All I Ever Needed

by Jo Goodman

  Eastlyn said, "But it does not change your opinion of marriage."

  "It does not change my opinion of a marriage between us."

  He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. He would have used his size to intimidate her if he thought it would have done any good. He was considering using his pistol. "For all your protestations of a fine affection for me, I do not understand the distinction you are making."

  "It is not a fine affection," she said sharply. "I love you."

  East's fingers plowed hard through his hair. "Bloody hell, but you make no sense."

  Sophie's chair scraped the floor as she shot to her feet. Her hands folded into fists at her sides; her knuckles whitened. "I have never been moved so near to throttling someone. I should let them kill you, you know, but then what pleasure would there be left for me?"

  Eastlyn held his ground while Sophie gladly gave up hers, putting a good distance between them as if she believed her own threat. He watched her widen the part in the window curtains and lean into the glass, pressing her forehead against the pane.

  Her shoulders were hunched forward as she hugged herself. He did not think she was crying; she was too angry yet for tears.

  He slowly released a carefully held breath. "You have been afraid for me all this long while?"

  She answered with a small, jerky nod.

  "You might have told me that at any time."

  "I did not want to tell you now. Do you think I don't know how little difference it will make? You will dismiss my fears or make light of them. Or you will try to convince me that you can protect yourself. You have experience with the Society of Bishops, after all." Sophie turned away from the window to face him, surprised to see that he had drawn closer. Her voice lowered, but did not soften. "Tremont cannot be persuaded to any action by the removal of his chamber pot. You would have to remove him."

  "Before he tries the same with me?"

  "Yes." She searched his face, but his dark eyes had become impenetrable, and his expression yielded none of his thoughts. "If I had told you this when you made your proposal, you would have pressed me harder than you did. You would have wanted to remove me from my cousin's influence and given little thought to your own safety. I left the Park with you because you promised you would not force marriage on me. It occurred to me then that you might lie to Tremont and tell him we planned to marry, but I know now that you did not."

  "How can you be certain?"

  "If he thought we were married, he would not wait so very long to make me a widow."

  East's gaze dropped to Sophie's flat belly. "Tremont is the reason you want a daughter."

  "Yes, of course. Our daughter cannot inherit your entailed estate. But if he learns I have had your son, he will use the child to take whatever he wants from your holdings. It will be a bloodletting. Do not think for a moment that your parents can stop him."

  "And if we don't marry?"

  "Then my child, daughter or son, will be a bastard, and it matters little who the father is. Tremont cannot take money that is never settled on me or my child."

  "Another reason you have asked me for nothing."

  She nodded. "Just so."

  "Bloody hell."

  Sophie nodded again.

  "Come here," he said. He knew he could have gone to her—there was enough despair in her eyes to make him want to do so—but he marked the fullness of her trust in the steps it would take to bring her to his side.

  There was no hesitation. She went willingly because standing in the circle of his embrace was where she wanted to be. She felt his arms close around her back, his hands resting just above the curve of her bottom, and she turned her head and laid her cheek against his shoulder.

  East kissed the top of her head. Her hair was silky against his mouth, and she smelled of lavender. "You were right that telling me everything only makes me more determined." He was prepared for her effort to move away, and he did not let her go. Negotiations often required a show of strength to gain an opponent's attention, and Eastlyn thought he might have been slow in demonstrating his. "I understand why you left this explanation unspoken for so long, and I appreciate that your fears are real and that you have acted at every turn to shield me from harm; but it is unfair that you have given me no opportunity to prove to you that I can manage the thing myself. I do not underestimate your cousin, Sophie, but my sense of him as a man of few scruples has much to do with the fact that he was the Society's archbishop."

  East turned his head so that he might better see hers. "Why do you think he is capable of murder?"

  Sophie's voice held no inflection; she had been made numb to the truth of it three years past. "Because it is how he came by Tremont Park. He is responsible for my father's death."

  "You know this for a fact?"

  "You do find it difficult to credit." Her faint smile was a trifle sad. "I thought you might. You want to think better of him in spite of your words to the contrary."

  "You're wrong, Sophie. I find it surprisingly easy to believe. What I want you to tell me is if you know it for a fact."

  "You are asking if there is proof. If I saw him with my father at the end."

  "That's right. Did you?"

  She shook her head. "No. He was with his congregation the day my father died. It was a Sunday morning in April. Abigail was with me. And Harold. Not in Papa's bedchamber, but in the house. They did not want to leave me because we all knew it would be soon. I did not ask them to stay, or even invite them to the Park, but they were there because ownership would move to their side of the family, and they thought they should show this last measure of respect."

  When Sophie tried to step back this time, she found that East permitted it. She did not go far; she did not want to. "What do know about my father, East?"

  "Little enough beyond the things you have shared." He saw she did not believe him. "There were people who were willing to tell me what they knew of him. Sometimes I listened; most often I did not. If there were things I should know, I supposed I should hear them from you. The gossip is just what you would expect: gaming and drinking, both to excess. I know there were debts. You are my source of the less well known aspects of his character: that he was given to bouts of melancholy, that he never stopped missing your mother, and that he was perhaps a better friend to you than he was a father. He indulged his grief, Sophie, and left you too often to make your own way, and that is the reason I judge him more harshly than you. I know you nursed him in his final years, but I know little about what put him in his bed. I have heard there was an accident and that he never properly recovered, but the nature of the accident is unknown to me."

  Sophie felt as if she had made herself vulnerable to a succession of small blows. She was surprised that she did not waver on her feet or that the breath had not left her body. Her voice was both quiet and steady. "You did not learn, then, that he was addicted to opium."

  "No."

  She nodded slowly. "I have often wondered if it was widely known. Apparently not. You are aware the use of it is not remarkable. But to become a slave to it? That is another mark of my father's indulgence, is it not?"

  East knew he had hurt her with that assessment, but he did not apologize for it. "When did he begin to use the drug?"

  "Almost immediately after his accident. He was struck down while hunting. The ball lodged in his back, near the base of his spine. A surgeon removed it but could not repair the damage made by the bullet or his own extraction of it. My father came to know pain that no one should be made to bear. In the beginning the physician suggested laudanum. The doses increased gradually. He complained that it always took more to dampen the pain. Eventually he chose to smoke the opium as well."

  Sophie marveled at the acceptance she heard in her voice.

  She had not thought she would ever come to this place. "You might not believe that he was in full possession of his faculties, but there were many days when that was true. He read a great deal, played cards, and did not shun conv
ersation or company. There were times, of course, when it was not possible to speak to him if one was in expectation of a reply, and there was always the pain."

  "I am sorry," East said. "For his pain and your loss."

  Sophie knew it was sincerely meant, and the ache around her heart eased. "I think I was his friend then," she said. "Or more parent to him than child, though I did not enjoy much influence. We were well matched in our stubborn natures, and he did not want to hear that the opium was killing him. I did not want to hear that he could not tolerate his life without it. We came to an impasse early and stayed there for most of the time he had left. I would give him what dose the physician determined I should, and my father would get the rest of what his body demanded elsewhere."

  "Tremont?"

  "Yes, he made certain the opium was available. I did not pay for more than was recommended, and I never purchased it in any form but the tinctures, yet my father always had what he wanted."

  East considered this. "Dunsmore?"

  "Harold is an obliging son. He does what his father says." Sophie impatiently brushed back a tendril of hair that was tickling her cheek. "You are perhaps thinking that my father is in many ways responsible for his own death. You are not alone. That is certainly the view held by Tremont and Harold. If I need to assign blame, they tell me I have to look no farther than my own mirror. They are not entirely wrong, East. I could have fought my father harder. I could have taken the drug away."

  "If you could have done so, you would have." Eastlyn reached for one of Sophie's hands and took it in his own, squeezing lightly. "Was it an overdose in the end?"

  "Yes. In the very end. That was the opinion of the physician."

  Eastlyn nodded, his expression grim. "You will not want to hear this from me, but I must tell you that there is no evidence of murder here."

  It was what she expected he would say, though he was right that she did not want to hear it. "The murder happened years earlier. When the good reverend shot my father."

  East frowned. "Did I misunderstand? I thought you said it was an accident."

  "My cousin could not very well admit he had done the thing intentionally, but he has never denied that it was his weapon that fired—"

  "Or misfired."

  "That fired in the direction of my father."

  "There were witnesses?"

  "My father and Tremont were not alone. It is not precisely the same as saying there were witnesses."

  "I take it everyone was of the opinion that it was an accident."

  "Yes. But it does not mean they saw precisely what happened, or if they saw it, interpreted it correctly. They cannot see into Tremont's heart and know his intent."

  "And you can?"

  Sophie regarded him steadily. "Never doubt it." She tugged on her hand, and he let her go. "He is an evil man, East. You must keep that at the forefront of your mind. He conceals his envy and greed and amoral soul with simple misdirection, drawing attention to the sins of others while he does as he pleases. He cultivates a reputation that is the very opposite of the one nurtured by my own father. If my father was society's scapegrace, then Tremont is its saint."

  "Not to everyone, Sophie. He is not without considerable influence, but he does not have license to act in any manner he chooses."

  "He does if no one stops him."

  Eastlyn could not argue the point. As a former archbishop, Tremont would enjoy certain protections. It made him wonder about the friends who were with Sophie's father when he was shot. Perhaps it was a place to begin, he thought, but not at this moment. He was not at all sure he could share what he was considering with Sophie. She was warning him, not asking for his help. If she believed that she had influenced him to take action against Tremont, she would never agree to marry him. Still, there was one point that gave him pause. "Your father survived the accident," he said. "How did he explain what happened?"

  Sophie's eyes slid away, and for a moment she stared at a point beyond East's shoulder. Regret shaded her features. "He couldn't," she said finally. "He remembered almost nothing."

  It was not what she said that made Eastlyn want to know more, but the way she said it. He knew there was something held back. "Sophie?"

  She glanced at him and was caught. "He was foxed."

  "Badly?"

  "Yes. So deep in his cups, in fact, that when Tremont summoned servants to carry my father back to the manor, they thought he was dead."

  "The servants thought that?"

  "Everyone thought that. Papa's stupor was so severe that they mistook him for dead." Her short laugh held no humor. "Can you credit it? That is what saved his life. Had my cousin known the truth, he would have waited for my father to bleed to death before calling the servants. I cannot doubt that is what would have transpired. I was witness to Tremont's face when he realized my father was still alive. It does not matter what my cousin has ever said about the shooting, East, because I know what I saw in his unguarded face that day was his confession."

  Eastlyn understood then that Sophie required no further proof of Tremont's guilt, that whatever evidence he might gather would be in aid of proving to others what her cousin had done. "With whom have you shared your suspicions?" he asked quietly.

  "No one."

  "No servant? What about Dunsmore or his wife?"

  "No one," she repeated. "If the servants are suspicious of Tremont, then it is because they have observed his true nature in the course of performing their duties. Harold was a witness to what happened. He already knows the truth, whether he says so or not."

  "And Lady Dunsmore? What does she know?"

  "I cannot say, only that she has heard nothing from me. Her constitution is fragile, and while I have been Abigail's companion these last years, Harold has never allowed me to be her friend."

  Eastlyn knew that Sophie had been alone even as she had been surrounded by family, yet the depth of her isolation continued to catch him unaware. She would still be alone with her secrets if he had not provoked her. "Do you regret having told me?"

  Sophie did not answer immediately. It was not so simple as saying yes or no. "I suppose that depends on what you make of it."

  "And what of the other that you told me?" He saw her eyes reflect her confusion. "Have you forgotten so soon? You said you loved me."

  Sophie's features cleared. "You would have me say it again?"

  "I would have you say you do not regret telling me."

  "I do not regret it," she said. "What I regret is that I cannot feel differently." Her faint smile had an ironic curve. "You did not expect that, I collect, but it is the truth. I do not want to love you. I would choose some other path if such were presented to me."

  "I see."

  "I doubt that you do, since your feelings are not similarly attached. I can tell you, you would not like it"

  "Love is bothersome, then."

  "Yes."

  "And inconvenient."

  "Very."

  "It makes little allowance for reason," he said. "It makes none at all. There is no sense to it." He went to her this time. Putting his arms loosely about her waist, he drew her closer. "That is my experience also." Sophie glanced up at him, uncertain. "Marry me, Sophie."

  "But—"

  "I love you."

  And it was then that Sophie knew he had worn her down.

  Chapter 12

  Sophie's knees sagged a little. She felt the enormity of what she was about to do as a nearly intolerable weight on her shoulders. East's arms tightened immediately so that he was supporting her, and the burden of what she was feeling was shared. Her throat was dry, and her eyes were wet. It was all she could do to nod.

  East's smile was gentle. "Are you accepting my proposal, Sophie?"

  She nodded again.

  "I should like to hear it."

  "Yes," she said on a thread of sound. "Yes, I'll marry you."

  He thought she seemed more resigned to her decision than certain of it, but he was not going to challenge her
answer. He kissed her lightly on the mouth. "You will not regret it," he whispered. "I swear you will not regret it."

  Sophie allowed herself to be led back to the bed where East encouraged her to sit. He did not join her but drew a glass of water for her instead. She took it gratefully.

  "Perhaps something stronger," he said when she drained the glass quickly. "Sherry? I believe I saw some in your cupboards."

  "No. Water is sufficient." She let him pluck the glass from her hand and refill it. When it was returned to her she sipped until the ache in her throat passed. She set the glass aside and made a swipe at her damp eyes with her fingertips. When East produced his handkerchief, she accepted it. "This is not at all the usual thing, is it?"

  "I cannot say. No one has ever agreed to marry me before."

  That raised Sophie's small smile. "Then it can only be because you never asked."

  "I asked you," he reminded her. "Several times."

  "Yes, well, you thought you were obliged to do so." She dabbed at her eyes. "You would not have liked it if I'd accepted you."

  "You are more certain of that than I am." East pocketed his handkerchief when she returned it and sat beside her. "Give me your hand, Sophie." He opened his palm so she could lay her hand across it. His fingers closed gently around hers. "Nothing obligates me," he said. "Except acting on my own judgment. In the garden at Bowden Street I judged that a proposal of marriage was the honorable thing to do. At the inn I judged that a proposal would protect you. Neither of those judgments was wrong, but each was incomplete. I did not know that I loved you then, but I always knew I could. You should never doubt that."

  East threaded his fingers through hers. "I lose my balance when I am around you, Sophie, and I find I rather like the perspective it gives me."