Lords of Honor (42 page)

Sophia
took a deep breath and straightened.
“
We will deal with the rest of this together
.
I feel certain your friends will forgive you
.
I will hel
p you with the pain in your leg, so it never becomes so unbearable that you feel you need drugs or spirits to ease it
.
I made a salve
for you
, I
brought
it with me
.
It will
help
ease your pain
.
I apologize for being so hateful to you these past weeks
, Lyon
.
I
thought
only of myself
.
I was being q
uite selfish
.
You have been harmed by these men as well
.”
A tear slid down her cheek
.
She
watched
the handsome man who was
now
her husband
.
His sandy hair was neatly combed
.
His eyes so
bright
a
nd vivid
blue
they
reminded her of still
pools in a
fine
garden
.
His handsomeness took her breath away every time she gazed upon him
.

“Sophia!” Lyon wiped her tear away
.
“I fear I do not deserve you
.”
There was a lump in his throat
.
He smiled
.
He felt his eyes
mist
.

It was Sophia who kissed him this time
.
Her kiss was like a balm to his tortured soul
, w
arm
, s
weet
, t
ender
.
He felt the beginnings of lust beginning to burgeon within him
.
He f
ought to suppress
such base feelings
.

F
or
Lyon
could not kiss her without remembering all of the sex they shared in their drug induced state
.
The drug heated their blood, left them both in a frenzied fever, caught in the throes of passion for well over
thirty
hours
, removing all inhibitions
.

He still felt shame when he thought of the things he
did
to her
.
Some t
hings meant
to be done to
a whore
, n
ot a gentl
y
bred lady
,
such as his
beautiful
Sophia
.
And he remembered how she begged him to do some of those things to her over and over
as she burned
, the fire of her need for him never abating
.
Nor his for her as he did those things she begged for and many more
.

Even after he took her to his home, Sophia burned with the fever still
.
His passion calmed
more than hers by that time
.
So he tried to love her the way a gentleman should love a lady
.
It
proved
difficult
at times
to stick to his intentions when she bucked and gyrated
wildly
beneath him
.
When carried away with the lust her begging and pleading
for certain acts aroused in him
, he beh
aved as a libertine a few times
and used Sophia as a whore, merely a vessel to appease his lust. He did remind himself, that f
or
the most part,
her need
s
were sated
without letting his baser self come to the fore
.

Lyon
suppressed the
rising
lust
that stirred within him
at the memories of their first
and
rather tragic union
.
He
pushed the memories to the back of his mind
.
He would always treat
his wife,
Sophia
,
as a lady;
nothing less
than
.
He did deepen the kiss
, b
ut eventually pull
ed
away
.
He would never dishonor her again, the way he
did
th
at night
and the day after
.
He would let things remain as they were between them
.
He would never force her, never try to seduce her
.
He would wait until he knew she
truly
wanted him
in that way
.

Eventually his wife did sleep
again
.
He continued to caress her fingers
and s
tud
y
her beautiful features as she sl
umbered
.
His heart felt somewhat lighter as he realized that there might just be a chance for him and Sophia to know happiness.

They were five miles out of Templecombe when the attack came
.

“Lyon, Brown Coats ahead and up on the rise
.
They’re coming straight toward us
,” Lachlan Douglas called out loudly.

Immediately, Lyon began to pull out his pistols and knives
.
“Can you fire a pistol, Sophia?” He
asked
his wife.

She shook her head.

“Take these knives
.
If someone comes for you jab at them anywhere it will slow them down
.
When there is time
in the near future,
I shall teach you to fire a pistol
, Sophia
.”

Sophia
was
sleeping
when
Lachlan Douglas,
the Earl of Gryfe
,
sounded the alarm
.
She still felt a
little
groggy
.
She simply nodded and accepted the knives her husband held out to her.

It wa
s dark outside,
yet
there was some moonlight
.
Gu
nshots boomed
and men shouted
beyond the carriage
. Sophia watched as Lyon
dropped the window and
leaned out on his side of the carriage
to fire
his pistols
.

She cried out when a hand came from the
opening
carriage
door
on her side and roughly grabbed her arm
.
She turned to see a man, his face shadowed by the large brim of a brown hat
.
“Come with me,” he growled
.
He raised his pistol to aim it at Lyon’s back.

“Lyon
,
Watch
out
!
Brown Coat at this window, he’s got a gun
!”
Sophia picked up one of her knives and raised it up
.
She brought it down as hard as she could
into
the man’s arm
.

He howled in pain and released his hold on her
.
Lyon
turned
. He
squeezed the trigger of his pistol
.
H
is shot
shattered the window and
caught the Brown Coat in the
chest
.
Lyon
leaned across
his wife
and
lifted
the man’s
limp
torso
which
now
hung over the
door
.
The body slid free
down the side of the carriage and
fe
ll to the ground
.
The carria
ge lurched as
the
rear
wheel
rolled over hi
m
.

Lyon took Sophia by the shoulders, “Are you harmed, darling
?
Did he hurt you
?”

Sophia
shook her head
.
“I’m fine, Lyon.”

Lyon pulled her to the center of the seat
.
“Stay here
.
Be careful of all that glass.
Lean against my back, Sophia, hold on to my coat
.
Keep your eye on that window and tell me if another one shows up.”

She nodded
.
Her heart pound
ed
frantically and she trembled as she clung to her husband’s coat
.
Minutes later she saw a Brown Coat rider outside the window again
.
“Lyon there’s another one at the window
!”

Lyon turned and fired
.
The rider
slumped over
.
He slid sideways off his horse and
disappeared
from view
.
Lyon set to reloading his pistols
.
Only one of his pistols remained loaded
.

Sophia sat with her back against her husband
’
s, her knees bent and her feet upon the seat
.
She started when a hand came through the carriage window and grabbed her calf
.
A head
crowned
with a brown hat appeared
.
Sophia
screamed, kicked, and tried to pull away
.
She managed to kick the man’s throat with her free foot
.
She repeatedly kicked at the ma
n’s fingers grasping the
ledge of the carriage door.

Lyon lunged toward the man trying to pull himself through the
open
window
.
He reached
to the seat beside Sophia
and grabbed one of the knives he
gave her earlier
.
He
slid it across the Brown Coat’s throat. Sophia was pulled
roughly
toward that side as the man began to fall backwards
.
Lyon lunged and removed the man’s hand from her calf
.
He landed on top of his wife as the carriage lurched again
.
He didn’t get up right away
.
“Are you all right darling?” He searched her green eyes.

“Yes
.
I-
I’m fine.”

Lyon rose to a sitting position as he heard Lachlan’s voice from outside
.
“We got them
.
Two rode off, the rest are dead!”

The Scotsman came beside the carriage and peered in the window
.
“You all right?”

“Yes.” Lyon nodded
.
“We got both of them that tried to come in.”

“We’re nearly there
.
Stay alert
!
We may run into more at the turnoff for Horethorne Hall, it’s just a mile ahead.” Lachlan called
out
loudly
to the others
.

“Did we lose anyone?” Lyon asked him.

“No
.
We are still seven outside, hale and whole
.”
Lachlan turned away from the window
.

Lyon nodded
.
He turned his
full
attention to his trembling wife.
He embraced her
.
“Are you certain you are unharmed, Sophia?” He kissed her temple
.
He felt her nod as he held her tightly
against him
.

“Yes
.
A little shaken, but I’m fine, Lyon.”

“Good.” He pulled back and searched her face
.
He grinned broadly then, “I didn’t know I married a hell-cat
!
I’m going to
have to watch my steps around you, Sophia!
” He laughed when she smiled up at him.