Temptation Has Green Eyes (3 page)

With Russell’s fortune, starting with the no doubt generous settlement that would come with Sophia, he could do it. Restore the parts that had suffered during his time as owner and give it back to her.

And he wanted to give his sister something more than she had now. Poppy deserved better. Because she was a single female, she had to live with her mother, which meant sharing the peripatetic life the dowager Lady Devereaux led these days.

Poppy should have a proper London season with the clothes to match. But when a lace petticoat cost more than a ship’s captain could earn in half a year, that was difficult. Had been difficult.

Now Max could afford it, but he still needed a chaperone for Poppy. Somebody like—a wife.

He kept coming back to the inevitable topic. The walk only served to firm his resolve, which Russell probably knew since he kept quiet for most of it. A good businessman knew when to keep his tongue between his teeth.

They halted outside the office. Did he go in or not? Would he accept this agreement?

He had no choice.

Russell had dropped his daughter on Max like a woodcutter felling an oak tree.

“In principle, I agree to both your propositions,” he said as calmly as he could. “Shall we?” Courteously he let the older man enter the building first and followed up the narrow stairway leading to the busy solicitor’s office, the clerk with half a dozen quills stuck in his hair waving them on with only a small bow of acknowledgement.

All through the discussion of the various documents that put the agreement in place, Max’s mind kept drifting elsewhere. Every time he hit upon an objection to the marriage, a reasonable solution popped into his mind.

Now he’d regained his fortune, women would start chasing him. He’d seen it happen to other men. Now his turn had arrived. Some mysterious scent, like trailing a corpse for the hounds affected men of title, wealth, and enough youth not to repel. No, forget the last one, Max had seen eighty-year-old dukes fall for the wiles of a twenty-year-old woman.

Hell and damnation, he’d never had this difficulty making up his mind.

Yes, damn it, he’d do it. He nodded when Mr. Fisk hesitated. “Go on. I daresay the marriage settlement is here?”

His own man of business shot him a startled look. Max gave him a beatific smile in return. The original contract agreed upon, they settled to discussing the marriage contract and its ramifications.

So Sophia was four-and-twenty? He had thought her younger. That changed his perspective on his colleague’s proposal because he’d never been in favor of marrying chits straight out of the schoolroom. He’d never had the luxury of a childhood or the customary Grand Tour that young men of his status generally undertook before settling into what passed for ordinary life. Max had little in common with the brats he’d been introduced to and found more conducive conversation with older women, who’d seen a little more and expected a lot less.

He had to force himself to concentrate on the signing. He never signed a contract without reading it through just before he signed, in case the other party had tried to slip something in, hoping he wouldn’t notice. He
always
noticed.

Today he could have been signing his soul away to the devil. He tried, but couldn’t concentrate.

He hovered his pen over the other contract, the one binding him for life to a woman he hardly knew. And had a brainwave. “I cannot sign this without the other party present.”

“Of course,” Russell said smoothly. “But we can have it ready for Sophia to sign. You can sign your part now.”

Max tested the proposal, considered the aspects of tying himself to someone for life. If the personal association didn’t work, they would always have the business one.

When Max made a decision, he didn’t delay. He preferred to see the matter through swiftly and efficiently. As far as he was concerned, the matter was set aside to be filed with a blue ribbon, his office code for “Done.”

He signed the document in the requisite places with a few sure slashes of the pen. Then, with a smile, he returned them to their men of business to arrange the copies and the filing.

He’d leave telling his mother until tomorrow.

Sophia was sick of fielding questions about the young men she might consider marrying. Her father, his good mood flowing over to the dinner they held that night, kept the gentlemen in the dining room longer than usual, and Sophia, perforce, had to entertain the ladies in the drawing-room.

One lady suggested that John Hayes would be growing impatient.

He could get as impatient as he liked, but he wasn’t coming anywhere near her again. She forced a smile and gave a non-committal, “Really?” with a touch of aspersion.

She’d trusted a man who had traduced and despised her. He’d only wanted her for her money, nothing else, but she’d believed every lying honeyed word that had dropped from his lips. Until that afternoon when he’d taken matters too far. Her father had ejected him from her life. She was surprised she hadn’t felt a jot of regret, not even recalling the times John was so charming to her. She didn’t miss him one bit.

“But I daresay we’ll be hearing an announcement soon?” Mrs. Cleverly said.

If Sophia said anything other than, “I don’t know,” the news would be all over London, at least the part of it that mattered most to her. She gave a wan smile. “We found we didn’t suit. I believe he has found a position elsewhere.”

Enough of a hint to suggest the fault was on his side. As much as she dared, anyway.

Mrs. Cleverly’s carefully penciled brows rose a fraction. “I thought you were almost declaring for each other.”

Sophia shook her head. “We never took matters that far.”

Another lady, a younger one, and the wife of one of London’s most daring investors, said, “But what about that handsome marquess?”

Immediately Sophia’s thoughts flew to the Marquess of Devereaux, and inwardly she groaned. He barely noticed her, probably didn’t know her name. “He is my father’s business associate. I admit he is handsome, but City and County don’t mix, do they? More tea?” She lifted the pot, shaking it a little to make sure there was enough left.

She’d noticed him from the moment his tall, lean form entered the banqueting hall at the Guildhall, at the formal dinner she was attending with her father. He’d made her feel underdressed and inconspicuous, but not from anything he did. He was punctiliously polite. He had exchanged a few innocuous words with her and moved on, leaving her gaping at his sheer masculine beauty and his elegance.

He probably wouldn’t remember her name if she met him again. Or perhaps his impeccable manners had led him to commit it to memory. Sophia wasn’t fooled, though. He’d only spoken to her because he was courting her father. No gleam of interest sparked his astonishing green eyes, no warm words or a request to visit her home. Not that he could, because Sophia had done away with chaperones a year ago and firmly declared herself perfectly able to run her own affairs.

More fool she. If she’d allowed her tedious aunt to stay, she wouldn’t have got into the pickle with John.

Half an hour later, she closed the door on the last guest with a weary sigh.

She picked up the silver snuffers, extinguished the candles in the sconces, crossed to the table, and extinguished the others. The fire and the moonlight glimmering through the gap in the window shutters produced the only remaining light. Unearthly, it streaked across the room to cast the portrait of her mother in a silvery glimmer.

If Sophia were superstitious, the ethereal light would worry her, but she’d seen that effect more than once. Merely a product of the situation of the portrait and the way the moonlight hit it. Instead of running screaming, she stared at the painting of the lovely woman who’d died six years ago.

She smiled up at her mother. Lady Mary Howard was depicted at the height of her beauty, holding a fan in her satin-clad lap. Although Sophia shared her mother’s coloring, she didn’t otherwise resemble her much. Nor her father. Perhaps she looked like her grandparents, but since both her mother and her father’s parents had died before she could properly remember them, she could only speculate.

The door opened. A figure stood shadowed against the light from the hall. “Sophia, are you all right in here with no lights?”

“I was just putting them out, Papa. The servants will bring their own once they come to clear up. No sense wasting best beeswax when there’s nobody in here.”

“Ever the housekeeper. Sophia my dear, come and talk to me. I have some news for you.”

She couldn’t see his smile, but she could hear it in his voice. She couldn’t pull her watch from her pocket to check the time in this light, but she was tempted to depress the repeater to hear it chime the hour. Her father would hear it too, so she resisted. “Father, it must be ten o’clock. I thought you’d gone up to bed.”

“I have some news for you, and I don’t wish to wait. Come.”

Unusual for him to be so uncharacteristically impatient. Sophia followed her father out of the dining room and downstairs to his study. Her father conducted some of his business from here.

She knew it well, from the legal documents tied with red tape to the tall account books he kept here. With fire a constant threat, her father always had two copies of every important document written out. The original for the office, one for here, and another for the house in the country. Somehow Sophia doubted London would see another Great Fire, but as he often said, “You never know.”

The familiarity gave her assurance. Wait—he’d left to sign the agreement with the marquess earlier today. Had the deal gone awry?

Her heart in her mouth, she waited for him to say that the contract was null. She’d labored long hours copying out that document. She’d hate it to go to waste.

He took a seat, leaned back in his chair, and motioned to the one on the other side of his huge desk, the one she customarily used.

Sophia smoothed her skirts and sat, finding it mildly uncomfortable to be here in her evening silks and not her daytime wool and linen.

He didn’t appear put out, no trace of a frown between his brows. “My daughter, you are well?”

That was more than a courteous inquiry after her health. John’s behavior had distressed her, and although she’d tried not to reveal the level of her distress, her father had discerned it. “Very, thank you, Father.”

“I am extremely pleased to hear it.” He glanced down at the papers before him, picked up his gold-rimmed glasses, and propped them on the high bridge of his nose. “I have some news that affects you directly. You recall I was signing the contract with the Marquess of Devereaux today?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That went without a hitch. We discussed a few small matters, which I would request you add to our copy tomorrow, but nothing that materially alters the agreement.”

A sigh of relief escaped her lips. “I’m glad. That will benefit us considerably.” And the employees of her father’s company.

“Indeed. I’m glad to have it done. But we discussed another matter.” He regarded her in silence for a moment before speaking again. “You are four and twenty and a considerable heiress.”

“I am aware of that, Papa.”

The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Until recently, I had ignored the implications of those simple facts. However, it was borne on me recently that I should pay serious attention to the matter.”

Sophia repressed a shudder. “I am fine, Papa.”

“A society lady would have had a companion or a chaperone.”

With a curl of her lip, she replied, “I am not a society lady. You provide me with a footman to protect me outside the house, and indoors I need nobody. Neither am I a girl fresh from the schoolroom.” Her father had seen that she learned what she needed, but her training in account-keeping went far beyond maintaining the household records.

He harrumphed. “You are not. But you are ready to wed.”

What was this? Although startled, Sophia knew better than to deny his assertion. Opposing her father wasn’t the best way to make him see reason. He would dig his feet in and insist, and then there’d be no budging him. She would find another way to avoid her father’s concerns.

He had meant for her to marry John, and she’d been happy to comply, especially after John’s careful courtship, but that had of course come to nothing. She had thought herself safe for a year or two at least.

Distracting him with business usually worked best. Preparing to listen, she folded her hands in her lap and pasted an expression of mild interest on to her face. “Some women don’t marry until they’re nearly thirty, Papa.”

“I spoke with the marquess at some length today and offered him a new contract to accompany the other.”

“Oh?” The implications of what he was leading to struck her after her mild expression of interest. Her father had spoken before of her going back into society. Perhaps he wanted the marquess to sponsor her re-entry, under the aegis of a suitable female relative.

She didn’t want that. Her debut had been a disaster. Nobody had taken any notice of her, until they learned how rich she would be, and she left the ballrooms of Mayfair with nothing but relief, vowing never to return.

Her mother had been disappointed, but shortly after that first season, she had died, so Sophia had never returned. And she’d never been missed.

A light approach would work best. “Does the marquess know a suitable candidate?” Her heart beat faster, and she tried to breathe normally. Her laces were tighter than usual, so her bosom would reveal her state of agitation if she didn’t take care.

“He does.” Her father’s sly smile sent chills running through her.

“Papa, I am of a mind not to marry for some time yet. Do we really need to consider it now?”

“What? Yes, we do. I was deeply deceived in Hayes, and I would not have that happen again. It must not.”

Because it diminished her reputation, came close to destroying it? Sophia had worked hard to rebuild her reputation, and she was nearly there. Without compromising and allowing another chaperone into the house. What was she, some society miss who couldn’t go outdoors without a footman?