That was something that couldn’t happen. Not tonight, not after what Sophia had been through, and not when the promises he’d made to his mother about his future still hungover his head.
A future that didn’t include Sophia Monmouth. It wasn’t a futureTristan wanted.
He wasn’t a man who broke promises, but with each passing day Oxfordshire, his mother, and Lady Esther felt further away from him than they ever had before.
But with every breath he took, every stroke of his fingers over Sophia’s warm skin, she grew more real to him. Not a shadow, and not a ghost, but a living, breathing woman, one he desired more than any woman he’d ever known. But a gentleman of honor didn’t take a lady to his bed when he had nothing but his desire to offer her. He’d never make love to Sophia onlyto abandon her.
“Tristan?” Sophia’s uncertain voice pierced his daze. He opened his eyes to find her staring at him, her tunic once again shielding her nakedness. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I—forgive me.” He tore himself away from her with an effort, then reached behind her, plucked up a blanket from the bed, and wrapped it tenderly around her shoulders. “I want you so much, Sophia, but you’re injured, and I didn’t think you…I didn’t think we’d…”
She pressed her fingers to his mouth to hush him, a playful smile quirking her lips. “A gentleman, Lord Gray, turns a lady away from his bedbeforeshe takes her tunic off. But when I left home this evening, I didn’t intend to spend the night in your bed. Neither of us expected this to happen, and really, perhaps it’s just as wellif it doesn’t.”
Tristan tipped her chin up so he could see her eyes and murmured, “It’s a few hours until morning. Stay with mehere, Sophia.”
It wasn’t safe for her to venture out in the dark. Sophia’s attacker could be watching Tristan’s townhouse, waiting for her to emerge so he could finish what he’d started tonight. That alone was enough reason for Tristan to keep her with him, but it wasn’t the only reason he wanted her to stay.
He just wantedher.
She considered him for a long moment, her eyes unreadable, but then she smiled and reached out to brush a finger over his upper lip, tracing the tiny white scar near the corner of his mouth. “If I stay, will you tell me how yougot this scar?”
He caught her hand in his and pressed a sweet kiss to her fingertip. “No.”
* * * *
Every lady is the heroine of her ownstory, Sophia.
Sophia gazed out into the darkness, one elbow resting on the windowsill. Such a lovely sentiment, and perhaps there was even some truth to it, but what Cecilia hadn’t said was every lady, heroine or not, wasn’t destined for a happy ending. Sophia’s own story, well…it might be a drama or an adventure, a comedy or a fairy tale, but it hadn’t everbeen a romance.
That hadn’t changed tonight, for all that her lips were still swollen from Tristan’s kisses, and her skin still tender from his caresses.
She glanced over at his sleeping form. He’d dropped off soon after he’d gathered her against his chest and urged her head onto his shoulder. He’d felt warm and solid against her, and she thought she’d drift to sleep at once with the steady beat of his heart under her cheek, but that hadn’t happened. Her eyes remained open as one hour after the next passed, until at last she slid out from under the coverlet and padded overto the window.
She didn’t belong here.
He was the Earl of Gray. An aristocrat, a gentleman, and a Bow Street Runner, and she was an illegitimate street urchin born in Seven Dials to an unknown father and a prostitute mother. A girl who’d grown up to be, if not quite a criminal, not an innocent, either, and certainlynot a heroine.
Perhaps even more telling, she’d never aspired to be either. A woman like her had no business being in Tristan’s bedchamber or in his bed, but she’d persuaded herself to forget that truth for a few stolen moments in his arms.
But the truth would out. It always did. That had been the lesson of some other heroine’s story, hadn’t it? She couldn’t recall the heroine’s name now, or if she’d hada happy ending.
Sophia dropped her chin onto her hand and waited for the first shy streaks of light to illuminate the sky. She’d promised Tristan she wouldn’t leave while it was still dark. A bit absurd, given she’d spent endless hours creeping about in the night. She knew how to manage the darkness. What shedidn’tknow how to manage was a stubborn, overbearing, irresistible earl whose touch lefther breathless.
It was a lucky thing, then, that she hadn’t promised him she’d stay past the first hint of sunrise. Really, she should have left hours ago. She’d spent the night away from No. 26 Maddox before, but Lady Clifford and Sophia’s friends would be wonderingwhere she was.
She rose to her feet, set aside the blanket she’d wrapped herself in and hurried into her tunic, which she found in a crumpled heap on the floor. She paused by the bed before creeping from the room, unable to leave without taking one last look at Tristan.
He was asleep on his back, his eyes closed and his breathing deep and even. Sophia drew in a long, slow breath as she gazed down at him. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead. It made him look younger, even boyish. Her fingers itched to brush it back, but she was afraid to touch him. If he wakened, he’d try and coax her to stay, and all it would take was one kiss, one touch for her resistance to crumble.
So, she left Tristan sleeping and stole into the hallway. She crept down the stairs, but paused once she reached the entryway. Her attacker would be long gone by now—criminals tended to scatter like rats as soon as the sun rose—but after last night’s near miss, Sophia had vowed to herself she’d take to heart Lady Clifford’s warnings against unnecessary risk.
The front entrance to the townhouse was riskier than the servants’ entrance, so she ducked down a set of stairs leading to the kitchens, and made her way toward the door that let outinto the mews.
Sophia opened the door, ready to dart out and hurry back to Maddox Street, but she stopped short on the threshold, her eyes widening. She’d assumed the mews would be deserted at this hour, but a smart, bottle green carriage with yellow wheels was there, standing in front of Lord Everly’s stables.
She paused just behind the kitchen door, foot tapping as she waited for the carriage to leave before she ventured outside. The servants would be stirring soon—any moment now she could be caught out by Tristan’s scullery maid—but she was reluctant to leave the safety of the kitchens while the carriage still lingered in the mews.
With her dastardly luck, Peter Sharpe wasprobably in it.
