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The weight between his thighs was turning into a hard ache, and he had a sudden vision of the woman Adam had brought back to the room for him, her mouth hot around his cock. Before he could stop himself he groaned.
Sophy’s eyes widened. “Harry?”
He dropped his hand, shaking his head. “You should go,” he said.
“But I’ve only just got here,” she protested.
“I’ll walk back with you,” he said firmly, and slid down from his perch, holding out his hand to help her as she followed. Sophy shook out her skirts, glancing at him uncertainly. She had to be wondering what was wrong with him but he told himself it was better he didn’t tell her. To him, Sophy was everything pure in the world, and he didn’t want her tarnished by his thoughts and actions.
“Come on,” he said, starting off toward the wood that divided the ruined castle from the more recent house and gardens of Pendleton Manor. He heard her hurry after him, and then she was at his side. Her hand slipped into his and she gave him a squeeze, and he felt his heart squeeze as well.
This girl was everything to him and he wasn’t going to ruin what lay between them. He wasn’t going to ruin her. He helped her over a fallen log and made a mental note to instruct the groundsman to deal with it.
“I’ll be leaving next week.”
“Already?” she complained. “Will you write to me? You can continue to be my friend Harriet.”
“I’ll try.”
She seemed content with that. Harry walked with her, making the most of these precious moments, telling himself that when they were married, when he was the master of Pendleton Manor, he wouldn’t need anyone but her. She would help him conquer this new lecherous element in his nature and, with Sophy at his side, he knew he would never want another woman.
Chapter 4
SOPHY
Christmas 1808, Pendleton Manor, Oxfordshire, England
Christmas was always a grand affair at Pendleton Manor. The Baillieu family celebrated as they had done for centuries, like feudal lords, and Sophy’s father was called upon to supply beasts for roasting and greenery for decoration. Sophy felt her excitement rising as the day drew closer. Most of that excitement was due to the fact that Harry was home again, possibly for good.
This time Harry had brought a friend with him. The Honourable Digby Abbott, younger son of the Earl of Hayes.
“I’ve already had complaints,” Sophy overheard her father say to Aunt Anna. Anna Harcourt was the widow of his elder brother, who was visiting from Devon.
“What sort of complaints?” Anna asked, before her father, noticing that Sophy was listening, sent her to fetch more cream for the apple crumble, but as soon as she was out of sight she lingered by the door.
“Servant girls interfered with,” her father murmured. “You know the sort of thing. I’d thought better of Harry—this so-called friend of his is a bad seed.”
“Boys must sow their wild oats,” Mrs Arnold responded with a sigh of resignation. “Thankfully, Arnold thinks far too highly of himself to fraternise with farm girls and servants.”
Arnold was Sophy’s cousin but she barely knew him. The two families had never been close, at least until this unexpected visit from her aunt. Sophy knew her father harboured strong feelings of resentment toward his dead brother for his extravagant habits, which had lost them their family
lands.
“As long as they’re not sown in my house,” he said now, ignoring the fond mother’s boasting. Sophy leaned to peek around the door and was instantly spotted.
“Sophy! The cream,” her father scolded, and Sophy hurried off.
She stood a moment, alone in the gloomy pantry. She could still hear the two of them talking but their voices were too low now to make out more than a sentence or two. Her aunt was talking about Arnold again, and how he felt he had been denied his rightful inheritance. “If we could find some way to pay off the remaining debts and buy back the estate Arnold believes we’d soon be solvent. Surely such a thing would benefit us all, George. My son and your daughter …”
Sophy stopped listening. She was still thinking about Harry and his friend and their wild oats. She was not quite the innocent miss they thought her to be. She knew what young gentlemen got up to—when she was at the academy the older girls had loved nothing more than to whisper warm stories to each other, the more lurid the better. She didn’t know the specifics of what was involved in ‘sowing wild oats’ but she had a fair idea. Being a country girl, she saw first-hand when the farm animals mated.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered taking part in such physical acts somewhere in her future, it was just that when she did, they were always between her and Harry.
She touched her lips, closing her eyes so that she could remember the sensation of his soft lips upon hers that time at the ruins. He had kissed her since then, but it had always been in a restrained way, and not in the desperate manner he had kissed her that first time. She evoked his warm breath and the groan that came from deep inside him, as if he wanted so much more from her. As if he wanted all of her.
Didn’t he know she wanted all of him, too?
Was it her fault that Harry was ‘sowing wild oats’ with other girls? Did he not think of her the same way as he did those others? They were friends, of course, but he had said he wanted to marry her once he was home for good.
