Harlequin Historical May 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sophia James

  Phillips’s lopsided mouth curved upwards even more as he surveyed his prey with a satisfaction that lit his cold eyes. Sophia’s own stretched wide in mute horror, her lips parting in a silent gasp and all words deserting her as her worst nightmare stood before her and held out a rough hand.

  ‘Your lady mother bids you come home. I’m to ensure you arrive there as quickly as possible. You must come with me now.’

  Pure, crystal-sharp ice flooded Sophia’s veins and she staggered, unable to comprehend what was happening.

  What is this? Can I be dreaming?

  Only moments ago she’d been thinking of honey and Fell, and now Phillips was in her kitchen and Mother knew where she lived, and the new life Sophia had scratched up for herself had been torn neatly in two by the sinister apparition in front of her. It was every worry made flesh, each dread given form, and from the depths of her soul Sophia dragged up a strangled hiss that tore at her dry throat.

  ‘My name is Mrs Barden and I won’t go. Leave this house at once!’

  Phillips’s face hardened, both surprised and displeased by the defiance everyone had thought so beaten out of his mistress’s quiet, compliant daughter. Sophia saw the flicker of anger and might have flinched from it had terror not fixed her to the spot.

  She seized the edge of the kitchen table, leaning against it for support as her mind reeled and stars flickered brightly before her eyes. It couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t—yet there he was, the man she’d hidden from all those weeks before, finally having found her and now reaching to take hold of one fragile wrist.

  ‘Come along now, miss. Don’t make this more difficult than it need be. I’ve got my orders and I’ve never let Lady Thruxton down yet.’

  Sophia stumbled backwards, but the hand had already closed over her suddenly icy skin. She tried to pull away, but the strong fingers bit down to make her cry out in pain and fear so intense anyone else might have let go, yet Phillips merely hauled her closer, capturing her other wrist and half-guiding, half-dragging her from the kitchen into the hall.

  ‘Stop! Stop it! You’re hurting me!’

  Hardly able to snatch a breath, Sophia twisted from side to side, chest heaving and head spinning with terror and nausea that made her limbs feel as though they might fold beneath her. Nothing she could do made a bit of difference, however, to the man who towed her mercilessly towards the open front door.

  ‘I’m sure I’m very sorry, Miss Thruxton, but your mother insists you return. Mr Septimus is likewise very eager to see you. Very eager indeed.’

  The air fled Sophia’s burning lungs at his words and she threw herself backwards harder than ever, planting her feet and scrabbling for purchase on the wooden floor. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shape sprawled not far from her boots, a figure gasping on the ground as though winded from a heavy blow and black hair pooling against the bare boards—

  ‘Essea!’

  Ma tried to reach for Sophia’s skirts, determination flaring in her black eyes even as she fought to regain the breath knocked from her. She threw out a shaking arm, fingers closing scant inches away from Sophia’s flailing legs as Phillips set his jaw and hefted her on to his shoulder with a grunt of impatience.

  ‘I’d hoped to avoid this. I’ll have to ask your mother’s forgiveness for handling you so indelicately.’

  Sophia jerked in his hold, eyes never leaving Ma’s desperate face. Her heart slammed against her breastbone time and time again, dizziness beginning to steal over her and the edges of her vision growing dim.

  ‘What have you done to her? Put me down! Put me down this instant! I must make sure—’

  It was as though she hadn’t spoken at all. Without even a moment’s hesitation or a swift glance to check on the woman he had knocked to the ground, Phillips stepped out into the yard, carrying Sophia on his shoulder as if she was a sack of grain and paying no mind to how much she struggled to free herself.

  Another man stood beside the door, leaning against the jamb and watching proceedings with interest. Phillips nodded to him as he emerged, reaching into his coat to withdraw a purse bulging with promise.

  ‘It’s her right enough. Thank you for the information, Cousin. Your reward, as discussed.’

  Eyes stinging with furious tears, Sophia lifted her head to look at her betrayer. Whoever it was had sold her for a purse, it seemed, just as she’d always feared, and when she saw his identity it was without the smallest glimmer of surprise.

  Turner took the purse at once and weighed it lovingly in his hand. His lips shrank back from his teeth in what she realised was his attempt at smiling and he gave a mockery of a bow.

  ‘A pleasure. As was meeting you, ma’am. I thought you were a good deal too fine for the likes of Barden and, when I remembered my cousin Phillips’s mistress had a daughter gone missing, a lady fitting your description, I couldn’t rest until I’d made sure you were rescued.’

  Sophia clenched her jaw shut as hard as she could, restrained hands balling into fists she longed to let fly at Turner’s smirking face. If Fell hadn’t already flattened his nose to a cowpat, she might have done so herself, rage and fear and grief combining to push the tears past her lashes and run down her face.

  Damn you. Damn you, damn you—why couldn’t you have let well enough alone?

  Oblivious to her dismay or perhaps just unmoved by it, Phillips settled his burden more comfortably on his shoulder. ‘Where’s the man who calls himself her husband?’

  ‘Up at the tavern, drinking away his sorrows. He’ll have more than he started with when he returns to find her gone.’

  Phillips’s dark chuckle only made Sophia hate him all the more.

  ‘Aye. He’s in for a shock and no mistake—not that he deserves any better, Roma bastard that he is. We’ll leave before he returns. My lady is keen to have her daughter home as soon as possible and what my lady wants she gets.’

  Turner’s grin widened and Sophia turned her face away, unable to bear his triumph.

  Would Fell really be saddened to discover she’d been carried off? Surely there was a chance he’d welcome her absence. It might turn out that Phillips had done him a favour, a thought that made Sophia’s stomach twist all the more violently. It pained her to imagine it, but could that be right? For all his desire for a family Fell still had to tolerate his wife, and her presence must be more distasteful to him now than ever before. Might he decide to cut his losses and abandon her to her fate, their marriage tossed on the scrapheap alongside Sophia’s love for the man who held her future in his hand?

  She heard the farmer turn to leave, boots squelching in the puddles left by last night’s rain. It might very well be the last time she ever saw the yard, the cottage or the forge, she realised with fresh misery—how wretched that her final memory of the place she’d come to call home would be tainted by Turner and his poisonous greed for vengeance.

  ‘If you’re keen to be off, I’ll say good day to the both of you and send my compliments to your mistress. I feel we’ve done each other a good turn this day, my dear Cousin.’

  * * *

  Fell drained the dregs from his mug and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. In truth, he had no taste for the landlord’s bitter ale, but each sip took him another step closer to sweet oblivion, where he might find a moment of solace from thoughts of Sophia that didn’t know when they’d worn out their welcome.

  He closed his eyes and pressed two fingers against the lids. As yet he’d found no relief. Even the serving girl reminded him of the wife he’d left behind in the cottage, her profile uncannily similar although not—obviously—quite as fine. Hidden among the smell of tobacco and stale beer he should have been able to forget her for at least a half-hour, damn it, but apparently not if every woman in sight somehow recalled Sophia to the forefront of his mind.

  Stretched across Fell’s feet, Lash suddenly raised
his head, ears pricked as Fell became aware of a presence at his shoulder. Turning slightly, he saw young Winters from Down Farm hesitating there and felt his heart sink even further into his boots.

  More unwanted company. A nice enough lad, but I’d sooner drink alone today.

  ‘Barden. I’m glad to run into you here. May I speak with you?’

  At Fell’s uninterested glance the younger man took the bench opposite, Turner’s vacated seat, and leaned forward so earnestly that even in the depths of his misery Fell couldn’t suppress a flicker of unease. First Turner, then Winters. The two didn’t usually socialise beyond a friendly enough nod—why had he sought him out now, looking so uncomfortable, but determined to have his say?

  ‘Is something amiss?’

  ‘Possibly. In either case I thought you’d want to know.’

  Winters leaned towards him even more and now Fell was certain there was something wrong. He pushed his tankard to the side.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It may well be nothing, but I’ll tell you all the same. I went to call in at the forge before I came here and found Mr Turner and a gentleman I’d never seen before waiting outside your house. Turner said you weren’t at home and that he was there to call on your wife, but I knew there was no friendship between you and his manner seemed…off, somehow. Nothing I could put my finger on, but I didn’t like his friend, either. A great scar across his face and eyes so cold it were like he looked straight through me.’

  Winters sat back a little, passing the brim of his hat back and forth through nervous fingers. ‘I’m not making accusations. I just thought you ought to know. You saved that gelding’s life and I never forgot you were the only one to help me.’

  For a moment Fell didn’t know what to say. A man with hard eyes and a scarred face, shown towards his house by Turner when he knew Fell wasn’t home…

  A lump of the coldest ice crystallised in his stomach and Fell lurched to his feet, Lash springing up likewise in mirrored alarm.

  Phillips. It has to be. Turner gave Sophia away to punish me for humiliating him—the most perfect revenge he ever could have taken.

  Winters looked a little startled at Fell’s heavy clap to his shoulder, but there was no time to waste on anything other than reaching the cottage. At that very moment Sophia might be in danger and the thought drove Fell on like a crazed bull, flinging the tavern door open so forcefully it banged against the wall behind and sent more than one drinker spluttering into his tankard.

  He was an unstoppable force as he tore from the village in the direction of his forge, Lash loping at his side as if he understood what was at stake. With every step Fell’s apprehension increased until he could scarcely focus on anything else, villagers fairly skipping out of his way and his face set in an expression he didn’t realise bordered on murderous. Reaching the yard, Fell didn’t even pause to open the pretty wrought-iron gate, instead jumping the wall like it was no more substantial than a line of pebbles.

  ‘Sophia? Ma?’

  The door to the cottage lay open and for a painful second Fell’s heart stood still. There was no sign of Phillips or Turner…but neither did Sophia emerge. When Ma stumbled out, Fell seized her by the shoulders and looked into her face.

  ‘Where is she? Did she manage to hide?’

  ‘He took her. I tried to stop him, but he forced his way inside…’

  Belatedly Fell saw how Ma’s hair was wilder than usual and one side of her face was slightly swollen as if she’d been struck. The sight released him from his animalistic rage for a moment and he stared at her in horror, hardly able to believe both his ears and his eyes.

  He came to my home, attacked my mother and stole Sophia away?

  His heart began to jump all the more quickly, picking up speed as he shuffled the facts into order. Part of him could hardly credit it, but the mark on Ma’s cheek didn’t lie, the blotchy skin stirring embers in his innards that burst into flame.

  ‘He hurt you? He laid hands on you as well as taking Sophia?’ The nerve of the man took his breath away, rendering his senses accursedly dull and making clear thought impossible. The red mist that was descending only blurred his mind further, throwing him into a fog of confusion as he groped towards the light.

  He tried to take her cheek in his hand, but Ma impatiently waved him aside. ‘It’s nothing. I’ve had far worse. But Sophia—what will you do? Do you mean to fetch her back again?’

  Fell was moving again before he even realised it. Still rational thought abandoned him, acting only on impulse roaring up from the most primitive part of him that now burned with fury he hadn’t known he could feel. Sophia must be terrified, back in the hands of her hunters, and the picture of her blanched with fear combined with Ma’s wounded face sent him striding towards his makeshift stable as if marching to war, careless of anything but avenging the two women he loved. Fetching Sophia back to Woodford was exactly his plan and no man on earth would prevent Fell from doing that while he had a breath left in his body.

  Take my wife? Strike my mother?

  He bit down savagely on a growl, feeling the blood course through his veins with new vitality that fed his determination. Sophia was his very reason for living, he had long since accepted, but it wasn’t just his love for her that drove him onwards so powerfully. It was the idea of her being held against her will, forced to act against her inclinations that breathed fire into his lungs and twisted his lips in something close to a snarl. She’d finally found a place she thought was safe from those with no interest in her happiness and to have it torn from her now was more than he could stand. She deserved everything that was good and even if she didn’t return his feelings she belonged among those who valued her for herself and not for what she was worth.

  ‘Wait. Wait!’

  Ma hurried a few steps behind as he flung open the stable door, Bess and Camlo moving restlessly inside as if sensing his agitation. Lash paced likewise and even little Letty seemed to know something was amiss as Fell began to saddle Bess with unthinking speed.

  He glanced up as his mother seized his arm, her face tight with strain. She looked every bit as appalled as he felt, but she shook her head and didn’t let go of his sleeve.

  ‘Wait a moment. Think. If you turn up at Fenwick Manor, they’ll call the constable at once and who would believe a Roma blacksmith over the landed gentry? You’ll end up in gaol and there will be no chance of saving Sophia then.’

  Fell shrugged. A faint whooshing sound had started up in his ears, the noise of his own blood thrumming with fury and urgency he could hardly comprehend. Every second he delayed was a second Sophia spent terrified and alone, and the idea raked at him ferociously. ‘It’s a chance I’ll have to take. What other choice do I have?’

  ‘It’s not a question of a choice that you have. It’s mine.’

  ‘What?’

  His mother’s fingers clenched harder in the fabric of his shirt, a reflexive twitch that even in the depths of his torment Fell recognised as fear.

  ‘I think it’s time…’ She hesitated for a moment; but just a moment. The next second her head came up and she raised her chin, looking her son dead in the eye with the courage he’d always admired. ‘I’ve held this day off for far too long. It’s time I truly told you who your father is; it might be your only hope.’

  The sights and smells of the stable dimmed for an instant as Fell took in Ma’s words, hardly able to conceive he’d heard her rightly. His heart still raced and Sophia’s petrified countenance still loomed as large as ever, but for one beat he couldn’t move, only able to summon up two words to answer the dynamite his mother had just thrown into his chest.

  ‘Here? Now?’

  ‘Yes. It could be the one chance you have of getting your wife back.’

  Astounded, Fell gestured wildly about the stable. ‘Before you would only tell me he was high-born. Is this really th
e moment you choose to unveil his name? After thirty years of asking?’

  She let go of his arm and twined her hands together so tightly Fell saw her knuckles shine white, but he found he could only stare as she took a breath like one about to leap from a cliff.

  ‘Not just his name—it’s his title that will count. It might be the only thing to save you.’ Ma hesitated again—but then the words spilled out in a breathless rush of desperate confession. ‘Fell…your father is St John de Broughton, Earl of Atworth. I was, and still am, his legal wife—and you are Fell de Broughton, Viscount Stockley, his only legitimate son and heir.’

  Fell didn’t move as much as a muscle.

  One hand lay perfectly still on Bess’s reins and in an odd, disconnected part of his mind Fell was pleased to note it didn’t shake as with two short sentences Ma destroyed his comprehension of himself and everything he thought he’d known for the past thirty-one years. It was a terrible, otherworldly calm, chilling and disarming at the same time—and robbing him so completely of speech Ma could continue, desperately and without interruption.

  ‘Please. Please, my love. Allow me to explain. I chanced upon your father when I was all but a girl and he a handsome man some years my senior with no relatives to curb his wild fancies of marrying so far beneath him. My own family were afraid and tried to warn me, but I believed myself in love… By the time I realised what kind of man he truly was it was too late—we were already wed and I was entirely in his power—’

  She broke off, dark brows drawn together as if in great pain. Fell watched her through what felt like a clouded mirror, listening intently and yet with the uncanny sensation he was trapped in a dream. It couldn’t be real, the tale he was hearing, but there was raw truth in the way his mother forced herself to carry on with her voice low and haunted.

  ‘His love for me was twisted and dark. It was as though he would own me like a prize, sculpt me into the kind of woman he wanted, and when I resisted he resorted to the only way of controlling me he knew: with his fists. For the first few months I was black and blue until I learned how best to please him and crept around his great house like a whipped dog, a pitiful thing with a forced smile and my heart always filled with fear. I was too ashamed to return to my family, so opposed had they been to such an unequal match, and besides, I felt I had to honour my wedding vows. I’d made my bed and I had to lie in it…until I realised I was with child.’