Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (Scandalous Seasons #2)(77)

Emotion flooded her cornflower blue eyes.

“I don’t want your pity, Phi. I just need you to know why I didn’t want to wed you. That all changed when I spent time with you.”

“What about Mallen?” Her question, the faintest whisper, cut into his words.

Christopher momentarily covered his face with his hands and pressed the tips of his fingers against the corners of his eye. “I knew Redbrooke and your mother were both enamored of his title.” His lips twisted. “Who would settle for an earl when they could have a duke?”

Her sad eyes ran a path over his face. “You thought it all out, didn’t you?”

He took a step toward her. “I thought I did, Phi. I didn’t consider that I’d fall hopelessly in love with you.”

“Don’t,” she rasped. “Please, don’t.”

“But I love you,” he said, taking another step closer.

Sophie stalked across the room, eyes blazing. Her hair whipped about her like she was some kind of warrior princess. “You are nothing but a liar, Christopher. You can’t possibly expect I should believe anything you would ever say.” A cold, near-hysterical laugh bubbled past her lips. “What a fool I was.”

He shook his head. “No, Phi…”

“I fell in love with you against my better judgment. Even as you courted me, I was suspicious. I only have myself to blame. I should have turned you away when you came to call. And I certainly should never have followed you from the ballroom at Lady Brackenridge’s. I would have been better with a ruined reputation than you as a husband.”

Christopher swallowed, and nearly choking on the lump of anguish that clogged his throat, he touched his hand to his chest to be sure his heart still beat.

“Leave, Christopher,” she said, her voice tired.

“No.”

“Leave!” The order climbed in volume.

He held firm. If he left her wounded and angry as she was, he suspected he might never attain her forgiveness.

The plump mounds of her breasts heaved up and down with the extent of her emotion. “Very well, I’ll leave,” she cried, and stormed toward the door.

Duke, sensing his mistress’ upset sprinted toward Sophie, and cut in front of her.

Sophie cried out and stumbled over the fawn-pug.

Christopher’s long strides ate up the space between them. “Are you hurt?” The moment transported him eerily back to their first exchange in Hyde Park when Duke had run out in front of his horse and nearly unseated him. It was as though he and Sophie had moved in a full circle, with Sophie leery of his motives and wanting him gone.

He fell to his knee and reached for her ankle.

As though the fight had drained from her body, Sophie laid on her back and stared with emotion-deadened eyes up at the ceiling. “I’m fine, Christopher.”

Christopher’s heart squeezed painfully. He turned his attention to her ankles, removing first one satin silver slipper, and then the next. He rolled down her stockings. “Allow me to check for a sprain.”

Sophie draped her arm across her eyes. “There is no sprain,” she said, tiredly.

“Still…” His words died on his lips. He stared, his gaze transfixed upon a very familiar heart-shaped birthmark along the inner portion of her trim, dainty ankle. He blinked.

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible

He touched a finger to the marking that had haunted his dreams after he’d met his mystery Athena.

Christopher released her ankle and sat back on his haunches.

The irony of this moment was not lost on him. He’d initially avoided marriage to Phi for the sake of some nameless nymph he’d met in Lord Thomas’s library during the masquerade.

In the end, Sophie was the mystery woman he’d longed for.

She was his Athena.

How had he not seen it before now?

Sophie took advantage of his distractedness. She grabbed her slippers and stockings and pointed to the door. “Get out, Christopher.”

He held his palms up. She needed to know. “I have to tell you…”

“With the exception of good-bye, there is nothing else I care to hear from you.”

“But you need to know…”

She slapped him with such ferocity, his head snapped back under the force of the blow. The sharp crack echoed around his tortured mind.

He accepted that pain; embraced it because it was no less than he deserved for lying to her.

Sophie recoiled, as though in touching him, she’d been sullied.

“Just go,” she whispered. Tears flooded her eyes, threatening to spill over. “If you care for me at all, you’ll leave.”

And because he’d rather sever his own arm than inflict any pain upon her, Christopher rose. He sketched a bow. “This isn’t done,” he said, when he’d reached the doorway.

A fat teardrop streaked a path down her cheek. Then another. And another.

He reached for her.

“Please, go,” she pleaded.

Christopher nodded jerkily.

He would do as she asked. For now.





Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet





While taking part in a Frost Fair chair-pushing event with Lady E.F., Miss S.W.’s chair slid into a number of ice-skaters on the Thames River. There were no real injuries. Just outraged ice-skaters