The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,60

drawing room opened, and Cecilia peeked around the edge of it. “Sophia?”

She had to take a moment to compose her face before she dared to glance up at her friend. “It’s all right, Cecilia. There’s no need to look so dejected.”

No need to feel so dejected, either. It wasn’t as if Lord Gray’s fury had taken her by surprise. She’d been waiting for him for several hours before he arrived, pacing from one end of the drawing room to the other, rehearsing how she could reconcile him to Jeremy’s sudden disappearance from Newgate without revealing the truth.

She hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to lie to him.

Every time those gray eyes met hers, she’d been in danger of blurting out the truth. Somehow, she’d managed to cling to the story she and Lady Clifford had agreed on, but even now she wasn’t sure how she’d managed it. It was all a bit of a blur.

Looking back on it now, she couldn’t understand how she’d expected it to go any other way than it had. Lord Gray might have seen for himself how dire Jeremy’s condition was, but Sophia had known he’d never believe the lie, not matter how plausible it was.

He knew her too well for that.

And really, that was the worst of it, wasn’t it? Somehow, she’d ended up revealing so much of herself to him, he no longer believed her lies. That had certainly never happened before. Then there’d been that kiss. She hadn’t expected that, either, but even that wasn’t as shocking as what she’d done.

That is, she’d…well, dash it, she’d kissed him back, hadn’t she?

Sophia pressed her fingers to her lips. They felt tender, bruised, the soft flesh swollen. She shivered, her eyes sliding closed at the memory of his hard mouth on hers, his scarred hands in her hair, the drag of his rough fingertips over her skin.

That kiss had ruined everything.

Before that kiss, she’d done an admirable job of convincing herself she didn’t care a whit if she never laid eyes on Lord Gray again. Then he’d gone and kissed her, and moments later he’d severed the connection between them. Those two things together had startled her into an uncomfortable confrontation with the truth.

She was a trifle…preoccupied with Lord Gray.

Tristan.

Fascinated with him, even, against her will and better judgment.

The truth was, she did care if she never saw him again. She cared very much, indeed.

“Sophia?” Cecilia took a hesitant step into the room. “You look strange. You’re scaring me.”

“It’s all right, dearest.” Sophia beckoned her friend into the room with a weary hand. “Come on, then. Come and cheer me up.”

Cecilia hurried across the room to join her on the settee. Sophia waited to be petted and soothed and diverted until her usual sangfroid returned, but Cecilia remained oddly still and silent.

The seconds turned into minutes, and might have turned into hours if Sophia hadn’t nudged her. “Well, Cecilia? I thought you were going to cheer me up?”

Cecilia’s brow furrowed. “I’m thinking.”

“Oh.” It was that bad then, was it? “Do take your time.” Sophia rested her chin on her hand, lost in her own glum thoughts. What had she been thinking, letting Lord Gray kiss her like that? She’d been holding steady enough until then, but that kiss had scattered her wits like—

“Adeline!” Cecilia cried out suddenly.

Sophia jumped. “My goodness, Cecilia! You scared the life out of me. Adeline? The heroine of The Romance of the Forest?”

“Of course, that Adeline. We don’t know any other Adelines, do we?”

“No, but I don’t see what that Adeline has to do with anything.”

Cecilia sighed with exaggerated patience, as if Sophia was being unbearably dim. “Think of it, Sophia. Adeline encounters a ruined abbey and a scheming marquis. She’s locked into haunted bedchambers, and tumbles through trap doors. She battles terrible storms and wanders darkened forests, and her story still ends happily.”

Sophia blinked. “I don’t see what this has to do with me. This isn’t a romance, Cecilia, and I’m not one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s heroines.” Far from it. Seven Dials didn’t produce many of those, and as far as Sophia knew, Mrs. Radcliffe had never written a heroine who lounged on rooftops, or ran about the dark streets of London dressed in boy’s clothes. Her heroines were pure, sweet maidens, not liars and thieves.

Cecilia gave her a reproachful look. “Every lady is the heroine of her own story, Sophia. My point is, Adeline’s prospects look grim indeed, but even when she’s in her darkest hour she