The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,74

He’d felt warm and solid against her, and she thought she’d drift to sleep at once with the steady beat of his heart under her cheek, but that hadn’t happened. Her eyes remained open as one hour after the next passed, until at last she slid out from under the coverlet and padded over to the window.

She didn’t belong here.

He was the Earl of Gray. An aristocrat, a gentleman, and a Bow Street Runner, and she was an illegitimate street urchin born in Seven Dials to an unknown father and a prostitute mother. A girl who’d grown up to be, if not quite a criminal, not an innocent, either, and certainly not a heroine.

Perhaps even more telling, she’d never aspired to be either. A woman like her had no business being in Tristan’s bedchamber or in his bed, but she’d persuaded herself to forget that truth for a few stolen moments in his arms.

But the truth would out. It always did. That had been the lesson of some other heroine’s story, hadn’t it? She couldn’t recall the heroine’s name now, or if she’d had a happy ending.

Sophia dropped her chin onto her hand and waited for the first shy streaks of light to illuminate the sky. She’d promised Tristan she wouldn’t leave while it was still dark. A bit absurd, given she’d spent endless hours creeping about in the night. She knew how to manage the darkness. What she didn’t know how to manage was a stubborn, overbearing, irresistible earl whose touch left her breathless.

It was a lucky thing, then, that she hadn’t promised him she’d stay past the first hint of sunrise. Really, she should have left hours ago. She’d spent the night away from No. 26 Maddox before, but Lady Clifford and Sophia’s friends would be wondering where she was.

She rose to her feet, set aside the blanket she’d wrapped herself in and hurried into her tunic, which she found in a crumpled heap on the floor. She paused by the bed before creeping from the room, unable to leave without taking one last look at Tristan.

He was asleep on his back, his eyes closed and his breathing deep and even. Sophia drew in a long, slow breath as she gazed down at him. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead. It made him look younger, even boyish. Her fingers itched to brush it back, but she was afraid to touch him. If he wakened, he’d try and coax her to stay, and all it would take was one kiss, one touch for her resistance to crumble.

So, she left Tristan sleeping and stole into the hallway. She crept down the stairs, but paused once she reached the entryway. Her attacker would be long gone by now—criminals tended to scatter like rats as soon as the sun rose—but after last night’s near miss, Sophia had vowed to herself she’d take to heart Lady Clifford’s warnings against unnecessary risk.

The front entrance to the townhouse was riskier than the servants’ entrance, so she ducked down a set of stairs leading to the kitchens, and made her way toward the door that let out into the mews.

Sophia opened the door, ready to dart out and hurry back to Maddox Street, but she stopped short on the threshold, her eyes widening. She’d assumed the mews would be deserted at this hour, but a smart, bottle green carriage with yellow wheels was there, standing in front of Lord Everly’s stables.

She paused just behind the kitchen door, foot tapping as she waited for the carriage to leave before she ventured outside. The servants would be stirring soon—any moment now she could be caught out by Tristan’s scullery maid—but she was reluctant to leave the safety of the kitchens while the carriage still lingered in the mews.

With her dastardly luck, Peter Sharpe was probably in it.

If the kitchen hadn’t been so quiet, she might have missed the low murmur of voices.

She lifted her head, eyes narrowing. The voices were coming from what was presumably Lord Everly’s carriage, with Lord Everly presumably inside it. How peculiar that his lordship should find it convenient to conduct his business from his carriage, at dawn, hidden from sight in the mews. Of course, he could be just returning from an evening of debauchery, and the voices nothing more than a squabble with his mistress, but it sounded as if…

Yes, it was.

Two male voices, one slightly raised. Lord Everly’s, if she wasn’t mistaken. She’d heard that nasal