Malcolm nodded again, and this time his eyes didn’t brush hers. “I hadn’t realized you were married,” he said slowly.
“I try to keep my personal life private,” Archer said, dropping back down beside her. His weight on the feather cushion made her tilt toward him, but she wasn’t about to put her hands on him to stop herself. He caught her arms with casual possessiveness. “Darling, are you all right?”
Sophie withheld her instinctive growl. So Archer wanted an ornamental idiot for a wife. Why had he brought her downstairs to play this charade in front of the newcomer? Gunnison wasn’t his usual man bait.
But she knew the answer was breathtakingly simple and nothing new: Archer liked games.
“I’m fine,” she said, gazing up at him adoringly. If he wanted a bimbo, she could play one.
Archer slid his arm around her, and she hoped to God he couldn’t feel her skin crawl at his nearness. He nuzzled her neck, and his teeth grazed her carotid artery, an act that years ago had driven her mad with excitement when they’d fucked.
Now she wanted to throw up. She held very still, and then, unbidden, her eyes met Malcolm’s.
He was watching the two of them with an enigmatic expression on his face, and all her Spidey senses went into overdrive. Not from the psychopath nuzzling her neck, but from the elegant stranger. She knew she should turn into Archer’s embrace, but there were limits to her own endurance, so determined to be stoic, she let him kiss her neck and tried to turn her gaze away from the stranger.
She couldn’t. She was caught by his face, mesmerized, though she couldn’t begin to read his thoughts. She had been so good at that in the past, recognizing tells, intuiting people’s thoughts beneath their surface demeanor. For a moment she wondered whether she’d lost that ability during her years of captivity or if this man was particularly opaque. But since she was having no trouble with other people, she decided this man had defenses so powerful even she couldn’t get through them. That meant his training was better than hers.
No wonder she felt the danger. She stopped trying to look away, meeting his gaze steadily as Archer slobbered on her neck. She shivered, which Archer took for encouragement and sexual excitement, and his hand reached down the low front of her dress for her breast, squeezing painfully.
Malcolm’s eyes dropped to that hand, and Sophie pulled back, the strange tie broken. She caught Archer’s delving hand with hers, pulling at it with gentle pressure. “Archer, we have company,” she said plaintively.
He leaned back, and she saw he had a noticeable erection beneath his expensive trousers, and the nausea came back again. She’d assumed he’d never touch her again, at least not sexually, preferring more nubile partners for his particular brand of kink. If he came to her room later she wasn’t sure what she would do.
Archer grinned, his long teeth flashing. “Oh, I think Malcolm recognizes how irresistible you are.”
Malcolm said nothing, and Sophie’s eyes met his for a moment. There was nothing there. “I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he said in that polite British voice.
To Sophie’s relief Archer pushed off the overstuffed sofa, stretching. He had bulked up, she noticed, with wider shoulders and arms. He looked a little top heavy, but still traditionally gorgeous, far more so than Malcolm Gunnison. So what was it about him that made her want to stare at the newcomer?
“Oh, we’re a long-married couple, aren’t we, baby?” Archer said with his winning smile. “Plenty of time for that. I think dinner should be ready.” He glanced down at her. “Sophie, are you joining us?”
What the hell game was he playing? She was sitting on the sofa, her wheelchair out of sight. Did he expect her to flop on the floor and crawl into the vast dining room? Or was Archer expecting her to decline the invitation? But why?
Who knew why Archer did anything? She smiled up at him. “I’m famished,” she said.
A brief expression danced across his guileless blue eyes, and she wondered if he didn’t want Gunnison to know she was crippled. Too bad for Archer’s plans, though she would probably pay for it later.
“Joe,” Archer called, not hesitating, and a moment later Joe appeared, pushing the wheelchair.
Gunnison’s expression didn’t change—he was that good. Any normal human being would have reacted, which told Sophie that their newcomer was far from an average human being, and despite her misgivings she felt a grudging admiration for him. But then, what use would Archer have for someone with normal reactions, like empathy?
Archer put his arm around Gunnison’s shoulder in a friendly gesture. “I think you’ll like what I’ve planned. Once we finish dinner Sophie will go to bed—she tires easily, as you can imagine.”
Joe scooped her up carefully and set her in the chair, and she redistributed her long skirts over her legs before pulling up the neckline that Archer had been pawing at. Her husband watched Gunnison carefully. At least that answered one question: He’d wanted to see Gunnison’s reaction to her condition. His lack thereof had established him as someone cold-blooded enough to work with.
Which didn’t mean that Archer was happy with her, but that was no particular problem. She’d learned to disassociate from pain in the first year, when relief was doled out sparingly as part
of Archer’s torment. She could take anything he could do to her.
She rolled herself into the dining room. Archer and Malcolm were already seated, talking in low voices when she came in, and Archer lifted his head to give her his deceptively welcoming smile. “There you are, darling! What took you so long?”
She wanted to snap, “What do you think?” but good sense kept her silent. To her surprise Malcolm immediately rose to his feet when she entered the room.
“Oh, Lord, you Brits have such good manners,” Archer complained good-naturedly, following suit. “I promise you, Sophie doesn’t give a damn if you stand up when she rolls into a room. Do you, darling?”
Sophie maneuvered herself to the remaining place at the table, on Archer’s left, directly across from Malcolm. “It’s very nice,” she murmured, earning herself another bit of displeasure. She lifted her head to look at Malcolm, smiling at him.
No reaction as he reseated himself. Well, screw him, she thought. It wasn’t as if good manners meant he was on her side. He’d probably be just as happy to slip a knife between her ribs as Archer. No, scratch that. Archer would do it with pleasure—Malcolm simply wouldn’t care. He was a man with no emotions, no feelings, as far as she could see.