12
Cary heard the creak of his bedroom door behind him, and he turned away from the window. He met Sophie’s startled gaze.
“Oh!” she said. “I thought you would be asleep.”
He quirked a golden eyebrow. “And you intended to get into bed with me. Or get on top of me?”
Her cheeks went scarlet. “Well . . . er, I wanted to be with you. Of course I had no intention of doing anything you didn’t want—”
“Sophie, no.”
“But you’re unhappy, and I wanted to heal you.”
He’d had women desire him, but never quite like Sophie. He almost felt like a blackguard for not taking her to bed, as if he were personally wounding her. Once he made Sophie his mistress and got her a house, he couldn’t visit her. She would probably leap on him as soon as he got in the door.
“I realized something tonight,” she said. “I realized that if you used sex to blank out your memories, then your terrible memories had to be from long before you were taken prisoner in Ceylon.”
Framed by her loose black hair, she looked at him so earnestly.
Christ, how astute she was. She had figured that out. She was waiting for him to explain. To tell her what had happened to him.
He couldn’t. “Go back to bed now. But why don’t you join me for breakfast, Sophie?”
“You are trying to change the subject,” she accused. “Please tell me what happened.”
“No,” he growled. “That is my condition for you to be my mistress. You can’t ask me questions. I won’t talk about it.”
“All right,” she said.
He looked at her with suspicion. She had agreed too easily.
“But I would like breakfast with you. Your breakfasts are smashing.”
She was so adorable. And he was so damned destroyed. How had she figured this out so quickly? She was going to have to give up.
He got up, led her to his door. “Now, go back to bed and sleep. You have nothing to worry about.”
She nodded, again arousing his suspicions. But he closed the door behind her as she went back to her bedchamber.
He would set her up in a house, give her an allowance, and then he would not see her again. He would know she was safe.
It was enough.
And what about his promise to wed? That meant being able to put his past behind him and perform in bed. He could keep quiet about his past, not tell a wife anything. But he couldn’t seem to put it behind him to have sex, damn it.
Cary had no idea what in hell he was going to do.
Cary had to smile as Sophie mounded food on her plate from the hot breakfast dishes laid out on the sideboard. She took ham and sausages and potatoes.
She blushed as she sat opposite him. “I suppose you fear I will end up fat. Now that I’m your mistress—”
“I’m not condemning you, Sophie. I suspect you haven’t had much to eat.”
“What are we to do today?” she asked. Her ham had already vanished from her plate, and half her potatoes were gone—all in the blink of an eye. The poor thing was starving. She sipped tea and gave a blissful sigh as if she were savoring heaven on a breakfast plate. “Are we to stay here? Perhaps in your bedroom? Or we would simply talk, if you prefer. There is so much I would love you to tell me about . . . well, you.”
Two dangerous things—bed and the temptation of sex, and talking. “Neither today,” he said. “I have to get a house for you. And I want to return to your room in the stews and look for clues. That will take me a while.”
She set down her tea. While he’d been thinking about what she probably wanted to talk about, she’d consumed a sausage.
“And me too,” she said. “I am going with you to investigate.”
“No, you are not.”
“Why not? It is my room, and I was the one who was attacked. Besides, I know the people who live there, and they know me. They will talk to me.”
“I can bribe them,” he pointed out.
She folded her arms over her chest. She was wearing a dress that had belonged to his sister. A pretty ivory-and-yellow muslin that looked lovely and spring-like. It was an innocent-looking dress, but strangely, that made Sophie look even more seductive and alluring.
“I am still going,” she declared.
“No, you are not. Protectors issue commands. Mistresses obey.”
“Yes, but you have told me I am not really your mistress. And when I believe I can help you, you cannot expect me just to wait for you and do nothing!”
She could be so sweet and innocent, yet Sophie had a backbone of steel.
Damnation, she was trouble.
Guilt followed the thought—Sophie was in trouble now because, apparently, someone was murdering young women and trying to make it look as if he were the killer. One woman had been murdered. There had been an attempt on Sophie’s life by a man paid to kill her.
That had to mean the bastard would try again.
Cary wanted to keep her safe—that was why he had wanted her to stay here. He didn’t have a house for her yet, so if he went, he would be leaving his “mistress” in his family home. All he needed was his mother and sisters to show up. That would be awkward, to say the least.
And given his mother had threatened to intervene if he didn’t get engaged . . .
He had no idea when his mother would decide he was not progressing and would show up at the house.
It would be best to take Sophie with him.
Sophie peered out the window of the duke’s carriage. She wore a gown borrowed from the wardrobe of one of his sisters—a beautiful dress that a London lady would wear for shopping, topped by a smart dark blue velvet pelisse. She wore a bonnet too. At first she’d protested, but he insisted the clothes were no longer those worn by Claudia, his sister. And since Sophie had been determined to go with him, she needed to wear something.
Now, as she got closer to her old room, the place where she’d been attacked, she began to feel cold with fear, stiff with tension.
But she had nothing to fear. Not now.
Cary’s hand rested gently on hers on the velvet seat. “Are you all right, love?” he asked.
Love. That made her heart wobble. But she knew it was just a careless endearment.
If she were to say it, she’d mean it.
She looked at his handsome but troubled face. “Do you really think someone is trying to make you look guilty of—of murder?”
“I admit it’s just an assumption. But the man who attacked you wore a blond wig, and that likely made him look like me to anyone who saw him.”
“But why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know. I spent last night trying to fathom a motive. If it is to attack me, it’s a sick and sadistic way to do it—harming innocent people. It could be that this person wanted to hurt both you and Sally Black, and thought the best way to get away with it was to throw suspicion on me.”
“What reason would he have to attack me?”
“There are men who like to hurt women for pleasure—” The duke broke off and shook his head. “But you said he told you he was paid to hurt you. So it wasn’t because he’s a bastard who gets pleasure from hurting women. You were chosen by someone else.”
“And that leads back to you, doesn’t it? Someone trying to destroy you.”
“But not kill me,” he said softly.
Sophie shivered. “I guess we need to know who your enemies are. Who would want to hurt you?”
He hesitated. Then shook his head. “I have no idea.”
The carriage stopped. It couldn’t fit in the narrow lane that led to her door. Cary jumped down before his servant lowered the steps, then he took her hand. He helped her down just as if she were a lady. He’d done that last night too—
She looked down the lane. The sun shone, but the narrowness of the lane cast it in cool shadow.
“I realized that if I hadn’t done my impetuous, silly dance and knocked things over, you would have gone before I was attacked. If you hadn’t heard the crash, you wouldn’t have come back. My adoptive mother had always scolded me for being impetuous. Sometimes she scolded me just for being happy. But this time, my foolishness had actually saved my life.”
“Sophie, you really are—” Suddenly, Cary pulled her into his arms.
“I am what?” She gasped.
But he didn’t answer. He kissed her.
In the narrow, impoverished lane in front of her former home, the duke wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. His mouth took hers in a slow kiss. A slow, firm, caressing kiss. Her lips sizzled hotter and hotter. His mouth coaxed hers to open, and his tongue came in to play.
She loved his kisses and the parry and thrust of his tongue. It was so intimate. It was like having sex standing up—it made her heart pound, her private place get achy and wet.
She wriggled against him.
But he eased back.
She looked at him, dazed and half drugged with pleasure and desire. “You are adorable,” he said.
Then he asked her for her key.
“Couldn’t we kiss again first?”
“Not now. Serious work now,” he said softly. He turned her key in the lock, then thoughtfully studied the door. “He was waiting for you, which means he got into the room before you unlocked it.”
“Could he have gotten through the window?”
“Too small for a man of his size. He must have picked the lock, then used a similar device to relock the door from the inside. He is intelligent.”
“He smelled like a gentleman,” she said suddenly. She hadn’t thought to say it before. “I mean, he smelled of some kind of cologne. Something exotic and astern. His leather gloves—” She shuddered. “They were as fine as yours almost.”
“So not a ruffian from the stews?”
She shook her head. “But why would a gentleman be . . . attacking women for money?” She couldn’t say the word “kill.”
Cary stroked his jaw. Watching his fingers skim himself left her rather breathless. “Debts?” he pondered. “Or he’s a man from a lower class who has earned enough to emulate gentlemanly behavior—I mean, in method of dress.”
Cary unlocked and opened her door. He stepped inside, then turned to her. “It’s all right for you to come in, love.”
She stepped into her room. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Do you think he will try to hurt me again?”
She wanted Cary to put his arms around her. Ever since she’d been thrown out of her house, she’d had to be strong. She’d had to be so positive and hopeful, it hurt. Now she was crumbling.
As if he knew, he suddenly looked up. In two strides, he’d crossed over in front of her. His arms went around her. “No one will hurt you now. You are under my protection.” Then softer. “You are mine.”
Those words made her shiver. In a good way.
She watched as he looked around her room. What did he think of what he saw? He grimaced. She felt ashamed, then defiant. It had been the best she could do.
“Where were you on the bed when you heard him behind you?”
She sat as she thought she had done. Cary walked behind her. “The fiend must have stood here, in the corner.”
“I got off the bed and went to light the candle—” She stopped. Next thing she knew Cary held her hand. He lifted her to her feet. His fingers stroked her palm in her borrowed white gloves. Firm, soothing strokes. Strokes that gave her courage.
“That was when he grabbed me and shoved me against the door. He stuffed his hand into my mouth to smother my scream.”
Cary cradled her close to his tall, strong body. He was such a good man.
“But then he moved his hand, and I could scream. Then he dragged me across the room and slammed me into the table so hard, I lost all my breath. That was when I offered him money to leave me alone, and he told me about being paid to kill me. . . .” She sucked in a shaky breath. “Then you came in and you saved me.”
His lips brushed the top of her head, on the brim of her bonnet, for he couldn’t get any closer. Then she gasped. “Look there. That isn’t mine.” She pointed at a fragment of paper.
Cary picked it up. It was torn from a larger sheet, a diagonal tear along one edge. All it had on it was her address.
“Someone gave the villain this so he knew where to find me,” she said softly.
“That’s the curious thing.”
She gazed at him, not understanding. “What do you mean?”
“When was the fiend given this? Sally Black was attacked on the night I encountered her at the Cyprian ball. I’d never met her before. So if it was the same scenario—he was paid to kill her—when was he contacted? Was he given this after the orgy, when I was seen with you?”
“Which means it was someone at the orgy?” she asked.
“It could. Or this could have been arranged days ago, after the Cyprian ball. But to start, we will assume someone at the orgy contacted this man—maybe sent a messenger with your address. And he came immediately to your room, broke in, and waited for you.”
There was something in his tone. He didn’t sound as if he believed what he was saying. “You don’t think that was what happened?”
“I don’t know, Sophie. But regardless, it doesn’t give us the important answer. Who contacted the assassin?”
The word made her legs wobble.
Suddenly, Cary’s arms were around her again. She smelled his gentlemanly smells—good smells on him. Sandalwood, clean skin, something sharp and bracing that he must have used after shaving.
“It must have been someone at the orgy.”
“Not must, but it’s a theory we have to explore. This person was also at the Cyprian ball. It gives us a large field.” The duke looked around the room. “I don’t think this room has anything more to tell us.”
“What can we do?”
“Talk to people. Ask around. If anyone saw this tall, blond gentleman, I doubt they would forget him.” A wry look touched his face.
“They wouldn’t.” And that was the idea. Her body would have been found. And people would have remembered seeing a man who looked like Cary. “People must have seen him because he wanted to be seen.”
“So you’ve thought of that too.” He looked at her with admiration.
“But how can you question anyone? People might fear you are that man. See, you do need me—they know me. They will tell me.”
Sophie might be impetuous. She was stubborn when it came to seducing him. But Cary admired how she was also quick-witted and clever.
He stood back and allowed her to rap on the door of the room next to hers, farther down the narrow carriage lane—more of a cart lane. An elderly woman opened the door. Her gray hair was unkempt and stuck out around her head. She held a tattered shawl over a dirt-streaked brown dress.
“Goodness, Sophie, child. You look like a right lady.”
Sophie blushed. She was beautiful when she did. It heightened the green of her eyes, made her hair look even more raven-black. “Thank you, Mrs. Mill. Now, there is something—”
But before Sophie could finish, the elderly woman stepped forward and peered at Sophie’s face, squinting. “Who hit ye, dearie? Don’t put up with any man who raises ’is ’and to ye! That’s what I always said. And I kicked my man to the curb for doin’ that. I’m right better off, I tell ye.”
If this was better off, Cary hated to think of what life had been like with the man around.
“It’s nothing like that.” Quickly, Sophie told the story of a man breaking into her room, waiting, and attacking her.
Mrs. Mill clutched her heart. “Are we all to be murdered in our beds then? Oh dear!” The woman flapped her elbows and began to heave about like a demented chicken.
But Sophie soothed the woman. She spoke kindly. “I don’t think he will be back. But I wanted to know if you had seen him. I want to put the law on him—”
“Don’t want naught to do with the law.” Mrs. Mill backed up and closed the door until she was just peeping out at Sophie.
“You won’t have to. I just need to know if you saw a gentleman with blond hair. A tall, broad-shouldered man.”
“I did.”
“Where did you see him?”
“On High Street. ’e stepped out of a black, shiny carriage drawn by four horses. ’e came down the steps as I was ’urrying by, and ’e all but shoved me to the ground. Pushed me out of the way and stalked off toward our lane.”
“Did you see him when you reached our lane?”
“No. ’e’d disappeared by then.”
Sophie asked questions about the carriage. She tried to hand Mrs. Mill a few coins, but the woman refused. “I don’t take charity, dearie. Just don’t go telling the law to ask me questions. And ye’d best be careful.”
Sophie told the woman she was leaving the room.
“And where might ye be going?”
“I—I have befriended a duke, and he is renting a house for me.” She blushed again.
Mrs. Mill’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, dearie, I always thought you a decent lass.” She stepped back in and shut the door firmly.
Cary felt a spurt of damned guilt. But hell, Sophie was right—there were few ways for a woman to support herself. He wasn’t going to hurt her. And he was going to ensure she was quite well off at the end of their relationship.
Why, then, did he feel like the villain?
After knocking on two more doors, where Sophie spoke to an elderly man, then a youngish, tired-looking woman who seemed to have children crawling over her, Sophie ventured into the upper floors of the ancient building. He followed—he didn’t want to let her out of his sight, but he could not be close enough to frighten people.
Finally, she returned to him. “Three people saw the blond man. Truly, from the description they gave, it would sound as if it were you. One person also saw a woman he didn’t recognize. A ladylike woman.”
Could a woman be involved? Cary doubted it. This seemed more of a man’s business—violence against defenseless young women. But a strange woman on the night of Sophie’s attack might be more than a coincidence. He had to find out who this woman was.
He handed Sophie up to his carriage. She turned to him. “Have we learned anything at all?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “One thing I would like to do—determine if Stratham could be responsible.”
“You think Lord Stratham murdered that other poor girl? And attacked me?”
“I don’t know about the other girl, but I know he wanted you. He was humiliated when you refused him. He’s an abusive man who does not take rejection well.”
Sophie was about to speak, but Cary lifted her hand to his lips. At the touch of his lips to her fingers, she made a squeaking sound and she couldn’t say a word. She just gazed at him as if he were the sun.
He hadn’t expected her to look quite so enthralled.
“Now we go to the races,” he said. “Stratham is a notorious fan of horse racing.”
Quite a few gentlemen took their mistresses to the races, Sophie discovered. She knew this because the women wore brightly colored, scandalous dresses with flounces of lace, and snug, low-cut bodices. In her modest clothing, she actually looked out of place.
The gentlemen drank copiously. Many had ladybirds sitting on their laps. With each race, some men cheered and drank more. Others moaned in despair, swore—then drank more.
“How are we going to find Lord Stratham?” Sophie stared wide-eyed at the crowd.
Men greeted Cary with reverence, begging to join them. At once, Sophie realized he was truly a war hero and was worshipped for it.
Was that why someone was trying to make him look guilty of the awful crimes? To destroy him? Was one of these men so jealous?
No, that didn’t make sense. Would anyone hurt innocent women just to destroy a duke?
But sometimes, when she looked at Cary and he didn’t know she was looking, she saw how haunted and haggard he looked. Was it his memories? The ones that had to have come from long before the war when he was held a prisoner?
Cary offered her the crook of his arm, and she laid her hand on his forearm and walked with him. They went to the private boxes. “This one is Stratham’s,” he said.
But although the box was filled with gentlemen and females who shrieked with laughter and guzzled champagne, there was no Stratham.
“He’s here,” declared a young, portly gentleman who was groping two giggling, chubby women. “Took his tart down by the paddocks, I believe. For a ride.”
The drunken crowd laughed uproariously at that.
Was this a Cyprian’s life? Sophie wanted to run as far and as fast as possible. Cary wasn’t like these men. . . .
But what happened after her relationship with Cary? Would she have to go to another protector? Would she have to cling to some drunken fool to survive? She hoped not. She prayed not.
Cary rested his hand on the small of her back. She felt utterly aware of him. After seeing those men, she thought: I may never want any other man but the gorgeous, wonderful Duke of Caradon? What am I going to do?
A whinnying sound came from one of the stalls. But it hadn’t come from a horse. A man had made that sound.
“What was that?” she asked.
Cary put his finger to his lips. He led her to the stall. He could stand on his toes and see over the door. She saw him bite back a laugh.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He lifted her by her waist, and she grasped the top of the stall door to steady herself.
Stratham was naked and moved around the hay-strewn paddock on all fours. She saw his black, gray-touched hair, his muscular body, his naked, hard, tight buttocks. She would have seen even more of him, except her view was mercifully blocked by a woman in a snug muslin gown who rode on top of him. He had on a leather bridle of sorts, and the woman tugged on the reins. She smartly slapped his bare bottom with a riding crop.
“Oh goodness,” Sophie said.