by Nichole Van
He pushed back the weight of it, the sinking sense of inevitability.
Something of his emotions must have shown on his face.
“I refuse to give up.” She drew up her shoulders. “There are answers to be had here—”
“Sophie—”
“No, Rafe. Let me restate—I will not permit you to give up hope.”
This woman. She would fight for him.
He reached for her, the movement almost unconsciously done. It was as if his arms were helpless to do anything else but reach for Lady Sophie.
She came with gratifying eagerness, wrapping her arms around his waist. Rafe tilted her chin upward, capturing her mouth in a punishing kiss—short but ferocious—before gathering her close, savoring the sheer pleasure of holding her. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“We haven’t come this far to give up yet.” Her words were muffled against his chest.
“But, lass—”
“No!” She shook him, her hands tightening. “You are not permitted to despair. Not until we have answers. If nothing else, your father still needs a grandchild. There are options, even if the one here at Drathes Castle has proven a dead end.”
He swallowed the despair he felt clawing in his chest. It tasted of ash.
Sophie spoke truth, but there would be hell to pay once his father learned of this trip—
A gong sounded somewhere below, summoning them to dinner.
26
I assume you have many questions,” Miss Ross said as Rafe sliced into his braised beef.
Questions? That was a mild way of putting it. Sophie had buoyed him up. Rafe was ready to grasp at anything to help his mother, anything to use as leverage with his father.
Anything to keep alive the dream that he and Sophie might salvage this yet.
Perhaps Miss Ross had answers that her brother could not give.
Dinner was a modest affair with Miss Ross at one end of the table and Rafe and Sophie to each side. The same harried maid had placed dishes on the table before bobbing a curtsy and hastily exiting the room. The fire crackled at Sophie’s back across from him, casting long shadows up the walls of the great hall.
Dr. Ross had not joined them, as Miss Ross insisted her brother preferred to have a dinner tray in his room. Rafe wasn’t quite sure he believed her. Miss Ross kept many secrets, that much was obvious.
The larger question? How willing would the lady be to share them?
For example, seeing Miss Ross and Sophie side-by-side only highlighted the similarities between them. They could easily be mother and daughter.
Sophie cleared her throat, slanting a glance at their hostess. “Miss Ross, perhaps I should—”
“Please, call me Catharine. I feel we will be on a first-name basis afore the night is through, so why not begin how we intend to carry on?”
Sophie smiled, tentative. Only a slight tremor in her fingers betrayed her nervousness. Rafe wished he sat closer so that he could hold her hand, lend her his strength.
“Very well, Catharine.” Sophie set down her fork. “Let me tell you why I have sought out Dr. Ross, and then perhaps you would be willing to offer your opinions as to why you and I so greatly resemble one another.”
Catharine nodded her head.
Sophie laid out her story. Her mother’s well-known indiscretions, her own desire to know her true father.
“I simply wish to know my own biology, you see. My aunt insists that my father was present for my birth, and Dr. Ross was reported to be attending my mother,” she finished. “I only vaguely resemble my mother. The portrait on the wall here leads me to believe that perhaps Dr. Ross was involved in my birth for more personal reasons.”
Catharine took a slow sip of her wine, dabbing her mouth before answering.
“Ye are correct, my lady. Your mother and my brother—”
“Dr. Ross?”
Catharine inclined her head. “John attended your birth because he assumed himself to be your father, Lady Sophie. The fact that he was also a physician was ancillary to everything else.”
Rafe studied Sophie, trying to gauge how she was taking this news. She swallowed, biting her lip.
“Dr. Ross is my father,” Sophie repeated, as if burning the knowledge into her own soul. “My true father.”
“Yes.” Catharine paused, compassion in her tone. “I am sorry that he is not as he once was. He was a remarkable man before the dementia set in. Clever. Witty. Handsome in his youth.”
Sophie met the woman’s gaze, eyes too bright. “He would have to be for my mother to pursue him so. Did he never marry?”
“Nae. John was always too busy tae marry, he said. Medicine was his bride. Though, I think he would have found ye fascinating. You have many of his mannerisms, and I have heard report of the scientific bent of your mind. It is interesting how biology expresses itself.” Catharine leaned toward her. “Our family traits run true in ye, Lady Sophie. John would have liked that.”
Sophie nodded, her smile watery and tremulous. She turned and dabbed at the corner of her right eye with her napkin.
“And the painting?” Rafe asked, wanting to give Sophie a moment to compose herself.
Catharine glanced up at it. “It was done while I was in Naples on a Grand Tour. I remember the occasion well, as John received the painting the day before Mount Vesuvius erupted—”
“In ’79?” Rafe interrupted.
Catharine paused, looking long at Rafe before answering, “Aye.”
Rafe frowned, his heart beating faster. His mind raced to make connections. “My father was in Naples in ’79 when Vesuvius erupted. I remember him recounting the experience over dinner once—”
“Your father?” Sophie asked, wiping her eyes one final time. “My mother was in Naples at the same time. She told us stories as children about watching the lava flow down the mountain, the amber glow in the evening. She even gifted me a watch and chatelaine with painted glass beads showing the stages of the eruption.”
“Oh, that is lovely tae hear,” Catharine breathed.
“It is?” Sophie’s head whipped toward her, clearly finding the older woman’s response as odd as Rafe did.
Rafe took in a deep breath, his mind racing to make connections.
His father was in Naples at the same time as Catharine and Dr. Ross? Grant had mentioned that Dr. Ross had been Kendall’s personal physician for a while. Had that extended to a Grand Tour?
And Sophie’s mother, Lady Mainfeld was there, too? Though she wouldn’t have been Lady Mainfeld then, would she? She would have been a mere aristocratic debutante, Miss Anne Montague, if memory served him right.
Surely they had all known one another. The number of English aristocrats at that time in Naples would have been small.
Rafe met Sophie’s gaze across the table, the downturn of her brows testifying to the similarity of their thoughts. They both turned their attention back to Catharine. The elderly woman had set down her cutlery, choosing instead to nurse her glass of wine.
“Aye. I wondered if you two would connect this bit of the story,” she murmured.
Silence hung for a moment. The fire popped, sparks showering up the chimney.
The quiet only heightened Rafe’s agitation. What wasn’t Catharine telling them?
“And what bit is that?” he asked, struggling to keep a bite out of his tone. This woman did not deserve insolence, even if every instinct screamed that she was keeping secrets.
Catharine set down her glass.
“Your mother”—she looked at Sophie—“first met John in Naples, two years before her marriage to Lord Mainfeld. My brother fell madly in love with her. We all did, I think, as she and I became friends, too. Your mother was a remarkably beautiful, spirited woman—”
“She still is.”
“Aye? I dinnae doubt it. John tumbled headfirst into love with her, and for her part, I think Anne—your mother—loved him in her way. The watch and chatelaine you mentioned were a gift to her—�
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“From Dr. Ross?”
“Aye. I remember well the day he purchased it. I thought him fair mad, but then he was mad for Anne. Enough that when they met again years later in Bath, they began a torrid love affair.”
“Why did they not marry initially, then?” Rafe asked.
Catharine took up her wine glass again, swirling it in the candlelight. “Anne was the daughter of a wealthy English baron. And such a woman did not marry the lowly-born physician of a duke.”
Catharine met his gaze.
Ah. That was his answer then.
“A duke,” Rafe repeated. “My father.” It was not a question.
Catharine nodded just the same. “The very same.”
“Dr. Ross was my father’s servant—his attendant physician—traveling with him tae Naples,” Rafe said, again, not a question.
It was not unusual for a nobleman to take along his own physician when traveling abroad. As a gentleman, the physician provided companionship, as well as medical care.
“Aye,” Catharine said. “John encouraged Kendall tae hire me as a companion to his aunt, Lady Sarah Gilbert, who also accompanied them.”
Rafe sat back in his chair. He remembered his Aunt Sarah. A perfect harridan of a lady who had chided him endlessly on his bookish ways when he was a child. She had passed away nearly a decade ago.
Did Miss Catharine Ross still maintain contact with his father then? If so, would she report Rafe’s intentions to Kendall? And at this point, did it even matter anymore?
“You have the look of him,” Catharine was saying.
“Pardon?” Rafe lifted his own wine glass, regretting that the liquid wasn’t something even stronger.
“Your father. You have the look of him. Not necessarily in your coloring, but in the size and shape of your body, in the way you carry yourself.”
Rafe nearly flinched at the words.
I am nothing like that wretched man, hovered on his lips.
He only barely held the words back, choosing instead to pause and take a healthy sip of wine.
“I thought you him when first I saw you, standing before the fire,” Catharine continued, indicating the blazing hearth. “It nearly stopped my heart until I realized that you are much too young to be him.”
The way Catharine spat the word him indicated that she understood the kind of man his father was.
Rafe relaxed a wee bit.
“And who is my father tae you, Miss Ross?” Rafe had to know.
Catharine flinched, as if the words were ice water flicked upon her face.
“No one,” her words vehement. “Kendall is no one to me. The duke has no reach here.”
Clearly the lady had close experience with Kendall’s heavy-handed ways.
Catharine pushed back her plate. “So now we know why Lady Sophie wished tae speak with Dr. Ross. Why do you seek Dr. Ross, Lord Rafe?”
He set aside his own plate. “I seek help for my mother—”
“The duchess?”
“Aye. She experienced the loss of an infant shortly after birth. Melancholy has taken her, and she has been unable tae recover. I had hoped that Dr. Ross . . . well . . .”
His voice trailed off, indicating the futility of his request now.
“Ah.”
Sophie stirred across the table. “Did you assist your brother, Miss Ross? Might you have some knowledge that would ease the duchess’s melancholy?”
Catharine sighed and shook her head, eyes going sightless, as if pondering the ramifications of it all.
“It says much of your devotion to your mother that you would travel so far in search of help.” Catharine met Rafe’s gaze. The pity he saw there left a sinking hole in his chest. “My brother worked seeming miracles in patients with a depression of spirits. But I know nothing of his practices.”
In one look, Catharine communicated everything Rafe had already surmised.
Kendall had been acquainted with Ross for nearly forty years. The duke had known that the doctor might be of help.
And his father had done . . . nothing.
Rafe’s hands nearly shook with the effort to rein in his anger.
He caught Sophie’s eye. The portrait of the young Catharine rose above Sophie’s head, underscoring the similarity between them.
He abruptly saw the entire situation through Kendall’s monstrous eyes.
His sire knew of Catharine Ross. He knew of Dr. Ross’s former devotion to Lady Mainfeld. It would be a simple matter to connect that Lady Sophie was their illicit child.
No son of Kendall’s would so taint his blood with the illegitimate daughter of a former servant-physician.
Moreover, Dr. Ross would be prevented from treating Kendall’s duchess. After all, what use was the woman whole? Kendall needed her broken to force Rafe’s compliance.
Rafe let out a stuttering breath.
Fury choked him. He had heard of men’s vision going red with rage, but he had never truly experienced it so literally.
How could that bastard of a man be so heartless?
If Rafe married Sophie, his father would truly consider it an act of warfare. There would be no quarter, no compromise. His father would throw every last ounce of his enormous power into destroying their happiness.
Huh.
Rafe blinked.
So this is what it felt like . . . absolute despair.
No hope.
“I am truly sorry,” Catharine continued, gaze earnest. “You must understand how much I wish I could help the duchess, truly I do. Sometimes, Fate takes things from us—”
“No, you needn’t apologize.” Rafe drained his wine glass. “My father’s cruelty is none of your affair.”
Catharine shot him a tight smile that did not quite chase away the shadows lingering in her eyes.
Rafe set down his glass, staring at Sophie across the table, a feeling of agonizing finality settling over him.
They had tried.
They had lost.
What price would now be paid?
27
Two hours later, the fire in the great hall had burned low.
Sophie pulled Jamie’s tartan tighter around her shoulders, huddling into its warmth, sinking back into the chair.
Rafe sat opposite her, eyes gazing into the glowing coals.
Catharine—her aunt!—had retired, saying her bones were too old to stay awake any longer.
A great hush settled over the castle, the darkness a velvety thing, hoarding sound and light.
Rafe lifted a single brick of peat, setting the turf on the coals. The fire licked to life. The scent of sweet grass and earth wafted out.
Sophie swallowed, pushing against a sense of impending doom.
The emotion banding her chest must surely be a biological reaction to the dark room and steel weapons on the walls, glinting in the firelight. The castle nearly echoed with the centuries of warfare that created it.
“I must leave at first light.” Rafe’s voice hung between them. He did not raise his head to meet her eyes.
Telling, that.
She shifted, swallowing again, attempting to force that same emotion down, down, down. It tasted of despair.
“I am for Aberdeen,” he continued. “An acquaintance, Captain White, runs an express packet boat out of the harbor there. He leaves for London tomorrow afternoon. I intend to be on his boat, as it’s the quickest way to Town from here. My father will surely have been apprised of this entire venture by now.” He waved a hand to include the room. “I have already tarried too long. Any further delay puts my mother at greater risk.”
Sophie did not disagree with him.
He left the unspoken question hanging between them.
Would Sophie go with him?
She had been contemplating that very thing and had reached a decision.
“I know you need to go, and I wish you well on your journey,” she said. “As for myself, I have searched for so long for my father, to leave after having only seen him for an hour
. . .”
She hadn’t even had a chance to truly speak with the man, to look in his eyes, to study their similarities up close. And all was not lost, as there was Catharine herself to know. Sophie had acquired an aunt, and that was nothing to scorn.
“I understand.” Rafe stared into the fire.
Sophie nodded, her throat so very tight. It was best for them to part now.
Her reputation, such as it was, might survive this sojourn to Scotland—as few knew of it—but arriving at the London docks arm-in-arm with Lord Rafe would be tantamount to waving a red flag at the bull of London gossips. A widow was allowed more freedom than a mere miss, but that did not mean ignoring all propriety.
She would find herself utterly ostracized.
And there were her servants and the carriage in Edinburgh to consider.
So no, she would not be leaving with Rafe.
“I am sure Catharine can assist me in making arrangements once I am ready to leave,” she said. “I have ample funds for my needs. What will you do once you arrive in London?”
He scrubbed his hands through his hair before sitting back with a frustrated thwump. “I will turn my life over tae my father in exchange for a modicum of freedom for my mother.”
Sophie’s heart froze. The desolation in his voice wrenched her.
“But . . . why? We discussed other options while on Cairn O’Mount. If your father wishes a grandson, perhaps it could be used as a bargaining chip?”
“Yes, it is,”—tone bleak—“and I will use my willingness tae marry as a carrot to secure some safety for my mother . . .”
His voice drifted off.
“But?” she whispered.
“But . . . my father will never allow my bride to be you.”
Sophie hissed in a breath. He spoke the words with a horrid finality, as if they were carved in stone—an unchangeable fact.
Moreover, the words my bride stuttered and tumbled around in her brain—my bride, my bride, my bride.
Did Rafe truly wish her to be his bride?
Sophie’s heart pounded and skipped at the thought, giving its opinion on the matter. Logically, she understood that finding a way to carve a future together had been part of their quest.