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  East wondered at his blunder. It was precisely the sort of misstep that could bring negotiations to a complete halt. He was too clever to make these mistakes when dealing with ambassadors and foreign consuls. He had indeed lost his balance with Sophie. The feeling that the whole of the world was listing to one side never left him when he was talking to her. He cocked his head in an effort to right things to the perpendicular once more. "You were permitted to waltz?"

  Sophie nodded.

  "And were you as accomplished as I might expect?" He saw her avert her gaze just for a moment. "Never say you trod upon the poor fellow's toes. Or worse, that he trod upon yours."

  "No. He was a practiced partner. I was not his equal, but he was kind and did not draw attention to my lack of skill."

  Eastlyn watched her eyes slide away again. The movement was almost imperceptible, but he was seasoned in looking for just such things. The slightest shifting could denote deceit. It might warn of a truth only partially told or mean that a lie had settled unpleasantly on the tip of a tongue. He was not certain what it meant in Sophie's case, only that it did not bode well. He let her go on.

  "We did not have more than a few polite exchanges during the waltz," Sophie told him. "It seemed to me that he was not of a mood to talk. For my part... Well, for my part I only wanted to look at him. That is what Lady Dunsmore told me afterward, and I cannot say that she was wrong. If it is possible to embarrass someone with adoration, then that is what I did to this poor gentleman. It must have been very uncomfortable for him because he left soon afterward and was careful not to look in my direction."

  "I cannot believe anyone would be discomfited by your adoration, Sophie."

  "Bored, then. He might not have been as uncomfortable as he was bored. He was only doing his duty, you see. I was naught but an obligation. I do not attach any blame to him for wanting to see the last of me, but I would not want to be his obligation again."

  Eastlyn had the feeling return that she was saying rather more than her words would strictly suggest. For all that Sophie thought he was clever at coming to the meaning beneath the surface, he knew himself to be drowning now. "Have you had occasion to meet him since?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  "I was careful not to give him disgust of me."

  "By saying little or nothing at all?" East asked. "That was her ladyship's suggestion, I take it."

  "It seemed a good choice. The proof that I acted improperly on the occasion of our first introduction was borne out when he never mentioned it. For many weeks after that second encounter, I thought he meant only to spare my feelings, so openly had I worn them on my sleeve, but then I became aware that he did not speak of our first meeting because he did not recall it."

  Eastlyn frowned. "He did not recall... How is that possible?"

  "It seems I made that little of an impression upon him." She snapped her fingers to emphasize the insignificance of that initial meeting. "You will admit that it is lowering to arrive at such a conclusion."

  "Mayhap you are wrong."

  "No. I am quite convinced of it."

  "I cannot conceive of such a thing."

  "Yes," she said. "I collect that is so."

  East merely shook his head. "This experience at Almack's... It was the reason you were so reticent to engage in conversation with me at Lady Stafford's?"

  "Stanhope."

  "Forgive me. At Lady Stanhope's."

  "After Almack's, Lady Dunsmore always urged caution. I believe she lived in perpetual dread that I would make a cake of myself with any man who showed the least interest in my company."

  "I wish you had not been so agreeable to her ladyship's instruction. I would have been pleased to have even a small measure of your adoration."

  Sophie laughed. "No, you would have found it as tedious as my conversation."

  "Well, there you have me. My recollection is that our conversation was excessively dull."

  "Then I must judge it a success, for that was certainly my intent."

  East's mouth twisted wryly as he took measure of the lift of her chin. There was a stubborn sort of pride there in the set of her shoulders and the angle of her head. "You might well judge it otherwise," he said quietly, "when I tell how that dreary conversation set the course of all that followed."

  The animation that had brightened Sophie's eyes vanished from her features. Her lush mouth flattened, and her chin fell. "What do you mean?"

  So he told her. If he had felt an absence of pride in recounting the story to his mother, he now had self-loathing to fill the void. He chose his words with care, not to make his actions seem less objectionable, but to spare her what he could. He explained how he had spoken unkindly of her to his mistress, all in want of avoiding a discussion of marriage. He only had to provide a few details after that, for Sophie quickly divined how things had proceeded from there.

  "I wondered why I was chosen among so many women to have my name linked to yours." She smiled, but the line of it was rueful and a bit mocking. "I came to Mrs. Sawyer's attention for possessing none of the virtues you would find agreeable in a wife. The irony of it makes me a little dizzy. Had I not been so determinedly dull at the Stanhope recital mayhap you would not have come to be so fixed on the idea of marrying me now."

  Sophie regarded East steadily. A muscle jumped in his cheek as his jaw tightened, and she realized he was bracing himself as though for a blow. "Do you think I mean to set the blame with you?"

  "You should."

  "Your sister says that you are never blamed but always responsible." The memory of her conversation with Cara Trumbull made her smile a trifle wistful. "I do not think I understood it then. I do now." She reached across the table and laid her hand over East's. "I am of no mind to blame you. I have some part in this also. However, if we take so much upon ourselves, what is left for Mrs. Sawyer? She certainly deserves some reproof for her actions."

  Sophie withdrew her hand and stood, her manner brisk. "I believe I would like some tea. I have a few fingers of whiskey here if you would prefer it."

  "Whiskey."

  She nodded. "I shall see to it." She began to walk past him and felt her arm caught. East's grip was light at first, so light that she might have pulled away from it easily. She did not. The chair scraped against the floor as he angled it away from the table. Only the slightest tug was necessary to bring her onto his lap.

  "In a moment," he said. Her face was very near his, and his eyes made a study of her mouth until her lips parted to draw a small, unsettled breath. He closed the distance between them slowly, giving her ample time to turn her head or scramble to her feet. She did neither.

  The kiss was sweetly languorous. The unhurried nature of it reminded Sophie that Eastlyn meant to win her surrender by the slow erosion of her defenses. His only mistake was in thinking it would take so long.

  She let her head come to rest in the crook of his neck when he drew back. "There should be certain rules between us," she said softly.

  "Rules of conduct, you mean?"

  "Rules of warfare."

  "I see." He turned his head slightly and kissed her smooth brow. "There are really very few of those, Sophie. It is all about gaining an advantage, you see, and acquitting oneself honorably. Advantages may be achieved in many different ways: the number of men; their positioning; the element of surprise; the swiftness of the dispatches; and the efficacy of the weapons. Will your fears be quieted if I promise not to draw my pistol?"

  "I should like it better if you promised not to kiss me."

  "I would be very foolish if I were to make that concession."

  "Then you should not kiss me so well."

  "I must acquit myself honorably, remember?"

  Sighing, Sophie raised her head. "It isn't fair that you should have all the advantages."

  He grinned. "You only think it because you haven't yet taken stock of your own weapons." East set her from him. "I will take that whiskey now," he said.

  A trifl
e dazed by the abruptness of his dismissal, Sophie went to the front room. She could still feel the pressure of his erection against her hip. It seemed to her that Eastlyn's promise not to draw his pistol had been hastily given.

  Chapter 11

  Eastlyn did not go to Sophie's room that first night in Clovelly, nor she to his. Without a word passing between them they negotiated an agreement to govern how they meant to go on. He slept on a narrow cot in the room where Sophie wrote during the day; she stayed in the room across the hall, her door closed but never locked. There was mutual respect for the privacy of the other, and they were careful not to lapse into casual intimacy abovestairs. He did not play the lady's maid for her, and she did not assist him with his neckcloth. She did not approach him when he was bathing, and he left the house when she drew water for herself.

  They stepped carefully at first, conscious of manner and conversation. In those first days following East's arrival, more reserve and restraint was practiced, rather than less. They spoke of things inconsequential and important, but there were subjects that were not broached because the peace between them was too fragile. Over the course of a sennight they fell into a routine that, while not entirely comfortable, served them well enough not to be challenged.

  Sophie was the first to rise each morning. East would lie abed and wait for the sounds of her being sick to pass before he set his feet to the floor. When he arrived downstairs, he would find her sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and nibbling on a biscuit, her complexion pale, but her smile firmly in place. He did not mention that he had heard her distress, and she did not share that she had experienced any.

  They walked after breakfast, exploring High Street all the way to the cove, sometimes sitting on the stone pier to watch the fleet of fishing boats managing their catch or making their way across the water. East doubted that anyone who saw them together believed they were brother and sister, least of all the woman Sophie had hired to help her with house chores, yet he did not disabuse Sophie of the notion that her stratagem was working. It seemed to him that telling her they were found out was the surest way to get himself ejected from her home. To that end he tolerated the disapproving glances Mrs. Randolph slid in his direction when Sophie was gone from the room, and he answered to the name Mr. Tinker when he was greeted by the grooms at the livery or by the fishermen at the pier.

  They went to church together on Christmas Day and exchanged gifts when they returned. East gave Sophie a Paisley shawl that had many of the warm honey hues of her eyes; she presented him with a pair of leather riding gloves. They admired their gifts, pronouncing them the very right thing, and then fell into the first awkward silence they had shared since East's arrival.

  It lasted two days.

  Sophie did not think she could bear the estrangement, yet she had no idea how to make it right. It had come about so suddenly that at first she couldn't comprehend the truth of it. It was not that they didn't speak, but that there was no ease in it. This was much more than the reticence of those first days when they meant to step cautiously. This was clumsy and tense, not done of a purpose, but because they could not seem to help themselves, and the distance of conversation became a physical separation as well, one that she never felt so keenly as when they were occupying the same room.

  Now she watched East set aside the book he was holding without marking his place and realized he had done very little reading. She followed the movement of his hand as he put three fingers to his left temple and massaged lightly, closing his eyes against the bright, flickering light of the fireplace. "You are unwell?" She frowned when she saw the line of tension around his mouth and the hard set of his jaw. "Is it a megrim?"

  Eastlyn opened his eyes and winced slightly as he was confronted with the firelight. He tried to relax his jaw, working it gently from side to side to relieve the pressure that was building steadily in his head. "Pray, do not concern yourself. It will pass."

  Sophie was certain that it would but not without a great deal of suffering first. "Will you allow me to bring the physician? He does not live far, and I'm certain—" She stopped because East was causing himself considerable distress by shaking his head. "Very well. Then may I prepare you something? Tea?"

  "Nothing." He was too nauseated now to eat or drink.

  Sophie set her sewing in the basket and stood. "Won't you sit here, then? It will at least remove you from the direct light."

  East accepted this proposal, not so far gone into his pain that he could not see the sense of it. He took Sophie's seat, pushing himself into the corner of the sofa so that he could stretch his long legs on a diagonal before him. Tipping his head back slightly, he closed his eyes again. "Do not hover. It is most unpleasant."

  Sophie took a step backward, but she didn't sit.

  "You're still hovering."

  She dropped into the chair he had occupied.

  "Now you are staring."

  "You can't know that. You haven't opened your eyes."

  "I don't have to. Some things I know."

  Sighing, Sophie shifted her glance away from his pale and rigid features. "Do you take laudanum?"

  "Infrequently. I hope you do not wish to ladle that down my throat."

  "No, I do not." She picked up her sewing basket and placed it on her lap. "But I also have no wish to see you suffer."

  "Then you may quit this room and go to your own." Even to his own ears his tone was untempered by humor. He roused himself enough to look at Sophie. Her head was bent, and she was searching the contents of her basket, yet the manner of her search was so scattered he knew the effort was a false one. "I apologize. That was badly done of me."

  Sophie glanced up. "I took no mind of it."

  East found a soft grunt was sufficient to communicate his disbelief.

  "Well, it is truer perhaps that I took little mind of it. You are only half as disagreeable as Abigail when she is similarly afflicted."

  East might have smiled if the effort would not have cost him dearly. "Dare I hope there is some small compliment there for me?"

  "A very small one." She bent to her task again, this time looking with the purpose that had been absent before. She found her needle caught in the fabric of her own gown instead of the one she was repairing. Holding it up to the lamplight, she threaded it and resumed her work. "Lady Dunsmore takes to her bed immediately," she said, "and has the curtains drawn around it. She cannot bear for there to be any noise." Sophie glimpsed the faint, mocking smile East cast in her direction. "Oh. Of course. I will endeavor to be quiet."

  East could not say whether minutes or hours passed before he heard her voice again. This time it came to him as if from a long way off, the timbre of it soft and slightly hollow. It seemed to him that he was at one end of a tunnel or at the bottom of a well, and that she was calling to him from outside that place. He went to her willingly and sensed that he was in the right for doing so because she lavished him with praise and tender ministrations.

  It was still dark when he woke, and several long moments passed before he could make sense of his surroundings. The fireplace was on the wrong side of the room, and the curtains were not drawn across the window. His room had only one chair, and now he counted two. There was also a table here, and he had none. Sophie's writing desk was gone, and where he might have expected to find it, he found an armoire instead.

  This was not his bed, and he was not alone in it.

  Sophie felt East's head stir on her lap. She recognized the transition from a sleepy shifting of his body to full awareness by the return of tension to his shoulders. She let her fingers trail lightly across the back of his neck. "You're awake."

  "I seem to be."

  "And your megrim?"

  East had to concentrate on what he was being asked. He was no longer certain of the proper attachment of his head. "My megrim?"

  Sophie's fingers stilled. "You don't remember?"

  "I'm not... No, I don't remember." He started to sit up, but she pressed him down, p
lacing her palm firmly at the back of his head. "Bloody hell."

  Darkness hid Sophie's sympathetic smile. "For the moment you shall have to surrender to me. My strength is superior to yours." Her fingers sifted through the hair at his nape, and she felt his cheek press more heavily against her thigh as he relaxed. "Does it happen often that you cannot recall the attacks?"

  "Not often. Usually there are signs when one is imminent, and I can do certain things to forestall it or lessen the impact. The worst of them, like this one, come with no warning, and I count myself fortunate not to drop to my knees." He tried to catch a glimpse of her face. "Or did I?"

  "No. I should not have managed you on the stairs if that had been the case. You did look as if you might slide from the sofa, though, and that is why I thought it prudent to make other arrangements. You will have noticed this is not your room."

  "I did," he said. "I wondered if you had."

  Whatever pain his sore head still caused him, Sophie thought, he had not entirely lost his wry humor. "It was not entirely for your comfort that I brought you here. I was thinking of my own."

  "You did not have to sit with me."

  "You asked me not to leave," she told him. "But you mustn't think I was persuaded by that pitiful plea. I hope you know me well enough to comprehend that I make my own choices."

  East had no doubt this last was true. "Was I truly pitiful?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "And you weren't moved?"

  "Not in the least."

  He smiled. "Does it give you pleasure to pretend your heart is so hardened toward me?"

  She ignored the question. "I think you are feeling more the thing."

  "I believe I must be." He could not help but notice that she did not move or suggest that he do so. Her fingers continued to sift through his hair, the manner of it so idly done that he was tempted to acquit her of all knowledge of it. "I remember sitting with you belowstairs," he said quietly. "You were sewing."

  "Yes. And you were reading."

  "Was I?"

  "Hmm. Life of Nelson."

  He could recall the book, though whether he knew it from previous reading or what he had accomplished that evening was unclear. "Did I say anything for which I must beg your forgiveness?"