“Is everything all right out here?” he asked of the men. Then he raised a brow at Sophia.
“Everything is fine. These two gentlemen here have decided that I’m dumb as a rock, however. Since I can’t put two words together, perhaps you should take me home.”
Marcus gave them both a scathing glare. They blanched even more, and the hook-nosed one opened his mouth to speak. “Save it for someone who cares to hear it,” Marcus bit out before the man could do so. Marcus held his elbow out to Sophia, and she took it with no hesitation.
As he led her back into the ballroom, she steeled herself against the music, but it infiltrated her senses regardless, making her brain feel like mush. “Please tell me you delivered the package. Can we go home now?” Sophia asked of her brother.
“I would have delivered it, but I don’t know who it’s for yet.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved the small silver casket. Then he opened her reticule and dropped it inside. “But I do know it’s for you to deliver.”
Blast and damn. Of course, it couldn’t be simple. It had to be difficult.
Marcus looked down at Sophia’s dance card and noted that she had an empty space. “I’ll take this waltz,” he said absently, as he led her out onto the floor.
“Better you than some unsuspecting peer who will expect me to converse.” Sophia placed her hand in his, and he stepped toward her. But then the music screeched to a halt. Every eye in the room looked toward the orchestra. And the orchestra members stared openmouthed at the entrance of the ballroom.
Sophia feared she looked as dumbstruck as the rest of the occupants of the room. But she was finding it difficult to draw in a deep breath. There, at the top of the stairs, stood the dangerous Duke of Robinsworth in all his splendid glory. He wore all black, except for the gleaming, icy-blue diamond pin that winked at her from the center of his cravat. It matched his eyes almost perfectly. A wayward lock of hair fell across his forehead and she wanted to rush to him to brush it back. But Marcus’s hand tightened on her arm. “Don’t even think about it,” he breathed.
It was all she could think about. It had been days since she’d laid eyes on Ashley Trimble. Days since she’d seem his smile. Since he’d made her heart trip within her chest. Since he’d looked at her as though she were the only person in the room. And he was doing so now. Every eye in the room turned toward her when his gaze landed upon her. And then an audible gasp echoed around the room as the corners of his mouth lifted in a small smile.
He turned and greeted his hosts quickly and efficiently. They looked a bit more than surprised. But were obviously honored to have a duke in their presence. Even if he was the dangerous duke, he was still of the upper orders of the peerage, and it was an honor for him to set foot across their threshold. Much less linger for a moment in their home.
The orchestra took the cue from the butler, who motioned for them to begin again. They did so, but their eyes were on the duke, rather than on their music. Nevertheless, a lilting minuet began.
“Breathe, Soph,” Marcus urged.
Oh, dear, that would probably help her stay upright, wouldn’t it? She inhaled deeply through her nose.
“That’s better,” Marcus said soothingly.
“Perhaps for you. Because now you won’t have to catch me as I fall.”
He nudged her toe with his. “You need to take a step, Soph.”
Sophia looked around her and saw that people were moving with the music. But all she wanted to do was look at Ashley. She looked to the place where she’d last seen him. He wasn’t there. Her heart lurched.
“Stay with me, Soph,” Marcus urged. He squeezed her hand so tightly that it almost hurt, but it snapped her back to the present.
“I’m here,” she muttered. “Under protest.” She took a deep breath and looked up at Marcus from under heavy-lidded lashes. “Why do you think he’s here?” Sophia asked as they separated.
“You know why he’s here,” Marcus said under his breath as the music brought them back together.
She hoped she did, but it would be nice to hear someone say it. “You think he’s here for me?” Her voice quavered a little. She looked around the room, but Ashley’s dark suit was nowhere to be seen.
Marcus circled around a grinning girl and came back to her. “I think he’s here for you. We should probably get you out of harm’s way.”
Sophia tripped over his toe. Out of harm’s way? “Not on your life,” she breathed.
“Soph,” he warned, his voice a low growl.
The music slowed to a halt, and Marcus led her off the dance floor. He stood with her on the outskirts of the room and looked down at her dance card. The rest of her dances were filled. And her next partner should be coming to greet her any moment. She looked around. Captain Perkins was a red-haired man with a kind smile. He stood over six feet tall and was lean and lanky. She saw him approach from across the room to collect her. He had a swagger to his step that was almost cockish. He had none of Ashley’s grace.
Would she compare every man she met to Ashley? Probably. For the rest of her life.
But Captain Perkins stepped up to her side at the same time Ashley did. One on her right and the other on her left. Ashley looked somber as he raised her dance card to see what was next. He looked up at the captain and arched a brow. “You won’t mind if I take your dance, will you, Perky?”
Sophia never would have assumed the red-haired captain’s face could grow any redder, but it did. “Perkins,” he corrected. “And, actually, I believe my name is written in for this dance.” He squared his shoulders and stared Ashley down.
Ashley took the card in his hands and tore it in half. He handed the other half to Captain Perkins. “There, that should do it.” Then he held out his elbow to Sophia as though daring her to take it.
She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and let him lead her onto the floor. It wasn’t until his hand landed on her waist that she realized his power over her. The music held no power at all. Ashley commanded every second of her attention.
***
It was all Ashley could do not to grin like a bacon-brained ninnyhammer. However, since every eye in the room was upon him, he couldn’t possibly tell her how damn happy he was to see her. He settled his hand at her waist and squeezed gently.
“How are you?” he asked softly enough that only she could hear him.
Her gaze didn’t rise above his cravat when she spoke. “I’m well.”
The soft sound of her voice hit him like a bolt of lightning. He had Sophia Thorne in his arms. In a crowded ballroom, he reminded himself. He forced his feet to move. It had been years since he’d waltzed. Since he’d graced a ballroom.
“How is Lady Anne?” she asked, her voice rolling across him like silk. He fought a shiver.
“She’s well.”
He turned with her in his arms, tugging her closer than was allowed, but he couldn’t help it. She still smelled like the bluebells of summer, a smell he would have in his mind forever. He’d missed her. He wanted nothing more than to pick her up and carry her from the room. To set his lips upon hers and taste her. To be with her. He supposed he would have to settle for what he could get.
“She asked about you.”
A heavy sigh left her lips. “Why are you here?” she asked. Her hand trembled within his.
“For you.” He didn’t say more than that. Just those two words.
She inhaled deeply, causing her bodice to swell, and the fullness of her breasts teased his chest. Walking, much less dancing, would soon become impossible. Ashley waltzed her to the edge of the room and out the side entrance, down a long corridor, and into a small parlor. He closed the door behind them. Then he opened it again. “For propriety’s sake,” he said with a grin.
The lilting sound of the music was little more than a memory. But Sophi
a Thorne was real. Flesh and blood in front of him.
“Propriety?” Sophia scoffed. “You should know by now that I don’t give a rat’s arse about propriety.” She turned her back to him and walked slowly toward the window.
“A rat’s arse,” he repeated with a chuckle. God, she was delightful.
“Why are you here, Ashley?”
He cocked his head at her sideways. “You asked me that a moment ago. I already answered.”
She raised her fingertips to massage her forehead. “I remember.”
“I have a long-standing history with music,” Sophia said with a sad shake of her head. “It makes me forget things. And it has gotten me into more than one predicament.”
“Like finding your way into my chambers in the dead of night?” he prompted.
“Exactly.” She raised a fingernail to her mouth and began to nibble it. “Yet the music here doesn’t affect me like yours does.” She stepped toward him and laid a hand upon his chest. “I don’t understand it, but you do strange things to me.”
He didn’t understand it, either. “The feeling is mutual, I assure you.” He covered her hand with his and didn’t let it go even when she tugged it. She softened against him.
“You know what I am,” she said as she laid her cheek against his chest, right over his heart.
“I can assure you that I know nothing.” He raised a hand and gently teased the tendrils of hair that had escaped her coiffure.
“You’re a dangerous man,” she said quietly, raising her head to look him in the eye, finally. He stiffened. He couldn’t help it. In this moment, with this lady, he didn’t want to be the dangerous Duke of Robinsworth. He wanted to be Ashley Trimble, there to court Sophia Thorne. But that was not to be, evidently.
“I’m no more dangerous than I was those nights you stole into my room. No more dangerous than I was when we shared time in the garden.” He didn’t want to beg for her favor and, in fact, refused to do so.
“But you are, because now you know my secret.”
Ashley snorted. He knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. “Something happened in the village,” he began.
“Yes, it did,” she said, cutting his words short. “Something that never should have happened. You were not to know.”
He chuckled, a self-deprecating sound if he’d ever heard one. “I can assure you that what I know is just enough to leave me flummoxed.”
“I won’t be here much longer. In your world,” she began. Her pretty hazel eyes welled with unshed tears, and a piece of Ashley’s heart might as well have broken in two.
“My world is your world,” he tried. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a duke. Society means nothing to me.”
She shook her head. “You saw me use my magic with your very own eyes. And yet you still think I’m from your world.” She spun away from him. “I’m not. And I cannot be.”
“Magic.”
She spun quickly to face him. “Magic!” she said loudly, raising her hands in the air as though calling him forward to brawl with her. “I am magical.”
He chuckled. “Yes, you are.”
A grin tugged at her lips. God, she was pretty when she smiled. “You are incorrigible.” She waved at him in dismissal and turned back to face the window. “I don’t know what you want from me,” she said on a long exhale.
“I want to spend time with you.”
“I don’t have time to give you. I must return home soon.”
“Where is home?”
Both he and she said at the same time, “I’m certain you’ve never heard of it.”
She laughed and shook her head. “We have had this conversation before.”
“I vaguely remember that it didn’t scare me from your side the first few times we had it.” He probably looked like a green lad, begging for a lass’s favor. He swiped a hand down his face and grunted at the lingering pain in his nose.
“How is your nose?” she asked quickly, approaching him from across the room. She stopped and looked up at him, appraising his nose a mite too closely.
“Healing.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“You can trust me with your secrets, Sophie,” he said quietly.
“You can trust me with yours,” she retorted. One dark brow arched at him. An invitation? It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“When can I see you?”
She held her hands out to the sides. “You see me now.”
He wanted the intimate setting they’d had when she visited his bedchamber. Not like this.
“When can I see you?” he repeated, his voice harsh-sounding even to his own ears. When will you tell me your secrets? When will I get to tell you mine? He didn’t say the last. But he thought it.
“I can’t, Ashley.” When he began to mutter a protest, she held up a finger and shushed him. “I simply cannot live in your world.”
The door to the room opened slowly, making a creaking noise that made Sophia look over his shoulder toward it. “Is everything all right in here?” a male voice asked.
“Viscount Ramsdale,” Sophia chirped as she stepped around Ashley. “I was feeling a little faint and the good duke brought me for some air.”
“Are you well now?” The man’s gaze flicked from one of them to the other. “I would be a poor host if I didn’t offer my assistance.”
“I’m well.” Sophia looked at Ashley. “I think you owe me a waltz since we didn’t get to complete the last one.” She looked down at the torn dance card that dangled from her wrist. “And I just happen to have some free dances.” Her eyes twinkled at him.
If a dance was all he could get, he would take it.
Ashley held out his elbow and she slid her hand inside, squeezing gently as she did so. “Ramsdale,” Ashley muttered as they walked past the man.
Suddenly, Sophia pulled him to a halt. She reached into her reticule and retrieved a small silver box. She held it out to Viscount Ramsdale. “Do give this to your wife for me,” she said. Then she slid her arm back into Ashley’s and he towed her back toward the ball. He wanted to tow her toward his carriage. Or toward his bed. But he assumed a crowded ball was all he would get.
“Dance with me this night, Ashley,” Sophia said quietly as he led her onto the floor. “As though it’s our last.”
“It’s not,” he assured her.
Her eyes didn’t meet his when she replied softly, “We shall see.”
Twenty-One
Ashley watched Sophia from behind the palm fronds in the corner of the ballroom, keeping check on her location even after he had to give her up to a new partner. It would ruin her reputation if she danced every dance with him. She didn’t seem to give a care about her reputation, but he did. He knew what it was like to have a bad one, a really bad one, and he didn’t want her to suffer the same fate.
Devil take it, just being seen dancing with him would give her more than a bad reputation. It would cause a scandal.
“Were you thinking of asking that frond to dance, Robinsworth?” a male voice asked from behind him. Ashley turned to find Mr. Marcus Thorne lounging comfortably against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest. One foot was raised so that the heel of his slipper pressed against the wall. “You’ve become quite cozy with the palms while I watched. Such a loving touch you have.” He made a snort beneath his breath. “And I thought it was just my sister you liked to get cozy with.”
“Your sister. A palm frond.” Ashley shrugged. “I am not choosy.”
“Been alone too long, have you?” Thorne asked. “I could find someone for you, aside from my sister, that is, if you just have need of a tumble.”
Did the whole blasted world think he couldn’t find a whore if he wanted a whore? He didn’t want a whore. He wanted Sophia Thorne. “Thank you, but
I’ll pass.” He shoved the palm frond to the side and looked for her on the dance floor. She wasn’t there. A moment before, she’d been in Perky’s arms. A respectable distance from him, but still in the man’s arms. But now they were gone.
“You won’t catch her unless she wants to be caught.”
Ashley let that comment rumble around in his mind for a moment. Then he steeled his features, looked down his nose at Thorne, and said, “I already caught her. In the village.”
Sophia’s brother scoffed. “You caught nothing.”
Ashley forced himself to chuckle, although it was the last thing he wanted to do. He stepped closer to Thorne. “I most definitely caught her. And you are well aware of it. In fact, I imagine that’s why you came to find me in the foliage.”
Thorne straightened his back. “Perhaps I like palm fronds as much as you do.”
“Perhaps you think I’m an idiot.”
“Perhaps you give yourself too much credit.”
Touché.
Thorne sighed heavily. “What do you plan to do with the knowledge you obtained?”
Ashley shrugged. “I haven’t decided.”
“She can’t be in your world. Not permanently. Not if she wants to remain in ours.”
Again with the world? His world and her world weren’t that different. She was obviously a cultured lady. She had a tongue sharp enough to cut glass, but her manners were perfect, her dress divine. She didn’t lack funds or education. Not that he could tell.
“How much of it is a ruse?” he asked.
“All of it,” Sophia’s brother replied without even blinking. “Nothing about her is as she’s led you to believe.”
Ashley grunted. He didn’t know what to say to that. But something about the lady called to him. That wasn’t entirely in his head, was it? It couldn’t be. There had to be a reason for it.
“Another will come along, Robinsworth. One who can be what you need.”
Another wouldn’t be Sophia.