Drakeston entered in a silk robe, the collar loose, his silver hair uncombed. Sophia’s stomach turned. She fixed her gaze on a point above his shoulder and kept her expression neutral.
“Lady Sophia.” He smiled, and the expression held no warmth. “What an unexpected pleasure. And at such an intimate hour.”
“I won’t keep you long.” She crossed to his desk and placed the envelope on its surface. “The installment. You may count it if you wish.”
Drakeston approached with the unhurried confidence of a predator who knew his prey had nowhere to run. He picked up the envelope and withdrew the banknotes, counting them with deliberate slowness.
“More than last time.” His eyebrows rose. “Your aunt grows increasingly generous. One might almost suspect an alternative source of income.”
“My aunt received an inheritance from a distant cousin.” The lie came smoothly and practiced. “She wished to help.”
“How fortunate.” Drakeston set down the notes and stepped closer. Sophia held her ground, though every instinct screamed at her to retreat. “You know, my dear, there are other ways to settle a debt. Ways that would be far morepleasantfor us both.”
He reached for her. Sophia stepped to the side, putting the desk between them.
“My father’s debt will be paid in coin, Lord Drakeston. Nothing else.” Her voice did not waver. “And the more I pay, the less reason you have to visit my mother at inappropriate hours. I trust that arrangement continues to suit you.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Calculation. Frustration. He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, and her resistance galled him.
“For now.” He tucked the notes into his robe pocket. “But debts have a way of growing, Lady Sophia. Interest compounds. And your father’s health, I hear, continues to decline. One day, your aunt’s generosity may not be enough. And on that day…” he smiled again, all teeth and menace, “you will find me waiting.”
“Then I will make sure that day never comes.” Sophia moved toward the door, keeping her movements controlled, refusing to show fear. “Good morning, Lord Drakeston.”
She let herself out before he could respond. The servant appeared to escort her back through the corridors, and she walked with her chin high and her hands steady until she emerged into the pale morning light.
Only then did she allow herself to breathe.
The walk home passed in a blur of gray streets and growing dawn. She thought of her mother, sleeping fitfully at Brimsey House, haunted by debts she had not incurred. She thought of her father, wasting away in the country, his mind clouded by illness and shame. She thought of her sister, Lily, safe with their aunt, blissfully unaware of the dangers that circled their family like wolves.
And she thought, unbidden and unwelcome, of the Duke of Heatherwell.
His hand on her elbow. The warmth of him beside her on the staircase. The way his eyes had followed her in the schoolroom, watchful and unreadable. She had spent the past three days trying not to think of him, and she had failed spectacularly at every attempt.
He was her arrangement. Her obligation. A means to an end and nothing more.
So why did her pulse quicken when she remembered the sound of his voice? Why did her skin warm at the memory of his touch? Why did she find herself wondering what lay beneath that rigidcontrol, what it would take to make him smile, what his face might look like softened by something other than duty?
She shook off the thoughts and quickened her pace. She had no time for such foolishness. She had a family to save and a debt to pay, and a secret to protect.
The Duke of Heatherwell could remain exactly what he was, a client, a challenge, and absolutely nothing more.
She repeated the words like a prayer all the way home.
She did not believe them for a moment.
CHAPTER 8
“Another one. Can you believe it?” Hugo materialized at Edward’s elbow, champagne in hand, his face alight with the particular glee he reserved for gossip.
The Viscount Pembury’s musicale had attracted the cream of London society, all of them crammed into a ballroom that smelled of hothouse flowers and ambition.
“Another what?” Edward scanned the crowd, searching for a particular pair of green eyes.
Not because he wanted to see her. Only because they had business to conduct.
“Engagement.” Hugo gestured with his glass toward a cluster of women near the pianoforte. “Lord Trentham and Lady Emmeline Merrivale. Announced this very afternoon. The ton is beside itself.”
“And this concerns me because?”
