After Innocence Read Free

was gone.
    Edward closed his eyes. What had become of him? Suddenly he was ashamed, and worse, he was frightened. It occurred to him that his black reputation was not as exaggerated as he liked to think.
    Sofie tripped many times in her haste to get back to the house. There was a croquet game being played on the back lawn, but she did not want to be seen. She must not be seen. Not now, not like this, not after what
she
had seen. Her face was hot and flushed, she could not breathe normally, and everyone, especially Suzanne, would instantly comprehend that something was wrong and demand to know just what.
    Sofie avoided the back lawn even though it meant a much longer walk to the house. Instead she hugged the dunes until she came to the tennis court, which was, thankfully, empty. She could no longer stand the pain in her right ankle, which had grown worse with every step. With a small cry, she collapsed in the sand just behind the court, covering her face with her hands.
    How she could have done such a thing? When she realized that she had stumbled across two lovers—one of them her lifelong neighbor, dear God—she should have turned and fled. But she hadn’t. She had lost all control of her body and her mind. She had stayed. She had stayed until the very end.
    Sofie trembled wildly, reaching for her leg.
What was it like, to be kissed like that? What was it like, to be in the arms of such a man!
    Sofie shut off her wayward thoughts, gripping her ankle. That she had stayed to watch was horrible enough, but to be thinking in such terms was even worse. She had never indulged in such speculation before—now was not the time to start. She would never know what it was like, and that was that.
    Sofie held her ankle, moaning, as tears filled her eyes, but whether from the anguish afflicting her lower leg or from something far more wrenching, she did not wish to know.
    Sofie blinked back her tears resolutely. They hadn’t seen her, so her terrible secret was safe. At least, Hilary hadn’t seen her. For one brief instant she had thought the man had glimpsed her, at the end, but she knew that she must have imagined it in her distress, otherwise he would have cried out in shock instead of passion and stopped what he was doing.
    Sofie began to massage her aching ankle. She must not think about what he had been doing, or how he had looked while doing it. In truth, that stranger had been a glorious sight. Now Sofie understood why women were forbidden to attend classes using nude male models at the Academy.
    She grimaced and slowly got to her feet. Pain shot through her ankle right up her thigh to her hip, finally distracting her. She bit her lip, refusing to cry out. Suzanne would say it was her own fault for going down to the beach unaided in the first place.
    But sometimes Sofie grew so tired of being confined, of not being able to do what everyone else took for granted. And when she worked, she could not bear company, outside that of a model, if she was using one, or an instructor. And Sofie had spent the past two and a half months in the city, a fact that had made this day at the shore even more inviting, enough so that she had relinquished all of her customary caution and common sense. So rarely did she find the opportunity to work
en plein air,
and so rarely at the beach. Foolishly she had thought she mightmake such a journey without mishap—how wrong she had been.
    Sofie shook the sand from the ruffled cuffs of her white shirtwaist. At least she was breathing evenly now, and her hands no longer trembled quite so much. She wondered who the stranger on the beach was. His first name was Edward, which meant nothing to her. Sofie closed her eyes. “You fool,” she whispered aloud. A man like that would never look twice at a woman both lame and eccentric like herself.
    “Mrs. Ralston?”
    Suzanne’s pleasant smile was automatic and she turned, poised before wide, open French doors. Behind her was a brick patio, below that the