Behind the Courtesan(37)
“And if he still won’t take it? He is the most stubborn, pigheaded, irrational man I’ve ever met.”
“It sounds to me as though you care for my brother.”
Before she could decide one way or another which answer to give, a banging started on Daemon’s door and then it flew open to reveal Blake. A very, very angry Blake. “Well, well, well. Isn’t this cozy?”
Sophie and Daemon stood at the same time, as though they’d been caught in the throes of passion. “What is the meaning of this, Blake?” Her voice came out much higher than she’d intended.
“I warned you not to meddle in my affairs,” he roared as he stepped closer.
“You will not talk to her like that, brother.”
Sophie almost sighed with relief when Blake’s penetrating gaze switched from her own face to Daemon’s.
“What did you tell her?” he demanded.
“Nothing she didn’t already know,” Daemon replied. He half stepped in front of Sophie so she was protected from Blake if things got out of hand. But Sophie didn’t need that kind of protection, she never had.
She placed an arm on Daemon’s shoulder and pushed until he once again stood beside her. “Get angry, Blake. Stomp and shout and accuse everyone else, but at the end, when the fury runs out and there’s only the truth of the matter left, you’ll see what a coward you are being.”
He came at her, his nose level with her nose, his finger pointed at her chest, and she quailed. “I am the coward? You are the one who ran from here as fast as your legs could carry you and not once did you look back. Why do you care now? What do you care what happens to any of us when you won’t be here to endure the outcome?”
“This used to be my home. One day it will be again. My brother lives here and my niece or nephew will too. How many times could you have helped the villagers with their problems? How many times could you have made life easier for your friends? My family? And I didn’t run from you. You pushed me away like you do with anyone who gets close enough.”
“This will never be your home! Even now after living with us and creating the illusion of making friends, you still do not belong and you never will.”
“Why do I not belong? Why did I run in the first place, Blake? If you had the power of being Blakiston’s heir, perhaps you could have saved me. Perhaps I would have stayed here for you had you any way to play the knight to my distress. But you didn’t. You hide behind your cowardice and blame dead men for all of your troubles.”
“And you don’t? You flout the story that your father was going to sell you to cover for the fact that even then you were an ambitious slut. Me. I would have saved you, Sophie. I would have killed that man had there been one ounce of truth to your fears.”
For a second she saw red. Her hand lifted, drew back, and then let loose, her palm connecting with his stubbled cheek with an echoing crack. But he didn’t cower, he didn’t show shame or remorse. His face was so close, she could see the raindrops that dripped from his clothes and hair and reminded her of their night of stupidity. How could she ever have thought he would make a difference? He could. But he wouldn’t. Not in her life and not in anyone else’s. “Fuck you,” she breathed.
“You already did, Duchess. Did you smell the hint of possibility and decide to throw a free bedding my way just in case?”
She staggered back, her hand on her chest, stinging with the urge to slap him again. Or worse.
“You mongrel,” Daemon yelled as he came at Blake, fists swinging as the two went down. She’d almost forgotten he was even there.
She should have seen that sleeping with a man who thought her no better than the mud he traipsed through would come back to haunt her. His derision went so much deeper than she could ever imagine possible. To think he claimed to have once loved her.
Skirting the edge of the room, the two men pummeling each other, she gathered up her shawl and fled the inn. She needed to get out of there. She had to get back to London and her life and leave Blake and the village of her nightmares far, far behind.
* * *
“I should go and see if Sophie is all right,” Daemon wheezed. One hand held a steak against his eye while the other dabbed at a cut on his lip with a handkerchief.
“She’ll be fine. She doesn’t need us to fuss. When she calms, she’ll return, pack her things and be off.”
“You wouldn’t let her leave just like that, would you?” This question came from Matthew who’d arrived at precisely the right moment to break up his fight with Daemon. Blake had anger on his side, but his brother was a renowned fighter. There was never any doubt who the victor would be.
Besides, Blake rather thought it about time he received a pummeling from one of the two men in the room. It was a surprise that Matthew hadn’t placed a few kicks of his own after discovering the source of their rage was his very own sister. Like it could have been anyone or anything else.
“She doesn’t need to be here,” Blake sighed. “She’ll take one look at that babe and tear back to London anyway.”
Matthew stood and glared. “You don’t know that. And I need her here. Violet needs her here. Her father hasn’t given a damn about her in years and her brother is busy with his own land. There are no other females in our lives, and my wife is convinced she will birth a girl. She will need her aunt.”
“But will she need a frightened courtesan?”
It was Daemon who jumped to her defense once again. “Sophia is so much more than that. Why can’t you see her for who she is?”
Blake stared long and hard at his brother before shaking his head. “She doesn’t even know who she is. What can she have to offer our village? She can’t return as the girl she was when she left. Too much has happened.”
Matthew snorted and sat back down on the smooth floor timbers. “I wouldn’t expect her to return the girl she was. She is a woman now, as well you know. The rest of the village seems to have forgiven her life choices. Why can’t you?”
“She’s just so damned stubborn and proud. What happened to her humility? Her gentleness and laughter? When I look at her, I don’t see any of that.”
“You see what you want to see,” Daemon said from the foot of the bed. “When you look at her, you see a prostitute, a coward and a betrayer, but when I look at her, I see a beautiful woman. A woman, who, in the face of all the odds, is still alive and happy for the fact. Do you know what happens to girls when they arrive in London alone and terrified?”
Blake shook his head. He had a fair idea, but he hadn’t witnessed any of it firsthand.
“Well, most don’t even make it. The ones that do are vulnerable and naive and can be taken in by a kind word or plate of food. Greedy people take advantage of their desperation. Sophia is lucky she happened across good people, otherwise you may well have never heard from her again.”
“Lucky? She should never have left in the first place!” Blake clenched his fists, the broken skin there already dried, stretched and uncomfortable over his knuckles. “She would have had a good life here.”
“As Blakiston’s child bride? You must have rocks in your head.”
“Matthew, is it true? Did your father truly think to trade Sophie for land?”
Matthew sighed and nodded.
Every muscle in his body tensed when the color drained from Daemon’s face at the same time his brother gave his head a shake in Matthew’s direction.
“You knew about it?”
Matthew inhaled, exhaled, twisted his fingers in the same way Sophie did when nervous. “First, believe me when I say I had no idea about any of it before she left. I only discovered it all from our father on his death bed. Sophie doesn’t even know how much I know.”
“Get on with it,” Blake ground out.
“I don’t know all the details, only those muttered by Father in his last moments. He asked for forgiveness, but then he also asked for the land he thought he was still entitled to.”
“I know she was to be sold to Blakiston, I know she was terrified and thought we wouldn’t be able to help her so she left. What more is there?” said Blake.
“It was all an act—Father’s tears, his panic, the search parties. All the time we searched high and low for her body, he knew she was at the estate with Blakiston. The deal had been signed and done.”
“He actually delivered her there?”
“Yes, and then walked away without wondering what would happen to her.”
“Oh, God. There’s more then, isn’t there?” He didn’t want to know. He was sure he wouldn’t be any better off with the information burned into his brain.
Daemon took over the story from there. “For three days she was locked in the lowest levels of the house where he beat and raped her. Maybe worse. Only he and she will ever know.”