Page 41 of Lady Sophia's Lover
The words made Sophia want to throw herself at him and weep and howl. Instead she closed her expression and glanced away from him. She forced words through her stiff lips. “Some things cannot be made better.”
“What things?”
She wiped her palm over her cheeks and set her jaw to keep it from quivering. “Please don’t touch me,” she said in a raw whisper.
He ignored the plea and slid his arm around her, bringing her against his broad chest. “You know how stubborn I am, Sophia.” His hand settled at the small of her back. Although his grasp was light, she knew that it would be impossible for her to break free. His lips brushed over her forehead as he spoke. “I’m going to get the truth out of you sooner or later. Save us both time and tell me now.”
Despairing, she realized that Ross was going to persist until he had the answers he wanted, unless she found a way to stop him. “Please leave my room,” she said distinctly. “Or I am going to scream and tell everyone that you are forcing yourself on me.”
“Go ahead.” Ross waited, relaxed and calm, while she quivered with tension. A faintly arrogant smile touched his lips. “You may as well learn now that it’s useless to try and bluff me.”
“Damn you,” she whispered.
“I think you want to tell me.” He nuzzled the top of her head. “I know that you’ve kept secrets from me since you first came to Bow Street. It’s time to bring them to light, Sophia. Afterward there will be nothing left to fear.”
Sophia gripped the hard muscles of his arms and breathed jerkily. It was finally time to confess. She would have to tell Ross everything, and face the consequences. Vehement sobs pushed from her throat…abraded cries of ruined vengeance and hopeless love.
“Don’t,” Ross murmured, gathering her protectively against his chest. “Don’t, Sophia. Sweetheart. It’s all right.”
His tenderness was too much for her to bear. Sophia fought her way out of his arms and stumbled to the bed. She sat and blindly held up a hand to keep him at bay. The gesture, frail though it was, served to hold him back. He stood in the shadows, his large form nearly blocking out the glimmer of the tinplate lantern.
“I can’t tell you if you touch me,” she said hoarsely.
“Just stay there.”
Ross was still and silent.
“You know about the months after my parents died,” Sophia said in a wretched whisper, “when John and I were caught stealing. And I was taken in by my cousin Ernestine.”
“Yes.”
“Well, John would not go. He ran off to London instead. He continued to…to steal and do bad things, he…” She squeezed her eyes shut, but tears kept welling from beneath her lashes. “He fell in with a gang of pickpockets. Eventually he was arrested and charged with an act of petty thievery.” She rubbed her hands over her streaming face and sniffled.
“Here,” Ross muttered, and she saw from the edge of her vision that he was extending a handkerchief. His face was grim, revealing how difficult it was for him to witness her distress and not be able to touch her.
Accepting the handkerchief, Sophia mopped her face and blew her nose. Wearily she resumed her story. “He was taken before a magistrate who sentenced him to a year on a prison hulk. It was an unusually harsh sentence for such a trivial crime. When I learned of what had happened to my brother, I thought of going to London to visit the magistrate and plead with him to reduce the severity of the punishment. But by the time I reached the city, John had already been taken to the hulk.”
A curious numbness came over her, making it easier to talk. It was as if she had suddenly become detached from the scene, watching as if a play were being enacted before her. “I was in torment for months, thinking every minute of my brother, wondering what he was suffering. I was not so sheltered that I didn’t have some idea of what occurs on prison hulks. But no matter what happened to him in that place, I promised myself that I would take care of him and heal him afterward. If only he would live.”
A long, emotion-fraught silence passed.
“But he didn’t,” Ross finally said.
Sophia shook her head. “Cholera. The hulks were always riddled with one disease or another…it was only a matter of time before John became ill. He did not survive. He was buried in a mass grave near the ship, without any stone or marker. I…I have never been the same since I was told. John’s death has underpinned every emotion, every experience, every thought and desire I’ve had in my adult life. I have lived with constant hatred for years.”
“Hatred of whom?”
She looked at him then, her expression incredulous. “Of the man who sent him there. The magistrate who took no pity on an orphaned boy and sentenced him to certain death.”
The shadows obscured most of Ross’s face, except for the gleam of his narrowed eyes. “His name,” he demanded in a tightly leashed voice that betrayed his hideous suspicions.
Sophia’s numbness lifted away, leaving her as raw as an open wound. “It wasyou, Ross,” she whispered. “You sent John to the prison hulk.”
Although he remained still, she sensed the tremendous impact of her words, the ripple of shocked anguish beneath his facade. She knew that he was trying to dredge rapidly through the past, to remember one out of the thousands of cases that had come before him on the bench.
The rest of the confession drained out of her like poison. “I wanted revenge against you,” she said dully. “I thought that if I could persuade you to employ me, I would find ways to undermine you. For a while I copied parts of various files in the criminal records room, looking for anything that would discredit you and the runners. But that wasn’t all of my plan. I also wanted to hurt you in the deepest way possible. To…to break your spirit as mine had been broken. I wanted to make you fall in love with me so that I could injure you in a way that you would not recover from. But as it turned out…” A jagged laugh escaped her. “Somehow all that hatred has vanished. And I have failed utterly.”
She was silent then, closing her eyes to avoid the sight of his face. She waited for his contempt, his anger, and, worst of all, his rejection. Silence fell gently around her. Aching, annihilated, she waited for fate to deliver its final blow. As the quiet continued, she felt almost dreamlike, wondering if Ross would simply leave the room and let her crumble in despair.
