“But?”
Sophia pressed her palms to her cheeks. They burned beneath her fingers. “But the kiss was… Alice, it was unlike anything I have ever experienced. This was fire and need and something I cannot even name. I felt it everywhere. I wanted more. I wanted?—”
She stopped. Drew a breath.
“I have always dreamed of being kissed like that.” Her voice became quieter now. “Of being wanted like that. But I imagined it would be with someone kind. Someone warm. Someone whosmiled easily and made me laugh. Not a man who looks at me like I am a puzzle he cannot solve and a problem he cannot escape.”
Alice was silent for a long time. “Perhaps,” she said finally, “the man we imagine is not always the man we need.”
“The Duke is not the man I need.” Sophia shook her head. “I am supposed to find him a wife, not become entangled with him myself.”
“And yet, you are entangled.”
“I cannot afford to be.” Sophia pulled her hands from her cheeks and straightened her spine. “We are not well-suited. Our characters are completely opposite. He wants a proper duchess, someone with impeccable lineage and a spotless reputation. Not a woman who sneaks through London at night and runs a secret matchmaking enterprise to pay her father’s debts.”
“Does he know about that?”
“He knows I am Lady Fairhart. He does not know about Drakeston.” Sophia’s voice hardened on the name. “And he never will. If he knew the full extent of my family’s disgrace, whatever attraction he feels would evaporate in an instant.”
Alice squeezed her hand. “You do not know that.”
“I know enough.” Sophia met her friend’s eyes. “The kiss was a moment of madness. Nothing more. I will keep my distance from now on. I will find him a suitable bride, fulfill my end of the arrangement, and move on with my life.”
“And if your heart has other ideas?”
Sophia thought of Oliver’s drawing, still tucked in her reticule. Of the duke’s hands on her face, his mouth claiming hers, the sound he made when she pulled him closer. Of the ache that had settled beneath her ribs and refused to fade.
“My heart doesn’t have a say.”
Alice looked at her for a long moment. Then she sighed and pulled Sophia into a hug.
“Oh, my dear,” she murmured against Sophia’s hair. “The heart always has its say. The question is whether we listen.”
Sophia closed her eyes and let her friend hold her. She did not have an answer.
She was uncertain that she wanted one.
CHAPTER 14
Edward hated soirees.
He hated the cramped rooms and the cloying perfume, and the endless parade of simpering conversations about nothing at all. He hated the way the matrons eyed him like a prize horse at auction, calculating his worth in acres and annual income. He hated the tepid lemonade and the stale biscuits and the quartet in the corner murdering Mozart with more enthusiasm than skill.
Most of all, he hated that he had come here voluntarily.
Lord Fallston’s drawing room overflowed with London’s finest, all of them dressed in their second-best evening wear, all of them pretending to enjoy themselves. Edward stood near the fireplace, nursing a glass of mediocre claret, and contemplated the merits of feigning a sudden illness.
“You look like a man attending his own execution.”
Hugo materialized at his elbow, impeccably dressed, irritatingly cheerful. “Smile, Edward. People are suspecting you have no teeth.”
“I am smiling.”
“That is not a smile. That is the expression of a man who has just discovered a spider in his soup.” Hugo sipped his own wine. “Why did you come if you intended to glower at the wallpaper all evening?”
“Lord Fallston is a business partner. It would be rude to decline his invitation.”
“You decline invitations constantly. You have elevated declining invitations to an art form.” Hugo raised an eyebrow. “What’s the real reason?”
