The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (51 page)

Ryder awoke to see the silver flash of a blade over his body, a harsh scream echoing in his head. Jesus! He jerked away, rolling off the other side of the bed, but he tangled himself in the mosquito netting.

Sophie saw him roll quickly to the opposite side of the bed, but he didn’t jerk the mosquito netting out of the way. He fell hard to the floor, tangled in the yards and yards of netting.

Thomas was running around the side of the bed, breathing hard, not even looking at her, intent upon getting to Ryder.

“Thomas!”

He jerked toward her then and she saw the hatred twisting his face.

“It was I who shot you, Thomas, not Ryder! What’s the matter, are you afraid of me? You miserable bastard, you
are
afraid of me, a girl, half your size. Coward, murdering, sniveling coward! Why did you kill my uncle? Did he deceive you, cheat you?”

Thomas went berserk. He was trembling, making slashing downward and upward motions with the knife. “I know you shot me, you damned bitch! After I kill him I will deal with you. First I’m going to have me some fun with you and then I’ll let you beg me not to kill you. On your knees, you little slut, on your knees in front of me begging and begging.” He was stalking her, Ryder now forgotten.

Sophie didn’t have time to question the wisdom of her attack. If Ryder didn’t free himself quickly, she would very shortly be in grave difficulties. She moved behind a wicker chair, shoving it forward toward him.

Every nerve was tingling in her body. She felt dread, fear, and, oddly enough, excitement at the danger. Her eyes glittered as she looked at his hated face.

“You gutless coward!” she screamed at him, taunting him. Then just as quickly, she stepped to one side of the chair, looked beyond him, and yelled, “Yes, Ryder, kill him now!”

Thomas whirled about to face his new attacker, a man, and thus more of a threat.

It was a mistake.

Sophie rushed up behind him and struck the heavy pottery pitcher over his head. It cracked hard against his skull. Thomas groaned softly and slumped to the floor. The knife fell from his fingers and lay beside him, the long silver blade obscene in the pale light of the bedchamber.

Ryder pulled the mosquito netting off himself and slowly got to his feet. He walked over to Thomas, kneeled down, and felt the man’s pulse. He was alive, just barely.

“You gave him a fine cosh,” he said, still studying Thomas. “You did shoot him. Here, in the ribs. He must have still been in some pain.” Ryder looked up at her then. She was standing there, silent as a stone, swathed in one of her voluminous white nightgowns, her hair loose down her back, her face as white as the Valenciennes lace at the collar of her gown. She was still holding the broken-off pitcher handle, clutching it like an amulet.

“Thank you, Sophie,” he said, and slowly rose.

She drew in a sharp breath. He was naked and he didn’t appear to be aware of it. He walked to a lamp and lit it. He turned to face her and at that moment, Samuel, Mary, Emile, Coco, James, and several other house slaves burst into the room. Coco promptly fainted. Emile caught her, luckily, and set her on Ryder’s bed. “She’s pregnant,” he said and shrugged.

Ryder smiled and raised his hand. “It’s all right. Thomas is the one on the floor. He came to kill me. At least I was first on his list. Sophie saved me.”

“Ryder,” Emile said on a strained laugh. “I’m delighted it’s over and both of you are all right. Sophie saved you? She always was a daring girl, and anyone to attack someone dear to her got the brunt of her fury. But, my dear fellow, you are quite naked. This is the second time you’ve been thusly unattired.”

“So I am,” Ryder said, bemused. He walked over to a chair and shrugged into a dressing gown. “It’s so bloody hot, you know. Sophie, are you all right?”

She still hadn’t said a word. In fact, she hadn’t moved an inch. He walked to her and gently touched his fingertips to her cheek. “Are you all right?”

“Sophie!”

It was Jeremy and he shoved and pushed his way into the room and ran clumsily to his sister.

She came alive then and held him against her. She stroked his tousled hair, saying very softly and calmly, “I’m fine, love, just fine, and so is Ryder. Thomas, however, isn’t. That’s grand, isn’t it, Jeremy? No more villains to hurt us or anyone else. No more villains at all.”

“Unfortunately the world abounds with villains,” Ryder said. “But there is now one less. Emile, why don’t the two of us tie this one up and take him to the mangrove swamp and leave him there for the crocodiles. I surely do like that notion.”

“I do too,” Emile said.

“We must notify Sherman Cole,” Samuel said. “Surely now he will believe that Thomas murdered Burgess.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Ryder said on a mournful sigh. “Perhaps Emile and I can take him into Montego Bay. Perhaps we can have a slight accident on the way, by the—”

“Mangrove swamp,” Emile said, grinning.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Ryder said. “Let’s tie him up and stuff him in some dark closet. Is there anyplace secure here, Samuel?”

“Yes, the icehouse.”

Within five minutes Thomas was securely bound and carried out to the icehouse, a guard set over him. Finally Ryder’s bedchamber was empty again but for Sophie and Jeremy. He was still holding her, clutching at her really, for she was all that was left of his world.

Ryder didn’t think, he merely dropped to his haunches and said quietly, “It’s all right, Jeremy. Truly. Sophie’s safe. Now, my lad, why don’t your sister and I take you back to bed?”

“A glass of milk first, Jeremy?”

The boy shook his head. “No, I’d throw it up. This was scary, Sophie, too scary. I’m tired of being scared.”

“Me too, love, me too.”

“I as well,” Ryder said and ruffled the boy’s hair when he stared at him, disbelieving.

It took a good thirty minutes to settle Jeremy. They both remained with him until he fell asleep. Ryder followed Sophie back to her bedchamber.

“Come outside and let’s sit a while. Like Jeremy, I’m too excited to sleep yet.”

They sat in two wicker chairs, enveloped in silence, the terror fading slowly, very slowly.

“Thank you, Sophie.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How did you know?”

“I heard an odd sound, one that didn’t belong to the night, and it woke me up. I saw this shadow and followed it. Then I knew it was Thomas and he was here to kill you.”

“You reacted very quickly,” Ryder said, and he sounded a bit annoyed. “I have never known a female to act so quickly and so competently. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t swoon and give a pathetic little yell. You screamed your head off. You even had your weapon with you.”

“As you recall, I had used that same pitcher before. I knew it was sound. You were tangled in the netting. What was I supposed to do? Let him gut you like a trapped fish? Also, a delicate feminine little whimper wouldn’t have accomplished much. Besides, I was next and then possibly Jeremy.”

“Yes, you were next,” Ryder repeated slowly. “He would have succeeded if you hadn’t been there. You know that, don’t you? I am not a particularly light sleeper.”

She shrugged as if she didn’t give a good damn and it infuriated him, this strength in her, this bravado, that was or wasn’t real—he didn’t know and wondered if he’d ever know. He rose quickly to his feet and stared down at her. He was shocked at his own behavior. Never before in his life had he come face to face with a dog-in-the-manger attitude in himself. It was too much. She’d turned the world and all his experiences and beliefs inside out. “I am pleased that I am someone dear to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Emile said you were ferocious when it came to protecting those dear to you.”

“I told you, Ryder, he would have killed me after he’d taken care of you. I’m not stupid.”

“How are your feet?”

“Fine. I’m nearly well.”

“Good,” he said, and jerked her to her feet. He pulled her against him before she had a chance to react. He grabbed her chin in his hand and held her still. He kissed her closed mouth, hard.

“I don’t like this,” he said against her mouth, his breath hot as the urgency that burned deep within him. “You are not as you should be. I cannot understand you. I won’t put up with it anymore. Damn you, be a woman!”

He kissed her again. He felt her belly against him and his hands were wild down her back, caressing her, stroking down over her buttocks, pulling her upward hard against him.

She wrenched away from him. She didn’t say a word. She kept backing away from him, one step at a time, a single, small step, farther and farther away from him. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.

He knew such fury he was shaking with it. “After all the damned men you’ve had, you dare to wipe the taste of me off your mouth?”

She dropped her hand to her side and took another step backward.

“You go much farther and you’ll end up in Samuel’s bedchamber. You’ll have to kick his housekeeper out of his bed, but I’m certain he’d be more than pleased to have you instead of Mary.”

She shook her head, still silent.

“Damn you, say something!”

She turned on her heel and ran.

THOMAS ESCAPED. No one was precisely certain how he’d managed to free himself from the icehouse, but there were two Kimberly slaves unconscious and bound in the bushes nearby. They’d been clobbered, but not killed, and that surprised Ryder. They hadn’t seen a thing. Ryder suspected that some of Thomas’s cohorts from Camille Hall had rescued him, and perhaps it was these cohorts who had kept him from killing the guards like one would swat flies. He was long gone, dammit. No crocodiles for him, dammit even more. Ryder sent out search parties. He sent word to Sherman Cole. Then he brooded about Sophie.

Ryder hated to brood. He’d done very little of it in his life for the very simple reason that he’d never felt the need to take himself apart from his fellow man and commit himself to brooding. It had always seemed to him to be a singularly boring way to pass the time. But now he felt the need and it was sharp and deep inside him. It was also unexpected and unwelcome and made him uncomfortable; nor did he particularly know how to do it properly.

Damn her for making him ponder and muse and agonize and absorb thoughts and feelings he didn’t want or need.

He jumped to his feet, furious with himself and with her, and determined to end it once and for all.

She wasn’t in her bedchamber—his former bedchamber, rather. She was dressed and sitting quietly in a chair on the balcony. Her eyes were closed, her hands folded in her lap. She looked to be asleep. She was wearing one of the pale blue muslin gowns he’d brought back from Camille Hall for her, a high-necked affair with lace that nearly touched her chin. He paused, just looking down at her for a very long time. Her hair was clean and pulled back with a pale blue ribbon at the nape of her neck. There were only the faintest bruises on her face now. She looked scrubbed, fresh, and immensely innocent, and too young.

Innocent, ha. But that was the crux of the matter, indeed it was, and he wouldn’t stand for it anymore. He lightly touched his hand to her shoulder.

She opened her eyes slowly and stared up at him, her expression not changing. She didn’t jump or exclaim.

She said only, “Ryder.”

“Hello,” he said, and he felt something odd and sweet touch him as she spoke his name. It made him angry and she felt it. She tensed beneath his hand. He pulled back, his hand dropping to his side, and took the chair opposite her.

“This is the second time we’ve sat here on this balcony like an old married couple reviewing the events of the day.”

“Hardly,” she said. She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a hard smile, and had he but realized it, a smile that cloaked an immense vulnerability. “If I didn’t know better I would think you were agitated about something. Difficult to believe, I know. You, Ryder Sherbrooke, a man to whom the worries of the world are practically unknown. No, certainly that can’t be it. You are not like normal people with normal concerns.”

“I believe you have said quite enough. It always surprises me how you can go immediately on the attack with little or no buildup. Instantly, you are at the jugular, biting and nipping away. But you won’t draw me this time or sidetrack me. That is always your purpose with me, isn’t it? No, don’t bother to deny it or bait me more. Now, I want to know something from you and I want the truth.”

“Very well.”

He sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “The truth, Sophie. I mean it.”

“If you have to remind me, if you have to look as serious as an idol, I doubt you’ll believe a truth when you hear it.”

“Did you sleep with any of those men willingly? Did your uncle force you into being a harlot or were you a harlot before and your uncle merely molded you into doing what he wanted you to do and with whom?”

“No.”

“Damn you, Sophie, don’t you dare—”

She rose suddenly, her skirts swirling about her ankles, and he saw that she was barefoot. Still bandages, but no shoes. He didn’t like that. It made him angrier.

“Answer my question, damn you!”

“Ask me a single question, then, and I will answer it.” Her back was to him, her shoulders straight, and he knew that chin of hers was probably thrust up a good two inches.

“Very well. Did you sleep with any of those men willingly?”

“No.”

“Not even Lord David Lochridge?”

“No.”

“Had you slept with any men before your uncle coerced you into bedding those of his choosing?”

“No.”

“I see,” he said, but he didn’t, not really. His brain wasn’t functioning with its usual clarity—doubtless because of the brooding—and it was making him equal parts frustrated and furious. “Damn you, how old were you when you had your first man?”