“Wouldn’t it be fine to uncover it for him? Whatever it is?” Sophie knelt and started carefully troweling through the hole David had begun. “It might take some time, but time is something I have in abundance. I believe I shall grow old looking after Uncle, helping him turn up bits of the past.”
David didn’t answer, his breath not working well. He ceased digging and leaned on the spade. “I’m leaving for London in the morning,” he announced abruptly.
Sophie’s eyes widened. She wore her white fur cap pulled down over her ears, black curls protruding from beneath it in a most fetching manner.
“Leaving?”
David nodded, ignoring the lump in his throat. “I have barristers to consult, charges of attempted murder to thwart. Well, one charge. The irony is that I’m innocent of this one.”
Sophie stared at him without blinking, then she rose to her feet, wind catching at her skirt. “When will you return?”
David hesitated. “I don’t know if I will.”
“Oh.”
The swallow that moved her throat gave David some hope she cared whether she saw him again. Not that it mattered. Sophie was in an awkward situation, and David pursuing her would only make it more awkward.
He hadn’t exaggerated when he said he needed to fight the murder charge. A letter from his solicitor had found him—his solicitor knew every place David took himself off to whenever he fled London. The solicitor had informed him that Griffin continued to claim David had shot at him and wanted him to stand trial for it. Only the influence of Hart and Detective Superintendent Fellows kept the police from making David await the trial in Newgate.
David had other things he wanted to pursue in London as well, but he knew he’d be unwise to tell Sophie and Dr. Pierson about them.
Sophie fixed him with an unreadable green gaze. “We will miss you.”
“Will you?”
She studied him as she had when he’d daringly touched her a few days ago, unable to stop himself. Courageous, unswerving. Beautiful.
“Of course.” Sophie shook herself and turned away, sinking to her knees on the tarp she’d spread across the damp ground. “Uncle enjoys your chats in the evening, and I enjoy winning our draughts games.”
“Draughts, chess, cards, puzzles, riddles …”
He liked the smile she shot him. “Your own fault for not paying attention. Though I imagine a game of Pope Joan is not very exciting to a man used to the card tables at White’s.”
“My dear, the company at White’s is ghastly. Any game can be exciting if the stakes are right.”
“Matchsticks?” she asked impishly.
“I’ll have you know, I hoarded those matchsticks like gold until I had to turn them all over to you and your uncle. You two are such sharps, you could form a syndicate and fleece the multitudes.”
“Yes. Such a pity Uncle is a vicar.”
David relaxed, happy to hear her teasing. He’d miss it …
No, this was for the best. He should leave now, before it became more difficult. If he didn’t go, he’d linger, let his solicitor and Hart take care of Griffin, hope Sophie grew so fond of him she wouldn’t mind if he enticed her to his bed.
His bed, which at the moment lay in a tiny space below the ceiling beams in her uncle’s house. David mentally cuffed himself. He was an idiot.
Sophie reached into the hole she’d been sifting through and delicately retrieved a small pebble. “This is pretty.”
David, interested in spite of himself, leaned to look. Sophie brushed the mud from her find and held it up.
What little February sunlight leaked through the bank of clouds winked on a fragment of blue stone, rendering it translucent. The edges were jagged, a piece broken long ago.
Sophie unfolded to her feet, ignoring David’s hand, which he’d instantly thrust out to help her. “What do you suppose it is?” she asked, eagerness in her voice.
David peered at it, but it remained a piece of stone to him. “Who knows? Broken vase? Glass from a farmer’s ale bottle?”
“One this blue?” Sophie turned and waved at Pierson. “Uncle! Come and see!”
About twenty yards from them, Pierson calmly set down his measuring stick and got to his feet, dusting off his knees. He tucked his notebook under his arm and walked to them, betraying no anticipation. He’d been disappointed so many times about this villa, David supposed he’d grown stoic.
Sophie scrubbed off the stone with the handkerchief David lent her. Polishing it brought out more of the deep blue color, the piece almost glowing, but it wasn’t glass.
Pierson studied the fragment that lay on Sophie’s palm. He poked at it, then he picked it up and turned it this way and that with professional detachment.
David saw when his eyes lost their resignation and took on a gleam of excitement. And then triumph.
Dr. Lucas Pierson, the learned, unruffled man who’d taught David that there was good in most people if one looked hard enough, suddenly leapt into the air and let out a yell.
“I knew it!” Pierson landed again, his boots splattering mud. “I knew there was a villa here! Take that, British Museum. And that, Antiquarian Society.” He punched imaginary foes with a balled-up fist. “My dear niece, you are a genius!”
“Mr. Fleming dug the hole,” Sophie said generously. “What is it, Uncle? Part of an amphora? Or a bit of jewelry?”
“No, no, nothing so staid. This is a piece of tile.” He opened his hand. “See how it is so precisely cut on this side? It is part of a mosaic, probably from a floor. No army hut would have mosaics on the floors. This is part of a larger building, like a bathhouse, or a villa.”
David felt his heart beating faster, a smile pulling his mouth, as though he’d single-handedly discovered the remains of a Roman palace.
“You believe there’s more down there?” he asked, Pierson’s enthusiasm contagious.
“Somewhere.” Pierson spread his hands and waved them over the mounds. “A beautiful floor, walls painted in glorious colors, a heating system …”
His voice grew more animated with each word until he leapt into the air again. He came down and ran off across the green with the lightness of a man half his age.
“I did it!” his voice trailed back to them, and then loudest of all, coupled with another jump—“Eureka!”
David and Sophie burst out laughing. Her eyes were alight, her nose pink with cold. She was vibrant color in a sea of gray, a glow in the endless twilight of David’s life. They stood very close, the moment of discovery and elation warming the air between them.
David swept his arms around Sophie and dragged her to him, his mouth coming down on her red parted lips.
Chapter 5
David’s mouth was hot, skilled, strong. The air was frigid, but Sophie knew only David’s warmth, the bulk of his body shielding her. His fingers pressed her cheek, much as they’d done a few days ago when he’d softly touched her.
He didn’t command or possess, didn’t demand Sophie respond. He simply kissed her. She tasted the coffee he’d drunk this morning, felt the scrape of whiskers his razor had missed.
The space between them filled with an energy that brushed Sophie even through layers of fabric. She parted her lips and leaned into him, hungry. She hadn’t realized how hungry.
David started as she rose to him, but then he took her mouth in a deeper kiss, his tongue finding hers. The hot friction made Sophie’s knees buckle, but David’s strength held her steady.
Her mouth was stiff, her return kiss clumsy. She was out of practice, and she’d never been kissed like this before.
David didn’t seem to notice, or care, about her lack of expertise. He had enough of it for both of them. His kiss caressed, gave, was all about pleasure. He knew how to touch, to draw forth fire.
Sophie no longer used the formal Mr. Fleming in her mind. He was David, had always been for her, but Sophie hadn’t been able to admit it.
His thumb pressed the corner of her mouth, opening
her to him. He cradled her head, her hat sliding sideways, curls loosening from their pins.
Sophie craved the kiss, David’s warmth, himself. He was another lonely being crying out, and Sophie responded with eagerness.
She closed the fraction of space between them to seek the greater warmth of his body and slid against him, David so tall. Sophie rose on tiptoes, tilting her head so she could continue the kiss.
His arm came behind her, and she felt herself bending back as David slid one hand up to cup her breast through her thick coat. A tingle of fire raced from nipple to heart, and Sophie let out a moan of need.
In the next moment, she stumbled, David’s embrace gone. She clutched at her hat and righted herself with difficulty, dragging in a burning breath.
David’s eyes were wild, like stormy skies. He’d lost the tweed cap he’d donned against the cold, and his hair tumbled in the wind.
“Damnation.” His voice was cracked, the self-loathing blatant.
“David …”
“No.” David took a hasty step back, narrowly missing the hole he’d just dug. “Don’t speak to me. Don’t even look at me.”
“David.” Hurt cut through Sophie’s haze of elation. “I’m not an innocent miss fresh from my debut.”
“Aren’t you? As near as. Bloody hell.”
He darted a worried glance behind them, but a quick look told Sophie that Uncle Lucas was still dancing around, waving his arms, celebrating his Eureka.
“No need to swear at me,” Sophie said, her heart pounding. “I am my own woman. I may kiss whom I please.”
“The devil you may. If any other man kissed you like that, I’d kill him. I’m near to strangling myself with my own hands.”
“Don’t say such things.” Sophie’s eyes widened in alarm. “Not even in jest.”
David backed another step. “Very well, I’ll horsewhip myself instead. But I’ll do it in London. Good day, Miss Tierney.”
He grabbed the cap that had fallen to the wet grass and jammed it on his head, then turned his back and walked away.
Sophie wanted very much to run after him, wrap her arms around him, demand that he stay, beg him if she must. To behave like a needy and wanton woman, pleading for his touch.
If she did so, she suspected David would throw her off and keep marching. She’d have to watch him go, he so obviously regretting the kiss.
Sophie’s loneliness, hurt, and rage at Laurie for his nastiness, for his rejection, welled up until it burst. She’d been priding herself on keeping her emotions well hidden, but David’s kiss had loosened them, and her fury poured forth like a pent-up geyser.
“Blackguard!” she shouted. “Run away. Desert your friends. I don’t care.”
David turned, his anger just as high. “I am a blackguard. Tell your uncle I am gone.”
“Tell him yourself.” Sophie paused. “Do you mean you are leaving for London now?”
“On the moment.” David resumed his swift walk, heading across the fields to the road.
“Do you intend to march all the way there?” she yelled after him.
“To the train.” He gestured ahead of him. “In the village.”
“The village is that way.” Sophie pointed in the other direction.
“Damnation.” David glared where she indicated and began to stride on that course.
“What about your things?” Sophie cupped her hands around her mouth. “Or shall I have Uncle throw them out the window?”
“He can chuck away whatever he likes.” David didn’t slow, continuing his stride toward the village, out of her life.
“Go then,” she shouted. “I hope I never see you again, you horrible man!”
His only response was a wave.
David’s tall figure blurred into the landscape as Sophie’s eyes filled with hot tears. Her breath caught on a sob, and then she let the tears come, weeping until her body shook. There was none to see her cry but the sheep and the rabbits, and they didn’t seem to mind.
* * *
The Smoke. London was aptly named, David reflected as the train carried him past belching chimneys under a dark gray sky.
In February the town was full, the social and political season having well commenced. Men shouted at each other in the neo-Gothic Houses of Parliament, and hostesses sparred with politicians’ wives at soirees and supper balls that were as much about power as any debate in the Houses.
David at one time had reveled in the game. He’d been on his feet in Commons, shouting down his opposition during the day, seducing the opposition’s wives at night. David was a prime player, with his own circle of toadies, at the same time he was Hart Mackenzie’s right-hand man. He and Hart had torn up Town between them. Not much had happened in London without their knowledge and say-so.
Or so it had been. David knew his days of scheming with Hart as they consumed cigars and whisky in the presence of elegant and skilled ladies were past. Hart continued to harass his foes in the House of Lords as Duke of Kilmorgan but now went home to his wife and children to bask in domestic bliss.
Not that Hart’s wife wasn’t the grandest hostess in Britain. Her gatherings were designed not only to assist Hart with his machinations but also to delight and astonish. Eleanor’s parties were legendary.
David had been avoiding her gatherings lately, as he’d been avoiding everything else in his life.
He descended at Euston Station and took a hansom south and along the Strand to the Temple. In Middle Temple, in a tiny square called Essex Court, David rang the bell of a neat house. He had an appointment and was readily admitted.
Not long later, he sat in a comfortable chair sipping excellent whisky and facing a tall Scotsman with very fair hair and penetrating gray eyes.
“Doesn’t look good for you,” Sinclair McBride announced. “Griffin is raging about you all over London. His uncle is calling to have you detained in Newgate, though we have persuaded him that you are under house arrest in Shropshire.” Sinclair’s gaze sharpened. “Yet, here you are.”
“Things to see to.” David reclined lazily, sipping Mackenzie malt Hart and Ian supplied to Sinclair, as the man was now part of the family. “People to look up.”
“Your solicitor should be here—at all meetings you have with me,” Sinclair said firmly.
“Hated to bother the old chap. I keep him busy enough as it is. So, you will defend me? Even though your practice is mostly prosecution?”
“I take defenses that are in a good cause.” Sinclair looked David up and down, clearly not considering him a good cause.
David spread his arms. “I am completely innocent. Griffin fired at me. I was willing to ignore the entire incident, but he is a fathead.”
Sinclair sank back into his chair, taking up his glass of whisky. The strain and grief of his former life had entirely gone from the man, David was pleased to see. Sinclair’s home was now quite happy and filled by his delightful wife and four tumbling children—hellions, every one of them, including the wife, lucky man. David was quite fond of the swiftly growing Andrew, a fearless boy who reminded David of himself at a young and adventurous age.
Sinclair’s domestic happiness had made him an even more talented barrister—he had declined a judgeship offered to him in order to stand in the courtroom and win case after case with aplomb. The Scots Machine, other barristers called him. The criminals called him Basher McBride, for his unflinching zeal in putting away bad men. Exactly the sort of barrister David needed on his side.
“Your solicitor is interviewing witnesses,” Sinclair said. “Though a statement from you would be helpful. More than I didn’t do it. I need the entire story.”
“That is the entire story.” David swung his booted foot. “Griffin fired his weapon and missed, thank God. I never fired mine. We were all roaring drunk at the time.”
“Griffin had injuries,” Sinclair pointed out with his glass of whisky.
“From my fists, not my pistol. I had injuries as well.”
“Th
e fight was about …?”
David grimaced. “A woman. What else? Griffin is convinced I was bouncing upon his lady wife, but I was not. She might have cuckolded him, true, and I wouldn’t blame her. But it was not with me. He and I have been sparring for years, however—verbally, I mean, on the Commons floor. I’ve thwarted many of his stupid schemes.”
The supposed affair with his wife was only the excuse, David knew, for Griffin to release his frustrations. Griff was a touchy bastard, especially when his lack of political acumen was thrown in his face. Accusing David of attempted murder must be his way of trying to remove David from his path once and for all.
Sinclair tapped his fingertips on the glass. He made no move to write notes, but David knew Sinclair did not have to. He had an amazing brain.
“I’ll do what I can for you,” Sinclair resumed. “Eye witnesses would be useful, but I believe putting Griffin on the witness stand will be best. I have the feeling his testimony won’t hold up to my questioning.”
David chuckled. “Not under the lash of Basher McBride, it won’t. Why do you think I told my solicitor to hire you?”
Sinclair gave him a thin smile. He was the best barrister in London but too modest to accept praise. Many a hardy criminal wilted under the stare of the Basher.
David took a sip of whisky and the two descended into companionable silence. David hadn’t needed to come here to talk about his defense—his solicitor could have done that. Had done it, in fact.
“By the way,” David said when his glass was nearly empty. “What do you know about the Devonport divorce?”
“The Devonport case?” Sinclair asked in surprise. “That’s in the civil courts. I only go after dire villains.”
“True, but you must know something about it.”
Sinclair bent him a wary look. “You’ve been out of London a long time if you haven’t seen the newspapers. The journalists are excoriating both husband and wife.” He shook his head, a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. “It’s a bad business.”
A Rogue Meets a Scandalous Lady: Mackenzies, Book 11 Page 5