“I assure you, Mr. Dickens, that I am more than adept at dealing with gentlemen who are a bit castaway,” she said briskly, assembling a tray of such sumptuous sweets that the man’s eyes would glaze over and he wouldn’t even notice who had brought them. “But I appreciate your concern.”
“Miss Sophie . . .” he continued, but she’d already started up the stairs to the main floor. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could seek her bed and sleep the sleep of the just. And she wouldn’t dream about that man at all. Not for a moment.
The halls were deserted. Not that they’d been teeming with servants before, she thought, but there was something almost eerie about the quiet that night. The moon was almost full, and it cast shadows through the French doors that lined the hallway to the viscount’s study. She could hear her skirts swish as she walked, a quiet rustle of cloth and the silken petticoats she’d managed to keep with her when she and her sisters had been thrown into the streets. All the rest was silence.
His door was ajar, and light spilled out into the hallway. Sophie paused, rethinking her impulsive gesture. She was returning to the presence of a man who had kissed her. Not just kissed her, but shaken her to her very core. For all that everyone kept insisting that he would never trifle with a servant, he’d done just that earlier in the day, and what made her think that in the dark of night he’d be any different? She’d been a fool to come out—his behavior, his mouth, earlier in the day should have been warning enough. She should have listened to Dickens, who seemed to know the viscount better than anyone, and stayed safely in the confines of the kitchen. But some wicked, dangerous part of her wanted to go, she realized ruefully.
It was then, and only then, that she recognized the other sound that had been missing from her precipitous trip up the back stairs to the Dark Viscount’s library—the sound of footsteps. She’d slipped off her sturdy black shoes when she’d dropped into the rocking chair in a state of exhaustion, and she’d been in such a hurry to get back to him that she’d completely forgotten to put them back on. Idiote! She cursed herself, mortification sweeping over her. How could she have been so stupid?
She started to back away from the half-open door, very slowly, like a young deer facing a hungry tiger. Not that tigers and deer lived together, she reminded herself with a trace of asperity, and as long as she was going to be so fanciful it served her right . . .
“Are you going to hover out there forever or are you coming in?” Alexander Griffiths’s caustic voice came from inside the room, and Sophie considered running for only the briefest moment. She had never been a coward, and she wasn’t going to let a saturnine creature like the Dark Viscount intimidate her, no matter how physically beautiful he might be.
Straightening her shoulders, she pushed open the door and then stopped, filled with misgivings. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to run.
CHAPTER NINE
HER EMPLOYER WAS SPRAWLED on the large sofa in front of the fire, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His hair was tousled, and it was much too long for fashion, but clearly that was of no consequence to him. Most men had some sort of facial hair, but he was clean-shaven as well, and he was watching her out of those dark gray eyes.
He’d discarded his coat and cravat, and his white shirt was partially unbuttoned. His smooth, tanned flesh should have come as no shock—she’d seen it any number of times as she’d watched him from her perch up on the tor. She eyed him warily as she approached, the tray clutched in her hands.
“I’ve brought you the dessert you requested,” she said stiffly. She looked around for a table to set it on, but the only one was across the room, so she moved in front of him, setting the tray down on the seat of a leather chair, planning to go and fetch the table for him.
“So you did,” he said lazily, his eyes drifting down her body in a manner that was both insulting and oddly exhilarating. “I find I’m quite . . . famished.”
She did her best to ignore him, bustling around with an efficient air. She still couldn’t get used to the fact that gentlemen didn’t rise when she came into a room; they simply lay sprawled on a sofa watching her out of predatory eyes. No man would appear in her presence without his jacket or cravat, but then, no man would have kissed her as he’d kissed her earlier in the day, no man . . .
Before she realized his intention she found herself yanked off her feet, falling onto his lap with a decided oomph. She struggled to get up, but he captured her flailing arms very quickly, holding her still so she could do little more than glare up into his face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded frostily.
“Having dessert.” Sliding his hand behind her neck, beneath her tangled hair, he drew her mouth to his, slanting his own over it.
Reaction spiked through her, though it wasn’t the outrage she expected. Her hands still shoved at him, uselessly, but everything inside her seemed to soften and flow, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, she wanted to push her hands through his too-long hair, she wanted to kiss his mouth and his hard jaw and his eyelids.
He lifted his head, looking down at her, a little breathless. “Don’t be tiresome, Sophie,” he said in a voice that was too cool, given the circumstances. “It’s just a kiss.”
She would have disputed that if he hadn’t covered her mouth once more. This was a great deal more than a simple kiss. His hard, warm body seemed to surround her, and she found he no longer bound her hands, so that she was clinging to his arms, to the fine, soft linen of his shirt. She wanted to move closer, up against him; she wanted to kiss him back. Somewhere in the depths of her fuzzy brain she knew it would be a very bad idea. It had taken her far too long to realize it, but she’d been thinking about kissing Alexander Griffiths for weeks now. Whenever she lay on her stomach in the grass and watched his lean, beautiful body cut through the water that had decimated Bryony’s rose garden, she’d wondered what it would like to be kissed by him. To be held in his arms, against his bare chest. To feel his skin, smooth and warm beneath her fingertips.
He’d moved his mouth away from hers, trailing soft, biting kisses down her neck, and she was awash in a myriad of strange reactions. Her stomach knotted with longing, her chest ached, her . . . her breasts seemed to grow sensitive beneath the layers of garments, and worst of all, between her legs she was growing hot, damp. She wanted to rub against something, like a cat needing to be stroked, and even her shame couldn’t stop her.
“But I brought you dessert,” she said helplessly, then realized how stupid that sounded.
He laughed softly, the sound simply adding to her crazy mix of stimulation. “So you did,” he said, “and it’s delicious.” To her shock he leaned down and licked her lower lip with a slow, lascivious sweep of his tongue, and she heard a panicky little moan in the room that could only have come from her.
She wasn’t sure how he did it, but he somehow managed to shift her off his lap and onto the sofa, with his long, powerful body stretched out over her, his legs between hers, between the layers of skirts, one hand cradling her chin, holding her face still for his deep, tempting kisses, the other trailing down her bodice to the sensible row of buttons half-hidden by the apron she had yet to remove. S
he knew she ought to object, but the feather cushions were soft beneath her, and he was so warm and hard and strong above her, shielding her, cocooning her, that she didn’t want to move. She closed her eyes to the dim light and let him coax her mouth open, allowing his tongue to take possession of hers as his long fingers touched the skin of her throat and she burned, her hips rising against him of their own accord. He laughed that wicked, throaty laugh again.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” he murmured against her ear, his voice low and seductive. “You know what you want.” He was struggling with the next button down, but it was hidden by the apron. “Though why the hell you thought this was proper attire for the occasion is beyond me.”
She was actually feeling dizzy, she, who never fainted no matter how tightly she was laced. “What else would I wear?” she asked weakly.
He reached up behind her neck and with a short, brutal jerk he ripped the ties that held the apron at her neck, yanking the linen down to expose the front of her dress. “Preferably nothing at all.”
Somehow, through the maze of desire, the words penetrated, just as she felt his hand on her leg, slowly lifting her heavy skirts, and with a shriek she shoved him, rolling off beneath him and landing hard on the parquet flooring.
It was sheer chance she’d been able to do it—he hadn’t been expecting anything but blind acquiescence, the bastard. Before he could gather his wits she’d scrambled away, racing for the door.