Midnight Pleasures Read Free

a nod of the butler’s head. Carroll’s portly demeanor and his French sense of dignity precluded delivering messages of this sort.
    She smiled. “Please inform my father that I will join him directly.”
    As Philippe backed out the door, Sophie picked up her fan from the dressing table. She paused again in front of the mirror. What looked back at her was an image that had set fire to gentlemen’s hearts all over London, had inspired some twenty-two proposals of marriage and numerous intoxicated compliments.
    She was small in size, only coming up to Patrick’s shoulder, Sophie thought absently. And her wispy silver dress emphasized every curve, especially those of her breasts. The fabric stiffened above its high waist, making it look as if she might fall out of the inch of material.
    Sophie shivered. Lately she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror without thinking about the melting softness of her breasts pressing against Patrick’s muscled chest. It was time to go. She grabbed her wrap and left the room.

Chapter 2

    I n the afternoon before the Dewland ball, there was an unprecedented gathering of young gentlemen in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, presided over by the minister himself, Lord Breksby. Breksby was growing old, but at the same time he was growing more and more comfortable with the power he wielded. Thus, although he welcomed his visitors from a somewhat bent-over posture, and his white hair flew eccentrically off to the right, rather than staying neatly tied back as it ought to have, there was nothing humorous about him.
    Lord Breksby had been England’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs for some seven years. He saw the civilized world as a puppet theater in which he controlled many strings (never mind Pitt, as he had often told his wife, the man can’t make up his mind). One of Breksby’s greatest assets, to William Pitt and the English government in general, was his skill at creative manipulation.
    “One must make use of the tools at hand,” he rather pompously told his wife over a dessert of orange jelly.
    Lady Breksby sighed in agreement and thought longingly of a small cottage in the country, next to her sister, where she could grow roses.
    “England has underutilized its nobility,” he told her yet again. “Of course, it is true that aristocratic rakes tend toward dissipation—look at the degenerate nobles who thronged around Charles II.”
    Lady Breksby thought about the new kind of rose that had been named after Princess Charlotte. Could it be trained to climb a wall? she wondered. She quite fancied a southern wall, covered with climbing roses.
    Lord Breksby thought about the libertine rakes of the old days. Rochester was probably the worst, writing all that naughty poetry about prostitutes. Must have been getting up to Lord knows what. A regular hellion, he was. Boredom, that was Rochester’s problem.
    “Still, that was the past,” Breksby said meditatively, spooning up the last of the orange jelly. “Our rakes now are useful chaps, if you approach ‘em the right way. They’ve got money. They’re not elected. And they’ve got class , m’dear. Invaluable when dealing with foreigners.” Even though his own title was only honorary, he found it served him well. Lord Breksby privately thought that the day might come when England would have to rely on class more heavily than on its navy.
    “Take this Selim III, for example.”
    Lady Breksby looked up politely and nodded.
    “He’s ruling the Ottoman Empire at the moment, m’dear.”
    Now that she thought about it, the Princess Charlotte rose probably had too heavy a head to be a good climber. The best climbing roses had smaller heads … like that lovely pink specimen that Mrs. Barnett had growing up her front gate, back in the old village. But how could she find out what that rose was called?
    “The man is dazzled by Napoleon, even though Napoleon invaded Egypt a mere six years ago. Thinks Napoleon is God, so I hear.