Moriah Densley

by Song For Sophia

  Sophia glared at Elise and Mary, warning them to silence as she sawed through the worst of the knots, holding Madeline still with a hand on her shoulder. Poor girl; she would debut before it all grew back.

  Oblivious to the diplomacy at hand, Elise blurted, “I agree short hair can be considered comely on a girl with a long-shaped face, but I also heard that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory.”

  Madeline gasped. “How short?”

  Elise indicated five inches between her fingers, and Madeline began to cry again.

  Mary knelt in front of Madeline. “We shall all cut our hair short. Won’t we, Elise?”

  Elise’s eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to argue.

  Before Sophia could react, Fritz erupted into barking and leapt at the gate. Elise and Mary startled, shoving Madeline sideways, and the force knocked Sophia’s arm just as she pressed down the little dagger to cut a knot of hair. The bump to her elbow sliced the blade right across her left forearm. She grasped the gate to keep from toppling over, righted Madeline on her feet, and shouted at everyone to calm.

  It took a few seconds to clear the chaos, and moments longer until Sophia looked down and saw the stream of blood running down to her hand onto her dress. The source was a long dark gash; it looked like she had smashed blackberries on her arm. Odd that the dull blade had cut so deeply, but wasn’t that just her luck?

  The girls gasped and panicked again. Sophia yelled something unladylike, silencing them. With the gate unlocked, at least she didn’t have to climb over. Her arm throbbed now that the shock had worn off. “Madeline, are you hurt?”

  She rubbed her scalp ruefully. “No. Not really.”

  Sophia clamped her hand over her arm, and the girls stared wide-eyed at the blood seeping between her fingers. Elise moaned, on the verge of tears again.

  “Elise, I think I loosened enough of the knots to slide the rest off the loops. Can you manage it?” Elise nodded, completing the task with shaky hands.

  The rumble of hooves and shouting male voices drifted from the east hill. Hopefully it meant Wilhelm had just caught the man who frightened the girls. They shouldn’t linger here in case not.

  “Let us go home. If we see a bogeyman, I will let Fritz eat him.” She turned and scowled at the blasted dog. “Folge und verteidige.” Follow and protect. Without another word, she pulled herself onto the horse and let it walk back toward the house. She covered her bleeding arm with her ruined skirt. It soaked through before she was halfway there.

  Chapter 19

  In Which Somebody Gets Roaring Drunk, And It’s Not Wilhelm

  Wilhelm returned to a silent house, anxious for a reason he could not explain. When he came through the front door, he saw Fritz sprawled on the rug, gnawing a cut of meat probably stolen from the dining table. Before he could say anything, he found Sophia sitting on the floor with her head propped on a chair cushion, one hand grasping her opposite arm. Her disheveled hair sported leaves and twigs. Blood smeared her face and coated her hands and arms.

  “What in hell happened?” he roared, taking in the dark crimson splotches on her tattered dress.

  She opened her eyes and raised her head, surprising him with a flat glare. She swatted him away as he knelt at her side. “Why don’t you tell me what in hell happened,” she answered flatly and dropped her head back.

  Dread warred with the distraction of hearing her throw his curse back at him. “Is that your blood?” Of course it’s her blood, lackwit. He tried to pry her hand away to look at her arm, but she resisted. “How badly are you injured? Damn it, Sophia! What happened to you?”

  “Amputation proved unnecessary.” She finally graced him with a marginal look from one slitted eye. “Wilhelm, I saw you. Riding eastward from the north hill.”

  What? Hopefully she missed his jolt of alarm. She had been outdoors, exposed and vulnerable? Frantically he reviewed the events of the past hour, wondering if he had unwittingly put her in danger.

  “And was that Philip, running the opposite corner of your trap? I hope you two caught the bastard, because he gave your nieces quite a fright.” Her voice sounded like low boiling, threatening to erupt.

  “Are the girls here?”

  “Upstairs with your Aunt Louisa. Safe and sound if not rattled, and short one crowning glory. Apparently I am not pleasant company at the moment.”

  “I cannot fathom that,” he joked, running a nervous hand through his hair and feeling completely run over. He would go out of his mind later, but now he did not like the pallor of her skin. And if all the blood soaked into her dress came from her injury alone, it was far too much.

  “So did you catch him? Or would you prefer to start at the beginning?”

  “That is a long tale I should save for later.” He touched his fingers to the underside of her jaw. Weak rapid pulse, cool damp skin.

  “No, Wilhelm. I know you have been keeping important matters secret from me. I will not stand for it. In fact, the next time you hide away with one of those miserable little yellow papers, I swear I will — ”

  “Sophia, move your hand and let me look at your arm.” Her condition read serious, and all she cared about was berating him? Impossible woman.

  He forced her fingers aside and hissed an oath as he saw the deep gash running diagonally across her the top of her forearm. He could not be sure how deep because it still bled, freely. She had cut a vein. He let her put her hand back over it.

  LeRoy and his henchmen had not come near the house; Wilhelm had made sure of that. Yet after the chase, he had sent Philip on to St. Agnes and ridden home to Rosecrest, simply because he had felt he should. His instincts had always been so sharp, but that he had somehow known Sophia needed him prickled the back of his neck. “When did this happen?”

  “About a quarter hour ago.”

  His eyebrows went up, but he betrayed none of his dismay. Fifteen minutes of steady bleeding? “That needs to be sewn. Or seared — but I doubt you would appreciate the scar.”

  She wished him to the devil with her expression, and he comprehended his poor choice of words.

  “Right. Well, should I send for a doctor, or do you trust me with a needle?”

  “Are you sober?”

  “Unfortunately so.”

  “Have you done this before?”

  “Dozens, perhaps hundreds of times,” he lied smoothly. He had seen it done as many times, on other soldiers. Now was not the time to confess that he despised the sight, the smell, especially the texture of blood.

  “Capital. Why don’t I get roaring drunk while you don’t, and then we shall get on with it?” Ah. And here shone the Sophia he adored.

  “Hold tighter, try to stop the flow,” he replied, fighting a smile despite himself, and Sophia shot him a murderous glare. “I will get the supplies.”

  He returned with a bottle of whiskey and cloths from the kitchen. “I stole this from the housekeeper. She had quite a stash.” He knelt by Sophia again, scooping her knees and shoulders in his arms to lower her onto the floor. A seat cushion served as a pillow under her head, then he spread a cloth beneath her arm.

  “If you think I will take even one swallow of that nasty single malt, you are sadly mistaken.”

  He dumped some of the alcohol on his hands and rubbed it in. “This is for your injury, actually. A field medic I knew in Crimea prevented septic shock by doing this.” He poured the whiskey over her cut, gently prying the folds open with his thumb and forefinger while she swallowed a gasp of pain.

  “Stings, I know. Apologies, darling.” He ducked to kiss her temple before he could stop himself. It came so naturally. “I ordered brandy brought down; you shall find yourself in a drunken stupor shortly. Won’t take much, considering your blood loss.” He bit down on his tongue as soon as he said it. Smooth, Wil. Calm the patient.

  Sophia muttered an oath, her eyes squinting and her breath shallow. He chuckled to cover his discomfort as he threaded the needle, willing his hands to remain steady so as to fo
ol her into feeling confidence in his patchy skill as a surgeon.

  Finally the housekeeper came with a bottle of brandy and a glass, creeping gingerly as though Wilhelm tended a rabid animal instead of the Countess of Devon. With a quelling look for the housekeeper, he left the glass and took the bottle, handing it to Sophia. She grabbed it by the neck and gulped it greedily, reminding him of a sailor with one day’s shore leave.

  If not for the danger, he would wait until she was thoroughly drunk before sewing, but at the rate she bled, she would be dead by then.

  “So, Philip and I were off chasing LeRoy. You caught me. What else do you want to know?” Anything to distract her. She probably didn’t realize he had to sew two layers, the flayed flesh inside the cut and another to close the skin. Not to mention he couldn’t tie the thread in a simple knot — damned contrary motion. No, he had to cross the threads then roll them between his fingers to make a knot.

  She said through clenched teeth, “The telegrams, night and day. What is going on?”

  He decided to tell her, as simply as he could. “Three separate matters. Philip and Colonel O’Grady — do you remember him?” She nodded, likely recalling the ginger-headed portly man who came with the Crimean officers’ club. “They are helping me track Vincent LeRoy and his mob of bounty hunters. Someone seems to be feeding them information, which explains how they tracked us here. I am also communicating with Lord Chauncey’s creditors in Bombay. I am in the process of purchasing his promissory notes.”

  Her breath caught as he made another stitch, and he seemed to feel the sickening resistance of the needle sympathetically in his own arm, then the ghostly sensation of it scraping across his chest by sheer force of memory. He knew the methodical nerve-drilling sensation well and it conjured too easily, far too clearly. He shoved the thought away, afraid of falling into a defensive trace.

  Instead of commenting on the significance of her husband becoming her father’s creditor, she bit her lip then asked, “I counted two matters. What is the third?”

  “I hoped you would miss that. I am embarrassed to confess a shortage of cash for the transactions. Lord Courtenay and his son are helping me liquidate assets to fund the, ah… project. And I am in a hurry about it.”

  Lord Chauncey had gambled and lost the equivalent of half a dozen nobleman’s fortunes. It had become no small matter to appease his hawkish creditors, accounting for the accumulated interest many seemed to inflate simply because Wilhelm was rich and they knew he wanted the notes. What they didn’t know was that Wilhelm still worked to replenish his own fortune after Roderick had abjectly sunk it. Without the help of Andrew Tilmore, his good friend Lord Courtenay’s financial prodigy son, his would be a lost cause.

  Sophia shook her head, and he nearly speared her in the ribs with the needle. “Hold still, love.”

  “Sorry. My arm is on fire and I can barely feel it now.” Her words slurred, from weakness or the brandy he didn’t know. She was also beginning to shake, a bad sign.

  He had seen soldiers bleed out on the battle field, trembling violently and complaining of an icy feeling everywhere except for the burn of their injuries. He needed to finish faster and bind her arm, but his blasted fingers slid down the needle, slick with blood, and he already worked as quickly as he could to roll the string into knots.

  “You can own the note on my father’s underwear if you please, but he will still come after me.”

  “I know.”

  “In fact, with you as his creditor, he will want me back all the more. He doesn’t know I am barren, and more than anything he wants a grandson to break the entailment. He is counting on it, he needs the money. He will do anything … .” She gasped as though a realization had just flashed in her mind. “Oh no. After the disaster with Vorlay, he will know we married. He will want to kill you for revenge, thinking he has stolen your unborn child when he abducts me.”

  He breathed slowly, fighting to keep his hands steady. Sophia didn’t know it, but the talk about her father drove him dangerously angry and riled. He had prided himself on his ability to carry out the gruesome task of disposing of human offal with cold detachment, but he already knew when the time came for him to reconcile with Chauncey, there would be a great deal of passion about it. He feared he would enjoy it, prolong it, and that would make him irrevocably into the damned creature he had resisted surrendering to these many years. It meant crossing the fine line an assassin walked between justice and murder.

  He didn’t care, but Sophia would know. She would sense the darkness. She would feel it when he succumbed to the ghosts. They hovered near these days, kept at bay only by her presence. Without her, he was lost.

  Nevertheless he sewed carefully, betraying none of his concern, listening as she spoke.

  “Beyond that, it is a matter of vengeance now, not just money. I made a fool of him. He will never forgive it.” He heard hatred and bitter resolve in her voice though the tone sounded weak. There would come a day when she had no call for speaking in such an ugly tone. He vowed it.

  “That will be his undoing.”

  “Do not underestimate him, Wil. Chauncey is a treacherous, dangerous man.”

  “So am I,” he shot back with a toothy smile, and she seemed to shudder.

  “I don’t know how you got away with doing in Vorlay, but it won’t work that way with my father. What if you hang for it?” She swallowed over what sounded like emotion. A sign of affection?

  “Three more stitches left,” came his answer. So much he couldn’t tell her. Even if he wanted to.

  “I hate when you do that.”

  He feigned ignorance. “Do what?” Before she could complain about his stonewalling their discussion, he interjected, “So now you tell me why I came home to find my wife bedraggled and bleeding to death.” His throat still tightened around the word wife. Put in the same sentence with Sophia, it made him a silly besotted fool.

  “I let the girls go exploring with Fritz, because I was unaware you were hosting a caper on your property. When I heard him barking, I took the mare and followed — ”

  “You rode the old mare? She is for pulling the cart. She has no saddle.”

  “Did you think I stopped to look for the best Montegue livery?” She closed her eyes again, and the sight of her blue-tinged eyelids and lips in stillness frightened him. Too close to the images of death cataloged in his brain. “Are you going to let me tell it or not?” she jeered irritably.

  “Proceed, by all means, my lady.” He finished the last stitch and bound her arm with linen strips, tighter than would be comfortable, but she simply could not afford to lose any more blood.

  “The girls reported being accosted by a man whom I now assume was one of LeRoy’s henchmen. Fritz scared him off, but Madeline caught her hair in the gate. By the way, did you know your east gate was unlocked? When I climbed over, it came right open.”

  “You climbed the gate?”

  “No, I ripped my skirt like this in hopes of attracting fast men. Anyhow, I couldn’t free Madeline’s hair. I had to cut it off, with a letter opener. Fritz startled everyone, and in the jostle the blade slipped and I cut my arm. That is all.”

  Wilhelm wetted a cloth to clean the blood from her arms, face, and collar, wrestling terrible visions of his nieces and Sophia suffering at the hands of that filthy East End mongrel. At least Fritz seemed to come through when it mattered; those dogs had proven a worthy investment. He drew a deep breath of relief once he washed the last of her blood from his hands.

  Her words slurred, “So whom were you chasing?”

  He had already told her. Confusion, another symptom of serious blood loss. He lifted Sophia and carried her up the stairs, remembering to grab her bottle of brandy. “LeRoy and two others. At first I thought it was the gypsies, but Philip — ”

  He saw skirt flounces as his eavesdropping nieces fled back through a bedroom doorway.

  “You saw us trying to draw them against the base of the hill. We caught Grover, the man w
hom I presume came through the gate and frightened the girls. Philip is delivering him to the constable in St. Agnes.” She looked too still; he wondered if she was fainting. “Sophia, how do you feel?”

  “Strange … Weak and surreal.”

  Wilhelm called for the housekeeper again and asked for salt and water, which she quickly brought. He measured and stirred the salt into a glass of water. “I am sorry, but you will need to drink this. The saline will replace some of the lost fluid.”

  She obeyed and made a face. “You sure know how to charm a lady.”

  He tucked the ends of the bandage under the wrappings. “Move your fingers. Do they have full sensation?”

  “Yes, as normal. It is my brain which feels numb.”

  He almost blurted, Oh, how I adore you. He could listen to her talk all day, always wondering what irreverent, outlandish tidbit would come out of her mouth next. “Now you just need to keep your arm raised a while.”

  He sat next to her on the bed and wrangled the remnants of her dress off, followed by her stays and stockings, leaving her a lovely sight in only her lacy Parisian shift. The one with the peach lace that only reached part way down her thighs. Delightfully naughty.

  He mentally slapped himself awake, trying to remember what he had meant to say next. Oh yes. “I owe you my gratitude, Sophia, for your bravery. I once thought you were the forces of nature embodied, and I was right — at least about your being some sort of force.” That made her laugh, a bewitching sound he never got enough of. “Thank you for taking care of my girls.” He stroked her forehead, brushing away wild strands of hair. “How is the pain?”

  “Clamoring for attention.”

  Wilhelm left her then returned with the bottle he had stashed at the bottom of his trunk and poured her a glass.

  “Pomegranate?” she asked, heartened.