“I’ll turn everything off as usual, miss,” Elliot said, “after I’ve done my rounds.”
Sophy smiled. “Thank you, Elliot. Which rooms has Mrs. Elliot prepared for Mr. Cynster and Mr. Coulter?”
Elliot rattled off the rooms and, turning to Martin, added the information that his men had retired to servants’ rooms in the attic. “We only have a skeleton staff at present—just the four of us—so there’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you.” Martin smiled at Elliot. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate the beds and the country quiet as well.”
Sophy turned to Charlie. “Can you show Oliver to his room? It’s closer to yours than mine.”
“Of course.” Charlie waved Oliver up the stairs and, after murmuring goodnights to Sophy and Martin, the pair started up.
Martin looked at her and arched a brow.
She waved at the stairs. “I’ll show you to your room. It’s just along the gallery.” To Elliot, she added, “Given the current hour, I suspect we should move breakfast back a trifle. Perhaps half past eight?”
Elliot bowed. “Mrs. Elliot will, I’m sure, have dishes ready at whatever time you and the gentlemen come down.”
Sophy smiled. “Of course. Goodnight, Elliot.”
“Goodnight, miss. Sir.”
Martin nodded and fell in beside her as she set an unhurried pace up the stairs.
By the time they reached the head of the stairs, Oliver and Charlie had vanished. The quiet of the night enveloped them, then at some distance, two doors shut, one after the other, assuring them they were entirely alone.
Unbidden, memories of the waltz replayed in Sophy’s mind. As she walked silently beside Martin, leading him into the long gallery, she realized that, despite the excitement of the chase and the ensuing drama of the confrontation with Charlie, the strange tension the waltz had left wound within her—incited by the first dance and inexorably heightened by the second—hadn’t dissipated in the least.
She was still tense. Tense in that new and novel way that left her senses skittering, aware of Martin as she’d never been aware of any other man before, with her nerves taut, tight and quivering but in a deliciously expectant way, as if waiting for some touch to set them pleasurably twanging.
She was waiting—waiting to take the next step.
Anticipation gripped, and she halted. Just stopped. In the middle of the long gallery, with portraits of her long-dead ancestors looking down upon them.
Trying to find sleep while her nerves were in such knots and her skin felt so tight, all but prickling with desire, would be an exercise in futility.
Realizing she’d stopped, Martin halted a step farther on and glanced back, and she looked into his face.
He scanned her features, met her gaze, then slowly turned to face her, one dark slash of an eyebrow rising in wordless question.
She didn’t stop to think. She was perfectly certain what the next step ought to be.
This is inevitable.
She stepped forward and halted breast to chest with him, reached up with both hands and framed his lean cheeks, then stretched up on her toes and, lids falling, set her lips to his.
She’d never kissed a man before—never taken the initiative like this—but she’d wanted to kiss him for days, and she wasn’t about to squander her moment. Curious and eager and intentionally tempting, she caressed his lips with hers and felt his chest swell as he drew in a slow, impossibly deep breath, then he kissed her back.
One hard hand rose to frame her jaw and tip her face upward a fraction more.
She slid her hands from his cheeks to spear her fingers through his dark hair, glorying in the silky texture as the locks fell over the backs of her hands.
His lips firmed on hers, teasing, luring, and between one heartbeat and the next, he smoothly seized the reins.
She willingly sank into the enthrallment as his lips artfully played on her senses.
More.
Whether the thought, the demand, was hers or his, she couldn’t have said, but the compulsion to part her lips swelled and grew, and anticipation built, and she surrendered.
