Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (Scandalous Seasons #2)(62)

Her head arched back, and she cried out.

The throaty wantonness of that cry broke through the haze of desire that clouded his better judgment. He placed a kiss at her temple.

She blinked back the desire clouding her eyes. “Why did you stop?” she blurted, and then a becoming flush stained her cheeks.

God, he should be sainted for resisting what she so clearly offered. “When we are married, I’ll take the time to show you all the ways a man can love a woman. But I’ll not disrespect you, not any more than I already have, Phi.”

Sophie sighed. “What if I want…?”

“No.”

“But…”

“No, Sophie,” he said, gruffly. It was taking every ounce of strength he didn’t know he possessed to resist her arousing entreaty.

“Not even if I point out that I’m now a fallen woman?”

He grimaced. “You are not a fallen woman.”

“Very well.” She rested her cheek against the wall of his chest.

Christopher dropped his chin atop her crown of golden curls. He inhaled the citrusy scent of lemon that clung to her and wondered not for the first time if she bathed in the sweet fragrance.

“My brother suggested that there…was a reason for your interest in me, Christopher. Why is that?”

The magic of the moment couldn’t have ended more quickly than if Sophie had lifted her knee and slammed it into his groin.

“Christopher?” she asked, when he did not immediately respond.

He shook his head, turning over possible answers in his brain. In the end, he settled for the truth. “I’m marrying you because I want to,” he said at long last.

“Truly?”

“Truly,” he said, willing her to hear the veracity of his somber response. He took a steadying breath. Sophie deserved the truth. All of it. Their marriage could not be built off the lies between them. Christopher opened his mouth to confess that which had originally prompted his courtship.

“I knew he was wrong,” Sophie muttered.

Christopher pulled back. The truth died a swift death on his lips. He ran a gaze over her heart-shaped face; the slight cleft, so very familiar in her chin, the pale white of her satiny smooth skin. Lies may have fueled his earlier motives where Sophie was concerned…but that had all changed.

He dropped to a knee.

“Christopher?”

“You deserved to be courted, Phi. And you deserved a proper offer of marriage,” Not the scandal he’d brought upon her in front of the censuring eyes of Society members who delighted in her fall. “Will you marry me?”

A tremulous smile formed on her bow-shaped lips. “You know I have too, though,” she said, gently.

He squeezed her hands. “Marry me not because you have to. Marry me because you want to. Forget your brother and mother. My father. The scandal. All of it. Will you marry me?”

Her eyes locked with his. She reached down and framed his face between her hands. “There is nothing in the world I want more, Christopher. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

As he took her in his arms yet again, Christopher couldn’t shake the mocking question that twirled around his mind; would Sophie still feel that way when she learned the truth of his deception?





Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet





Quite a scene was caused in Hyde Park when Miss S.W’s ill-mannered pug attacked the carriage of Viscountess C, leading the distinguished hostess’s beloved bull mastiffs on a harrowing chase among the throngs of carriages.


18

Amongst their families and the Duke of Mallen, Christopher and Sophie were wed in her brother’s office one week later.

From where she now sat at Geoffrey’s dining table, Sophie studied the somber expression in her mother’s familiar blue eyes, the hard glint in Geoffrey’s eyes, the boredom in the Marquess of Milford’s stare. Even the Duke of Mallen, who stood beside Christopher at the ceremony and served as witness, wore a black frown on his lips.

She tried to convince herself the awkward stiltedness to their family’s conversation existed solely in her mind, but knew she lied.

Since she was being honest with herself, she could admit this wasn’t the dream she’d carried for her wedding day.

Sophie had always imagined Mother would have been exasperating in her attention to every last detail of Sophie’s wedding; from the breakfast to the bridal trousseau. Her dearest friend Emmaline would have been there, smiling and supportive. She would have even allowed Sophie to ask all the scandalous questions Sophie had as an unwed woman, about her wedding night.

As if he sensed the dismal direction Sophie’s thoughts had taken, Christopher reached under the table and found her hand. He gave her fingers a gentle, but firm squeeze. The raw vitality of his hold robbed her of breath.

All the regrets she carried in her heart melted away. Christopher was now her husband.

He leaned down. His warm breath fanned her cheek. “You haven’t eaten anything.”

Sophie tugged her hand free and used the tip of her spoon to stir her bowl of oatmeal with sweet cream. “I’m not hungry.”

Christopher tipped his chin in the direction of the raspberry tart on her plate. “Not even for pastries? Something must truly be wrong.”

A giggle escaped her. She reached for the tart and nibbled at the corner. “Well, the pastries. But nothing else.”