Moriah Densley

by Song For Sophia

  Jenks sputtered a mouthful of tea into his napkin. Disgusting. “You — you … admit to foul play?”

  Wilhelm laughed, an odd sound, given the situation. “Foul play? Of course not. Ask a dozen of Vorlay’s acquaintances, and you will find a dozen men who wish him ill. Unfortunately he is that sort of man. When he turns up at some rat-infested opium den in the East End, you can ask him yourself.”

  Jenks scowled, seemingly chastised to silence.

  Wilhelm rested his arms on his knees, a picture of leisure. “Tell me, Mr. Jenks, who sent you here?”

  Jenks stuttered on about the commissioner and magistrates, and Wilhelm silenced him with his palm thrust forward. “No. Who really sent you, Jenks? You seem like a fairly good sort, one who might act outside his mandate should something valuable be held over his head. What is it? An indiscretion? Property? Not a child, I hope?”

  At his words, Jenks turned ghostly pale and clambered out of the seat. “I — I must be going. Good d-day, my lord. Lady Devon.” He practically ran from the room, and Sophia heard Martin remind Jenks to take his hat and cloak.

  “I thought he would never leave,” Wilhelm complained, pouring himself two fingers from the brandy bottle on the table.

  “So gallantly you spin falsehoods,” she whispered.

  “Recall my words. I spoke nothing false. In fact, I disclosed a shocking portion of the truth.” Wilhelm downed the brandy in two swallows without pausing to wait for the burn. His throat was probably made of steel, like the rest of him. “Chauncey put him up to it.”

  “What? How?”

  “There is no missing persons case. Poor Jenks was probably blackmailed into falsifying one. Really, it is quite boring, how predictable these villain-types are. I half expected Jenks to be an imposter, one of the bounty hunters. Alas I do think he was who he said, poor sod.”

  “How can you be so sure there is no case under investigation? It would seem to the world that Vorlay disappeared, and suspicious he was last seen here.”

  “It has been thoroughly managed, I assure you.” Wilhelm twirled the glass and peered at her through the facets, then lowered it. “Sophie, again I must ask for your forbearance and trust. I cannot reveal all my affiliations.”

  “You mean the Brotherhood of the Falcon?”

  He dropped the glass. Its shattering remained the only sound for long minutes. His voice came low and wary, “Where did you hear that name?”

  “I cannot reveal my affiliations,” she echoed, arching a brow in challenge.

  “Damn. Anne-Sophia, you must never utter those words again, understand?” He rose, pecked a kiss on her temple, then left the room.

  She meant to go after him before she noticed a small envelope on the floor, under the chair Mr. Jenks had vacated minutes ago. Making certain she had no observers, Sophia retrieved and opened it. Hardly surprising to see her father’s handwriting:

  Torquay railway station. Thursday. Two o’clock train to Portsmouth.

  • • •

  How did she end up on a train with Wilhelm instead of Aunt Louisa? One moment it seemed they had him in agreement, and the next he turned their arguments upside down and insisted on accompanying Sophia himself. Not only did he seem undaunted by the prospect of attending Helena Duncombe, but he showed genuine concern for her supposed illness.

  So far the plan was a disaster.

  How on earth would she get rid of him at Portsmouth? When Sophia arrived with Lord Devon as her guard dog, Chauncey would suppose she had gone simpering to her husband, an act of defiance that would enrage him. She thought of Chauncey’s well-placed threats, how he had proven he could hurt the Cavendish girls and ruin Wilhelm if Sophia failed to cooperate. Surely the best way was to placate, to feign defeat and obedience.

  And Wilhelm? For all his spying and plotting, that fact remained that he was hot-tempered and vulnerable. Chauncey could not be quietly exterminated, and damned if she would let Wilhelm take the fall for her. She did agree — her father would leave them in peace over his dead body. So be it. But Wilhelm must not be the one to do it.

  Lately visions haunted her, so real in her dreams. Wilhelm, convicted of murder, swinging from a noose. She had even begun to see details; his silver eyes glazed in dull gray, void of the fire and light she loved. His strong, scarred hands swollen stiff and tinged purple with death. She heard echoes of his piano music when she thought of his hands. Sophia stifled a sob into her palm. Make it go away.

  Wilhelm set his paper on the seat and turned to see what bothered her. He lounged with his back against the wall, one foot propped on the opposite seat to counter the motion of the car jerking along the track. He watched her, waiting for an explanation.

  “Just the usual pains,” she lied, pressing a hand to her abdomen. The adenomyoma had not bothered her for … . she paused to think, realizing it made weeks, no, nearly two months now. Not since she had miscarried the baby. Wilhelm tucked her against his shoulder and rubbed his palm over her belly, heating her skin in a way that would have soothed her if she actually had the pains.

  “What burdens you, love?” He brushed a fingertip from the corner of her eye over her cheekbone. She hadn’t noticed the tension there, but obviously he had. Mercy, how could she carry out her plan without her fairly supernatural husband discerning her duplicity?

  A distraction. She had not meant to tell him until she knew for certain, but … . “Remember when you said lightning never strikes the same place twice?”

  Comprehension dawned on his face immediately, but he appeared stricken with surprise. How cavalierly he had dismissed the possibility that she might conceive after one careless night. It seemed despite her poor health, he was fertile enough for the both of them.

  “Lightning, meet fate,” she mused.

  He blinked, twice, then the most beatific smile spread slowly over his lips, dimples and all. His hand returned to her belly and rubbed thoughtful circles. His smile faded, and she knew he had already begun worrying. “Are you sure?”

  “Not entirely. But I think so. Where will you be June of next year?”

  Ah, she loved his crooked half-smile. “Not sitting in the House of Lords, apparently.” He held up the newspaper to block the center window as a waiter passed outside the aisle with a tray. He had been surreptitiously observing all who walked past, both passengers and staff. Suspicious. In fact, he had been flighty since they left Rougemont. At Torquay he had herded her quickly from the carriage to the railway car with her tucked under his shoulder and hiding from view. She assumed he was on the lookout for bounty hunters as always.

  At first she thought nothing of bringing Fritz along, but perhaps Wilhelm expected trouble. He purchased a private car. And he had pulled down the window shade even though — wait, an eastbound train should have the afternoon light behind it, so why did she see the sunset level with the window? Come to think of it, the shadows streaking across the shade matched hills and tall forest trees, not rocky coastline.

  “Wilhelm, darling … what is going on?”

  He hummed absently, reading his newspaper. Upside down.

  She leaned toward the window and pulled the shade aside, confirming the sight of moorland. Northern moors, by the look of them. “Wil!” she knocked his knee with her ankle to catch his attention. “I am on to you. Where are you taking me?”

  He replied, “Hmm,” and now she knew he ignored her on purpose. She reached for his paper and slowly crumpled it from the top corner down. When he finally raised his gaze to hers, she regarded him with pursed lips and raised eyebrows.

  “He was at the station. I wanted him to think you took the rail to Plymouth.”

  She made a noise like a miniature volcano eruption. “Wha — Chauncey, you mean? You saw him there?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Wilhelm Montegue!” She leaned over the aisle and gripped her hands on either side of his lapels. He didn’t know she had nearly gripped her hands on his throat in a sudden burst of animosity mixed with panic. “Qu
it playing with me and explain!”

  Fritz growled, confused by the quarrel.

  “I kidnapped you,” Wilhelm answered carelessly.

  Yes, she might want to throttle him!

  He had the nerve to lower his eyes to her mouth. Slowly he raised his smoky-silver gaze to meet hers. It took a few hundred degrees of heat off the anger swirling at the top of her head and transferred it to a particular spot that had no business thrumming with such eagerness during a debate. An underhanded tactic on his part.

  “I happen to know that Helena Duncombe is being held captive in Versailles. I have a double agent infiltrated among Chauncey’s henchmen for her protection. So I also happen to know she is not ill, unless you count Chauncey as a contagious disease.”

  “Wil. What are you plotting? Tell me.” She smoothed her hands over his neck, and he still watched her with a lascivious invitation in his eyes. Interesting, he found her combative tendencies erotic.

  “He nearly came up behind us. I bribed the porter to detain him. Then I convinced the conductor on the Plymouth-bound engine to call your name for the box car.” He reached to rub a fingertip back and forth over her bottom lip, teasing for a kiss.

  She held him at bay, but then he ducked and worked his lips down her throat. “And so you hid us on another train.” She hissed though her teeth as he sucked on the sensitive skin at the base of her neck where it met her shoulder. “But that — ” Her breath hitched as he tickled a nerve between her jaw and ear. “That doesn’t explain why we are heading north.”

  “Lancashire to Ashton. The Tilmores will help us.”

  “Tilmores? Lord Courtenay?”

  “Yes.”

  Oh no. She had been trying to remain calm, but alarm bells clanged in her head and cold water trickled through her veins. A sudden lost feeling made her tremble, competing with the numb sensation in her hands. Everything at stake, the entire plan gone up in smoke.

  “Imagine my surprise when you told me you wanted to visit your poor bed-ridden mother. Such a heart-rending tale you gave, Sophia.” He said not a word about her deception but pulled her into his lap, gripped his fingers in her hair and crushed his mouth to hers. He vented his anger on her lips, nipping, biting, arguing without words. Fritz poked his nose through any space he could find, whining for attention, until Sophia ordered him to sit.

  Wilhelm reached to pull the shade down over the aisle glass and leaned back against the wall, pulling her onto his chest. Her protests flew away one by one, until the last stuck: War had just been declared, and it could not be undone.

  Chapter 24

  On The Joys Of Surprising One’s In-Laws

  The Tilmores were a bizarre family. Not only because Violet Villier lived openly at Ashton as Lord Courtenay’s mistress. Aside from being an unrepentant adulterer, he behaved with surprising indulgence for his children, allowing them in the drawing room with company.

  Lady Courtenay seemed perfectly tranquil about it all, caught up in local Lancashire affairs and apparently her own conquests. Off-putting at first, until Sophia accounted for the ways of the ton. It made her aware of how unfashionable she and Wilhelm must appear, an imprudent love match. Secluded in the southern end of England, they had yet to face the scrutiny of their peers. Thankfully the Tilmores took little stock in doing so. This left Sophia free to observe them instead.

  The lovely lavender-eyed young woman was Violet Villier’s daughter. Alysia Villier single-handedly maintained order in the house, with all the authority Lady Courtenay should wield but abdicated. The Tilmore children proved especially remarkable; they banded together, largely aloof of the adults in the room.

  Andrew Tilmore, Lord Preston, the dazzling heir of Courtenay whom she had met at the ball, watched over his younger sister and brother with Alysia. They behaved like doting parents over the younger two. He seemed wholly unconcerned about associating himself with the daughter of his father’s mistress. In fact, after observing his subtle but tender attentions to her for a while, it became apparent to Sophia that Lord and Lady Courtenay would have trouble on their hands at some point in the future.

  Sophia was far too experienced to mistake such a serious look from a man for a woman; apparently romance drew no requisites in age. She learned Lord Preston would soon turn eighteen and go away to Oxford in the fall. Alysia could be no more than fifteen or sixteen. But the knowing, nearly carnal glances passing between them made even the jaded Sophia blush.

  Romeo and Juliet nesting under your roof, Sophia wanted to warn Lady Courtenay.

  Wilhelm and Lord Courtenay had entrenched themselves in a pair of great leather chairs before the fire. Difficult to say if they plotted as powerful lords or reminisced as old army comrades, but if Lord Courtenay refilled Wilhelm’s snifter one more time —

  Oh, damn — He just did.

  Sophia could take no more; she had been counting. Before now, Wilhelm had fairly well maintained his sobriety. She thought it was blind of Lord Courtenay not to consider it; he had to know about Wilhelm’s drinking problem. Sophia excused herself from Lady Courtenay and crossed the room.

  She came to a stop between Wilhelm’s knees and unceremoniously snatched the snifter of brandy. A strong Armagnac — four fingers. She tossed it down her throat in four scorching swallows and lowered the glass to find the two men gaping at her. Thankfully, she didn’t cough, and her eyes watered only a little.

  “Wil, darling, thank you for the sample, but I think I shouldn’t have any more.” She turned to Lord Courtenay, “Would you not agree, my lord?” He twisted his neck in an amused, conciliatory nod. Wilhelm conspicuously fought a smile while his eyes did that distressing frost-scald stare from under his eyebrows that made her see visions of golden-haired children with hazel eyes.

  Minutes later, she heard the tail end of an animated debate between the two men. Lord Courtenay called to his eldest son, “Preston, if we need cover next week, can you do anything about the papers?” He gestured with his head to Wilhelm; she guessed he meant they wanted attention drawn away from an impending scandal.

  Sophia wondered what could possibly be a bigger bone to gnaw on for the ton than a ruined, escaped heiress, thumbing her nose at her father by seducing a wealthy lord of dubious sexual orientation with his own shady history, according to gossip. Her mother would be impressed with the caliber of infamy Sophia had inspired in such a short time. Whatever mischief Wilhelm thought to hatch which would eclipse that, she didn’t want to know.

  The young Lord Preston appeared unimpressed. He scratched numbers in a ledger, looking intensely businesslike, far beyond his years. He replied without looking up, “Can do. And it is good timing as well. Halverson is three days past due in Dover port from Shanghai, and there is word of storms all along the eastern trade routes. Marsden says he wasn’t shipwrecked but everyone else suspects his cargo is lost. I will wire shares to Grismer’s and drop all of the stock in Halverson’s.”

  He cross-checked his ledger with a note scrawled in the margin of a newspaper written in a language even Sophia didn’t recognize, and she was Queen of the Bluestockings. “Orson is in London and owes me a favor. I will convince him to stage a rush on Worth’s, and by Wednesday afternoon, every lady from Edinburgh to Corsica will be panicking over next Season’s silk. No one will care about who is tupping whom for at least a week.”

  “Andrew!” his mother hissed, horrified.

  “Oh. Are we going to off someone, then? Perhaps we should stir up the labor unions as well. How about a strike in the northern cotton factories?”

  Sophia saw the glint of amusement in his dark eyes as his mother reacted as though laying an egg. Lord Preston glanced sideways at Miss Villier and winked, and she tried to give him a stern look but obviously thought him too charming and clever to put any heat behind the scowl. Oh yes, there would be an endless supply of trouble for the Tilmores in the future.

  Sophia struggled to follow Preston’s ramblings, but it seemed he thought he had the wherewithal to personally
manipulate the stocks on Threadneedle Street. It seemed an odd notion and highly unlikely, but Lord Courtenay snickered, beaming with pride. “That will do. Proceed.”

  No one else in the room behaved as though they found anything amiss; they thought it a matter of course that an eighteen-year-old boy was about to tumble the shipping industry and textile commerce in three countries on an idle request.

  Wilhelm and Lord Courtenay went back to their plotting, seemingly satisfied. She left them the same way but sans liquor when she went up to bed. Fritz trotted along warily in the unfamiliar house, stopping once to ogle Daisy, Lord Preston’s mastiff.

  “Forget her, Fritz. The nobility gives no quarter for mutts,” she teased him; he cocked his head and dropped a long tongue out of his mouth in a disarming doggy smile. “I should remember that, more so than you.” She laughed to herself but found little amusement in it.

  Unless Philip intended to guard his sisters night and day, Sophia worried what retaliation Chauncey might attempt on them. Wilhelm had assured her his men would protect them. She even confessed about the locks of hair and her suspicion about a traitor among the household staff. Aggravating, his confidence in Rougemont’s security.

  Even accounting for the private army guarding the house, and Philip and Martin watching over the family, Sophia could not banish the premonition of dread haunting the back of her mind. None of those measures protected against the blackmail and public ruin Chauncey had in store for Wilhelm, who didn’t seem to care.

  He had refused to approach the subject, saying That is best left buried in the past, and Chauncey doesn’t own a big enough shovel. But steep odds were still odds, and she had a particular loathing for any sort of gamble.

  Perhaps the worry made her ill, or it could have been the Armagnac; Sophia dashed to the basin and retched, as she had every day the past several weeks. This time she felt no better afterward. Saints above, she would never drink again, not as long as she lived. With her stomach heaving, her head aching, and the same cold trembling numbing her limbs, sleep would escape her until Wilhelm came and wrapped his warm body around hers.