“Be still. I just want to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she whispered back. “I need to get back to Lady Carstairs.”
He ignored her and kept walking until they had moved away from the other patrons. Before she could stop him, he’d opened a door and tugged her inside. It snapped closed behind them, and they were plunged into darkness.
“What is the meaning of this, Lord Coulter? If anyone saw us enter this room, I would be?—”
“I want to talk to you,” he said, moving closer. Sophie backed away. “I need to apologize for the way I spoke to you the other night.”
“You don’t sound like you want to apologize.” Sophie found refuge in anger.
“It’s not something I enjoy, as it suggests I did something wrong.” The words came out a growl.
“Do you realize how arrogant that statement is?” she hissed.
“You are becoming a problem for me, Countess,” he said, ignoring her words. “A problem that I seem unable to solve, and that is not good because I am distracted.”
“I have no wish to be your problem.” In fact, she wished he would leave her alone entirely, because when he was near, she also could think of nothing else.
“Is Timothy your child?”
“What? Why would you ask me that?” Shock had her voice rising.
“It’s one of the many questions about you I have no answers to,” he said.
“Yes, he is mine,” The words came out harsh, but Sophie didn’t care. Timmy was hers. Perhaps not in the way people believed, but she would protect him with her life.
“I think you’re lying. What I don’t know is why.”
“Why do you care?” Frustration had her yelling. “What I am and do is nothing to you.” She had to stay strong, even though her carefully crafted world was tumbling down around her one brick at a time.
“I shouldn’t care,” he said, running a finger down her cheek. “But I do.”
She fought the heat that washed through her at his touch.
“What secrets lie beneath that beautiful exterior, Countess? I will unearth every one.”
She tried to scoff, tried to act as if his words had not had her veins turning to ice.Secrets?Yes, she had plenty of those.
“I don’t know why you are interested in me, but if, as I suspect, it is because you want me to do that with you, then let me tell you, I won’t. I will not be coerced.”
“That?” The word came out coated in ice. “Coerced?”
“Why do you want to know my secrets if not to use them against me? What other reason can there be?” Sophie said.
“I don’t like what you are suggesting, Countess,” he rasped.
“And I don’t like what you have alluded to,” she said, forcing herself to be brave. She had to stop this, him, whatever this was, and now. There was already so much that could go wrong in her life, so she must focus on that alone, and to do that, she could not worry about him.
“You believe me a fraud and yet still kissed me and offered me… that.” She waved a hand about. “So let me make this easy for you, my lord. Stay away from me?—”
He kissed her, pulling her hard into his body. Sophie could not allow herself to weaken. Stepping back, she slapped him hard enough to make his ears ring and then fled before he could stop her.
She sat through the rest of the performance chatting with Mr. Tilton as if nothing had happened. Sophie did not once look to where Lord Coulter sat.
Relieved when it was finally time to leave, she was happy to usher Letty to their carriage and head home.
“I will undress. Find your bed, Jenny,” she said to her maid when she entered her room forty minutes later. Sophie needed solitude.
