Page 11 of My Devoted Viscount (Brazen Bluestockings #2)

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“Where the devil did they move the bootjack?”

The aggrieved voice Sophia heard was so deep it was more of a growl than speech. While she pondered why an unknown man had entered her dreams, the mattress dipped, rolling her over onto her back.

A curse, but in a foreign language. Italian? Something thumped on the floor. Sophia’s eyes flew open.

Not dreaming.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, his white shirtsleeves and dangling ends of a cravat luminous in the midnight gloom, a man she’d never before seen raised his right foot, trying to pull off his boot.

How had she been so careless as to forget to wedge the chair under the doorknob?

She grabbed the candelabra from under her pillow as she sat up and held it with both hands like a cricket bat.

“Get out.” Not wanting to draw attention to her predicament from other members of the household unless it became necessary, she kept her voice quiet and confident, proud it didn’t quaver despite her pounding heart.

The man’s booted foot thumped to the floor as he stared at her, his face in shadow, his voice low. “What are you doing in my room?”

His speech wasn’t slurred, and she didn’t smell any alcohol emanating from him. Just horse and leather and fresh sea air.

Two years ago, one of the uncles dropping off a student at the academy had to stay the night when the roads became impassable following a torrential rainstorm.

After drinking more wine at dinner than all the staff combined, he had entered Sophia’s room after midnight, claiming he had mistaken it for his own.

“I’ve been staying in this room for nearly a fortnight, by Mrs. Digby’s assignment.” Sophia tightened her grip on the candlestick to keep her hands from trembling. “Get out. Now. Or you won’t be the first unconscious man I’ve removed from my bedchamber.”

He uttered a low sound, one that could have been a chuckle. Abruptly he walked unerringly, albeit unevenly—one boot on, one boot off—to grab a candle from the writing desk, lit it from the coals in the fireplace, then lit another candle on the mantel.

He turned to stare at her, arms folded in front of his broad chest, feet planted wide and confident.

His gaze traveled from the top of her hair in twin braids, down her face, over her flannel night rail, and to her legs under the blanket, which she’d crossed tailor-style in preparation for leaping at her attacker.

“Tiny thing like you? You wouldn’t be able to budge me.” Not only was he more than a foot taller than her, he had to outweigh her by at least six stone. He seemed amused, and spoke as though they were bantering in a crowded ballroom.

Two other teachers had helped her drag the unconscious uncle by his ankles to his room, but she was confident she could complete the task tonight on her own if necessary. “I might drop you on the floor a time or two. You’ll have bruises as well as a bump on your head.”

He made another rumbling sound that might be a chuckle.

In one fluid movement, she stood up, candelabra at her shoulder as though ready to swing a bat, just as the groundskeeper at the academy had taught her. She drew breath to threaten the intruder again.

“Why do you sleep with a candlestick under your pillow?” He tilted his head as he blatantly looked her up and down, his long hair brushing one shoulder.

“Takes up less space than a cricket bat.” She returned his stare just as boldly.

How rarely had she seen a man undressed to his shirtsleeves, his cravat untied and shirt unbuttoned, exposing a vee of naked skin at the base of his throat?

No grey strands marred his black hair, worn roguishly long and loose.

He was too far away and the shadows too deep to see if his face had wrinkles.

His smooth voice held a flirtatious tone, rather than malice. But she had been fooled before.

“Of course. How silly of me.”

She adjusted her stance, debating. Should she get down from the wobbly mattress, or stay where she had the advantage of the high ground?

“A fortnight, you say?” He scratched his jaw. “You don’t look like a ghost.”

She almost dropped the candelabra. “I beg your pardon?”

“Aunt Gertrude wrote that a ghost other than the Grey Lady has been fluttering about the grounds. If you’re not the ghost, then you must be the scribe she wanted paper and ink for.” With his chin, he indicated a satchel on the dressing table chair, peeking out from beneath a greatcoat.

Aunt Gertrude? Understanding dawned, filling her with a different kind of dread. “You’re Vincent. Mrs. Digby’s nephew.”

She heard the smug smile in his deep, rumbling voice. “You’ve heard of me?”

“Only that it’s been so long since you last visited, the pianoforte and harpsichord were out of tune.”

“Ah, dear Aunt Gert. I’ve been busy. I promise I will attend to her pianoforte in the morning.”

Which still left him standing in her room.

“Clearly, I am not a ghost. Nor am I yielding this bedchamber in the middle of the night.” She frowned as a glance confirmed that the chair she’d wedged under the doorknob, blocking access from the hall, was still in place.

“How on earth did you get in? Who else knows you’re here? ”

“Didn’t want to wake the staff, so I used the hidden passageway.” He dropped his arms to his side and lowered his chin, his voice impossibly deeper. “No one knows I’m here except you, cara . That’s a big, comfortable bed. We could share.”

Despite the Italian endearment, his cultured accent was entirely British.

The tone of his outrageous suggestion was lighthearted rather than lascivious.

She’d had to share a room with a stranger on her journey here.

But inns always paired travelers of the same gender.

She adjusted her grip on the candelabra and bluffed. “The last man I hit lost two teeth.”

His bared teeth gleamed in the candlelight as he made that quiet rumbling sound again that made her insides quiver. “I confess, I prefer my teeth just the way they are.” He bowed. “You win. Tonight.” He strode confidently toward the bed despite his uneven gait from wearing only one boot.

“What—” She cleared her throat to get rid of the squeak. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He was tall enough that he sat on the edge of the bed without needing the steps.

She bent her knees to keep from falling as the mattress shifted under his weight.

“Putting my boot back on. I’ll sleep downstairs, on the library sofa.

” He picked up his boot. “What was Aunt Gert thinking,” he muttered, “giving my room to someone else?”

“Perhaps if you visited dear Aunt Gert more often, she also would think of it as your room.”

Vincent paused in pulling on his boot to cock his head to the side and look up at her from beneath what she could now see were long, dark lashes. “Touché,” he said, a smile tilting the corner of his mouth.

Her breath hitched. Dear lord, he was handsome.

She coughed. “Shouldn’t you leave it off?

And remove the other one? Someone will hear your footsteps!

” Now that she felt sure the intruder didn’t plan to ravish her, years of carefully protecting her reputation flashed before her.

Would Mrs. Digby toss her out if she thought Sophia had been improper with her nephew?

Even if Mrs. Digby let Sophia finish the task for which she’d been hired, she’d never find another job teaching at a ladies’ academy if she tarnished her reputation. And she couldn’t let this job end prematurely. Too much of her future, as well as Mildred’s, was at stake.

When Vincent stood, his gaze was level with Sophia’s chest. “I have never … enjoyed a woman’s company …

with my boots on.” He raised his gaze to her face, winked at her, and gathered his coat from the foot of the bed.

“Do not fret, cara . No one is going to hear me.” He collected his greatcoat and satchel, then touched one of the wallpaper ivy leaves beside the fireplace.

With a soft click and puff of chilled air, a section of the wall swung outward.

Sophia’s mouth fell open. How could she have been so careless?

Knowing about the secret passageway that connected the library, kitchen, and tunnel to the beach, why hadn’t she checked her own room more thoroughly?

It was only logical that someone needing a secret passageway to the beach or stables may need to evacuate from an upper floor.

A chair wedging the door closed from the hall was of no use if someone could merely walk through the wall.

“Your virtue is unchanged and my teeth are intact. Shall we agree that tonight’s misunderstanding will remain our secret?” Standing beside the mantel, a candle close by, she saw a faint smile still lifting one corner of his mouth. As she stared, he lifted one eyebrow.

She gulped. “Yes. That’s for the best.”

“I look forward to meeting you in the morning, cara .”

She snorted. He probably addressed every female—except his aunt—as cara .

With another elegant bow, he ducked into the opening and pulled the door—wall?—shut.

Alone again, Sophia jumped down from the bed and went to examine the wall with the hidden door.

She put her ear to it but could not hear Vincent’s retreating footsteps.

Again she cursed her lack of foresight. Why hadn’t she checked to see if secret staircases and passages connected the different stories in the house?

And now that she knew this one existed, how could she protect herself from unannounced visitors?

While she couldn’t wedge a chair under a non-existent doorknob, she could put a chair in place with her hairbrush and a few small trinkets on the edge of the chair seat, guaranteed to fall and clatter on the bare wood floor to wake her up if someone pushed the chair out of their way.