A Study in Scoundrels Read online

  “No!” Grey cried. Another word came too, but she couldn’t make it out. He was in distress. Of that, she had no doubt.

  Pushing the blanket aside, Sophia slipped from the low bed. She’d stripped down to her chemise and reached for her skirt, sliding it quickly over her hips and securing the hook. She donned her bodice, and worked one hand along the buttons as she opened her chamber door and crept toward Grey’s room. Pressing her ear to the door, she heard his bed groaning as if he was turning and tossing. Rather than call to him, she pushed inside.

  Her brother had been prone to night terrors as a child, and she experienced the same sense of urgency to comfort and calm as she had then.

  But the moment she ducked into Grey’s room, the sight before her swept away any notion she’d come to soothe a child’s nightmare.

  His lean body sprawled across the tiny bed. One muscled bare leg dangled off the edge. When she followed the line of his leg, she could see that he’d stripped off every scrap of clothing before getting under the covers. The blanket wasn’t, in fact, covering him at the moment. Not fully anyway. One side of his body peeked out, exposed from the thick brawn of his thigh to the lean cut of his hips and broad plain of his chest.

  Unbidden, and very unhelpfully, Sophia’s mouth watered as she studied him. He was no longer calling out or moving, but he slept fitfully, twisting his head on the pillow, his brow drawn in pinched lines.

  When he began mumbling again, Sophia crept closer, carefully resting her backside on the edge of his bed. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Just sleep.”

  His brow knitted into deeper grooves, and he gripped the blanket edge so tightly his knuckles paled. Perspiration dotted his forehead, and Sophia reached for the damp cloth discarded near the pitcher and washing bowl. She dabbed gently at his skin. “You’re all right,” she repeated, as she pressed the back of her hand against his head to determine if he was feverish.

  In a flash of movement, he reached for her, sitting up in bed. As he gripped her shoulder, his fingers dug into her flesh.

  “Sophia?” Voice feathering out in a raspy whisper, he loosened his hold on her body. But he didn’t stop touching her. He slid his hand up her shoulder, pressed his warm palm against her neck, slipped his fingertips along the edge of her hairline.

  Her body had never before responded to any man as it did to Grey’s touch. Heaven help her, she arched forward to get closer to him. He threaded her hair through his fingers, stroking a strand down her chest.

  She hissed when his hand grazed her breast.

  Grey immediately retreated. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she told him as she reached for the hand he’d planted on the patch of blanket between them. “Touch me again.”

  His eyes were shadowed when he gazed at her, his movements hesitant as he touched her shoulder. For a moment he simply stared at her, stroking his fingers through her unbound hair. Then lower, to the swell of her breast. Delicious shivers shot down her spine.

  “What if I can’t stop touching you once I start?” he murmured.

  A good question. A rational and proper question. More important, what if she didn’t stop him when she should? By any measure, she’d already allowed too much.

  When reason wended its way into her desire-hazed mind, it was startling to find that Grey was thinking more sensibly than she was.

  “You’re right,” she admitted. “I came into your room because you called out. Did you have a troubling dream?” She edged away from him on the tiny bed.

  “Probably.” He let out a ragged sigh and settled back against the bed’s headboard. When he crossed his arms over his chest, the blanket rode further down his waist.

  “Do you remember what it was about?” She often recalled her own dreams so clearly she noted them in her journal, if only to get them out of her head.

  He studied her, watching her face so intently her skin began to heat. “My brother,” he finally rasped.

  “The one whose title you inherited.”

  “The one who would still hold the title, if fate were fair.” He scrubbed a hand over the dusting of auburn hair on his jaw. “But life doesn’t give us what we want.”

  “What does it give us?” She’d spent her whole life waiting for . . . something. What she craved was plain enough—marriage, family, contentment. But what would life give her in the end? Strangely, she thought Grey, who’d certainly lived more fully than she had, might have a clue.

  “Torment,” he said when he looked at her again, his pale eyes brighter and lit with their usual spark. “Temptation,” he added, sliding his hand across the blanket until his fingertips grazed hers. But even as he teased her, tempted her, the lines between his brows failed to ease.

  “What can I do to ease your torment?” That, after all, was why she’d come to his room.

  He glanced through the room’s single window, small and rounded like a porthole. Beyond the thick glass, the glow of sunrise had begun to streak the sky in shades of amber and gold. “I can think of a dozen ways.” When he gazed back at her, his eyes had heated to molten silver. “But every one of them involves you in this bed beside me, bare and breathless and very sated.”

  “You’re wicked,” she said too shakily for him to take the declaration as anything but a compliment. His words worked a strange magic on her body, pebbling gooseflesh along her skin, tautening her nipples, causing heat to pool between her thighs. She looked away, but the crumpled pile of his discarded clothing only brought a rush of heat to her cheeks.

  “And you are pure temptation.” He smiled as he reached out an inch further, hooking two of her fingers with his. “I wish I had the time to show you all the benefits of tempting a wicked man, but I should rise and prepare for the early train.”

  He was right and behaving like a proper gentleman. He had a long journey ahead, and she needed to return to London. But in this tiny room with just the two of them as witness, a part of her wondered why he did not wish to play the thorough scoundrel with her as he apparently did with ever other woman of his acquaintance.

  “How long do you think the journey will take you?”

  “Most of the day. I should arrive on the border by nightfall.”

  “And then?”

  “I search every inn and anvil in Gretna Green until I find them or someone who has encountered them.”

  Sophia couldn’t shake the sense of wishing she could help him finish his search. Not because she desired more time in his company. Being near the man brought out the worst of her impulses, but hunting for his sister was a worthy endeavor. Much more important that overseeing the selection of wallpaper in Kit and Ophelia’s guest rooms. More significant than attempting a courtship with a man she didn’t know any better than a stranger at the Eagle and Stag.

  “I should dress.” He began pulling aside the blanket at his hips. “I have no problem with you watching, but you’ll have to at least stand up so I can get out of bed.”

  Sophia scrambled to her feet. This was the man she harbored regrets about abandoning. An utter, irredeemable rogue. A saucy smirk perched on his sensual mouth, if she had any doubts.

  “I’ll leave you to your ablutions.” When she took the two steps toward the door, she tipped her chin up in indignation and the top of her head grazed the ceiling beam.

  “Have a care, Sophia.” He was behind her in an instant, one hand braced over her head, the other lightly clasping her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She carved an inch of space between them and spun to face him. “Perfectly. You needn’t . . . ” Her retort fizzled on her tongue because Grey was pressed against her in the small space, and he wasn’t wearing a stitch. She’d known as much as soon as she’d entered his chamber, but seeing his naked thigh and chest was wholly different from glimpsing his bare . . . everything.

  Keep your eyes up. But they were rebellious eyes, and her body had committed an all-out coup d’etat. She glanced. No, it was more of a long gaze, but they were pressed so clo
se together in the tight space that she couldn’t see much beyond the flat, muscled expanse of his belly, marked by a coppery line of hair right down the center.

  His hand obscured her view as he hooked a finger under her chin and lifted until her gaze met his. “One of these days, when we have nothing but time, I hope you’ll let me strip you bare and gaze at your nakedness with as much eagerness.”

  “I’m not eager.” She swiped at his—very bare, very warm—arm to free her chin. “Just . . . curious.”

  “Yes.” He tipped his head, assessing her, smiling as if he liked whatever he found when he looked at her. “I do love that about you.” His brows drew together in a frown the moment the word love was out and echoing in the air between them.

  “I should go. The first train to London departs just after yours heads north.” She peeked at him over her shoulder as she eased the door open, but he said nothing more. She didn’t speak either. But she looked. A single glance, but one she would not soon forget.

  Grey sensed something was amiss. Some trouble beyond the fact that he was tired, hungry, and had worn the same necktie three days in a row. Some bother beyond the tragedy that he hadn’t consumed a decent cup of coffee in days. Greater than all of the irritations of travel and the grind of anxiety over Liddy was that he’d lost his usual sense of joie de vivre. Most disturbingly of all, he wasn’t particularly interested in finding it.

  He suddenly cared more about bantering with Sophia than all the parties carrying on in London without him. Even more than the adulation of audiences at Fleet Theater, no doubt being flung at the feet of the young man who’d stepped into his role as lead in one of the most anticipated plays of the Season.

  He’d always found bidding others good-bye uncomfortable. Yet now the prospect of parting from her was a physical weight constricting his chest as he watched her exit the station master’s booth.

  “Apparently my train departs twelve minutes before yours,” she said blithely, approaching with a ticket clasped between her fingers.

  Wonderful. So he would get to stand on the platform like a besotted fool, watching until her train churned out of view.

  Gazing along the railroad tracks, as if she could envision the entire path from Cambridge to King’s Cross Station in London, Sophia bit her lip. It was one of her many nervous habits he’d begun to note, much like the way her nose took to rabbit-like twitching when she was irritated, or her habit of ducking her head when embarrassed, not to mention her very irritating tendency to apologize for events that were in no way her fault.

  Wouldn’t it be a relief to free himself of a woman burdened with so many quirks? As he watched her check the watch pinned to her shirtwaist, a strand of hair slipped from behind her ear, and he couldn’t convince himself of anything other than how much he would miss not having her near.

  “Do you have everything?” He offered the inane question for the sheer pleasure of having her eyes on him.

  Sophia frowned. “I only have a small satchel.” She pointed to her lumpy, embroidered bag.

  “Yes.” He was so pathetic he thought he might even miss her hideous travel satchel. “What do you carry in that thing, anyway?” Upon toting it upstairs for her the night before, he’d found it surprisingly heavy and unwieldy.

  She shrugged. “A few books and notes.” Her eyes widened as she looked at him, then she ducked down to dig in her ever-present bag. “I almost forgot to give this back to you. You left your sister’s journal the last time you were at Bloomsbury Square.”

  Grey took the slim book, and a shiver of anxiety crept along his shoulders. It felt odd to hold something of Liddy’s. Something she should rightfully have in her own keeping. “Thank you.”

  “I’m afraid Cate and I may have peeked at a few passages.” Sophia did her embarrassed head-ducking thing before tilting her gaze up at him. “Her entries are what led me to Cambridge.”

  “Then I’m glad you read them.” Grey stuffed the book inside his waistcoat for safe keeping. “What books?”

  “Pardon?” She squinted in confusion.

  “You said you carry books in your bag. Which ones?” Far easier to discuss her choice of reading material than stare at the station clock over their heads as the minutes counted down to her departure.

  “Detective stories, mostly. I’m fond of them.”

  “Are you?” After spending most of the previous two days with her, even the few feet of distance between them seemed a troublesome expanse. Grey approached, and his body responded instantly to her citrus and lavender scent and the way her gazed veered between wary and intrigued as she watched him. “What draws you to such stories, I wonder?”

  She hadn’t yet pushed the stray strand of hair off her cheek, and he seized the opportunity to touch her. “The danger?” The silky tress tickled his skin as he tucked it behind the delicate curve of her ear. He couldn’t resist bending to whisper. “Intrigue—is that what you desire? An adventure all your own?”

  He felt like an ass the moment the taunt was out. The words reminded him too much of his sister.

  Sophia confirmed his foolishness with a firm shake of her head. “The stories I read are fiction. Scandal is all very well between the pages of a book, but I wish for marriage and a quiet life.” Her nose quivered, and Grey wasn’t certain if she was speaking truthfully or merely saying what she knew she should.

  How could he divine the honest cravings of their heart?

  He shook himself as if shaking rain from his coat. Why worry about Sophia’s heart, or any woman’s, for that matter? If she was telling the truth, the lady claimed to want marriage. A quiet life. Both of which struck him as precisely as appealing as the pox.

  Her train approached the station platform, brakes squealing as metal slid against metal, and steam puffed up in billowing clouds.

  His disquietude ratcheted to panic. As if an hourglass had been tipped, and he was running out of time. But for what?

  Sophia would loathe his world of late-night celebrations and constant frivolity. And he had no right to her time or her kisses when he could offer her nothing in return.

  “I know you’ll find your sister, and I wish you a safe journey.” Halfway to the train carriage, she turned back. “I’ve amended my opinion.”

  “Which one?” He strode forward, eager to close distance between them.

  “I no longer think you’re irredeemably wicked.” Her expression bloomed into a dazzling smile. “But you are exceedingly good at being a scoundrel.”

  Grey wasn’t used to denying his urges. But he battled the impulse to follow her, stop her, call her back to his side. Instead, he watched until she’d boarded the train. She didn’t bid him good-bye, and he was grateful. He couldn’t have managed the word.

  A moment later, his own locomotive drew into the station on the opposite side of the platform, but he ignored the stationmaster’s call to board.

  Stubbornly, he waited. He needed her to go, needed to see that she was safely on her way before he could begin his journey.

  “Lord Winship!”

  Grey snapped his gaze toward the path that led into Grantchester. A young woman rushed toward him, one hand clamped over her straw bonnet.

  “Feared I’d missed you,” she said, her face as flushed and tired as when he’d first met the young servant girl from Mrs. Greenlow’s boarding house. “I couldn’t let you go without telling you what the young lady said to me.”

  Sophia’s train began to move, piston rods pumping as the driving wheels began to roll. Grey spotted her at a window, her eyes shadowed, mouth drawn tight. She watched him, turning her head and twisting her shoulders to keep him in view until her train took a turn and sped out of sight.

  “She said she was going home, my lord.” The girl moved closer to snag his attention and looked relieved to get the words out. “Said she was happy to be returning home.”

  “Home?” It didn’t make any sense. Why would Holden send her to a Cambridge lodging house only to take her back to Derbysh
ire? He dug into his waistcoat pocket and handed the girl a few coins. “Thank you for finding me.”

  “When you see her again, hope she’s as well as when she left us, my lord.” She bobbed a curtsy before striding toward the village.

  Grey spun on his heel and started for the ticket window. He needed a westbound train. Rushing forward to claim a spot on the next departing train, he caught a fresh green scent on the air.

  He searched the platform for Sophia, scanning every blonde female traveler’s face. Past the station, he spotted a field of purple-topped lavender blooms dancing in the breeze.

  Changing course, he headed for the stationmaster’s office. He wasn’t sure why he had to let her know of his new destination, didn’t take the time to consider. He simply strode toward the window where there was a telegraph and a man who could exchange his northbound ticket for one headed to Derbyshire.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  With no difficulties along the line, the return train from Cambridge deposited Sophia in London midmorning, leaving much of the day stretched before her. And yet, for the first time since coming to stay with Kit and Ophelia in London, she didn’t look forward to entering their tidy townhouse on Bloomsbury Square.

  She was eager to see Cate and hear how all of the house improvements had proceeded in her absence. But unease plagued her, as if she’d misplaced something essential or left a valuable behind in Cambridge. She hadn’t, of course. Her traveling case hung over her arm.

  It was Grey’s search that remained unfinished, not hers. Would he let her know when he’d found his sister?

  As if on cue, her satchel strap broke the moment she stepped inside the front door. Books thudded to the floor, manuscript pages scattered, and she dropped down on one knee to catch her fountain pen before it rolled away.

  “Would you care for a cup of tea while you wait?” Cate’s voice filtered through the half-open door of the formal drawing room. A moment later, she stepped into the hallway. “Oh thank goodness.” She rushed forward, crouched to help Sophia gather her belongings, and then tugged her into the front parlor across the hall. “He arrived first thing this morning,” Cate said breathlessly. “I tried to turn him away, but he insisted on waiting.”