Julius wore the kind of country coat that only a London tailor could make in a rich dark brown that enhanced his fair good looks. Elegant as always, he regarded them unsmilingly. Then he got to his feet and bowed. “It’s good to see you looking so well,” he said.
His attention went from one to the other of them. Sophia didn’t know what he saw, but he would see her a whole lot more relaxed than she had been a few days before. Whoever would have thought she would have been relaxed in a palace?
Max’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing until the maid had arranged the refreshments to her satisfaction and left the room. Sophia busied herself pouring the tea while the two men exchanged small talk about conditions on the road, politics, and anything else that didn’t concern them personally. Tension increased. By the excess of cordiality exchanged, Sophia knew that Julius did not plan to discuss anything trivial.
She took her seat and her part in the conversation. “Did you find yourself in the area, or is there a purpose to this visit?” she said. “Not that you’re not always welcome here you understand. Just that you’re worrying me.”
For the first time, a smile spread over Julius’s features, slow and appreciative. “I do like that. A woman who isn’t afraid of speaking her mind.”
“You must know many such women.” She wasn’t the only woman in London with a forthright temperament. “I have no patience with dancing around a subject when it’s an important one.”
“You are percipient, ma’am.”
They were seated too far apart to touch, but Max’s glance was a visual caress, and she smiled back.
“You’re a woman of decided character. I always thought so, although I didn’t know everything about you. I still don’t.”
When they turned their attention back to Julius, his eyebrows were raised.
“Interesting, I do wish you well. But the news I have may have implications none of us want to deal with.” He paused. “Are we at any risk of being overheard?”
Max shook his head. “The maid who served us is one of the family who has been with us the Devereaux for generations. If word gets out, she knows, as do the others, that I will dismiss every one of them.”
“Fair enough. And I will also take steps if what I say here is heard anywhere else.”
But what was so important that it merited this level of discretion? Sophia took a quick breath and lowered her gaze. Not that, please not that.
And why the hell hadn’t she told Max before now? Sophia braced herself ready for when the sky fell on her head.
“This news isn’t easy. I verified it before I came and the proof is available should you require it,” Julius said. “I brought copies with me. I made the copies myself and I have the originals locked up at home.”
“Did you stumble on this…evidence?” she asked, unable to wait until her fate was upon her. She needed the answer now.
He gave her a hard glance, his eyes chips of pure sapphire, and about as expressive. “No. I went looking. I need to protect my friends and my family. Why? Do you know what I’m about to say?”
She shook her head. What if he were to tell something else? But perhaps she could claim some restoration by relating some of the news herself. Was it too late? Panic rose to choke her. “It’s something my father said,” she said, blurting out the information before she could out-guess herself. “I didn’t know what to think, or what to say. I wanted to research it, but I didn’t have time.”
Julius leaned back and crossed his legs, resting his cheek on one outstretched finger, his elbow on the arm rest of the elegant, brocaded chair. “Go on.”
Yes, it was that. Sophia longed to reach for Max but she dared not. Afraid to even look at him. “I met…someone in the park, who gave me some news.”
“Whom?” Julius rapped out.
“Julius—” Max said in a warning tone.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am. Whom did you meet in the park?” Julius made it sound like a tryst when it was nothing of the kind.
“John Hayes,” she said quickly. “I couldn’t stop him approaching me. I was…that is, my father considered him as a candidate for my hand before I married M-Max.” Oh now she was stammering, something she hadn’t done since childhood. But then, few things had meant so much to her. She ploughed on. “I didn’t believe what he told me. Why should I? But it sent me to my father. I wanted him to say that John was lying, that he had tried to create trouble between Max and me.” Ironic, since at the time they had enough trouble of their own. But now, John had succeeded, although not in the way he intended.
“You met your old lover in the park?” Max said, voice low and controlled.
Sophia shivered. She hadn’t heard that tone since the day before they’d left London. She’d never wanted to hear it again. Not directed at her, anyway.
“He came to see me,” she said. “That is, I never arranged to meet him.”
“John Hayes,” Julius said, either not noticing, or more probably, choosing to disregard the ice in the air, “is working as a political secretary to the Duke of Northwich.”
Shock sent a stiffening chill to her bones. Everything froze. “The Duke of Northwich?”
She dared to look at her husband. His expression rivalled Julius’s for sheer impartiality and coolness. She could be sitting between two icebergs, either of which could crush her. The duke?
“John never told me who he was working for, but he introduced me to Lord Alconbury, Northwich’s son. Max knows about that meeting.”
“You didn’t think to ask him?” Julius said. “Your lover?”
“He was never my lover!” Stung by the accusation, she turned on Max. “You know that!”
“Only because your father stopped it,” Max snapped back. “But I interrupt. Pray continue.”
Julius shot him a hard glance, but Max ignored it. All his attention rested on her. That wasn’t fair, either, but she couldn’t bear to relate what had really happened between John and her. Not with these hard, powerful men listening. Her humiliation. It was bad enough that her father knew, but now, now she couldn’t bear it.
All the horror and the distress she’d thought she’d buried deep inside came back up, sending bile to burn her throat. “John was never my lover,” she said. “I can only repeat that.” She’d tell Max later, if he gave her the chance. Surely he would. “He told me something I found it hard to believe.” She swallowed. Would it sound any more real if she said it aloud? “That my father is not my father.”
Max frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“My father, James Russell, didn’t father me. Didn’t—”
“I understand,” Max interrupted. “You needn’t go on. Why would he tell you that?”
She closed her eyes, gathering strength, then opened them again. “Because it’s true. When I visited my father…Russell, he told me the truth. They put the date of the marriage back a year to make the dates match.”
“Did he know?” Julius said.
“Yes, he did. He was paid to marry her. But their marriage, I always thought it was a good one, and he said so.” She swallowed back the heaviness that filled her now. How much so if she had been forced to tell them what really happened with John? And why would they believe her? She’d met John twice and shown no sign of rejecting him. How would Max see that? That she was planning to recommence their affair? That would be sheer betrayal, especially since she hadn’t fallen pregnant yet. An unspoken rule in society was that a woman didn’t stray until she’d borne her husband a legitimate heir. Not that everyone always obeyed that stricture, but most did.
She swallowed and finished her story. “My father said he always considered me his daughter. He didn’t know who my mother’s lover was or why they chose my father to marry her.”
“Because he was out of the circles we move in,” Max said promptly. “It’s obvious.”
“More than that,” Julius said. “They had enough wealth to care that she didn’
t get closer to her lover. Enough to ensure her future life was comfortable. Was your father good to her?”
“I think he loved her. I know he did. He was distraught when she died. He doesn’t show emotion, doesn’t trust easily, but he trusted her as he trusts me.” She needed something, some assurance, because she felt Max’s withdrawal like a physical thing. He was no longer with her.
She’d known he was cold, but now she knew more. In the last few days, he’d given her something that was infinitely precious to him, and now he’d withdrawn it. She might never see it again. Never feel his caress or bathe in the tenderness of his presence. Her future stretched before her in a bleak, unbroken, featureless path. If he withdrew his passion, she couldn’t bear it. Didn’t want to think about it.
She was terrified that she’d lost Max. Rather than that, she’d risk everything, even humiliation, if she had to. “I didn’t like John. I didn’t want him anywhere near me. He’s not my lover. He never was. He courted me, persuaded my father to trust him, but then he went too far. He tried to rape me.”
Chapter 15
Max heard her words in cold fury. Hearing that she’d met her lover once more, that she’d talked to him, and then that she’d kept such a secret from him… How could he trust her ever again? Or even love her? He’d almost persuaded himself. Even now, anger simmered through him because he couldn’t keep his mind straight around her, couldn’t think of her as he did everyone else—with the distance that came of liking, not loving. The news about her parentage meant less to him than this.
She had betrayed him by not relating the meeting in the park. That struck him to the heart. Accordingly, he took the action he always had and withdrew behind the shields that had taken him a long time to construct. He was a fool to let them down, even for her. Instead of a partner, he had—what? A breeding machine?
No, he couldn’t bear to think of her like that. And now she wanted him to believe the act with Hayes hadn’t been with her permission? That if her father hadn’t interrupted them, she’d now be married to John Hayes instead of him? Except her father had seen him, Max, as a better prospect.
Russell loved Sophia. He would want the best for her. A marquess and a wealthy one, moreover one he knew would take care of his beloved daughter.
Except she wasn’t his daughter, was she?
Sophia rose to her feet in a swish of silk and hurried to the window, where she stared out at the grounds. She gripped the sill as if she’d never let go.
Max turned to Julius, trying to get his whirling thoughts in order. “So this Hayes, who works for Northwich, dropped poison in her ear? For what reason?”
Julius glanced at him, and then at Sophia. He got to his feet. “You have other matters to resolve. Don’t worry. I won’t be going anywhere tonight. I’ll retire to whatever room is available and rest for an hour or two before dinner. Call me if you need me. There is more news, the matter of the proof I told you about, but nothing is more important than this.” He turned at the door. “Nothing. Listen to her.”
He left, closing the door quietly behind him.
What could he do? He should leave. This woman had kept important things from him. “How long have you known about your father?” Had she been fooling him all along? He kept his voice steady, his tones cool. He couldn’t think properly. Perhaps more facts would help him.
“Just before we left London. That night you…consoled me.”
He knew from the choked tone of her voice that she was weeping. Still he didn’t go to her. “It was because of that?”
“Partly. It was a shock. I knew I had to tell you, but what difference would it make? What would it do to our marriage? We were barely on speaking terms, and I didn’t know how to talk to you. This is new to me, the society, the life, and in my innocence I thought it would be easy. My father is wealthy, my mother was a member of the nobility. How hard could it be? Impossible.” She stopped abruptly and her shoulders shook.
He could stand it no more. “Ah, God, don’t cry!” Crossing the room Max seized her and turned her into his arms. He didn’t care. Didn’t want to know. He had her now, and for his own peace of mind he was keeping her. So he might not love her as deeply as he’d considered, wouldn’t give her his entire trust. She had committed the sin of omission, as bad as lying. While he could understand her motives, she’d crippled him, sent him into battle with half the map missing. But did she understand that?
Sophia clung to his waistcoat, sobbing into it, her tears no longer silent. “I—I thought we had found each other. I’m so happy with you. I wasn’t afraid!”
He remembered her flinching from him on their wedding night, the movement that had driven him away, that had made him so reluctant to take her properly. In the end, doing his duty had been all he could do in the face of that silent rejection. “I thought you didn’t want me. That you wanted your lover, the man your father interrupted you with.”
She shook her head. Tears still flowed down her face, and he groped in his pocket for his handkerchief.
“I didn’t want him. John said he…he’d make sure of me. That he’d ruin me for other men.” She paused and sucked in a breath. “I thought he meant my virginity, but he meant to make me pregnant, or at least create the possibility of my being in that state.”
“And knowing what had happened to your mother, your father took the same path. Forced someone else to marry her.” His voice hardened.
“Ask him what he saw. John Hayes wanted to snare a wealthy wife and control of my father’s business.”
Max intended to, but not for the reasons Sophia supposed. To his shock he found himself saying, “I believe you.”
Did he? Yes he did. That made sense. Hayes had his own way to make in the world, and marrying the master’s daughter was usually a sure way to success.
Julius had said to trust his instincts. Max chose to do that now. The woman he’d spent the last few days with wasn’t one who would lie to him about her affair with another man. She wouldn’t have met a man in secret. The park was hardly a secret place, in any case. No, what she said made sense.
He did believe her, truly. He recalled her behavior on their wedding night. That was more than virginal nervousness. It was fear. Actual fear, as if she knew and didn’t want what was to happen. Had she expected him to take her roughly, hurt her, even?
While he held her, he carried her to the large sofa and sat down with her sprawled across his lap. She clutched his waistcoat and sobbed her heart out.
The heat of anger rose slowly inside him, Max made two resolutions. One, John Hayes would pay for what he’d done to Sophia. Two, he’d uncover the secret of her birth.
If she was a Dankworth, what did that mean? That they forced her into his arms in the hope that she’d betray him and the rest of the Emperors? Maybe. In that case, he’d win the war.
He couldn’t tell his wife until he investigated further. If Russell didn’t know who had fathered her, she would not, either. She was so distressed he wouldn’t upset her further with speculation until he knew more.
The Jacobites were dangerous, perhaps more at this delicate stage of international affairs than they had been when overtly attempting to win back the Crown. They could tip the balance so slightly, yet have profound effects. And Max had no doubt that their agents would work towards bringing down the Hanoverian dynasty that currently ruled the country. Whatever the cost. To call someone Jacobite was to call him schemer. The Dankworths were prime examples of the breed.
No, his heartache set against all that potential danger was a small thing. Except it loomed large for him. At last he’d thought he had found someone to share his life with, and now—
Sophia shifted in his arms, moving close to him, and his cock stirred. Her tears had subsided to the occasional sniff, and while he was sure his waistcoat was soaked, he wasn’t about to move to find out. He held her tightly and waited, occasionally touching his lips to her forehead or her temple to assure her he was th
ere and she was safe.
She said nothing, and after five minutes he knew why. A soft snore told him that she’d cried herself to sleep.
Lifting her, he crossed the room to the door, and after a bit of juggling with the doorknob, got it open. A footman waited outside at a discreet distance. Max jerked his head upstairs and the footman preceded them. After hesitating at the door to her room, he decided to continue using his own.
She barely stirred when he slid off her hooped petticoat and her shoes so she could lie down better. He’d call her maid to help her with the rest, to sit with her until she woke. He needed to have words with his cousin, see that proof Julius talked about.
He gazed at his wife’s tear-stained face and for a moment allowed himself to picture what he could have with her. He would much rather lie down with her and hold her until she awoke. Yesterday he’d have told Julius to go to the devil and done just that, but today… She’d kept important information from him. He needed to know why before he could let her in any further. That one fact niggled at him. When they’d come here, she’d known Russell hadn’t fathered her. She’d kept the information from him. Why?
He left her to sleep.
Julius was in the chamber he usually used when he visited, in the main part of the house. A grand guest room, commensurate with his status as the son and heir of a duke. And a beloved relative. Max tapped and went in on his “Come!”
Julius was sitting in front of the dressing table idly filing his nails. He’d dispensed with his coat and wore instead a magnificent dressing gown in blue and gold brocade. He’d dropped his wig on the stand his valet had placed ready and sported his natural hair, golden blond, cropped short, clinging sleekly to his well-formed skull. When Max entered, he quietly put down the file and turned his chair to face him.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Asleep,” Max said briefly.
“Is it true about Hayes?”
Instead of punching his cousin, Max forced himself to contain his violent response. “I have no doubt that it was. What her father thought was a seduction…wasn’t. He arrived in time to prevent the bastard completing the act, but not in time to prevent the man from terrifying and hurting her.”
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