Song for Sophia (17 page)

Her voice emerged as a croak, “What happened to you, Wilhelm?”

She lifted her hand to touch a semi-circular burn scar marring the ridged pattern of muscle across his ribs. He flinched, then allowed the contact.

“Quarrel with a feisty woman?”

“Wilhelm … .”

“Would it please you if I answered hot knives, whips, needles and hooks, and devices with no name on this side of the world?”

She glanced up to find his eyes flinty; he was a thousand miles away.

The large scars looked brutal enough, but the smaller marks, symmetrical, in long tracks, made her heart sink with dread. She wanted to know, yet doubted she could bear it if she did. Her throat felt swollen as she swallowed.

“How did you bear it?” She moved her hands to his shoulders, where star-shaped scars like Sadie’s dotted over his collar.

He gave a cold laugh and snorted. “They had barely begun with me, Sophia. I was rescued before they started on my teeth. And still that would have been nothing. I may appear broken to you, but I feel damned lucky.”

Sophia blinked, wondering if her mangled back could be considered fortunate by his reckoning. Yes, she decided, since she too had escaped the worst of what her tormentors had intended. The reminder made the skin across her back tingle and her muscles tense, the memory of pain in myriad flavors still too fresh in her mind. Part of her expected to relive the experience with a macabre sense of foreboding. But no, she had improved. Weeks since she had panicked during waking hours. Not that she had any less fear, but its power over her had waned. She would be ungrateful to deny Wilhelm credit in that.

“Have you finished gawking?”

“Sorry, Wilhelm, I was only taken aback.” Her shock made no sense, considering she had heard so many whispers of his wartime espionage, capture and torture … . Here was proof.

She trailed her fingers down his arm, taking care to brush over the small bumps and marks as though they escaped her notice. She freed his fists from the sleeves turned inside out, keeping the simple gold cufflinks in her hand and dropping his shirt onto the pile of clothing on the floor. She placed his cufflinks in their proper compartment inside the bureau; she knew his rooms as well as her own. She had cleaned them for months, after all.

Sophia turned and watched him tousle the slicked formal style from his hair, raking the pomade from the wavy strands so it appeared sand-colored again instead of molasses.

Mesmerizing, the smooth motion of muscle beneath supple light-golden skin. She had seen hundreds of naked men in art, but never in the flesh, and it dazzled her, the fluid movement tempered with leashed power. His form excessively masculine yet appealing with the promise of warmth and comfort. Difficult to insist she admired him only for his intelligence and loyalty. With every passing moment she became aware of a serious longing to do something unmentionable to him, in the dark.

Maddening
. Oh, she had said it aloud.

“What?”

“You are utterly desirable, Wilhelm. Not broken. There, I confessed it.”

His wicked pirate grin made her heart leap. “Capital. Now will you get me out of these trousers? I don’t like wine enough to wear it indefinitely.”

“Oh, no. I am
not
— ”

“Sophia, take pity on a man with sodden drawers.” He tucked his hands behind his head in a gesture of surrender, but it only made her stare at his chest. Saints, but he was magnificent. “I swear I will behave myself. And you can use the bathhouse first.”

“Again, no. I say a half hour, and you mistakenly arrive in a quarter hour?
You
first. And I am excused from the drawing room for the evening. Deal?”

“Anything you say.”

She approached him with the wariness of a hare skirting a wolf. Her bravado had fled the moment his shirt had come off. So she had still not yet recovered from the sight. The first trouser button put up a fight, making her grasp both sides of the fabric while Wilhelm smirked. It came free with a low-pitched
pop
, and she feared she might faint — feverishly aware of his shoulders framing her, his heat, his breath on her neck, of her traitorous hands yanking his trousers apart, for the love of all that is holy!

By the time she freed the fourth, Wilhelm’s hubris had vanished. Strain made his neck flex and his lips purse. They way he looked down at her with hooded eyes made her womb heat and clench.
Unbearable!

“Sordid business, this,” she complained, popping the final button.

“The bloody Russians have nothing on you, darling.”

An inappropriate jest, but she chuckled anyway, stepping aside. “You need a valet.”

“I trust only Martin. You see why, don’t you?”

She nodded, finding it unnecessary to comment. She avoided a lady’s maid for the same reason. Servants talk, and her past was her own concern.

Deciding nothing could be worse than unfastening his trousers, she presented him her back, grateful he took the cue to lower the zipping fastener. Like the pitiful coward she was, Sophia fled to the connecting door without a word. Of course Wilhelm didn’t follow. Moments later she heard him leave for the bathhouse.

The fates had been marginally kind; one of the servants had left a low fire the grate. She shucked her gown and tossed it in. An explosion of blue flames startled a weak yelp from her, then the flames waned and attended to the business of consuming her whiskey-soaked dress.

Finally she heard Wilhelm return to his rooms. On her way to the bathhouse, a creeping feeling of vulnerability, of being watched by malevolent eyes, settled over her. She held the sides of her robe shut at her neck and turned, half-expecting … . Nothing. She saw nothing. Except the orange light of a cigar. Her eyes adjusted, and she discerned the shadowed outline of Sir Vorlay, standing on the terrace outside the drawing room, watching her.

Her instincts shrieked in alarm, and Sophia let etiquette fly to the wind as she called for Fritz. The furry prince — he arrived in record time, but leaping about and appearing far too jolly when she needed a menacing guard dog. At least Vorlay would understand her message.

Sophia shivered with discomfort and made a point of locking the bolt on the door when she reached the bathhouse after sending Fritz out to patrol. She set the lamp on a bench and made certain the curtains had been drawn closed on the front windows.

She concerned herself with the task of scrubbing “rotting corpse” -scented whiskey from her skin, but dared linger what seemed like only a quarter hour. Sophia bundled her toweling and toiletries. When she rounded the corner of the last partition, she halted as she saw Sir Vorlay standing before her, blocking the door to the bathhouse. With a twisted smirk on his face, he dangled a key in his fingers.

Reacting first on instinct, she yelled to the dogs as loudly as she could the commands: “Wächter, kommt! Gefahr!”
Guardians, come! Danger!

Vorlay grimaced at her shouting, then gloated, “Miss Duncombe. I have a message from your father.”

He stalked toward her, and Sophia’s heart sank as she felt the cold marble wall at her back.
Not again
, she vowed, anger boiling in her veins. Not again!

Sophia could already hear barking in the distance and knew she only had to stall Vorlay. She drew a breath to shout the commands again, but Vorlay sprang at her, dragging her to the ground. He tore at her robe. She lashed out with her hands and managed to scratch his face, drawing blood. Vorlay roared and snatched her wrists with one hand while he pummeled her jaw and shoulders with his other fist. Sophia screamed, and he slapped her on the mouth.

Through numbed lips she shouted, “Kommt! Jetzt angreifen!”
Enter! Attack now!
Vorlay grabbed her by the throat. Each beat of her pulse fought against suffocating pressure. She felt Vorlay’s knees slam into her torso and part her legs, and her mind roiled in panic. One half of her shrieked at herself to fight, to resist to the death. The other half merely ceased function, transporting her to that night at the Eastleigh hothouse. One and the same, she recognized with detached horror.

On the edge of consciousness she heard the welcome sound of shattering glass and a deafening chorus of barking and snarling. Vorlay lurched forward and released his grip on her throat as the dogs attacked him from behind. She rolled away, gasping, her head spinning. The familiar sight of blood dripping onto the floor jerked her back to her senses.

Sophia coughed, and it made her throat feel as though it had been shredded by fork tines, which made her cough more and wheeze for breath. She concentrated on inhaling air, on pulling herself up to stand. Searing bolts of pain shot through her torso, nearly doubling her over. She wanted to curl into a ball until the flaming rays of nervy aching subsided, but she had to go. A stinging pain in her side punished her with each shallow breath. Sophia shuffled to the door and opened it.

She registered the gruesome spectacle of the dogs having their way with Vorlay. All four had answered her summons; Wilhelm had trained them well. Only seconds passed while she made a decision. Impossible to think clearly with her head throbbing and her rage clouding her judgment, but finally she decided she should not let the dogs kill Sir Vorlay. One pinned Vorlay by the throat while the others mangled his limbs. He flailed and let out shocked gasps of pain as the dogs bit and tore at him, tossing him about like a child’s toy. They smelled his malice and her fear and reacted with a frenzy.

She called to them in a gravelly voice, “Genug! Haltet an!”
Enough! Desist!

Somehow they heard her; the noise ceased, save for a few frustrated growls. “Hier ins Glied treten!”
Form ranks here
. “Folgen Sie und schützen.”
Follow and protect
. The four guard dogs executed the orders with the precision of soldiers, forming around her with Fritz at her right. She looked to see Vorlay groaning and bloodied, struggling to sit up. She turned in disgust and hobbled away from the bathhouse, one arm supported gingerly by Fritz’s tall neck.

She thought she would never reach the house. She paused by the east door to catch her breath and commanded three of the dogs to patrol. With the help of Fritz’s strong back, she made her way through the empty east wing of the house.

She heard faintly chattering voices and clinking glasses from the drawing room party. Wilhelm had probably gone down to host. He was what she wanted most and least at the moment, a paradox she could not process. She had to get to her room — the only task she could handle now. She was losing her composure, and next she would lose her mind. When she reached her door, she pulled the lever and Fritz pushed it open. Sophia was grateful she had not locked it because she had no idea where she had dropped her keys.

Her thoughts scattered. She fought panic, trying to regain control of her mind. She knew she needed to pack her things and flee Rougemont, but she could not force a rational thought. A tiny voice in her mind ordered her to bolt her door. It was her last act of sanity.

She collapsed on her bed and allowed Fritz to join her. She tried to remain calm, but a year’s worth of pent-up terror washed over her. Her father had found her. He had used one of Lord Devon’s friends to hunt and punish her. The devil himself could not be far behind.

She coaxed Fritz with words of praise in a shaky voice, and he let her hug his neck far too tightly. A small victory — no tears breached her eyelids, sealed shut. Sophia had already shed her last tear for Lord Chauncey. Her energy would be far better spent planning her escape. Plotting revenge would be even better.

She would go. Tomorrow.

Chapter 15

On The Fallacy Of Provoking Lord Devon’s Wrath

Wilhelm drummed his fingers on the desk. So many matters out of place today. The sum of them nagged his mind, his instincts prompting him something was amiss. His instincts had never been wrong.

Sir Vorlay behaved suspiciously. He had left the drawing room early last evening and never returned. This morning the guards reported a vandal had broken a bathhouse window. As Wilhelm had investigated, he thought he smelled stale blood. Three of the dogs lumbered around, whining. Where was the fourth dog? If the pack had raised the alarm over the intruder, Wilhelm had not heard it, and that struck him as odd too.

Twice he bolted from the room then forced himself back. He had to be sure. Agitated, he fingered the small set of keys he had found under a bench in the bathhouse. Definitely Rougemont keys, but they could have been dropped days or weeks ago. Martin could try all of the bedroom doors until he found a match, but only a footman or housemaid would carry such a set, so why bother?

Sophia had yet to come down, missing breakfast and now luncheon. She had spoken through the door, saying her condition was severe today and she wanted to rest. She had never been so ill before, and the timing seemed random. He knew little of such matters, but were a woman’s courses not monthly? She had refused to open the door.
Go away, you insufferable man
had been quite clear.

Moments ago Sir Vorlay had requested his coach brought to the east entrance, making his sudden illness the excuse. The
east
door — sneaking off. Wilhelm knew he only had minutes to solve this before Vorlay got away but could not rush out like a madman, making vague accusations he had no proof of.

To hell with it.

Wilhelm jumped out of his seat, striking his knee on the desk and toppling the chair. He ran from his office, shouting down the hall for Martin. He remembered how Vorlay had provoked him over Sophia the first time. Vorlay had arrived unannounced yesterday and leered at Sophia all evening long. Wilhelm had assumed Vorlay was still sore over Wilhelm losing his temper in front of the Crimean officers, but perhaps it was worse than that.

He barked at Martin to fetch Philip, who had just returned from London. The blood smell in the bathhouse, Sophia feigning illness —
No!
He cursed, then silently pled with every variation of deity on every continent.
Oh, please not that!
He quit pacing and squeezed his temples between his hands. When he could bear the pressure no longer he turned and smashed the clock hanging on the wall. He tried desperately to keep from imagining the worst, praying he was wrong. Not likely.