Temptation Has Green Eyes (28 page)

French sniffed. “A trustworthy one this time.”

Tenderly, she handed Sophia a glass of water to rinse her mouth with, and then her tooth-powder, so she could clean her teeth while the maid unlaced her. Sophia found herself tucked up in bed in no time, with the promise of a nice cup of tea and a bowl of broth. She accepted the tea, but refused the broth with a shudder. “Perhaps in a while,” she said.

She should have expected Max to come upstairs to see her. But when he entered the room, she had to fight not to shout at him to leave immediately. Her stomach, which had settled, stirred anew, and her throat tightened so she could scarcely breathe. She’d seen this man naked, she’d made love with him. And he could be her brother. Even the slightest possibility made her feel sick and set her limbs to trembling.

Max flicked out the skirts of his coat and sat on the bed, lifting his hand to place it gently on her forehead. “My poor Sophia! What do you think is wrong?”

“Oyster patties,” she said with a grimace. She’d enjoyed them, one of her favorites, but she had to blame something. “I’m feeling a bit better already.” A blatant lie. His presence made her worse. Because God help her, she still wanted him. Images of their time together flashed through her mind, making her clitoris swell and throb in shameful desire. She could not feel like this toward her own brother, surely?

He regarded her, an edge of coldness in his eyes. “There was a matter I wished to discuss with you. But it will wait.” He smiled, dispelling the chill. “Would you like me to stay with you?”

She tried not to shake her head too vigorously. “I’d like to sleep now.”

He nodded. “Probably best. You must let me help you.”

Gently, he lifted her and helped her to lie down. Sophia repressed her shudders, not knowing if they were desire or distaste, knowing they should be the latter, afraid they were not.

She was a vile person to want him so much. If it were true. If it was not, Northwich wanted to see her about something else. But she had to have that proof in her hands. Needed to know the truth. If it was, it would cause a scandal the like of which London hadn’t seen for years. They’d tear her to pieces. And bring Max and the Emperors down with it.

So why didn’t Northwich use the information to do just that? Perhaps he meant to. She didn’t know.

* * * *

Sophia was relieved to discover that, after a brief visit to her chamber in the morning, Max had appointments for the rest of the day.

“I hate leaving you like this, but send a footman to me if you feel any worse.”

“No need.” Sophia had ordered a meal, more for self-defense than anything else, because she still felt ill. She made a show of buttering a slice of toast and biting into it with relish. “I feel so much better,” she assured him once she’d devoured the mouthful. “It must have been the patties, because there’s nothing wrong with me now. I shall visit my father,” she added as an afterthought, “so I’ll be in good hands.”

When Max leaned over the bed to kiss her, she turned her head so his lips skimmed her cheek.

He grunted, kissed her forehead and straightened. “I still feel I shouldn’t leave you.”

She waved her hand. “Go, go. I promise I’ll contact you if I feel worse. But it was just bad food. Don’t fuss, Max.”

He left the room smiling, which was more than she did an hour later. With French in tow, she climbed in the sedan chair she’d ordered and let them take her to her father’s house.

She’d thought of wearing the aquamarine, just by way of spite. She didn’t want any of her favorite clothes tainted by what she was about to do, and she could discard that gown without a qualm. But in the end, she chose an unremarkable green with a modest hoop, almost reverting to her days as a daughter of the City. In those days, she’d worn more modest and less flamboyant garments. She also chose an enveloping brown cloak with a hood, in case she saw someone she knew, and a hat with a very wide brim. Wide so that the chair-men moaned when they saw it, for fear she wouldn’t get inside. She managed.

Her father was at home. He’d set out on his rounds of his office and the coffeehouses shortly. Today was a Mercer’s Guild meeting day, so she’d purposely set out early to catch him before he left.

He greeted her, as he always did, with a smile, and she surprised him with a hug, desiring that they not be disturbed. Once they were sitting in the privacy of his office, she handed him the letter.

“I hate to bring you further distress, Papa, but you need to read this.”

He scanned the letter quickly, then read it again, paying more detail to it.

“Do you think it’s true, Papa?”

He glanced up at her and down at the letter. “Your mother was a good woman,” he said. “While we were married, I never had cause to doubt her. If she transgressed before our marriage, I believe her when she said it was only once. But she wouldn’t tell me who. Or in what circumstances, for that matter. Her father paid her portion. I presumed the money was his, since he was an earl. It appears it was not.” He put the letter down. “I take it you plan to attend this meeting?”

She nodded.

“Do you think he will tell the truth?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I have to hear it, don’t I?”

“Why not tell your husband?”

Heat rose to her face. “We—that is, I—”

Her father sighed. “The feud with the Dankworths.” She nodded again, pleased he understood without too much detail. The thought of her and Max together imposed on her mind, as it had intermittently through the night, and she pushed it away. If she never got to do that again, she’d curl up and die. But she couldn’t if, by some outside chance, what Northwich was saying was true.

“I still think you should tell him,” her father said now. “This is a grave matter.”

“But if I tell him, he might not want me anymore, even if it’s not true!” she wailed. Even to her own ears she sounded more like a lovesick girl than a grown woman. But she couldn’t help it. Suspecting what she did, she still wanted him, but she doubted he’d want her. He was deliberately and carefully putting ground between them. When he came to her bed, he didn’t stay the night, and already she missed him. Sinful but undeniable.

“Daughter, if this is true, you have to tell him,” her father said now. “I already deceived him by not telling him of your birth. That was wrong, and I will never cease to castigate myself for not putting him in control of the full facts.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Her voice lowered to a snarl. “Have I married my own brother? Do we need to make the knowledge public?”

“I don’t believe it’s true. But I do understand that you need to know. I will accompany you if you wish.”

She shook her head. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else in the room if what the duke had told her in the letter was true. In any case, if her father was seen entering the house of a known Jacobite sympathizer, he’d be immediately suspect in the City.

She couldn’t bear anyone else being hurt by this affair. “No, Papa. I can go alone. He won’t hurt me. After all, he’s done what he can so far to ensure my safety.” Sending a spy to watch over her could have two meanings, and one of them might be that he wanted to protect her. John had acted on his own that day. She was sure of it.

That also indicated that the duke was lying about the Devereaux connection. But she had to know for sure.

After ten minutes’ further wrangling, he finally accepted her decision. “Take French and Horton with you.” Horton had, like French, been with the Russells for years, and acted as footman, but not liveried, as the ones she used now were. He’d be more discreet. And Horton was huge. His early prize-fighting career had made an already large frame even larger.

The fact that she’d have a strong man with her heartened Sophia. So she bowed her head meekly. “Yes, Papa, to both. If the duke has undeniable evidence, I will have it off him.”

“I doubt that,” her father said. Steepling his fingers, he flexed them, a habit of his while thinking. “He won’t give you such proof easily, though he may allow you to take a copy. In any case, the proof is likely to be in parish registers and witness statements. He may have obtained signed legal documents.”

“Lies that he can use to tear us apart. If he wants to use this information to threaten me, he will be mistaken. “If it turned out to be true, she’d tell Max everything and retire, live in the country, or even leave these shores altogether.

Her father regarded her for a moment, his eyes far-seeing. Sophia knew better than to interrupt him.

“I think he may have used this as a ruse,” he said. “If you’re his daughter, he may realize that you won’t see him at his request, but would take your husband with you. But if you think that your marriage is in peril, and that your husband would be damaged by the knowledge, Northwich might expect you not to tell him.”

He touched the letter. “I will keep this. It’s your proof. I’ll lock this up in my safe.”

He glanced at her and she nodded her permission. If she took the letter with her, the duke could well purloin it, and then what proof did she have of her suspicions?

“If need be, I’ll vouch for you with your husband. But you had better tell him you went today. One way or the other, you must.”

Her heart ached, but he told the truth. “I will. I swear. One way or the other, I’ll tell him.”

“The duke won’t hurt you.” Her father placed his hands flat on the desk, the pressure turning his fingertips white.

She almost smiled when she spotted the smudge of ink in its accustomed place at the side of his left hand, where he rested it as he wrote.

“If I even suspected that, I wouldn’t allow you to go. But it’s not his way. He wants you for something. Either that, or he wishes to meet the girl he fathered. Although he has never expressed such a wish before. Any time this past twenty-five years he could have asked. He could have created great trouble between Mary and me, but he did not. He could have asked after Mary’s death, but he did not. No, he wants something from you, and it will be something to do with your marriage.”

“He wants me to spy on my husband,” she said flatly. But despite that knowledge, she felt better. Infinitely better. She could talk to Max, and he need never know the horrible suspicions that had clouded her mind this last day.

Last night he’d shown her the first true tenderness since Julius had broken the news about her parentage. But she’d sent him away.

But the possibility existed that her father was wrong and the duke did have proof that she was the daughter of Devereaux. “What if he only recently obtained the proof?” She worked hard to keep her hands folded neatly in her lap over her fan instead of wringing them or biting her nails, her habit as a child when distressed.

“That is a possibility,” the man she would always call her father said. “He would want you to create disturbance in that case. Scandal that would break Devereaux. Or he might want to threaten you with exposure, use the information to get you to do something for him.”

Spy. In that case, she would refuse.

Having beaten out the arguments with her father until they could think of no other possibilities, Sophia consented to take a dish of tea while her father ordered her a chair to take her to the Royal Exchange.

Her heart in her mouth, Sophia set forth, with her two attendants close behind.

At the Exchange, she dismissed the chairmen and went toward the nearest set of stairs that led up to the gallery where the shops were situated. The large cobbled area that formed the central part of the building was where men often met to discuss business, somewhat like the old Roman forum, which she’d been told was on the same site. That was one reason she liked shopping here. It was close to where she used to live, and she liked thinking of the continuity of purpose. People using this place for the same ends for generation after generation.

Not that she intended to do much shopping today. For appearance’s sake, she went into a shop and bought a fan. If anyone saw her there, she could show it to them as her reason for being here. It wasn’t a particularly distinguished or pretty one, merely acceptable. She just pointed at it and said, “That one,” waiting only long enough for it to be packaged and handed to French, who took it without comment. They proceeded along the gallery, their feet clacking on the wooden boards under their feet, and down the stairs at the end.

Outside, a carriage waited. It was obviously a private one, since it was well-kept with a pair of horses much too fine for hacks harnessed to it. The two attendants were much too superior for the hire vehicles that thronged London. She waited. The footman approached her and bowed. “If you would step inside, Mrs. Smith.”

She would. So did the footman and French. The man would have turned away the servants and held out his arm to block them, but immediately Sophia stepped out of the carriage. “I go with them or not at all.” They might not be too much protection, but they were all she had. Like her father, she considered the possibility that the duke would try to harm her extremely unlikely. He stood to gain nothing from that. The footman relented, and they climbed in.

“Stay in the hall when we arrive, please. If there is any trouble, French, you run for help, and Horton, get me out of the place.”

“Still not sure about this, miss,” Horton mumbled.

A man of few words but possessed of much muscle. Sophia was glad to have him with her.

“It’s very important, Horton. It’s not as if this is the first time I’ve run an errand like this for my father.” That was how they’d presented it to Horton—as one of the clandestine messages she’d sometimes passed along. Most concerned cargoes and sometimes illegal cargo her father didn’t want to be associated with. An anonymous word dropped in the right quarters usually ensured the vessel concerned was investigated without delay. Part of the work of a City merchant, but not one that was bruited abroad. But she wasn’t wearing a mask today, as some ladies did as a matter of course against the dust and dirt of the city. She’d considered it, but concluded that a masked lady entering the house of a prominent peer might evoke more gossip, not less. She contented herself with pulling her hat over her forehead and keeping her head lowered. She fastened the cloak and draped it over her gown so that only a glimpse of dull green would greet any curious onlooker.