Sleepless in Southampton by Chasity Bowlin

Chapter Twenty-Three

Two hours later, under the cover of darkness, they had departed Lady Hemsley’s and were making for London. In the carriage, Sophie sat on one seat in her borrowed finery, while Henry sat across from her. Despite the fact that she was still draped in the shawl granted to her from Agnes, the helpful housekeeper she’d encountered in that narrow alley, Sophie could not shake the chill. Perhaps it was simply the numerous shocks of the day all catching up to her, but she shivered there, unable to warm herself.

“You’re cold?” Henry asked. Immediately, he moved across the carriage to sit beside her. “You’re not ill after all you’ve been through today, are you?”

“Just very tired, I think,” Sophie admitted. “Henry, what will happen when we are wed? Your family will likely cut you off. They will certainly never permit me to darken their door again! They were so furious. Your uncle—I’ve never seen anyone so cold.”

He shook his head as he tightened his arms about her, pulling her close to him. “No, they will not do so. With everything else that has happened, I didn’t have a chance to tell you. Horatia admitted that she planted the necklace in your room.”

Sophie blinked at that. “Lady Horatia did it?”

“At Mr. Carlton’s urging,” he pointed out. “You were quite right about him. There are other things you should know about him and I’m not certain how you will react to them.”

“I know that he must be the father of one of Effie’s students,” Sophie reminded him. “But why he thought that made me such a threat to him—”

“It made you a threat to him, Sophie, because he is your father. Now that I think about it, there were similarities that, over time, would have become apparent to everyone, I believe.”

Sophie blinked in the dimness of the carriage. “That’s not possible. I was left as a foundling there!”

“I think it likely that he is the person who left you. I don’t know the particulars. I left before asking those questions because I thought it more important to locate you. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

Sophie took a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, it isn’t your story to tell, is it? It’s his. And from the sounds of things, we wouldn’t be able to trust it at any rate. Ultimately it only makes it worse, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Sophie mused, “that it was bad enough for him to make a target of me the way that he did when I was simply some unfortunate girl who might expose his secret shame. But I’m not just a stranger to him who happened to see him at a place that would mar his reputation, am I? I’m his flesh and blood, and he was still ready to see me carted off—transported or worse—because preserving his reputation and fulfilling his ambitions are all that matters. He’s cold, ruthless and unfeeling. Not so very different from the doctor, is he?”

Henry’s arms tightened about her further, pulling her in closer. It was a gesture of comfort, and one that she greatly appreciated. She had never thought to know who her parents were. But she’d certainly never expected to be betrayed to such a degree by one of them if identified.

After a few minutes of quiet, both of them thinking about all that had transpired, Sophie asked very softly, “What will your aunt do?”

“I know not and I care not,” he said. “My fury at her is boundless. It was bad enough what they did to you, the way they all turned on you. But for her to have played an active role in framing you rather than just being duped as the others were? It’s unforgivable.”

“They don’t know me, Henry. Not really. I’d see your aunt and uncle at dinner and maybe share a few pleasantries with them. Your Aunt Horatia, well, we had just met. They do not know who I am. For that matter, you don’t either,” she said. “Is it any wonder they sought to protect you? And now we’re rushing in to an elopement, the very thing they feared, and I am terrified that you will regret it later.”

“Sophie, the only thing I will ever regret is that I didn’t propose the very moment I met you,” he stated solemnly. “There is nothing that could make me want anything but to be with you. It sounds utterly mad to say it, but I love you. I think I loved you the very moment I laid eyes on you.”

Sophie leaned against him then, placing her head against his chest. She could feel his heart beating, steady and strong. She was also aware of the heat of him, of the strength in the corded muscles. And in that moment, it wasn’t simply comfort that she sought. The memory of their kiss was still vivid in her mind, along with those remembered sensations. “If it’s madness, then we are mad together, at least. I love you. I loved you instantly, I think. That was why your initial deception was so difficult to forgive. When I thought you just Mr. Henry Meredith, I could hope for a future with you. Your title just seemed to put you out of reach for me. All the fantasies I had about being courted and proposed to by this handsome man I met on my journey… they were simply gone and I was angry.”

“I will never be out of your reach. And I do not mean to ever let you be far from mine. I do not want to be ever separated from you again,” he admitted.

It was the most natural thing in the world to slide her hand upward along the front of his shirt, to curve it around his neck as she lifted her face up to his and catch the smoldering gaze he directed at her. “Will you kiss me, Henry?”

“It is not a wise decision,” he stated. It wasn’t a refusal, simply a statement. “We are alone in this carriage with no chaperone. I have no way of knowing if our request for a special license will be granted. If not, it could be weeks until we can wed.”

“I do not care,” she said. “It is enough for me to know that we will be wed.”

He closed his eyes, as if wrestling with the choice, or possibly his own conscience. “Desire, Sophie, is a tricky thing. A kiss will soon not be enough… every touch brings with it a world of temptation, a need to push those boundaries and go a bit further. Eventually, there is a point of no return.”

“As I’ve no wish to return, I do not view that as an impediment.” It was a bold response and she couldn’t say who was more surprised.

“Sophie—” Her name was uttered on a soft groan. But then he swooped in, his lips capturing hers and there was no more talking.

It was as she’d remembered, and yet so much more. Safe in the circle of his arms after so much danger and uncertainty, Sophie could only give herself up to that moment, savoring the play of his lips over hers. She was acutely aware of every point of contact. The rasp of his whiskers against her skin. The heat of him. The firmness of his body where it pressed against hers. The taste of him as his tongue swept boldly into her mouth.

The unfettered sensuality of it and the impossible intimacy with them cocooned in the dim interior of the coach, completely alone, had every sensation heightened. Clinging to him, holding on to the thing that felt real and solid in a world that seemed to be growing more ephemeral by the moment, Sophie let herself be swept away by it. Counter to everything she had been taught, to every caution that had been instilled in her over the years, she simply allowed herself to be carried away by it. And it was glorious.

*

Henry was strugglingfor control. He was positively consumed with his need to hold her, to touch her, to take liberties that he knew she would grant him. That was the most damnable part of it all. He had to think of what was right for them both, regardless of what they both wanted. Whatever impassioned response she might have to his kisses, she was entirely innocent. There was no doubt in his mind on that score. And allowing things to progress too far in the confines of a moving carriage would mark him as the worst sort of cad.

And yet even as he thought it, one hand was sliding over the fabric of her borrowed dress coming to rest on her ribs, just beneath her breast. The tip of his thumb grazed the underside of it. She gasped and shivered in his embrace, but only pressed closer to him. All thoughts of what he ought to do, of what was right, fled in the face of a kind of hunger he had never known. Lust was not unfamiliar to him. Libidinous urges were simply part of being a man, of being human, and he’d slaked them as opportunity and desire permitted. But this was something else. It was deeper and more primal, more demanding and insistent.

“Sophie, if we do not stop…” he breathed against the curve of her cheek.

“Do not stop. Please,” she implored him. “I know what happens between a man and a woman, Henry. In theory, at least. I am innocent, but not ignorant.”

“That will not happen… not careening down the road in a darkened carriage,” he vowed. “But there are things we can do. There are ways for me to give you pleasure without necessarily eradicating your innocence entirely.”

“Show me,” she urged.