Behind the Courtesan(19)

“See, you’ve scared her.” Blake’s tone teased, but his usual mischief was strangely absent. No. His voice held something like worry. She still couldn’t lift her gaze.

“I’m so sorry,” Sophia whispered, the hot prick of tears back and threatening.

“This isn’t your fault,” Blake reminded her.

The doctor slipped from the room, but still she stared at his chest, at the mess and ruin.

“Sophie?”

In that moment she felt more like the frightened and helpless Sophie than she had in all the years she’d spent away as Sophia.

“Look at me.”

She shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut.

“You didn’t do this.”

“I could have... We should have... Oh God.”

“We did everything right,” he said with that uncanny ability to guess her thoughts. “You did everything right.”

A warm hand closed around her elbow and with only the slightest of pressure, Sophia was hugged for the second time that day. Despite how much pain he must have felt, his arms wrapped around her strong and tight, pulled her close until she had no choice but to rest her head against his shoulder. She didn’t dare return the embrace for fear she would hurt him.

She didn’t want to think about any of it anymore, what she could have done versus what she did. She had to hold those thoughts at bay until she was alone. Sophia concentrated instead on the words as he spoke them.

“So, the pie is already made, all I have to do is bake the biscuits and something sweet to top it off.”

“No,” Sophia said.

“All right, they don’t need sweets anyway. Pie and biscuits it is.”

He tried to lighten the mood and distract her but she wouldn’t let him. “No. You will not bake anything.” She stepped out of his embrace and toward the door of the office. “You will not step one foot into that kitchen.”

“You sound like Matthew,” he huffed. His genial mood disappeared with a whoosh of breath. “The inn has to open. I cannot afford to miss even one meal.”

“And you won’t. But you can’t make it.”

Understanding dawned but was quickly followed by a familiar glower. “Whatever idea you have in that head of yours, you can think again. This is my inn and I make the decisions.”

“It is your inn, but unless the doctor says you can turn cartwheels in the yard outside, you are going to bed to rest.”

He spluttered. He choked. Then he coughed.

“No cartwheels then?” Sophia glowered back even though Blake’s eyes were now filled with more pain than anger. “I didn’t think so.”

The door opened and Matthew entered, followed closely by the doctor. She ignored her brother for the moment and narrowed her eyes at the other man. “How long must Blake stay in bed?”

The red-headed physician looked from her to Blake and then back to her. “One week.”

“Be damned!” Blake surged to his feet.

Sophia stepped back as the blanket fell from his lap and averted her eyes even though he wore smalls. “I’ll get started in the kitchen,” she said and slipped from the room. As hard as she tried, she could not completely ignore the pained cry from Blake, the curses from Matthew or the laughter from the good doctor.

Her own brief smile fading, Sophia entered the kitchen. Could she really do this? Sure she’d helped a little, so she knew the layout of the kitchen and where everything was, but could she really serve a dinner at an inn? And should she? If word were to get out, her reputation would be... What? It certainly couldn’t hurt her as a courtesan.

So why didn’t she move? Her legs were heavy as though weighted down by rocks and her fingertips tingled as her breaths became shorter, faster.

One, two, three.

Would the townsfolk eat a meal prepared entirely by her own hands?

She nodded her head, rolled her sleeves to her elbows and stepped toward the stove where the fire had gone cold. She would do it because Blake would become her friend again. She would do it because she was a resourceful, independent woman who needed acceptance from no one. And she would do it to prove to herself that she could. That she had come far from the frightened, battered and scarred fourteen-year-old who’d left this place and not glanced back. If the villagers didn’t like it, they would go hungry or go home.





Chapter Eleven



For the moment the rain had stopped and birds sang happily from the bare branches of the trees at the back of the tavern, but Sophia didn’t take any of it in. She stood staring at her hands, her dirty nails and cracked skin, a splinter in the third finger on her left hand. She may have come far from the terrified fourteen-year-old, but in that minute, after putting bread in the oven and before collecting more firewood, she felt much, much further from a courtesan.

Is this what she missed out on by running? Is this what Blake meant when he’d said she could have had it all? She didn’t have time for deep contemplation but Sophie couldn’t seem to shake her melancholy thoughts. She had a meal to prepare and then she had to get back to the tap to help Matthew and Dominic with serving. She wanted to curl into a little ball and cry, not run a tavern. Emotion overwhelmed her and her fists clenched.

“’ere now, it can’t all be that bad.” The voice shook her from her daydream and she whirled to find a man watching her. He wasn’t very close, but he wasn’t as far away as she would have liked either.

“I...I got a splinter. It hurt a little is all.” She longed to curse for good measure.

“Did you want me to take a look at it fer ya?” He stepped forward, his hand out toward her.

Sophia shook her head a little harder than she probably needed to and her heart thumped loudly against her ribs. He didn’t look terribly frightening, but it was the quiet ones she had to watch out for. “I will be fine, thank you. It isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.”

“Yer that Martin girl, aren’t ya?”

She nodded, her eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out if she had once known this man. He looked vaguely familiar, but then so did most of the men thereabouts who wore farmer’s clothing. “Do I know you?”

This time it was the stranger who shook his head. “Not yet, lass.”

When he smiled, Sophia cringed. What was left of the man’s teeth were blackened and his lips were stained yellow.

“Well, I really must be getting back to the kitchen. If the bread burns, I will be in mighty trouble with Blake.”

The stranger made a sound of dismissal and shook his head again. He also took another step toward her.

“Good day, sir.” She couldn’t turn her back and flee, but neither could she return to the kitchen without the timber. Before she had a chance to make a decision, another man rounded the corner of the inn. Her stomach flip flopped. Now she was outnumbered and the new man stood between her and the kitchen door. Between her and safety.

“Roger,” the new stranger inclined his head slowly, taking stock of the scene they must make.

Sophia’s clammy hands clenched in her skirts now. If she had to flee, she would lift them high and run as if the devil were after her.

“McFarlane,” Roger replied but said nothing more.

McFarlane. She remembered that name. He was holding the dance on Friday night at his home. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she was relieved, but the fact that Blake had mentioned his name more than once told her he was the lesser of the evils before her.

“Miss Martin, I wonder if you could use some help with that firewood?” Mr. McFarlane asked with an easy smile in her direction.

She nodded and stepped away from both men. She was moving farther away from the kitchen, but she had to do something. In London, she was virtually untouchable since Daemon was her protector, or had been, but here, here everything was different and she would be foolish indeed to forget that.

“I was about to offer the lass assistance,” Roger told him defensively.

“Is that what you were doing?” Mr. McFarlane replied, putting himself between Sophia and Roger. “What about your back?”

Roger scowled. “That’s none of your damned business.”

“It is now. I don’t think Blake would take kindly to you being out here with the one woman who has come forward to help him.”

“I was only going to talk to her.”

Relief made it hard for Sophie to know what to do. Did she stay and argue? Did she leave and let Mr. McFarlane have it out with Roger?

“Sophia?” Dominic crashed through the kitchen door but then stopped short.

Thank God. She didn’t bid the gentlemen a good day. She didn’t thank Mr. McFarlane for coming to her aid or rebuke Roger for his being there to frighten her. She just picked up her skirts and walked as fast as she could without it looking as though she was terrified and running away. Why was it that the story of her life could almost be summed up with those few words? She was terrified, so she ran.