Lady Sophia's Lover (Bow Street Runners #2)(35)

She moistened the cloth again. He let out a slow breath while the coolness glided over his throat and chest. How long had it been since anyone had taken care of him? He couldn’t remember. Steeped in gratitude, he listened to Sophia’s lilting voice as she hummed a tune. “Do you know the words to that?” he asked drowsily.

“Some of them.”

“Sing them to me.”

“My voice is not distinguished,” she said. “You will be sadly disappointed if you expect anything beyond the mediocre.”

He caught at the slim fingers on his chest. “You could never disappoint me.”

Sophia was silent for a long time, her fingers unmoving beneath his. Eventually she sang in a kind of melodic, tranquilizing whisper.

When I have found out my true love and delight I’ll welcome him kindly by day or by night; For the bells shall be a-ringing, and the drums make a noise To welcome my true love with ten thousand joys

When Sophia fell silent, Ross opened his eyes and saw that she wore a bittersweet expression, as if she were thinking of past heartbreak. Equal parts of jealousy and concern coiled inside him, and he searched for a way to jolt her from the mournful memories. “You’re right,” he said. “Your voice is not distinguished.” He smiled as she adopted a threatening scowl. “But I like it very much,” he added.

Sophia laid the damp cloth on his forehead. “Now it is your turn to entertain me” she said impishly. “You may begin at any time.”

“I can’t sing.”

“Ah, well. I didn’t expect you could, with a voice like yours.”

“What is wrong with my voice?”

“It’s gravelly. No one would expect you to possess a golden baritone.” She laughed gently as she saw his disgruntlement. She slipped her hand beneath his neck and brought the glass of barley water to his lips. “Here, drink some more.”

He drank the sickroom distillation with a grimace. “I haven’t had barley water in years,” he said.

“Eliza says you are never ill.” Sophia set the glass aside. “In fact, most of the runners are amazed that you were wounded. They seem to think that mere bullets should have bounced off you like raindrops.”

Ross smiled ruefully. “I’ve never claimed to be superhuman.”

“Nevertheless, they all believe you to be so.” She watched him closely as she continued. “Above human needs and weaknesses. Invulnerable.”

They were both still, their gazes intricately locked, and Ross understood suddenly that she was asking some kind of question. “I’m not,” he finally said. “I do have needs. And weaknesses.”

Sophia’s gaze lowered to the counterpane, and she smoothed away a wrinkle of fabric with great care. “But you don’t give in to them.”

He caught her fingers in his, drawing his thumb over the velvety surface of her short nails. “What do you want to know, Sophia?”

Her lashes swept upward. “Why have you not married since your wife passed away? It has been a long time. And you are still relatively young.”

“Relatively?” he repeated with a scowl.

She smiled. “Tell me why you are called the Monk of Bow Street when you could so readily find someone to marry.”

“I didn’t want to marry again. I’ve managed well enough on my own.”

“Did you love your wife?” she asked.

“Eleanor was easy to love.” Ross tried to summon the image of his wife, her delicate, pale face, her silken blond hair. But it seemed that he had known her in another lifetime. With surprise, he realized that Eleanor was not quite real to him anymore. “She was refined… intelligent… very kind. She never spoke harshly of anyone.” A reminiscent smile touched his lips. “Eleanor hated to hear anyone curse. She worked diligently to cure me of the habit.”

“She must have been a special woman.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But Eleanor was physically fragile—unusually so. In fact, her family did not want her to marry at all.”

“Not ever? Why?”

“Eleanor became ill very easily. After I took her driving through the park one autumn afternoon, she caught a chill and had to rest in bed for a week. Her constitution was frail. Her parents were concerned that she would be overtaxed by the demands of marriage, not to mention my husbandly attentions. They feared that pregnancy might kill her.” Guilt thickened his voice as he continued. “I managed to persuade them that I would protect Eleanor, and that no harm would ever befall her.” Ross did not look at Sophia as she turned the cloth on his forehead. “We were happy for almost four years. We thought that she was infertile, because she never conceived. I was actually relieved by the idea.”

“You did not want to have a child?”

“It did not matter to me. All I wanted was for Eleanor to be healthy and safe. But one day she told me that she was expecting. She was overjoyed at the news. She said that she had never felt so well. And so I convinced myself that she and the baby would be fine.”

Ross stopped speaking, too troubled to continue. Any mention of Eleanor was unbearably difficult and private. Yet he did not want to withhold any part of his past from Sophia.

“What happened?” she whispered.

Ross felt something unlocking in his head. All his rigid self-control seemed to have dissolved. He began to tell her the things he had never confessed to anyone—he found it impossible to hold anything back from her.