Sapphire

by Rosemary Rogers

  He looked away, running his hand across his mouth. Sapphire found herself strangely drawn to the gesture. Her gaze settled on his mouth and she remembered when it had touched hers, what she had felt. How he had made her feel.

  He plucked a leaf from the pecan tree. “I’d like to make you an offer,” he said, staring into the garden behind them.

  “An offer?”

  His mouth twitched and he suddenly seemed angry with her. “Twice what the boy has offered. Anyone has offered.”

  Against her will, she felt her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment and something else she couldn’t identify. “I do not accept.”

  “And why the hell not?” he asked, turning to her. “It makes perfect sense. You’re in need of a protector and I—”

  “You what, sir?” she demanded, barely able to contain her rising anger.

  “It’s simple enough.” His voice was without emotion, as if he were making a business deal or purchasing a cigar. “I desire you. And someone needs to teach you a lesson. You come to London spreading your lies—”

  “They are not lies!”

  “Parading your attributes before all these young men. You’re nothing but a tease, Miss Fabergine, and it’s time you learned where teasing will get you.”

  She shot off the bench. “I’m feeling much better now, sir,” she declared coolly, reaching for her mask. “And this conversation is over. Thank you for your assistance.”

  As she stepped away from him, she saw a group of men and women gathering on the garden path. They were all staring up at the second or third story of the house, murmuring.

  Blake turned toward the house first. Something registered on his face, and as Sapphire turned to see what everyone was looking at, he attempted to step in front of her to block her view. She dodged him, grabbing her white satin skirt in both hands to keep from stumbling. She gazed upward, looking from one window to the next. Nothing seemed extraordinary on the first two floors: people dancing, men smoking, women gossiping. She was about to turn back to Blake to ask him what he saw when movement on the third floor caught her attention.

  For moment she wasn’t certain what she was looking at. She saw a man and a woman. The woman’s gown and underclothing were pushed down around her waist, her bare back pressed against the glass casement. The man faced her and the onlookers below. He moved toward the woman, then back, then toward her again, thrusting his body, pushing her again and again against the glass.

  Sapphire felt the blood drain from her face as she realized not only what they were doing, but who they were. She knew that bare back. She knew the green silk gown. “I have to go,” she whispered, stepping back.

  “Not like this.” Blake caught her arm. “Let me take you—”

  “Excuse me, sir.” Charles appeared out of nowhere, a glass of punch in his hand. Obviously he had no idea of the spectacle taking place in plain view of the guests. “Miss Fabergine, is there a problem?”

  “No, no problem,” she heard herself say as she took another step back, wishing she could fade into the garden or become stone like the statue beside the bench. How could Angel do such a thing? Make such a public display of herself?

  “You should take her home,” Blake said.

  “Sir, I’m perfectly capable of knowing what’s to be done for Miss Fabergine.”

  “Charles, please,” Sapphire managed to say, reaching for his arm to steady herself. “Might we just walk around front and call for your carriage?”

  Charles set the glass on the bench and, covering her hand with his, turned her around and headed for the gate. Sapphire didn’t look back. Blake Thixton was sailing on the morning tide the next day. She would never see him again, and even that would be too soon.

  In the carriage, Sapphire slid to the center of the bench and Charles climbed in behind her. As the groom closed the door, she glanced at Charles, unsure why he had sat down beside her rather than across from her as he usually did, but she was so upset about Angelique that she didn’t give it another thought.

  “I’m sorry I took so long to find you, dearest,” Charles said. “I hope the American wasn’t behaving too crudely. I—”

  “It’s all right, Lord Thomas,” she murmured, wishing he would just be quiet. “He isn’t what’s upset me. I can certainly fend for myself when it comes to men like Mr. Thixton.”

  “Please, I’ve asked you to call me Charles.” He moved closer, sliding his arm over the back of the smooth leather carriage seat until his hand rested on her bare shoulder.

  She realized then that, in her haste, she had forgotten her gown’s matching white silk wrap. She must have left it in the ladies’ parlor.

  “I was hoping you might allow me to call you by your given name.” He lowered his head and leaned over her, his voice deeper than usual.

  She could feel his hot breath on her bare skin.

  “In private, of course,” he said.

  Annoyed that Charles couldn’t tell that she was obviously upset about something, she laid her hand on his chest to make him stop. He must have misinterpreted her gesture because, before she realized what he was doing, he’d pushed her down on the bench and was climbing on top of her.

  “My lord!”

  He pressed his mouth between her breasts, dragging his wet tongue over her hot skin.

  “My lord, you’re hurting me!” Sapphire cried out, trying to push him away. “Please…Charles, no!”

  “Enough games, you thankless chit. We’ve been playing this for weeks,” he said angrily, grasping the shoulder of her gown and pulling it down. “We both know what I want. I’ll give you whatever you want in return—money, wedding vows if I must—but I will not be turned away. Not any longer. Not tonight.”

  The carriage turned the corner, swaying, and Sapphire was thrown against the back of the seat. As the conveyance came back around, she used the momentum to shove Charles away from her. “Charles, please!” she demanded, barely able to see him in the dim light.

  Charles’s knees hit the floor, but he still managed to keep his arms around her, pinning her to the seat. With a growl of rage, he climbed back on top of her, shoving his knee between her legs, grabbing her wrists and forcing them over her head.

  “No—”

  He crushed her mouth with his, silencing her, and though he was no rougher than Blake Thixton had been with his kisses, there was something about Charles that she found repulsive.

  He thrust his tongue into her mouth and she gagged. His mouth was sloppy with saliva and he tasted of cheap whiskey and smoked fish.

  No, this cannot be happening, she screamed inside her head. I won’t let this man take the one thing I have to give freely.

  Charles released one of her wrists and dragged his hand down over her bare shoulder. Grasping the bodice of her beautiful silk gown, he jerked the fabric, and she heard it rip.

  “Please,” she begged. “Charles, please don’t do this.”

  “It’s what you’ve wanted from the beginning, isn’t it?” he said as he violently squeezed her half-bared breast. “A rich cock to keep you in your coop?”

  Her anger spurned her on even more than the pain he was inflicting. With her free hand, she slapped his face, then grabbed a section of his hair and yanked as hard as she could.

  “Ouch!” he cried, jerking back in shock. “You little bitch!” He slapped her hard across her cheek.

  Just then, the carriage turned again, this time in the opposite direction, and when it swayed, she threw her entire weight against Charles, knocking him onto the floor. She landed on top of him, her cheek still stinging where he had struck her, and scrambled to get up.

  “Let me out! Stop the carriage!” she screamed as she grasped one of the leather loops that hung from the ceiling in order to keep herself from falling on top of him again. The coach slowed and she thought she heard the driver call out.

  Sapphire grabbed the doorknob.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Charles shouted. “I’ll have what’s rightfully mine!” U
p on his knees, he lunged for her, tearing her skirt before closing his fingers around her ankle.

  The door flew open.

  Giving her leg a hard kick backward, she struck Charles in the shoulder, freeing herself from his grasp, then leaped out the open carriage door.

  14

  Sapphire landed on both feet, but her ankle twisted as she hit the cobblestones. Blinding pain shot up her right leg and she pitched headfirst, falling to her knees. Planting her hands on the ground, she slid forward but successfully came to a stop before falling over on her side. She heard a driver shout and horses’ iron-shoed hooves grinding on the stones behind her as the carriage slid to a halt, the horses stopping only a few feet from where she lay.

  “Y’all right, ma’am?” someone called.

  “Get back in here at once!” Charles shouted at Sapphire. “Before you make a spectacle of yourself and embarrass me further!”

  Trembling, heart pounding, Sapphire pushed up off the street with her raw hands and saw Charles’s polished shoes approaching her.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Sapphire sat up, her head spinning, her body aching in so many places that she wasn’t sure she could stand. She knew the second voice. By the light of the carriages’ oil lamps she saw Blake Thixton striding toward them.

  “This is none of your concern, Wessex,” Charles shouted, his voice rising in pitch. Halting beside Sapphire, Charles thrust his hand out for her to take it, never removing his gaze from the American. “Let’s go, Miss Fabergine. Now!”

  “I’d rather lie here and die on the street than go with you,” Sapphire spat as she slapped his hand away. Then, realizing the entire bodice of her gown was torn, exposing most of her breasts, she gathered the tattered silk and attempted to cover herself.

  Blake took one look at Sapphire, stepped forward and struck Charles in the chin with his fist.

  Sapphire gave an involuntary cry as Charles flew backward from the impact of Blake’s blow. Thixton took another step, leaned over Charles and grasped the lapel of his expensive frock coat, lifting Charles off the street. “If you ever touch this woman, ever speak to her again, I swear by my mother’s God that I will personally kill you—do you understand me, Charles?”

  “My lord,” Charles cried in fright.

  “Do we understand each other?” Blake repeated from between clenched teeth.

  Charles nodded.

  Blake released him and Charles fell back on the street, stunned. Sapphire could only sit there in shock. She’d never witnessed such rage, never seen two men fight before….

  “Are you all right?” Blake asked, leaning over her.

  Tears suddenly welled in her eyes and all she could do was nod.

  He reached down and lifted her into his arms. She wanted to protest and tell him she could walk, but she wasn’t entirely certain she could. Her ankle was throbbing badly. Instead, she pressed her face into his coat and tried to stifle the little sobs rising from her throat.

  “Take us to The Arms at once,” Blake barked to his driver.

  Sapphire’s eyes tightly closed, she felt him carry her to the carriage. Inside, they sat, Blake still holding her in his arms. Again, she wanted to object, but suddenly she was so afraid for herself, for what could have happened, and was so ashamed she had allowed herself to get into such a situation, that all she could do was bury her face and cry.

  “It’s all right,” he hushed, his voice uncharacteristically kind. He stroked her hair that had tumbled from her coiffure in her struggle with Charles. “You’re going to be fine. I won’t let anyone harm you again. I swear it.”

  A short time later the carriage halted. “No, drive us to the back,” Blake ordered the driver. “No need for anyone to see you in this state,” he told her quietly.

  She nodded. She’d stopping crying now but couldn’t bring herself to sit up and look the American in the eye. She was so embarrassed, so stunned that Charles could have…would have…It was almost too much to absorb, that she could have judged the man’s character so badly. When she remembered the names he had called her…the assumptions he’d made…Where…how had everything gone so terribly wrong?

  The carriage rolled a short distance, and when the door opened, Blake stepped out into the darkness, still holding her in his arms. Sapphire hid her face, mortified to be seen in this state even by the groom or the driver. She kept her eyes closed and her face against Blake’s coat until he gently lowered her to a bed.

  “Sapphire, can you hear me?” he asked, helping her to lie back on several pillows.

  She nodded, her eyes still squeezed shut.

  “I have to ask you.”

  She felt the bed sink with his weight as he sat on the edge.

  “Did he—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish because she knew what he was going to say. “No. But he tried to. That…that was why I had to jump.” Another sob rose in her throat and she fought to stifle it.

  “Shh, it’s all right,” he whispered. “Pretty brave of you.” He drew his hand down her cheek and she instinctively turned toward it, needing the comfort of another human being.

  “Where does it hurt?”

  “What?” She opened her eyes. They were in a beautiful bedchamber with dark wainscoting and heavy, lavish, hunter-green bed curtains and drapes, and the room was lit only by an oil lamp beside the bed and another on the far wall on the fireplace mantel.

  “There’s blood,” he said gently.

  She looked down to see that her beautiful white gown was streaked with crimson. For a moment she felt a sense of panic, fearing she was more injured than she had realized, but then she remembered scraping her hands and trying to cover herself. She turned her hands palms up to show him the abrasions, only now feeling the pain of the deep scrapes. “From when I fell,” she whispered, feeling as if she were in a dreamlike state.

  None of this seemed to be possible. Not Angel and Henry in the window committing that indecent act…not Charles trying to rape her, and her jumping from the carriage. Not Blake being there at just the right moment. Not being here with him alone now like this….

  She could feel her pulse flutter, her heart beating in her chest.

  “Ah, it’s not so bad,” he told her, taking her hands gently in his and uncurling her fingers to have a better look. “Where else?” he asked after a moment.

  “My right ankle,” she whispered. “And…my knees.”

  He slid down toward the end of the large four-poster bed and removed her right shoe, then her left, taking more care with the right.

  Sapphire winced as he twisted the second slipper off and slid his hand gingerly over her stocking-covered ankle.

  “Swollen a little, but not so bad,” he said. He glanced up at her. “Probably sprained, but not broken.”

  He pushed the hem of her gown up farther and she stiffened at once, reaching out to try to push him away.

  “I just want to see your knees,” he chastised as if she were a child. “Come now, Sapphire, you were nearly raped. That street was filthy; horse manure, offal and Lord knows what else. You could be seriously injured. This is no time for modesty.”

  Tears stung the back of her eyelids as she lay back on the pillows again. She felt the silk fabric of her gown slide up her leg, felt the heat of his hand as he drew it over her shin, and then he pushed down one stocking that had come loose from its garter. She winced.

  “Pretty scraped up,” he said as he brushed his fingertips over her knee. “Nothing too serious.” He looked up at her. “Anything else hurt? Your neck? Your arms?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good.” He rose and walked to the far side of the room where a washbowl rested on a washstand. He removed his frock coat, rolled up the sleeves of his fine white shirt, removed his cravat and poured water from an earthenware pitcher. He carefully lathered his hands with a bayberry scented soap, rinsed them, dumped the soiled water into the pottery receptacle on the floor beneath the stand, an
d refilled the rose-patterned washbowl. Grabbing a clean, folded linen towel from the stand, he carried the bowl and towel to her bedside.

  It wasn’t until he dipped the towel into the bowl, wrung it out and leaned over her that she realized he meant to clean her wounds.

  “No,” she whispered, lifting one hand as if she could fend him off in her state. “I can do that, really…there’s no need for you to—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He brought the cloth to her cheek. “There’s some dirt, here,” he muttered.

  She closed her eyes as he drew the soothing, cool cloth over her face, wiping away the grime and her tears. He had such a gentle touch.

  “There,” he said after he had wrung out the cloth and wiped her face again. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.”

  He took one of her hands and opened it in his. The first touch of the wet cloth made the wounds smart, bringing tears to her eyes again, but after a moment, her hand actually felt better. He took his time cleaning one and then the other, and slowly the stinging pain gave way to a strange warmth that seemed to spread from his hands to hers and then through her entire body.

  “I don’t think these need to be bandaged, but we’ll see in the morning.” He dropped the cloth into the porcelain washbowl with a splash.

  She felt him rise off the bed and opened her eyes to watch him cross the bedchamber, which she now realized was a room in an inn or a hotel. From a small table beside the fireplace he picked up a crystal decanter and poured a dark liquid into a glass. He brought it to her. “Brandy,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. “It’s all I have. Drink it.”

  She lifted her lashes to look at him and said stubbornly, “I don’t want to.”

  He pushed the glass into her hands sternly. “Do it anyway. You’ve had a shock. Such things can be worse than physical injuries.”

  She held the glass with both hands and tipped it, first drinking hesitantly, then less so. The taste was strong and biting, but surprisingly not unpleasant. The liquid burned a fiery path to her stomach, filling her with warmth.