She ought to know better. Merely because he was sinfully, heart-meltingly seductive was not sufficient reason to lose her head. Especially since she had a prime example to serve as a warning—her maid Martha. At least she now understood how easily Martha had succumbed to seduction and become a fallen woman. The girl had confessed to being so overwhelmed by desire, she simply couldn’t help herself.
Sophie couldn’t help herself either at the moment. Not when Lord Jack stirred such passionate, heart-pounding desire inside her.
“I promised myself I would never let you kiss me again.…” she said in a low rasp.
“Why not?”
“You know why. Because it could never lead anywhere—or at least nowhere good.”
“But you cannot deny what you feel. You will never know that kind of fire with your duke, I’ll lay money on it.”
His assertion unsettled her because she knew it was true. She wanted to marry for love. She wanted to know passion in her marriage bed. And yet her wishes couldn’t be allowed to matter. Despite the seductive notion that Lord Jack could be her ideal match. Despite the fact that she had far more in common with him than with the much older Duke of Dunmore.
As Sophie argued silently with herself, Lord Jack’s thumb stroked her cheekbone.
“I want to spend time with you, beauty,” he reiterated. “Given your father’s bias against me, though, I cannot even call on you. I would never be allowed within a half mile of you.”
“No, you would give him apoplexy,” she answered with a faint smile. She couldn’t let her father find out that she even knew Lord Jack, let alone succumbed to his scorching kisses.
“When does your aunt’s house party begin?” he suddenly asked.
Sophie blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “On Tuesday. We are to leave that morning for her house in the country.”
“Only three days,” he murmured. “What engagements do you have tonight? And for the next several days?”
“Why do you wish to know?”
“I’ll have to contrive to meet you somehow.”
His declaration set alarm bells ringing in her head. “I cannot conduct a liaison behind my parents’ back.”
“Well, I’ll be damned if I will sneak around. It isn’t my style. And we are running out of time. Your aunt’s house party complicates matters decidedly.”
“I don’t like to sneak about either,” Sophie replied sincerely. “But we cannot tryst in secret.”
“You’ve done it before with your maid. In fact, you are doing it right now. Why not with me?”
“That is different. Martha needs me.”
“Your future happiness could depend upon it,” Lord Jack insisted.
Her parents’ future happiness definitely depended upon it, Sophie thought regretfully. She didn’t trust herself to indulge in a covert affair with Lord Jack. With his beguiling appeal, it would be too dangerous. She would enjoy his company far too much and be tempted to break off with the duke, and then all her parents’ hopes would be shattered.
Steeling herself, Sophie slowly shook her head. She had never met anyone like Lord Jack … so full of life, so much larger than life. It stood to reason that she would have few defenses against him. But she absolutely had to get over her fascination with him so she could do her duty.
Apparently he saw her gesture as a rejection, for he took yet another tack. “What if I were to threaten to expose your visits here? Would you agree to see me then?”
She gazed blankly up at him. “Are you thinking of blackmailing me?”
“How else am I to gain any leverage over you?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. Raising her hands to his chest, Sophie pushed him away while struggling to regain her shaken equilibrium.
As she restored her bonnet to its proper position and tied the ribbons, she countered with her own threat. “In the first place, you cannot expose my secrets unless you want me to expose your own. You don’t want anyone knowing of your patronage here, remember?”
His eyes filled with reluctant amusement as she continued. “And in the second, I don’t believe you would stoop so low. The kind of man who supports a shelter for needy mothers would not resort to blackmail.”
“Would I not?”