Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine (26 page)

Sophie sat him in a chair by the window, where sunlight streamed in.

“Now be still,” she cautioned.

“It might hurt.” He folded his arms. “You might slip and draw blood!”

“Oh, hush!” She pulled his head back and began ruthlessly trimming his hair, while he muttered low complaints and one foot tapped nervously. “Have you never been to a barber?”

“Never. Why would I want another man fussing over me, probably stealing my money while he has me at the point of a knife?”

She laughed. “Such distrust! Where have you lived your life before now, that you think that way?”

“I told you. I was raised in the rookeries of London. Or rather, I raised myself. Mostly.”

“But for your sister.”

He said nothing.

“And that old man who was like a father to you.” She ran her fingers through his hair, fascinated by the juxtaposition of pale and dark. “The one who left you his money when he died.”

“Hmm. Are you done?”

“Not yet. Where did he die? On the hulks?”

His eyes were half-closed, but she knew he was watching her from under those jet-black lashes. “Yes, he died on the hulks,” he snapped. “Before he was sentenced, he told me where he'd buried his money—his nest egg, as he called it. Wanted me to start a new life with it. Now, are you done yet, woman?”

“Have patience. I know there's no trust where you come from, but is there no patience, either?”

“Very little. Even for beautiful women.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Kane. Now be still!” Curling locks of black hair drifted to the flagstones at her feet and then blew about in the breeze through the open window. While still, the strong lines of his face reminded her of the carved profile belonging to one of those ancient crusading knights sleeping in the church crypt. In her opinion, he had a very fine nose, even if Mrs. Flick did think it lacked nobility. What did that old bat know?

“Tell me more about your sister,” she said quietly.

“Nosy, aren't you?”

“I'm also the one holding the scissors.”

He groaned and closed his eyes all the way now. “She was seduced by some fancy gent who abandoned her when she was pregnant. I never knew his name. She wouldn't tell me.”

“And she was only seventeen.”

“Yes. Three years older than me.”

“Did she look like you?”

“S'pose so. She was dark like me.”

She stopped trimming. “She worked at Lady Grimstock's.” She felt cold suddenly, despite the sun.

“I told you that already. They tossed her out when she told them she was pregnant.”

Just then, Aunt Finn peered in through the window. “Sakes! What are you doing to that poor man, Sophie? You mean to leave him bald?”

Alarmed, Lazarus tried to leave his chair, so she held him down by the shoulders. “She teases you, fool.” Her heart was racing, her mind still trying to put everything he'd told her in order. She closed her eyes and saw James Hartley stopping to whisper in the ear of a young, dark-haired maid. No, it couldn't be. Her imagination had always been too lively.

Suddenly, she leaned down and kissed his brow. He reached one hand up to the back of her head and drew her forward until her upside-down lips met his. At once she felt the heaviness of desire again. Yes, better.
Don't think bad thoughts. Enjoy what you have, Sophie! Chew your toffee. Besides, what good would it do now to speak of what she'd seen and tried so many years to forget?

Don't dwell on the past.
It was all gone now, and they must look ahead to the future.

She'd written to James that morning. It had not been easy to explain in words that would not make him angry, but she didn't want him hurt. She'd known him a great many years. Even during his long absence since her accident, she'd thought about him often. She would always care about James and want him to be happy, but she knew she wasn't the woman for him. She tried fitting all that into her letter. Her dearest hope was he would move on with his life.

She straightened up and pushed her thoughts of James aside. “Now for the razor, I think.”

“I'll shave myself,” Lazarus protested, but she wouldn't allow it. She prodded him up out of the chair and instructed him to remove his clothes.

***

His fingers curled around the edge of the old copper bathtub, feeling the dimples and dents. How many previous bathers, he wondered idly, had put themselves at the mercy of a woman with something sharp in her hand? Then he felt the warm soap she rubbed on his face, and shortly after, the first sweep of the razor. She was quite accomplished. Nothing to worry about, then.

Or was there? Where did she acquire this skill? By practicing on her past lover?

Damn you, James Hartley.

With the tip of her finger under his chin, she lifted his face for another sweep of the razor. He swallowed carefully. It was very hard—this trusting. It was also very hard not to be jealous. However, Lazarus was determined, a fighter, and he would beat it back. He wouldn't let it get in the way of this happiness. What did the past matter? They would have a fresh start with each other.

In the yard, Tuck and Chivers were preparing the cart for a journey to Sydney Marshes, where they planned to visit a farm sale. Aunt Finn was excited to go with them today, enjoying her new lease on life. Lazarus heard the familiar rusty groan of the gate, wheels rumbling over cobbles, rioting hens clucking irritably, and then they were gone. Doves chortled in the dovecot, the hens quieted to a low cackle, and the piglets in their mother's sty grunted, merry and content.

The last pass of the razor left his face smooth. Sophie wiped it carefully with a towel and then laid a cloth over his face and ordered him to keep his eyes shut.

“What have you done to me?” he mumbled from beneath the warm, damp cloth.

“Made you
almost
look respectable.”

He gripped the edge of the tub and listened to her steps move back and forth. Having sat still for half an hour under her command, he was now restless, his blood surging, his mind eagerly sending the message to his body they were alone again.

She beat him to it, however, for when he was finally allowed to look again, she'd already removed her gown, and now let her long hair down from its tidy knot. The beauty and abundance of that hair still shocked Lazarus whenever it was unbound. It fascinated him that so much wildness could be restrained inside that demure knot.

“Is there room for me?” she asked as she stood naked before him, her skin gleaming.

If there wasn't room, he thought, he'd cut off a damned leg to make it.

She stepped in and lowered herself into the water between his knees. “'Tis my turn,” she said. “I need my hair washed.”

He eagerly grabbed the lump of soap and lathered up. “Now you're at
my
mercy,” he exclaimed.

“Don't get soap in my eyes, Kane.”

He paused and looked at her sitting in the bath, her knees drawn up to her chin and her small, heart-shaped face surrounded by all that stunning hair, the ends of which just dipped in the water. She tried, did Miss Sophie Valentine, but it wouldn't work with him. Not since he'd seen her go from proud, haughty schoolmistress to reckless, wildly abandoned strumpet.

“I'm minded to start nowhere near your eyes,” he remarked coolly.

“I asked you to wash my hair.”

“I think, madam, you need a good cleansing all over.”

Her imperious little chin lifted another inch.

He sat up, causing a swell of water that slapped against the side of the bath and over the rim. “You've been a very naughty young lady. Do you want people to look at you and know what you've been up to with your humble, lowly lover?”

She pursed her lips, and her eyes sparked with a sultry amusement.

“They'll smell my scent on you,” he added. He brought the soap slowly up the side of her leg to her knee, and his heated gaze held hers. “'Tis time for your ablutions, my lady, to wash off all the evidence of your wicked, saucy exploits.”

“You'll spill all the water out at this rate!” she warned.

He knelt and sat back on his heels. The water just covered his hips. “This won't work,” he muttered, eyeing her clenched knees. “You'll have to spread them out.”

She observed him warily through wavering lashes.

“There's not enough room,” he added. “Do you want the job done properly, madam?”

“Very well, Kane! Get on with it, then. The water will soon be cold.”

“Thank you, my lady!” He tugged an imaginary forelock. “I'll do my best.” He slowly pressed the soap between her knees and then down along her inner thigh into the water.

Her lips parted; her eyelids fluttered. A very slight sound sputtered out of her mouth, but it was more laugh than protest, no matter how she tried to maintain her serious expression. Her cheeks colored charmingly, and he, besotted, almost let the soap slip from his hand. He looked down at his arm in the water, to where the dark curls on his forearm spread and drifted, pulled about by the slight current he was causing with his motion. “Best start here,” he muttered, clutching her knee with his free hand so she wouldn't close him out.

Not that she even tried. His “housekeeper” placed her arms along the edges of the copper bath, and her fingers grasped at the rim just a little too tightly. As her shoulders sank lower against the side, her eyelids finally closed all the way.

“Oops, I lost the soap,” he muttered.

“Fancy that!”

“I'd best see if I can find it.” He moved his hand now without the soap.

Her eyes flashed open and treated him to a warm caress of hazel. “You won't find it
there
,” she purred.

He grinned slowly and slipped his fingers inside her.

She bit her lip, her back arching slightly, her hands tightening around the edge of the bath. More water lapped up and spilled over onto the flagged floor. His fingertip found her sensitive core and gently teased it, while he looked down at her and felt his own desires quickly mounting. She would exhaust him if they kept up this pace, but he wasn't tired yet—far from it.

***

She leaned back and gave herself up to his caress, her knees falling against the sides of the tub. She glanced down at the water between her legs, where it lapped in small waves around his gently moving arm. When her eyes rose to his again, she found him watching her with that keen, voracious intent. He leaned down to kiss her moistened lips and then served each nipple in the same way, leaving them pert and gleaming against her pale skin, like delicate pink shells left behind on the wet sand by a retreating tide. As each little ripple slipped over those treasures, stroking them in the same way he stroked her sex, they grew harder, riper. Her breasts bobbed just above the surface, and she felt his eyes upon them, ready to devour her.

She sat up, unable to wait longer, and his hands slid under her arms. He lifted her astride his hips and lowered her so swiftly onto his erection, she cried out at the suddenness of this penetration. Today he gave her no time to adjust but held her tight, his mouth wide over her breast, sucking her nipple with the greed of a starving man. As he grasped her bottom, he thrust upward violently, madly. She was his captive, his plaything.

Water lapped over the edge of the bath as she rode her dark, conquering warrior, held her breasts to his mouth, and laughed. Each time with him it was entirely new, a different level of sensation that lifted her on a cloud. Never had she known this or even suspected such a deep, exhausting pleasure existed.

***

She could look at her reflection now without flinching. If not for that scar, she might have married James and then been desperately unhappy. If not for that scar, she would never have stayed here and written an advertisement on impulse. Russ might never have come here and kissed her as no one else ever had before. How odd he should have played such a significant role in her life, long before they ever met. It was almost as if, that night alone on the balcony, she'd known he was there—her warrior—watching and waiting. And the only way to cross the divide between them was to take that jump.

One morning while he still slept, she saw the crooked letters marked inside his boots where they lay discarded on the floor by the bed.
R. Adamson.
When she first heard Chivers call him “Russ,” she thought it was a derivative of Lazarus, but now she realized it must be his real name—Russ for Russell, perhaps. For some reason, she dared not ask. How ridiculous she should be afraid to ask, she mused grimly. That was the result of sharing a bed with a man who was almost a stranger. It was a little late and uncomfortable now, after the intimacy they'd shared, to suddenly ask his name.

Then she found the letter, and looking forward to the future was no longer possible without addressing the past.

While cleaning the upper floor of the house, she'd come upon his unlocked trunk and, being of a curious nature, couldn't resist looking inside to search for more clues about his past.

When her fingers discovered the folded paper, hidden down the side of the trunk, she drew it out to examine it.

Aha! A love letter from a past amour, perhaps! A
billet
-
doux
he kept tenderly. Would there be a lock of her hair inside? Was this the woman upon whom he practiced and honed his skills? She thought of the brassy-haired landlady at the Red Lion in Morecroft—another of his conquests, no doubt.

She opened the paper and found faded words sprawled in a hasty, familiar slant.

There was no signature on the paper, and she had time to read only a few lines, but she knew that writing—knew it well. Before she could even adjust her thoughts, Russ was below, calling her name. She put the letter back and closed the trunk lid.