Two Sinful Secrets (2 page)

The tip of his tongue traced her lower lip, and she opened to him with a gasp. His
mouth covered hers in a hot, starving kiss, his tongue pressing deep to twine with
hers.

Sophia’s nails dug into his shoulders. This was definitely
not
like any other kiss she had ever had! Those fumbling caresses from boys who had groped
at her in the dark, even as she sensed their fear of her, could never have
prepared her for the force that was Dominic St. Claire. He would not be afraid of
anything. He claimed what he wanted, and oh, but he was so
good
at kissing.

He drew back from her lips, his eyes a bright green in the shadows. “Tell me,” he
demanded.

And Sophia wanted so much to do just that, to give him her name and hear him say it
in that wondrous voice of his. But then this precious moment would be shattered. She
didn’t know why he hated her cousin. She only knew she never wanted him to look at
her that way. She never wanted his desire to become icy with hatred.

This moment was all she could have with him.

“No,” she answered, finding strength in the sure knowledge that she had to keep him
from finding out she was Lady Sophia Huntington. From finding out what his kiss meant
to her. “I am no one. You have to let me go.”

His arm tightened around her waist. “No,” he said, his voice a low growl full of dark
determination. “I’ve just found you.”

Suddenly desperate to be gone, to not give in to the power he held over her, Sophia
frantically shook her head. “Please, Dominic…”

“No! I need you to tell me who you are.”

“Then I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So very, very sorry.”

His head tilted back from her. “Sorry?”

Taking a deep breath, Sophia brought her knee up hard between his legs. Her old nanny
had once told her to do that if she needed to escape from a man, and she hadn’t been
sure it would work. But Dominic gave an agonized shout and fell to the floor, letting
her go.

Absolutely appalled at what she had done, Sophia almost knelt beside him. Until he
shouted a foul name at
her, a string of the dirtiest curses she had ever heard, and she knew she had to get
out of there while she still could.

“I’m so, so sorry!” she cried again and dragged open the door. She let it slam behind
her and ran for the entrance as fast as her heeled shoes would carry her. With the
one stroke of luck she had all evening, the foyer was deserted, and she found a hansom
on the street outside.

Once safely in the carriage, Sophia yanked off her mask and covered her face with
shaking hands.

“Oh, heavens above,” she whispered, quite sure she was going to be sick. “What have
I done?”

March 1665…

I have always thought my sister to be the romantic soul in our family. She is constantly
devouring volumes of French poetry, and wandering the woods sighing over their beautiful
words of soul-deep love and flights of two hearts beating as one. She has always declared
me a terrible bore, concerned only with prosaic, everyday reality! Concerned with
running our father’s house and trying to keep our family together amid the long war
between king and Parliament and all the troubles that followed.

I only ever laughed at her teasing. I was quite sure it was far better to be dull
and content with everyday matters than to long for romantic dreams that can never
be. But I was very wrong. Horribly, wonderfully wrong. For I have met him.

Baden-Baden, 1847

W
hen in doubt, Sophia Huntington Westman believed, give them a glimpse of stocking.
That usually did the trick.

Especially when one is dealt an unfortunate hand of cards.

Sophia carefully studied the array of cards in her hand, but the colors on the faces
didn’t change. She sighed and tried to keep her own face calm and expressionless.
She
needed
to win this game. Her stash of funds was growing astonishingly low, and she would
be thrown out of her hotel if she couldn’t pay soon. But luck had utterly deserted
her tonight.

Not for the first time, she cursed the memory of her husband, the poor, late, not
much lamented Captain Jack Westman. He had been so very handsome, so exciting, so
sure Sophia was meant to be with him. That charming confidence had been what convinced
her to elope with him, despite her family’s dire threats to cut her off without a
penny if she married someone so unsuitable for a duke’s niece.

But Jack’s confidence turned out to come from the bottom of a brandy bottle. And when
the alcohol killed him, sending him stumbling drunkenly in front of a milk wagon not
far from where Sophia was taking the Baden-Baden waters, she was left here a penniless
widow trying to make enough money to get home.

Though what she would do once she got back to England Sophia had no idea.

She peeked over the top of her cards at the man who sat across from her. Lord Hammond
had been her opponent in card games before. He always seemed to be in the casino when
she arrived, and he always kissed her hand gallantly, fetched her wine, inquired after
her health. So very solicitous; so very watchful. Yet she had hoped for an easier
mark tonight of all nights. Tonight, when she needed to win so badly. Lord Hammond
was too shrewd a player.

But when he had taken her arm and invited her to a game of piquet, she somehow couldn’t
say no. Lord Hammond, despite his fine English-gentleman manners, was obviously a
man who expected to get what he wanted. That had been clear to Sophia the first time
she met him here at the casino, for she had encountered his type many times in her
travels with Jack. Rich, powerful lords, much like her uncle the Duke of Carston,
who had every whim indulged with a snap of their fingers.

But a card game was
all
he would get from Sophia, no matter what else he might expect. She hoped never to
be so desperate that she had to give him anything else.

He was studying his own cards, a cool smile on his lips. He
was
handsome, she would say that for him. Older than her own twenty-three years by two
decades, he was
tall and well-built in his expensively cut clothes. His dark hair, gray at the temples,
was cut short to frame his austere face and fathomless dark eyes. Women flocked around
him, as he was that singular rarity—a handsome, rich lord. And he did seem to admire
Sophia.

If she was really smart, Sophia thought as she looked at him, she would take advantage
of that admiration. She would cultivate it and encourage it. Lord Hammond could make
the financial worries that had plagued her for so long vanish.

But she had never claimed to be especially smart. If she was, she wouldn’t have married
Jack. And there was something in Lord Hammond’s eyes when he looked at her that she
did not like. Some icy gleam of speculation that sent a shiver down her spine. She
wanted to finish the game and be done with this wearisome night.

But first she had to win his money.

He raised his eyes from his cards and his smile widened as he looked at her. He was
as good a card player as she was herself; she could read nothing about his hand on
his face. Sophia remembered her thought about a glimpse of stocking, and returned
his smile with a bright one of her own.

She turned slightly on her gilded chair, and her black satin skirts rustled as she
moved. She glanced around the room. Everything in the bright casino was gilded or
painted with lavish classical scenes, the floors covered in Aubusson carpets and the
walls papered in patterned silks. The colors were rich and elegant, the perfect backdrop
for the fashionably dressed and bejeweled patrons who strolled between the tables
and gathered around the roulette wheel. Despite her woes, Sophia liked coming to
this place—its opulence made her feel calmer, more sure that everything would work
out in the end. That nothing could go completely wrong in such a beautiful place.

Only one other establishment had ever been so lovely, and that was the Devil’s Fancy
club in London. But she had not seen it in years, not since before she met Jack. Before
she lost everything, when she was a spoiled, naive girl who thought there could be
no consequences for sneaking out of her parents’ house to go and gamble.

The thought of the Devil’s Fancy made her freeze in her chair. She closed her eyes
for an instant and it was as if she was there again. That long-ago night was so vivid
in her memory.
He
was vivid in her memory. Dominic St. Claire.

She remembered his eyes, so intensely green as he looked at her across the card table.
They would crinkle at the corners when he laughed, or grow dark when he touched her
with those elegant, long-fingered hands. He had made her feel as if she was the only
woman in the room, the only woman in the whole world, when he focused his intent on
her.

And when he kissed her…

Sophia shivered when she remembered the way his lips felt on hers. She had never wanted
a man before, never felt herself turn hot and melting under a touch, as if the whole
world had vanished except for him. Not even with poor Jack, whom she had thought she
loved.

But Dominic had too many women, and they all came so easily to him. Surely he made
them all feel as he had her that night. He was like a dream to her now. A precious,
lost dream she took out like a glittering little gem when life seemed too lonely and
cold. It reminded her of
the girl she had once been. And it reminded her of how life
could
be, in another realm, another time.

But now was not the time for such memories. Now was the time for cold, hard reality.
She couldn’t afford to be distracted, not when faced with a man like Lord Hammond.
She had to win tonight. Whatever it took.

Sophia opened her eyes and smiled at Lord Hammond. His own smile hardened, a flicker
of some cold light flashing through his dark gaze. Sophia casually crossed her legs
beneath her heavy skirts and let the ruffled hem back to reveal her black satin heeled
shoe and a sliver of white silk stocking. She swung her foot a bit as she studied
the cards in her hand.

Lord Hammond’s attention went right where she hoped it would, to her slim ankle, and
in the mirror behind him she had a quick glimpse of his cards in his careless moment.
Not so good a hand as she had feared. She could still save this evening and come out
ahead.

Her glance flickered over her own reflection. Her skin looked very pale against the
stark black of her gown and the sleek, glossy coils of her dark hair. She had no jewels
left to soften her austere attire and make her fit in with the rich crowd. There was
only the narrow black ribbon around her throat, and a guilty pink blush on her cheeks.

Huntingtons never cheat!
She remembered her father shouting that when her brother was caught once in a con
artist’s scheme and lost a great deal of money. The Huntingtons were an ancient ducal
family, not cheaters. Not elopers. Yet here she was, driven to be both in her desperation.

I am doing what I must to survive
, she told herself sternly. She had no room for honor or sentiment now, not
if she didn’t want to starve. Cards were the only thing she was good at. It was either
gamble, or whore for the likes of Lord Hammond. And she was not that desperate—yet.

Sophia turned away from her reflection, and from the memory of Dominic St. Claire’s
green eyes. She gently fanned herself with her cards and laughed. “My goodness, but
it is warm in here tonight,” she said. “I swear Baden-Baden grows more crowded by
the day.”

Lord Hammond’s gaze slid from her ankle up over her décolletage in the low-cut gown
and his smile widened. Sophia knew that look in his eyes. It was the look of a man
who believed his goal was clearly in sight now. But she had a goal. too. She would
win his money without surrendering more than the merest glimpse of her person. They
couldn’t both win.

“Perhaps we should go for a stroll in the gardens,” Lord Hammond said smoothly. “It
is much cooler, and quieter, there. I have been wanting the chance for private conversation
with you, Mrs. Westman.”

“How very flattering of you, Lord Hammond,” Sophia answered. Over his shoulder she
saw a lady entering the casino, a tall, stunning redhead clad in dove gray silk with
a truly stupendous collar of diamonds around her throat. It was Lady Gifford, who
was rumored to be Lord Hammond’s latest mistress. She gave him a stricken, wide-eyed
look before she whirled away and vanished into the crowd.

Sophia looked back down at her cards. “There are so many who wish to—converse with
you, Lord Hammond,” she murmured.

“Ah, but I can see only you, Mrs. Westman,” he answered. “You look particularly lovely
tonight. I am
sure the gardens would be the perfect setting for your rare beauty.”

“How sweet of you to say so,” Sophia said with a smile. “But we should finish our
game first, yes? It would be a shame to let the cards go to waste.”

His gaze traced over her bodice again, slowly and with a clear intent. Sophia had
to fight to keep her smile in place. “Of course, my dear Mrs. Westman. We certainly
must finish the game.”

As Lord Hammond ordered more champagne, Sophia requested two more cards and improved
her hand. But beating her opponent was not quite as easy as she had hoped.

An hour had passed with neither of them pulling ahead enough to win when Lord Hammond’s
smile abruptly vanished. He folded his cards between his fingers and said with an
exasperated note in his voice, “The night is wasting, Mrs. Westman.”

Sophia peeked at him over her cards. “Is it indeed, Lord Hammond? It seems rather
early to me.” She really agreed with him, but not for the same reasons she was sure
he had. She was tired and wanted to find her bed—alone.

If she went back to the hotel with enough money to pay for that bed, of course.