As Luck Would Have It (35 page)

Someone yelled in the distance.

She instinctively took a step toward the sound.

No. She’d promised. She forced herself back into the corner, balling her hands into impudent fists at her sides. Damn that promise. And damn Alex for insisting on it. What good did it do either of them if he died for it?

What good would she be able to do if she broke it? She no longer had her knife, and she wasn’t confident she could bring down a fully grown man with her fists. She was better at fighting then most women, yes, but probably not better than most hardened criminals, certainly not the homicidal type.

Of course if she found a weapon of some sort…

Sophie’s eyes scanned the yard. She’d just settled on a particularly sturdy-looking stick, deciding that she would rather have Alex alive and hating her, than Alex dead and she hating herself for allowing it to happen, when he appeared from around the corner of the house leading two horses.

She waited diligently until he reached her side, then said, “Are you hurt? Were you followed?”

“No.”

“Thank God,” she breathed, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you ever,
ever
ask me to promise something like that again.”

He shot her a look that would have made her fear for her safety if she hadn’t already been overwhelmed with fear for his. “I cannot believe you would make me wait here while—”

“Get on the horse, Sophie.”

“—you run off to certain danger. You could have been hurt or—”

“Now!”

Every instinct screamed at her to run at the horse and vault on top.

Sophie was more than a little sick of her instincts. He was not going to witness her jumping to do his bidding like a cowed servant. She tilted her chin up and walked, not ran, toward the horse. She had briefly considered arguing with him, but she was aiming for brave, not stupid.

Apparently, Alex didn’t feel she was being brave quickly enough. He reached over, picked her up by the waist, and fairly tossed her into the saddle.

They rode in silence for the first quarter of an hour, never setting the horses at more than a trot for fear they might stumble into a rut on the shadowed road.

Sophie spent that time searching for an advantageous opening to the argument she felt was coming. She was weighing the pros and cons of simply sidling her horse up beside his and giving him a healthy shove, when suddenly he was next to her. He grabbed her horse’s reins and brought them both to a stop.

“You’re angry with me,” she stated quickly, figuring she might as well get in the first word, even if it wasn’t particularly brilliant.

“I told you to stay in the closet,” he snapped.

“I’m not a child or a soldier to be ordered about, Alex.”

“No. You are my betrothed. Very soon you will be my wife, and you will not put yourself in harm’s way again. Do I make myself clear? It is my duty to protect and—”

“You were worried about
me?”

He shot her the sort of disbelieving look usually reserved for the terminally stupid or criminally insane. “Have I not been making that clear?”

“No. What you’ve made clear is how much you dislike being disobeyed. But I’m warning you now, Alex, I have no intention of standing aside if your life is in danger—”

“I wasn’t in danger of dying,” he snapped. “You, however—”

“I saved your life!”

“You did nothing of the sort. I saw the pistol. I intended to pull my attacker into the line of fire.”

As it happened, Sophie’s knife had caused the shooter’s arm to jerk wildly, sending the bullet into Alex’s assailant’s leg rather than his head. Alex had been obliged to knock the man unconscious.

“Oh,” Sophie whispered. “Oh. I thought…I thought I’d saved your life. I thought…”

She thought she’d fought death in the dark and won. But she hadn’t. Alex was alive, yes, but what of the other men? She’d killed one herself. She’d heard the knife hit, seen the shadowy figure fall. She hadn’t beaten death at all. She’d lent it a helping hand.

Disgusted with herself and uncertain what to say to Alex now that her anger had turned to shame, she nudged her horse forward into a slow walk, intending to think the matter through.

Alex followed suit, bringing his mount beside hers. One look at her crestfallen expression and he felt all his anger drain away, promptly replaced by remorse.

He was a heel. An absolute heel. She’d been proud of what she’d done to night. And if he hadn’t been so furious with her for putting herself in danger, so consumed with his fear for her safety, and (and he hated to admit this), his wounded vanity that a woman should feel it necessary to come to his rescue, he would have realized he was proud of her as well.

He cleared his throat awkwardly and did his best to swallow his ocean of pride. “It
is
possible you did save my life,” he offered. “It was very dark, and I may have miscalculated where the bullet would hit. And you did dispose of that last man very effectively.”

There, that should make her feel better.

She stared vacantly at the trees. “I killed him.”

Alex frowned. Clearly, she was not feeling better. He reached over and grabbed the reins of her horse, stopping them both.

Sophie groaned. “Not this again.”

He ignored that. “No one died to night, Sophie.”

She stared at him in bewilderment for a moment. Then shook her head as if to clear it and began babbling. “What? Are you sure? Because…you…and my knife…and then he—”

Alex cut her off before she confused the both of them. “Your knife caught him in the arm. He fell into the window and it knocked him out.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely. The first two men I managed to render unconscious, the third you hit with your knife, and the fourth took the bullet in the leg, and I knocked him out afterward.”

The implications of what he was telling began to seep in. “No one died,” she said slowly.

“Nary a one,” Alex replied, immensely relived to see the light returning to her eyes. He couldn’t see it very well in the semidarkness of early morning, but he knew, knew by the sound of her voice, it was there. “In fact,” he continued, “you may very well have saved the last man’s life. I had intended to aim his head at the bullet.”

“I saved his life,” Sophie repeated, smiling now and sitting a little straighter in the saddle.

“Little as he deserved it, yes, you did.”

“No one died,” she repeated yet again. She couldn’t help it. It felt so good to say it, so good to hear it. Maybe too good….

“I heard a scream,” she said quickly. “When you went to get the horses.”

Alex’s expression darkened. “Ah yes, the boy they left behind to watch the horses. Lad couldn’t have been more than ten. I was soundly tempted to take him over my knee. You
needn’t worry. I frightened him into submission merely by showing up. He very nearly tied himself up for me.”

“Thank God.” She’d done it, then. She’d conquered death this night. Not one of those men had died. Not one. Which meant…Dear God, which meant—

“Should we be sitting here? They’re likely to wake up at any moment—”

“Relax, Sophie,” Alex said, but let go of her reins and allowed the horses to begin moving. “I cut the straps on their saddles and scattered the horses. If they’re chasing us, which I doubt, they’re doing it on foot.”

Dawn came and went well before they reached London. By the time they reached William’s house, the sun had worked its way fully up, and Alex had worked himself into a full fury.

The lies William had told them both had put Sophie in danger. She could have been hurt, or killed, or God only knew what else. The thought was enough to make him see red.

He pounded loudly on the front door.

Sophie shot him a nervous glance. “Maybe we should wait—”

“No. We finish this now.”

The door opened and a young man appeared.

“Your Grace.”

Alex grabbed Sophie’s hand and barreled past the youth and into the front foyer.

“Where is he, Sallings?” Alex demanded.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Sophie offered.

“Mr. Fletcher is in his study, but…wait, please, Your Grace, not again!”

Sophie allowed herself to be dragged down the hall, followed closely by the young man.

“He’s rather young for a butler,” she commented to Alex.

“He isn’t the butler,” Alex answered. “There is his butler.”

Sophie gaped at the man coming down the hall. “That’s my butler!”

“Yes, I know.” Alex stopped before a set of French doors. He dropped her hand, gripped the handles, and pushed the doors wide open.

“William!” Alex roared.

“Ah, Alex, my boy.”

“Sophie, dear.”

“Mrs. Summers!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fletcher, sir.”

“His Grace, the Duke of Rockeforte!”

And then all hell broke loose.

Twenty-eight

A
lex let mayhem reign for about two minutes. It seemed fitting in his mood, and he rather felt Sophie had the right to rage a bit. Of them all, she had been the most ill-used.

Eventually, however, he grew impatient to find out just
how
ill-used she had been. That, and she had begun sliding in and out of a foreign language. Insults were always less fun when you couldn’t understand them.

“Sallings!” he snapped in his best officer’s voice. “You’re dismissed!” Then, “James!” he barked in his best ducal voice. “Bring tea for the ladies and make sure we are not disturbed.” And finally, “Sophie,” he cajoled in his best husband-to-be voice. “Sit down, love, and let us get some answers.”

He turned to Mrs. Summers, intending to use his best future-employer voice but stopped short at the raising of one supercilious eyebrow.

“Do not attempt it, young man,” she warned in her best governess voice. “I have seen the best and the worst this
world has to offer, and you are neither so terrible nor sufficiently wonderful as to hold me in your awe.”

Feeling uncomfortably like a chastised boy, Alex held his tongue and offered her a chair in a gesture of truce.

Mrs. Summers nodded regally and accepted the seat. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you for thinking of it.”

“My pleasure,” Alex ground out. “Now,” he declared turning to William, who had wisely taken his own seat, “start explaining.”

“It’s a bit of a long story actually,” William hedged.

“Shorten it,” Alex advised grimly.

William took the hint. “Right. Well the shortest possible version, I suppose, would be to say…,” he took a fortifying breath. “There was not originally a suspected plot of treason. You were both led into what was intented only as a ruse in order that I might fulfill a deathbed promise I made to Alex’s father.” His words tumbled out like a well-rehearsed speech—which, as it happened, it was.

“What promise?” Alex demanded.

“Your father was a spy?” Sophie asked in surprise.

“I’ll explain later,” Alex assured her.

“They prefer ‘agent,’ dear,” Mrs. Summers commented.

William slumped in his chair. His plan for revealing the truth hadn’t gotten any further than that last little recitation. The rest he would have to improvise. William hated improvising.

“What promise?” Alex repeated. “I thought you told me everything my father said the night he died.”

“I did, save the final vow I made, and to be honest, he fairly tricked me into it. I promised to make certain you as well as several others…” and at this point the head of the war office actually blushed a little, “find love.”

“What?” Both Alex and Sophie cried at the same time.

“Yes, well, that was very near to my own reaction, I assure you. But a promise is a promise, especially one made to a friend
on his deathbed. He wished for his son the happiness he had with his beloved Anna.”

“My mother,” Alex explained to Sophie before returning his attention to William. “You still have a good deal of explaining to do.”

William nodded. “For many years, I watched you flit from actress to opera singer without evincing the slightest interest in a woman of good breeding. Had you shown a particular preference for one of your paramours, I might have searched for a woman for you amongst the
demimonde
—I agreed to help you find love after all, not a wife—but you went through mistresses the way some dandies go through cravats…Terribly sorry, Sophie dear.”

Sophie shrugged. “I’ve already heard the gossip. Don’t censure yourself on my account.”

“So you took it upon yourself to find me a life mate, is that it?” Alex asked incredulously.

William nodded.

“Why Sophie?” he asked, then, feeling it might be wise, quickly added, “Not that I oppose your choice.”

“Mary…that is, Mrs. Summers, gave me the idea. You wouldn’t remember me, Sophie, but I met you the day Mary arrived at Whitefield to be your governess. I was responsible for her obtaining the position.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“No, no, quite all right. You were very young and, if I recall correctly, rather preoccupied with several stitches you received on your arm from a dog bite. You were quite proud of them.”

Sophie smiled at that. “Harry. We became the best of friends after that little misunderstanding. But how is it you knew Mrs. Summers?”

“She and I met in this very office.”

Sophie whirled on her companion. “You’re a spy?”

“Of course not, dear. Espionage is not a suitable occupation for a lady,” she said pointedly. “My husband, however—”

“You said your husband died in the Terror,” Sophie said accusingly.

“And so he did. His job required he spend a considerable amount of time in Louis’ court. To the mob, he was just another courtier.”

“Oh,” Sophie murmured. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“It’s quite all right. It was a long time ago, and William was a great support to me. Even convincing your father—an old Eton friend of his, before you ask—to hire a governess with no experience. We have kept in contact for years.”

“She often wrote to me of your adventures,” William said with a smile. “She was concerned you would not be able to find a respectable husband, one you would not drive to distraction within a year. I, in turn, was worried I would not be able to find a young lady who could hold Alex’s interest for more than a fortnight. Mary suggested the two of you might suit.”