Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine Page 19

  “Yes,” he replied, “I think I might remain a while yet. I’ve been too long in Town, and the air here is so much fresher, more convivial to good health. And Grandmama has begged me to visit her more often. She does so enjoy my company.”

  Lazarus muttered something very low, which she ignored.

  “I’ve not seen Lady Hartley in many years.”

  James made a sorrowful face. “Too many years.”

  “I’m not certain your grandmama would consider it too many,” she remarked dryly.

  Lazarus wondered aloud what took Chivers so long to mend a wheel and marched outside to see for himself.

  James now apparently felt safe enough to sit, taking a chair beside hers. “The man is barely civilized,” he muttered in her ear as he propped his injured leg on a bench. “Are you sure he’s not American?” he huffed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  Tuck began banging pots and pans about.

  “He puts on no airs and graces, but he’s usually very polite,” she replied firmly. “And he’s done many favors around the village.”

  James sneered, “Well he certainly got above himself coming here to answer that advertisement. How old is he, in any case?”

  “I have no desire to talk of it, James.” She sipped her tea, acting as if this were a perfectly normal situation, another afternoon visit between friends, where polite gossip could be exchanged and harmless laughter shared. “I would like to forget that advertisement was ever written.”

  He laid a hand on her knee, and she looked down at his well-tended fingernails. He touched her as if she were a young child under his guardianship—a touch meant as much to calm as to reprimand. “But it brought me back to you, so there was some good in it, my darling Sophia.”

  The door opened, and Lazarus returned. His stern gaze instantly went to that hand on her knee. She stood, as if she’d been about to do so anyway, and set her cup down. “Mr. Kane, I believe I left my apron with you,” she exclaimed, having sought urgently for some reason to stand up, and then clutched desperately at the one cause she could find. “When I lent it to you for the mushrooms.”

  He stood just inside the doorway, arms swinging slightly at his sides. He was wet now from the rain, the shoulders of his shirt sticking and transparent. “In the pantry,” he muttered.

  “Oh.” She was already walking toward it, when he set off in the same direction, moving rapidly. “I’ll get it,” Sophie exclaimed irritably. “I can get it for myself.”

  “But I know where it is. You’ll never reach it.”

  He was too close behind her. She couldn’t turn and go back to the safety of her chair, and his forward momentum was unyielding, the breadth of his shoulders once again startling when close. Her courage in both hands, she tripped down into the pantry, and he followed.

  ***

  He watched her as she stood with her back to him and he let her speak first.

  “I see you fixed the gap in the orchard wall.”

  The pantry had one small window with old, diamond-shaped panes, through which the dull, weary day spilled in a quilt pattern. Rain spattered lazily against the crooked glass, and silver splinters of reflected light shimmered through her hair.

  He stared at the nape of her slender neck. “Tuck told me the local children steal fruit,” he managed to say. He wondered if she stole it too, and let the door shut behind him.

  “The orchard produces a great deal of fruit,” she murmured. “You should make jam so it’s not wasted. Do you…do you know how to make jam?”

  “No.” He stood so close now his thighs brushed her skirt.

  “You could ask one of the village women to help you.”

  He placed his hands on her waist. “Like Miss Osborne?”

  “No. She makes the worst jam. Everyone knows it. Her jam leaves a sour taste on the tongue.”

  “But you,” he whispered as he lowered his lips to her neck, “you leave a sweet taste in my mouth.”

  She spun around, her back to the shelf, and he moved closer until there was no space between her body and his. He needed the feel of her, the taste of her, the scent of her. Every day when he woke, she was the first thing on his mind. Sometimes he could barely get through the day until their lessons in the evening.

  “Why are you still riding about with that popinjay in the silk cravat?”

  “He’s an old friend.”

  “What am I, then?” It choked out of him, because he hadn’t realized, until that moment, how angry he was with her for still seeing James Hartley.

  “You’re a new friend. Or I thought you were. I’m beginning to doubt it when you continually seek to cause me problems with your outrageously forward behavior.”

  “Why? Because unlike the rest of you I don’t hide my feelings?”

  “I wish you would,” she exclaimed under her breath. “You’re doing no one any favors by being so transparent. Not me, and especially not yourself. James Hartley is not a good enemy to make.”

  “As if I care what he thinks.”

  “Well, you should, for heaven’s sake!”

  “As your friend Miss Vyne would say, what’s he going to do to me? Blind me with the gleam of his boots?”

  She groaned, eyes shining with frustration, her cheeks pink. “Do you take nothing seriously, foolish man?”

  “I take you seriously.”

  “Indeed, you do not, or you wouldn’t act this way in front of others.” She put her hands to her face. “Good God, I wish I’d never started this with you. It can only end badly. I don’t know what I was thinking to encourage you!”

  He dragged her hands from her face and held her wrists tightly so she could not pull them away. “I like you in a temper,” he breathed.

  “You also like challenging the rules and causing trouble.”

  “No more than you.”

  “Nonsense,” she protested.

  “Why did you bring him into my house, then? You must be bored again, like you were when you wrote that advertisement.”

  “You caused his wheel to break,” she whispered frantically. “I don’t know how, but you did it.”

  “He drives like an imbecile. Perhaps in future he’ll learn caution, before someone gets hurt.”

  “I could have been hurt!”

  “No. I knew what I was doing. I always do, don’t I? Haven’t you learned to trust me yet?” His lips brushed hers very gently and felt her shiver, the pulse in her wrists throbbing too fast. “What is it you wanted in here again, Miss Valentine? Best remind me, because I’m already distracted by other thoughts.”

  Sophie’s eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. “My apron.”

  “You suddenly had need of it?” He looked down at her pouting lips.

  “I just remembered,” she replied tautly.

  With his left hand, he reached up behind her, onto the shelf, where he’d left it folded neatly. The motion brushed the muscle of his chest up against her right breast and forced her farther back, trapped between the shelf and his body. His other hand went to her waist, fingers splayed, and greedily followed the deep curve under that thin bit of linen and petticoat. He wondered if she wore her lacy drawers today. He hoped not, since she hadn’t expected to meet him.

  Through the closed pantry door, he could hear James Hartley complaining, while Tuck gruffly told him to sit still and rest his ankle before it swelled up any further.

  For a moment they were still, listening. He was so hot for her he might have taken her there and then, right where she stood, leaning against his pantry shelves and cursing him under her breath again. But Lazarus had promised himself he’d make Sophie marry him before he gave her everything she wanted.

  Suddenly, she rose up on tiptoe, her lips seeking his even as the last curse died away on her tongue. The conflicted woman touched his face, drew him down to her, and those soft lips timidly explored his. Then he felt the damp tip of her tongue drawn along his lower lip, seeking a way in, unsure of itself. His mouth opened on hers, and
his hand swept upward from her waist, following her ribs until it rested just below the weight of her bosom. He paused, but she kissed him now with unladylike fervor. So he cupped his hand around her breast, and immediately the grinding need multiplied. She wore no corset today, and he felt her pert nipple against his palm. He squeezed her breast and groaned deeply into her mouth.

  She pulled back, looking down at his hand where he was fondling her. “I can’t,” she muttered, breathing hard so her breast thrust itself into his hand, telling him what she wanted even as her words tried to deny it. “Not now…like this…with James…”

  “Still can’t decide between us?” He ducked his head. His lips closed around the small peak through her gown, and she gasped. Her hands gripped the edge of the shelf against which he held her. It was almost too much for him—not being able to taste her fully through the material. He could enjoy only the teasing feel of that hardened nipple swelling and ripening under his hungry suckling. He could feel the passion galloping wildly through her, and his own desire was raw, explosive. He stopped, grabbed her right hand, and led it to his groin, where she could touch his arousal, feel it growing hard and hot against the front of his breeches.

  “I’m in need of you,” he growled, standing as still as he could, letting her explore the shape of his cock. Even without his lips around it, her nipple hardened, protruding through the dampened patch on her gown. He longed to let his tongue sweep over it again. Instead, he rubbed it gently between his fingertips, trying to control his own savage need. She closed her eyes, her breath shuddered, and her hand pulled him closer. His sac ached, and blood rushed to his shaft. It certainly approved of her touch, he mused. Her hands were small, but thorough and curious. His fingers tight around her nipple, he bit down hard on his tongue, keeping another groan from spilling out.

  Now he heard James stumbling across the flagged floor, demanding to know how long it took to find an apron. The door handle—an iron loop—shook and twisted, but the door wouldn’t open.

  “On damp, rainy days, the door sticks,” he murmured.

  “I know.”

  Of course she would know, he realized. But she hadn’t stopped him when he shut the door.

  His rival thumped hard on the old, scarred wood panels, cursing.

  Lazarus swiftly made a decision, knowing he couldn’t let her go without giving her something more than her apron. He lifted her onto the lowest shelf, which protruded a good few inches farther than the others, and then he crouched, sliding her skirt up to her hips. If she was going riding with James today, he’d make certain she thought of him the entire time. She was holding her breath again, as she often did in moments of excitement, but he knew he would soon make her expel a cry of pleasure.

  And scant moments later he did. His mouth only had to touch her between her thighs, and she was gasping softly, her hand knocking a small jar of mustard from the shelf. He wished he had more time with her today, but this quick servicing would have to do. His hands held her thighs apart, and his tongue lapped at her almost roughly through the slit in her linen drawers. He brought her to a series of hard, trembling orgasms, pleasuring her diligently, while her gentlemanly suitor banged on that door. Her fingers gripped his hair and pulled hard. He laughed softly and drank from her as she trembled into his mouth and her thighs tensed under his hands. And when he felt the last of her stifled sighs, he finally looked up.

  “Can he do that for you?” he demanded, his hands still on her thighs, his shoulders still holding her knees apart. “Has he?”

  Flushed, Sophie pushed him back and slid down from the shelf. She adjusted her skirts and tried to get her breath back. “If I have splinters on my derriere now, it’s your fault!”

  The pantry door handle rattled frantically.

  He grabbed her by the arms. “Does he?” He knew the answer but needed to hear it from her. If she confessed aloud that he, Lazarus, gave her something no one else did, perhaps then she’d be forced to realize it herself.

  At least he knew she didn’t wear her fancy lace for James Hartley.

  She wiped a loose hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “He reads poetry and brings me flowers. Do you?”

  Poetry and flowers? Is that what she wanted? No. She thought she ought to want them. It was all “oughts” and “shoulds” with these people, he mused.

  He wouldn’t let her pass, but kissed her again. His lips caressed her mouth, taking greedily, giving generously, knowing she would taste herself on his tongue. Only when she began to struggle and fuss did he let her go, by which time James was cursing at Tuck, demanding he find some way to get the door open.

  “You’re a very brazen young man,” she reprimanded Lazarus in a low, breathy whisper as she glanced down at the creature straining in his breeches.

  “Humble fellows like me have to be that way,” he whispered. “Otherwise, we’d never get what we want. Ma’am.” He tugged a pretend forelock.

  She grabbed her apron, but he stood in her way again, his feet spread. “I look forward to our next lesson. You’re coming on very well, Miss Valentine.”

  Her prim little nose stuck in the air. “I’d like to go now.”

  Still looking at her, he reached back and opened the door. Like everything else—including her—there was a trick to it.

  She clutched the folded apron to her bosom and hurried out.

  ***

  “What were you doing in there?” James demanded as he hobbled after her.

  In reply, she held up her apron, still not quite composed enough to answer.

  He fell back into the chair and eyed her folded apron as if he could read her guilt upon it.

  Lazarus emerged from the pantry and went to fetch Doctor Swift from the village, who returned with him to examine the wounded man and diagnose a slight sprain. As Sophie suspected, his pride was hurt more than anything, but James was furious—almost as if he would rather have a broken leg.

  Sophie was feeling guilty and finally agreed to attend the planned soiree at Lady Hartley’s to placate him, even if it meant watching her family be publicly disparaged for his entertainment. She deserved it, she decided, for being wicked and allowing Lazarus to do those things to her—and relishing it thoroughly—while poor James stood only inches away. The chance, the recklessness of it made the encounter only that much more enjoyable. She couldn’t imagine what came over her.

  “I don’t like that wretched, insolent-eyed gypsy,” James exclaimed bitterly as they rode back up the lane in Doctor Swift’s carriage. “I’ll find out why he came here. I’ll get to the bottom of it and expose the truth.”

  “The truth? He was a soldier who fought for this country. What do you expect—?”

  “I don’t like the way he looks at you. He was an enlisted man. All manner of rogues enlist to escape debt or criminal punishment, or to abandon family obligations. He could have a wife and children somewhere. Or a dozen little bastards he refuses to acknowledge.”

  Uneasy, she laughed and assured him he was worrying too much. Mr. Kane’s presence at Souls Dryft mattered not one whit, she lied yet again.

  “Why?” he demanded coldly. “Can you tell me he hasn’t continued pressing his suit? I suppose it was coincidence that pantry door should stick with you both on the other side of it.”

  She pressed her thighs together. “What does that matter?” she replied sharply. “I told you I turned him down when he came here. There can be no occasion for prying into his past.”

  But James was moody, not easily put off the idea. “This former employer of Mrs. Dykes’s—a judge’s wife, is she not?”

  “Sir Arthur Sadler is retired, I believe. Why?” Anxiety flipped and tumbled through her belly.

  “I daresay he could help uncover that blackguard’s true past.”

  Things had got out of hand that day. For so long they’d managed to keep their relationship a secret, but if they continued along such a wayward, impetuous path, unable to keep their hands off each other, they coul
d soon be exposed. From now on she must maintain a safer distance from Lazarus. For his sake.

  But, as she suspected, this proved to be easier said than done.

  Chapter 25

  Sun beamed brightly through the schoolhouse window, and the children were too restless for books and slates. She’d brought in her little caged linnet to teach them about clockwork mechanisms, but this, too, was beyond their attention span today, especially with the school term soon to end.

  “It’s a fine day for flying a kite,” Matthias Finchly announced suddenly, and his brothers joined in rowdy agreement. Lazarus recently helped them all make kites, and it was now the most popular thing to have. Long, heated discussions were held about the merits of one another’s kites and whose might fly the highest.

  She was just about to suggest a nature walk out to the oak at the crossroads, when the distant rumble of a cart drew the Finchly brothers to the window.

  “’Tis ol’ Tuck,” they shrieked in unison, having craned their necks around to see what lay at the head of the horse path, and the other children scrambled to see out, screaming delightedly. Someone knocked at the door, and Sophie quickly ordered the children back to their benches while she went to open it.

  Lazarus Kane was on the doorstep, shirtsleeves rolled up, one brawny arm holding something behind his back.

  “Mr. Kane!” Unfortunately, despite her plan to avoid him as much as possible in that small village, Sophie woke up each morning thinking of Lazarus and went to sleep every night with the same ideas running through her restless mind. As for her dreams, thinking of them now as he appeared at her door caused Sophie a great deal of discomposure. Like any habit, he was very difficult to give up.

  He revealed what he’d kept behind his back, offering it with a flourish: a small posy of larkspur, pink germander, and white bellflowers. “I picked them along the lane,” he told her with an amusing amount of pride. “Many happy returns of the day, Miss Valentine.”