Behind the Courtesan(2)

Gritting her teeth, Sophia tried to find somewhere to put her hands, tried to find some purchase in case the buffoon decided to drop her. She looped her thumbs into the top of his worn trousers. If he let her slide into the mud, she was going to take some of his pride with her.

“What are you doing?” he yelped and jumped a little, his deep voice no longer gravelly. “Your hands are like ice.”

“If you drop me, Blake, your trousers are coming too.” If he wanted to put on a show for those watching, she would ensure she wasn’t the only clown in the act.

The back beneath her cheek lurched with poorly concealed laughter.

“This is not amusing,” she fumed, scrabbling to hold on.

His body shook. “It has been the highlight of my day.”

She protested with a violent wriggle to shore up her position. But then the unthinkable happened. The body beneath hers went rigid as she started to slide. Blake’s grip became bruising with the effort to hold her. She was jostled as he fought to keep his footing, but it was no use. One moment one of London’s most sought after courtesans hung over the shoulder of a brute, her hands tucked indecently into the waistband of his trousers, and the next they were both flailing for purchase, uselessly sliding, slipping, until they landed in the mud only two short feet from the doorway. Only one thought hovered in her mind in that indescribable moment...

Mud was infinitely softer than stones or pitchforks or condemnation, but the sting was just as sharp.

* * *

Laughter built inside Blake’s chest until he could no longer contain the guffaws. It was the last sound she would want to hear but the situation was just too ridiculous.

The noises she made suggested her mouth had filled with something even fouler than her disposition, which made the men in the tavern wild with hoots and calls of a lewd nature.

“You did that on purpose,” she cried, flinging mud from her hands with a wild, angry shake.

“I did not,” he replied, but a smile still stretched his face. He knew she wouldn’t believe him but he truly hadn’t intended to drop her. “The last thing I needed today was to go traipsing through the mud with your royal highness.”

“Cease your taunting and help me up.”

Had she no use for manners in London? She hadn’t said please once since he’d glimpsed her fine carriage through the tavern’s window. He had thought, since she had fled one black night without a word, that she would slink back with her tail between her legs to beg forgiveness and acceptance. But then she had probably forgotten all about him the second she stepped into her new life as a prostitute.

Blake’s laughter died as he looked at her—really looked at the woman the girl had become. Night black hair still framed a familiar face, but that’s where the distinctive marks she used to have stopped. The handful of freckles Blake had teased her about mercilessly were gone, no laugh lines creased her eyes, no dimples marked cheeks so pale the skin was nearly transparent.

Well, that’s what happens when you laze abed all day and indulge only in night-time activities.

The sour thought brought him up short and instantly brought with it anger. This wasn’t the Sophie Martin he used to fish with as ten-year-olds. The girl he had known would have laughed in the mud until she couldn’t breathe. She certainly wasn’t the same young girl he’d fallen in love with, only to be betrayed and left without a word or thought. Now she was a woman whose choices made her a pariah.

“Since you have already soiled your gown with my mud, help yourself.”

She attempted to wrestle herself free but sagged back into the mire awkwardly. “Blake, why are you doing this to me?” she whispered.

Damn it. Were those tears she worked so hard to disguise? Even now, as hate warred with the familiar sound of her voice, he still couldn’t bear to see her upset. Cursing under his breath, he hauled himself to his feet and offered her his hand.

“No tricks?” she asked, her voice low, her eyelashes glittering with moisture.

“You have my word.”

Hesitantly, Sophie placed her hand in his, and for a moment, shame washed through him. The shock of seeing her again had obviously muddled his senses.

Blake scooped her into his arms and juggled her against his chest, both of them dripping with foul mud. He carried her inside, ignoring the men crowded in the doorway making suggestions about what he could do with “Her Highness.” He tried to ignore her feeling of insult that hardened her like pine in his hold, though he knew he was to blame.

“I’m sorry, Sophie.” He set her on her feet outside the private dining room.

“Do you think coming back is easy for me, Blake?” The naked emotion in her voice and downcast eyes only made him feel worse. He was despicable.

He’d waited in tense anticipation from the moment Matthew had announced she might return, and now he’d made a right mess of it all.

His apology was lost as she forged on. “When I left here, I promised I would never, ever return.”

She made it sound as though the village was plagued. “Why did you come then? If it’s so hard, why didn’t you stay in London?”

“I came because Matthew asked.”

“You’ve never answered his summonses before.” The accusation was out before he could catch it. It was none of his business.

Her face fell and she turned away from him, hand on the door. “Things are different now.”

“You could at least appear happy when he arrives.” He didn’t want to know how things were different. They were still the same for him. Same tavern, same work, same existence, same everything. Blake turned to leave and send word to her brother, but then she spoke again.

“I was nervous. Worried, if you must know. Perhaps even scared.”

“Oh?” he said, her admission paling in the light of years of being ignored. Now she wanted to pour her heart out? Now she wanted to confide in him? Pent-up anger spurred him to say yet more things he didn’t mean. “Were you scared of me? Of facing your brother? Or returning to the country without your maids and footmen?”

A sharp intake of breath made her shoulders rise in outrage. “Have you forgotten where I came from? I am perfectly capable without servants, thank you very much.”

As if he could ever forget. There were only two women in his life he had loved unconditionally and they had both abandoned him without word or regret. That kind of betrayal wasn’t likely to ever be forgotten. Or forgiven. “You were a girl then. What happened to her?”

“The same thing that happened to the bastard son of a duke. We grew up.”

He gritted his teeth hard, the pain easing the urge to hold his hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t utter another word. “I grew into what my life should have been. I was born a nobody and I will die a nobody just as the circumstance of my birth decreed.”

“And my birth?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What did my first breath mean to the world? Was it written on Destiny’s tablet that I would become a courtesan?”

“No.” Sadness weighed him down. The kind of sadness he’d only ever known in connection with her. “You made your decisions. No one else.”

“Yes, I did. Regardless of what you think you know, my life is full and happy. I learned to accept my lot a long time ago.”

If she looked him in the eye and told him she was happy again then he would know she had become a liar as well as a nobleman’s plaything.

Fury reddened his vision until he saw only the woman she could have been. The wife she would have made. The love they could have shared. He blinked and his dream Sophie vanished into Sophia. He didn’t have to be nice to Sophia. He didn’t have to respect or like her so she could break his heart again when she left. Let her go to her brother’s. “Is that what you call lying on your back for pretty things?”

The crack of her palm across his face echoed off the walls. Then she opened the door at her back and fled into the warmth and safety of the parlor.

He sagged there in the dim light as he rubbed a hand over his stinging cheek and cursed his tongue. He as good as called her a whore. Despite what he told himself in his mind, she was still Sophie. Little Sophie he’d carried on his back when the walk was too far or the river too deep. He’d wiped blood off her skinned knees, held her up so she could pick the sweetest apple from the highest branch, had his first kiss with her in a field of spring flowers, but he could never forgive her for leaving without a word. He couldn’t forgive the fourteen years of silence that followed or the rudeness now.

And to be honest, he didn’t want to.





Chapter Two



Sophia still sat in her filthy dress an hour later—although now at least she was dry—and cursed her rash behavior. She really should have sent word that she was returning to the village, perhaps then she could have continued directly to her brother’s home instead of waiting for him at the only inn in town. But the events of the past few weeks had seemed to happen so quickly and Matthew’s letter had arrived at a time when her future and direction were uncertain.