Alex flinched. He had gotten out by using tricks he’d been taught by his father and William. Tricks Sophie clearly did not have. Dear God, she’d been trying to chew through her bindings. He was simultaneously horrified at the danger he’d put her in, and unspeakably proud of how well she was handling it. Untying knots with one’s mouth wasn’t the most efficient means of escape, but it was a damn clever solution for someone who, by all rights, should have been rendered senseless with fear.
“I’m proud of you,” he said, giving her hand a little squeeze.
She blinked at him. “Um…thank you, I think, but I haven’t done anything.”
Alex stopped and looked at her. “You’ve been uncommonly brave, Sophie, and in circumstances you can’t possibly understand—”
“Well—”
“Let me finish, please, I think this may be easier for me if I do it quickly.”
She nodded. There didn’t seem to be anything else for it, since she hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about. He sounded as if he were about to pull out a tooth, or sever a limb.
Alex reached down and took her other hand in his. “I believe those men were either Napoleon sympathizers or hired by one. In fact I’m almost sure of it. I’m….” Alex put a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. He retook her other hand, increased his grip as if afraid she might try to bolt—and he was—and said, “I know because I’m an agent for the war office and I’ve been investigating your cousin’s affairs. I am sorry, Sophie. I wanted to keep you safe. I never suspected they knew. I….”
Alex didn’t know what else to say, how to make things right, or even better.
At least she wasn’t trying to run, although she did appear sufficiently shocked.
“You’re a spy?”
Alex pulled a face. He’d never particularly cared for that word—spying was not considered by most to be an honorable means of warfare. He much preferred the term “agent.” But probably now wasn’t a good time to quibble over semantics.
“Yes, I’m a spy—”
“I thought you’d been a soldier.”
“I was. I am what ever the war office asks of me. It’s something of a family tradition. The Rockefortes have always been in the active ser vice of the Crown.”
“Oh,” she said rather stupidly. But really what else could she say? I’m a spy too. Goodness, what are the odds? seemed hopelessly wrong.
“You’re not angry.” She was still gawking at him a bit, looking stunned, but not mad. It was immensely relieving…and a little odd.
“No, I’m not angry.” How could she be? What a hypocrite that would make her. It was strange though, that they’d been working around each other all this time. It seemed awfully disorganized.
“What exactly were you suppose to do?” she asked.
“Initially, I was to ordered to keep an eye on you and Lord Loudor.”
A uncomfortable prickly sensation started at the back of her neck. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What does that mean, ‘keep an eye on you’?”
“Just what it implies, I suppose. I was to develop an association with you and through you Lord Loudor—”
“What?”
He shifted his feet a little nervously. “You’re angry now, aren’t you?”
She ignored that. “You were spying on me?”
“Only for a few days, a fortnight at most—”
“A fortnight….” Memories of those first two weeks in London came flooding back. Alex laughing with her, Alex taking her to the opera, Alex kissing her…all lies?
“Yes, only a fortnight, ten days to be specific, not so very long if you think about it. After that, my mission was just a convenient excuse to court you—”
“You needed an excuse to court me.”
Her voice was very, very calm. Disturbingly calm.
“Yes. No! I mean, not under normal circumstances, but—” Alex stopped and glanced down at his feet. He couldn’t help it. Surely to God there was some visible evidence of the hole he was digging himself into. “You must understand, I had a duty—”
“A duty,” she repeated ominously.
How deep was it now? Three feet, maybe four?
“An assignment. I couldn’t very well—”
“Now I’m an assignment?”
“No. I did not say that.”
Six feet. Definitely six.
“Sophie.”
Surely that, at least, wouldn’t get him into any more trouble.
She glared daggers.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough to get him out of any either.
He tried again anyway.
“Sophie.”
“How much of it was a lie?” she asked quietly.
Alex blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“Those first ten days, and all the days after that…” She swallowed audibly. “How much of what you…what we did was a lie? All of it? Did you even want to be with me?”
“What? No, Sophie, don’t.” He reached out for her arm to stop her from turning away. “Look at me, sweetheart.” He put his fingers under her chin and titled her head up. “Look at me,” he repeated softly. “I have wanted to be with you since the moment I saw you. You took my breath away. The first moment we spoke, you stole my heart.”
“Alex—”
“Nothing we have shared has been a lie,” he insisted. “Nothing. The reason for seeking you out was a pretense, yes, but I could never counterfeit the pleasure it brings me just to be near you.”
His fingers left her chin to wipe a tear off her cheek. “Please, believe me, Sophie,” he pleaded. “I will always want to be with you.”
Even as he said the words, Alex knew they were true. He simply couldn’t imagine a future without her. Couldn’t imagine waking up each morning alone, or worse, next to a woman who wasn’t Sophie. Couldn’t imagine not hearing her laugh, seeing her smile, tasting her lips….
“I believe you.”
Sophie’s voice shook him out of his reverie and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank God.”
He took her hand and resumed walking. “If it makes you feel any better, I knew immediately you weren’t a spy.”
Sophie made a strange noise that was part laugh, part groan, and part choke. He stopped again and looked at her questioningly.
“As to that…” The words came out a nervous squeak.
He dropped her hand. His stomach did a slow roll before plummeting to his feet.
It couldn’t be.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m not a French spy.”
“What sort of spy are you, then?”
“Besides an inept one,” she grumbled, “an English sort of spy. The Prince Regent hired me to look into the affairs of my cousin and several of his associates.”
“Prinny hired you?” he asked, unsure if he were more relieved, confused, or angry. “Prinny doesn’t hire agents.”
“Well, he didn’t do it personally.”
“Of course not, Prinny doesn’t do anything personally, except make an ass of himself. I meant he always looks to the war office when he wants someone watched. We try to keep him out of the more important affairs, but….”
“Maybe he figured that out and decided to circumvent you?” she offered.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. We’ve never actually denied him anything.” He looked at her for a moment. “How long have you been in the business of espionage?”
“About as long as I’ve been in London,” she answered with a wry twist of her mouth. “A man approached me on the boat over, and I wasn’t in a position to refuse. He offered a great deal of money.”
“Good Lord, I can’t believe I didn’t figure this out,” Alex muttered.
“Maybe I’m a better spy than I realized.”
“And I can’t believe you had the audacity to become angry with me—”
“You were spying on me.”
He pretended not to hear her. “When this is over, I�
�m going to wring Prinny’s neck.”
“I’ll thank you to wait until after he’s paid me.”
“Your espionage days are over, Sophie.”
Alex picked up her hand again and resumed walking.
“Not quite yet, they’re not,” she retorted, struggling to keep up with his brisk pace. “I still haven’t found the proof they want. Although there is the matter of Whitefield’s missing funds, and I did come across some interesting letters in Lord Calmaton’s desk drawer.”
He shot her sideways glance. “How did you get into Calmaton’s desk drawer?”
“I picked the lock.”
“Picked the…?”
He stopped and turned abruptly.
She barely avoided running into his chest. “We are never going to get anywhere like this,” she mumbled.
“How, in God’s name, did you come by that talent?”
“We’ll be out here for days.”
“I’m waiting for an answer, Sophie. You said you’d never done this before. So where did you learn to pick a lock?”
“Mr. Wang taught me,” she said impatiently. “May we start moving now?”
“Not yet. Why the devil would he teach you such a thing?”
Sophie sighed in the manner of one much put upon. “If you must know, I can’t play the pianoforte.”
An expectant silence followed.
“And…?” Alex finally prompted.
“And Mr. Wang decided my talents might lie elsewhere. I’m not at all musically inclined and the more I practiced, the more frustrated I became. Eventually, Mr. Wang took me aside and explained that everyone has their own unique set of gifts. He gave me a few options to try and I chose the ones that sounded the most interesting.”
“And how to effectively open a door without a key was one of those options?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, and Mr. Wang was correct. I took to it right away and felt immensely better about myself.”
“You couldn’t have just attempted the harp, or the flute?”
“I told you, I have no skill with music. Besides, we were in the Cape Verde Islands at the time and there were no harps or flutes readily available.”
Alex looked at her a moment longer, shook his head in disbelief, then started off again.
“Finally,” she muttered.
Twenty-four
By the time they came across an old hunting box in the woods, Sophie was ready to weep with exhaustion.
She was also ready to push Alex off the nearest cliff. She was hot, tired, frightened of the coming dark, and very, very annoyed.
Over the last few hours she had attempted to broach the subject of her continuing work for the Prince Regent several times. Her arguments had been all that was rational and sensible. Alex had responded with a spiteful obstinacy that made her want to scream. She was not to risk herself any further, and that, it would seem, was that.
She didn’t actually need his permission. In fact, at the moment, she didn’t much care about his opinion on the issue one way or the other. It was his high-handedness that infuriated her. No one cared to be ordered about, particularly herself. Particularly by him.
Fuming, she watched as Alex tested the door to the cabin. It swung open on squeaking hinges.
“You see,” he said in a jovial voice that made her want to slam the door shut on his fingers. “Your skills are not required.”
She glared at his back. She’d been forced to do that all day, as the path through the woods had become too narrow for them to walk side by side, and it wasn’t at all satisfying.
“The Prince Regent disagrees,” she retorted, moving past him to go inside.
“I suggest we let the matter drop.”
“You began it.” She headed straight for the meager kitchen and began searching for candles, too tired and too worried to care they were bickering like children.
“Well, now I’m finishing it.”
“Fine,” she snapped.
“Excellent.”
A few minutes passed while he watched her moving restlessly about the kitchen. “What are you looking for?”
“Candles, I can’t find them,” she answered distractedly.
“Probably there aren’t any.”
She didn’t bother looking at him, but continued her search with a kind of manic desperation. “Of course there are. Why wouldn’t there be candles? Everyone has candles.”
“Apparently not the everyone who owns this cottage.”
“Don’t be obtuse. There have to be candles, have to be….”
“For God’s sake, Sophie, you’ve searched every drawer and cupboard in this place. Surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that our little abode is in serious disrepair. There’s no food, no bed, a broken fireplace, and what is here is covered in dust. I doubt anyone else has been inside this place in years.”
“Well, we’ll just have to use the fireplace, surely—”
“It’s in shambles. We’d be smoked out. Will you sit down?”
“No! I want—”
“Candles. Yes, I know.” He gave up and watched her open a cupboard she had searched twice already. She reached up and patted the recesses of the shelves, groping blindly with her hand. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes held a wild glint to them. She looked positively furious. Positively beautiful, actually, but he wasn’t in the mood to pay compliments.
“Of the multitude of disasters we are currently facing, you’re in a tizzy over some missing tapers? Good Lord, you have a skewed sense of priorities. Why do you need them so badly?”
She had difficulty answering. The panic that had been nibbling away at her nerves as evening progressed was beginning to take increasingly large bites. The sun was almost down, and in a few moments it would be dark, completely black. And Alex was right, there were no candles, no fireplace. Nothing to hold the night at bay.
There would be no light.
The certain knowledge of that sent an icy coldness prickling along her skin and sinking into her muscles. It squeezed her chest until her heart pumped too hard and her lungs seemed barely to work at all. It crept into her mind, gleefully pushing aside reason and courage.
In a daze, she looked past Alex to the window.
“There’s no moon,” she whispered. “It’s cloudy and there’s no moon out.”
His brow knit in confusion and concern. “Why does that matter?”
“I…”
He walked around a counter to cup her face in his hands. He’d been wrong, he realized. It wasn’t anger that lit her face. It was something else entirely. “Sophie?”
“It’ll be dark. Completely dark.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, carefully. “It’s better that way. We’ll be harder to…” His voice trailed off as she shook her head vehemently.
His thumb traced a gentle path along her jaw. “What is it? What are you afraid of, sweetheart? Is it the dark?”
“I…” For a brief moment, shame was nearly as powerful as the fear. She wished it would overwhelm her entirely. Humiliation would be worlds better than this slowly creeping madness. But with each passing second, the light in the room grew dimmer. And simple fear quickly stepped aside for terror.
“Sophie?”
“Yes,” she admitted in a mortified whisper. “Yes, the dark. I can’t…I can’t…things happen.”
“What? What happens, Sophie?”
“Things…”
Death. Death happened in the dark.
When her eyes filled with tears, Alex scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the window. Questions would do her no good now. Later he would ask them. Later he would find the source of her pain.
And do everything he could to kill it.
“Here now, love. Look at the sunset. It’s dipped below the clouds now. See the way the light passes through the trees? When I was a very little boy, my mother would take me for walks in the evening. When we passed through light like that, she would tell me we were touching the fingers of God. It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, but it was enough.
“Take a good look, Sophie. Hold the picture in your mind. Can you do that?”
Her nod was jerky against his shoulder.
“Good, now close your eyes and—”
“No! I can’t! I have to watch. I have to see.”
“Watch for what, sweet?”
She shook her head, but he had a terrible suspicion he already knew the answer. “All right, I’ll watch. How’s that? I’ll watch over us to night, I promise. Now close your eyes. There’s a girl.”
He sat down against the far wall, settling her in his lap.
“You won’t fall asleep?” Her voice was mumbled against his chest but he heard the fear, and the hope. And it broke his heart.
“No, love, I promise. I won’t fall asleep.”
Good to his word, Alex kept guard throughout the night.
He held her while she trembled, stroked her hair and rubbed gentle circles along her back. He spoke to her of the sun that would fill the forest just outside the door, of long golden summer days and the soft blue light of winter evenings. Anything and everything he could think of to ease a terror he didn’t understand.
When the first rays of light broke across the horizon he whispered for her to open her eyes. Sophie took one look, sighed raggedly and closed her eyes again. Alex laid them both down and let himself follow her into sleep.
The sun was high into the sky when Sophie woke. She felt stiff, groggy, and miserably ashamed.
“How are you feeling?”
One look at Alex standing over her added a generous heaping of guilt. His clothes were rumpled, his hair a mess, and there were circles under his beautiful green eyes. Because of her.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled. “Did you sleep at all?”
“I did, yes.” He sat down beside her and pulled a hanker-chief out of his pocket. “Blackberries,” he supplied. “I found a patch almost outside our front door.”
Though her system was still reeling from the nightmare of last night, Sophie accepted a few of the juicy black berries. She hadn’t had a meal in over a day.
“Won’t you have some?” she asked when he made no move to eat.
“I had my fill while I picked,” he explained. “Go ahead.”
As Luck Would Have It Page 24