To Marry The Duke (31 page)

He nodded. “You did the right thing. Whitby, I’m going to need your help.”

“I am at your disposal, James.”

James paced the room, thinking. “Does Mother know?”

“Yes,” Sophia replied. “She’s been in her room weeping constantly.”

“How certain are you that Lily went anywhere with Billaud?”

“Not positively certain, but my instincts tell me that’s what has happened. After she came to me the other night…”

“What did she say?”

“She told me how much in love she was, and she asked me to speak to you about it, to convince you to accept Pierre.”

“
Accept
him? If everything you’ve told me is true, he is involved with blackmailing this family, and, worse than that, he might be our half brother!”

“I know that! I tried to caution her!”

“Well, madam, your counsel was ineffective.”

Sophia bristled at her husband’s accusing tone. The anger and fury that had been snowballing for weeks pounded into her with all the force of an avalanche.

“This is not my fault, James!” she said furiously. “As you said, I am merely an outsider. Your father’s scandals and your mother’s secrets and this horrendous blackmail—all of it was going on long before I set foot on English soil. None of you would be in this mess if you simply talked to each other!”

The men were silent, then Whitby moved toward the door. “Perhaps I’ll leave you two for a moment.”

James held up a hand. “No, Whitby, stay.”

No one said anything for a long time. It seemed like hours to Sophia, who was breathing fast and hard, trying to control the fear in her heart—fear that she had pushed her husband too far. That he would never be able to forgive her for speaking so frankly at a time like this, even if every word of it was true.

James walked toward her, staring into her eyes. “Perhaps my wife is right,” he said slowly.

Sophia gazed at him in disbelief. Had she heard him correctly?

“There have been too many secrets,” James continued, “and we are in one bloody horrible mess because of it.”

A raw and violent wave of emotion overwhelmed Sophia. James had heard her. He’d listened, and he’d accepted what she’d said.

It was not much, but it was something from her husband—a small offering. Not quite an apology for everything that had gone between them, and nothing close to a declaration of love, but it was something.

He touched Sophia briefly on the shoulder. The small gesture went straight through her and made her heart lurch with painful longing and desire for him as a man. As her husband. How she wanted all this behind them. She wanted Lily returned to them, safe from harm, she wanted Marion to stop crying. She wanted to break through the impossible barrier her husband had forged between them.

James faced Whitby. “We need a plan.”

Whitby spread his hands wide. “I’m all for it. Where do we begin?”

Chapter 26

A heavy rain had just begun when James entered his mother’s boudoir. Her window was open. Powerful gusts of wind were billowing the white lace curtains into the room. The rain was getting in.

His mother was hunched over in her chair by the unlit fireplace with a blanket wrapped around her legs and a handkerchief to her nose. She still wore her dressing gown and nightcap, and her eyes were puffy and red.

James strode across the room to close the window and shut out the noise of the wind. He turned to look at his mother.

He had never seen her look so distraught and vulnerable before.

Something tugged painfully inside his heart. It was an unfamiliar sensation in reference to his mother, and he marveled at it.

He marveled at everything about himself lately.

After crossing toward her, James knelt on the floor and placed his hand upon hers. It was cold and marked with age spots and blue veins. He stared at it for a few seconds. The look and feel of it surprised him.

Had he never touched her hand before? he wondered warily. He wasn’t sure. If he had, he could not remember.

He waited for her to lift her gaze. “I’m home, Mother.”

She nodded. “I see that, but you’re too late. We are ruined James, and it’s all my fault.”

“We are not ruined.”

“Lily certainly will be. That’s if we ever see her again.”

“I shall do my best to prevent that from happening. I’m going to find her and bring her back.”

“How? How will you ever find her? Whitby went looking already, and he found nothing, not even a clue about where they might have gone.”

“That’s why I’m here. I need to see the letters from Madame La Roux. All of them.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Sophia told you?”

“Yes, but I already knew about Father’s first marriage, as well as what continued to go on between them while he lived. It was no great surprise to hear of it.”

His mother’s eyes grew wide with horror and shame. “Did you know she was blackmailing me?”

“That, unfortunately, I did not know about, and I wish you had told me. I would have put an end to it. I would have spared you all these years of anxiety. Why did you not tell me?”

She raised the kerchief to her eyes and dabbed at the corners. Her voice was shaky.

“You were just a child when it began. I knew I could never protect you from
him
, but I could at least protect you from scandal. By the time you were old enough to understand or do anything about it, I was too entrenched. It had become a regular part of my life—to receive the letters and send what she asked for. I didn’t want to upset the arrangement. I was afraid of what she would do, and on top of that, I never felt I could confess the truth to you. I feared you would hate me more than you already did. I feared you would be like your father and react with a temper.”

James lowered his head to his mother’s lap. He felt the unfamiliar sensation of her hand upon his hair— then her fingers shakily, awkwardly combing through it.

How many times, when he was a child, did he wish he could run to her and do just this?

“You never had to fear me, Mother. I would never have hurt you. I made it my purpose in life to control that aspect of my nature.”

She continued to sniffle as she stroked his hair. “I was wrong about you, James. I see now, with my own eyes, how deeply Sophia cares for you, and it makes me realize that you could not possibly be
anything
like your father.”

James closed his eyes and held them closed for a long, significant moment.

He lifted his head and took her hands in his. He kissed them. “Thank you.”

She managed a melancholy smile.

James rose to his feet, touching his mother’s cheek as he did so. “The letters now, Mother. I need to see them. For Lily’s sake.”

She nodded and pointed across the room. “I understand. They are in that box over there, and they are yours to do with what you must.”

“I must meet this woman for myself,” James said to Whitby and Sophia, later in the drawing room.

“But Madame La Roux is in Paris,” Whitby said. “Can you risk the time? What if Lily is with Pierre somewhere nearby?”

Sophia sat forward on the sofa. “Wait—I remember the first time I mentioned Pierre to Lily. She was desperate to see Paris. Perhaps they might have gone there together. They certainly wouldn’t stay here. They’d both know we would be looking for them.”

“That is precisely what I was thinking,” James replied. “From what Mother has told me, she paid nothing to Pierre. She never even spoke to him. She was always instructed to send the funds directly to Genevieve, which leads me to believe that Pierre will wish to return home to reap the rewards of his journey.”

“But why take Lily?” Whitby asked, his tone reeking with fury. “You don’t suppose he meant to kidnap her for ransom, do you?”

James’s shoulders heaved. “It is a possibility. He might have seduced her only to lure her away. But why do that, when the blackmail was working?”

Whitby leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and clasp his large hands tightly together. “Maybe he truly did fancy her. But if he is a relation… God, if that’s the case, James, I would like to wring his sick, French neck.”

“There are too many questions,” Sophia said, trying to calm everyone down, “and the only people with the answers are Pierre and Genevieve. I think you’re right, James, we should go to Paris and speak to Genevieve in person. If nothing else, we can find out where Pierre lives and search for Lily there.”

James held up a hand. “Hold on, I never said you could come. I plan to take Whitby. You should stay here in case Lily returns.”

“Your mother will be here,” Sophia replied, “and Martin is at the house in London, doing everything he can there. You can’t leave me here, James. You need my help.”

“No, absolutely not. I can’t be sure that—”

Whitby stood up and tried to leave again.

“Sit down, Whitby,” James said forcefully. “I need you here to help me plan this. Perhaps, Sophia, you should go and check on Mother.”

“I’m not going anywhere! I am a member of this family, James, and Lily has confided in me, and me alone. You need me with you in Paris, if for no other reason than to be there for Lily when you find her. I believe she will need a… a feminine shoulder to lean on.”

James stared at her for a long, tense moment. “You do seem to have developed an intimate rapport with her, and if things have progressed to a… to an
inappropriate
level with Pierre, she might be afraid to see me. She would talk to
you
, though. All right, it’s settled.”

James and Whitby unfolded a map of Paris and began to make plans, while Sophia sat in silence, listening, working hard to slow her pulse. She had just stood up to her husband a second time, and he had bent to her wishes. Again.

What a tremendous relief that she would be going with him! Not only to help search for Lily, but to find a way to mend what was broken between them.

She decided she would do her very best to utilize the time alone with him—to reach into his heart again, where she was sure he needed her the most.

The waters were calm across the English Channel, but as Sophia stood alone on the deck of the ship with her gloved hands on the rail, the cold mist biting into her cheeks, she wondered if this was in fact the “calm” before a more serious storm.

Would they find Lily in Paris?

What if they did? What would be done?

She turned to see James approaching, his strides long and slow and relaxed on the damp deck. He looked every inch the aristocrat. An exceptionally handsome man he was. Dressed in an expensive wool greatcoat and elegant hat, he carried himself with a deep, innate confidence, as if he believed without question that he would succeed in this quest to rescue his sister.

His face was clean-shaven; he must have unpacked his razor and used it in the cabin while Sophia was on deck, watching England disappear into the fog.

His piercing, blue-eyed gaze met hers, and he came to a slow stop beside her, then faced the sea. “It’s a damp afternoon, Sophia. Would you not prefer to be in the cabin?”

“I wanted to breathe the sea air for a little while,” she replied.

He stood beside her, watching a gull soar and swoop down near the gray water.

Sophia sighed heavily.

“You enjoy the sea,” he said.

“I do. I like the vast, open space and the salty smell of the water.” She leaned out to look over the rail. “Who knows what’s down there in those dark depths? Sometimes I wish I could dive in like a mermaid and find out.”

For a long time he watched her. “You look at people the same way, Sophia, always wanting to know what’s in the depths of their hearts and souls.”

His comment caught her off guard. Trying to deny the power of his charismatic presence beside her, and how he affected her just by breathing, she gazed up at his beautiful profile, the fullness of his lips, the strong line of his jaw. She could have stood there and stared at him all day and long into the night. It would have been intoxicating.

“I suppose I do want to know what’s in people’s hearts,” she said. “But only if they want to show me.”

He faced her and slowly brought a finger up to stroke her chin. The caress was tender, and her heart ached with yearning. It had been so long since they’d been alone together and physically intimate. How she wished their life was normal at this moment, so she could clear her mind of everything but the feel of his large, strong hands upon her skin.

“I have shown you very little, haven’t I?” he said softly.

Sophia’s knees went limp from the sweet, smooth sensation of her husband’s touch, and the gravity of his words. “And I promised not to ask for more than what you were willing to give,” she replied.

He nodded with understanding and faced the sea again. Sophia faced it, too.

“I have reconciled with my mother,” James told her. “There were things that needed to be said.”

Sophia wondered why he was telling her this, and clung to the hope that he was intentionally trying to reveal something of his own heart to her. “That’s wonderful, James.”

“We spoke about the woman my father loved—if he indeed ever knew how to love—and Mother told me why, all her life, she had kept the truth from me. She believed she was never strong enough to protect me from my father, but that she had the power to protect me from scandal, and that was her only consolation when she felt weak and ashamed of herself for what she allowed to occur in our home.”