Page 18 of Love and Other Disasters

Sophie quietly unlocked the door and opened it a crack to see what was going on.

Light danced along the walls of the hallway, where it should have been completely dark. She glanced over her shoulder, but thankfully the light hadn’t disturbed the children yet. But it might soon enough if more people came this way. Annoyed by the disturbance, she drew her robe tighter about her, forgoing slippers due to the sound they might make on the bare floor outside. She stepped out into the hall fully and pulled the door shut behind her. “Who’s there? Show yourself.”

No one answered except for a burst of raucous laughter, but from further away now. A man’s and a woman’s laughter rang out, along with what seemed like moaning.

She grimaced and quietly secured the children’s room with the key and reluctantly headed for the sound, barefooted.

The light was moving away, but she followed quietly to discover who it might have been. A woman yelped, and a rumbling male voice offered wickedness and to make use of one of the nearby guest rooms.

Sophie shook her head. Were Lord Jasper’s guests allowed to wander about the palace unrestricted? Carrying candles and doing wickedness in all the rooms? Dear heavens, the place could burn down through carelessness at this rate. Where the devil was Lord Jasper to enforce a few rules on his friends?

Sophie strode boldly toward the light. Ravenswood had grown dear enough to her that she’d hate to see it in flames.

On the stairs, she encountered a couple making love to each other, apparently so drunk and lost to propriety they didn’t care who saw what they were doing. A lit candlestick dangled dangerously from the man’s hand, and they were leaning far enough over the railing above the entrance hall that they could fall. Sophie noted his breeches had slid down all the way to his knees, too, though he seemed not to care who might be offended by the sight.

Sophie hurried to them, blew out the candle, and hauled the pair back to safety.

“Here now!” the man cried out, protesting her rough handling and an end to his lovemaking, or perhaps to the darkness she’d plunged them all into.

The man turned squinting eyes Sophie’s way. “Where did you come from?”

She ignored the question to ask her own. “Where is everyone else?”

“Downstairs.” The man’s lover edged closer. ‘Ere now. Are you just come from someone’s bed?”

“Of course not,” she protested.

The woman nudged her. “Lucky you. I’ve had to grapple with him. I could use an extra set of hands.”

“Excellent party,” the man said, slurring every word. “Thought we’d look around. Want to come to bed? You’re already dressed for it I see.”

“No, thank you.” She got a firm grip on the fellow and tugged him in the direction she wanted to go. Downstairs. “I need a word with Lord Jasper.”

“Excellent fellow. Knows how to host a good party.”

“Does he?”

“Yes, but he’s not his brother of course,” the man confided. “I was disappointed to learn Ravenswood was away. Remarkable businessman the duke. Savvy in a way few in his family are.”

Sophie gritted her teeth to meet someone singing the duke’s praises, when it was Lord Jasper he should be thanking for his invitation. “Tug up those breeches, sir, and we’ll go find your host.”

Thankfully, the man complied with her request. The man put his arm around her shoulders and together, she and the other woman, maneuvered him down the stairs to the first landing. Then he stopped and pulled Sophie close. Her skin crawled. “We could all go to bed together, the four of us, make a night of it.”

The other woman tried to separate them. “I thought you said you liked me best, sir.”

“I do. I do,” the drunken man promised her, but he cast Sophie a lascivious grin. “But the more the merrier, eh?”

The woman simpered, looking down her nose at Sophie in the somewhat brighter light of the staircase. “As you wish.” But then she whispered to Sophie, “He’s already paid me. You can get what’s owed to you from his pockets when he nods off after.”

Sophie was appalled at the suggestion she fleece a man while he slept. What sort of party was Lord Jasper hosting? Had he employed light skirts who were also thieves?

Sophie intended to usher this pair downstairs and hand them off to Lord Jasper as soon as possible. But not before she gave Lord Jasper a piece of her mind and warned him about this man. It was one thing to host a scandalous party, but quite another to permit his friends to roam anywhere they cared to or be robbed blind even by people using him to reach the duke’s notice.

Sophie got the pair down the stairs in one piece and then urged them towards the long gallery, where the French doors stood open to the gardens and voices could clearly be heard. Lord Jasper should be among them. Beyond the doorway, out on the lawn, were a dozen shadowy figures, all hanging off each other and laughing over some ribald jest or such.

Wishing to avoid the notice of so many, she unentangled herself from the pair and sent them on their way alone. Sophie skirted the gathering, keeping to the shadows or hiding behind plants and statues in search of a certain rake she wanted a word with. But Lord Jasper seemed nowhere among the revelers as far as she could tell and she looked back at the palace. Was he being entertained in some dark corner of Ravenswood by a scandalous lady?

She pulled a face at the thought of interrupting Jasper, mid-tryst, and then scurried back inside before she was seen by his friends. But Sophie ran headlong into the butler in the hall, Seymour spluttered. “You should not be dressed like that,” he said, his expression disapproving as he looked her up and down.