by Kim Bowman
Published by esKape Press
www.eskapepress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and/or persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are the property of their respective owners and are used for reference only and not an implied endorsement.
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All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2014
ISBN-10:1940695562
ISBN-13: 9781940695563
Box Set Cover Art Design by For the Muse Designs
Table of Contents
Song for Sophia4
Love Birds of Regent's Park275
Duke by Day, Rogue by Night414
Searching for Lady Luck711
My Lady of Deception785
Redeeming the Deception of Grace1105
Something Like a Lady1182
His Yankee Bride1519
Return to Me1737
Olivia’s Journey2061
Song for Sophia
A Rougemont Novel
by Moriah Densley
Dedication
To Sir John the Charming, who never complained even once.
You totally deserve an NSX, baby.
Acknowledgments
For a ridiculous amount of ego stroking and hand holding,
I am greatly indebted to family, friends, critique partners, and beta readers.
These saintly people kept me goin’ when the goin’ got tough.
I owe you all a trip to Greece.
Laura:
You were the first to tell me you couldn’t put it down.
You said it was publishable, so I kept writing.
Susannah:
This means you won’t have to eat your socks.
Bobbette:
I still have you on speed dial. Oh, how I miss you.
To my Linguistic Hot-Shots:
Thank you for fixing my “fake” translations.
I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have friends who speak
German, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Latin.
Mutineers and Musketeers:
My undying gratitude for your generous encouragement, savvy, eagle eyes, and for making me look good. Arrgh.
To my “K” friends at esKape:
Thanks for making this underdog feel like a rock star.
Here’s to drinking chocolate from goblets. Cheers!
Chapter One
In Which a Housemaid Manhandles Lord Devon
Anne-Sophronia jolted awake into darkness, choking on broken sobs. She fought a battle with twisted ropes of sheets she finally comprehended were not restraining, cruel hands. A frantic brush over her arms, and she found them slicked only with sweat. No blood. No cuts or glass shards, only scars. She trailed her shaking fingers over the embossed lattice of fine lines on her wrists and the underside of her forearms. The motion stoked both relief and anger as she emerged from the nightmare to wakefulness.
She thought of the locked traveling case under the bed, containing her stolen three thousand pounds, her mother’s estate jewelry, and a bundle of letters from her one remaining acquaintance. The letters all contained some variation of He is still searching for you, stay hidden, and she read them in moments of weakness as a reminder that her plight could always be worse.
Yet what she wouldn’t give for the latest Wilkie Collins novel. Or chocolate-dipped strawberries to eat while reading in a shady garden. All morning long, undisturbed. Followed by a ride on a fast Arabian then a dinner party with a controversial gathering of artists who laughed and argued over music and politics until dawn—
A stab of longing seared her chest. Oh no, none of that! She rolled out of bed and lit a candle, catching her gaze reflected in the tarnished hand mirror. Uncomfortable, she looked away, hardly recognizing the woman with the haunted, frustrated cast to her eyes.
Sophia lowered her dressing robe, and her heart sank as it did every time she saw her reflection, the chaotic web of ropy scars across her back. Whip marks, still reddened by the slightest irritation, even the gentle rasp of clothing. The purple-grey lines and puckered, glossy texture of her skin hadn’t improved much despite months of healing. She chanted to herself as she had the past several weeks, I am not vain. I am not vain. I am not—
The choice between pacing the six steps across her servant’s attic quarters or lying on the lumpy child-sized mattress became untenable. Her window facing the east garden mocked her with the illusion of freedom. She blew out the candle, knowing what she would do next despite her better judgment. She draped a shawl over her shoulders and slipped into the service passageway.
Sophia made no sound as she padded across the grand entrance, perfect planes of mosaic marble cooling the soles of her slippers. Great shadows and dull gleams highlighted the magnificent pillars, balustrades, and dormant chandeliers, making the space appear like a jeweled cavern.
Lord Devon’s ancestral pile rivaled Olympus: grand, consummately styled, and free from the remotest threat of decay. She saw to the latter personally, one of his forty-member staff motivated by the threat of his legendary wrath. He detested having the order of his house disturbed. Rumor had it Lord Devon was as brilliant as he was mad, an idea she found fascinating.
She darted past the pillars, imagining hundreds of blazing lamps and the glitter of jewelry and polished brass buttons. In the silence, she conjured the music of a Viennese waltz competing with the buzz of a hundred voices gossiping and laughing. Ages since she’d last danced at a ball. The occasional midnight rebellion cured the vexation of days pent up from skulking in dank servant’s corridors, averting her eyes, and mumbling obedient niceties.
As she passed the gallery, she gave his framed lordship a mock salute then went out the west entrance, which had been left unlocked, strangely. Midnight had long passed. Guessing by the chill air and the lull in the breeze, it was a few hours yet until dawn. Fritz and Dagmar, two in a pack of guard dogs and her only friends, came charging from the courtyard garden to greet her. She scratched their enormous waist-level heads and cooed praise in the German phrases they understood as she wandered into the garden, following a hedge-lined path.
She stubbed her toe on a large mass; it moved, and she stumbled. Her hands flailed as she toppled and landed on a person. Sophia shouted in surprise and reached out to right her balance. To her horror, she discovered the tips of her fingers wedged against a rock-hard thigh and her palm gripping what could only be a whole lot of — Oh, my!
Furious cursing in a raspy tenor voice accompanied the sensation of being gripped by the waist and dumped on her backside. She twisted and scrambled to pull her nightgown over her legs then tried to crawl away without crashing into a hedge. She wasn’t even sure in which direction to flee; her eyes saw only shadows.
“Bloody hell, woman! What the deuce are you about?” The man coughed.
His aristocratic accent, along with her noticing that the blasted dogs were wagging their tails, made Sophia comprehend she had likely just committed the worst blunder of her life. She stifled
a gasp and patted along the ground to find the path. Hedges to the right, so she crawled left. A swift yank on her ankle, and she dropped to the grass with an undignified oof.
“Answer me, wench, or I’ll have you jailed for trespassing.” His steel-edged voice raked a cold shudder down her spine. “Who are you?”
“Trouble,” she grated, scrambling out of the way while her blasted nightgown wound around her knees.
The imperious language and unmistakable burning spice scent of Dudognon cognac could only belong to the reputedly cantankerous Lord Devon. Her heart ratcheted in fear — what would he do to her? She found the path to her left and dashed for it, leaving her shawl behind. She’d barely made three strides when she was tackled from behind and got a mouthful of grass again.
A heavy arm pinned her to the ground, and instinct blanketed her with horror. Nothing came out when she tried to scream. Clawing, scratching, reduced to the primal desperation of escape. She couldn’t discern what was real or imagined, fought the hysteria—
The horrid feeling fled. She’d been freed. The quiet sobbing was her own, and her entire body trembled. Without protest she allowed gentle arms to gather her in an embrace. She clutched the open halves of a linen shirt and tucked her face against a hard, grainy throat. Oddly calming, as was the leathery-spice scent. Lord Devon.
“Let me go,” she breathed, not sounding as indignant as she should, and scrambled out of his lap. She bolted down the path toward the house and heard him curse as she ran with swiftness borrowed from Hermes himself.
Stumbling on the uneven ground nearly made her panic again, until she comprehended her pursuers were four-legged. Fritz and Dagmar danced circles around her, pleased with the game of chase. She shoved their wet noses out of the way and ran through the dark house, up three flights of stairs, shutting the door to her room behind her. She fumbled with the bolt twice before managing to slide it into place then slumped against the door. He wouldn’t find her out. Could he?
What on earth had Lord Devon been doing lying in the garden in the dead of night?
Sounds like something I would do.
Dreadful man.
Sleep was impossible, and she didn’t dare risk lighting a candle to read, so she waited for dawn, pacing her cramped room. She dropped onto the bed but fidgeted, berating herself for her stupidity.
When she’d first arrived at Rougemont under the guise of “Rosalie Cooper,” housemaid extraordinaire, Mrs. Abbott, the housekeeper, had taken one look at her and vehemently warned her away from the bachelor earl. “He doesn’t dally with the help, so don’t you go gettin’ any ideas,” Mrs. Abbott had scolded.
It might have been unwise, but Sophia had laughed in response. Even if she hadn’t already passed the portrait in the gallery of his distinguished lordship in all his mature, hairy, and stern glory, she would never “dally” with her employer. Sophia had told her, “I am as aloof as the most pious nun, in regard to all men.”
Mrs. Abbott had looked at her like she was an impertinent schoolgirl then unceremoniously dropped a stack of soiled linen into her lap. Her first lesson in submissive behavior. Subsequent ones had not come any easier.
Every day she dusted books she dared not be seen reading, polished a magnificent piano she wasn’t allowed to play, and listened to elegant dinner conversation she pretended not to comprehend. Sophia rubbed corn husk oil into the cracked skin over her knuckles and chanted the creed that had kept her afloat these past months: I am not vain. I am not vain…
Chapter Two
On Scrutinizing Underclothing
Sophia placed stacks of folded linen in the master suite wardrobe. Emboldened by her solitude, she shook out a pair of Lord Devon’s drawers, the lawn so fine it looked like silk, and dyed a rich pearl-grey sheen. Frivolous. Not nearly the size of the corpulent man in the portrait. Had he decreased with an illness recently? Sophia had only seen him in oil on canvas despite being three months in his employ.
On the table next to an austere mahogany bed lay a stack of books. Sophia squinted at the titles and noted Dostoyevsky, Jules Verne, Darwin, and oddly, Jeremy Bentham, the liberal egalitarian philosopher. The prior day, Homer and Gothic horror novels had been on his bed stand. No spectacles nearby, no bookmarks. Did he read every book or merely browse them?
More puzzling: the assortment of bottles stashed in bizarre hiding places around the room. Did Lord Devon fear a pirate raid on his cognac supply? Inside the clock, under pillows, atop a bookshelf. Enough spirits to pickle a regiment.
Just past seven in the morning, and the sheets were already cold. Even keeping country hours, what lord rose before noon? And she never saw more than one indentation in the mattress, meaning Lord Devon was either too old for bed sport or went elsewhere for it. Perhaps he was a deviant, according to the whispers about him.
Sophia placed pure white lawn shirts in symmetrical stacks on the shelf, careful to space them equally as Lord Devon demanded. Then she made his bed, the starched sheets wrinkle-free and corners tucked under the mattress at ninety-degree angles. The reason she had the position in the first place was because the previous chambermaid had failed to do so and had been sent packing.
Sophia went to the writing desk, and the title on a manuscript caught her eye. A Gounod opera. Debuted only weeks ago, according to the newspapers she stole from the kitchen — fish wrappings. She studied Lord Devon’s elegant script, flawless notation with an artistic flare to the beams and stems while every notehead maintained a perfect elliptical shape. Sophia thought her notation was better than most, but his was as precise as machine print, only prettier.
She scanned the notes and hummed the melody, an aria she didn’t recognize, because it was unpublished. Astounding — Lord Devon had transcribed the music from his head, supposedly after hearing the performance. She made a soundless scoff, wondering how it could be possible. Who had such a memory? Pages and pages of perfect script. Half-mad with envy, she set the manuscript down and straightened it.
Despite Lord Devon’s reputed eccentricities and his dreadful disposition, Sophia wished, not for the first time, that she could make his acquaintance. She imagined cozy fireside arguments over brandy with a grizzled, fatherly gentleman who sparred with her about Parliament and Balzac as though she were a man. His intellectual equal.
A lovely vision, one that vanished as she toppled a bottle of fragrant sable ink onto a card. Sophia cursed, dabbing the ink first from the polished leather mat, then the ruined card. An unfinished letter, which Lord Devon had dated two weeks prior. That made sense when she saw that he’d penned, Dearest Aunt Louisa, then nothing else.
If the last maid had been discharged over a creased bed sheet, then Sophia had just done far worse. If she were found out. She sighed, knowing it was when, not if. Better to discard the letter or forge a duplicate?
Sophia had fooled the eagle-eyed bankers in Zurich the past spring when she’d forged her father’s hand and stolen three thousand pounds…
She studied Lord Devon’s penmanship upside down and sideways, memorizing the loops and slashes. He had to be left-handed. Stifling a groan, she angled the pen the way she imagined he held it. Her first attempt was obvious and too careful. But the second, more flamboyant and aggressive, looked identical. She compared the telltale Ss and Es, pleased she’d successfully reproduced his hand. A small deception in the grander scheme of maintaining her disguise.
Sophia sorted the papers, pens, and wax on the desk then noticed a smudge of film on the full-length dressing mirror, the mark only visible from a sideways angle. She wiped it clean, sighing in relief for noticing the discrepancy then double-checked the walls for scuff marks before leaving Lord Devon’s wonderland of brilliant madness. On her way out, she polished the door handle for good luck.
Next on her list of tasks was the dreaded tray service from the kitchen. Sophia bumped the swinging half-door with her hip and gave the flirtatious French chef Monsieur Girard a wan smile as she passed through the scullery, cutting off his g
reeting. She loaded the tray with wrapped silverware and propped it against her waist to keep the sudden surge of male passersby at bay, but it failed. Botts the coachman whistled low as he passed and made a rude gesture. At least he didn’t touch her, but David, an irritating handsome groomsman, palmed her thigh through her skirts and attempted worse before she darted aside.
Imbeciles. Years of fending off advances like those, and she was beyond tired and angry. She wanted to do something about it. A man could beat the stuffing out of his opponent in the boxing ring and earn a pat on the back afterward. Where was her vindication? She wore a skirt, therefore her lot had to be forbearance?
It seemed she’d been marked for persecution, and the men grew more brazen by the day. She refused to stand by while the groping escalated to rape — perhaps the time had come to leave Rougemont. But she had nowhere else to go.
Houseguests for Lord Devon’s aunt arrived, keeping Sophia on her feet until midnight. When she finally returned to her attic quarters, she startled to find David the groomsman waiting across the hall from her door. She ignored his silent threat as she fetched the key from her skirt pocket and unlocked the door. If he meant to attack her, he would’ve done so already.
She turned and shot him a glare infused with all her pent-up fury. She lowered her voice in warning. “Touch me again, David Prescott, and I’ll break your fingers. Now go away.”
His face registered surprise; she stared him down until he shrugged and walked away. She retreated inside her room and bolted the door with shaking hands.
Hours later she woke with an indefinable sense of dread. Nightmares lurked close when she dozed, so she tried to stay awake. She didn’t remember surrendering to fatigue.
