Authors: Moriah Denslea
Shameful, but he had thoroughly seduced her, and she knew this show of passion was more a calculated manipulation than heartfelt. That alone posed a serious danger.
But why not wait? If no threat came, then she could linger a while. No denying she wanted to stay. Even though she would never have allowed such a risk before, she found herself saying, “Very well, Wilhelm.”
She returned to her room to find a small mountain of telegrams — no, only three, but all from Mr. Cox. She tore them open, scanning the lines for the news she dreaded. He merely sent his reprimands, along the lines of
What in bloody hell were you thinking. Stop. Suggest you go to your mother in Versailles. Stop. Heaven help you both
. Perhaps she had caused her undoing in one fell swoop.
Sophia sat atop her traveling case long into the night, warring with either packing it or letting it remain a fixture. She could ask Mr. Cox to monitor the movement of the bounty hunters before deciding to flee Rougemont. She would never have taken such a risk before. That she even considered staying proved what a dangerous hold Wilhelm had on her.
Chapter 13
Why Sophia’s Unmentionables Go Missing
Silent screams, rolling eyes, swollen purple lips. Some convulsed, others simply dropped limp. A few wore an odd expression of relief. For most, a tragic sense of surprise. No man truly believes he is mortal until his last breath, as he stares death in the face. Wilhelm knew the face of each ghost. He could not forget. For them,
he
was the face of death.
This time they wouldn’t die, spraying fountains of black blood even after he killed them again and again. The repetition became its own torture, over and over, until he became the cold, soulless creature more familiar to himself.
But then he ripped his knife across the throat of his enemy — it revealed its face as
her
. The scream tearing from his throat crossed every realm between heaven and hell. Her eyes stared wide with shocked betrayal, her body spasmed, she gasped futilely as her throat poured opaque red, real blood. He scrambled in vain to hold the wound on her neck shut, willing it all to be a dream, damning himself to the darkest pit of hell —
“
Wilhelm
,” her strained voice sounded inside his ear. “Let go. You are hurting me.”
He blinked, twice, and there was no sticky blood coating his arms, no ear-splitting screams from impaled horses or smoke burning his nose. He smelled peaches and cloves and fresh cotton. Not his imagination. Sophia was here, outlined in weak lamplight and leaning over him in bed, her unbound hair falling over her shoulders onto his chest.
At once he came to his senses and dropped his hands as though her skin had scorched him. All the air sucked out of the room, and an unwelcome messenger in the back of his mind announced ominously,
You hurt her. You bastard
.
Moments later the sound of her coughing was music to his ears. He lay frozen, unwilling to spook her by moving his hands, despising himself too much to try and comfort her.
Then she astounded him. She dropped her head onto his chest and reached her arms around his neck. “I am so sorry, Wil.”
Sorry?
He still waited for her to shrink in terror. Surely he had just conjured her own demons, with his hands cruelly grasping her neck? He could not fathom how easily he might have killed her. It required little effort to crush a windpipe even one-handed, and he had snapped many far stockier necks than hers before the victim made a sound.
“I will be fine, Wilhelm. Only a little faint. It will pass.” He was trembling hysterically; it probably frightened her, but no chance could he control it until his heart quit hammering against his ribs.
His voice held all the charm of a rusty hinge, “I damn near killed you.”
“You let go when I asked.”
He wanted her away. He squirmed miserably, but she missed the hint. And he sure as hell wouldn’t tell her outright she was torturing him. Only a sick man could be aroused at a moment like this. He really was a bloody bastard.
“I thought I could help you. It was foolish. Too often I hear you disturbed at night, Wilhelm, and it grieves me you cannot rest. What is it that haunts you?” Her fingers moved in his hair, scraping slowly along his scalp. As pathetic as Fritz when she scratched his ears; Wilhelm’s eyes slid closed and he leaned shamefully into her hand.
“Ghosts and demons.”
She demanded nothing more of him. It made no sense, but now all he could think about was her; the calm rise and fall of her breath, her fragile warm frame covering his, the heavenly feel of her hands tousling his hair. In turn she let him run his fingers through her hair, and he found the smooth texture soothing. A pure sensation, free from the ugliness of his memories. He immersed himself in the task of warming each glossy lock with his hands. No better smell in all the world than the perfumed fruity scent mingled with spice soap in her hair. It was long; his fingers combed down the length and brushed the small of her back at the ends.
It defied reason that she should be his siren by day but guardian angel by night.
Praenuntius pacis.
“What?”
Oh. He had said it aloud. “Harbinger of peace,” he answered the angel voice. His own voice sounded groggy. He could not possibly be drowsy.
A throaty chuckle, a sound he adored. “Wilhelm, go to sleep.”
He woke the next morning with her scent infused in the bedsheets and deep in his skin where her head had lain. It puzzled him to see late morning light fighting its way through a gap in the curtains. He
never
slept past dawn. He seldom slept soundly. Yet she had put him to sleep, and it had knocked him out cold.
He rolled out of bed, forgetting he wore only his drawers, and went straight for the controversial door linking his and her apartments. He knew she would be out. He searched her room frantically and shouted in triumph as he found it in a laundry bag near the hallway door: that cream-colored lace nightgown that smelled so intensely of her.
He stole it.
Wilhelm returned to his room in time to scandalize the poor chambermaid. He covered his groin with the nightgown and barked, “Don’t change the sheets! Leave them!” Words he had never in his life uttered before.
The maid regarded him as though he was Cerberus, and he shooed her out of the room, lifting the lacy fabric to his nose again, reassuring himself with the heavenly scent. A foolish smile curled his lips.
He quelled the dark voice in the back of his mind warning,
You are certifiable, Old Wil
. He hardly minded. He was darkness and she light, yet the shred of hope gave him dangerous ideas, all of them beginning with
Perhaps
… .
He was right. The next several nights he finally spent alone in his own mind. He woke in the morning with his last memory lying down to sleep, so long as he kept her nightgown folded under his pillow where he could breathe in her scent. It calmed him, grounded him, and for a man who dreaded the night for nearly a decade, it was no small miracle.
• • •
Sophia was out of sorts. Half of her lingerie had gone missing from the laundry; stockings, a chemise, her nightgown, even a pair of drawers, heaven forbid. This morning the Cavendish girls had responded to her lesson on long division with all the panache of a cold worm. Mr. Cox had sent another wire containing a vague warning about confusing activity he observed of her father’s investigators, which she could do nothing about except worry.
She might have managed those annoyances with some grace if not for the pains in her abdomen. They returned with a vengeance, after only two weeks since the last episode. Since she was reportedly barren, according the best doctors in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, could she not at least escape the unpleasant burdens of reproduction? Short of surgical dissection or electrical shock treatment — no, apparently.
Adenomyoma
, a very scientific-sounding term to equate “tormented, dysfunctional female.”
Lord Devon had been perfectly solicitous, and she stood ready to behead him if he crowded her again, trying to coddle her. He sat next to her on the sofa behind the piano while Sophia corrected Elise’s playing. Apparently he had nothing better to do. He propped his arm across the back of the sofa, not quite on her shoulders.
Even worse when he pried, subtly probing for clues about her condition.
Are you quite all right? I suppose an afternoon ride is out of the question? You don’t feel light-headed or weak? Could you have upset your stomach with a bit of spoiled food? Please tell me you are not in pain.
I have never felt better, thank you, my lord
. She knew he really wanted to know if she was with child. She debated whether to tell him she was about to drop a brat by a prince or a gypsy. Which would irk him more?
A grunt escaped as a fresh wave of pain gripped her womb. The throbbing radiated all the way through to her spine and numbed her legs. Sitting became unbearable. Sophia shifted in her seat and glanced at the clock again, wondering if she could claim she needed a nap so soon after breakfast without attracting more unwanted attention.
“Come on, rest back on the sofa. I know you want to,” he whispered in her ear through clenched teeth. “I can’t tell if you are about to faint or vomit. You are driving me mad.”
“Charming,” she groused. “Elise, mind the key change. F-sharp.”
Elise played another wrong note, jarring Sophia’s already short temper. She pressed against her belly in futile effort to push the pain away. Oh, she loathed how every beat of her pulse burned, riding her nerves. “F-sharp, Elise. The
black
key.”
“And play legato, connect the notes. Smoother in the andante section,” Lord Devon added helpfully, unaware he tipped the balance in favor of his assassination.
Then he nudged Sophia by the waist, laying her back on his chest. He reclined against the side of the sofa with her cradled in his arms, her feet on the cushion. The pain eased from a stabbing sensation to a dull throb as her body unfolded and relaxed. She surrendered, sighing in relief. He hummed back then fell silent.
Then his hands replaced hers, kneading her belly. His hands were stronger and warmer; the tension in her cramped muscles melted away at his command. Sophia could not bear to lace her corset this morning as she dressed and had foregone it; thus with only two thin layers of fabric in the way, she felt his touch almost like contact with skin and was too relieved to protest. Elise played on, unaware of the horridly inappropriate scene going on behind her.
A high-pitched gasp and choking wail startled Sophia out of her sleep. She struggled to disentangle herself from Wilhelm’s embrace in time to see Elise gaping in horror. Tears flooded her lovely ocean-blue eyes, making her appear even more impossibly young and innocent. She pressed a hand to her mouth and fled the music room without a word.
“High time for that,” Wilhelm muttered, and Sophia wanted to slap him. “I am old enough to be her father. Hell, I have filled the role of father for her since she wore braids. Not to mention she is so … .”
Naïve? Vain? Innocent?
“Do you feel better?”
“I am far too well at the moment.” Not that the pain was absent, but eclipsed by the pleasure of lying in his arms. She had thought of little else since the night she spent asleep on the bare skin of his chest, listening to the deep steady rhythm of his heart. She had slept with a lovely sense of safety; it kept the nightmares away. She had dreamed of him every night since. Steadily her judgment had deteriorated to the point where she couldn’t remember why she should resist him. It had taken Mr. Cox’s letter to remind her.
“I should go. This is wrong.” Shameful; she reinforced her sensible words with no conviction. Not to mention her complete lack of action.
“Why?” He blew a short breath through his nose, raising little bumps on her neck. “I was about to try my luck teasing another kiss from you.” He didn’t pretend to soothe the cramps in her abdomen now; his fingers stroked her ribs and his wandering thumb moved with the provoking caress of a lover.
“The doors are open. Anyone could walk in.”
“All the more thrilling when we are caught in a compromising position. Why don’t we give them something to talk about?”
She should twist away and berate him with her shocked outrage that he would suggest such impropriety. No, instead she arched her back and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his face to hers.
He nuzzled her with his lips brushing the corner of her mouth. “Tell me what ails you. I must know.”
“Nothing that can be remedied.”
“I have seen you before like this; I fear for you.”
“I almost wish it was a baby, but in more ways than one it may never be possible. Do you know what I mean, Wilhelm?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so — but why?”
“Even if I could explain it and make some sense, I would sooner die of humiliation.”
“Please? For me?”
“No, Wilhelm.”
He cursed under his breath and extricated himself from the sofa with irate movements. Sophia closed her eyes, her thoughts in a tangle. The piano bench creaked and Wilhelm’s glorious Schumann followed. A melancholy serenade, which he tinkered with. A chord change here, a variation on the melody there. Four phrases later nothing of Schumann remained as Wilhelm spun his own musical creation, something darker. Complex.
He had fallen into a trance. He stared past the piano, his gaze far away while heartbreaking music flowed from his fingers. She should leave him; when he composed it felt very private and she didn’t want to intrude. In a way she could not bear hearing it. Over the past few months she had found his music made her unreasonable, emotionally. Today the stormy texture and nostalgic melody soaked through her, dragging her every frustration and longing to the surface where she couldn’t ignore them, magnifying them.
He had created the musical embodiment of
desire
, and it struck her as utterly effective. She was moments away from an illogical outburst of tears when he finished. She heard the bench creak again, and the silence meant he waited for her to acknowledge him.