The Water Nymph by Michele Jaffe Page B

about to protest, Crispin went on. “Do not imagine that I enjoyed trying to sleep through your snores on my divan.”
    Sophie’s eyes grew huge with indignation. “I do not snore.”
    “You most certainly do. At first I thought one of the wild bulls from the bullbaiting ring must have run away and invaded the room, but then I realized it was just you.” Despite concentrating on not laughing uproariously, Crispin still had plenty of attention left over for watching Sophie’s rising wrath. However, he now saw he had made a mistake, because he had not anticipated that once antagonized she would inhale and exhale quite so deeply, making it impossible not to look at the low-cut bodice of her dress, or that she would color quite so marvelously against its green silk. What had begun as an exercise to unsettle her, seemed to be unsettling him instead, and Crispin had to remind himself that he had a job to do, a very important job, no part of which involved throwing the woman before him on the pink bed and making love to her. Indeed, the sooner he got away from her, the better off he would be.
    Sophie shared his opinion. She had just realized, with horror, that she had wronged Octavia. It was not the mustache paste that made her ill; it was the Earl of Sandal. He was not only obnoxious but noxious as well. She felt distinctly sick in his presence, and it was not helped any by the enormous bed just behind her, or the paintings covering the walls. The best thing to do was to get away from him as soon as possible.
    “I humbly beg your pardon,” Sophie said, her manner suggesting new meanings for the words “humbly beg,” “and I assure you my snores will never bother you again.”
    “Good,” Crispin said with finality.
    “Good,” Sophie echoed. “Now, if you will just show me what you have taken, I will leave here and not trouble you at all.”
    Crispin spread the fingers on his hands and turned them over so she could see both front and back. “Empty,” he explained. “I have taken nothing. Of course, if you do not believe me, I would be happy to remove my clothes and let you inspect them yourself.”
    This was very bad. The thought of sharing the pink Parnassus with him, naked, occasioned a new wave of the spiced-wine warmness that made Sophie unsteady on her feet, and she stepped backward, until she felt the supporting structure of the bed behind her knees. “I would rather let you win the bet than have to see you unclad,” she told him. “In fact, I would rather let you win the bet than have to see you at all. I will go down to Richard Tottle’s office on the floor below and look around until you have finished here.”
    Crispin was disgustingly gallant. “I should hate to have it said that I chased a lady out of a chamber such as this. I will go downstairs and allow you to stay here, studying the paintings unfettered. With practice, I think, you could master that position with the swan.”
    The door closed on his back before Sophie could tell him that he was by far the most terrifically horrible millipede in all London, probably in all England, possibly in all the world. There were about a dozen other unflattering adjectives longing to push themselves out of her lips, but she bit them back and told herself to concentrate on the task at hand. She went first to the bundles of love letters that Crispin had been flipping through earlier, and untying them, she began to read. They appeared to be notes left by the two people who shared the room when one or the other was absent. Half the bundles, tied with a silver cord, were signed “Your forever loving, Dickie.” That had to be the private nickname of Richard Tottle. The other packets, tied with gold cord, were all concluded with the words “Hundreds of kisses from your dearest Darling.” Sophie read the salutation for the fourteenth time and groaned. If she had hoped to glean any information from Richard Tottle’s lover, Sophie now saw, she was bound to be