyllida is besotted with you, as you well know. Tell me where she is, and I’ll consider letting you live.” Mr. Grey’s tone had tempered to a deadly calm.
“Liddy? What business would I have with your sister? Check the bloody nursery.”
A struggle ensued, grunts and movement, then the thud of a body hitting a solid piece of furniture. The desk?
“Where is she, Westby?”
“I have . . . no”—the earl’s voice emerged on a breathless choke, as if something, or someone, was cutting off his air—“idea.”
“In that case, letting you live seems far too generous.”
Sophia fumbled with the drapery, trying to disentangle herself. Westby deserved a walloping, but Mr. Grey would suffer far more if he assaulted a powerful aristocrat.
“Mr. Grey!” she shouted and finally found an opening in the thick fall of velvet fabric.
Both men froze when she emerged. Westby lay atop his desk, face pink with exertion, as Jasper Grey leaned over him, a muscled forearm braced across the earl’s throat.
Mr. Grey was just as she recalled him, tall and lean, with tumbling chestnut hair and striking gray eyes, as cool as a January breeze.
“Miss Ruthven?” The infamous actor squinted at her. “What the hell are you doing in this bastard’s study?” He scowled down at the earl, then straightened and faced her. “I had no idea you possessed such wretched judgement, Sophia.”
“And I had no idea murder came so easily to you, Mr. Grey.”
They both cast a glance at the Earl of Westby, who’d sat up and begun clawing at his necktie to loosen its folds.
“There, you see. He’s alive. I’m not quite a murderer yet.”
“What in heaven’s name is going on?” The earl’s sister skidded to a halt in the study doorway. “The housemaid nearly fainted.”
Sophia scooted into the recess of the bay window, hoping to escape notice.
After an assessing glance at her brother, Lady Vivian turned her gaze on Mr. Grey, a grin curving her lips. “Winship,” she purred as she approached, “why are you in such a state? Come and have tea with us to soothe your nerves. We’ve missed your company at Westby House.”
This Sophia remembered about Jasper Grey too. The man had a way with women. Not only did they buzz about him, but he seemed to exude a calming effect too. On the day she’d met him, he’d turned an angry woman into a fawning, cooing fool with a few sweet words. The second time she’d seen him, as lead actor in one of her brother’s plays, his effect had been even more potent. Ladies in the audience swooned and the clamor to visit him backstage ended with one young woman crying over her trampled hat.
Now Lady Vivian wore the same look other ladies did around him—a sort of blissful, awestruck hunger.
“Leave us, Viv,” the earl commanded in a rusty bark. “Close the door behind you.”
She shot her brother a look of concern and offered their visitor another simpering grin before doing as Westby instructed.
When Sophia emerged from the window nook, Mr. Grey lifted his arm, and Westby shrunk back as if to avoid a blow.
“Let me take you out of here.” Mr. Grey crooked his fingers, bidding her to come toward him.
“You,” the earl began, scooting a safe distance away before shoving a finger in the air toward Mr. Grey, “get out of my house. Immediately.” He turned his attention toward Sophia, skimming her face before gaping at her breasts. “Do return another time for your kiss.”
“I—” Offense and protest perched on the tip of her tongue, but Grey spoke over her.
“Don’t speak to her, Westby.” He extended his hand as if he expected her to take it. As if he expected her to allow him to make her decisions.
“I will choose when to depart, Mr. Grey.” She’d had enough of high-handed men for one day. Never mind that she shouldn’t have been snooping in the earl’s study in the first place.
“The man is a wretch.” He flicked his gaze toward Westby. “An utter scoundrel. A certifiable scalawag.”
“I”—the aristocrat cleared his throat—“am standing right here.”
“And you cannot deny a single claim.”
The earl frowned but offered no rebuttal. “What’s become of you, man? A few years on the stage, and you lose all sense? If you were anyone else, you’d be clapped in irons for assaulting me.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw where an abrasion bloomed in shades of red and blue. “We were friends once.”
“We were never friends, Westby. You’re an arrogant sod and have no respect for the fairer sex.”
The earl chortled. “Says the man who’s bedded half of London’s fairer sex.”
Sophia thought she spied a patch of pink on the high cut of Mr. Grey’s cheek, but the look he cast her was tinted with more pride than humility. Lifting his hand again, he petitioned her. “Come with me, Sophia. Please.”
“I can’t simply leave.” Sophia owed Westby nothing, but she couldn’t say the same for his sister. “Lady Vivian invited me. What shall I tell her?”
“Nothing,” Grey said quietly. “Returning to the drawing room will raise questions you won’t wish to answer.” He tipped his head toward the earl. “Westby will direct the housekeeper to say you fell ill and called a cab to take you home.”
“Will I?” Westby asked with arch haughtiness.
Mr. Grey cast him a hard stare, and the earl stomped across the rug. With a dramatic sigh, he yanked his study door open. “Anything to get you out of my house, Winship.”
Sophia didn’t take Mr. Grey’s offered hand, but she moved past him toward the door. For however long she remained in London before returning to the countryside, she suspected her days of receiving invitations from the aristocracy had just come to a crashing end.
“This isn’t the time for worrying about etiquette,” Grey said, close behind her, a hand heavy at her lower back as he guided her through the door. Once she was across the threshold, he turned back. “Not a word about Liddy to anyone, Westby. If you hear word of her whereabouts, wire me immediately.”
“You truly have no idea where your sister is?”
Sophia couldn’t detect any concern in the earl’s tone for the sister of a man he claimed had once been a friend.
“No.” Grey’s jaw tensed, his hands tightened to fists against his thighs. “But I will find her.” He spun away from Westby and started past Sophia.
For a moment she thought he’d storm out of Westby House without her. Then she felt his fingers, warm and insistent, tangling with hers as he reached for her. He paused in the hallway, waiting for her to respond.
She felt a tremor across his skin. His hands were shaking.
Sophia clasped her fingers around his and let him lead her quickly toward the front door.