Lover Be Mine A Legendary Lovers Novel - By Nicole Jordan Page 0,8
still there or if he’d escaped through the French doors into the night.
Her fingers strayed to her still-tingling lips as she remembered his blazing kiss. Then, with a scoffing sound of self-annoyance, Sophie dutifully exited the library in order to return to the masquerade ball.
The hour was late when the festivities ended. Once the final guests departed, Sophie’s parents retired to bed, clearly satisfied with her progress in winning the Duke of Dunmore—in part, she realized, because they knew nothing of her romantic interlude spent in the arms of their enemy. They would be appalled to learn she’d been kissing and cavorting with Lord Jack Wilde under any circumstances, let alone at a ball intended to reel in his grace. Thankfully her great-aunt had not mentioned her indiscretion.
Yet Aunt Eunice was apparently not willing to forget the incident either.
“A word with you, my dear,” the elderly lady murmured when Sophie would have sought her own bed. “Pray attend me in my sitting room.”
Suspecting she was about to have a peal rung over her head, she accompanied Mrs. Pennant upstairs to her elegant suite of rooms. Whenever the Fortins came to London, they stayed at Mrs. Pennant’s London mansion. And since her parents couldn’t afford the enormous expense of a London Season, Aunt Eunice had sponsored Sophie’s debut almost entirely. It therefore stood to reason she would have a large say in their affairs and their attempts to find a noble husband for their daughter.
The silver-haired lady settled in her favorite chair, prepared to quiz her grand-niece.
“So tell me what happened tonight, Sophie. You were kissing the pirate, were you not?” Without waiting for a reply, she shot another question. “Who was he?”
Sophie replied truthfully, since there was no point in delaying the inevitable. “The pirate was Lord Jack Wilde, Aunt.”
Surprisingly, Mrs. Pennant nodded. “I suspected as much, for I recognized his physique. Few men have such magnificent shoulders as he. But I confess I am shocked at you, miss.”
Although spurred to defend herself, Sophie tried to keep her voice even. “I assure you, it was not an arranged assignation. I have never spoken to him before tonight.”
“Then why was he here uninvited?”
“I believe he was acting on a challenge from a member of his family.”
Her aunt’s thin lips twisted into something resembling a smile. “Leave it to a Wilde to do something that outrageous. I have to admire his gall, however. In my day, men were bolder than the namby-pamby crop of beaus who flock around you. But surely you are aware of Lord Jack’s reputation, Sophie. He is a rogue of the first order, and the very devil with the ladies.”
“So I have heard, Aunt.”
For generations, the fiery, passionate Wilde clan had cut a swath through the bedrooms and ballrooms of Europe, and Lord Jack was the worst perpetrator of the current cousins. Reportedly, he loved women and they loved him back.
Certainly Sophie had noticed him before this. How could she not? With his charisma and brazen, dare-the-world charm, he was impossible to ignore. But she had followed his career much more closely since spying him at the Arundel Home for Unwed Mothers.
For most society misses—young ladies other than herself—Lord Jack was eminently eligible. He tantalized marriage-minded mamas and left their daughters breathlessly eager for his attention. And she’d heard that more experienced females vied for the pleasure of his bed. He was the sort of hot-blooded lover women dreamed of in dark, erotic fantasies.
“So did you like it?” her aunt demanded, interrupting her musings.
“Like what?”
“Kissing Lord Jack?”
The impertinent personal question took Sophie aback, but she had only one answer. “Well … I … Yes.”
He had simply overwhelmed her senses, setting her body on fire while holding her spellbound in a thick, dreamy pleasure. It was said that the Wildes wielded their legendary charms like weapons, and she now had personal, incontrovertible proof.
“Thank heavens you enjoyed it,” Mrs. Pennant murmured. “I suppose you would have to be dead not to. But I worry that your father’s strictures have deprived you of the simple pleasures every young lady should experience at least once in her life.”
Sophie quelled her surprise at her aunt’s unexpected proclamation. “I do not feel deprived, Aunt.”
“Well, if you want to indulge in an indiscretion, you could not choose a better candidate. Lord Jack inherited his wickedness and joie de vivre directly from his mother, did you know? Lady Clara Wilde fell head over heels for some European nobleman, but they never married. Young Jack was an