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“Let’s hope so.”
“Good night, Mother,” Ashley urged.
“Good night, dear.” She slipped out as quickly as she had slipped in. Ashley walked slowly toward the dressing room where Sophia hid. Sophia’s belly dropped toward
her toes when she saw the look on his face.
***
Ashley could still feel the taste of Sophia on his lips. He hadn’t even kissed her. Not the way he wanted to. He’d brushed his lips against hers and then his mother intruded. Blast and damnation. He had been so close.
He pushed the door open and found Sophia leaning against the wall in the dark room. She looked at him askance, her hazel gaze dark in the night-shaded room. “Would you care to come out of the closet?” he asked her. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it for a moment. Then she reached for his hand and let him lead her out. He wanted to be the one to nibble that lip.
Ashley stopped suddenly, and Sophia bumped into him. When she would have sprung back, he pulled her to him instead. “Where were we?” he asked.
“I don’t think she likes me,” Sophia said quickly.
He tipped her chin up with his index finger. “She doesn’t have to like you. I like you enough for everyone.” Her eyebrows drew together. Evidently, his mother’s ramblings worried her more than they should. “Did her comments offend you?” If so, he would fetch his mother right back to the room and make her apologize. Propriety be damned. He would not allow Sophia to be wronged.
“I’m not really offended. Just a little worried.” If she tugged on that lip any harder, he would have to kiss it to make it better.
“Don’t be,” he cajoled. “She means well.” Or at least he hoped she did.
Sophia sighed heavily then flopped down into the overstuffed chair. She turned her back to one arm of the chair and dangled her legs over the other. He’d never seen such an awkward yet comfortable pose. Her bare feet poked out from beneath her nightrail. A grin tugged at his lips at the sight of them.
Her trim ankles were exposed, too. She made no effort to cover them. He liked that. He could almost imagine hours spent in these very chambers with her sitting like that, only she would be naked. His manhood reacted to that thought, and he forced himself to picture Finn in his head instead.
“It appears as though I’ll be attending the festivities of the house party after all,” he said carefully, watching her face. “If you don’t mind spending time with me, that is.”
Her smile nearly melted his heart. “I’m only here for three more days,” she said with a rueful smile. “Then Grandmother and I must return home.”
“Where is home?” he asked as he picked up her foot and absently stroked across the bottom of it. She jerked in his grasp, stiffening her leg so that her nightrail slid even higher up her naked shins and then up over her knee. His gaze was riveted on that knee until she reached down and covered herself with a quick fling of his dressing gown.
“I’m sure you’ve never heard of the place I’m from.” She avoided his gaze.
“Why won’t you tell me where you’re from?” he asked, realizing how harsh he sounded the minute the words left his mouth.
“It’s forbidden,” she whispered. Then she sighed heavily and said, “I wish I could change my circumstances, but I can’t.”
“Tell me you’re not already married.” She couldn’t be. She was too much of an innocent. When he’d kissed her, she hadn’t fallen all over him, as a whore or even a tried lady would do.
“I am not married,” she said with a smile. She laid her head back against the arm of the chair and looked at him. She didn’t say another word. Just looked at him. God, she could undo him with those eyes.
Damn it, he wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers. It had taken him this long to find someone who interested him. “I like you, Sophia,” he admitted.
She lowered her feet and turned to face him. “I like you, too.”
He sat down in front of her and turned his back to the chair. It was too painful to look at her. And he needed to tell her some things. She laid one hand on his shoulder, and he pulled it lower so he could rub his bristly chin across her hand. She giggled.
“I killed my wife,” he blurted out. She stilled behind him. Completely stilled.
“I know everyone thinks you killed her,” she said.
“It’s true.” He turned and looked up at her. “Now I’m sure you want to run screaming from the room.”
“I want no such thing.” Her voice was soft and not the least bit provocative. Yet it touched his heart. It made a place long dormant within him ache. “If you want to tell me about it, I’d like to listen.”
He tucked her hand into the softness of his neck and leaned into it. He’d never felt this need to cuddle. Her suggestion of a hug was at the forefront of his mind. “You do something to me, Sophie,” he murmured, his lips now against the back of her hand. “You’ve enchanted me in some way.”
