Harlequin Historical May 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sophia James

  He didn’t reply.

  Too intent on something else to hear her, he brought Bess up short and Sophia twisted to follow his gaze to where an unusually patterned black and white horse stood hitched to a tree at the very edge of the forest.

  ‘Is something the matter?’

  She peered up at him, heart still hammering and trying to decipher the set of his handsome features. He didn’t answer, instead saying nothing as a wry smile unfurled across his face.

  ‘What? What is it? Where are we going?’

  Without a word he turned Bess’s head and spurred her into a canter once again, still not giving a satisfactory reply to Sophia’s growing confusion. It was only when she tugged insistently at his hand that he leaned down to speak into her ear, each breath dancing over the delicate shell to make her want to sigh out loud.

  ‘Into the forest, Mrs Barden. There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  Before she could respond they were halfway across the field, Fell’s undecipherable smile still in place—and Sophia cloaked in disappointment so intense it was as though she’d been winded.

  * * *

  Ma’s dark hair was shot through with more silver than the last time he’d seen her, but there could be no mistaking the woman kneeling with her back to Fell as he and Sophia dismounted beneath the cover of the trees. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps, hands full of the wild herbs she was gathering and her face as guarded as ever like an animal ready to run, until she recognised her son and rose with a cry of delight, more like a girl in her happiness than a woman of fifty.

  ‘My boy!’

  ‘Hello, Ma.’

  She came towards him with arms outstretched and their familiar comfort wrapped around him to hold him close. He towered above her, her head barely reaching below his chin, but for a moment he almost felt like a child—back in his mother’s embrace after months of separation and simply relieved to know she was safe.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I recognised Camlo hitched at the forest edge and thought you must be somewhere close by. I’d know that piebald monster anywhere.’

  Drawing back a little, she reached up to touch his stubbled cheek, inspecting his face and the mark left by Turner’s poker with the close scrutiny of a mother. ‘I thought I’d come to surprise you, but it seems you got there first. If I hadn’t stopped to pick…’

  The rest of Ma’s sentence died in her mouth as a glance to the side revealed Sophia for the first time, hesitating beside a tree with hands clasped uncertainly in front of her and unwittingly showcasing her wedding ring as plain as day on her slender finger. Ma blinked at it, then at Sophia’s rosy face—and then at her son, who struggled to contain his amusement at the blank shock that made her look as though she’d been struck smartly over the head.

  ‘Ah. Yes. There have been a few changes since last we met.’

  He held out a reassuring hand to Sophia, who rustled through the leaves strewn across the forest floor to take it. At once the usual flare of tamed lightning crackled the length of his arm to circle in his chest at the feeling of her skin on his, still so intense even after a month of marriage, but he set it aside to draw her closer and watch proudly as she sank into a graceful curtsy only a woman trained as a lady from birth could have managed.

  ‘Ma, I’d like you to meet Sophia—my wife.’

  Essea’s dark brows drew together a fraction as she took in her daughter-in-law’s elegant greeting, although she found a smile for Sophia when her head came up again with shy unease.

  ‘Well! I can’t say I saw this coming, but what a wonderful surprise! It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  Her tone was friendly enough, but with an unpleasant jolt Fell saw something in his mother’s black eyes that gave him pause. It wasn’t dislike, instead more akin to wariness he still recognised with disappointment.

  It was that ladylike curtsy. Ma knows Sophia isn’t one of us.

  For the first time he realised he wanted Ma to approve, a sensation he found he didn’t particularly enjoy. He’d been so carried away by his own feelings for Sophia he’d lost sight of how strange she must seem to others of his kind, refined and composed with manners unlike anything they were used to. Ma had noticed the gulf between them at once—but she would have to learn to live with it, Fell decided grimly as he saw how his wife’s hands shook a little with nerves he longed to chase away with kisses. Sophia had been treated so despicably by her own mother there was no way in hell he would allow her to feel unwanted by anyone else’s ever again—not even his own, their relationship complicated in its own unique way.

  ‘The pleasure is all mine, Miss… Mrs…’ Sophia hesitated, that ready blush springing up as she groped for the right way to address an unmarried woman whose son stood mere feet away as proof of her delicate position.

  A shadow of Ma’s usual humour crept back into her eyes and she patted Sophia’s hand with straightforward ease. ‘Essea. Do just call me Essea. No need to stand on ceremony with me.’

  The smallest smile touched Sophia’s lips to kindle warmth beneath Fell’s ribs. Perhaps Ma might take to her new daughter-in-law after all, her natural kindness winning against the caution he’d seen swim through her expression like a slow-moving fish. Ma was a maternal creature through and through, and he could only hope the two Barden women might—with a little luck—just be able to foster some kind of relationship both of them would come to cherish: the unloved lady yearning for a real mother and the Roma never blessed with a daughter of her own.

  ‘Will you come back to the cottage now? I dare say you must have some stories to tell after six months’ travel.’

  Fell offered an arm to both women and each slipped a hand through the crook of an elbow, one balancing out the other so opposite in every respect. The only common thread between them was the man who escorted the unlikely pair back to their horses, watching as Ma leapt up into the saddle with the practised ease of a woman half her age. She was still handsome, her sepia skin a little richer than Fell’s tawny bronze, but the straight black brows and shape of the eyes the same for both, although once again—and unwanted as always—the subtle differences between them prompted thoughts of his unknown father Fell couldn’t dismiss. From whom had he inherited the square line of his jaw, so unlike Ma’s more rounded chin, and the hazel that glowed bright in one eye? The reminders of his uncertain identity flooded in, the niggle of tension Fell felt whenever Ma returned already beginning to creep beneath his skin.

  Not this again. I’ve other more important things to occupy my mind, surely.

  At his side Sophia cut a fleeting glance up at him and he attempted to curve his lips in reply, although they refused to stretch into anything more than a grimace. The same old feeling of inadequacy, the same old questions and doubts that had taunted him ever since he could remember reached for him again with icy fingers, attempting to pull him back below the surface of angst and wretched torment that called his name with Ma’s return. It was the usual pattern that followed her sporadic appearances: happiness to see her, but a renewal of the knowledge she was everything he was not, secure in her identity as Roma and armed with an unassailable sense of self. He didn’t want to walk that road yet again, wishing only to enjoy his mother’s company without the discontent that accompanied it.

  But how can I? How can I know that peace when she will never reveal the secrets of my lineage?

  Truth was, he couldn’t. The feeling of being only half-complete was something he would have to live with the rest of his life—until he and Sophia had a family of their own, a thought that helped tamp down the well of bitterness within him. With Sophia at his side perhaps this time things might be different, perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel he had travelled alone for so long.

  I can only pray we might find our way together, Fell thought as he helped the wife he had come to love
up on to Bess’s broad back and spurred the horse for home. For there’s no way I can turn from her now.

  * * *

  Fell stared unseeing at the dim ceiling of the bedchamber with both hands behind his head and a frown creasing his weathered brow. From somewhere to his right came Sophia’s quiet breathing and the warmth of her sleeping body, hardly curbed by a thin nightgown and untroubled by the blankets kicked once again to the end of the bed. On the other side of the closed door Lash’s gentle snores combined with the swish of trees dancing in a night breeze outside the curtained window, sounds of darkness that at one time Fell might have found soothing. But not tonight.

  Why is Ma behaving so strangely?

  The question repeated itself with irritating persistence, but still Fell was lost for an answer. For the whole of the afternoon and into the evening she’d watched Sophia out of the corner of her eye, quick to smile and make conversation, but always returning to that subtle scrutiny when she thought Sophia wasn’t looking. There was no malice in it, more as though she was trying to puzzle something out, but still Fell didn’t like it—or know for sure what it meant.

  Surely she can’t dislike her. There’s nothing there to dislike…although I’ll admit that potentially I might be biased.

  Sophia shifted slightly in her sleep and Fell cast her a glance through the gloom. She’d given him no cause for worry, at least, brewing endless pots of tea for Ma and making up a shake-down bed in the sitting room for their guest. In all respects Sophia had been a gracious hostess, if not an experienced one, and it was touching to see her efforts to make Ma feel welcome in their home. Her good heart shone through in every action, increasing the devotion she drew from her husband more and more each day without even knowing it.

  It was a truth so bare and steadfast there was no point trying to deny it even to himself and Fell allowed it to roll over him like water off a duck’s back. The feelings he had tried to suppress for so long were ungovernable now, running riot inside him in a hurricane of helpless emotion, and even the lesson Charity’s rejection had taught him couldn’t force them back. Sophia ruled his soul as well as his home, reigning queen of both with only knowledge of the latter—although her unfeigned delight in the night-time and the gleam of the smile she showed him during the day made him wonder if, against all odds and his own good sense, the tiniest crack might be opening in the defences around the castle of her heart…

  ‘Must you think so loudly? I can hear the cogs turning.’

  The sleepy voice from his right made Fell start and he looked across to meet Sophia’s bleary eye peering at him through the darkness. The moonlight struggling to fight through the curtain dimly illuminated her face, tanned in the sunshine, but by night bleached bone-white and ghostly beneath wild hair.

  ‘Not even you can hear thoughts.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but I can sense when something is on your mind. Such as at this very moment.’

  She rolled over on to her side, nightgown bunching around her knees and drawing Fell’s attention even in the gloom. She had such long, slender legs and the dim awareness of them took him straight back to the day they met when he had gently washed dry blood from her ravaged skin. There would always be a scar there now, shining silver against her white shin, and one he suddenly ached to trace with warm fingers to make Sophia’s breath pause in her throat.

  He cleared his own throat, never more relieved than at that moment that his wife couldn’t read minds.

  ‘Not much in particular. I was just thinking about Ma.’

  The sound of hair against pillow showed Sophia nodded her head. ‘She certainly had some interesting tales about life on the road. To think she went all the way to Stratford and back! I don’t think I could have lasted a half-hour, let alone above six months of solitary travel.’

  Still with his hands behind his head, Fell shrugged. ‘It’s the way she was raised and all she ever knew for the first eighteen years of her life. If she hadn’t met my father…’

  He allowed the words to peter out, abruptly losing interest in his own train of thought. That path brought only shame, unhappiness and frustration with his stubborn mother, none of them things he wanted to experience while trying to sleep, but they came anyway, stealing over him like malevolent shadows to nest like lead weights. They were the same emotions that had clawed at him in Savernake Forest earlier that afternoon and in the darkness they somehow felt all the more powerful.

  When he lapsed into silence Sophia waited a while, then ventured a quiet murmur.

  ‘Something troubles you. Please don’t deny it.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem like nothing.’

  Fell sighed, cursing himself for his lapse of control. Sophia was far from the fool she believed herself to be—or had done once at least. Like an arrow shot true to its target she hit upon his feelings so accurately it was as though she had a spyhole into his thoughts.

  ‘Only foolishness on my part. It’s always a joy to see my mother, but when she returns it reminds me…’

  ‘Reminds you of what?’

  Too late did Fell realise there was no way of turning back. Caught between Sophia’s gentle questioning and his own desire to bite his tongue on a confession he hesitated, unsure which path to tread. On another night he wouldn’t have wavered, able to deny the vulnerability his wife suspected…but with Ma sleeping comfortably in the sitting room, the living embodiment of his struggles with himself, his usual strength deserted him.

  I can’t forget that Sophia was truthful with me about her own fears, either.

  The memory of her wretchedly unhappy face the day she’d revealed her secret shame came back to needle him, a picture that made his jaw tighten. Despite her misgiving she had laid herself bare to his judgement so there might be no secrets between them and, in the quiet of the night, Fell knew he owed her that same respect.

  I can’t lie. She should know the real man she married in all his forms—insecure boy included.

  With his jaw still set, he muttered as well as he could manage.

  ‘Of everything I lack. Knowing who my father is, what it feels like to truly belong… I’ve always been the odd one out, never sure who I am or where I come from. I’d never tell Ma for fear of grieving her, but part of me has felt as though it was missing since the day I was born. She is whole, but I am only half—how am I to know myself when so much is in shadow?’

  The muscles of his shoulders felt strained and Fell passed a hand over them, kneading the tension beneath the skin. Breaking the silence he’d imposed on himself for years might have relieved some of the stress held in the tightly knotted sinew, but as seconds passed without Sophia’s reply Fell wondered if his admission had been ill advised.

  Perhaps that was the wrong course. The only other person I ever told of my true feelings was Charity and look what happened there.

  Thoughts of the woman he’d loved before had no place in his marriage bed and he pushed them aside with sudden despair. Sophia’s wordless presence was a terrible thing, the moments spent waiting for her to speak stretching out into a bleak eternity she eventually broke with a whisper so sweet it could have broken Fell’s heart had it not already been safe in her keeping.

  ‘I think… I think perhaps you do belong now. Here. With me. I know it isn’t the path you might have dreamed of or even chosen if given another choice, but I certainly don’t think you’re the odd one out and I can’t imagine a husband kinder or more capable than you. You are yourself—no part in shadow, nor anything other than whole.’

  Shielded by the darkness Fell lay still, one hand still locked on a shoulder, but suddenly curiously unable to feel a damn thing.

  ‘Is that how you see me? Truly?’

  If Sophia’s voice had been faint before, now it was hardly there at all, the merest thread only someone listening very hard could have caught. ‘Of course. Cou
ldn’t you tell? After all these weeks? I finally feel as though I have a home now and it’s you I have to thank.’

  The mattress dipped as Sophia slid towards him and carefully, as though fearing she might be told to stop, slipped an arm across his chest. Cautious fingers found his cheek and stroked softly, lingering where the poker had torn his skin to trace the fresh scar with a tenderness that took Fell’s breath away.

  ‘So I will say thank you, Fell. It wasn’t some high-born lord who saved me or an heir with his father’s name. It was you—and you are enough.’

  It was with ardour that made her gasp that Fell took Sophia in his arms then and kissed her, neither one of them quite prepared for the intensity that followed to leave both fighting for breath and unable to break the burning connection of their bodies. Fell relished every sigh, every flutter of Sophia’s lashes against his cheek as he bore down on her and felt himself overwhelmed by her softness, by her willingness to give herself to him with a passion he hadn’t known she possessed. She in turn traced the ridges of his muscles to places she had never dared before, whatever restraint she had been tied by abandoned to the velvet night. Her sharp breaths in his ear spurred his movements on until all rhythm disappeared and pure instinct reigned supreme, the sweat of two bodies mingling to dampen sheets tangled beneath.

  Fell held Sophia closer, feeling the curved planes of her pressed against him so tightly not even a leaf could have slipped between. Her lips were parted and her eyes shut, pale skin gleaming dimly in the moonlight ghosted by a sheen of sweat. She smiled when he moved again, eyes still closed, but breath hitching at the feeling of his hands roaming her heated skin to settle somewhere no lady should allow a blacksmith to caress—but she wasn’t quite a lady any more, Fell thought with sudden blinding insight that almost—but not quite—made him pause in his exploration.

  She’s changed because of me. Could it be I’ve changed, too—and perhaps for the better?

  He said nothing as the thought made a home for itself in the forefront of his mind, a niggling distraction from the delightful way Sophia arched with each pass of his hands.