“You make no sense,
Lord
David. You said you didn’t want my husband for an enemy. He married me. He loves me. He wouldn’t kill me, he would believe me, not you. He would kill you.”
“Are you so ignorant of your husband’s nature? Of his reputation? Like you, he must have a great deal of variety. You loved sex, God, you started on your career when you were barely eighteen. You want sex still, I doubt it not. You can’t stay faithful to one man, even to Ryder Sherbrooke, who, I’ve heard, has bedded every woman who resides in Kent. Now he’s in the Cotswolds and no woman will be safe from him. You’ll see. He’ll parade his mistresses under your nose and laugh. Well, my dear, Charles and I are going to allow you to continue with your ways just as he will with his.”
He dug his heels into his stallion’s sides, and came up close to her. He reached out his arms to her. Sophie raised her riding crop and brought it down hard on his arm. He yowled, jerking back.
“You’re utterly mad!”
His face flushed with rage, but before he could do anything, the silence was broken by what sounded like a pack of wild dogs, all howling in anger, growling deeply and viciously, bounding ready to attack, and to kill. Wild dogs in the Cotswolds?
“What the bloody hell!”
Sophie pulled Opal back from him. An arrow came flying through the air to land in Lord David’s upper arm, just nicking it actually, but certainly ruining his superfine riding jacket. He screamed more in anger than in pain. He had no weapon. He had no way to defend himself against an unseen enemy.
“You brought someone, you perfidious bitch! This isn’t over, you’ll see!”
He wheeled his stallion about and was soon lost to her sight. Sophie just sat there, trying to breathe deeply. It was no surprise to her when the underbrush surrounding the road spilled out seven children, Jeremy, and Sinjun, all of them oddly silent after their sterling performance. Sinjun carried the bow. It had been she who had shot Lord David. Sophie climbed down from Opal’s broad back.
Jeremy came to her and enfolded her in his arms.
“He’s a bad man from Jamaica,” the boy said. “I told Sinjun who he was.”
“You did well.” She raised her head. All the children, from four-year-old Jenny to ten-year-old Oliver, stood silent, all in a line, watching her. She wondered how they had known, then decided she didn’t want to know. She tried to smile but it was difficult. She said finally, “I was in trouble. Thank you all for your help. I truly believed a pack of wild dogs had somehow come along. You were splendid. I’m very proud of all of you.”
Sinjun said quietly, “I didn’t think you wanted Ryder to know just yet. We will figure out what to do, Sophie. You’re not alone anymore. But Jeremy doesn’t understand everything that happened on Jamaica. You need to tell me more.”
“Yes, I will. Now, listen to me, all of you. I know that you all dearly love Ryder. But I beg you not to tell him of this. The bad man is as mean as a snake, he isn’t honorable or good like Ryder. He wouldn’t fight him fairly. I don’t want Ryder hurt. Please don’t say anything to him. All right?”
Amy said, “What’s a hore?”
Tom slapped his hand over the little girl’s mouth. “That’s not a nice word. Don’t say it again.”
Amy, affronted, yelled back at Tom, “You say horrible words to Jaime all because Ollie said you grew up on the docks. You—”
Oliver got into the argument, waving one of his crutches about, and then Jenny said in a very carrying voice, “I want to go pull up my dress and visit Mrs. Nature.”
Sophie felt something loosen inside her. She laughed, really laughed, and soon the children joined her, and it was Sinjun who carried Jenny off into the underbrush to visit Mrs. Nature.
Sophie realized on the way back to Chadwyck House that none of the children had promised her not to tell Ryder.
Jane and her two helpers were nearly recovered and would come to Chadwyck House within the next two weeks.
Sophie, who knew all about Jane now, realized that the woman wouldn’t be happy living in another woman’s household. There would be no problem. They would simply build another house in the small knoll that stood not one hundred yards from the main house. Ryder agreed and work would begin soon.
To Sophie’s astonishment, Melissande decided after only one visit to Bedlam House, as Ryder had christened it, that perhaps having a child wasn’t such a bad idea after all. All the children, even Jenny, told her over and over again how very beautiful she was. They were afraid to touch her for fear of somehow hurting her perfection. As for Melissande’s husband, Tony, he groaned and said there was no hope for it. He was immediately taking her to London. “I can tolerate—just barely—some nodcock fool young man telling her that her eyebrows are like an artist’s brush strokes, but all this nonsense from a pack of children? No, Sophie, it is too much. I will go into a decline if I have to hear much more.”
Tony sighed deeply. Ryder laughed. Melissande beamed at all the children, patting every single head. She promised each of them a special sweetmeat on her next visit.
Ryder strode toward the house one afternoon, tired from a long day in the fields, speaking to many of his farmers. He’d also met with architects and arranged for artisans and workers for the new house. He’d also heard gossip about his gaggle of “bastards,” and he’d gotten a good laugh from that. Just wait, he thought, just wait until there were a good fifteen children. Then what would the busybodies say? He wasn’t at all surprised to realize that eventually, there would very probably be at least fifteen children, perhaps more.
It was a hot day, far too hot for this time of year, nearly Michaelmas now. He heard the children before he saw them. Always, they were ready for him. They had set up some kind of signal system. In another minute, many of them were there, escorting him to the house, all of them talking at once, even Jenny. She was talking like a magpie now and he realized it was his influence that had brought the rapid progress. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight after this. He quickly forgot his fatigue; he laughed and listened to each of them and all of them at once, and silently thanked the good Lord yet again that none of them had come down with the measles.
And each night there was Sophie beside him, accepting him now, and he knew she enjoyed his body, knew that she looked forward to their time alone so she could touch him as much as she wished to, and accept his touches. Only last night, he had actually made her laugh when he was deep inside her. He felt good. He couldn’t imagine the stars aligning themselves in a more propitious stance.
He was whistling until he found two letters in the top drawer of her desk. Sophie was in Lower Slaughter, three children and Laura and Sophie’s maid, Cory, with her, buying cloth to make clothing. The seamstresses of Lower Slaughter—all three of them—were in alt because of the sudden manna from business heaven that showed no sign of ever diminishing. It was during Sophie’s jaunt that Mrs. Chivers had complained to Ryder that the butcher was cheating them royally, and here they were, not royalty at all, and he really should do something about it and not spend all his time with those dirty farmers. And so he was looking in Sophie’s desk for the butcher bills. And he found the letters from David Lochridge.
The second letter was even dated and the date was yesterday. He read:
I have made up my mind. You will become my mistress again. Charles Grammond will deal with you himself. I intend to enjoy myself again as I did on Jamaica. Come to the old Tolliver shack on the north side of your husband’s property at three o‘clock Thursday or you will regret it.
Signed merely “DL.”
The damned bastard.
And damn Sophie’s beautiful gray eyes. She’d said nothing; he’d known something was wrong. Indeed the previous evening, she’d wanted him urgently, too urgently, as if she wanted to keep something unpleasant at bay. But he hadn’t questioned her; he’d merely given her what she’d wanted, what she’d appeared to need; he’d allowed her to escape this for the time she’d exploded into her climax.
She’d unmanned him with her silence.
He crumpled the letter in his fist, unaware that he’d even done it.
“Papa.”
He looked up blankly. There was Jenny, standing in the doorway, looking from his face to the wad of paper fisted tightly in his hand.
Ryder forced himself to toss the crumpled paper back onto Sophie’s desk. “Hello, pumpkin. Come here and let me hug you. It’s been more than an hour since I’ve seen you—far too long.”
Jenny raced to him and he raised her high in his arms and kissed her nose. “What is it you wish, little love?”
“Can you teach me to shoot a bow and arrow like Sinjun so I can shoot that bad man?”
He froze tighter than a spigot in January.
“Certainly,” he said. “Tell me about it, all right?”
And she did. He would have laughed at all the children playing at being wolves if he hadn’t been so angry. God, but they’d done well. Routed the bastard. And Sinjun, shooting him through the upper arm. Well done of her.
He’d strangle his sister once he got his hands on her.
Then he’d strangle his wife.
“Jenny! Where are you, pumpkin? Jenn—” Sinjun came through the doorway, stopped short, and immediately said, “Oh dear. Hello, Ryder. Whatever are you doing here? This is Sophie’s room and—”
Ryder merely stared at his sister, words, for the moment, failing him.
Sinjun sighed. “I suppose Jenny said something?”
“You’re not stupid, Sinjun. You are very quick to perceive when your perfidy has been discovered. It’s a relief. I detest boring explanations. Yes. Jenny wants me to teach her how to shoot a bow and arrow so that she can shoot the bad man.”
“Oh dear. I’m sorry, Ryder, but—”
He was controlled now. He said to Jenny as he disengaged her thin arms from about his neck, “Now, love, I want you to go with Sinjun. She’s going to give you a biscuit and some lemonade. Papa must do some work now. All right?”
“Papa,” Jenny said, and went immediately to Sinjun.
“Go,” Ryder said to his sister. “This time, you will keep your mouth shut—to my wife.”
“All right,” Sinjun said, and her voice was very small, so small in fact, so diffident and timorous, that Ryder nearly smiled.
At two-thirty on Thursday, Ryder calmly pulled his horse to a halt some thirty yards away from the Tolliver shack. He tethered him next to some goat weed to keep him quiet.
He felt a mix of anticipation, rage, and excitement all coming together inside him. He wanted to see David Lochridge. He wanted, quite simply, to pound him into the ground.
He waited in the thick elm trees that bordered the shack, whistling behind his teeth, his excitement building and building. He wondered when Sophie would arrive. He wondered when Lochridge would get here.
However, it simply never occurred to him that another person would put in an appearance here, of all places. He was frozen in silent shock when an older woman pulled an old-fashioned gig to a halt in front of the shack not five minutes later. She was plump, wearing a stylish gown, a bonnet far too young for her, for she was in her mid-forties, he guessed, and she looked somewhat familiar, but that couldn’t be. Good God, was she here for some sort of tryst? Was this shack used for illicit affairs?
He didn’t move. He watched the woman climb down from the gig, and lead the old cob around to the back of the cottage, out of sight.
What the devil was going on?
Sophie and Lord David Lochridge arrived at the same time, from different directions. Both Ryder and the other woman were well out of sight.
Ryder watched as Sophie dismounted Opal, turned and said very clearly, her voice as calm as the eye of a storm, “I am here to tell you one last time, Lord David, that I will have nothing to do with you.”
“Ah, you’re still being the tease,” he said, but Ryder saw him looking around. For more wolves? His eyes fell on the riding crop she held in her right hand.
“No, I’m not teasing you. When I saw you last I told you the truth. All that happened on Jamaica was my uncle’s doing and I was never with you intimately at the cottage, with you or with any of the other men. Now, if you don’t choose to believe me, why then, I guess I will just have to shoot you.”
Ryder’s eyes widened. She drew a small derringer from her pocket and pointed it at his chest.
Lord David laughed. “Ah, a lady with a little gun. Come, my dear, we both know you haven’t the nerve to do anything with that toy, much less pull the trigger.”
“I thought you said I murdered my uncle. If you believe that then how can you possibly believe that I wouldn’t or couldn’t pull the trigger on you?”
Lord David was in a quandary. He eyed her closely. He fidgeted; he cursed. Finally, he said, “Come, let’s talk about this. There’s no reason for violence. I’m merely offering you my body. It is for your pleasure, just as I pleasured you on Jamaica. Why are you being so unreasonable?”
“Unreasonable, am I? And what about dear Charles Grammond? Does he wish to continue your silly fictions as well? Will I have to face him down as I am you?”
“Charles isn’t my problem. He will do what he wishes to do.”
Sophie was now the one who looked thoughtful. “It would seem to me,” she said at last, “that we are at something of an impasse. You wish to wed an heiress; Charles Grammond must be discreet or his aunt will kick him out and leave him no money in her will. That is what you told me, isn’t it? All right, then, I won’t kill you if you will cease all this damnable nonsense. Go away, David. Just go away and marry your poor heiress. I wish I could warn her about you but I realize that I can‘t, not without hurting my husband and his family. There will be no scandal for either of us. Do you agree?”