Sophia’s own mouth firmed with displeasure at this unexpected encounter. “I believe I have mentioned before how much I abhor your familiarity.”
He gave a rakish grin. “Oh yes, I remember only too well the set-down you gave me, when aged eighteen, I stole a kiss or two from you!”
She drew in a sharp breath at being reminded of this man’s audacity ten years ago when he came to stay for several weeks in the summer at Claybourne Park with her husband’s nephew before the two separated to attend different universities.
‘A stolen kiss or two’ which Sophia was ashamed to say she had thought of far too often during these past years…
Her mouth pursed. “I was a married woman and you—”
“And now you are not,” he murmured softly, appreciatively.
“—were nothing more than a boy taking advantage— “Sophia broke off with a frown as Sherbourne began to laugh softly. “Pray tell what is so funny in that statement?”
He gave a shake of his head. “I was almost nineteen years of age at the time, Sophia, nor had I been a ‘boy’ for some years. Since my sixteenth birthday, to be exact,” he added dryly.
“What happened on your sixteenth birthday…?” Sophia prompted softly.
He raised dark and mocking brows. “Are you sure you really wish me to tell you that?”
No, Sophia was not, and never had been sure of anything where this particular man was concerned. “Of course.” She nodded coolly.
“On your own head be it,” Sherbourne drawled. “I am not sure if you are aware, but my mother died when I was born? My father, after dutifully attending her funeral, then left his only son and heir in the care of a wet-nurse, followed by a nanny, a tutor and then boarding school, and to all intents and purposes forgot my very existence until my sixteenth birthday. Imagine my surprise when he then arranged for me to be taken up to London and placed in the arms and bed of his current mistress, for the purpose of tutoring me in all the pleasures of my own flesh as well as hers.” He gave a humourless smile. “Lessons I applied myself to diligently, I assure you, and which for the next two and half years I continued to practise as often as time and chance allowed.”
Sophia would be lying if she claimed not to be shocked by the behaviour of the previous Earl of Sherbourne. What sort of father ignored his son’s existence for sixteen years, and then only showed an interest in him in order to have him tutored in the arts of the bedchamber by his own mistress…?
Sherbourne gave another of those humourless smiles. “I trust that this explanation succeeds in assuring you that my advances towards you ten years ago were that of a man and not a boy?”
Which only succeeded in making Sophia’s memory of this man’s kisses all the more alarming! “It certainly assures me of something, Sherbourne—”
“I believe that we are now well enough acquainted, Sophia, for you to call me Dante,” he corrected challengingly.
Dante.
It was a name, which conjured up, for Sophia at least, visions of burning infernos and devils with horns and pitchforks. Unfortunately, it also brought to mind a hot, masculine and muscled chest, bared and slicked with sweat—
She shifted uncomfortably. “Your title is that of the Earl of Sherbourne,” she insisted firmly.
“Could we both now drop all pretence of formality and simply become Dante and Sophia…?”
“I think not,” she said haughtily.
“And I would rather you did not think at all in my presence, my dear Sophia.” Dante deliberately lowered his voice to a soft purr, a sensual huskiness that resulted in a scornful smile now curving the pouting temptation of Sophia’s full and delectable lips.
“No doubt that is how best you like your women, Sherbourne, but do not ever expect such subservience from me!” She eyed him derisively.
Dante had long enjoyed this verbal battle of wills with this particular woman, but hopefully, now that her year of mourning her husband was over, the battle between them would come to an end, too. To his most enjoyable—and long-awaited—satisfaction, he could only hope. And Sophia’s too, if she would but allow it.
And, no matter what she may think to the contrary, he had no wish for Sophia to be in the least subservient to him—in bed or out of it.…
Chapter Two
“Our dance, I believe, Sophia.” Dante had no intention of waiting to hear her refusal as he drew her determinedly onto the dance floor the moment the musicians began to play a waltz.
“You know perfectly well ‘we’ do not HAVE ‘a dance’!” Her eyes flashed her displeasure as she attempted to resist going into his arms. “Besides, I have already promised this dance to Lord Thorpe—”
“Then his loss is my gain.” Dante gave that gentleman a hard and dismissive glance as he approached. “Now place your hand in mine and your other hand upon my shoulder—please, Sophia!” he bit out when he knew from the light of battle in her incredible green eyes that she was about to argue further. “Everyone is watching,” he warned softly, his sigh heartfelt when she at last moved reluctantly into his arms.
Dante’s impatience, his desire for this woman, was now at such a pitch that he wished for nothing more at this moment than to whisk her out of the ballroom and up the stairs to her bedchamber above, where he would proceed to make love to her until she had no breath left with which to offer so much as a single one of the verbal set-downs she had shown him since he had dared to steal those kisses from her ten years ago.
He and Lord James Rowlands had met and become friends at the boarding school they had both attended, and as the heir to the title Duke of Claybourne, James had been more than a little put out when his uncle Simon, a man already in his fifties, had announced it was his intention to marry Lady Sophia Shelby, a young lady who was but two and twenty years old, and the beautiful and vivacious daughter of a gentleman who had been cast out of Society some years ago.
Invited to spend several weeks of the summer holidays with James at the country estate of his uncle and guardian the Duke of Claybourne, and his young and beautiful duchess, Dante had taken one look at the exquisitely beautiful Sophia Rowlands and known, that for all of his youth, he desired her in a way he never had any other woman.
A desire which had resulted in his stealing those kisses from Sophia the first time he managed to engineer a few minutes alone in her company…!
The result of his impudence had been for him to never receive another such invitation to stay at the home of James’s uncle and aunt, the only occasions upon which Dante so much as glimpsed the beautiful young duchess during the next ten years being when they attended the same social functions—Dante invariably in the company of his rakish friends, Devil and Lucifer, Sophia always on the arm of her much older husband.
The same excruciatingly painful ten years that Dante had known that he still desired Sophia Rowlands, Duchess of Clayborne, to the exclusion of all other women, and that SHE continued to look upon him as nothing more than that impudent boy.
Dante’s exclusivity of desire for Sophia had earned him the reputation of being cold and heartless in regard to the women whom, when physical desire became too much even for his legendary self-control, he occasionally bedded.
But, if the conversation he had overheard taking place a short time ago between Sophia and her two companions was a true indication of Sophia’s own needs, then it would appear that desire might shortly be appeased to everyone’s satisfaction.…
* * *
Sophia