Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (Scandalous Seasons #2)(5)

He nodded. “Oh, certainly.”

They exchanged a smile and Sophie’s breath froze, suspended in her chest. Goodness, she wasn’t a debutante in her first Season but she wanted this moment to go on forever. She’d met gentleman after gentleman for many Seasons and none had managed to make her laugh as this stranger did. None of them had wanted to make her laugh.

Odysseus stepped closer. “I would love to know what thoughts are swirling through your mind.”

Oddly, she believed him. Her own mother and brother could give a fig for what she thought about. The only one to truly care was her dear friend, Lady Emmaline. Emmaline, however, recently wed to the Marquess of Drake had retired to Kent awaiting the birth of their first child. A pang of envy tugged at Sophie’s heart, a longing for a loving husband and family of her own.

“What have I said to drive away your smile, sweet Athena?”

She gave her head a shake to drive off melancholy thoughts. “You asked to know what I was thinking.”

He inclined his head. “And?”

“No. I was saying that is what drove away my smile.”

Odysseus blinked several times, as though he’d spun around in dizzying circles.

Sophie sighed. “I’ve confused you. My brother says I have that effect on people. He says I’m rather difficult to understand.”

The gentleman frowned. “Your brother sounds like a pompous ass.”

A thrill coursed through her at his rapid defense. Goodness, she could grow very well accustomed to his sweet words and masculine possessiveness. She scrunched up her mouth and tried to make out the details of his face without much success. The likelihood was that she very well knew him, that their paths had crossed.

“Do you believe we’ve met?” she blurted.

The stranger captured her hands in his. He turned them over and studied her palms. “Surely we would know.”

Sophie managed a nod. Because she agreed with him. There was no way she would have ever met a man like him and not remembered that smile, that depth of emotion.

From atop the fireplace mantle, the steady tick-tock-tick-tock of the ormolu clock punctuated the silence. It reinforced the length of time Sophie had been gone from the ballroom. This man might not know her identity, but her mother and brother would most assuredly note her absence. As loathe as she was to leave their host’s library, propriety demanded she go. She could ill-afford to give Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet further gossip. “I should leave,” she said.

His response was instantaneous. “You should stay.”

She craned her neck to look up at him. At several inches past six feet, he would easily stand taller than the average gentleman. “And are you issuing a challenge, Odysseus?”

“I am. Stay.”

***

Christopher, Earl of Waxham, released the young lady’s hands and fetched himself another brandy from Lord Thomas’ collection of fine spirits. From over the rim of his glass, he studied the winsome creature with the first real interest he’d felt that evening.

The young lady was indeed correct. Propriety demanded she return to the evening’s festivities.

The irrational part of him so thoroughly bewitched, however, wanted to keep her at his side until Lady Thomas’s orchestra had strummed the last chords for the evening’s festivities.

He took a sip. “Are you enjoying yourself this evening, Athena?”

She eyed the drink in his hand. “Oh, immensely, Odysseus.”

“So much so that you are hiding away in Lord Thomas’s library?”

She reached up and adjusted her helmet that had fallen too far forward on her face. “If you remember, I was trying to return to the ballroom.”

Touché.

“And what of you? Are you enjoying yourself this evening?”

Christopher’s lips twitched and he slid into the folds of a nearby sofa. Cheeky thing. “Not at all. Just the opposite really. That is, until now.”

“Oh.” At his honesty, the woman’s indistinguishable eyes went wide. He peered close. He ventured they were a blend of greens and blues. Her gaze alternated between the door and the empty seat beside him.

Clearly the voluptuous goddess had no more of a desire to return to the ballroom than he did. It made little sense. He’d come into the library to steal a moment of quiet, and forget his family’s financial situation…and his father’s urging that he wed Sophie Winters. His jaw hardened.

If his father had his way, Christopher would wed the termagant who’d tormented him as a child. He frowned. She hadn’t been remarkably different from his father in that regard and the last person he cared to spend the rest of his life with was someone who put him in mind of his father. Or the incident in the stables.

Christopher gave his head a shake. He didn’t want to ruin this meeting with thoughts of his father or Sophie Winters.

His gaze honed in on the lush Athena, her fingers fidgeting with the folds of her robes. She seemed as nervous as a bird about to take flight. Then, she took a step toward him, and he knew the stunning beauty had tossed aside propriety for the pleasure of a few stolen minutes away from the ton.

She nodded to the brandy in his hand. “What is it about that brew that so entices men?”

He held out his glass in a silent challenge.

The woman’s brow furrowed. She took several steps toward him, and stopped. Her pleated, red Grecian skirts danced about her ankles. His gaze traveled up her legs, to the gently flared hips, ever higher to the daringly low décolletage as her chest moved up and down.