“You forget, Mr. Pinter,” she said, “that I am no ordinary woman. I followed the drum for seven years. I have seen battle and death. I have handled guns and used them. I am not squeamish at the thought of shedding a little blood. If you believe I am bluffing, you may come over here and take the pistol from me. But you may get only a hole in your heart for your pains. Now. I will take that letter first—the one you have on you. Toss it across the floor.”
He still looked almost insolently at his ease. But Sophia, sighting along the barrel of the gun, her eyes intent on him, could see beads of moisture above his upper lip and on his forehead. He shrugged and chuckled and reached inside his coat. A letter came spinning across the carpet toward her.
“I will humor you for a few moments,” he said. “I must say I find this vastly diverting, Sophie. It is, of course, the last letter. I suppose I might be generous this once and allow you to have it. Shall we shake hands on it?” He half rose from his chair.
“Sit down!” she commanded him.
He sat and folded his arms. He was grinning.
“In a few moments,” she said, “we will go to fetch the other letters. I am well aware of the fact that you will try to keep back at least one or two of them so that you may continue your game in future. But I wish you to know something first. I have grown tired of keeping this secret to myself. I have written a letter of my own and made several copies. They are all with a lawyer I visited yesterday. He has instructions to have the letters delivered immediately on my instructions or on my death or unexplained disappearance. I will give those instructions as soon as your next attempt at blackmail is made or as soon as you publish one of these letters for all the world to see. And that, Mr. Pinter, is no bluff.”
“But the scandal would be just as scandalous, my dear,” he said. She wondered he had not grown tired of chuckling.
“Yes,” she agreed. “And I believe that my brother, Viscount Houghton, Sir Nathaniel Gascoigne, Lord Pelham, Viscount Rawleigh, and the Earl of Haverford would be interested to learn the identity of the author of that scandal. I would not wish to be in your shoes on that day, Mr. Pinter. It might be kinder if I were to shoot you now.”
Her conviction that he was nothing more than a coward and a bully had been well-founded, she could see. His posture and manner had not really changed, but he was clearly uneasy. His foot was jerking rather than swinging freely. His eyes were darting about, seeking ways to distract or disarm her. Perspiration was beginning to drip into his eyes and onto his cravat.
“You have been remarkably eager so far to keep all this to yourself, Sophie,” he said. “I do not believe you have written those letters at all.”
“You may well be right,” she said. “Indeed, it seems very possible that you are, does it not? But you will not know for sure until you put the matter to the test, will you? Is it a bluff or is it not? Do you think you will be able to sleep easily from tonight onward?” She smiled grimly, though she did not relax her concentration on his person. “Am I bluffing, Mr. Pinter, or am I not?”
“Now, Sophie,” he said, “I believe we should talk this over.”
“You will get to your feet now,” she said, “your hands out to the sides where I can see them. I am an angry woman, Mr. Pinter. Not passionately angry, you will understand, but coldly so. I believe I would rather enjoy being given an excuse to shoot you. Perhaps you should be careful not to tempt me. Up!”
She should have practiced, she realized then. She had not thought of it. Her outstretched arms were growing tired. The pistol seemed to weigh a ton. And this was not over yet by a long way. She dug deep inside herself for the fortitude she would need. She would find it. She always had when facing adverse circumstances during the wars.
And then the totally unforeseen happened just as he got to his feet and raised his arms to shoulder height, palms out. Someone knocked on the outer door.
He grinned at her again. “This could be a trifle inconvenient for you, Sophie,” he said.
“Stay where you are.” She did not take her eyes from him for a single moment. If she was fortunate, it would be a tradesman or someone else whom the valet could deal with without consulting his employer. If she was not fortunate, well ... She had no plans.
There was the sound of voices from beyond the door. Not just two. More than two. And they were inside the outer door. Sophia drew a steadying breath. Boris Pinter’s eyes had resumed their darting. His smile had grown a little more assured.
The door opened.
“It
is
Sophie,” Kenneth said. “She has a gun.”
“Don’t do it, Sophie.” Rex spoke sharply. “Whatever you do, do not shoot.”
“Put it down, Sophie,” Eden said. “There really is no need to use it even if he
does
deserve to die.”
“Well,” Boris Pinter said, lowering his hands, “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the rescue.” But his pleasant tone was utter bravado. His eyes showed more fear than they had shown so far, a fact that Sophia found considerably annoying.
“Get those hands up!” she snapped, and felt a moment’s satisfaction as they jerked upward again. She had made him look foolish, if nothing else.
And then Nathaniel stepped into her line of vision, so that her pistol was suddenly trained right at
his
heart.
“Give me the gun, Sophie,” he said, reaching out one hand.
“Careful, Nat,” Eden said. “She may not know quite what she is doing.”
“He is not worth it,” Nathaniel said, taking one step toward her. “He is not worth what you would have to live with in your waking life and in your dreams until your dying day. Believe me, my love. I know what I am talking about. Give me the gun.” He took another step toward her and clearly meant to keep coming.
Sophia did not wait for the ignominy of having the pistol removed from her nerveless fingers. She put it back into the pocket inside her cloak.
“An unloaded gun does little damage,” she said, “except perhaps to a man’s nerves.”
Someone was breathing with audible relief.
“She is a madwoman, I tell you,” Pinter was saying. “I was returning something of Walter’s to her, thinking she might wish to have it. Unfortunately it is a love letter old Walter wrote to someone else and Sophie cut up nasty. Taking it out on me, I suppose, because Walter is beyond her reach.”
“Save your breath, Pinter,” Kenneth said. “You are going to need it in a short while. Are you all right, Sophie?”
She was staring into Nathaniel’s eyes just a few feet away. She was despising herself for the knee-weakening relief she felt. She tried not to show it. She had not even begun to wonder what had brought the four of them here.
“I could have managed alone,” she said.
“There is no doubt of that,” Nathaniel agreed. “But friends stick together, Sophie. And we are your friends whether you like it or not.”
“So you really did it, Sophie.” Boris Pinter was chuckling yet again, though it was not a merry sound. “Not even by letter. You told them.”
“Was this the letter, Sophie?” Kenneth asked, bending and picking it up from the floor.
“Yes,” she said.
“There are more of them?”
“Yes.”
“They will all be in your possession,” he said, “before many more minutes have passed.”
“They would have been even if you had not come,” she said, her eyes on Nathaniel. Did they
know?
And did it matter any longer? Soon now she would not have to face the torment of seeing him—any of them—any longer. She would be gone.
“Sophie,” he said, and he stepped forward, set his arms about her, and drew her against him. She felt his lips brush across one of her cheeks. It was only at that moment she realized that she had begun to tremble. She had shown her relief after all. “Would one of you take her home, please?”
“No.” She drew her head back, but it was a weak protest.
Why would he not take her home himself?
“Come, Sophie,” Rex said after a short pause.
None of them, it seemed, wanted to leave and miss what was about to happen here. And what was that to be? she wondered. What were they doing here? Why had they come? What were they going to do to Boris Pinter? Had they stopped her from killing him—not that she could have done so with her unloaded pistol—only so that they might have the satisfaction of doing it themselves?
Did they
know?
“Come, Sophie,” Rex said again. “Catherine is at Rawleigh House with Moira and Daphne. Let me take you to them.”
Nathaniel’s arms had dropped from about her and Rex’s arm came firmly about her shoulders.
“Come,” he said again. “You have nothing more to fear. You could have done it atone—that was clear to all of us as soon as we came in. But let your friends finish it off for you.”
Finish it off.
He did not elaborate, but she did not care. Not any longer. Even if they did not already know, they soon would. She did not care about that either. All she cared about was that it was over, that she was going to be free—even if after all she needed the Four Horsemen to help free her—and that within a few days she was going to begin the life that had so excited her as she had planned it yesterday.
The excitement would return, she told herself as she allowed Rex to lead her from Boris Pinter’s rooms and down the stairs and outside to his waiting carriage. She was feeling depressed only because she had not been allowed to end it her way—depressed and also immeasurably relieved.
Rex handed her into the carriage and followed her inside and it jolted immediately into motion. Sophia set her head back and closed her eyes.
“What is going to happen?” she asked.
“They will recover your letters,” he said. “They will bring them to you at Rawleigh House and it will be all over. Friends
do
stick together, Sophie. When I had a certain matter of honor to settle a few years ago, those three stood by me just as the four of us are standing by you today. Their support meant a great deal to me.”
She half smiled, though she did not open her eyes. “I take your point, Rex,” she said. “I will not again accuse you of interference. What else will happen?”
“He will be punished,” he said after a short silence.
“Three against one?” It seemed not quite right.
“One against one,” he told her. “We all wanted to be that one, Sophie. We should have drawn straws, perhaps. But Nat would not hear of it. But then neither would I hear of anyone’s taking my place a few years ago—I was avenging a wrong to Catherine.”
Sophia opened her eyes and looked at him. He was looking steadily back.
Nathaniel, she remembered then, had put his arms about her and kissed her cheek. He had called her his love.
Believe me, my love,
he had said.
She closed her eyes again.
“Now, Pinter,” Kenneth said briskly when they had all heard the outer door close behind Rex and Sophie. “The rest of the letters, if you please.”
Boris Pinter laughed. “There was only the one,” he said. “I was giving it to her, but I suppose she was so upset to know what sort of letter it was that she imagined I was somehow threatening her with it. You all know about women and their fits of the vapors—especially when they discover that their men have been having a little bit on the side.”
Kenneth strolled across the room to stand almost toe-to-toe with Boris Pinter. He towered ominously almost a whole head taller than the other man. “I do not believe you have understood the nature of the order,
Lieutenant,
” he said. “I am loath to raise my voice since we are not on a parade ground. I will accompany you while you fetch the rest of the letters. Do you understand now?”
“Yes, sir,” Pinter said, the tone of camaraderie gone from his voice. When Kenneth stepped to one side and gestured toward the door, he went toward it smartly enough.
Nathaniel and Eden looked at each other when they were alone.
“Damn it,” Eden said, “she looked magnificent. Who would have suspected that the pistol was unloaded? I would not.”
“Help me with the furniture?” Nathaniel suggested, and they set about moving back a few chairs and small tables that occupied the center of the room.
“Nat.” Eden straightened up after they had moved a sofa together. “A kiss? On the face?
My love?
”
Nathaniel looked assessingly at the empty center of the room. It should do. He had had his back to everyone else and had been unnerved by that gun pointed right at him—and by the thought of what might have happened to Sophie if Pinter had wrested it away from her before their arrival. He had forgotten for a few disastrous moments that they were not alone.
“Is that why you would not play fair and give any of us the chance to do this?” Eden asked, gesturing to the empty space.
Nathaniel looked back at him but said nothing.
“Sophie?” Eden looked and sounded intrigued. “
Sophie,
Nat? Not Lady Gullis?”
But Ken and Pinter were coming back. Ken was carrying a bundle of what looked to be another eight or ten letters, all resembling the first in appearance.
“Old Walter was quite the boy,” Pinter said heartily.
“
Major Armitage
, ” Eden told him, “will remain out of all your conversations and correspondence from this moment forward, Lieutenant. As will these letters and all matters pertaining to them. We will not ask for your word on this, as frankly we do not trust your word. Let it simply be said, then, that disobeying orders on this matter will be somewhat injurious to your health. I will not ask if you understand.”
“That is a threat,” Pinter said. “Sir.”
“And so it is.” Eden regarded him coolly. “It is also a promise. So is this.” He reached inside his coat and drew out a folded sheet of paper, which he tossed onto one of the tables he had moved to the edge of the room. “It is something that will be made public, Pinter, unless for the rest of your natural days you are a very good boy indeed. It outlines certain interesting facts about your sexual preferences.”