Sophie worried her lower lip, with her small white teeth, eyes anxious. “I’m sorry, Patrick. Mama was quite insistent about it.” There was a moment’s silence. “Perhaps we could simply think of this particular idea as akin to milk baths and bitters?”

For a moment his heart beat a surprised Yes! “We’d better not,” he said heavily. “After all, it’s only once. I can survive.”

Sophie bit her lip before she admitted that she couldn’t survive.

“Well,” Patrick said with a sigh, “I’ll be off to my lonely bed.”

Sophie stood up so quickly that she almost knocked over her stool.

“Would you—perhaps you could sleep here,” she said in a rush. “We could just sleep together.” When Patrick didn’t answer immediately, hot embarrassment flooded up her face.

He moved a step closer. “Sophie,” he said, “you don’t understand, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Sophie, my love, look at the front of my breeches for a moment.”

Obediently, Sophie looked. He was wearing the skintight breeches demanded by fashion. Instantly her eyes dropped and her flush deepened.

“I can’t sleep next to you, Sophie, because I wouldn’t sleep a wink. Instead I will lie over there”—he nodded toward the door that connected their two rooms—”and wrestle with an urge to break down the door. If I were sleeping with you I would probably ravish you in my sleep, I want you so much.”

Sophie grinned. Never mind the fact that Patrick sometimes spent an evening with his mistress. It seemed he wasn’t altogether bored with her body yet.

“God!” Patrick half whispered, looking at the honey silk of his wife’s disheveled hair, the sultry smile in her eyes, the rosy beauty of her fading blush. “I’d better leave now.” He snapped around and slammed the door behind him.

Left standing alone in the bedchamber, Sophie broke into a fit of giggles. She hugged her rounded tummy, swinging in a lopsided circle. He wanted her! He still wanted her!

As a lady’s maid Patrick left a good deal to be desired. He may have uncoiled her hair, but he had left intact the hooks running down her back. Giddy with delight, Sophie rang the bell for Simone.

Down in the kitchen Simone registered the ringing bell with a disgruntled frown. Danged if she’d ever understand the ways of the gentry. In the bed, out of the bed. It was a new story every week. With a sigh, she began trudging up the back stairs.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

You may not stop,” Braddon insisted, with a note of panic in his voice. “Why on earth not, Braddon? Madeleine was an undoubted success last night, and I can’t think of anything else that I might teach her.” Sophie unfurled her parasol. Braddon had picked her up in his phaeton, and the sun was entering the carriage at a slant.