Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nicholas’s face throbbed from the beating he had received at the tavern, yet his entire body pulsed with a new, primal sort of terror.
The moment he’d arrived from the back of the house and smelled smoke, he had known something was wrong, but the sight of Isadora’s stumbling run, blood soaking the back of her neck, had made an entirely new terror break free.
He could not lose her. He could not.
But first, he needed to find Sophia.
As soon as he crested the side of the house, he saw Sherborne sprinting with Sophia under his arm.
Such rage. Nicholas had never known such rage.
It didn’t matter whether Sophia was of his blood or not; he had no right to steal her. And Nicholas would bring the full force of the law down on his head. There would be no escaping his wrath. Everything he did from now on, he would do to ensure Sherborne never saw the light of day.
All the threats, the doubts, the uncertainty, they all came crashing into Nicholas now. He bellowed out a primordial roar and launched himself after Sherborne. Unlike the other man, he was bigger and stronger, and he was not encumbered by a small child he was in the process of stealing.
It took him a handful of seconds to reach Sherborne’s side, spin him around, and plant a facer right in his mouth. Sophia slipped to the ground, and Nicholas caught her arm with one hand.
“Are you hurt?”
Sherborne attempted to rise, and Nicholas tripped him again without so much as looking at him. He scanned Sophia’s face for any sign of pain, but he found none.
“He said he was my father,” Sophia mumbled, her voice catching on a sob.
“I am your father,” Nicholas said fiercely. “And I will never let anyone take you away from me.”
Two figures ran across the lawn to them.
A gardener, followed by a footman. After taking one look at the burly gardener, Nicholas nodded and pointed to where Sherborne was already scrambling to his feet again, running across the field.
“Catch him and put him in the cellar, then send for the magistrate. I will deal with him later.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Nicholas scooped Sophia into his arms and jogged back toward where he had seen Isadora, his heart contracting in his chest. “It’s almost over now,” he told her.
Sophia let out another hiccupping sob, and Nicholas wished he could go back and beat Sherborne into a pulp. “He scared the kittens…”
So that was what had been in her arms. Nicholas might have smiled for her had he not rounded the corner and seen Isadora where he had left her, though rather more slumped over than before, her face terrifyingly pale.
He placed Sophia on the ground and kneeled by her, taking her shoulders in his hands. “I need to see to Izzie, okay?” he said, keeping his voice very calm, even though he felt as though every organ in his body tightened and twisted. “Can you follow by yourself?”
Sophia adjusted the squirming kittens—three of them, he noticed—and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Yes, Papa. Will she be all right?”
“She will,” he said grimly, scooping Isadora into his arms and rising. She was so light, so frail, so fragile and pale, and her hair was so sticky with blood. If Sherborne had seriously harmed her, he would kill the man.
He would murder him in cold blood.
“She will,” he rasped, willing the words to become truths because he had uttered them. “I will make sure of it.”
The world existed only in flashes. Isadora glimpsed a bobbing ceiling and the stubbled, familiar jaw of a man she loved. She felt his arms around her.
The scene changed. Now she was in a bed, lying on her front with her head twisted to one side. Someone had their fingers on her scalp, and she mewled in protest.
“Shh,” Nicholas murmured, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips. So much more gentle than he had been in a long time. Almost tender. The thought made her cry, as did the pounding in her head. “It’s all right, my love. It will be all right. Don’t cry.”
She couldn’t help it. The tears dripped off her nose and soaked into her pillow. “It hurts,” she whispered, but she wasn’t sure she was talking about her head.
“I know.” His hand squeezed hers. “I will make it better, sweetheart.”
“Sophia?”
“She’s safe. Everyone is safe. I promise.”
At least there was that. Everything would be worth it so long as Sophia was safe.
“He tried to take her,” she mumbled, finding it difficult to concentrate past the buzzing in her head. “He said she was his and he tried to take her. I did my best to stop him, but he pushed me and I fell, and—”
“You were incredible. Sophia told me how you protected her.” His voice came even closer, almost brushing her cheek. “I will never forget how you protected my daughter with your life, Dora. Never.”
“Our daughter,” she mumbled, squeezing his hand in return. This was the one thing she would not lose. “You made me marry you, Nicholas, and she is mine.”
“She is yours.” For some reason, his voice sounded thick. “She belongs to us both.”
Isadora nodded, closing her eyes again. That was all she had needed; now she could rest in peace. The world took on a distant tinge, and everything swirled out of focus, blurring until she didn’t know where reality ended and dreams began.
“And you…” she heard Nicholas say in one of those dreams, “you belong to me, too. You are mine.”
Nicholas moved through the sleeping house without a sound. The physician had assured him Dora would not wake before morning; the draught in her tea would keep her resting while her body began to mend. Only then had Nicholas allowed himself to leave her bedside.
The magistrate had not arrived yet. Just as well, because Nicholas intended some time alone with his guest in the cellar before the constables had the chance to take him away.
His face still throbbed very slightly from his last fight, but he barely noticed the pain as he made his way down the lamp-lit corridor.
The cellars at Winchester Manor were dry, well-lit, almost comfortable affairs for any guest, unfortunately—but when Nicholas came across Sherborne, he was tied to a wooden chair, a gag knotted firmly across his mouth.
His servants did not dither; Nicholas felt a sudden rush of affection for them and their love for the duchess and Sophia.
First, the fire, which would necessitate his stables to be replaced—and due to the quick work of the stablehands, had fortunately not injured any horses or members of staff—and now they were enduring this without question.
He would give them all a bonus.
Later.
Sherborne’s eyes widened when he saw Nicholas.
Nicholas smiled, taking his time as he crossed the long room toward the other man.
The wine casks kept down here made the space smell like wood and fruit and that sour tang of alcohol.
The straw on the floor, designed to soak up any leaks, would prove admirable for soaking up the blood Nicholas had in mind to spill.
Someone had laid out another chair for him, and he drew it up, sitting before Sherborne and pulling down his gag. “So,” he started, his voice pleasant and his intentions anything but. “Why don’t you tell me what you were doing here?”
A bruise swelled on Sherborne’s face, one eye half-shut, and the other one, fresher still and circled by red—no doubt from one of the footmen for touching the duchess and their daughter.
“What does it matter what I say?” he snarled gutturally.
“I’d appreciate an attempt at the truth.
” Nicholas leaned forward. “That will not save you entirely—you hurt my wife, and for that, you’ll be fortunate not to be leaving this cellar in a bag—but it might stay my hand a little.
Silence is your enemy; lies are more so.
I want the truth, Sherborne. What did you think you would gain from this? ”
“My daughter,” he spat with a curled lip.
“Mm.” Nicholas looked the other man over, taking in the stubborn tilt of his jaw and the defiant spark in his eye. “But you have no proof that she is yours.”
“Grace told me she was!”
“Not good enough. We both know Grace was a liar. She lied to me, and it is entirely plausible she lied to you.”
Nicholas bent over the chair and closed a hand around Sherborne’s collar.
“But there is another layer to this deception, because I do not believe Grace would have told you that Sophia was your daughter. She was far too proud for that. Whatever the truth, she would have wanted her child known as the daughter of a duke. She would never willingly have diminished Sophia’s place in the world—she loved her too much.
” The words no longer caused him pain. “If you decided the girl was yours, you found your proof somewhere other than Grace.”
“What more proof do you want?” Sherborne hissed furiously.
“She came to me first when you denied her a chance to move to warmer climes! She wanted London, but failing that, she would have taken Spain or Italy. Something hot, somewhere she could have a new start. You knew she was miserable in Yorkshire, and you did nothing! She said she would run away with me. Just the two of us.”
Nicholas went still.
He remembered the quarrels. Grace had despised the isolation of his estate and resented every obligation that bound him to it.
More than once she had demanded that they leave Yorkshire altogether.
He had offered months in London during the social season, even half the year in Italy, but compromise had never interested her. She wanted departure without return...
Ultimately, he had refused. A duke could not abandon his seat because his wife disliked the climate. More importantly, a father did not surrender the raising of his child.
His child.
The thought came quietly, carrying with it the first hint of certainty.
Those arguments had begun years after Sophia’s birth. The first true rupture—the day Grace had packed trunks and tried to leave—had occurred when Sophia was three, old enough to travel without difficulty.
And Grace had intended to take her.