Page 76 of Lady Sophia's Lover
Sophia felt as if she had received a blow to the stomach. Nauseated and out of breath, she wondered why her brother had to be such a notorious criminal. If he were just a bit less successful, he could have prospered in relative anonymity. But no, he had to court fame and become a lightning rod for controversy, dividing the public and thumbing his nose in the faces of legally sanctioned police. Nick had made it virtually impossible for anyone to help him.
Blindly she groped for the chair behind her. Seeing her unsteadiness, Ross lowered her to the seat. He half crouched before her, staring into her ashen face with sudden anxiety. “What is it?” he asked, taking her cold hands in his. The warmth of his fingers did nothing to thaw her prickling skin. “Do you feel ill? Is it the baby—”
“No.” She looked away from him, trying to force her wildly scattering thoughts into some coherent pattern. Her bones seemed to have turned into ice, coldness radiating from the inside out, making her skin hurt. Even the familiar, gentle touch of Ross’s hands hurt. She considered telling him the truth about Nick, because the price she would have to pay for her continued silence was too much to bear. And yet the truth was likely to be just as costly. No matter what choice she made, her life would never be the same.
Tears forced their way into her eyes until Ross’s beloved face was a fluid blur.
“What is it?” Ross repeated, his voice urgent. “Sophia, are you well? Do you need a doctor?”
She shook her head and took a ragged breath. “I’m fine.”
“Then why—”
“Is there nothing you can do to help him?” she asked desperately.
“Help Gentry? Why in God’s name would you ask that?”
“There is something I haven’t told you.” Using her sleeve, she blotted her eyes until he came back into focus. “Something I learned just before our wedding.”
Ross was silent, remaining on his haunches, his hands coming to grip the arms of her chair. “Go on,” he said quietly.
Out of the corner of her eye Sophia saw Sir Grant move toward the door, tactfully leaving the two of them alone. “Wait,” she told him, and he paused at the threshold. “Please stay, Sir Grant. I think you should know as well, in light of your position at Bow Street.”
Morgan slid a questioning glance at Ross and cautiously resumed his place by the window, though he clearly did not wish to be part of the scene.
Sophia stared down at the strong, hair-dusted hands that rested on either side of her. “Do you remember when you told me that Mr. Gentry was the one who had given me the diamond necklace?”
Ross nodded.
“I already knew it,” she said dully. “Earlier that day, I encountered Mr. Gentry near Lannigan’s. He…took me into his carriage. And we talked.” Pausing, she watched her husband’s tanned hands grip the arms of the chair until his knuckles and the tips of his fingers were white. The office was as silent as a graveyard, except for the sound of Ross’s controlled breathing. The only way Sophia could continue was to keep her tone flat and emotionless. “Gentry said that in his youth he had been on the same prison hulk that my brother had been sent to. He told me what it had been like for John, the things he had suffered…and then he told me—” She stopped, then spoke with a break in her voice. “He told me that John did not die. He took the name of another boy on the ship so that he could gain an early—”
“Sophia,” Ross cut in softly, as if believing she had gone mad, “your brother is dead.”
She put her hands over his hard, corded ones and looked right at him. “No,” she said urgently. “Nick Gentry is my brother. He and John are one and the same. I knew it was true the moment he told me. He could not deceive me, Ross…we were children together, he knows everything I know about our past, and…just look at him, and you’ll see the resemblance. We have the same eyes. The same features. The same—”
Ross flung off her hands and strode away from her as if he had been scalded. His chest moved with his labored breaths. “My God,” she heard him say through his teeth.
Sophia sagged in her chair, certain that she had lost him now. He would never forgive her for hiding something that she should have told him before they were married. Numbly she went on to describe the rest of the conversation with her brother, as well as the information he had asked her to obtain from the records room. Ross kept his back to her, his hands clenched tightly. “I am sorry,” Sophia finished stiffly. “I wish I could do it all over again. I should have told you about Nick as soon as I learned that he was my brother.”
“Why tell me now?” Ross asked hoarsely.
There was nothing left to lose. She focused on a distant spot on the floor as she answered. “I hoped you could save him somehow.”
A caustic laugh escaped him. “If I could, it wouldn’t matter. Before long Gentry would do something else, and I’d be forced to arrest him again. And we would probably be in this same situation a month from now.”
“I don’t care about next month. All I care about is today.” Ross would never know what it cost her to say next, but she forced the words out. “Don’t let them hang him,” she begged. “I can’t lose John again. Do something.”
“Dowhat?” he snarled.
“I don’t know,” came her frantic reply. “Just find some way to keep him alive. I will talk to him, convince him that he must change, and perhaps he—”
“He’ll never change.”
“Save my brother just this once,” she persisted. “One time. I will never ask again, no matter what happens from now on.”
He did not move or speak, his shoulders bunched tightly beneath his shirt.
“Lady Sophia,” Morgan interjected gently. “I should not speak, but I must point out what is at risk for Sir Ross. All eyes are on Bow Street. Keen attention is being paid to how we handle this matter. If it is discovered that Sir Ross has interfered in the process of law, his reputation and everything he has worked for will be ruined. Furthermore, questions will be asked, and when it comes to light that Gentry is Sir Ross’s brother-in-law, the entire Cannon family will suffer the consequences.”
