Why not?
“What the devil happened?” he said. He spotted the wine bottle on the little table near the fire. “How much have you had to drink?”
“I’m not drunk!” she said. “I—I was too agitated to sleep. I had a bath.”
“I heard,” he said.
Her eyes widened.
“I would have looked through the keyhole,” he said, “but that method isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. One can only see a small part of the room, usually, and in my experience, it’s the wrong part. In any event, I was by the fire, drying out, and it seemed a great bother to leave the warmth and the bottle to crouch at a door, all for the chance of not seeing much.”
She looked at the doorway between their rooms, then at the bathtub, then at him.
“You didn’t think it was worth the bother?” she said.
He shrugged. “I don’t know what came over me. And I still don’t know how you proceeded from being wet to being on fire.”
There was a pause, then she said, “I not only bathed, but I washed my hair to get that nasty egg mixture out. It was getting rancid. I was sure if I put my head on the pillow, any vermin in the vicinity would come running to feast on it.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” he said.
“You say so because it wasn’t on your head,” she said. “And so I washed my hair. And then I had to dry it at the fire, didn’t I? Which is what I was doing. But I must have dozed—and when I woke, my dressing gown was burning. I must have slumped in the chair and got too close, and a spark caught it. And then I couldn’t get the stupid ties undone, to get the blasted thing off.” She blinked hard. “Thank you for saving me. I’m sorry I caused so much t-trouble.”
“Well, it was exciting,” he said.
“I don’t like to be exciting in th-that w-way,” she said.
“Good gad, you’re not going to cry, are you?” he said. “You can’t be upset because I ruined your dressing gown?”
“N-no. Of c-course n-not.”
“Because I didn’t look through the keyhole?”
“Don’t be r-ridiculous.”
“Then what are you crying about?”
“I’m not crying!” She blinked again. “I’m perfectly well.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. It’s only . . . I keep thinking I should have stayed with your sister when she came to the shop last Saturday. I told you we’d deal with Adderley, but I didn’t tell her. I had other things on my mind. Your mother. And Dowdy’s. And now . . . it seems my priorities were wrong.”
“What rot. You didn’t know Clara was going to act like an idiot.”
“I wasn’t paying attention! And now she’s in danger. She hasn’t the slightest idea how to survive. She wouldn’t know a scoundrel if he wore a badge announcing it. She trusted Adderley, of all men! I should have done something!”
“What are you talking about? What could you have done?”
She waved her arms. “Something. A diversion.”
He stomped back to her, grasped her shoulders, and gave her a little shake. “Stop it,” he said.
“I’m so worried,” she said.
He took her face in his hands and tilted it up so that he could look down into her eyes. They were filling. It was like looking into the Adriatic Sea through a mist. A tiny bead of moisture trickled down the side of her nose. Her lower lip jutted out in a pout. It trembled.
It wasn’t the time and place.
He oughtn’t to rush his fences.
But she’d waved her arms, and that made her womanly parts jiggle and he could only keep one idea in his head at a time, and in any case, oughts never went down smoothly with him.
He was who he was, and that wasn’t a good boy. And so down he went, and crushed her sulky little mouth under his.
He’d never done things by halves. He wasn’t likely to start now.
He kissed her firmly, fearlessly, recklessly, the way he did everything. It never occurred to him to be cautious.
Not much occurred to him, in fact. He simply did it, in the way he did everything, without thinking or worrying.
And then he walked off a cliff.
Down he went, as though there were a sea below, and he was falling straight into it.
He was falling into her somehow. He tasted the sea—a hint of salt tears—and there was a hint of the wine she’d drunk, too. He breathed in the fresh scent of her. Where he was sinking, the world was warm. Lavender and something else scented the air and the scent brought back a moment: the sun of Tuscany and a villa framed in lavender and jasmine. He felt the same inexplicable, soaring happiness he’d felt a few years ago, far away from England.
He wrapped his arms about her. It was instinctive to hold on to something too wonderful to understand.
And her mouth simply melted under his, so soft and welcoming. Her body melted against him, too, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Her arms came up and wrapped about his neck. Her breasts pressed against his waistcoat. She was so warm and so softly curved and he was warm and warmer still, his pulse racing while he drank in more deeply: the sweetness of her mouth and the clean scent of her and the way her soft curves fit against him.
He slid his hands down and grasped her bottom and pressed her close—and she made a choked little sound against his mouth—and small as it was, it was a jolt, and all the signal he needed.
He lifted his hands away from her bottom.
He lifted his mouth from hers.
He took one unsteady step back, and another.
Her great blue eyes were dazed, and she swayed a little. The shawl lay in a puddle on the floor.
“My goodness,” she said breathlessly. “My goodness.”
She tipped her head to one side and studied him in the manner of a drunk trying to focus.
Hell.
It was her first time.
She’d never been kissed before.
That was completely impossible.
No, it wasn’t.
Yes, it was.
Never mind. There was nothing for it but to bluster his way out of it, whatever it was.
“Don’t,” he said. “Do. That. Again.”
“Yes,” she said with a dazed little smile.
“I can’t abide hysterics,” he said firmly.
“Yes,” she said.
He was dizzy, too, but he could see her clearly enough. He could see far too much of her . . . or not nearly enough. He could see the bed as well, only a few steps away, so inviting.
Well, then, why not accept the invitation?
Because . . . he didn’t know why. Or why not.
He turned his back, on her, on the bed, on everything, and stomped out.
In a kind of haze, Sophy watched him go.
She watched all of him go: his black hair disheveled as though he’d dragged his fingers through it—or had she done that? . . . the broad shoulders and the motion of his shoulder blades under the waistcoat . . . the muscles of his arms, tantalizingly visible under the fine linen of his shirt . . . the back of his waist and the upside down V of the waistcoat where it gathered at the base of his spine . . . and on down over his hips and the long legs . . . and all of that big body moving so smoothly and as gracefully as a thoroughbred.
He walked to the door and closed it behind him, with a sharp thud that made her jump, and jolted her out of the daze.
She shook her head. She closed her eyes and opened them. She drew her tongue over her lips . . . the way he had done.
She moved to the table, refilled her wineglass, and drank it down in a gulp to strengthen her resolve.
She marched to the door connecting their rooms and pushed it open.
He froze, a wineglass halfway to his mouth. That wicked, dangerous mouth.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
“What are you saying?” he said. “Are you insane?”
“I was for a minute,” she said. “But you can’t do that again. You can’t
be such an idiot.”
“Go away,” he said. “Do you know you’ve almost no clothes on?”
“Never mind. I need—”
“Never mind? Listen to me, Miss Innocence. There are many things a man can ‘never mind.’ A nearly naked woman isn’t one of them.”
“Taut pis!” she said. “There wasn’t time to dress. I have to say it while I know why I’m saying it, while I’m still under the influence.”
He dragged his hand through his tangled hair. “You don’t have to say anything. You have to go away.”
“I cannot get involved with customers,” she said. “It’s bad for business.”
“Business!”
“And do not tell me you’re not a customer.”
“I’m not, you nitwit. When was the last time I bought a dress?”
“Any man who has the means to pay our bills is likely to acquire, sooner or later, a woman we want in our dress shop,” she said. “She won’t patronize us if we have a reputation for poaching the men.”
“Business,” he said. “This is about the shop.”
“Yes,” she said. “Which means I couldn’t be more serious. If you kiss me again, I’ll stab you.”
She turned and marched out, slamming the door behind her.
She poured herself another glass of wine, but this one she drank more slowly. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt. She couldn’t remember when last she’d done something so difficult and terrifying and so completely the opposite of what she wanted to do.
No wonder Marcelline had lost her head over Clevedon.
No wonder she’d insisted on explaining to Sophy, for the hundredth time, how babies were made.
Lust was a dangerous force.
Like any Noirot, Sophy liked danger, risk, a gamble.
But she could not, would not, gamble with Maison Noirot. If she let the dangerous force sweep her away, it would sweep away everything they’d worked and suffered for.
She rose, walked to the bathtub, and took out the dressing gown he’d drowned there. She wrung it out and draped it over the chair—near the fire but not too near. It wasn’t completely unsalvageable. The girls at the Milliners’ Society could take it apart and make something of it.
The dressing gown wasn’t important. It was the shop Sophy needed to save—and that meant saving Lady Clara. That was all she had to do, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
She smiled. But she was a Noirot, after all, and if it were easy, it wouldn’t be much fun.
Chapter Eight
Richmond-park is eight miles in circumference, and contains 2253 acres, of which scarcely one hundred are in this parish; there are 650 acres in Mortlake, 265 in Petersham, 230 in Putney, and the remainder in Kingston. The ground of this park is pleasingly diversified with hill and vale; it is ornamented also with a great number of very fine oaks and other plantations.
—Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London, 1810
Warford House
Saturday 6 June
“Ill?” Adderley said. “It’s nothing . . . serious, I trust?”
Clara was as healthy as a horse. A cow. She was anything but weak or sickly.
“We hope it isn’t,” Lord Valentine said. “She might have caught a chill last night, at Great-Aunt Dora’s. Drafty old house. Wet night.”
“A chill,” Adderley said. He felt chilled, too. Gloom hung in the air of Warford House today.
More than the usual gloom, that was to say. He’d found the atmosphere frigid at best. Toward him Lady Warford had been strictly polite while contriving to look as though she smelled something good manners did not permit her to mention. Clara had started out warm enough—or as warm as she knew how—but had grown a little more distant every day.
Not that their feelings mattered. Clara had to marry him, and everybody knew it. They might kick all they wanted, and Lady Warford might lose no opportunity to remind him—with scrupulous politeness—of his low origins, but he was not going to go away, and they couldn’t let him go away.
The one thing he hadn’t reckoned on was Clara’s falling ill.
Gravely ill, judging by the signs.
Lord Valentine’s face was positively funereal.
Alarm stirred in Adderley’s gut.
She couldn’t die. Not before the wedding.
“Is there anything I can do?” he said.
Lord Valentine shook his head sadly. “Sorry. Nothing to be done. Our mother is with her. Hasn’t left her bedside.”
“You’ve sent for a physician, of course?”
“I assure you, my sister is being well looked after. I daresay she’ll be right as a trivet in a day or two.”
Lord Valentine did not say this with much conviction.
Anxious and angry, Adderley left.
He’d devoted months to cultivating her. Months he could have devoted to someone else.
She’d better not die.
It would be deuced inconvenient. He knew of no other well-dowered female who’d be nearly so easy to win over. And he’d have to win the alternate over in a hurry. His creditors wouldn’t even wait until the funeral.
By the time they were seated in the carriage again, Longmore was wondering what had possessed him last night, not to take advantage of a perfect opportunity.
It was the surprise, he decided. He’d been completely taken aback to discover Sophy was so inexperienced.
Normally, he rebounded quickly from shocks. But it had been a trying day. His sister had bolted, and it was the first time in years he’d needed to worry about her. Then Sophy had set herself on fire.
No wonder his wits had scattered.
After some tossing and turning—no doubt on account of his parts getting all primed for a woman for nothing—he’d slept well enough. The day had dawned fair. And his wits were back in working order. He could see the thing clearly now.
Perhaps she wasn’t greatly experienced. That didn’t mean she’d had none. She was French. She had taste. She was simply a discriminating girl who hadn’t had much practice in the amorous arts.
Someone was going to advance her education, one of these days. Why shouldn’t it be him?
True, he’d never had to teach anybody before, but there was a first time for everything, and he was always open to new experiences.
True, too, she’d told him to keep off.
But that was after.
Until he’d made the imbecile mistake of returning to his room, she’d been enthusiastic enough.
She’d greeted him cheerfully at breakfast today.
He saw nothing sulky or subdued in her appearance, certainly.
Today’s fashion extravaganza was a greyish-pinkish traveling dress. One of those capelike things women doted on these days spread itself over stupendously swollen sleeves. At the neck of the capelike item fluttered a collar of white lace, below which marched the line of bows, all the way down the front of the cape, which ended in a point below her waist—as though a man needed any directions there. The bows continued down two sides of the skirt, along an inverted V—yes, pointing to the same area. Today’s hat sported flowers all around the inner brim that framed her face, and more flowers sprouting up from the back. Green ribbons quivered among the flowers.
It made a man giddy, simply looking at it.
He preferred her mostly naked, but this was certainly entertaining.
Since the prospect of searching Richmond Park lay ahead of them, entertainment was sorely needed.
They’d scarcely left the inn when Fenwick, at the back of the carriage, started sniffing loudly.
Longmore glanced back. “You’d better not be sickening,” he said. “We haven’t time to nurse chills.”
“I was only smelling somefing,” Fenwick said.
Longmore scowled at him.
“Something,” Fenwick said. “What’s that smell?”
“What smell?” Longmore said. The only scent he was aware of was Sophy’s lavender and the something else that underlay it. He doubted that F
enwick, from his seat well behind the folded-down hood and the pile of luggage, could detect a fragrance that was more not there than there.
“I believe he means the air,” Sophy said. “That’s country air you smell, Fenwick.” She inhaled deeply, and her bosom rose and fell. It was easy to ascertain the degree of rise and fall because of the bows.
Undoing them was definitely something to look forward to.
What Sophy saw of Richmond Park appeared beautiful. Although city bred, she could understand the appeal of a broad expanse of nature, and this was an immense area, some five times as large as Hyde Park, Longmore had told her. She could easily imagine Lady Clara looking out from the summit of a hill and seeing London, a haze hanging over it, stretching out in the distance. She would feel she was a safe distance away from her troubles.
But she wasn’t safe. She hadn’t the first idea how to look after herself, and one maid wasn’t enough.
Since it wouldn’t help matters to let the world know an innocent was on the loose, the search team had to be careful what they said when questioning people. To avoid giving anybody else ideas of looking for Lady Clara, they’d devised a simple story: The cabriolet’s driver had left behind at an inn her pocketbook, containing a little money and some papers, and they were trying to return it.
They didn’t attempt to search the park itself. That would take days, Longmore said. Instead, they asked at the various hostelries near the gates. Even so, hours passed, and they’d made nearly a complete circuit of the park, as well as a detour to Richmond Hill, before they learned anything.
It was mid afternoon when they finally found an inn where Clara had stopped. There she’d asked for the best route to Hampton Court Palace.
“So much for hoping she’d return to London,” Longmore said, when they were on their way once more.
“At least we have news,” Sophy said.
“Yes. Back to the Portsmouth Road we go—after a prodigious wild goose chase. When I get my hands on her—”
“It’s so easy for you,” she said.
“Easy? What the devil do you mean?”
“If somebody offends or insults you, you punch him or call him out. If you’re wronged, you can act. What can your sister do?”