A Gentleman By Moonlight
A "Tales From Seldon Park" Novel
By Bethany M. Sefchick
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016
Bethany M. Sefchick
All rights reserved
For all of the gentlemen of the world....
Whether by moonlight or not...
Prologue
Late June 1820
The Great North Road
Lady Sophia Reynolds huddled miserably in the corner of the luxurious carriage, tears streaming silently down her cheeks as she clutched her bodice tightly, even though there was only a small, barely noticeable tear in the front of the delicate fabric. How could she have been so foolish? So utterly and completely stupid? Now she was thoroughly ruined and, worse, trapped in a coach hurtling northward, directly towards a future she no longer desired. With a man she now thoroughly despised beyond measure. A man that, but four or five short hours ago, she had fancied herself in love with. More fool her, she supposed.
"Come now, Sophia, my girl. It was not so bad as all that."
She cringed inwardly at the words spoken so coolly from the other side of the carriage, but prayed she gave no outward sign of her hurt and anger. She refused to grant this beast the satisfaction of knowing anything more about her.
Nor was she about to offer him any words that might soothe his conscience - presuming that he had a conscience, of course - about what had just transpired.
"I am not your girl. Not any longer." She made her words as icy as possible, even though her voice trembled with each syllable she spoke. "At present, I doubt that I ever truly have been. In fact, I don't think I really knew you at all."
"I would beg to differ on all counts, especially after what has just transpired." He grinned at her in obvious satisfaction, his perfect white teeth flashing in the dim light from the coach's single oil lamp. "And, as I said, it wasn't as bad as all that. Dare I say that, in time, you shall come to enjoy that sort of thing."
However in Sophia's opinion, it had been as bad as all of that. If anything, the entire, horrible event had been far worse than she could have ever imagined. Despite the many rumors about her over the years, she was not some wilting, delicate flower who was so innocent and virginal that she could not possibly be real. She was five and twenty and was a London debutante in the highest reaches of Society. She knew very well that a woman's first time with a man was not always pleasant, but she had not thought that it would be so...awful, for lack of a better word, either.
She also knew that often times, the "moment in question" was forced upon a woman without her consent, especially by a cruel husband. Still, Sophia had not thought her betrothed capable of such a horror. Once again, she had been very, very wrong. In this moment, she hated him for what he had done. Even though she also knew that it would likely happen again and again, and that there would be no escaping such a fate. Or him - the man she had once been convinced would hang the moon for her if only she would ask. Now, he seemed more like a devil in the dark than an answer to her prayers.
From the moment Alex had convinced her to run away to Scotland with him so that they might be married immediately, Sophia had been anticipating the moment that he would take her in his arms - preferably in a bed at his distant relative's castle in Scotland, though a bed at a coaching inn would have sufficed - and kiss her ever so sweetly before making slow and tender love to her. In her imagination, Alex was the perfect gentleman she had always believed him to be. She had imagined him as a kind and considerate lover who teased her to pleasure and let her find her release before taking his own within her body when they were both ready. It was to have been a delightful and perfect night of pleasure.
The harsh reality, however, was that the moment they were far enough away from Fairhaven, where they had both been attending Lord and Lady Enwright's magnificent end of Season house party, Alex had unceremoniously thrown Sophia onto the carriage seat, tossed her skirts up over her head and shoved himself inside of her as quickly as he could, the horrid pain slicing through her while she felt the trickle of tell-tale blood slide down her leg as she whimpered and cried, begging him to stop. To let her go. To not do this because as his future wife, she deserved better. Because he loved her.
Her pleas had fallen upon deaf ears however, and he had refused. Actually, Alex hadn't even uttered a single word. Instead, he had pinned Sophia down on the seat and taken her roughly, like some common whore, not ceasing until he had spilled his seed inside of her, all the while repeating that he was a man and could not help himself. That his favorite mistress was back in London, and he had gone nearly two weeks without. That this was necessary so that Sophia's brother could not force them apart when he found out the truth about Alex's life in London, his crushing gambling debts, his cadre of mistresses and his penchant for rough bedsport. All things that the powerful Duke of Hathaway would use to force Alex and Sophia apart. Because if there was one person on Earth that Alex truly feared, it was Sophia's brother.
Her brother. Adam. Not the duke, though he was that as well, but just plain Adam. The man who had watched over Sophia and cared for her since she had been a child. The same brother she had chosen to spite over and over again, even when he tried to warn her that her girlish infatuation with one Lord Alex Selby could come to no good end. Adam had been right. Sophia had been wrong. And it was she who would pay the price for her mistakes.
The thought of her brother made Sophia cry just a little harder, even though she still did not make a sound. Adam had attempted to warn her away from Alex so very often over the last few years. He had taken desperate measures to save her from herself. Despite the severe damage to his own already questionable reputation, Adam had revoked his permission for Sophia to wed Alex. To no avail. At the time, Sophia had accused Adam of being nothing more than hateful and mean. Spiteful, even. Of wishing her nothing but a life of misery to match his own. Except that Adam wasn't miserable any longer. He was in love. He was happy. And he had simply been trying to protect the sister he loved and spare her feelings by not revealing the true nature of the man she fancied herself in love with.
Adam had known Alex was a cad and a scoundrel. Her brother had attempted to warn her - gently at first and then more forcefully later on when she refused to listen to a word he said. For his trouble, Sophia had called him a bastard and said that she never wished to see him again. Earlier in the day, she had even thrown her battledore racket at his head and warned him that he should not try to stop her from finding her own path to happiness and true love.
Now she wished that she had not done any of those things. Instead, she wished that she had listened to Adam - the one man who had always been there for her no matter what. For given the way Alex was now looking at her as if she was a lamb he wished to devour again, Sophia wasn't certain that she would ever see her brother again. At least not until she had given this man an heir, cementing their union - and his grip on her sizeable dowry and inheritance.
Money. Fortune. Coins. His debt. The demands of his kept whores. The payoffs to the women he harmed during bedsport. How Alex needed Sophia's funds in order to maintain the lifestyle he preferred and had come to enjoy. All of her funds, right down to the very last coin. Including those funds that she would not receive until she reached the age of one and thirty.
Not just coins but unentailed property as well, including one particular family estate that Alex planned to gift to one of his mistresses and the bastard s
he was currently carrying in her belly as soon as he was able. Sophia hadn't even been aware that Alex had one mistress, let alone several. Or that he had children. As in more than one. None of them legitimate, though he did mention the need for an heir by Sophia herself, at least if he was going to secure his own family fortune one day soon. Those were the only things that Alex had been able to speak of from the moment he had pulled his rapidly softening cock out of her aching body and set himself to rights.
It was not lost on Sophia that he did not help her rearrange her skirts or clean the blood from her leg. Nor had he drawn the coach's blinds when he had taken her, making the possibility that at least one or perhaps both of the outriders beside the carriage had looked in and seen him tumbling her. After all, he had left the lantern hanging from the ceiling hook lit, as if he wanted them to see. Given how desperate she now knew him to be, he probably had planned the events this way. Damn his rotten hide to hell and back.
Sophia would kill him if she could. Once she gathered her wits, of course. Whenever that might be. Given that she could no longer even see quite straight, she thought that time might be a bit farther away than she would like.
She glanced out the window, hoping the answer to her prayers lie somewhere in the foggy darkness beyond. Rain now pelted the sides of the carriage partially obscuring the view, so perhaps the men had been too busy keeping the coach in check and their horses on course to look inside. But she doubted it. The rain was turning the Great North Road to mud rather quickly and they were moving slowly. Slow enough that she was certain the men could look inside if they chose - and likely had.
Sophia longed for escape. But where would she go? She was a woman alone on a dark, rainy night in a very bad position. Who would take her in, even if she could escape Alex and his men? It wasn't as if she had coins for a room for the night, though they were in the vicinity of a village of some sort. However, at the moment, that was of little comfort. Still, it was a glimmer of hope and she clung to it tightly, even with her hope of rescue fading as quickly as the lights they had passed not so long ago.
A half a mile or so back, they had passed a small, worn-looking coaching inn, one with what looked to be a bull and a frog on its sign. She wouldn't have seen it at all if not for the lightning that had split the night as they continued on past, Alex eager to reach Scotland as soon as possible. When Alex had first reached out to touch her, Sophia had thought they were stopping for the night at the inn. The traveling conditions were deteriorating rapidly and there was always the danger that the coach would tip over, killing them all. She had been wrong, instead the coach plunging on into the darkness, heedless of the dangers of travel in such conditions.
At this point, at least in Sophia's mind, even death seemed preferable to spending a lifetime with Lord Alex Selby.
Face burning with shame, she wiped at her eyes. No. She would not allow him to break her. This man had taken enough from her tonight. He would not take her dignity as well. Or whatever was left of it at any rate.
"Will you ever allow me to leave Scotland? Contact my family?" Sophia rather doubted it but since she didn't wish to return to the previous subject of discussion - namely him forcing himself upon her - she decided to try a new one. Though she doubted that this one would produce any better results.
Alex shrugged, likely still mentally counting all of the funds he would loot from her to shower upon his many mistresses and assorted bastards. She wondered how many of them he kept anyway. How many children did he have scattered across England? Then she decided that she did not wish to know just yet.
"Eventually." He eyed her stomach shrewdly. "Once I have my heir and your brother and his friends can't use any of their trickery to keep us apart, of course. Or to keep me from what is rightfully mine. Not before then, certainly. And I firmly believe that Adam and his friends, including The Bloody Duke, will certainly try. Not that it will do them any good, of course." When she didn't immediately reply - or throw herself into his arms, for Sophia wasn't certain what reaction he was expecting from her - he frowned harshly. "Come now, Soph. You knew this was not all flowers and hearts, did you not? A man has needs. Base ones. You know this."
"A gentleman," she snapped with as much dignity as she could muster, "does not force himself upon a lady as you just did to me!"
Alex snorted. "Is that what you think I did to you? That wasn't forced, Soph. That was a man claiming his wife. Even if she was unwilling, as you were. It is my right as your husband, after all."
"We are not married," Sophia tossed back frostily, regaining some of her fight and attempting to build a wall around herself so that he could not harm her in any way again. Except physically. She was not a very large woman after all.
"We are now." He grinned almost manically. "Honestly, Soph. I thought you knew. About everything. About Marietta and the others. I have gaming debts. Every man does! They keep mistresses too! They have bastards. Some men have dozens of them! I have no idea why you thought I was any different."
Because you were supposed to be my one true love, she thought sadly as she looked at this man she no longer knew and was quickly coming to hate. Because you are supposed to love me above all others. Like Lachlan does Diana. And Nicholas does Eliza. And my brother does Abigail. They cherish their wives. Just as I thought you would cherish me.
"Adam attempted to tell me about you," she began, but Alex cut her off quickly.
"And that, my dear wife, is all on you. Not me." He pointed a finger at her. "It is not my fault that you were so foolish that you didn't..."
Before he could finish, the coach jerked to a stop and, as Sophia had feared, nearly tipped over. Both of their heads snapped back and Sophia tumbled backwards into her corner. Alex, however, was furious, rage lighting his eyes and he reached for the coach door. He seemed to know that once the coach stopped its rapid trek north, his entire plan might well unravel. Good. She hoped it did. Even if she was ruined in the process. Just so long as she did not have to spend eternity with this beast of a man.
"How dare you stop..." Alex did not finish that sentence either. Instead, large male hands reached inside of the coach and yanked him out with a snap. Sophia heard scuffling outside and the sound of what might have been a body hitting the soppy, wet ground with a thwack. Good. She hoped it was Alex. And if it was highwaymen, she hoped they beat him to a bloody pulp.
Or not. Because if there was no Alex, well, at least he was the devil she knew. As opposed to a highwayman or worse. Which would be the devil she didn't and was possibly much worse. Or not. It seemed as if she could not form a clear thought at the moment when just minutes before, she had been silently plotting how she might escape Alex. Odd that.
Then, the hand, which she thought might have a rather ugly looking scar across the knuckles, appeared again and she yelped, clutching her ripped dressed a little tighter to her body. What if this man meant to do to her what Alex had just done? He might as well shoot her now, she supposed and prepared to tell him that very thing. She would rather die than allow another man to ever touch her again.
Until the rest of the man appeared and on the left side of his face, she caught a glimpse of a long, slashing scar that ran from his temple, down his cheek, nicking the corner of his mouth and crossing his chin before disappearing under his jaw. Other women might be afraid of the visage that appeared before her, but Sophia wanted nothing more than to weep for joy. This face was not one of terror but rather of salvation. Of safety. Of her life before. This face was the miracle she had been praying for ever since Alex had first pinned her down on the seat.
For Sophia knew this face. Not well, but still, she knew it. It was the face of Lord Lewis Blackmore, a former war hero currently employed by Bow Street, his clothing soaked through and his hair plastered to his head from the unrelenting rain. And, if he was not quite a friend, well, then he would not hurt her. He was here to help. To rescue her.
And in that moment, Sophia felt a wave of relief wash over her, one so powerful that
it made her dizzy. Just before she started to cry uncontrollably.
"Please tell me he didn't," she heard Blackmore say as her vision began to grow a bit dark and fuzzy at the edges. She struggled to bring his ruined face into focus now. To tell him that she was fine and to please not touch her. However, she couldn't think or say or do anything because of the ever-encroaching blackness. "Lady Sophia? Please. Tell me that he did not touch you."
She attempted to answer him. She honestly did. But when she tried to speak, no words came out. The only sound she could make was a strangled cry that didn't sound in the least bit human.
Sophia was terrified. Of being touched. Of seeing any one. Of simply existing. Yet she was just as afraid of staying in this coach one moment longer. Of Alex returning and forcing himself upon her again. So she decided to choose the devil she knew and hoped for the best.
She reached for the familiar, scarred face of Lord Lewis Blackmore, confident that if she could just touch him, if only for a moment, she would find her center. He was a military man. He would not harm her. And likely, he knew the truth of what she had just endured. She did not know him well, but she understood that he was an intelligent man. He had helped to rescue many people in distress. He could help her too. She hoped.
Except that each time Sophia tried to reach for him, her fingers fell short of his person, which should have been impossible with a giant of a man like Blackmore. What was wrong with her that she could not simply touch him? Again she reached for him, a strangled, inhuman cry sounding around her. Was that her? She didn't think so. Could it be Alex? Perhaps. Terrified now, she lunged for the giant of a man and prayed that this time she had chosen correctly. That her trust was not misplaced.
"Damn it all, anyway! He did!"
Those were the last words Sophia heard before she pitched forward and swooned into the arms of Lewis Blackmore. Because she was safe now. He was here and every instinct in her body told her that he would not harm her. That a man like him who had known pain would not inflict that same pain upon another, weaker creature such as her. And that was all Sophia needed to understand in that moment before she finally gave in to the blackness.
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