Imposter Bride (17 page)

And he was beginning to think he knew her very
well.

After they’d set the room to rights, they each had a
nip of brandy to settle their nerves. Mrs. Betrus was in a
frightful state and had two nips. Ramsay advised her to be sure to
keep all the doors and windows locked from now on, and she retorted
that she didn’t have to be told twice, he could be sure of that.
She left them in the study, fluttering and muttering her way
upstairs, and Ramsay couldn’t help but smile.

He caught Sophie’s eye. She tried to smile back, but
couldn’t, and stood in the middle of the room, rubbing the tops of
her arms.

“Want a fire?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It’s late.”

“No trouble. I’m cold, too.”

She gave him a scathing look. “That’s because you’re
half-dressed.”

“Better this than what I usually sleep in.”

She still didn’t smile. He frowned, aware that she
was still terrified, and he didn’t quite know how to help her.

“Do you want me to take you to—” He broke off,
because what he had been about to say seemed far too provocative
and far too possible. “—back upstairs?”

“Not yet.” She swallowed, her mouth pinched and
white. “If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“Would you stay?” She implored, her blue eyes
startlingly light against her pale skin, their pupils contracted
with fear. She continued to chafe her arms. “Just for a little
while?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

He longed to take her in his arms and hold her until
her fear abated. But he couldn’t take the chance, because an
embrace with her might so easily turn into much more, at least as
far as he was concerned.

“I’ll build a fire.”

Ill at ease, Ramsay knelt down, threw a clutch of
kindling upon the grate and lit it, all the while highly aware of
her slight figure standing behind him in that accursed night
rail.

Sophie sat on the edge of her chair by the fire,
staring at the tiny flames dancing around the lumps of coal while
Ramsay retrieved the blanket he sometimes pulled over his legs when
reading late at night.

“Here,” he said, draping it around her
shoulders.

“Thank you.” She pulled the fabric to her chin, but
still sat on the edge of her chair, unable to relax. Ramsay stood
near her for a moment, unsure of what to do, but unwilling to move
far away. Instead, he bent over the fire again, and fussed at it
with a poker, giving himself something to do and a reason to remain
close to her.

She watched him move the pieces of coal around.

“I’m sorry to keep you up,” she finally
remarked.

“Don’t be.”

“I’ve never been awakened like that before, with a
thief in the very room I was sleeping in!”

“You must have been terrified.” He shot her a
glance, and she looked over at him and nodded.

“I was,” she replied. “It feels so violating. You
couldn’t possibly know how violating.”

Ramsay stabbed the fire with unnecessary roughness.
Contrary to what she thought, he knew what it felt like to be
violated—to stand by helplessly and have everything he loved taken
from him. He clenched his jaw, unable to shut off the vision as
swiftly as he usually did. Something about Sophie kept bringing his
heart and his memories dangerously close to the surface. Hot,
burning bile rose in his throat.

“Ian?” Gently, she touched his shoulder.

He shook her off and stabbed the fire again,
struggling to keep his feelings under control.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing!” He straightened and threw the poker into
the rack with a loud rattle. He turned his back to her, unable to
look at her. “It’s nothing!”

For a long moment complete silence hung between
them, silence so hard and so binding that he couldn’t walk away as
he always did.

He could see her slowly rising to her feet behind
him, saw the blanket slipping to the chair, saw the glowing
chestnut nimbus of her hair. He couldn’t turn around. He’d be lost
if he looked at her.

“It’s something in Scotland, isn’t it?” she asked,
her words more a simple truth than a question. “And it’s everything
to you, isn’t it?”

He stood there, too distraught to answer her, too
distraught to move.

And then she touched him. She slipped up behind him
and put her arms around him. She laid her tousled head between his
shoulder blades and hugged him, so tenderly and so sweetly that he
felt something cracking deep inside. No one had ever held him like
this since he could remember.

He tensed, knowing he should disengage instantly,
walk out of the study, and never look back.

“Don’t,” she whispered, reading his mind again.

He hung his head, conquered before he’d even put up
a respectable fight, losing the battle he hadn’t had the balls to
avoid. Her small white hands were spread over his chest, holding
him prisoner, seeming far too delicate for the task but doing it
all the same. He felt the rise and fall of her breathing along his
spine, felt the warmth of her breasts spreading over him, spreading
like a wildfire through him. He stood there, aching, unable to
separate his raging grief from the passion that burned so fiercely
for this woman, all the while wondering how it could be so, how two
such disparate emotions could send him to his knees like this at
the same time. He shut his eyes.

Then she began to caress him with those hands. He
reached up and covered her fingers with his, to stop her.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he rasped in a
voice both rough and raw.

“Yes, I do,” she answered.

He sighed and slowly turned around to find her
looking up at him, her eyes heavy with desire and soft with
kindness. He’d known it would come to this. He’d known it from the
first moment he’d seen her. He had tried to stop the inevitable,
but this was not something he could so easily control.

Ramsay reached for her to pull her close, and felt
the soft orbs of her uncorsetted breasts press into his abdomen.
The sensation jolted him so much he almost moaned out loud. Then he
lifted her off her feet, bringing her lips to his mouth and
enfolding her in his embrace as he had dreamed of holding her. She
was soft and warm, and her hands slid under the light cotton fabric
of his unbuttoned shirt. She caressed the bare flesh of his
shoulders and kissed him at the base of his neck and then all along
his jaw to his ear, her mouth strong and urgent.

“My God,” he swore against her throat. She was on
fire and so was he.

Kissing her, he staggered backward with her, barely
in command of his feet, and ended up at the wall next to the door
which he intended to close so no one could hear their strident
gasps. He turned and wedged her body between the wall and his hips,
moving against her, one arm holding her off the floor, the other
reaching for the latch of the door.

His palm slid down the polished wood until it found
the latch. He grabbed it. The cold metal was hard and chilled
compared to Sophie’s warm young body, and the touch of it brought
him back to his senses and reminded him of his grim purpose.

Sophie Vernet was an instrument of his designs, not
an avenue of pleasure. If she was so much as suspected of being
deflowered by him, she could ruin him, or at least ruin his plans.
The Earl of Blethin might not take soiled goods.

Before Metcalf agreed to marry her, he might go so
far as to assure himself of Miss Hinds’ virginity by having her
inspected by a physician. Should there be evidence of sexual
activity, the Metcalf family might pressure the earl into tossing
the heiress aside. Though the possibility seemed unlikely, since
the earl was so short of funds, Ramsay still couldn’t take the
risk.

No moment’s pleasure—even a moment such as this when
he wanted Sophie more than he had ever wanted a woman—was worth
losing Highclyffe. He couldn’t trade twenty years of work for one
evening with a woman, no matter who she was. Ramsay’s mouth went
dry, and he rose from her lips.

Sophie’s head lolled back against the wall, and her
eyes opened halfway to see what he was about. Her lips were red and
full, having blossomed under his kiss, her cheeks were flushed, and
she looked utterly irresistible. His knees felt so weak at the
sight of her that he had to look away.

“Come,” he growled, sweeping her into his arms. He
could think of only one alternative to staying in this room and
ravishing her. He would carry her upstairs and put her to bed. By
the time he carried her up the long flight of stairs, he’d force
himself to reacquire his usual firm resolve.

She allowed herself to be swung up in his arms, and
she wrapped her arms around his neck, snuggling against his chest.
He could feel the warmth of her skin and the heavy curve of her
left breast through the thin layer of his cotton shirt, and the
sensation drove him to madness. He was grateful she didn’t speak,
didn’t ask him any questions or make demands. He wasn’t certain he
could refuse her if she so much as raised an eyebrow in his
direction.

Sophie was but a feather in his arms, and by the
time he reached the top of the stairs, he was barely out of breath.
But as he had guessed, the effort was enough to cool his ardor and
bring him back to rational thought. He steeled himself against the
sensation of her body pressed into his, and strode down the hall to
his room.

Her frame stiffened slightly when she realized where
she was being transported, and he was somewhat relieved. Perhaps
she wasn’t expecting to be bedded after all. Judging by her
previous behavior, he guessed she hadn’t had much experience with
men, and that pleased him, too, even though he had no personal
stake in the matter. He carried her to the side of his bed and
gently lowered her to the sheets.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said, slowly releasing
her.

Surprised, she glanced up at him, with the expected
question in her eyes.

He stood mutely before her, lost for words, wanting
desperately to explain himself, but knowing he could not.

She closed her eyes. Was she about to cry? St.
Andrew, he hoped not. He’d never make it out of the room if she
started to weep.

“No thief would dare break into this room,” he
added.

She made no reply and did not open her eyes. She
covered her face with the crook of her arm, as if by blocking her
view to the world, she could conceal her reaction to him. She
partially succeeded. He could still see her mouth, but it was
difficult to read without the attending expression of her smoky
eyes. He didn’t wish to leave her distraught, just as he had not
been able to walk away while she had been in such a frightened
state in the study.

“If it makes you feel any safer, I shall be staying
up for a while,” he put in, trying not to worry about what was
transpiring under that arm. “I have correspondence I must attend
to.”

“I shall manage. Thank you.”

He shifted his weight onto his right foot. “If you
hear anything, I shall be in the study.”

“Thank you.”

He reached down for the coverlet to pull it over
her. She lowered her arm from her face but didn’t meet his glance,
as he brought the blanket to her shoulders. Then he straightened
and searched her expression for the pout he expected to see, but
saw nothing but a shadow of sad resignation in her eyes as she
stared at the far wall, unseeing.

The sadness wrenched him. He swallowed, knowing he
should leave immediately, but unable to induce his feet to take the
first step. “Miss Hinds,” he began, but paused, annoyed by the fact
that he must call her by the assumed name. “Miss Hinds, please
accept my apology for that abysmal behavior in the study.”

“Apology?” Her gaze rose to his, unwavering. “But I
was not offended.”

Her unexpected remark galvanized him. For a moment
he stood at the side of the bed, staring down at her, wanting more
than anything to sink down to her, call her by her real name,
promise to help her with whatever trouble she had got embroiled in,
and make love to her—long, glorious, night-without-end love. But he
knew he could never allow himself the pleasure, not when Highclyffe
hung in the balance.

“Were you offended, Ian?” she asked softly.

“No.” He forced himself back to rational thought and
did not allow himself to look at her. “But it is something better
left unremarked. You know that as well as I. Goodnight, Miss
Hinds.”

She blinked at his curt reply and looked away,
turning her back to him as she responded with a soft goodnight, her
whisper ending the cataclysmic past hour he believed had changed
them both forever. How would they act toward each other in the
morning?

Ramsay felt his path shifting under his feet, as
when the tide pulled back, drawing the sand with it, no matter how
firmly one stood at the water’s edge. He didn’t like the sensation,
and yet knew the ocean was a force one could not harness or
overcome.

He suspected Sophie Vernet was like the sea, a force
that had swept into his life, changing the way he ate, changing his
routines, dredging up his long-buried sentiments, altering the way
he felt about his home, about his life, even rearranging his
furniture for God’s sake. And all for the better, if he admitted
the truth.

Now here she was in his bed. He’d never permitted a
woman in his bed, not in his entire thirty years. Yet there lay the
artful Sophie Vernet, his sheets pulled to her delicate shoulders,
her tousled head on his pillows, preparing to spend the remainder
of the winter night in his room. The worst of it was, he wanted her
there.

Damnation.

Could he fight this force and overcome it? Probably
not. Could he step away and find more solid ground? He would have
to. Tomorrow, no matter what the weather and no matter how much he
would miss Sophie’s engaging companionship—and her cooking—he would
announce Miss Hinds healed and ready to repair to more suitable
lodgings.