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something, that certain
something, Sophie could not quite put her finger on that made her
pause. Perhaps it was the something in Lord William's dark,
flashing eyes that matched his longish dark brown hair. The
intelligence she was sure she had glimpsed in his expression was at
odds with the dimples she had caught sight of once. But they looked
so seductive on his smooth, tanned cheeks that set off his white
teeth when he chose to reveal them.
    Sophie shook her head. This was
ridiculous.
    And then there was the matter of his hands.
She had not failed to notice the calluses on his palms when he had
removed his gloves prior to dinner. They were hands that did not
match his aristocratic airs, mien and clothes.
    They reminded Sophie of her father's hands—
strong, purposeful and capable. She remembered her father's large
palmed hand stroking her hair as she sat in his lap by the fire
after they had spent a fruitful day on the sea, in the pastures or
ministering to the needs of the parish.
    She swallowed her sadness and mentally shook
herself. At least she was not as homesick in Burnham-by-the-Sea as
she had been in London. She could essentially live the same sort of
life here as she had had in Wales albeit in more opulence.
    Sophie negotiated the gray marble steps to
the landing. There was no sign of activity. Perhaps she had come a
mite early. Karine had appeared half-asleep, trudging silently one
step behind her mistress the entire way. Her French maid seemed to
have little interest in invigorating excursions of any type,
seeming to prefer consuming the latest on-dits and a hot pot
of chocolate before a fire more than anything else. Truth be told,
Sophie was a bit intimidated with the petite, calculating
woman.
    "Do you think we are too early, then,
Karine?" Sophie said, lifting the knocker and letting it fall.
    "Yes," Karine said with her usual Gallic
shrug. "But then, it would have been too early if you had waited
two hours from now." The maid yawned.
    Sophie wondered if she would ever be able to
control her maid's outlandish tongue. If it wasn't that her aunt
had insisted the maid had more talent than…
    The heavy oak door swung open and within
moments she was being ushered to the tailor's apartment by a young
footman. Karine disappeared in the direction of the servants' back
stairs, chattering with another maid who appeared. Sophie passed a
breathtaking picture gallery containing floor-toceiling portraits
of Mornington ancestors. She and the footman padded along several
corridors and more stairs until he stopped in front of an ornate
door at the end of a long hallway.
    He knocked and turned to Sophie. "This be
where the tailor has set out his things, miss. I'll leave you here,
then." He bowed and quickly walked away.
    Sophie heard a distinctly masculine voice
from within, which seemed to suggest that she should enter. She
pushed down the brass handle and opened the door.
    Good Lord. She inhaled sharply.
    Sophie snapped out of shock, closed the door
abruptly and looked around to see if anyone had observed the
spectacle.
    She licked her lips and tried to still her
quaking limbs. Heart pounding, she turned and fled down the endless
passageway.
    Lord William had been standing before her in the altogether , just come from his bath. He had been
toweling his dark hair, leaving all the world to see his towering,
muscled magnificence in the golden sunlight streaming in through
the window beyond.
    She had never seen anything like him. Indeed,
the fishermen and townspeople of Porthcall did not seem to be of
the same species!
    Sophie stopped at the end of the corridor and
gripped the corner, the directions back to the front hall
completely forgotten. She closed her eyes but could not escape her
mind's vision of the man who so perfectly matched her idea of
Adonis.
    Sophie's gaze had been instantly drawn to
his, his… well, to the very part of him that indicated his sex.
That part of his anatomy had looked nothing like the Greek