He blinked. “No. That is, I wanted to say how sorry I am about the scene in the Townsends’ garden so many years ago.”
A dull ache started up near her heart and she felt her color rising under his warm gaze.
Drat the man. She wasn’t that young girl anymore. She’d withstood the disgrace. She’d weathered the whispers. The past mustn’t matter. It was the present that must concern her.
“Apology accepted.” As she pushed by, he snatched her hand and the hard planes of his face softened.
“Thank you. I’ve always been ashamed I didn’t—”
“What? Confront Glanford?” She inched away, catching her breath as a branch poked her back.
“Defend you. Especially after I heard your father had just—”
“Stop.” She yanked her hand away and fought a surge of tears. For months she’d grieved Papa’s death and her miserable marriage. Her boys had saved her, and now she must save them. Noble they might be, like their father, but they’d have the good sense of common Englishmen.
Glanford had run through Papa’s hard-earned money at a dizzying pace and then somehow got his hands on her dower and Ben’s trust as well. If Papa had lived… But he hadn’t. And now she had only the boys’ guardian to help her, a man who wouldn’t answer her letters or speak to her.
“You have no need to take on my husband’s shame.” She gritted her teeth. “On the other hand, there’s the matter of your brother’s.”
His mouth turned down into a guarded frown. “He’s dishonored you?”
“Dishonored?” She blinked. Then scoffed. “Dishonored me? Fitz? No, he hasn’t dishonored me in that way.” Her hands curled into fists as she struggled for breath. “He’s been dishonorable in other ways. He’s dishonored his duty, to my sons. Fitz…Fitz is like Glanford. A…a ramshackle, cork-brained booby.”
His gaze narrowed on her, his lips firming into a white line. Indignation or anger?
At her?
She straightened her spine. Good. The stinger had hit home. He was too much the gentleman to strike her, but he’d defend his beastly brother. Didn’t she always tell her own sons to stand together?
“My brother,” he said in a tight voice, “lost his wife and newborn son. He’s not been the same since.”
And what of my boys?
She eased in a breath. “Yes. One must have an excuse.”
His eyes sparked. “He did love her. I’ve watched him struggle with the loss of a beloved spouse, just as my mother is struggling. Neither of us knows what that’s like.”
Her throat thickened again, her cheeks heating. “Touché, Mr. Lovelace.” She held his gaze, trying to master her rising anger. “However, we both know what it is to lose a parent. Surprising it might be, but my boys, like your brothers, loved their father. But they don’t have four older brothers to rely upon. They have only me, and a guardian who is a malingering shirker.”
She stepped to the side and he matched her, grasping her shoulders.
“You’re angry.” His voice shook, low and dangerous, and he tugged her into an embrace, her ear pressed to his pounding heart. “You’re not in this alone. I will help you.”
His hand smoothed along her back, stirring his words into mayhem within her. She wasn’t alone? He would help her? What was the cost? There was always a cost.
Would she mind paying it?
She lifted her head and stared up at him. “How?”
His gaze sent heat unfurling in tiny bursts along her skin, drawing her lips like a magnet.
A man has to make some effort. What does my pup of a brother know about bed sport? Lovelace had learned something over the years. He stirred her with no more than his essence and an effortless look.
It was intoxicating. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind… Oh.
His lips touched hers, and she yielded, head spinning, nerves heating and firing, heart pounding out of her chest. She bumped the stone wall, and he spun them around, bracing himself there and pulling her into him.
Her fingers threaded his thick hair and knocked off his hat, while she drowned in the feel of his hands sliding under her cloak, over her back, her breasts, her bottom. Pleasure flooded her, heady and potent, like nothing she’d ever felt before.
She heard herself moan, and he lifted his head.
“Sophie?” He whispered the question, his eyes dark as midnight.
She blinked, still befuddled. What was he asking?
The corner of his lip quirked, and he found a spot on her neck. His warm kiss sent shivers through her.
“Yes,” she said. Yes, yes, yes. Don’t stop.
Eyes glittering, he smiled and drew her impossibly, close, their hearts beating together. Abandoning her lips, he dropped kisses along her cheek, paused to savor her neck and moved on to the top of her bodice.
Her hand traveled over his wide shoulders and firm chest and down to his trousers until she felt the hard length of him.
And he froze.
“Shhh,” George said, more to his own pounding heart than to Lady Glanford. He’d heard a noise. They must take this somewhere more private.
Her bedchamber or his? She had a maid—so, his. Could they get past the gauntlet of family and servants? Could they stay there all night without being discovered?
A sound drifted again through the dense air: crunching footsteps, giggling, boys’ voices.
Sophie lifted her head and looked over her shoulder. “Oh dear.”
Gad, if the boys had discovered them… “We’re well-hidden,” he murmured.
She nodded and looked away. “I…I shouldn’t have allowed that. Not that you seemed to have minded.”
“Nor you, Sophie. May I call you that?”
She lifted a shoulder. “That was…well, I thank you, but we mustn’t go down this path again, Mr. Lovelace.”
“Call me George. You call my brother by his Christian name.”
“Only because he visited Glanford so often. I…I have to think of the boys.”
They would go down this path again. He’d make certain of it.
He set her back from him, straightened her bonnet and returned to the lane to fetch his own hat.
A hard mass of snow smacked his cheek like an icy cudgel and he heard Sophie’s gasp.
“Get back, Sophie.” He clamped his hat on. “Boys. Let Lady Glanford pass in peace.”
Loud giggling drifted through the dense air. Snow pelted his forehead knocking his hat askew.
Sophie’s cloak brushed him in passing. She ducked, scooping up great handfuls of snow. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she shouted.
A blizzard exploded against her red cloak. She launched her volleys in rapid succession, and a shriek pierced the air.
“You rapscallions won’t win this,” she taunted.
Another snowball struck the side of her head, and she gasped, laughing.
“Let the lady pass.” George swooped her behind a bush. “I’ve spotted four of them. I fear my brothers are corrupting your sons.”
“Nonsense.” She righted herself and scooped up more snow. “Artie and Ben love a good snowball fight. Come, George. We shall make a good team.”
He and Sophie, a team?
He laughed. “You’ll regret this, boys.”