A Study in Scoundrels Read online

  “Stay with me tonight.” As he spoke, he lowered his head, pressing a kiss to her stomach, then lower, to the taught stretch of skin above her curls.

  As her body shuddered beneath his touch, she weighed his proposition. He offered this night alone. The chance to sate her desire, let him pleasure her in the all the wicked ways he knew how. But no more. No promises for a future. Nothing to hold onto tomorrow.

  “I want to stay.” Sinking her hands into his hair, she slid her fingers through the thick waves. “But we both know I should not.”

  Tipping his head to press into her touch, he flashed a grin. “I’m dishonorable, darling. I never concern myself with what I should do. Only what I want to do. You, Sophia. I want you.” Resting his chin on her stomach, he clasped his arms around her body and gazed up at her. “Tell me what you want.”

  Love. Marriage. A happy home in the countryside. Those truths she could not confess, because nothing was clearer than his disdain for each.

  But neither could she deny her desire for the scoundrel in her arms. Jasper Grey, Viscount Winship, the man who never wished to be heir to an earldom. Here, in the glorious estate most men could only dream of and which he wished to avoid, he seemed vulnerable. As if he might truly need her this night as much as she desired him. He let her glimpse the man behind the many roles he bragged of playing, and she wanted that man most of all.

  No other had ever made her heart thrash in her chest, her body throb and heat the moment he looked her way. Perhaps none ever would.

  Why deny herself one night of passion?

  “We’ll have tonight.” She spoke the words quietly, solemnly, as she would a vow. Now that she’d decided, she wouldn’t turn back.

  Grey froze. Hands stilled on her body, his mouth fell slack.

  “Unless . . . ” Sophia dropped her hands from his hair and clasped an arm across her breasts. “You’ve changed your mind.”

  He stood and wrapped an arm around her, gripping her backside to pull her flush against his body. The hard pulsing thrust of him answered her doubt. Sinking a hand into the tumbled tresses at her neck, he tipped her head back and took her mouth. Urged her to open to him with the press of his tongue. He kissed her hungrily, deeply, stroking her back with one hand as he reached between them with the other to find the damp, hot center of her arousal.

  Breaking their kiss long enough to reach down, he caught her knees in the crook of his arm and carried her swiftly to the high bed in the corner of the room.

  Sophia lay back, one arm still clinging to his neck, expecting his hard, warm body to come down on top of hers. Instead, he unhooked her arm gently, kissing from her elbow to her hand before standing before her at the foot of the bed. He licked his lips as he took her in, from her unkempt hair to the spot where her chemise had slid high to reveal the tops of her thighs to the tips of her bare toes.

  He reached for his waistband and began flicking buttons free. Sliding her legs together, Sophia watched hungrily as he peeled back his fly and shucked his trousers, letting the dark fabric slide over his chiseled hips. Mercy. Statues in museums and etchings in history books had misled her entirely.

  “I want to make this perfect for you,” he said as the bed dipped under the weight of his knee. He reached for the hem of her chemise, sliding the fabric up to expose more of her body to his gaze. “We should dispense with this,” he said, gripping her hand and pulling her to a sitting position. He helped her removed the garment and then stared, as if awestruck.

  Sophia wrapped an arm across her breasts. “Surely you’ve seen breasts before.”

  “Not yours.” He leaned forward. “Everything about you is a wonder to be explored.”

  “Including my shyness?”

  “Are you shy, sweet?” He bent to kiss the arm she still had braced across her chest, then the swell above. “You needn’t ever be shy with me, Sophia. Share your thoughts. Tell me what you want. Be your true self. Just let go.”

  Drawing in a long breath, Sophia lowered her arm. Grey sucked in a breath and reached out to stroke her cheek, avoiding the spot where his father’s hand had landed. “Does it hurt?”

  She shook her head as his continued touching her. Down her neck, over her chest to the tip of her breast. He bent and kissed her nipple, sucking the tender point into his mouth until she bucked off the bed. Shifting, he took her other nipple in his mouth, teasing at the taut berry with his tongue, his hand sliding lower, all the way to the shallow of her belly button. Then lower, into the warm tangle of curls between her thighs.

  Yes. That spot, the center of aching need was precisely where she craved him. And he knew exactly how to touch her. Gently, tenderly. He smiled down at her, watched her, their gazes locked.

  When his fingers delved deeper, Sophia tensed, one hand clutching the bedclothes.

  Grey froze before dipping his head to kiss her. “Tell me what you want, sweet,” he whispered against her lips.

  “You,” she said, dragging her fingers through the hair dipping over his forehead. “More of you.”

  He began moving again, his fingers exploring, while he bent his head and took the tip of her breast into his mouth again. His tongue moved like hot velvet against her bud while his fingers worked magic. Each stroke driving her closer, pulling her tighter. “More,” she cried out, unsure what she needed, only that a desperate craving grew inside her. A craving for him. To be closer. To risk everything. To give him all the parts of herself she’d never shared with any man.

  As soon as her demand was out, he moved on the bed, shifting down her body, nudging her legs apart with one long, muscled thigh. She lifted her hips, eager for the feel of him against her.

  Grey swept his gaze up at her, his eyes searing and intense. There was a question in his eyes, a vulnerability. As if he too was risking himself, giving more than just his body to her.

  Then he hunched his shoulders, lowered his head, and pressed his mouth to the wet heat between her thighs.

  Shock, pleasure, panic struck at once. She pushed at his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

  A low chuckle tickled her sensitive flesh before she felt the heat of his tongue against her slit. He continued to taste as her knees dropped open, and she twisted her head on the pillow, trying to get away, trying to get closer. A shudder began building from her center, up her back, inside her chest. She shook as if fever had overtaken her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Grey was here, with her, and the heat and weight of his body was all she knew. All that mattered. And then she shattered. Heat flooded her veins, a melting warmth. Sensation exploded along every nerve. She dug her fingers into Grey’s shoulder, tangling her other hand in his hair.

  He kissed a trail up her body.

  “What? Why?” Words emerged from her lips, queries swimming up from her boggled mind.

  “This may hurt, sweetheart,” he said, his voice muffled by the haze of pleasure still clouding her brain. “I never want to hurt you.”

  His hands were on her thighs, stroking gently, then the thick hard length of him was there, where she was slick and raw and impossibly warm. She spread her legs, no longer wishing to hide any part of herself. He positioned himself with infinite care, then breached her in one confident thrust. The flash of pain went quickly, but nothing could have prepared her for the fullness. She wrapped a leg around his, stroking her heel up his calf, reveling in the feel of him inside her, nudging her hips toward him because she wanted more.

  “Easy, goddess.” Breathless, his voice emerged on a strained whisper. “Never,” he said and then sucked in a breath. “I never want to cause you pain.”

  “There’s no pain.” Reaching up to stroke his cheek, she promised, “It’s all right, Jasper.”

  “Grey,” he said as he settled his body over hers, began to pump in a delicious rhythm as he buried his face against her neck. “Call me Grey.” He kissed and nipped at her skin as he thrust. “So sweet,” he groaned as he filled her again.

  The tautne
ss built once more, pleasure sparking her every nerve, soaking every muscle. Grey paused, held himself above her, pressed a hand to her face to make sure she met his gaze. “Sophia,” he hissed as he began to withdraw. But she wouldn’t let him go. She tilted her hips to draw him deeper, reached down and gripped his backside to pull him closer.

  “Wait, sweet.”

  She could build a rhythm too. He’d taught her how. She bucked against him as he stared down at her in amazement.

  “Soph—” he started, then tipped his head back and emitted a virile roar as warmth flooded her insides. He collapsed atop her, his body slick and fevered. A moment later, he rolled to his side and pulled her with him, tucking their bodies together as he drew the blanket up. “Stay with me. Don’t leave.”

  Just for tonight. Sleeping in his arms would make facing tomorrow harder. But as he clasped an arm around her body, threw his leg over hers, nuzzled his face in her hair, she couldn’t imagine anyplace else she wished to be.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “There are occasions when a mystery’s solution brings nothing but fresh dilemmas.”

  —CASEBOOK OF EUPHEMIA BREEDLOVE, LADY DETECTIVE

  Grey reached for Sophia and clutched a fistful of bedsheets.

  The smooth linen retained a bit of warmth from her body and her floral citrus scent. He could still taste her too, remember the texture of every inch of skin he’d kissed, recall the warmth of each spot where he’d lingered, exploring her with his tongue. He’d woken in the night, retreating from a nightmare into her soothing embrace. Her kisses of comfort had soon deepened, and he’d taken her again. More slowly, more expertly, focusing on her pleasure, giving her release before seeking his own. Not spilling as he had the first time, like a novice without a shred of control.

  She had been incomparable. Trusting him as he never dreamed she would, giving herself with passionate abandon. He licked his lips and gripped the sheet tighter. He wanted her again. Now. Wanted her beside him. To hear her voice, her moans of pleasure, to look into her fathomless eyes.

  “We’ll have tonight.” When she’d slipped away shortly after dawn, thinking him asleep, she’d whispered a choked good-bye. Her departure was expected. Hell, he didn’t want to remain at Longcross for another day himself. But she wasn’t simply planning to leave Derbyshire. Her farewell was for him.

  Liddy had been found. Sophia had done all he’d asked of her and more.

  He bloody well planned to go back to his life in London too. Why shouldn’t she return to hers? Let her go back to the house she felt a duty to improve for her brother. To a housekeeper who seemed more confidant than servant. To some knave named Ogilvy, who did not deserve her. Whoever he was.

  Grey wasn’t certain which he hated more—the fact that he might never make love to Sophia again or the prospect of waking every day for the rest of his days without her in his bed.

  He sat up and scrubbed his hands through his hair, staring out at the long expanse of wooded meadow where he’d roamed much of the previous evening, attempting to clear his head and forget the disappointed look in Sophia’s eyes. Today the weather seemed determined to be as sullen as his mood. The sun-soaked days of early summer were giving way to rain. Storm clouds loomed in the sky as a breeze whipped treetops to and fro.

  Damn Sophia and how much he longed for her. He wasn’t a man for commitment or longevity. Yet she had managed what no other woman ever achieved. She’d gotten under his skin, into his blood. Hell, perhaps he did have a heart, because something in his chest hurt like the devil at the prospect of parting from her for good.

  Still, carpe diem had long been his motto. He took each day afresh, unfettered and free. Planning for the week ahead seemed daunting, let alone making choices to determine the rest of his days. Duty, responsibility—he understood they would be thrust upon him when his father died. But he planned to shape that future to impact his London life as little as possible. Acting and debauchery were all he’d ever been good at. He wouldn’t give them up.

  Marriage would be forced upon him one day. Every earl needs an heir, after all. In his youth, his mother selected a duke’s third daughter as his future bride, but he’d only met the girl once and couldn’t recall her name. Mariah? Madeline? Margaret? It mattered not. Wedlock, when faced, would be a practical arrangement with a lady who understood he could offer nothing but a title and a gilt-crusted estate to reside in. He would live in London. The future Lady Stanhope could have Longcross to herself.

  A soft knock sounded at the door, and a maid pushed in a moment later, ducking a brief curtsy before approaching the fireplace and brushing ash and soot into a bucket.

  “Has Lady Fennston risen?”

  “I believe she is taking breakfast in the morning room with Lord Fennston, my lord.”

  Alistair. Wonderful. Grey’s head began thumping. “And Miss Ruthven?”

  “She is at table too, my lord.”

  “Is Turnbull still at Longcross?” The man had served as his brother’s valet and then his own before Grey left home.

  The girl turned her gaze his way, blowing a stray hair from her cheek. “Lord Fennston’s valet? Yes, my lord, he’s been at Longcross forever, so they say. Shall I send him up to you?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Grey tried for a charming grin. “Could you have the kitchen procure some coffee too?”

  The young maid finished blacking the grate, took her pail and brush, and departed.

  Grey reached for his discarded trousers and then stood to retrieve his shirt. The faint scent of Sophia’s perfume wafted up off the fabric. At least he’d get to take some part of her with him when he embarked on a task that was long overdue.

  Striding to his father’s suite, he battled the urge to retreat. Despite the man’s dotage and the possibility he might not know Grey from one moment to the next, he was still his father. Grey needed to face him.

  “No!” the old man’s refusal echoed down the long upper-story hall. “I won’t have another.”

  A woman’s voice followed, gentle and coaxing. “Come, my lord. We’ll build the fire high so the room’s warm.”

  “Let me speak with him,” Grey instructed from the threshold. One maid stoked fireplace coals, another poured water into a tub, while a third held his father’s hand, urging him to bathe. At least his father had plenty of attentive caretakers.

  The servants filed out of the room quickly, each casting him a nervous glance before departing.

  “No more baths!” the Earl of Stamford shouted before falling silent and closing his eyes, as if he might have drifted off to sleep.

  “Father?”

  One eye opened, a clouded gray orb surrounded by wrinkled flesh. “Richard?”

  “No, Pater.” What he wouldn’t have given Richard to be here, ready, as he’d always been, to take on the earldom. “Jasper.”

  Both brows winged high, and the earl lifted off his pillow for a closer look. “Thought you’d be in London plowing into some whore.”

  Grey clenched his fists and waited. After a decade of shirking his duty to the family, he deserved a bit of the man’s ire.

  “Certainly what I’d be doing if I had the strength,” his father added before collapsing against his pillow. “Fetch your mother, boy.”

  “Mother isn’t at Longcross anymore.” She’d been gone longer than Grey.

  “Bollocks. Saw her in my room last night.” After closing his eyes, he began murmuring her name. “Jossie. Jossie.”

  Only his father had ever called the Countess of Stanhope by the nickname, which she’d deemed coarse and childish. Grey’s mother had never been much for nicknames or familial warmth and affection. Though she spared plenty of attention for her many paramours, Grey couldn’t recall her hugging Rich or offering either of them a kiss on the rare occasions she visited the nursery.

  His father struck out a hand and clasped Grey’s wrist. “Bring her to me. Tell her all is forgiven.”

  “Mother isn’t here.” Perhaps he’d mistaken S
ophia for his countess, since both women were fair-haired. Though in nature, Sophia’s honesty and determination to see a commitment to its end were the exact opposite of his mother.

  “You must . . . ” The earl began to cough, a terrible, deep rattling sound that made Grey’s own chest ache.

  “What must I do, Father? Tell me.” How in the hell was he supposed to be master of an estate that brought back memories he longed to banish?

  Squeezing tighter, his father gripped Grey’s forearm. “If you find her, son, never let her go.”

  Slim, dark-haired Lady Fennston invited Sophia to join her on a visit to her aunt as they shared a civil but awkward breakfast with Lord Fennston in Longcross’s elegant dining room.

  No mention of Lady Phyllida, of course.

  Despite Lady Fennston’s insistence the previous day that she’d tell her husband all, the man seemed unaware of anything more troubling than the newspaper’s mention of a railroad strike that would postpone a coming business trip north. For most of breakfast, he hid behind his morning paper, assessing Sophia over the rim of his spectacles now and then.

  Sophia managed to swallow a few bites of toast and sips of tea, but she failed miserably at thinking of anything but Grey. Luckily, the bruise from his father’s inadvertent blow was barely visible on her face.

  “Where did you say you’d met my cousins, Miss Ruthven?” Lord Fennston lowered his newspaper as he addressed her.

  “She met Jasper and Liddy in London, of course,” Lady Fennston said, casting Sophia a warning glance.

  “And yet she and Winship are here, while Phyllida is not.” He folded his paper with a fearsome rattle, fussing until he got the seams perfectly even.

  “Her train has been delayed.” Lady Fennston pointed to the newspaper report he’d just been bemoaning. “You know how disappointing the trains can be.”

  “Mmm.” After emptying his teacup and swiping a napkin across his mustache, Alistair Fennston turned the full power of his dark, bespectacled gaze on Sophia. “And you’re twice unlucky, Miss Ruthven. Not only has Phyllida been delayed, but you had the distinct misfortune of arriving with the prodigal Stanhope heir. Tell me, how well do you know Lord Winship?”