Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine Read online

  They dismounted and walked down into the tranquil hollow where moss-garbed roots rose up out of the ground and reached around them with curiosity. The sky was barely visible now through the thick leaves and close branches, but where some sun trickled through, it painted slender columns of silver dust that hovered in the still air and dotted the ground with ghosts of fallen stars.

  Sophie gathered her courage and turned to find him close behind her. She didn’t have to say anything. Those strong arms were already around her, his mouth lowering to hers.

  “Tell me what you want,” he whispered as he always did at the start of their “lessons.” He held her tightly, and his lips pressed to her hair, waiting.

  She never knew what to ask for, because her entire body pleaded like a selfish child, wanting everything all at once.

  “Sophie.” He spoke her name as if it were a plea for mercy. “We don’t have forever.”

  There it was again. What did it mean?

  Her hands went to his arms tentatively; her fingers stroked the pleats of his rolled shirtsleeves, then higher to his broad shoulders. They sank slowly down into the moss, and she closed her eyes when she felt his stroking hand on her hip and the side of her thigh. Here at last was a man not afraid to touch her as a woman should be touched, not as if she were a child to be restrained or a girl to be mollified out of a temper tantrum. She lay back in the moss. His lips were on the swell of her bosom and moving lower, kissing her through her gown. He slowly lifted her skirt and chemise higher, until she felt the air on her stockings.

  “Lazarus.” She whispered his name, her hand resting on his hair. She wanted to say she loved him, but she held it back, too afraid of leaving herself vulnerable, leaving her private thoughts as unguarded before him as her body.

  Warm lips caressed her thigh, and then a damp, gentle tongue drifted across her skin.

  Today there was no hurry. He took his time to tease and cajole. She held her breath, and her fingers tightened in his black hair where his exertions in the sun had left it hot and damp. He shifted his weight and slid farther down. Then his hands gently but firmly pressed her thighs apart.

  Chapter four: Arousal of the Female. He was expert at it.

  Oh, Lord, was he expert at it!

  Of course, not being a reader, he would have learned from practice, but she pushed that thought aside hastily, not wanting to think of him pleasuring other women.

  For too long it seemed to her he merely gazed upon her sex, as if in worship, making her wait until she burned inside. Then his mouth finally touched her where she yearned for it. At last she released a breath, a quivering, excitable sigh. His tongue moved over her, stroking gently. Then it was inside her, taking her intimately, and his trembling hands pressed on her thighs as she felt his excitement keeping pace with her own. She succumbed in the next gasp and arched against the sun-spattered ground, lifted herself to his mouth like an overeager strumpet, and then sprawled with that glorious, exultant weariness.

  What was the word for it? Ah, yes. In her aunt’s informative little book it was called a climax. He made it happen twice more for her after that, until she was a quivering, breathless puddle, and then he lay over her, his upper body supported on his forearms, and leaned down for a kiss. His tongue met hers and stroked it. She tasted herself on his mouth, a muskiness that mingled with the sweet plum he’d eaten earlier.

  Feeling rejuvenated, she pushed him over and sat up. Her hair fell loose down her back. “My turn. It is my birthday, after all!” She gave him no time to argue but rolled him onto his back and stripped his shirt over his head.

  “Careful. Don’t tear it,” he warned. “It’s the only one I’ve—”

  She kissed his nipple, and he lay still, like a pagan sacrifice. Her tongue darted out and swept over the tiny point nestled among the soft fur of his chest. She closed her lips on it and suckled gently. His soft groan of approval encouraged her further. She climbed to sit astride his hips, and licked and nibbled at his bare chest, her hair falling over them both.

  And when her fingers found that small bump over his heart, she finally found the courage to ask, “What is this?”

  He held her finger. “A bit of broken knife lodges here. The surgeons can’t remove it without killing me. So there it stays.”

  “A broken knife?”

  He looked away for a moment and then back at her, his eyes darkly penetrating. “It was a fight…six years ago. The other man died…a fellow soldier.”

  Sophie reclaimed her finger. “He died?”

  “He attacked me with that knife, but I had no weapon, only my hands.” He held the objects up for her perusal. “When I hit him, he fell back onto a stone hearth. He died later.”

  After all these weeks of wondering, the truth came out so suddenly.

  “They sent me to a prison hulk off the coast.”

  As her aunt always said, some secrets were better off kept secret. She tore her gaze from his wound to his face and tried to keep her own countenance composed. “But you’re here.”

  “They thought I was dead one morning—sometimes it looks and feels as if my heart has stopped—so they threw me overboard with all the other corpses. Disease is rife in those damp, fetid prisons. Men die every day.” He reached for her hand again. “I swam to shore and promised myself if I lived long enough after that, I’d pay recompense for everything I ever did wrong, every mistake I made in my life.”

  Lazarus resurrected. Of course.

  “They tell me I should have died long since.” He laughed gently. “Yet here I am. The physicians say that bit of blade will move one day, and then I’ll be dead”—he clicked his fingers—“just like that. Snuffed out like a candle.”

  He spoke so casually, it shocked her. But now she knew why he was always so busy, moving on to another thing before he’d finished the one before. He didn’t want to miss a moment of the life he had left. She understood that—oh, yes, she understood. We do not have forever.

  He folded his arms around her and held her against his wounded chest, her cheek on his shoulder. “Now I told you this, I don’t want you to watch me with those big, panic-stricken eyes, expecting any moment might be my last. I believe in living for the moment, taking every chance that comes…without fear.” He slid his hand to the nape of her neck and then higher, under her hair, so he could pull her up and press his lips to hers.

  She kissed him back, wanting to erase the sadness that ripped into her heart suddenly. But he didn’t dwell on the darkness, and already he had turned to happier thoughts.

  “When you tempt me like this, you bring out the worst in me,” he said, his voice hoarse, his hands running down her spine to her bottom. “You bring out the devil in me.”

  She was thrilled to hear him confess the power she had. When she licked his chin, the stubble tickled the tip of her tongue.

  “Whatever will you do to me next?” he whispered wearily, as if it were all so inconvenient.

  “Whatever you would like,” she replied, smiling as she sat astride his body, her fingers trailing over his chest. She couldn’t think about what he’d just told her. It was too much, too painful, and she wanted it gone, erased by those decadent sensations she’d discovered at his hands. As a child, whenever she was crying, her mother gave her toffee to chew. She soon found one could not cry and chew toffee at the same time. The pleasure replaced the hurt.

  His hands tightened around her waist, and he lifted her down onto the grass beside him. Now propped up on one elbow again, he took her hand and led it slowly to that hard, ravenous creature now freed of his breeches. “Here is one new thing I can show you.” He’d never trusted her with this before.

  She nibbled his lower lip with tender excitement. “Show me what to do,” she whispered.

  He guided her hand to his manhood, showing her how to hold and caress it with a steady motion. Once she was confident enough to take over, he returned the favor. He slid his hand and fingers under her petticoat. When she gasped out his name,
he covered her mouth with his and drank from her greedily. His hips bucked frantically, and he pushed his manhood into her hand until she thought she could feel it inside her, the friction of those warm, throbbing ridges against her inner walls, thrusting and withdrawing, taking her like a battering ram. His hand quickened between her thighs, and she heard the breath as it gushed out of him, escaping over his lower lip, as her body once again reached that joyous peak.

  But he was still hot, rigid iron in her hand. Even as her tremors faded, he was pulling away, his fingers around her wrist to stop the motion, a fiercely intent expression on his face.

  This time, however, she wanted to see him lose control. He’d watched her surrender helplessly, and now she would do the same. When she resisted his hand, tightened her hold, and continued the motion, he grunted, part laughing and part angry. But she was a determined, stubborn woman, and today she was on a mission. He gave up. Under her firm strokes, he swelled, expanded. Then his head fell back. He arched, grabbed her shoulders to steady himself, and at last he jerked, spilling in a rapid rush, her hand still clasped around his shaft.

  Minutes later, he looked down at her, distraught. “I’ve ruined your frock.” He groaned and fell back to the moss, one arm across his forehead. “I shouldn’t have done that. I promised myself I wouldn’t spend until…” The words fell away in a sigh.

  She watched his lashes pulsing against his cheeks and thought him the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. How many women had he known, she wondered, savagely jealous. “When was the last time you had a woman?” she blurted as she sat up.

  His answer was coy. “A while ago.”

  She pouted. He laughed and raised one hand to stroke her warm cheek. “Not since I saw your lacy drawers climbing out of that tree. I’ve been a good boy since then, ma’am.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.” They both chuckled, and she slowly spread one hand over the hard planes of his chest. She reached inside herself for the courage and finally said it, releasing the words into the air, just as he once freed the bird trapped in her schoolhouse. “Make love to me. I want all of you.”

  His breath stilled. “No. Not yet.”

  What was he waiting for? Did he want her to beg?

  “It has to be just right,” he added softly, thoughtfully.

  “When will that be?”

  “Soon.” He grinned. “I hope. That depends on you.”

  She didn’t understand. He lay before her, stretched out with his arms behind his head, his manhood finally at ease but no less inspiring.

  Sometimes when she stopped to consider the intimate things they’d done together, her face was so hot she felt certain other folk would look at it and read all her guilt. But despite these “lessons,” what did she know about Lazarus Kane?

  He could drop dead at any moment. He’d killed a man with his bare hands.

  He’d killed a man with his bare hands.

  She’d marveled often at the strength in his hands. From the very beginning, she’d sensed their restlessness, the dangerous capability that thrummed through those thick, powerful fingers.

  This dark, dangerous warrior had come for her at last. As a foolish, harebrained girl, she’d never realized exactly what that meant. But a dangerous man—a true warrior—did not suddenly become tame and harmless overnight. A man-eating tiger could never become a kitten.

  The air seemed too thick and still suddenly, overbrimming with things that ought to be said, questions that should be asked and answered. But the pleasures of that afternoon still lingered in her warm bones, and she didn’t want to spoil them.

  Back to practical matters. “I’ll wash my skirt in the stream,” she said.

  When they finally emerged from the emerald hollow, riding again side by side, the sky was aglow with melting sunset that slowly covered the last, lingering, forget-me-not innocence of a cloudless afternoon. They didn’t speak. What was there to say?

  All the way home, they left the conversation to Chivers, Ellie, and Aunt Finn. But little glances passed between them as the small cart rumbled gently along and the little grey clopped neatly behind. They shared his secret now. Soon they would have a past to talk about; for now they had only a few shared moments to recall, but it was building, and they learned new things about each other every day.

  So what else did she know about Lazarus Kane?

  Despite his unconventional, bold, “improper” ways, he was, underneath it all, a man of generosity, tenderness—when he chose to use it—and boundless courage.

  And fatal secrets.

  Chapter 27

  James was waiting by the gate with two horses harnessed to a brand-new phaeton. In all the excitement, she’d completely forgotten tonight was the evening at Lady Hartley’s. Aunt Finn certainly hadn’t bothered to remind her.

  “Oh, Lord!” the lady now exclaimed, all innocence. “Mr. Hartley appears a trifle sour, Sophie.”

  He must have ridden up to the fortress to fetch her, and then, finding her gone, his suspicious nature took him directly to Souls Dryft. Lines of anger were etched deeply across his usually smooth brow.

  “Yon milksop’s here again,” Chivers confirmed sourly under his breath.

  Ellie snorted with laughter until Sophie threw her a look. The last thing she needed was James being even more furious than he clearly was already.

  “I shan’t go,” Finn resolutely declared. “I have better things to do with my evening. Chivers promised me a game of cards here.”

  “Aunt Finn, you must come. Henry will expect—”

  “Henry can expect until the cows come home and go out again.”

  If James wasn’t standing there, waiting, Sophie, too, would gladly have missed the evening—made some excuse.

  She held her bonnet in her lap, and the frayed ribbons twisted around her fingers. She didn’t think she could stand up, let alone climb down from the cart. In her current state, everything was thrown askew, inside and out, and she wanted to curl up and hide. It was unfair of these wretched men, she thought, to pull her about like this. Or was she the one pulling them about? It was, after all, her advertisement that started this.

  A few feet away, James glowered at her and made twitchy gestures. He took a step closer, but Lazarus was there first, his arms reaching up to her. Her hair, now without ribbon or bonnet, cascaded over her shoulders and across his face while he let her slide down his body until her toes met the ground.

  “Thank you,” she breathed, her hands lightly pressed to his shoulders. When he didn’t immediately release her, she heard James complaining about the time. Still, those hands remained around her waist, reluctant to give her up. Her pulse skipped like a spring lamb, and when she raised her eyes slowly to his, what she saw there made her want to run away. His desire was savage, even brutal. But what else should she expect from her flesh-and-blood warrior? He was no fantasy she could control with her imagination. He’d come to find her—to carry her off over his shoulder. What had she expected to happen next, after he rode off with her into the horizon? For him to sit her down and make daisy chains, or let her sketch his silhouette? No. There was only one thing he had in mind when he came to steal her away. It was what conquering knights did.

  “Don’t…” she gasped in a frantic whisper, “don’t kiss me.” She had a real fear he would do it just to incite James. The touch of his strong, unpredictable hands made her tremble. His breath warmed her temple, and when she blinked slowly, her lashes brushed his jaw. Much too close. What did her warrior care? He’d killed a man with those same hands. He could do it again.

  In the corner of her eye, she saw James waiting, growing steadily more irate. She felt the tension in the air, the unspoken aggression, and turned quickly to slip out of those dangerous hands and step gingerly across the rutted lane to James and his carriage.

  ***

  Lazarus escorted Miss Vyne back to her aunt’s cottage in the village, and she obligingly filled him in on Sophie’s history with Hartley.

&nbs
p; “He’s been in love with her for fifteen years,” she’d said with a pert sigh, “or at least he thinks he has. James Hartley is accustomed to getting what he wants, because he’s filthy rich, as well as handsome as the very Devil.” Then, after a short pause, she threw him a shred of comfort. “But he’s also the stupidest man alive if he thinks he can get Sophie by forcing her into a corner. That’s the very worst thing he can try. A wild animal, when cornered, will strike. I hope he’s prepared. Of course, I could have told him he’s wasting his time on Sophie, but he’d never heed my advice. Pity, really. I have much advice to give, and people so seldom follow it.”

  He looked at her warily. “How did you become so clever and fearless at your age?”

  “Out of necessity,” she chirped. “Same as you did, I suspect.”

  He said good evening, saw her into the cottage, and then rode home.

  When he entered the farmhouse, Chivers and Finn Valentine were in the midst of a game of cards.

  “Why did you let her go with Hartley?” Finn wanted to know at once.

  “I’ll let her make her choice. I won’t force her decision.” He tried to make light of it, remembering what her friend had just told him. He shrugged in a lazy, careless fashion, which was far from what he felt. “She’ll do what’s best for her.”

  The lady sighed dramatically and got out her gin flask. “Now you’ll just have to wait and see if she comes back, you young fool.”

  Lazarus slumped in his chair, one hand to his chest.

  Chivers watched his friend thoughtfully. “You all right? You look done in.”