A Duke for Christmas (2 page)

“Sophie,” he said, tasting her name for the first tune. “Sophie, you mustn’t marry that man. That posturing poet.”

“Broderick?”

“Broderick. What can he offer you? If he makes ten pounds a year by his pen, I’d be amazed. I’ve been a scribbler half my life and I know.”

“Yes, Ken said you’d been a writer. Grub Street?”

“That’s right. I was a Grub Street hack, selling my soul for a penny a line. I don’t have to do that now. I can offer you everything, a fortune, a title if you care for that, and... and my heart.”

“Your heart?” The lightness vanished from her tone. “Oh, dear. I didn’t imagine for a moment...” Even by moonlight, Dominic could see embarrassment in her eyes. “You see, I was talking to some of the ladies ... women do chatter so ... and they one and all seemed to regret that they had not taken more advantage of their opportunities when younger. Flirting and such, if you see what I mean.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Dominic didn’t think this sounded as if Sophie were working up to an acceptance. Perhaps she hadn’t realized he’d just proposed?

“Well, most of them are married, you see, and had only one man in their lives. And they were saying how they wished they’d not been so missish when men tried to kiss them when they were younger, not realizing how few men would wish to when they were married and settled. So when you looked as if you wanted to kiss me ...” She peeped at him shyly. “I think that third glass of champagne might have been too much. I do apologize, Your Grace.”

“Wait,” Dominic said, reaching out as if to mesmerize her into staying. “I don’t expect you to feel the same way I do, but you can’t marry that dreary little tick.”

“He’s not really the way you saw him tonight,” she said. “He’s shy and his politics are something radical. He doesn’t know how to behave around dukes and lords and such, so he’s sometimes a little rude.”

“He wasn’t rude in the least. He toadied me to the top of his bent.”

This seemed to strike a spark of anger in her. “I’m sure you must be mistaken,” she said, her chin rising proudly. “Broderick despises all the nobility. It’s a point of honor with him to treat all men as equals.”

“Then he must toad-eat everyone he meets. I’ve only been a duke a short time, but I’ve already learned how to spot a sycophant at a hundred yards. Your precious Broderick is the type who truckles by pretending to see no difference between men, yet all the while his eyes are toting up the cost of your boots and your signet ring. I expect him to ask me at the wedding breakfast to subscribe to an edition of his poems.”

“Good night, Your Grace.”

Dominic felt the humble desire of every lover to grovel unashamedly before the beloved object’s frown. “No, wait. I didn’t mean it. I’m sure your poet’s a fine fellow, once you get to know him. But he’s all wrong for you. You ... you’re wonderful.”

She paused, half turned away yet listening, and Dominic hurried on. “You deserve so much more than he can give you. And I don’t mean only the material goods of life, houses, jewels, fine clothes. You deserve someone who’ll adore you lifelong. That poet can’t see you for thinking about his wonderful self. I’d put you first and foremost. My every thought would be to please you.”

“How much champagne did
you
have?” she asked, a smile in her voice. Then she looked at him. “I’m sorry. You are serious.”

“Very serious. Don’t you believe in love at first sight?”

“I... I’m not sure.” Sophie glanced toward the house. “It’s quite impossible.”

Dominic stepped up to stand beside her. “Why?” he whispered, his breath moving the tendrils beside her ear. “Because there’s a houseful of people who expect to see you married in the morning?”

She put her small hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. “No. Because Broderick needs me.”

Perhaps his expression reflected his scorn, for she hastened to bolster her argument. “He does, indeed he does. He’s so foolish about things like bills and eating regularly and keeping his clothes mended. He needs me to look after him and I... I need someone to look after.”

“But I...” Dominic said, framing frantic words to protest that he needed her too.

“You have everything to offer a woman, Your Grace. You have the whole world at your feet, and I don’t know how to tell you how moved I am that you have said such things to me.” She touched her cheek with the fingertips of her other hand, as if soothing away a blush that the moonlight hid from him. “But I only want my poet and he only wants me. So I thank you and I bid you good night.”

Then she was gone and Dom’s hands reached out to capture the night air and the remembrance of a few stolen moments. He watched her marry his rival the next morning and did not stay for the wedding breakfast. The only moment he could think of afterward without wanting to hide under a rock was when she kissed him. The fact that she’d even considered the embraces of another man told him that Broderick Banner was the wrong man for her, whether she’d admit it or not.

Of course, he hadn’t wasted much time repining. After a while, he’d taken to marveling at his own folly. What would he have done if she’d agreed to go with him to Gretna? Dominic told himself he’d had a narrow escape and threw himself into the follies and fun available to a young, wealthy, and titled gentleman. Yet at least once a month, Sophie Lindel Banner would appear in his dreams, always warm and smiling, inviting him to follow her into the realms of sleep, where anything might happen but never quite did.

His dreams were in his thoughts now as he waited for the
Attendez Moi
to make port. It had been slightly more than three years since that night in the garden at Finchley Place. The girl who had married the next day wouldn’t be on that ship. Too much had happened. He wasn’t that impulsive anymore.

Dominic reminded himself that he was here only because Kenton had requested this service of him. So far as his behavior went, he was meeting the sister-in-law of his oldest friend in order to give her his protection on the journey to her home. That evening of moonlit madness had happened to two other people a world away. He wouldn’t mention it, wouldn’t even think about it. The man who had offered Sophie Lindel his heart had nothing to do with him. Furthermore, there wasn’t even a Sophie Lindel anymore. Only Sophie Banner, whom he had yet to meet.

It was with this resolution in mind that he stood on the dock an hour later, looking up at the tumble-home sides of a ship. The
Attendez Moi
was far from sizable, her paint sun-faded and chipped, the sails—now sagging down—dun-colored, and the crew as unkempt as rescued castaways.

A woman stood by the railing, her boat cloak falling straight from her shoulders to the deck. Pink flooded her cheeks as she put up a hand to capture the floating strands of golden hair that had fallen from the knot on the back of her head. Her gaze swept over the docks, not as if she were looking for anything in particular but as though she were simply absorbing everything she could see.

Even if he hadn’t recognized her, Dom’s gaze would have been irresistibly drawn to her. Her face bore an expression of breathless anticipation, half joy, half dread. Dominic wondered whether he himself bore a similar expression. She obviously hadn’t seen him. He wished with sudden violence that he hadn’t come to collect her, no matter how beholden he might be to Kenton and his wife.

As he watched, trying to decide whether to dodge behind some barrels or just stand out in clear sight, she turned away with a start. A man appeared to stand beside her at the railing. Dominic didn’t like the look of him at all. He had a pleasant, open face with wide apart eyes that gave him an innocent air at odds with his extremely high forehead. They didn’t stand there for long. The man said something and Sophie nodded with a smile, stepping away from Dom’s sight.

It seemed to take forever until the crew slid out the gangplank. Dominic occupied himself by pacing. Growing warm, he’d taken off his coat, throwing it over a barrel. He didn’t notice the cold, though everyone who hurried past was muffled up to the eyes against the sharp breeze blowing off the sea.

The grinding fall of the gangplank brought him instantly to the edge of the dock. She wasn’t the first person off the boat. The
Attendez Moi
didn’t carry very many passengers and those who did disembark were not notable for their
ton,
being mostly shabby-genteel tourists and clerks about their business. A large family took considerable time to travel from the top of the gangplank to the bottom, the mother being troubled over some missing parcels.

“Is that the lovebirds, Mary? No? Who has the lovebirds? Did you remember to collect the spoons, Arthur? I don’t want to leave the spoons. Oh, have you the lovebirds, William? I thought Mary had them. Well, then, who has Baby? Someone must go back for Baby. And the French poppet. Eva will be dreadfully upset if we forget... oh, you have Baby, Arthur? Then who has the spoons? And who has the poppet?”

The whole party stopped in the middle of the gangplank, which bowed under their combined weight, while a child ran back to look for whatever miscellany they’d forgotten. Dominic met the eyes of the father of this hapless band in a look of male sympathy. The father ushered the rest of his family down to the ground with a murmured, “Mustn’t impede the others, my dear,” placing a guiding hand under his wife’s elbow.

No sooner had she reached solid ground than she tottered and clutched her husband’s supporting arm. “Oh, mercy, how the ground heaves!”

With open hand, Dominic indicated his coat-draped barrel. Once seated, the woman closed her eyes, her hand pressed to her bosom. “Better,” she breathed.

“Thank you, sir,” the father said. Their children ranged in age from an infant in a basket to a young man blushing furiously for his parents’ imposition on a stranger.

“Are you unwell, Mrs. Gibbs?” A swirl of a boat cloak passed him. Dominic turned to find Sophie on one knee beside the barrel.

“She has yet to regain her land legs, Mrs. Banner,” Mr. Gibbs said.

“Oh, yes. My maids are in the same condition. I myself feel more than a trifle off balance.”

“Maids?” Dominic asked, looking around. This wasn’t at all how he’d imagined their meeting. He’d expected at
least an acknowledgment of his presence and had hardly anticipated so many witnesses. Two young women, both
blondes, stood beside a small heap of hand luggage, leaning on one another and looking about them with wide
eyes.

Sophie looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Hello, Dominic, it’s good to see you. Have you met the Gibbs family?”

“Were you waiting for our dear Mrs. Banner?” This new interest straightened Mrs. Gibbs’s sagging spine. Under her raised eyebrows, she showed a pair of astonishingly sharp eyes. They were kindly but penetrating, oddly so for such a preoccupied woman. She studied Dominic with profound attention.

“I’ve come to take her home,” he said, trying to not feel like a schoolboy caught stealing a pie. “Her mother and sister are waiting for her at home.”

“Indeed?” she said suspiciously. Dominic began to wish he’d dressed more conservatively. Though his clothes were of the highest quality, with no aspirations toward dandyism, he did not dress like a parson or a solicitor or some other male with whom one might trust a widow. He dressed for the position he held in a nice taste which was his own and his tailor’s. It was evident by the look in Mrs. Gibbs’s eye that not even a long white beard would have allayed her suspicions of his being a vile seducer.

“They could not come,” Sophie said clearly. “As I told you, ma’am, my sister is expecting her first child very soon and should not travel so far.”

“Very wise,” Mrs. Gibbs said. “I have known the gravest injury to both mother and child through such imprudence. My cousin Eudora, for instance ...”

The conversation threatened to become obstetrical when Sophie stood up too quickly, swayed a little, and held out a faltering hand to Dominic. “Oh, dear. How long do sea legs last?”

“Not long,” he said, taking her hand in his, finding it stronger and harder than he remembered. There was muscle there that hadn’t come from embroidery. Her face, too, had changed. The soft contours of youth had passed, leaving a finely sculpted jaw and more evident cheekbones. Her eyes met his with steady friendliness and no trace of embarrassment. They might never have kissed under the full moon.

Sophie hadn’t realized how much bloom she had lost until she saw Dominic Swift again. She had expected to see him sometime, of course. That would be inevitable. But she’d never imagined that it would be after a long sea journey, her hair askew, her clothes wrinkled, her skin pale and shiny, an incipient spot she could feel growing beside her nose.
When one meets an old admirer, one wishes still to be admirable,
she thought. Not that any of it really mattered; she had traveled a long way in every sense of the word from the garden at Finchley when he’d so charmingly expressed his admiration.

“The journey?” she repeated. “It was not difficult once we departed Italy. The boat left early, but then it came back, so we sailed on it after all.”

“I see,” he said. His voice had deepened and slowed over the intervening period. “Who are these people?”

“The Gibbses? They’ve been traveling through Italy for the children’s health.”

“No, not them. Them.” He waggled a finger subtly at Angelina and Lucia, standing by the luggage at the foot of the gangplank.

“They are my landlady’s daughters,” Sophie said. “I couldn’t afford to pay the last three months’ rent, you see, so I agreed to bring them to England.” She refused to be embarrassed or coy about her financial difficulties. They were, after all, the chief reason for her return to her native country.

“As hard up as that?” he asked, a certain humorous respect coming into his eyes.

“Even more so. I had to sell my furniture for the fares. Besides, I like them very much. I have promised to teach them how to be ladies’ maids and to write them excellent references.”

She stood up to go to them and felt his hand warm on her arm. “And the man?”