Behind the Courtesan

by Bronwyn Stuart

  Should she mourn the dead animal? Thank God she was alive? Alone on the road, night encroaching, the scent of blood thick enough to attract nocturnal scavengers—should she worry?

  And then Blake was at her back, his warmth a welcome reprieve to the cold nothingness descending. Strong arms encircled her, hugged her, held her. The reassuring weight of Blake’s chin resting on her shoulder made her forget she didn’t like to be touched. A childhood of memories stirred, lifted, swirled around in her mind until she turned in the shelter of his strength and cried against his chest.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured, holding her tight.

  His warm lips brushed against her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids, first one and then the other, but it felt wrong. It had to be her decision, her instigating the contact, her in control. Sophia pushed against his chest, backed up until they no longer touched, but then gasped when she saw the amount of blood on his ripped clothes.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He shrugged, a not-quite-contained hiss of pain giving his lie away.

  Sophia arched a brow but didn’t dignify his words with more. She stomped back to the carriage to see what they had in the way of bandages. There must be something she could use to clean the blood and dirt and then bind his wounds. Anything to take her mind off his kisses and the heat infusing her cheeks.

  There was nothing suitable at all, only filthy old blankets to cushion supplies. Pretty soon, the top skirt of her ensemble—the one she hadn’t wanted to sacrifice in the name of stubborn stupidity—was hiked up and out of the way as she ripped at petticoats until she had a handful of adequate strips to first clean and then bind.

  “I’m all right, really, Sophie, don’t fuss.”

  “Sit down,” she demanded. For once he did as she asked and sat before he was pushed. The damage was extensive, but didn’t seem life threatening. Down his left arm, an angry red graze already purpled as blood pooled beneath the skin. More blood trickled down his forearm to drip from his elbow. She started there, but was soon hampered by the torn linen of his shirt.

  “Take your shirt off.” She kneeled next to him in the dirt, waited for him to comply.

  Blake shook his head and attempted to stand. Sophia wouldn’t have it. Under the ferocity of her glare, hands on her hips, fire in her eyes, he finally pulled the shirt over his head and twisted his hands around it, dropping the bundle into his lap.

  Her gaze followed the movement as she desperately endeavored to ignore rippling muscle now only covered by a sprinkling of dark hair. Her childhood friend had more muscle than all of the men at a London ball combined. Never had she seen such finely sculpted, individually corded, sinewy tone on another human being. On animals, yes. Men, no.

  The thought of the dead horse, his screams permanently silenced, brought her back to the task at hand. When she looked up to gauge Blake’s level of awareness, wondering if the shock had set in, he wore a smug grin of triumph.

  “I was merely looking for more wounds,” she squeaked, before any query was even voiced. It made her guilt all the more evident.

  “You missed the one here,” he said with a chuckle, pointing to his side where yet more blood dripped.

  “You are in a bad way,” she told him. She couldn’t clean the wounds without water and binding open lacerations could invite infection, especially since her petticoats were hardly sanitary.

  She wound a makeshift bandage around his shoulder and upper arm to the elbow and prayed for a miracle, that the flow of blood had largely removed any debris that may have lodged inside. Sophia placed the back of his hand against her shoulder so he wouldn’t have to lift his arm. If his muscles were tensed while she wrapped the linen, it would become loose when he relaxed.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” Blake asked.

  Sophia wasn’t sure if he sought to make conversation or if he really wanted to know the extent of her skills. A lump formed in her throat at the thought of sharing more of her life with him, but she gave him some of the truth. He could do with it what he wanted. “I have had some nursing experience in an infirmary of sorts.” Her hands moved over the wound stretching over three of his ribs. As she gingerly probed the area, Blake hissed and flinched from her touch.

  “You’ve broken a rib or two.”

  “I have not,” he scoffed as if he were a child, but his tone lacked any real conviction.

  She gave him another of her best glares.

  “Very well, I may have bruised the bone, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

  Silence fell as she did her best to pad the area. “Had we needle and thread, I would stitch this.” Another length of linen came away from her petticoat to make a piece long enough to wrap around his torso more than once.

  “Why do they let you tend this clinic of sorts?”

  Sophia’s hands stilled, her breath slowed, her eyelids fell. “Not all people think me lower than the dirt that mars their hems. And some don’t have the luxury of being nursed by a real physician.”

  Warm fingers closed over her cold skin and squeezed just so. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I merely want to know the kind of life you lead. The real life. Not the one you talk up to defend your actions. I want to know who Sophia Martin is, who Little Sophie has become.”

  A single tear escaped, rolled down her cheek to land on the mess that used to be her gown. When she met his frank gaze, she had to admit to a moment of terror even more frightening than being thrown from a moving carriage. It gave her a vision of the one person in the world who could know who she was. Who she wanted to be. Her deepest desires and darkest fears.

  But he wasn’t the one—this man who insulted, berated and belittled. He couldn’t be the one to share her secrets with. She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” she eventually replied, tying the bandage off just below his armpit, checking with a slight tug of pressure that the knot would hold.

  “And you don’t know who you are anymore.” Lifting the shirt he held in his hands and holding it to the gash on the side of her head, Blake’s voice held years of pain, emotion so familiar to her that she leaned away from his comfort and stood.

  “Perhaps I don’t want to know.”

  Blake could well believe she didn’t want to know her real identity. It might scare her into doing something drastic. In her society world where the sun shone every day on her happiness, had she lost sight of what it felt to be a real person? He wondered how long it had taken to talk herself into this level of veritable blindness. He wondered at the necessity for such an illusion.

  There was a moment in her past that created that fear. He saw it in her eyes, in the tense line of her body, especially in the way she hesitated before getting close to him. Even before climbing on the bench with him in the cart, she’d eyed him warily as if to measure the chances he would grow a second head and attack her once they were out of town. But fear was nowhere to be found now as she tended to his injuries.

  These tiny flashes of fear filled him with sadness, another factor that made her Sophia. Another stone of guilt to add to the pile that dragged at his shoulders. It was partly his fault that she’d run away. Not in any literal sense, no. His guilt came from her not knowing how deeply he felt about her all those years ago. Perhaps if she’d known the full extent of his love—that he would have laid down his own life for hers—she would have come to him, told him of her father’s plans. He would have run away with her. He would have taken her all the way to freedom and safety if it meant she hadn’t been alone.

  A shiver worked its way through his body as the sun dropped lower behind the clouds. It was going to be a cold night.

  Blake struggled to get to his feet. When he put his left hand on the damp ground, his ribs screamed in pain and he had to bite his tongue against crying out. He tried with his right. When there was only a slight pull from his grazed skin, he pushed up until he was back on his feet. For a moment the countryside swayed arou
nd him, black spots swam in his eyes, but then the horizon settled and he took first one step, then another, putting his ruined shirt back on as he went. His body would be sore come morning.

  Ensuring he made enough noise that she would know he was there, Blake approached Sophia where she perched on the end of the buckboard. He held out his right hand. “Truce?”

  She sighed, lifted her watery blue eyes to meet his.

  “Do you think we can call a truce?” he asked.

  She shook her head and jumped from the cart as a blush tinged her cheeks. “All we do is fight. Do you think we are capable of a ceasefire?”

  “I think we have to try to get along better. It’s likely we’ll be stuck here all night and—”

  “I beg your pardon?” The tension that usually held her rigid returned as she arched her neck and looked down her nose at him.

  “No one will even know there is something wrong until morning. Even then, they might assume we were delayed and decided to stay in Sheffield for the night. Dominic knows what to do if we don’t return on time.”

  Misty knew her way back to the tavern and the warm barn. If she arrived without the cart strapped to her back, a search party would be organized, but they wouldn’t be able to set out until morning. The dangers were too high to blindly grope about in the dark. Especially on a road that hadn’t seen a repair in years. Damn Blakiston’s laziness.

  “We’ll have to build a fire against the cold and a shelter in case it rains.”

  “We can’t...” she stuttered. “I can’t stay here all night.” She whirled around and started to walk. “If we go now, we’ll make it in a few hours.”

  “Sophie,” he called after her. “It’ll be at least three hours until you reach Blakiston on foot and full night in less than one. There are dangers in traipsing about the countryside in the dark.” He didn’t want to add to her anxiety, but nor could he walk back to the inn in his current state.

  She stopped, turned back to glare her haughty glare. “You will protect me. Now come along.”

  He shook his head, ignored her imperious command. “I’m not walking anywhere. I hurt, I’ve lost too much blood and I know ’tis pure folly. I’m going to find wood for a fire. You may do as you wish.” As he turned his back, he knew she debated ignoring him and forging on, but he guessed it would have been a very long time since she’d been alone in the wilds of England. By day the pastures and fields may look innocent enough, but by night foxes prowled for their dinner, wild dogs, bats and more he didn’t even want to think about, foraged. At least with a fire and the protection of the cart, they stood half a chance.

  He stepped over the ditch at the side of the road but lost his balance and fell to his knees with a strangled cry of pain.

  In the time it took for the agony to subside and his vision to clear, Sophie was instantly at his side, her small hands around his shoulders. He was more hurt than he had planned to let on.

  “You shouldn’t have moved so quickly,” she admonished, her gaze snapping this way and that, presumably searching for a suitable place to push him back on his arse.

  “I’m fine.” But the way he hissed the words through his teeth once again belied any conviction.

  “You most certainly are not fine. You will sit and I will collect wood for a fire.”

  “What?”

  “I do know how to find sticks to start a fire, Blake. I have not forgotten everything from my childhood.”

  You could have fooled me. He bit his tongue on the smart retort. He knew she would worry less if she was kept busy, so he inclined his head and let her lead him to the back of the cart. He was then forced to watch as she stepped off the road, scouring the ground as she went.

  In no time, she found kindling to get started and then went back for larger pieces. By the time she returned again, Blake had dug three blankets from beneath the softer fruit—cushioned so as not to spoil and bruise with every bump in the road—and draped one over Monster’s back. One he wrapped about his own shoulders and the other he placed in his lap to warm for Sophie. They would have to spend the night leaning against the dead horse but what remained of his warmth would keep their teeth from rattling when the cold set in.

  When finally she sat next to him, the fire a warm glow against her pale skin, Blake knew she must be exhausted and freezing. He placed the blanket on her shoulders, felt the stiffness of her back as he smoothed it over her arms and tucked it around the edges of her skirts. “Now is not an ideal time for maidenly sensibilities, Sophie.”

  She relaxed a fraction, her hands outstretched over the small flames, and let him come closer. They would have to rely on each other this night to stay comfortable. Though the way she bit on her bottom lip in consternation worried him. He didn’t break the silence. Let her be the one to vent what was on her mind. For sure as he drew breath, she had something to say.

  “Do you really think we can have that truce?” she asked into the darkness, her head turned away so he couldn’t accurately read her eyes.

  “Only if we can agree to be civil.”

  “Agreed,” she said as she turned her face back to the fire.

  Awkward silence descended once again until Blake felt compelled to take advantage of their unexpected isolation. Perhaps this was the time he needed to discover who she had become. The faces she let everyone see were not hers. They were all masks and he desperately wanted to pull them away so he could see her.

  “Tell me more about your infirmary,” he prompted.

  She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture that was so much more Little Sophie and a lot less Sophia than he’d seen from her in the past three days. “I was very ill not long after I arrived in London and I had no money for a doctor. My friends took me to the infirmary where I was nursed back to health. As I got better, I helped where I could and now I give back to those who helped me.”

  “But you aren’t a doctor or a nurse.”

  “No, but I can bandage, stitch wounds, play with children who are sick and in need of more than their parents or guardians can offer. You have no idea what it’s like in London. People lie down on the side of the road and never get back up again in the poor quarters. No one should ever have to be that alone.”

  “I’m shocked.” And that was an understatement. He could picture her in a white apron bent over a child with a skinned knee crooning words of comfort more easily than he could picture her in a ball gown laughing with a lord.

  Was this the her he wanted to find out about or was it yet another front to make her decisions easier to live with?

  * * *

  Sophia smiled for the first time in hours. She was glad to shock him. Every time she tried to convince him there was more to her than her courtesan status, he mocked or huffed or openly disbelieved. He didn’t know the half of it. She wouldn’t label herself a philanthropist, but she did help as much as she was able. What more could she do? Sit back and watch as children died because the most basic aid couldn’t be found? Mothers lost babies because they didn’t know the difference between a fever and a disease. Men lost their lives because they were too stubborn or poor to seek help. The infirmary had saved so many. They had saved her when the pregnancy she had tried so desperately to hide in those early days had gone terribly wrong and nearly killed her. The memories of her first miscarriage, the fever that followed and the fear that even after everything she had already gone through, she was going to die anyway, would stay with her forever.

  Her first months in London had been terrifying but she had done it, with the assistance of her four friends. Molly, Addison, Caroline and Amy were the closest to sisters she could ever lay claim to. They had supported her through some very, very tough times and she them. But the five of them could be no more different than sisters could. Amy worked in a gaming hell at night as the woman who distracted men so they lost more money to the tables. Addison was a milliner’s daughter, her father owned a shop on Bond street and was far too busy to notice his daughter’s habit of disappearing for day
s on end.

  Molly worked in a brothel, second in charge to the madam who ran the establishment. Molly had been Sophia’s second friend in the world after Caroline. The brothel was actually a lovely building close to Mayfair. From the outside, it was a shop front boasting a fine tailor. Upstairs was an entirely different matter.

  Caroline was possibly the most presentable and respectable of them. When they had first met by the pond, Caro crying her eyes out over a boy, she had been a scullery maid. Now she was companion to a gentlewoman, who gave them the majority of their funding. Mrs. Pendleton’s husband had died, leaving her a very wealthy widow. But he had also left her a shell of the lady she had once been. Sadness had taken over her life and turned her into a hermit. Caro was her only window to the outside world.

  “How often do you work there?” Blake’s question pulled her from thoughts of her life and her far-away friends.

  “About three days a week when Daemon is out of town.” Damn. She hadn’t meant to mention her former lover or indeed anything to do with her occupation.

  “Daemon is your duke?” he asked without scorn, without insult. Perhaps they had reached a truce.

  Sophia didn’t correct him. Daemon was a duke but never hers. “He is the Duke of Clifton.”

  “St. Ives?” Blake asked.

  Sophia nodded again. “Do you know him?”

  “He was close to the old duke.”

  Sophia’s heart skipped first one beat and then another. “No, he wasn’t.”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “You must have your dukes mixed up.”

  “I can assure you he was close to Blakiston.”

  “They were not friends.” Why had Daemon never mentioned the connection?

  Perhaps because you never told him where you came from.

  Not even with her first protector, Noah, had she shared all the details of her life before London. The more years that went by, the more she had stuck by her decision, tried to forget. She knew deep down that if ever she was in need of a safe place, the town of Blakiston would be there, undiscovered, undisturbed. But while the old duke and her father lived, she would not have stepped foot anywhere near the town or her borders.