Romancing the Rogue (19 page)

“Hmm. How much I love you, Wil,” she mumbled.

His heart kicked and he warmed from head to toe. “You are drunk, Sophie.”

“Yesh.”

She slipped unconscious, leaving him to wonder if it was the alcohol or a secret part of her mind speaking. Seemed too wonderful to be true.

At least she should be too wary to pursue her crusade of luring him into bed play. She had no idea how badly he wanted to give in, how near to surrender she’d driven him. Before her, celibacy had become easy with time and distraction, but now he had tasted the forbidden fruit,
per se
.

She seemed to resent his self-control, uncomprehending that the dual forces of his mental illness and decades of careful discipline worked in his favor. Not to mention that he was plainly a stubborn bastard, and he refused to bed her if it frightened her. Of course she was a sublime temptation. Especially like this, pliant and disheveled, tantalizing him with such a view of her olive-creamy skin.

Wilhelm needed a long jog uphill or a dip in a cold lake, but instead he stalked down the hall to check on the girls. They mobbed him before he reached their bedroom, flocking around him like pigeons fighting for peanuts.

He tried to disguise his shock at seeing Madeline’s ringlets reduced to a short mop of curls around her head. Sophia had warned him. “Calm yourselves.” He pried Elise’s hand from his biceps and pushed a hand to Mary’s shoulder to keep her from bouncing up and down. Madeline seemed content to lean against his side.

“Merciful saints, she isn’t…
morto
?” Mary breathed, immersed in drama as usual. The girl was a character right out of a Shakespearean tragedy.

“
Morta
?” he corrected her Italian conjugation. “No. Sophia is sleeping. She will recover. Please be considerate in the meanwhile. I hear you had an adventure, ladies.”

They all started talking at once, so he herded them into the nearest open room and sat them in seats near a tea tray. Perhaps food would slow their rambling. “I am sorry you were frightened by that bad man. Sorry, but I must know what he said to you.”

After two plates of pastries and three wet handkerchiefs, he assembled the dialog Grover had been sent to deliver from LeRoy, ultimately from Chauncey: “
Sooner or later we will get her and cut down anyone in the way.”

Elise came to whisper in his ear what she’d heard that Mary and Madeline didn’t understand: “
Is she knapped yet? We want the brat. Give her over or the girls get it with a chiv.”
Cockney for asking if Sophia was with child, and threatening his nieces with slit throats.

He swallowed his rage and scoffed for their benefit. “What nonsense. Sounds to me like Fritz took one bite out of his hind end, and the man ran away terrified.” They were all about to burst into tears again before Wilhelm promised, “Philip went to toss the bad man in jail then will come here to look after you.”

He distracted them with an offer to read from the Lewis Carroll novel, and they all curled up on the rug. He read in character, throwing his voice, and Madeline giggled every time he spoke in fluttery falsetto for Alice’s lines.

He turned over an idea growing in the corner of his mind, liking it the more he considered it. If the mob of bounty hunters were as stupid as he suspected, a classic game of cat-and-mouse might do the trick. Sophia would go for it. He suspected she would gladly play the cheese in the mousetrap. She had to be as frustrated and outraged as he, and they could not afford another attack like the one today. They had come out lucky, and the only thing Wilhelm distrusted more than luck was fate.

~~~~

Sophia walked the
footpath between St. Agnes and Rosecrest, alone, pretending not to be frightened out of her wits and ignoring the persistent ache low in her abdomen. Wilhelm was supposedly near, stalking along the trail out of sight, but she had neither seen him nor heard the slightest noise from him for at least a mile. Now she noticed every odd sound and wondered what could be making it
—
a forest was a noisy place.

She certainly felt like bait, imagining a target painted on her back, her nerves raw. Wilhelm thought LeRoy’s bounty hunters just might be either stupid or desperate enough to try nabbing her if she appeared unprotected. Here came her chance to be useful, to end the infuriating game with LeRoy. Philip waited home at Rosecrest, guarding the girls and Aunt Louisa. No more opportune time to attempt it than now. But what if the silence meant something grievous had happened to Wilhelm?

She paused, not because she heard a noise.
Silence.
That was the problem. The forest had fallen completely quiet. Finally a twig snapped a few paces ahead. A lanky Roma vagabond sprang from the bushes lining the side of the road. He gripped a dagger and bared his teeth. “Hand o’er th’ goods, lady.”

What? A gypsy? She’d expected a London thug. A small chuff escaped her, a noise of derision that seemed to confuse the gypsy, who stood frozen. He looked behind her just as she heard rustling from the same direction. Human growling, sounds of struggle and muttered curses. None of the voices belonged to Wilhelm.

She was dying to turn around and look, but used the distraction instead to back away from the gypsy, who edged closer. He seemed unsure of his actions. She was waiting for Wilhelm to do something and couldn’t take her eyes off the dagger. An unlucky someone was losing the fight behind her, and the voices grew silent one by one. Did she imagine her gypsy robber anxious? Her question was answered seconds later when he retreated, scrambling for the cover of the forest.

Before she could turn around, Wilhelm ran past in a blur. He leapt and tackled the gypsy, sending them both crashing to the ground, like a nasty game of rugby. Wilhelm wrenched an arm high on the robber’s back with a knee crushing his face into the dirt. Wilhelm held his own knife in his other hand against the throat of the gypsy robber. She hadn’t seen him draw it. Sophia had not yet taken her next breath; it had happened so quickly.

She watched as he drew a leather cord from the back of his waistband and lashed the gypsy’s wrists and ankles. All so coolly without aggression, without sound. In fact he seemed void of emotion despite his physical efficiency. Such a contrast to the hot-tempered man she’d expected. This cold, machinelike Wilhelm frightened her more than his moody half-crazed doppelg
ä
nger did.

She wondered if he was going to kill the gypsy, but then he rose to his feet and listened intently with his head cocked for a long minute. Seemingly satisfied, he wiped his blade on the cuff of his trousers, and she finally recognized that his knife was stained with blood, and also his hands. Oddly, his clothes appeared unspotted, except for dirt stains on his knees.

Finally she turned to see four men lying on the ground twenty paces behind her, the men she’d expected to accost her
—
seedy East End types. Two appeared unnaturally still, and the other two groaned and writhed, hog-tied with wrists and ankles lashed together. She almost didn’t dare look closely but saw it anyway: the dark crimson smile across the neck of one thug. Black pools of blood spread over the leaves and roots. A slit throat. The other appeared to have a broken neck, judging by the odd angle his head lolled away from his shoulders. It should have terrified her, but instead she felt curiously little about it. It almost looked false, like a scene on stage.

Wilhelm approached slowly, an apology in his expression. He had felled five men in less than a minute without making a sound, so none had laid a hand on her. No chance to be frightened of the robbers; he’d handled everything so quickly. Or perhaps her mind was healing. Then a revelation:
she felt safe with him
.
Sophia closed the space between them and brushed the dirt off his lapel.

“Glad you didn’t wear your silk suit today,” she said pleasantly.

Lovely
—
the ice in his eyes melted as he smiled. He became himself again. “I’m sorry you saw that. They got a bit frisky.” He nodded toward the slain thugs. That he’d left the other two bound and done the same to the gypsy told her he didn’t kill unless he had no other choice. She could live with that.

But she was growing tired of always watching her shadow, of putting the others at risk. “You don’t seem particularly triumphant. I assume none of these is LeRoy?”

“His henchmen.”

“And the gypsy?” They turned to look at the very flustered Roma tied on the ground.

“I have no idea. Coincidence? I have hosted gypsies on my land for years, and this was the first violent incident.”

“We have kept the St. Agnes constable busy.”

“He’ll be glad to see the back of us. Troublemaker,” he teased, raising a hand to touch her face, but saw the blood stained on his hand and hid it behind his back.

He didn’t seem in the mood for questions, but she had to ask. “So, what about LeRoy?”

“I honestly don’t know. How does one fight a coward?”

Then it hit. First a wave of nausea, but it was the sudden blast of pain in her womb that doubled her over. Radiated outward to the small of her back, raked down her legs like blunt needles. The familiar nerve-riding throb magnified, robbing her of her senses. Why were her legs wet?

Her temples pinched, she drew a shaky breath through strained lungs, and felt the gradual fading of consciousness. Seemingly from a distance, she heard Wilhelm’s frantic voice, felt the firm grip of his arms, but she was beyond him. When she floated away into the black, her last thought was of relief.

~~~~

Wilhelm knew he
was blinking, staring like a moron, but he couldn’t help it. “What?” he grated, his voice hoarse from shouting.

The young country doctor wrinkled his nose to keep the spectacles from sliding down. He stuttered before answering, “Abortive expulsion. Miscarriage, my lord. Deepest condolences.”

Wilhelm turned his gaze on the man and saw him flinch. Then he made himself look at Sophia, pale and ghostly in a white shift, motionless in her sleep. Aunt Louisa had insisted on having the bed linen changed before he was allowed in. The sterile scene before him looked all wrong, considering what he knew had taken place. His wife appeared peaceful, except for the peak to her complexion and the lines of strain etched on her face, even in rest.

“She was pregnant?” The sudden attack of pain, the seizure, the screaming? That is what happened? And it was
his
fault?

The doctor winced again, either frightened of Wilhelm or a greenhorn unused to delivering bad news to patients. “Lady Devon was indeed expecting, my lord. Early, a pair of months, judging by the evidence.”

That
evidence
should have been his child.

The doctor cleared his throat. “She has a rather acute case of
Adenomyoma
, an illness of the womb, but I suspect
after a few weeks of rest, Lady Devon should be particularly ripe for another attempt. It is widely believed that the womb is prepared by…” He trailed at Lord Devon’s fearsome expression.

Wilhelm felt his knees weaken. He couldn’t make it to a chair; he sank to the floor, watching the infuriating pristine white linen on the bed where his wife slept. Absently he noted the doctor take his leave, speaking in a low voice with Aunt Louisa. But none of that mattered.

He could have killed her.

Even though Sophia had sworn she felt well, he should have insisted she rest a few more days. She must have perceived how anxious he was to bait LeRoy and wanted to help. Sophia was headstrong, but he could have prevailed. He should have. No doubt her lingering weakness from loss of blood, along with overexertion and the excitement of being attacked by a rogue gypsy had given her the shock that had killed their child.

His heart made a sound like a tortured groan, and he nearly let it past his lips.
His child, dead. Along with his wife, nearly.
In fact, it seemed since their paths had first crossed, Sophia had spent more time injured than well. He caused her suffering.

Never again.

A cracking sound alerted him to his hand breaking the spindled leg of a rocking chair. Blood mingled with splinters, then his vision clouded and swam. He crawled onto the mattress and lay against her side, on top of the sheets. Years since he’d allowed himself the weakness
—
he wept.

How Wilhelm Spills The Beans, Sophia Sits On A Cat, And All Is Well

Wilhelm sat reading
in the library after the family had gone to bed. It felt good to be home, surrounded by order and luxury. Rougemont to him was a monument to tradition, evidence of generations lived in wisdom and perseverance. His domain, surrounded by people who were either accustomed to his insanity or excused him out of respect.

Worthy or not, the title and its obligations belonged to Wilhelm, bastard son of an Austrian prince proclaimed legitimate by a cuckolded English lord.

The severity of his failure had never struck him until three weeks earlier when his wife had lain ill, recovering from a miscarriage. It made him want what he’d long assumed unattainable. It had frightened the demons out of him
—
the ghosts had been silent, perhaps warded away by the grief in the house. Until he’d spied his siren woman singing in the woods, he had never dared hope for a wife, not to mention a child. But how could he have one at the expense of the other?

He simply wasn’t willing to sacrifice Anne-Sophia for a title. A title that did not truly belong to him. His resolve faltered not a bit, but it did bother him, that he would be the one to end his line. Damned useless pride.

To be called
father
? To say the word
son
or
daughter
? Oh, he had always adored children
—
entertaining little jesters. He had been unprepared for the longing, the consuming sense of loss at the news. And how must Sophia feel? Every regret, every disappointment had to be suffered keenly by her, even if she refused to speak of it.

His cursed eyes watered again. He shot out of the chair, the book in his lap thumping to the floor. He had nowhere to go, but he simply could not continue in the fashion of a leaky fountain.

One, four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five, thirty-six, forty-nine, sixty-four, eighty-one…
He recited the Table of Quadratic Residues, and the shift in his brain toward critical thinking occurred instantaneously. Compelled to finish, he worked through the 375 integers to the end of
mod 47
. By then his emotions had cleared, even if he felt isolated, or lost, as he did every time he emerged from a trance. The ones involving numbers were the worst, since the dimension in his mind where digits vibrated and sang and came to life had no basis in reality.

The sound of piano music floated faintly to his ears, and he went still, listening. Apparently Sophia hadn’t gone up to bed yet either. He sighed as he recognized the piece, a wandering, lyrical Schubert Impromptu. What could she be thinking now?

Gratifying to hear her playing Schubert; it meant she was content. He strained to hear the disembodied music, unable to concentrate on anything else. He gave up trying to resist. Before the closed doors of the music room, he sat on the floor against the wall and let the sounds wash over him. Lush and eloquent but rife with longing and… indecision? The haunting melody traveled restlessly through minor and major keys, amplifying the theme of unrest.

Wilhelm sat entranced, trying to discern the meaning of it as her phrases lingered over outbursts of thick chords, heavy with angst. A strange way to play Schubert — almost warlike, ironic in its harmony.

Abruptly she quit playing, and he tensed, ready to flee if he heard her footsteps approach the door. As suddenly as the Schubert had stopped, he now heard the menacing opening chords of the Beethoven
Pathetique
Sonata.

She had surrendered. Wilhelm ached in sympathy while Sophia unknowingly tortured him with her music. He abandoned trying to discern the reason and simply grieved for her. She sounded like his ghosts. Nine and a half minutes of methodical tension and mocking harmony — the sensation like the scrape of a hot poker.

Finally Sophia pounded the last four angry chords of the first movement, putting him in mind of the percussion of a cannon. He dragged himself from the floor, silently begging her to play the second movement, a truly peaceful and hope-filled piece. He nearly rejoiced aloud when he heard the gentle melody and sighed, soaking in its tenderness.

He heard her footsteps approach the door. He dashed down the gallery far enough for it to appear convincing that he was walking from the library the same moment she came out of the music room. He wore a calm façade as Sophia approached carrying a lantern. Her expression was troubled and careworn, as he’d thought it would be.

He wasn’t carrying a light, and she didn’t notice him until he was near. He began to greet her when she startled and dropped her lantern. Wilhelm caught it before it hit the ground, but the oil spilled out on his hand and onto the floor. There was now only weak light coming from farther down the gallery where the moonlight shone through the windows of the grand entrance, outlining her silhouette.

“Oh! Wilhelm! I apologize, I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m glad you took a lantern tonight instead of a candle. It would have been a shame to catch your lovely dress on fire.”

“Or your house.”

“Yes, I would miss the piano, particularly.”

“I am sorry
—
”

“No, it serves me right for sneaking up on you.”

“And now neither of us has a light, and I have covered you in lamp oil.”

“No matter. I am accustomed to your ruining my clothes.”

“I believe this episode makes the fourth.”

He smiled in the dark. “If you are so eager to see me without them you should just say so.” He shrugged out of his jacket, which had taken the worst of the oil spill, and tossed it onto the nearby table.

“You are wicked! Have you been drinking?” She set the extinguished lantern on the table.

“No. Well, yes, a little, but I am mostly behaving badly this time.”

“I should say so,” she retorted. “You were in the library just now?”

“Yes.”

“Then you were reading without a light? How remarkable.”

Wilhelm laughed then lied smoothly, “I was on my way to the kitchen for a bite to eat. My appetite got the better of me.” He held out his arm, praying she would take it despite three weeks of lonely, wary distance between them. “Join me?”

Six eternally long seconds until she nodded in agreement. Instead of resting her hand on his sleeve, she slid her palm down his arm and threaded their fingers together. He resisted howling in victory like a wolf. She had no idea of the pleasure he found in simply holding her hand, perfect inside his. The stairs down to the kitchen came too soon.

Wilhelm made a show of searching around the shelves and crates. He never actually raided the kitchen, and so she would know he’d lied, since he had no clue where a single blooming scrap of food should be. He did find lard. And cornmeal. Sophia crossed the kitchen and uncovered a basket on the counter near his elbow full of grapes, berries and peaches. She teased, “
Your Royal Highness
.”

“Oh, now you see? I was waiting for you to serve me. You should bring a palm frond and feed me the grapes while I lounge on the sofa.”

“But I am only the housemaid. You will have to give me a substantial rise in salary for that sort of service.”

“Is that all we are waiting for? Done. Name your price.”

“Even the distinguished Earl of Devon couldn’t possibly afford it.”

Ah, to spar words with her again. It felt like springtime. He dared laugh a little and leaned back against the counter. His elbow knocked over a jar of beans. He scrambled to catch it but bowled into a rack of hanging copper pots, then something else moist and odorous, which made him lunge back, setting the pots in motion again as well as another blasted jar of beans.

A few pots escaped their hooks; he only caught two, and the rest clanked to the stone floor. Several pounds of dry beans scattered across the counter, dancing with a thousand little
ping
sounds. The clamor from the disturbed pots surely woke every ghost in the mausoleum. Monsieur Girard would probably give his notice in the morning when he saw the mess.

Then a miracle happened. Sophia made a sound like
Humf,
covered her mouth, and then laughed. Louder, in beautiful melodic peals. Like rain on the desert. He smiled, enjoying it. She laughed herself into a fit and tried to sit down, but in the dim light sat upon Monsieur Girard’s cat napping on the seat. The cat hissed, and Sophia shouted in surprise as she leapt away. Wilhelm roared with laughter while Sophia recovered from the start.

They were both howling when Martin emerged through the swinging door in his nightcap, wearing a bewildered expression and carrying a candle. He took in the mess on the floor and the pots swaying on the rack.

When they finally quit laughing, Wilhelm explained simply, “Just a little midnight madcap. No assistance necessary.” Wilhelm chuckled at Martin’s professionally bland expression, knowing how ridiculous he looked, wielding two pots and standing amidst a bean graveyard.

Martin furrowed his eyebrows. “Do I smell kerosene?” But he couldn’t continue. Wilhelm and Sophia started again, and he couldn’t be heard over their laughter. He turned to leave, looking resigned and completely baffled.

Not that anything was amusing so much as it felt divine to laugh. The house had been painfully devoid of mirth the past three weeks, but if the lord and lady decreed laughter permissible again, the others would follow suit. Brighter days lay ahead, surely.

Wilhelm gestured for her to join him on the windowsill and they sat looking out over the east field and stables. She bit into a peach, and Wilhelm tried not to watch her mouth. He’d already been ignoring the tantalizing way the moonlight outlined every curve of her soft figure in silver light and shadow, and he loved her frilly, diaphanous Parisian nightwear. The little satin bows modestly tied but begging to be tugged open…

He wanted to touch her almost as badly as he wanted her to laugh again, argue with him, complain — anything was better than the ghost she’d turned in to. The possibility that
he
had been the one to break her despite all else she’d endured — his heart groaned, reviving a hollow ache he didn’t think would ever fade.

Sophia, why can’t I make you happy?

Oh, bollocks. He’d said it aloud.

She licked peach juice from her lips and furrowed her brows, and he was a captive audience. She stared, daring him to explain his stray comment, but he only shrugged and winked. Not a chance would he tread those dangerous waters. The one thing he understood about managing women was when to seal his lips shut.

“Wilhelm, are you certain you’re not drunk?”

“Not at all.”

“You mean you are not certain, or you’re not drunk?”

“Only jealous.”

“Jealous? Of what?”

Of the man who will one day do for you what I cannot seem to manage.
“Fate,” he answered simply, then truncated the argument by taking a bite out of whatever he’d grabbed from the basket, hardly tasting it. He found himself yearning for oblivion, but already knew he could float his eyeballs in cognac and still not wipe his addiction to her from his mind.
Burning alive, and relishing every scorching moment of it.

“From time to time, I too am prone to worry about that which I cannot help.”
She tilted her head toward him, and he perceived an invitation to hug her shoulder. Sophia didn’t seem to mind that he left his arm around her. He let his hand slide down her arm and rest against her waist, drawing her against his side. She fit perfectly.

A rush of cool water, steaming over white-hot coals…
He could lie back against the window frame and pull her onto his chest. Even the thought of it made the hollow spot under his ribs vibrate. Then he would lace his fingers through her hair and brush the velvet skin of her neck until he coaxed her into that kitten-like submissive state
—

And then what?
And to what end?

In a nasty trick of his subconscious, he blurted, “Sophia, I was eavesdropping on your music. I confess I, ah, bluffed
—
”

“I know, Wil.”

“You knew I was outside listening?”

She gave him a sideways nod, leaving him to wonder what had given him away. Well, he had opened Pandora’s box, so he might as well address the rift between them. Before he could gather his thoughts, Sophia turned and placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed, hard. It demanded every ounce of his attention.

She shuffled closer on her knees, straddled his lap, and flattened herself against his chest. It overloaded his starved senses; he felt the contact like a lightning strike. Overwhelmed, he shut his eyes. He felt her breath on his lips as she muttered, “Make it go away, Wil.”

And then she kissed him, not the way a wife kisses a husband, but like a lover. She combed her fingers over his temples and framed his head in her hands, holding him captive while she delved deeply, teasing him into participation with a nip on his bottom lip, then her tongue traced his top lip.

He heard haunting strains of Beethoven in the back of his mind, a simple dark string trio in low tones, complementing the silver moonlight and the perfume of peach juice. None of it compared to the lush feel of her in his arms, tempting him with a taste of the sublime.