Chapter Twenty-One
S ophie lay beside Shay in his large mahogany four-poster bed, her head on his bare chest and her long hair spilling across his shoulder and the arm he’d tucked around her. Her naked body nestled warmly against his beneath the velvet and down covers. They hadn’t bothered to pull close the heavy bed drapes, choosing instead to let their body heat keep the cold night away.
Dawn would be coming soon to wake the house, although the maids and footmen who came early into the bedrooms to light the morning fires knew to stay away from both their bedrooms until each was stirring and properly clothed. Was that what Malcolm’s spy had reported to him as the change in their marriage? Or was it that they had simply been happier in the past month than they’d ever been in their lives?
“You’re frowning,” he murmured into her air. “What’s wrong?”
His breath was sweet with the lingering scent of port, his favorite bottle of which sat on the bedside table. Half-empty. Because after carrying her up from the dining hall, he’d poured it across her body and licked up every delicious drop. She doubted she’d ever be able to think of men and their glasses of after-dinner port again without remembering the very wicked way he’d lapped at her bare flesh.
“Malcolm and his threats,” she admitted with a long-suffering sigh. She idly drew circles across the hard planes of his chest. “What are we going to do?”
“Nothing, not until we have to.”
She lifted up onto one elbow and stared down at him, her heart panging with worry. He was far too calm about the matter. “Why on earth would we do that?”
“Because most likely he’s bluffing and won’t do anything.” He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “And because taking the offensive will make us look guilty, and we’re not.”
“And if he’s not bluffing?” She paused long enough to let that worry sink in, then added, “We should be prepared in case he carries out his threats. We don’t have to make the first move, but we should be ready to respond immediately, just in case.”
His eyes softened in the shadows as he searched her face. “Will it make you feel better if we do?”
“Immensely.”
“All right.” Placing a quick kiss to her lips, he rolled out of bed and reached for his wine-colored satin banyan with its wide velvet collar lying tossed over the foot of the bed. He slipped it on and tied it around his waist. “What’s your plan of attack, then, General?”
His teasing warmed her chest and eased the worry and apprehension sitting there like a lead ball. “I was hoping to draw upon the skills of a war-proven soldier for that.”
He grinned at her and reached for the bottle of forty-year tawny Kopke port on the nightstand.
Sophie felt his smile tingle happiness through her, not because it portrayed a roguish expression of a man at his prime—although it did—but because only half his face could smile, and he no longer cared that the scarred side couldn’t. He wasn’t at all self-conscious about his face or the scars that marred his body, and he never tried to hide them from her anymore.
Yes, she thought as she remembered his earlier words from the dining hall. They were certainly married now. In every way.
“The generals who are best at strategy craft both offensive battle plans but also defensive ones, in case the battle turns.”
A small thrill bubbled inside her that he was sharing his soldier’s way of life with her. “How do we do that?”
He splashed out a small pour of the ruby-brown liquor and eyed her over the rim as he raised it to his lips. “Start with your enemy. What do you think is his most likely battle strategy?”
“A full frontal attack,” she stated decisively, a grimace tugging at her lips.
“Ah, then you don’t know your enemy very well.”
She sat up in bed, propped the pillow behind her, and drew the blankets up to her bosom to keep herself warm. “But Malcolm confronted me directly in the garden.”
“After he sent me all the way to Scotland,” he reminded her, “then made certain you were alone in the garden without Pearson or Henley to protect you. Not the actions of a man who’s brave or confident in the face of battle.”
She corrected, “So the enemy is a spineless bully who stoops to intimidation and threats to get his way.”
“Exactly.” He winked at her and held out the glass to her. “How will he attack, then?”
“By using the same cowardly, underhanded measures he used with me in the garden.” She thoughtfully traced her fingertip around the rim of the glass and felt the place where his mouth had warmed it. With a soft sigh, she put her lips there and took a small taste. “But what? It’s one thing to threaten me and use my love for you against us, but what could he do to convince Parliament of your guilt? He can’t threaten them.”
He walked to the window to pull back the thick drapes, pushed open the wooden shutter, and stared out across the countryside where a thin layer of orange outlined the distant hills, announcing the approaching dawn. Sophie recognized his preoccupied expression and knew he wasn’t paying attention to the view. Just as he’d left the bed so he wouldn’t be distracted by her. He might be presenting an unconcerned facade so as not to acerbate her worry, but she knew he was just as uneasy as she was, just as determined to create a plan to protect them.
“He’ll attack my character,” he muttered almost to himself as he leaned a shoulder against the folded shutter that hadn’t been closed against the night. “That’s all he can do. If he adds new evidence to the accusations he leveled in the past, they’ll seem more plausible than before, even though they’re the same ones. Because they’re the same ones. After all, if someone put voice to a lie often enough, people hear it so often they’ll start to believe it.”
“The bigger the lie, the more readily it’s spread,” Sophie added in a mutter. “And the more we deny it, the more it will be believed.”
Shay nodded silently, his eyes narrowing on something far in the distance, although she knew he wasn’t looking at anything.
“So we can’t engage in a war of words,” she determined and lifted the glass contemplatively to her lips. The scent of port wafted up to her and mixed with the masculine scent of man on the sheets, of the lingering scent of bergamot from his shaving things on his washstand. She’d never thought she could be so comfortable in a man’s world. That how all of this might be destroyed was more terrible than she wanted to contemplate. “Then what do we fight with?”
“We need to think through what he’s going to do and find ways to counter him.”
“We know what he’s going to do. When he finds out that I haven’t left Ravenscroft, he’ll file a formal inquiry with the Committee, claiming you murdered John to inherit the dukedom and have me for yourself, and he’ll use our marriage as one more piece of proof on top of what he used before.” Her voice cracked. “He’ll have you arrested for murder.”
Shay turned away from the window and silently approached the bed, his face inscrutable. “I’ll be tried in the Lords, and even those pompous arses won’t hang me for it.”
“He doesn’t have to hang you,” she reminded him. “He just has to raise enough doubts about your actions that the crown will change the letters patent to remove you from the line of inheritance, and then he’ll happily present himself as the perfect candidate to assume the vacated title. The rightful Duke of Malvern,” she drawled sarcastically. “That’s all he cares about—obtaining the dukedom for himself and his sons—not if they hang you, transport you, or otherwise destroy your life by labeling you a murderer.”
Frowning at her fears, he sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and gave her a reassuring kiss. It warmed her lips and bloomed a tingle of affection low in her belly, but not enough to vanquish her worry.
“The Lords will find in our favor,” he murmured. “Even if they don’t, Malcolm’s accusation will backfire on him, and Prinny will attaint the title completely and claim the dukedom’s assets for himself. In his greed, Malcolm just doesn’t realize that could happen.”
That gave her no comfort. “It was one thing to think John might have had a legitimate heir who might have slid into the title and set us free of it, but this —to attack you as a murderer, to destroy your reputation as corruption of the blood and those of our children…” She bit her bottom lip. “He’ll end our lives.”
With a soft gaze, he brushed her bottom lip with his thumb until she released it. “You don’t need to worry. We’re together in this, and we won’t let that happen.”
She gave a wholly dubious nod that turned into a dissenting shake of her head as she deflated against the pillow behind her. “All evidence in our favor was destroyed in the fire, and there were no witnesses to events that night. That’s why John picked that barn to take that woman into because he knew no one would see them. He was clever that way, and so—”
She sat up quickly and reached for his arm as a frantic thought struck her.
“There was a witness,” she reminded him, a desperate hope blossoming inside her. “That woman—she must have seen what happened. She could attest to how drunk he was, how he swung at you first, that you walked away while he was still alive. She can testify that it was all an accident.”
“She disappeared after that night,” Shay told her gently. “Most likely, she didn’t want to be caught up in it and left the area. I never saw her again, never even learned her name. John called her Cora, but it was John—he probably forgot her name and just called her whatever popped into his head.”
“I want to locate her, to find out for certain what she knows,” she pressed, her fingertips sinking into the satin of his banyan and the hard muscle beneath. “We can convince her to testify on our behalf, and then it’s no longer only our word against Malcolm’s.”
“Or she confirms Malcolm’s version of events,” he said quietly. “That I really am a murderer.”
“Never.”
The hard determination with which she uttered that single word made him smile. If only she could make him see what she saw in him! That he wasn’t at all a monster or a murderer, that he was far more than the heartless mercenary he was in his youth. That he was a man who warranted the right to be happy. And loved.
“Regardless, we have to try,” she insisted. Her plan was a long shot, certainly, but it was also their last, best hope at stopping Malcolm’s threats, once and for all. “She might still be living somewhere near by.”
He pushed himself off the bed with the pretense of wanting another drink. But Sophie knew better. Something else weighed on him.
“How do we find her?” He shook his head as he reached for the bottle and splashed more of the dark liquid into the glass. “We don’t even know her name.”
“We ask around. There aren’t that many taverns, inns, and public houses in the area where she could have worked.”
“More than you would think,” he muttered.
“Not that many,” she repeated, sensing his reluctance. But why? He should have been thrilled they’d found a way to save their future and the dukedom. “We send Pearson and Henley out to learn what they can about her. And we ask your friends—Devlin, Chase, and Lucien—to dig up what they can in London. You said they’d helped you find information on James Norton. Surely, they can do the same with your uncle. I’m certain he has skeletons in his closet that he doesn’t want to see the light of day.”
He chuckled dismissingly into the port as he raised it to his lips, but the amusement was forced, not reaching his eyes. “Blackmail the blackmailer?”
“Fight fire with fire,” she corrected.
“No.”
She blinked, taken completely aback. “No? But it’s our chance to defend ourselves, both offense and defense.” She cocked her head as she studied him. “What’s the matter, Shay? Why don’t you want to at least try to—”
“Because I don’t want to return to that night,” he snapped out, setting down the glass with a thud against the nightstand. “And I sure as hell don’t want my friends involved. Christ! What you’re asking…”
When his voice trailed off, she finished softly, “What I’m asking is for a chance to save our future.”
“By returning to the past.” He raked his fingers through his hair, his hand shaking violently. “I will never go back there.” He bit back a silent curse. “You don’t understand what you’re asking of me.”
She crawled to the edge of the bed and reached out to touch his robe. “Then help me to. Don’t shut me out, Shay. We’ve come too far and put too much trust in each other to turn away from each other now.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and squeezed shut his eyes. A small gesture, yet one of the most vulnerable and defensive she’d ever seen him make.
“Talk to me,” she pleaded in a whisper barely louder than a breath.
“What do you want to hear? That everything about that night still haunts me? It does. Every time I close my eyes to sleep, I dream of that night. Every time I walk into a barn and smell hay, grain, leather, horses—” He shook his head. “It took me years before I stopped walking through the outbuildings every night at sunset to make certain all the lanterns had been extinguished…before I stopped seeing John’s face in every crowd or passing rider. Before I stopped cringing at my own reflection every time I looked in a mirror because it was undeniable proof of the crimes I’d committed.” He gestured angrily at his washstand near the window. “Ask Pearson what a struggle it was when I first allowed him to shave me again—rather, to shave only half a face because my right side will never grow a beard again.”
Sophie said nothing. His pain had become hers, but they had to exorcise the ghosts of the past before they could save their future.
He gestured toward the window and the last vestiges of the dark night beyond. “And you want me to find the woman who was the only other witness to those events, to the hell of that night and the destruction it wreaked, not just to my life but to others…John, my father—perhaps even that woman. Do we really want to force her demons out into the light as well as our own?”
“Yes,” she answered in a hoarse whisper, her heart breaking for him. “If it means saving your life and our marriage, then yes, I will do whatever it takes, including forcing her to testify…including begging your friends for help.”
His somber eyes met hers in silent disagreement.
“Let me be clear, Seamus Douglass,” she said forcefully, rising up on her knees on the mattress to bring her eyes level with his. She wanted no misunderstanding about this, would brook no more argument from him. “I am going to do this, whether you want me to or not. You’ve always protected me before.” Her voice lowered to a rasping plea. “This time, let me protect you.”
For a long moment, he didn’t move, his eyes fixed on hers. Then he nodded solemnly, the small surrender enough to surge a hopeful joy through her.
But she wasn’t a fool. She knew how hard the war ahead would be. But tonight, at least, she’d won the battle, even if a larger war was to come, and she would take her victories however she could get them.
“I could never deny you anything,” he drawled, untied his banyan, and climbed back into bed with her. He crawled up her body as she sank down onto her back on the feather mattress and velvet covers, the gleam in his eyes simply predacious. “So tell me your desires, my love, and I will grant every one.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and arched up to kiss him.