Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

I should not have done that. What on earth did I do that for?

Thomas cursed himself, standing no chance of getting anything done with Sophia swirling around in his head.

He had read the same entries in the estate ledgers a hundred times, his thoughts determined to wander to her soft lips, her sharp intake of breath, and the way her eyes had closed when he had kissed her. He had anticipated a slap or a punch, anger and fury, not her closing her eyes, her lips accepting his kiss. But the kiss had been as much of a surprise to him, spurred on by a side to him that had been restrained for so long that he had not been able to control it when it found itself unleashed.

She is dangerous. I pray she does find a wing or a room in the house where she chooses to remain, so we rarely cross paths.

After all, there was still a chance that all of this was an elaborate scheme by the Kendalls, and he might find her looming over him with a blade as he slept, ready to add another tally to her family’s success. A wedding night he would not soon forget.

He could not risk lowering his guard around her or setting that beast inside him loose again.

Sleep evaded Sophia, her stomach churning in complaint. Dinner had been offered, but eating alone had robbed her of her appetite. She was accustomed to noise and cheers and jibes across the table, not stony silence peppered solely by the scrape of a knife on a plate.

I should have forced it down, she lamented, ravenous.

The soft coldness of the night grazed her skin as she half crawled from beneath the coverlets that refused to smother her into slumber. She turned over and stared at the ceiling.

Everything was strange and wrong. Her husband was strange and wrong, kissing her like that. So, why wasn’t she angrier? Why did she keep replaying the moment in her mind?

She glared at an old cobweb, pushing away all thoughts of Thomas, focusing on the crown molding and cornice above her.

It wasn’t the familiar room she had grown up in, the one where she had spent countless hours playing, reading, and planning her future. No, she was at Heathcote Manor, surrounded by more dead silence and the suffocating feeling of being out of her depth.

I wish James was here.

When they were children and James found out that she was struggling to sleep, he’d come to her room and tell her jokes and stories until she fell asleep. But not this time. This time, she was alone.

She draped her arm over her eyes, feeling tears welling up.

No… I am not going to cry. Absolutely not. I am a grown woman. I will… I will not ? —

Sophia stifled a sob, remembering something her mother used to say.

“There is nothing so soothing for the soul as a good cry, sometimes . ”

With that firmly in mind, Sophia pulled a pillow over her face to muffle any sound and opened the floodgates, letting her tears pour into the linen, letting her sobs loosen the tight fist around her chest.

She stayed like that for a few minutes, giving herself permission to grieve her old life. Then, she got up, replacing her misery with the nagging need to find something to eat. Hunger was an easier problem to solve.

In her nightdress and defiantly bare feet, carrying a candle, she headed out of the unfamiliar bedchamber to explore the manor. Minimal moonlight peeked through the windows, but it was enough to help her and her candle to find their way around.

What unnerved her more, however, was that awful, constant silence. Back at her family home, even at late hours, she could hear her brothers arguing in the library about something inane or hear her parents share a drink and giggle upstairs like young lovebirds. When she was younger, it helped her sleep, knowing that there were other people in the house with her, awake and going about their business. It made her feel safe.

This house, by contrast, felt like a church during the day and a graveyard at night. One more thing to add to the list of reasons this marriage would be intolerable.

No matter. She’d find a way to bear it. She would make this place her home, whether it wanted to be or not.

After a while, Sophia found herself in the library. Stumbling around, she shone the candlelight over the spines of endless books, trying to find something that caught her eye.

There has to be something interesting to read here.

She expected to find boring books about enterprise and accounting, and she was mostly proven right… until the title of a book caught her attention.

The King of Guanches.

She knew it, but she had not yet read it. It was an epic tale about a Barbary pirate who terrorized the islands of Guanches and was rumored to have thousands of concubines and an uncountable fortune.

A perfect choice for a solitary wedding night.

She grabbed the book and sat on the large reading chair next to the window, leaving the candle on the sill. She curled her legs under her nightgown, settling in for a long night. The chair was obviously made for someone a lot taller and bigger than her, so she had plenty of space.

She got comfortable and started reading, letting the story carry her away to faraway shores full of vibrant characters, colorful landscapes, and enough adventure and romance to make up for her dull life. A place where men did not kiss for punishment, but for unending and star-crossed love.

“Yes! Kiss her! She wants you to kiss her!” Sophia squealed, hardly daring to turn the page to find out if the author would give her what her heart desired, or if censorship would rob her of that singular pleasure.

The shriek of the library door’s hinges transformed her squeal into a stifled scream as she jumped violently in her chair, dropping the book like a hot poker.

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice growled.

She scrambled for a cushion, holding it over herself, wishing she had blown out the candle instead of leaping out of her skin. That way, Thomas might have missed her and gone on his merry way.

“Sophia?”

Thomas strode deeper into the room, an air of worry about him and… a pistol in his hand.

Sophia couldn’t help but burst into nervous laughter. “I thought it would be at least a few months before you created an ‘accident’ to get rid of me. Will you tell the constables that you thought I was an intruder?”

His stance relaxed when he saw her, the barrel of his pistol lowering. “It would not be a complete lie,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Clearly, I am cooking a whole goose for my supper,” she said, shooting him a withering look. “What else does one do in a library?”

“It’s the middle of the night!” he responded, bringing his own lantern closer to his body, revealing what she had previously missed—too distracted by the pistol to notice.

He wore nothing but his open housecoat and a loose pair of trousers that she knew to be called ‘mogul’s breeches.’ Made of light and airy muslin, hailing from India, Samuel was also partial to them, though their mother insisted that they were obscene.

Sophia swallowed thickly, wondering if her mother had been right. They left so little to the imagination, especially paired with the bare skin, glimpsed in the gap between the sides of Thomas’s unfastened housecoat. Sculpted muscles gleamed like bronze as the lanternlight caught the contours of his chest and ridged abdomen, and two diagonal lines at his hips that drew her eyes to places they should not wander.

“So?” she blurted out, snapping her eyes back up to his face. “I’m the lady of the house—you said so yourself—I can do whatever I want.”

“That, I did say…” he sighed.

“If you are not here to duel me, why do you have that pistol? Do you always patrol your manor at night, though there can’t be a single soul for miles around?”

“If you saw a light coming from the library in the middle of the night and heard strange sounds coming from within, what would you think?” he replied coldly.

Her cheeks flushed. “I was not making strange sounds.” She shrugged off her embarrassment. “And what, exactly, did you think proclaiming ‘ who’s there ’ would achieve? Did you plan to scare the intruders into jumping out of the window with the sheer might of your voice? Do you think yourself that intimidating?”

He looked more intimidating than she cared to admit at that moment, half swathed in dancing shadows, as if the darkness longed to caress that bare skin too. Not that she did , of course.

“Such bold words from a lady who was shrieking to herself. If there had been an intruder, they would have found you instantly.”

He walked over and sat on another chair, leaving the pistol on the side table next to it. Sophia could see now that his feet were bare and was about to point it out when he leaned back in the chair.

The candlelight dripped down his body, taking his athletic physique from impressive to breathtaking. Every muscle and sinew flexed and relaxed, tightened and loosened, and she was unable to tear her gaze away.

“What had you screaming with such delight?” he asked, turning his lupine eyes on her. “If we were an ordinary couple on our wedding night, I might be jealous.”

She pinched the back of her arm to distract herself, refusing to be pulled in by a handsome face, a tempting physique, and sultry words. “I was not screaming or shrieking. I was enjoying a book. I doubt you have ever experienced enthusiasm for anything, so you would not understand.”

She bent down to pick up the fallen book, retreating into its pages.

They shared the silence for around half a minute before Thomas broke it. His eyes were fixed on her, the usual grumpy frown adorning his face, but it didn’t feel judgmental. It almost looked like he had been taught to look straight and serious for so long that his face had forgotten how to show any emotion other than judgment or disgust.

To her, he felt like a house buried under a pile of snow and equally as cold. Maybe there was something there, under all that snow. Something human, something that once lived and breathed, that she couldn’t see.

“You couldn’t sleep, could you?” he asked.

Sophia was genuinely shocked by his question. There was a hint of… sincerity in it. A softness, a vulnerability, a hole in the snow. It was the last thing she had expected him to say.

This is new.

She pondered her answer long enough that he followed up. “Be honest.”

“No. No, I couldn’t. I did not expect to.” She had an intuition that he could tell if she lied to him and so chose not to.

Surprisingly, Thomas remained completely quiet for a while. Then, he started talking. Softly and slowly, the flickering candlelight danced on his face.

“I can’t blame you. You probably grew up thinking you would have a romantic wedding, a union of true love—one where you’d look up to your husband and dream such grand dreams with him. A childish fantasy, born of being sheltered and spoiled.” He paused. “No endless education for you, no practicing etiquette at six in the morning, no crop at your back for not walking straight, no chance for you to embarrass the family. My brother was granted the same charmed life. And now, because of him, because of his stupid idiotic mistake, I’m stuck with you… and you are stuck?—”

He turned towards her to gauge her reaction. She squeezed her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, partly because she did not want to listen to any more insults, partly because she wanted to see if he would continue, saying things he would not say if he thought she was awake.

“Sophia…” he said softly.

She did not react.

Thomas couldn’t let her sleep there. It would be deeply improper for the lady of the house to spend the night—their wedding night—not in her private chambers but in the library.

He stood up quietly and approached her. She did seem to be fast asleep, breathing quietly, her book open on her chest. He had read it himself, and he absently wondered which part of the tale she had reached, which part had thrilled her so intensely that she had voiced her excitement.

What should I do?

She was light enough for him to carry her to her bed, but he thought long and hard about that and decided that was probably not a good idea. He could not promise that he would not be compelled to stay with her, seeking what any man would look forward to on this night of all nights, discovering what else could make her gasp and shriek with delight.

Just this once.

He took off his housecoat, leaving his torso bare, and draped it over her carefully. It was big enough for such a slight woman, only her head peeking out.

She shifted slightly in her sleep, and he flinched, thinking she had woken up. Instead, she just grabbed the edge of the housecoat and pulled it all the way to her chin.

How can you be so infuriating when you are awake but so peaceful when you are asleep? Like this, covered by my housecoat, I would not think you despise me.

Thomas felt his heart climb up his throat. He felt cold and hot at the same time, and a horrible sensation gripped his psyche. He felt… compassionate. Protective, even. Attracted, perhaps.

The feeling climbed him like a cockroach.

And he grabbed that feeling. He grabbed it, crumpled it like a piece of paper, and put it in a box deep inside him.

No.

He wouldn’t allow himself to feel that way. She hated him, and he hated her—that was the reality. That was the only truth, and he needed to accept it. He would not be led astray by a Kendall, no matter how pretty, how tempting, how intoxicating she could be. He could not afford to lose his restraint.

He braced his hands against the two armrests that hemmed her in and leaned over her. Gazing down at her, imagining things he should not, imagining her beneath him in different circumstances, he hurried to blow out the candle and the thought in one soft breath, plunging the room into blissful darkness before he retreated to his bedchamber, alone.