An Offer From a Gentleman (Cinderella) novel Chapter 40

He leaned against the fence, his posture deceptively lazy. “That’s a custom, isn’t it, to share frocks with one’s maid?”

Sophie nodded. “When one is through with them, of course. No one would give a new frock away.”

“I see.”

Sophie eyed him suspiciously, wondering why on earth he cared about the status of her new dress.

“Didn’t you want to go inside?” he inquired.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“Why would you think I’m up to anything?”

Her lips pursed before she said, “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t up to something.”

He smiled at that. “I do believe that was a compliment.”

“It wasn’t necessarily intended as such.”

“But nonetheless,” he said mildly, “that’s how I choose to take it.”

She wasn’t sure how best to respond, so she said nothing. She also didn’t move toward the door. She wasn’t sure why, since she’d been quite vocal about her desire to be alone. But what she said and what she felt weren’t always one and the same. In her heart she longed for this man, dreamed of a life that could never be.

She shouldn’t be so angry with him. He shouldn’t have forced her against her wishes to come to London, that was true, but she couldn’t fault him for offering her a position as his mistress. He had done what any man in his position would have done. Sophie had no illusions about her place in London society. She was a maid. A servant. And the only thing that separated her from other maids and servants was that she’d had a taste of luxury as a child. She’d been reared gently, if without love, and the experience had shaped her ideals and values. Now she was forever stuck between two worlds, with no clear place in either.

“You look very serious,” he said quietly.

Sophie heard him, but she couldn’t quite break herself from her thoughts.

Benedict stepped forward. He reached out to touch her chin, then checked himself. There was something untouchable about her just then, something unreachable. “I can’t bear it when you look so sad,” he said, surprised by his own words. He hadn’t intended to say anything; it had just slipped out.

She looked up at that. “I’m not sad.”

He gave his head the tiniest shake. “There’s a sorrow deep in your eyes. It’s rarely gone.”

Her hand flew to her face, as if she could actually touch that sorrow, as if it were solid, something that could be massaged away.

Benedict took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I wish you would share your secrets with me.”

“I have no—”

“Don’t lie,” he cut in, his tone harsher than he’d intended. “You have more secrets than any woman I’ve—” He broke off, a sudden image of the woman from the masquerade flashing through his mind. “More than almost any woman I’ve known,” he finished.

Her eyes met his for the briefest of seconds, and then she looked away. “There is nothing wrong with secrets. If I choose—”

“Your secrets are eating you alive,” he said sharply. He didn’t want to stand there and listen to her excuses, and his frustration gnawed at his patience. “You have the opportunity to change your life, to reach out and grasp happiness, and yet you won’t do it.”

“I can’t,” she said, and the pain in her voice nearly unmanned him.

“Nonsense,” he said. “You can do anything you choose. You just don’t want to.”

“Don’t make this harder than it already is,” she whispered.

When she said that, something snapped inside of him. He felt it palpably, a strange popping sensation that released a rush of blood, feeding the frustrated anger that had been simmering inside of him for days. “You think it’s not hard?” he asked. “You think it’s not hard?”

“I didn’t say that!”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her body against his, so she could see for herself just how hard he was. “I burn for you,” he said, his lips touching her ear. “Every night, I lie in bed, thinking of you, wondering why the hell you’re here with my mother, of all people, and not with me.”

“I didn’t want—”

“You don’t know what you want,” he cut in. It was a cruel statement, condescending in the extreme, but he was beyond caring. She’d wounded him in a way he hadn’t even known was possible, with a power he’d never dreamed she possessed. She’d chosen a life of drudgery over a life with him, and now he was doomed to see her almost every day, to see her and taste her and smell her just enough to keep his desire sharp and strong.

It was his own fault, of course. He could have let her stay in the country, could have saved himself this wrenching torture. But he’d surprised even himself by insisting that she come to London. It was odd, and he was almost afraid to analyze what it meant, but he needed to know that she was safe and protected more than he needed her for himself.

She said his name, but her voice was laced with longing, and he knew that she was not indifferent to him. She might not fully understand what it meant to want a man, but she wanted him all the same.

He captured her mouth with his, swearing to himself as he did so that if she said no, if she made any sort of indication that she didn’t want this, he’d stop. It’d be the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he would do it.

But she didn’t say no, and she didn’t push against him or struggle or squirm. Instead, she positively melted into him, her hands twining in his hair as her lips parted beneath his. He didn’t know why she’d suddenly decided to let him kiss her—no, to kiss him—but he wasn’t about to lift his lips from hers to wonder why.

He seized the moment, tasting her, drinking her, breathing her. He was no longer quite so confident that he would be able to convince her to become his mistress, and it was suddenly imperative that this kiss be more than just a kiss. It might have to last him a lifetime.

He kissed her with renewed vigor, pushing away the niggling voice in his head, telling him that he’d been here, done this before. Two years earlier he’d danced with a woman, kissed her, and she’d told him that he’d have to pack a lifetime into a single kiss.

He’d been overconfident then; he hadn’t believed her. And he’d lost her, maybe lost everything. He certainly hadn’t met anyone since with whom he could even imagine building a life.

Until Sophie.

Unlike the lady in silver, she wasn’t someone he could hope to marry, but also unlike the lady in silver, she was here.

And he wasn’t going to let her get away.

She was here, with him, and she felt like heaven. The soft scent of her hair, the slight taste of salt on her skin—she was, he thought, born to rest in the shelter of his arms. And he was born to hold her.

“Come home with me,” he whispered in her ear.

She said nothing, but he felt her stiffen.

“Come home with me,” he repeated.

“I can’t,” she said, the breath of each word whispering across his skin.

“You can.”

She shook her head, but she didn’t pull away, so he took advantage of the moment and brought his lips to hers one more time. His tongue darted in, exploring the warm recesses of her mouth, tasting the very essence of her. His hand found the swell of her breast and he squeezed gently, his breath catching as he felt her pucker beneath him. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to feel her skin, not the fabric of her dress.

But this was not the place. They were in his mother’s garden, for God’s sake. Anyone could come across them, and to be frank, if he hadn’t pulled her into the alcove right by the door, anyone could have seen them. It was the sort of thing that could cause Sophie to lose her job.

Maybe he should be pulling her out into the open, where all the world would see, because then she’d be on her own again, and she’d have no choice but to be his mistress.

Which was, he reminded himself, what he wanted.

But it occurred to him—and frankly, he was rather surprised he had the presenc

e of mind at such a moment for anything to occur to him—that part of the reason he cared so much for her was her remarkably solid and unflinching sense of herself. She knew who she was, and unfortunately for him, that person didn’t stray from the bounds of respectable society.

If he ruined her so publicly, in front of people she admired and respected, he’d break her spirit. And that would be an unforgivable crime.

Slowly, he pulled away. He still wanted her, and he still wanted her to be his mistress, but he wasn’t going to force the issue by compromising her in his mother’s household. When she came to him—and she would, he vowed—it would be of her own free will.

In the meantime, he would woo her, wear her down. In the meantime, he’d—