Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(34)

Her instinct was to get up and run, leave the room before he turned his head and saw her. Sophie tightened her grip on her fan and made herself stay where she was. If he was back in Town she would have to face him and deal with him sooner or later – and better sooner, before he encountered Cal. But she was damned if she would go to him.

Sophie put up her chin, unfurled her fan and smiled as the mother of one of her chosen bridesmaids bore down on her, plumes fluttering.

Apparently she was sounding perfectly rational, because Mrs Gilbert kept up a cheerful flow of conversation, expressed delight at the house party invitation and admired Sophie’s gown.

Mama would be back in a minute, surely? Then Mrs Gilbert moved away and Jonathan Ransome, the man she had been in love with, the man who had ravished and betrayed her, was standing there, a glass of champagne in each hand, smiling down at her as he had that first time when she had tumbled head over heels in love with him. The deceiving toad.

‘Miss Wilmott. Such a pleasure after all this time.’ He handed her the glass which she took. It was that or throw it in his face.

Beside her the sofa was empty. Lady Horton was across the room chatting to an acquaintance and there was nothing to stop him sitting down beside her, which he did with a flick of his coat tails, taking up all the remaining space.

‘Mr Ransome.’ Sophie maintained her smile, somehow. ‘Why, you haven’t changed at all since I last saw you.’

As she had left him drunk and tied to the frame of a sagging bed in an inn, dressed in a highly compromising manner, that was intended to infuriate. It appeared to have succeeded. Jonathan’s beautiful blue eyes darkened and his smile vanished.

‘Yes, I do owe you a debt for that, Sophie darling.’

‘Think nothing of it. After all, I was only taking something in return for what you took from me, Mr Ransome. I do hope I provided some entertainment for your so charming, so boisterous friends.’ The same drunken louts in the taproom he had threatened to share her with unless she yielded to him.

‘Have you missed me?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I went home to Cornwall to look after my father’s estates,’ he said, the smile back in place, just as if she had enquired where he had been.

‘Such a nice long way away from anyone laughing at you,’ Sophie said sweetly.

‘And while I was away you lingered on the shelf. Pining, were you, Sophie?’

‘Rather less than I do for my dentist.’ She laughed and fluttered her fan in case anyone was watching them.

‘But sitting on the shelf gathering dust paid off, I hear. A duke, no less. Clever Sophie.’

So, now they were coming to the point of all this. What did he want in payment for his humiliation? ‘Aren’t I just?’ she agreed.

‘And what will His Grace say when he discovers that his bride is no virgin?’

‘He knows. Naturally I was honest with him.’ That was a blow to Jonathan, she could tell. ‘If he had wanted some virginal little chit just out then he would have proposed to one.’

‘I doubt that he wants a woman who was whored round the taproom of the Black Bull at Hounslow though.’

‘So, now we come to it. A lying blackmailer as well as a rapist. I cannot imagine how you can face your own reflection in the glass of a morning.’ How she was keeping her voice soft and low and a smile on her lips she had no idea, not when her stomach was cramping and her body aching with the effort not to tremble. ‘What exactly do you want, Jonathan?’

‘Vengeance, sweet Sophie. And money. Lots and lots of money. Every drop I can squeeze from you.’

‘Then do have a few drops to be getting on with.’ She stood up, tipped her full glass sideways into his crotch, then dropped the glass onto the sofa beside him. ‘Oh, Mr Ransome! You appear to have wet your breeches.’ She whisked her skirts aside with a moue of distaste. Heads were turning, quizzing glasses raised.

Jonathan blundered to his feet, a dark stain spreading embarrassingly across the falls of his biscuit-coloured knee breeches. He hissed a word at her that fortunately she could not make out, then stormed from the room, hands clamped to his groin.

Her mother hurried over. ‘Sophie dear, are you all right? Wasn’t that young Randolph or Ruskin or whatever his name is? The one who used to hang around you?’

‘Ransome, Mama.’ She lowered her voice a little, but not so far that those around could not hear. ‘I think he had been drinking and, er, lost control of himself. So embarrassing.’

‘Tsk!’ Footmen hastened across and lifted the sofa away. ‘Ale house manners. Your stepfather and I never liked him.’

‘You didn’t? I used to think him quite pleasant.’

‘I know you did, dear. But we thought his manner encroaching and there were rumours. Vague, but unsavoury. I had intended having a quiet word with you if his attentions became any more pronounced, but then he just seemed to vanish from Society, so that was all right. Now, let us find a new seat over near Cousin Harriet. I think they are about to begin playing again.’



Sophie sat on the hearthrug before the banked fire in her bedchamber and contemplated her options. Paying Jonathan a penny was insupportable and besides, she was certain that once he discovered she would pay he would never stop bleeding her. She had confessed to Cal that she’d had a lover, but not the circumstances. She could tell him everything and she had no fears that he would not believe her, but the trouble was, she knew he would be furious, not with her, but with Jonathan.