For Love Alone (20 page)

It was common knowledge, too, that he was hanging out for a wife simply to sire an heir. She had been married once for that reason and had no intention of finding herself in that deplorable position again.

Something else had been niggling at the back of her mind, and, scowling, she asked suddenly, “How was it that you arrived so timely to the library?”

Ives shrugged. “I heard you leave your room. I followed you.”

“You followed me!” exclaimed Sophy, perplexed. “Why?”

“Because I was afraid that you might come to harm wandering about unprotected in a place filled with the wickedest sort of rascals I have ever seen in my life,” he said simply.

Her confusion evident, Sophy stared back at him. “You were trying to guard me?” she asked incredulously.

A crooked smile curved his mouth and he bowed. “That was my intention.”

Sophy put a hand to her head and turned away from him. “I do not understand you,” she muttered. “I do not understand why you are here or why you act one way and then another, or why you came so readily to my defense this evening. I do not know why Edward was murdered, nor why someone tried to implicate me in his death. I do not understand any of it.”

Gently Ives pulled her to him. His warm, broad body at her back, her arms wrapped around her and his chin resting on the top of her head, he murmured, “There is only one thing that you need to understand right now; I will never allow you to come to harm, and I will never do anything to make you hate me.” He hesitated, then asked, “Sophy, why were you in the library?”

Dully she returned, “Edward sent me a note requesting that I meet him there.” She frowned. “It was an odd sort of note, even for him. He threatened me and told me not to play any tricks, as if I would!”

“Was it signed?”

“Yes. I would recognize Edward's signature anywhere.”

“Do you still have the note?” he asked sharply.

She nodded. “It is in my room, on my dressing table.”

“When you go back to your room, I will go with you. I want that note.”

She stiffened, and would have turned around except that Ives held her where she was. “Do you think the note is important?”

“Very. I suspect that the note was originally intended for the murderer and that he used it to lure you downstairs to the library.”

Sophy shuddered. “Someone must hate me very much.”

“I doubt it, sweetheart,” Ives said softly. “I think our murderer was simply looking for a handy scapegoat, and you were available. Your feelings about your uncle were well-known. Do not worry about it. I have every intention of keeping you safe. And,” he added in a hard voice, “finding out who put my future wife's very pretty neck in danger.”

“Must
we marry?” she asked in a small voice, the cold reality of her situation sinking in.

Ives sighed. “I am afraid so, sweetheart. Your reputation will be in shreds after tonight. You have a dangerous enemy, one I do not want you to fight alone. I can protect you far better as my wife than if you were merely a lady I was courting.”

Sophy stirred in his embrace and turned around to stare up into his dark, brigand's face. “Have you been courting me?” she asked uncertainly.

He smiled gently. “To the best of my poor ability.”

“I thought you wanted me to be your mistress,” she returned honestly.

“That, too,” he answered wryly. He looked at her, the expression in his devil green eyes hard to define. “I was willing to take whatever you were willing to give me.”

With trembling fingers she brushed the lapel of his robe. “Ives . . . my first marriage was . . . terrible . . . and when Simon died, I swore that no man would have me at his mercy again.”

“You would rather hang than marry me?” he asked bluntly, his expression enigmatic.

Sophy hesitated. “I do not look forward to death any more eagerly than the next person, but there are some things that are
un
endurable.”

“And you think that marriage to me will be unendurable?” he demanded.

She searched his craggy features, her heart aching. Just a few weeks ago she could have answered that question with a resounding no, but because of his actions lately, she was no longer certain. She had, after all, seen him half-drunk and ogling one of the housemaids just the other night.

When she remained silent, Ives's lips thinned and he said flatly, “You really do not have any choice. You
will
marry me, else you are ruined. And then there is the problem of Edward's death. And who murdered him. At the moment, my story has carried the day, but if you spurn me, if we do
not
marry, don't you think that suspicions are going to be roused? Don't you think that people are going to wonder why we did not marry?”

He shook her slightly. “You little fool! I am your only hope to brush through this ugly affair with a minimum of scandal. Marry me, and I can protect you. Refuse me, and you leave yourself vulnerable to the worst sort of ignominy.”

Gently he added, “People might speculate that I lied and claimed you as my lover to protect you, but no one is going to believe that I married you for that reason.”

Sophy looked away. Everything he said was true. Her reputation was in shreds, had already suffered simply by being in this very house, and there was no possibility that the inhabitants would keep their mouths shut about Ives's declaration that they were lovers. All of London would know. She shuddered.

It was not for herself that she dreaded the gossip and innuendo, but she knew her reputation would reflect on both Marcus and Phoebe. They had weathered the storm of Simon's death, but could they weather this one as well?

No matter what she did, marry Ives or not, there was going to be rampant speculation and gossip about Edward's death. But if she were to marry Ives, there was no denying that much of the scandal would be blunted. She would be the wife of an aristocrat with powerful connections, the bride of a man respected and liked by others of high rank and standing. Few people would be willing to risk offending Harrington. As his wife, that mantle of protection would extend to her and also to Marcus and Phoebe. They would be safe from the majority of the stigma.

But if she and Ives parted, it would open the door for even more ugly gossip and scandal. And not just for herself. Marcus and Phoebe would share in the shame.

Indecision churning in her breast, she glanced up at him. “Why are you willing to marry me?” she asked quietly, her lovely eyes fixed intently on his face.

His mouth twisted. “Because I need a wife. An heir.” He drew her nearer. “And quite frankly, my dear, because I find you utterly irresistible.”

He kissed her. A long, lingering kiss, his lips warm and compelling, his hunger kept fiercely leashed.

Sophy's mouth quivered beneath his. Uncertainty, fear, and another stronger, more elemental emotion sprang cautiously to life within her. His embrace awakened all her old demons, Simon's brutal kisses never far from her mind. And yet with Ives she was aware of a vast difference, a difference she could not explain or understand, but it was there and it comforted her.

Conscious of the fragile ground on which he trod, Ives did not force the pace, but with great reluctance, eventually broke the embrace and set her slightly away from him. “Well?” he inquired coolly. “Are you going to marry me?”

Sophy stared blindly at the open V of his robe, trying to sort through all the contradictory emotions roiling within her. “Yes,” she said finally. “I do not see that I have any choice in the matter.”

“I could have wished for a trifle more enthusiasm,” Ives said dryly, “but I see that I shall have to content myself with simply the knowledge that you have agreed to be my wife.”

Turning away from her, he added briskly, “And now I suppose we should dress and see about meeting with the others.”

In a daze, Sophy allowed Ives to escort her to her room and handed the note over to him. What had happened seemed almost incomprehensible to her, and for several minutes after he had left, she stood in the center of the room unable to think clearly. Edward was dead. Murdered! And she was going to marry Ives Harrington!

 

His expression thoughtful, the Fox climbed the stairs with everyone else. His plan had not gone as he envisioned, and he was furious. Murderously so. The look he flashed Ives before he continued on down the hall to his own room was
not
kind.

In the safety of his room, he shed his robe and quickly dressed, his mind on the events of the evening. Everything had gone just as he had planned until that bastard Harrington had shown up. Now, because of Harrington's unwarranted intervention, there was going to be a lot of speculation about who had murdered Edward. And why.

With Sophy out of the picture, he was still certain that there was nothing to point to him; but he was anxious—anxious and infuriated as he had not been since he had sent Harrington's relatives to the bottom of the sea. Though he had been scrupulously careful tonight, there was always the possibility that he had overlooked some tiny element, that someone had seen some trifling event, remembered something that would tie him to Edward's murder. His face darkened. Damn Harrington to hell!

Even now he experienced a thrill of fright as he remembered his shock at the sight of Ives's broad form appearing so unexpectedly out of the darkness. A few seconds earlier and he might have been caught. As it was, he had barely stepped out of the room and into the concealing shadows when Ives had come striding down the hall. He frowned. The fellow was proving to be quite meddlesome.

In the meantime, however, he had other things to think about. Such as providing another convenient scapegoat, even if only temporarily. Frowning, he paced his room seeking some way to find an additional measure of safety from tonight's debacle. Recalling that someone had mentioned robbery, a glimmer of an idea occurred to him. A robbery. He smiled. Of course. But his satisfaction vanished almost immediately and his smile faded as another thought came to him. A robbery would solve one difficulty, he admitted sourly, but there was still the infuriating problem of Harrington.

Harrington's coming onto the scene troubled him in many ways. He was suspicious of the man already and for him to have thwarted a perfect solution to a vexing problem . . .

Did the man know something? Suspect something? Had it just been luck that Harrington had followed Sophy? From his concealment in the shadows, it was obvious that Harrington had been trailing Sophy without her knowledge. Why? The obvious conclusion occurred to him, and his lips thinned.

To think he had nearly been caught because of another man's lust for a woman. Not that Sophy was not worthy of such lust, but the Fox, while having all the normal appetites of the flesh in abundance, never let his carnal inclinations interfere with business. Taking care of Edward and framing Sophy had been strictly business.

Hearing the sounds of the others gathering in the hall, he put the problem from him for the time being and went out to join everybody else. It was several hours later before he had time to consider the problem of Ives Harrington and the possible implications of his marriage to Sophy.

Sir John Matthews had been and gone after pronouncing his shock at the murder of Baron Scoville and promising to notify the proper authorities. While he said nothing himself, the Fox had seen to it that robbery was touted as a motive for the shameful deed. Edward's body had been removed.

The ladies, of course, now knew of the murder and were frightened by the news of such a terrible event occurring while they had slept such a short distance away. Lady Allenton had been aghast. Agnes Weatherby had fainted when the news of her lover's murder had been broken to her.

But none of that bothered the Fox. Beyond his concern about Ives Harrington, the whereabouts of Edward's note had taken on paramount importance in his mind, and he cursed Harrington again. If all had gone well, he had planned during the ensuing furor to nip up to Sophy's room and retrieve Edward's note, but now . . . His lips thinned into a rigid, ugly line. Now that damned note might prove dangerous to him.

A thought occurred to him, and he relaxed slightly. The existence of the note, he suddenly realized, was probably not going to come to light. Because of Harrington, Sophy was safely out of it and it was highly unlikely that she would admit to having a reason to meet Edward in the library. But Sophy knew of the note. And no doubt, Harrington.

All his problems, he thought grimly, seemed to go back to Harrington. He did not trust the man, did not trust his sudden and inexplicable conversion to vice-prone pursuits, did not trust his instant friendship with Meade; and especially did not trust him since Meade seemed to have conveniently come across such interesting news, if Meade's drunken hints could be believed. In the meantime, the Fox had much to consider and plan.

 

Ives, too, had much to plan and consider, not the least of which was his nuptials. After Sir John had given his pronouncements and departed, Ives climbed the stairs and knocked on Sophy's door.

When he entered her room, Sophy was dressed and packed, her valise resting on the bed. Her features pale and set, she asked, “May we leave?”

Ives nodded. “Yes. I have given Sir John our direction and he saw no point in our remaining here. I believe that several other of the guests are going to be leaving shortly also.”

Sophy glanced away. “And our marriage. You are still determined upon it?”

He approached her and, taking one of her cold little hands in his, dropped a warm kiss upon it. “I was never more determined about anything in my life, sweetheart.”