His answer was to remove his shoes and climb up next to where Peaches sat. “You are always telling me that we do not know each other. This is our opportunity to remedy that. Now, what sort of activities did you and Harold participate in before you became engaged?”
Sophia reached for the knife and cut off a slice of melon. “Well…” she said as she held it out to him.
He reached forward and took it from her with his teeth.
“…um…” It took her a moment to regain her train of thought. “…we danced at various balls. We, well, he took me for a ride in the park.” This was more difficult than she would have thought. What had they done together? “We, er, discussed the weather at great length.” A self-mocking smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “And his affection for me… Yes, we discussed that on numerous occasions.”
Devlin held up his hand and began checking off points. “You and I have danced,” another finger, “I’ve taken you for a ride in my curricle, and I believe, I’ve given you some indication as to my affection for you.” But then he frowned. “I know what our problem is. You and I have not discussed the weather.”
“Oh, but we have,” she joked. “In the park, the rain, we discussed the weather then.”
He swallowed his bite and looked over at her. “So, there, you see, we are acquainted well enough.”
“My dearest friend, Cecily, Lady Kensington now…” Sophia paused.
Dev waited. He was a good listener.
“…Cecily married the earl after what seemed to have been a loving courtship. He was the opposite of your cousin. But after she married, she learned he’d been even more of a liar and deceiver than Harold. The entire relationship, for him, had merely been a charade to get his hands on her dowry. I guess that I thought, with Lord Harold being so quiet and undemanding, that he was more likely to be sincere.”
Dev reached out and pressed a strawberry to her lips.
Sofia opened her mouth and took a bite of the sweet juicy fruit. The rather simple action suddenly felt far more than intimate than simply taking a bite of food. She knew he watched her. And he had a hungry look in his eyes.
The juice squirted onto her lips and down her chin. Dev’s hand still held the fruit, and his thumb reached out to slide some of the juice along her lips. Her breath caught momentarily.
“So, how do we ever know anybody, Sophia?” He asked the question sincerely, as though it was something he’d pondered himself on occasion.
“We’ve had this discussion before,” she said. “Remember? By perhaps knowing ourselves better?”
“And by having good friends, finding people who prove that they can be trusted,” he reminded her.
“You have done so much for me already. You have saved me from a lion, braved an icy thunderstorm, helped me to escape from the gate tonight, and now you are here. And yet, I am most certain that there are dozens of women who would cause you far less complications. I must ask this, Dev. I’m tired of misapprehensions. Why?” She needed to know.
He stared at his lap and then back up at her. “There isn’t an explanation, to be perfectly honest.” He gathered the bread and the plates and moved them all from the bed. “I would hold you while we have this discussion,” he explained as she watched him.
And then he climbed back onto the bed, wrapped his arms around her, and lay them down together, her back against his chest. “Since I met you, I have felt something. I thought it would pass, but then I had to see you again. And when I did, it was still there, only stronger. Each time since then, that feeling has spun a web around me, connecting me to you somehow. It would feel unnatural, wrong even, to walk away from this… from you.”
Sophia twisted around to consider his expression.
He looked so serious, so sincere.
She lifted her lips to his.
He kissed her back tenderly, gently.
But what of the future?
“What is your plan? Dev? How do you and Harold intend to void this marriage if an annulment is not possible?”
This — to be held in Devlin Brookes’ arms, to discover the truth about everything – was what she needed. She would be kept in the dark no longer.
“As children,” he began, settling into this mood, “Harold, Lucas, and I spent hours playing together. We were together nearly as much as if we were all brothers.”
“Your father raised you on his own?” She’d remembered hearing that Dev’s mother had died in childbirth.
“Yes, with assistance from my aunt and uncle.” He looked at her sideways. “Anyway, Priory Point, where all of us are traveling tomorrow, is on the sea. It is built on high cliffs with the moors rolling out behind it. And, as boys, the moors were much less interesting to us than the cliffs.”
Of course, they were!
