Irresistible (13 page)

Last night seemed unreal again until he remembered that hair loose and wild about her face and shoulders and billowing down her back all the way to her bottom. And her dreamy, passion-filled eyes. And the slim beauty of her body.

Oh, Sophie. Someone had once shown him a picture of a vase—except that the vase had disappeared and two human faces in profile had replaced it when he changed the focus of his eyes. He could see both pictures after that but never simultaneously. There was always either the vase or the faces. His view of Sophie was somewhat like that this evening. He could see dear Sophie, his friend, who warmed his heart and brought an involuntary smile to his lips. And he could see and feet—and smell—last night’s lover and know beyond any doubt that he wished to continue the liaison. But it was difficult to see both women at the same time.

After it had become clear to him that she really was avoiding even looking at him, Nathaniel decided that he must take matters into his own hands. It would be remarked upon if he was the only one of the four friends to fail even to pay his respects to her. Besides, he
wished
to talk with her. And he wanted Georgina and Lavinia to meet her—he had always intended to take them to call on her. Georgina at least would like her, he was sure. And so between sets he offered an arm to each and led them to where Sophie was standing with Ken, Rex, Eden, and their retinue.

His three friends had already met his sister and Lavinia. Rex and Kenneth had called with their wives during the afternoon, just after Eden had left. Indeed, Rex and Ken had each danced a set with both young ladies. Lavinia had not refused either of them, Nathaniel had been interested—and relieved—to find.

There was a great buzz of greetings and conversation as the three of them joined the group. Catherine took it upon herself to present Georgina and Lavinia to her brother and to Rex’s relatives. She seemed to assume they must have met Sophie.

Nathaniel turned to her at last and smiled. If she was feeling embarrassed, she was not showing it. She stood quietly, as she always had, neither pushing herself forward nor cowering away out of sight.

“Hello, Sophie,” he said. “Are you enjoying the ball?”

“Oh, yes indeed,” she assured him. “I did not expect to dance at all, you know. But I have danced three sets in a row—with three of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, no less. I believe I might say that my evening—my whole Season—has been an unqualified success.” She had always had that ability, he remembered, quietly and cheerfully to mock herself.

“May I have the honor of presenting my sister and my cousin to you?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she said.

“My cousin Lavinia Bergland,” he said, “and my sister Georgina.”

She looked at them each in turn and smiled kindly.

“Mrs. Sophie Armitage,” he continued. “A very dear friend of mine who was in Spain and Portugal and Belgium with her husband during the wars. He was unfortunately killed at Waterloo but not before distinguishing himself in a quite extraordinary fashion.”

“How distressing for you, Mrs. Armitage,” Georgina said, curtsying.

“You followed the drum, Mrs. Armitage?” Lavinia said, her voice bright with interest. “How splendid of you. How I envy you.”

“Sophie, please,” Sophia said. “Yes, I suppose I am to be envied. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend almost every day of my short married life with my husband.”

“Sophie.” Lavinia reached out her right hand like a man and shook Sophia’s hand. “How lovely it is to meet you. I am going to like you. How fortunate that you are one of Nat’s friends. We will meet again, then. There will be someone sensible to talk with.”

Sophie laughed. “I do hope I can live up to your expectations,” she said.

“But you must never offer to take her walking or shopping, Sophie,” Eden said in the bored voice he used whenever he wished to ruffle someone’s feathers. “Or she will accuse you of treating her like a charity case and look at you with such marked disdain that you would feel your shirt points withering, if you ever wore them.”

Eden, Nathaniel thought, had been offended this afternoon. And who could blame him? Lavinia had been unpardonably rude.

Lavinia gave Eden the look he had just described and then smiled at Sophie with contrasting charm. “I would
love
to go walking or shopping with you, Sophie,” she said. “Preferably walking so that we may talk uninterrupted. Shopping can be such a bore. I shall have Nat escort me to your house one day, if I may—does he know where you live?—and we can proceed together from there. May I?”

“Of course,” Sophie said. But she darted a glance at him, Nathaniel saw. It would never occur to Lavinia to wait for an invitation, to wonder if her desire for friendship was reciprocated. But then Lavinia did not have many female friends. She thought most women silly.

The orchestra was tuning up again.

“Miss Gascoigne.” Young Viscount Perry, Catherine’s brother, was bowing to Georgina. “May I take you for some lemonade? This is a waltz and you may not dance it yet, I suppose.”

Perry, Nathaniel could not help thinking, was heir to the Earl of Paxton. He was also a wealthy and personable young man and doubtless attractive to the ladies. Georgie was blushing and setting her hand on his arm. Fortunately she always looked her prettiest when blushing. Nathaniel caught Catherine’s eye. She raised one eyebrow and half smiled at him.

“Is there
really
truth in that ridiculous story?” Lavinia asked of no one in particular. “One may not waltz until some old dragons say that one may?”

“It is a good thing none of the dragons are within ear-shot,” Eden said, “or you might be waltzing for the first time on your eightieth birthday. Nat wants to waltz with Sophie. You had better come with me to the refreshment table, Miss Bergland, or you are going to look suspiciously like a wallflower.”

Nathaniel raised his eyebrows. Ede really must have been offended. It was unlike him to speak to any lady without his customary charm. Indeed, he had been downright rude. However, Lavinia took his offered arm without bristling noticeably.

Nathaniel turned to Sophie. Eden had read his wishes correctly. And it was to be a waltz. He could not have planned it better.

“It would be a shame, Sophie,” he said, “if you could not dance the fourth set with the fourth Horseman and so complete the quartet. Will you dance it with me, my dear?”

“That would be very pleasant.” She set her hand on his arm.

The music was already beginning. And which Sophie was he seeing now? he asked himself as he set one hand at the back of her waist—why had he never noticed in the past how alluringly slender it was?—and took her hand with his other. He could smell her perfume—no, her soap.

She smiled up at him as she set her free hand on his shoulder. Sophie Armitage’s cheerful, comfortable smile. And the small, supple body of last night’s lover.

THE SURGE OF PHYSICAL awareness that assailed Sophia as soon as she touched him, as soon as he touched her, took her completely by surprise. She had been consumed by embarrassment—would not all their mutual friends and acquaintances
suspect?
And by the awkwardness of finding herself being presented to his relatives. And by her dismay at Lavinia’s eagerness to strike up a friendship.

And by annoyance that she was somehow seeing herself as a ... what? A mistress? A fallen woman? How foolish! How very middle class, Walter would have said. But then she was middle class.

But now she felt only awareness—and the sudden memory that just last night, not even twenty-four hours ago, they had been naked and intimate together. She raised her eyes to his. He was looking steadily at her from those heavy-lidded eyes of his that always made him look enticingly sleepy.

“Was it proper?” she asked him.

“Is that what troubled you?” he asked her in return. “Do you feel like a kept woman, then, Sophie?”

“No, of course not.” And it was the truth, she told herself firmly. She did not.

“Then why is it improper,” he asked, “for you to meet my sister and my cousin? For me to meet your niece? What we do in privacy together and by mutual consent concerns no one but us, Sophie.”

She wondered—had wondered all day—if that was really true. Even though she believed it.

He moved her into the dance then and for a while she forgot all else but the glorious exhilaration of dancing with him, of waltzing with him. There had never been any waltzes at the regimental balls—it had been too new, too controversial a dance. She felt his body heat though their bodies did not touch, smelled his cologne, shared his rhythm—and felt her cheeks grow hot at the memory of another shared rhythm.

She was mad, she thought. Insane. How would she survive the inevitable end of the coming months? But how, after last night, could she survive without them?

He was still looking at her when she glanced up again. He was half smiling too. “You were born to dance, Sophie,” he said.

Strange words. She did not ask him what he meant. But suddenly she felt wonderfully feminine. She so rarely felt this way. She thought back to her youth and Walter’s brief courtship—she had been only eighteen. He had never been a particularly handsome or charming man, but she had liked his bluff good humor. At that time she had still thought herself passably pretty and attractive. When she had accepted him and married him, she had anticipated great happiness. She had had confidence in herself as a woman. She had looked forward eagerly to being a wife, a mother. It was all she had ever wanted of life.

It had not taken long—not long at all—to lose all confidence in her beauty and charms. She had quickly learned to be content with being Walter’s “old girl” or “old sport” and with being “good old Sophie” to the Four Horsemen and others—though now she came to think of the matter, she did not believe that Nathaniel had ever used that particular phrase.

She did not know whether it was good for her to hear that she had been born to dance. But she smiled back at Nathaniel before lowering her eyes so that she could concentrate on sheer sensation again. She had waltzed before, but it had never been like this—like dancing in a dream or on a rainbow or on clouds or among the stars or any of those other clichés, all of which seemed suddenly quite fresh and altogether appropriate.

She realized finally that the waltz must be coming to an end. She looked about her, trying to hold the memory, wishing again that it were possible to freeze a moment in time. She looked beyond Nathaniel’s shoulder—and froze indeed. She completely lost her step with the result that her slipper ended up beneath Nathaniel’s shoe. She winced and he hauled her right against him for one moment.

“Sophie, my dear,” he said, stopping dancing and looking down at her in dismay. “I am so sorry. How dreadfully clumsy of me. Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she said, flustered, her mind flying off in all directions. “No, it was my fault. I am quite all right.”

“You are not,” he said. “Come. Let us move over here and stand by the windows. Are you hiding crushed toes inside that slipper?”

“No.” She shook her head and bit her lip—she felt as if she had five crushed toes—and darted a glance to the doorway. He was not there. Had he come farther inside? Had he gone away again? Had she imagined that he had been there at all? She knew she had not imagined it. Their eyes had met.

“Let me find you an empty chair,” Nathaniel suggested.

“No.” She grabbed his arm. “No, let us finish the waltz.”

He dipped his head and looked more closely into her face. “What is it?” he asked her. “You stopped dancing, did you not? Not that it was not still my fault. It is a capital offense, I do believe, to tread upon one’s partner’s toes. What is it, Sophie?”

There it was again, that illusion of safety that was not safety at all. She imagined telling him and seeing his look of concern turn to one of disgust. She would not be able to bear it.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling. “Just screaming pain. You must weigh a ton, Nathaniel. Perhaps two. But the pain has gone now. Let us dance.”

“May I come to you tomorrow night?” he asked her, his head still dipped toward hers.

Her stomach lurched with unmistakable desire. “About midnight?” she said. “I will watch for you. My servants will be in bed.”

“Would you prefer that it be somewhere else?” he asked her. “I could rent a house.”

“No,” she said quickly. “That would be intolerable.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It would. But I would not wish to cause problems with your servants.”

“They need not know,” she said. “And even if they do, I am my own mistress, Nathaniel.”

“Yes,” he said. “I think you always were, Sophie.”

Strange words again. Comforting words. And true to a large degree. She had always—almost always—controlled her own life. She would continue to do so even though there were several things to fear over the coming months. Financial ruin or exposure. Losing Nathaniel when the Season was over. Finding life too frighteningly empty.