“I advise that you immediately remove your cock from inside Sophia,” an all-too-familiar voice interrupted those feelings of rightness and well-being.
Sophia’s eyes widened as she looked over Magnus’s shoulder to see her cousin Robert standing in the kitchen doorway looking at them through narrowed lids.
The pistol in his hand was pointed at Magnus’s back.
“What are you doing?” Sophia splayed her fingers across Magnus’s exposed flesh, as if that flimsy barrier could prevent him from coming to harm. “Robert, put that pistol away immediately before someone is hurt.”
“Sophia, don’t,” Magnus murmured beside her ear.
“This is not at all what it seems.” Her cheeks flushed with the embarrassment of having Robert walk in and finding her and Magnus in such a compromising position on the kitchen floor. “It was all completely consensual, I assure you.”
“Sophia, don’t,” Magnus rasped again, lifting up just enough to gently ease his cock from inside her but otherwise remaining over her protectively.
Robert’s eyes narrowed to icy blue chips. “And for that, you will receive suitable punishment,” he assured Sophia coldly. “For the moment, it is enough that I kill your lover and that you back up my claim that I caught him in the act of forcing you and had no choice but to shoot him dead.”
“What?” Sophia gasped her bewilderment. “I do not understand… Magnus, what is happening?” she appealed emotionally.
His hands gently cupped either side of her face. “This is what I wanted to tell you. What Harrogate and I wanted to tell you that day I brought him to the house. After talking together, with Harrogate insisting he had not touched you that evening ten years ago, we could only conclude that it was another man who had raped you.” He glanced over his shoulder at the other man. “Royston’s actions now would seem to confirm it was him,” he added in a hard voice. “That he was responsible for putting something in the punch you drank that evening so that you felt the need to escape to the quiet of the Bancrofts’ library until your head had cleared. That he also hit Harrogate, who had come to check on you, on the back of the head with something, before then raping you and arranging Harrogate’s unconscious body over you to make it look as if he was the guilty man.”
“No—”
“Clever bastard, ain’t you?” Robert taunted over Sophia’s protest.
“Aim the pistol elsewhere while I move away from Sophia,” Magnus instructed the other man evenly. “I know you have no wish to harm her.”
Robert gave a humorless smile. “Believe me, she will receive the lash of my whip on her back for having given herself to you so shamelessly.” His expression hardened. “Now move away from her so that I can dispose of you and then deal with her.”
Magnus managed to pass his shirt to Sophia as he moved aside, allowing her at least some degree of modesty.
Sophia sat up to hold Magnus’s shirt in front of her. “I have no idea what is happening here.” Perhaps I would have done if I had listened to Magnus as he several times asked me to do! “But I cannot allow you to shoot Magnus,” she told her cousin.
Her rapist?
Robert’s lack of a denial of the accusation would seem to confirm it was so.
“Why…” She had to know. Needed Robert to confirm it was true. Needed to know why!
Robert’s gaze remained on Magnus. “Because I have loved you all my life. Wanted you since I knew what that felt like. Because you are mine, Sophia,” he rasped through clenched teeth. “You have always been mine.”
A part of Sophia felt numbed by that knowledge. Another part of her felt infuriated by it. “I believed you were my friend as well as my cousin,” she accused as she pulled Magnus’s shirt over her head before standing. “For many years, you were my only friend, and all the time…all this time…” She gave a shake of her head. “I cannot allow you to kill Magnus.”
Robert flicked her a glance. “He had his chance to disappear. I gave you every opportunity to return here without involving him.”
“You were the one who sent me those letters,” she realized numbly.
He nodded. “As a warning, yes. You are mine, Sophia. You will always be mine.”
Rage such as she had never known filled Sophia inside and out. “I will never ever be yours!” She ran across the kitchen toward him, her hands raised and curled into claws.
“Sophia, no!” Magnus managed to shout before the echoing sound of a shot being fired ricocheted around the kitchen.
Chapter 14
“I am convinced that you, madam, will one day be the death of me, from a seizure of the heart rather than the ball from a pistol shot!”
Sophia opened her eyes to find a scowling and half-dressed Magnus sitting on the side of the bed upon which she was lying. Her own bed in her bedchamber at the school, Sophia realized as the events of the evening came back to her. “Have you been shot?” She could not see any blood on him, but that was no guarantee he was unharmed.
Magnus smoothed the hair back from her brow. “No.”
“Have I been shot?” She did not feel any pain but that could be because she was still numbed by the events of the evening.
“No,” Magnus assured again. “You managed to distract Royston long enough for me knock his legs out from under him. The pistol shot went into the ceiling.”
The memories of what had preceded that pistol being fired now hit Sophia hard and fast.
Their wild lovemaking.
Robert’s arrival.
Magnus’s accusations.
Robert, her cousin, the man Sophia had been close to all her life, the man she had considered her friend and confidant, was the one responsible for not only raping her ten years ago but sending those foul letters to her in London. All to separate her from Magnus.
In the same way he had kept her separate from any other man but him for the past ten years?
Sophia knew instinctively that he had.
Her gaze sharpened. “Where is he?”
“Tied up in the kitchen, awaiting the arrival of the local magistrate,” Magnus dismissed grimly. “The couple from the gatehouse heard the shot and came to investigate. They are downstairs now, keeping an eye on Royston until he can be arrested and charged and then taken away.”
The heat of tears blurred her vision. “I still find it hard to believe he did those things.”
Magnus’s expression softened. “His was a twisted and destructive love.”
“And ten years ago, he drugged and then raped me before blaming it on another man,” Sophia stated flatly. “A man who was supposed to be his best friend.”
Magnus nodded. “You had only recently entered Society, and Royston did not like the attention other men showed you. Harrogate especially. In retrospect, I am surprised I lasted as long as I have— You are not to blame for any of this, Sophia,” he insisted as she gave a choked sob. “Royston is a sick bastard who needs to be locked away for his own safety and that of others.”
It was still so unbelievable to Sophia. That Robert, the man she had loved as a cousin and confidant all her life, should have been hiding his twisted love for her all these years. That he had ruined her life, and that of the man he called his best friend, in pursuit of that obsession.
“I think I am about to be sick!” She quickly moved to the other side of the bed and ran across the room to go behind the screen in the corner of the room. She used the bowl there to expel the stew she had eaten for dinner, retching again and again until there was nothing left inside for her to bring up.
“Here.” Magnus dampened a cloth in the jug of water and gently wiped Sophia’s face as he helped her to straighten. “All will be well, Sophia,” he soothed.
Would it?
Somehow, Sophia doubted that very much.
To all intents and purposes, Magnus was correct, and Sophia’s life did eventually return to a façade of normality, at least.
Robert had been arrested, sent for trial for rape and attempted murder, and
was now incarcerated in one of England’s prisons.
There had also been a conversation between Sophia and Harrogate during the trial, that gentleman having assured her, as Magnus had, that none of the past ten years was her fault.
There had been something of a reconciliation with her parents, although the fact that her cousin was now in prison left things strained with the rest of her family.
The teachers and staff had all now returned to the school, none the wiser.
The girls would be arriving over the weekend to start the new school year.
All that was missing from Sophia’s life was Magnus.
All?
He was everything to her.
Nothing else, not her parents, the school, the staff, the pupils, mattered when the one person Sophia wanted in her life was no longer here.
Oh, Magnus had stood at her side during Robert’s trial, giving his evidence in that precise and firm voice of his. But as soon as the trial was over and Sophia had returned to Portsmouth, Magnus had disappeared from her life.
Not that Sophia could exactly blame him. He had tried to help her, to warn her, and she had thrown all of that back in his face by treating him with coldness and disdain.
Admittedly, their passion for each other had raged out of control that night three weeks ago, but only after Magnus had told her all the reasons why he could not and never would love her.
As Sophia loved him.
Deeply.
Irrevocably.
Achingly.
That ache was a permanent lump lodged in her chest. One she knew would remain with her for the rest of her life.
A life without Magnus in it.
“Sophia.”
It was as if thinking about him had conjured him up in front of her as she turned from looking out at the window into the garden and saw Magnus standing in the doorway to her office.
He looked every inch his magnificent self in a black superfine, white shirt and neckcloth beneath a gray brocade waistcoat, gray pantaloons outlining the long and muscular length of his legs above black Hessians.
But he looked no less strained than when she had last seen him, lines etched beside his eyes and mouth, his jaw tensed.
“I have brought Clarissa,” he stated evenly.
Sophia had sent him a formal letter accepting Clarissa into the school, but having received no reply from Magnus, she had assumed he had changed his mind about allowing his daughter to come here.
“Are you well?” he enquired softly.
She swallowed before answering him. “As well as I can be in the circumstances, yes.”
He frowned. “I thought you and your parents had become reconciled during the trial?”
“Those are not the circumstances I was referring to.”
Magnus tensed. “No?”
“No.” Sophia sighed. “I owe you an apology. Many apologies,” she amended self-derisively. “For so many things. For not listening to you. For leaving your house without any explanation. For treating you so disdainfully when you arrived here to help me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “It is no wonder you can no longer even bear the sight of me.”
“Is that what you have thought of me these past weeks? That I cannot bear to look at you? Good God, Sophia,” Magnus snapped his impatience with that way of thinking. “I have been giving you the time and space I believed you needed, here within the school you love, to come to terms with all that has happened to you. I never for one moment intended that separation to become a permanent thing.”
She looked disconcerted. “No?”
“Absolutely not.” Magnus strode into the room and closed the door firmly behind him. “You are the woman I love, Sophia. Crave. Adore. Worship. And if it takes me the rest of my life to convince you to feel the same way about me, then I will consider it a life well spent.”
“I… But… That night you said—”
“I said many things in the anger only you seem able to incite in me,” he acknowledged dryly. “After which, I ripped your clothes off and ravaged you on the kitchen floor like a wild beast.”
“I ravaged you right back,” she reminded.
“Yes, you did.” He smiled at the memory. “And I have been longing for us to do it again ever since.”
“The kitchen is a little crowded with other people right now,” she said in a shaky voice.
“But this office is empty save for the two of us, and once we have Clarissa settled, I intend for the two of us to come back here so I can ravish you, and have you ravish me, until we are both incapable of moving.”
“Magnus.”
His expression turned wary. “Yes?”
“I love you already,” Sophia confessed huskily. “I love you so much, I am incapable of thinking of anything or anyone else but you. These past weeks without you have been agony.”
His eyes darkened as he stepped forward to take her into his arms. “You are telling me this now, when we both have to go out that door, you to behave as headmistress and me the father of one of your new pupils?”
Sophia looked at him with that unguarded love shining in her eyes. “Yes.”
“You really will be the death of me,” Magnus groaned before his mouth claimed hers in a kiss that left them both breathless. “Marry me, Sophia. Please, for God’s sake, marry me!”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.
He raised dark brows. “Just like that? With no argument?”
“Yes,” she confirmed with an elated laugh.
“My God, I love you, Sophia,” he groaned.
“And I love you. I always will.”
“Always,” he echoed longingly.
Sophia had no idea how they would arrange things after they were married, coupled with her ownership and being headmistress of the school.
But it didn’t matter.
None of it mattered.
Because in future, the two of them would work those things out together.
Only Magnus, his love for her, and her love for him, would ever be important to her now and for the rest of her life.
Their long and happy life together.
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About The Author
Carole Mortimer is a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, RT Career Achievement Award 2017, RT Pioneer for Romance Award 2014. She was also recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her ‘outstanding service to literature’. Carole has written over 240 contemporary, Regency and paranormal romance novels.
She is happily married to Peter. They have 6 sons, and live on the beautiful Isle of Man. She also loves to hear from Readers!
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Regency Lovers Series:
INDECENT (Regency Lovers 1)
OBSESSION (Regency Lovers 2)
CRAVING (Regency Lovers 3)
FORBIDDEN (Regency Lovers 4)
More books to come in this series
Steele Protectors Series:
LOGAN (Steele Protectors 1)
ATTICUS (Steele Protectors 2)
ROURKE (Steele Protectors 3)
More books to come in this series
Regency Sinners Series:
Wicked Torment (Regency Sinners 1)
Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2)
Wicked Scandal (Regency Sinners 3)
Wicked Deception (Regency Sinners 4)
Wicked Captive (Regency Sinners
5)
Wicked Temptation (Regency Sinners 6)
Wicked Sinner (Regency Sinners 7)
Wicked Christmas (Regency Sinners 8)
Dragon Hearts – Contemporary paranormal
Nathaniel (Dragon Hearts 1)
Deryk (Dragon Hearts 2)
Bryn (Dragon Hearts 3)
Dylan (Dragon Hearts 4)
Grigor (Dragon Hearts 5)
Garrett (Dragon Hearts 6)
Aeran & Rhys (Dragon Hearts 7)
Regency Unlaced Series:
The Duke’s Mistress (Book 1)
Claimed by the Marquis (Book 2)
Taken by the Earl (Book 3)
Pursued by the Viscount (Book 4)
Desired by a Lord (Book 5)
Captured by a Gentleman (Book 6)
Pleasured by a Duke (Book 7)
Seduced by a Marquis (Book 8)
Tamed by the Earl (Book 9)
Series is now complete
Knight Security Series: Spin-off to ALPHA series
Resisting Alexandre (Knight Security 0.5)
Defying Asher (Knight Security 1)
Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2)
Capturing Caleb (Knight Security 3)
Tempting Zander (Knight Security 4)
Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5)
Seducing Ethan (Knight Security 6)
Series now complete
ALPHA Series:
Christmas Alpha (Alpha 1)
Dark Alpha (Alpha 2)
Shadow Alpha (Alpha 3) Author’s 200th Book
Midnight Alpha (Alpha 4)
Renegade Alpha (Alpha 5)
Warrior Alpha (Alpha 6)
Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7)
Savage Alpha (Alpha 8)
Series is now complete
Craving (Regency Lovers 3) Page 12