by Kim Bowman
“Romeo and Juliet nesting under your roof,” Sophia wanted to warn Lady Courtenay.
Wilhelm and Lord Courtenay had entrenched themselves in a pair of wingback leather chairs before the fire. Difficult to say if they plotted as powerful lords or reminisced as old army comrades, but if Lord Courtenay refilled Wilhelm’s snifter one more time—
Oh, no — He just did.
Sophia could take no more; she’d been counting. Before now, Wilhelm had fairly well maintained his sobriety. She thought it was blind of Lord Courtenay not to consider it; he had to know about Wilhelm’s drinking problem. Sophia excused herself from Lady Courtenay and crossed the room.
She came to a stop between Wilhelm’s knees and unceremoniously snatched the snifter of brandy. A strong Armagnac — four fingers. She tossed it down her throat in four scorching swallows and lowered the glass to find the two men gaping at her. Thankfully, she didn’t cough, and her eyes watered only a little.
“Wil, darling, thank you for the sample, but I think I shouldn’t have any more.” She turned to Lord Courtenay. “Would you not agree, my lord?” Amused, he twisted his neck in a conciliatory nod. Wilhelm conspicuously fought a smile while his eyes did that distressing frost-scald stare from under his eyebrows that made her see visions of golden-haired children with hazel eyes.
Minutes later, she heard the tail end of an animated debate between the two men. Lord Courtenay called to his eldest son, “Preston, if we need cover next week, can you do anything about the papers?” He gestured with his head to Wilhelm; she guessed he meant they wanted attention drawn away from an impending scandal.
Sophia wondered what could possibly be a bigger bone to gnaw for the ton than a ruined, escaped heiress, thumbing her nose at her father by seducing a wealthy lord of dubious sexual orientation with his own shady history, according to gossip. Her mother would be impressed with the caliber of infamy Sophia had inspired in such a short time. Whatever mischief Wilhelm thought to hatch that would eclipse that, she didn’t want to know.
The young Lord Preston appeared unimpressed. He scratched numbers in a ledger, looking intensely businesslike, far beyond his years. He replied without looking up, “Can do. And good timing as well. Halverson is three days past due in Dover port from Shanghai, and there is word of storms all along the eastern trade routes. Marsden says he wasn’t shipwrecked, but everyone else suspects the cargo is lost. I will wire shares to Grismer’s and drop all of the stock in Halverson’s.”
He cross-checked his ledger with a note scrawled in the margin of a newspaper written in a language even Sophia didn’t recognize, and she was Queen of the Bluestockings. “Orson is in London and owes me a favor. I will convince him to stage a rush on Worth’s, and by Wednesday afternoon, every lady from Edinburgh to Corsica will be panicking over next Season’s silk. No one will care about who is tupping whom for at least a week.”
“Andrew!” His mother gasped, horrified.
“Oh. Are we going to off someone, then? Perhaps we should stir up the labor unions as well. How about a strike in the northern cotton factories?”
Sophia saw the glint of amusement in his dark eyes as his mother reacted as though laying an egg. Lord Preston glanced sideways at Miss Villier and winked, and she tried to give him a stern look but obviously thought him too charming and clever to put any heat behind the scowl.
Oh, yes, there would be an endless supply of trouble for the Tilmores in the future.
Sophia struggled to follow Lord Preston’s ramblings, but it seemed he thought he had the wherewithal to personally manipulate the stocks on Threadneedle Street. It seemed an odd notion and highly unlikely, but Lord Courtenay snickered, beaming with pride. “That will do. Proceed.”
No one else in the room behaved as though they found anything amiss; they thought it a matter of course that an eighteen-year-old boy was about to tumble the shipping industry and textile commerce in three countries on an idle request.
Wilhelm and Lord Courtenay went back to their plotting, seemingly satisfied. She left them the same way but sans liquor when she went up to bed. Fritz trotted along warily in the unfamiliar house, stopping once to ogle Daisy, Lord Preston’s mastiff.
“Forget her, Fritz. The nobility gives no quarter for mutts,” she teased. Fritz cocked his head and dropped a long tongue out of his mouth in a disarming doggy smile. “I should remember that, more so than you.” She laughed to herself but found little amusement in it.
Unless Philip intended to guard his sisters night and day, Sophia worried what retaliation Chauncey might attempt on them. Wilhelm had assured her his men would protect them. She had even confessed about the locks of hair and her suspicion about a traitor among the household staff. Aggravating, his confidence in Rougemont’s security.
Even accounting for the private army guarding the house, and Philip and Martin watching over the family, Sophia could not banish the premonition of dread haunting the back of her mind. None of those measures protected against the blackmail and public ruin Chauncey had in store for Wilhelm, who didn’t seem to care.
He had refused to approach the subject, saying, “That is best left buried in the past, and Chauncey doesn’t own a big enough shovel.” But steep odds were still odds, and she had a particular loathing for any sort of gamble.
Perhaps the worry made her ill, or it could have been the Armagnac; Sophia dashed to the basin and retched, as she had every day the past several weeks. She felt no better afterward. Saints above, she would never drink again, not as long as she lived. With her stomach heaving, her head aching, and the same cold trembling numbing her limbs, sleep would escape her until Wilhelm came and wrapped his warm body around hers.
~~~~
Nothing happened. Not the day after Sophia had escaped her father at the Torquay station, and not the three days following. The ride home from Lancashire was boring, except for her near-crippling anxiety. She expected bandits on the train. Thought every rider must be a highwayman about to attack the coach. Even Fritz found it unexciting; he traveled sprawled on the floor, dozing most of the time.
Each morning she raided Wilhelm’s office, frantically scanning newspaper headlines for the devastation she expected. Mayfair had been ailed by clogged commodes. A midget pugilist escaped hanging for murder by squeezing between the prison bars. A stray tiger found roaming King’s Cross station terrorized a stout dowager wearing an ostrich plume in her hat. Lord Preston’s fabricated disaster had not struck, and neither had her father’s.
Rougemont transformed into a military command post, with riders, scouts, and wires coming and going at all hours. She glimpsed what Wilhelm must have been like on the battlefield: burning with purpose, frightfully cunning, and his calm sense of absolute was reassuring. No hint of doubt or weakness. He hardly ever slept yet showed no sign of fatigue. His men seemed to think he was alpha and omega. She would have followed him into the fray, too.
Humiliating that all this upheaval was on her behalf.
The Queen’s Life Guard had nothing on her personal security detail. When Wilhelm didn’t attend her himself, he knew better than to assign the task to Philip. No, he sent the only man she couldn’t cow, the enormous Irishman she remembered as Colonel O’Grady. With his grizzled auburn whiskers, barrel chest, and slight limp, he looked like a cross between a pirate captain and a beloved grandfather. Sophia had learned by experience he moved faster than one would expect, and he didn’t mind snatching the Countess of Devon by the waist and bodily returning her to the place Wilhelm had ordered her to remain. For her safety, of course.
Trouble had to be brewing, but she was largely kept aloof of it, on account of her “condition.” Wilhelm seemed to expect some event — the harbinger of Armageddon, by the scope of the operation — but declined to trouble her with tiresome details. More likely he knew she would disapprove, whatever the plot might be.
Frustrating how her temperamental health seemed to validate his concerns. The sudden bouts of abdominal pain she managed to conceal
unless they stunned the nerves in her legs, forcing her to collapse in a most distastefully dramatic manner. And whoever had dubbed the term “morning illness” must have been a man, because every woman of experience she consulted agreed nausea struck day or night as a matter of course. Especially if Monsieur Girard cooked pork or cabbage — heaven help her if he did both at once. The smell made her retch, even separated by three floors and the west wing. She once fainted halfway up a flight of stairs, and Wilhelm had ordered her to be carried henceforth. Ridiculous, all of it.
A small relief when she counted the days and added almost eleven weeks, far past the point when she’d lost the baby last time. Small, because she didn’t seem to fare well carrying a baby, and it had only begun. She hated the dark voice in the back of her mind hinting that her body had been warning her these many years of her incompatibility with motherhood.
Yesterday Mary had helpfully quoted some famous Viennese doctor about how one out of every five metropolitan mothers perish in childbirth, but only one in six country-dwellers. Aunt Louisa had threatened to lock the impudent girl in a tower until she turned twenty. The humor did little to dissolve the tension, because everyone knew the odds did not seem stacked in Lady Devon’s favor.
What better distraction than a surprise? Sophia heard commotion downstairs and thought she heard a familiar voice among the chorus, but it hardly seemed possible. She managed to sneak past Wilhelm’s office and down half a dozen steps before he came from behind and swept her into his arms, ignoring her protests as he jogged down two flights of stairs, carrying her like a rescued damsel.
“What a naughty girl you are,” he groused, but kissed the top of her head. She scowled up at him and noticed his bloodshot eyes and the lines of strain creasing the corners of his brows. It dissolved most of her annoyance.
“What’s going on, Wil? Is it who I think?”
His eyes lit, a smile formed on his lips slowly, as though the gesture had rusted from lack of use. He opened his mouth to answer—
“You call his lordship, the Earl of Devon, Wil?”
Sophia turned her head, difficult with Wilhelm’s shoulder in the way. “Mother,” she greeted, forcing warmth into her voice. “What a surprise,” she directed at Wilhelm.
Helena cocked her head in a coy pose and waited while Wilhelm descended the last few steps and set Sophia on her feet. “Lady Chauncey.” He nodded.
How very Mediterranean she looked. Her beauty shocked Sophia; perhaps she’d downplayed the memory of her mother’s witchlike, exotic allure. The contrast of her pristine Madonna features and overt air of sensuality gave her a commanding presence. Easy to believe she had upset all the continental royal courts in her day.
Lady Chauncey seemed to take in every detail instantaneously, but her gaze lingered on Wilhelm’s hand twined with Sophia’s, half-hidden in her skirts. Helena leaned on the banister, and… winked! Like some cabaret flirt. Oh, but she had stayed in France too long.
“So this is what you have been keeping from me, Anne-Sophronia.” She eyed Wilhelm with blatant appreciation. “At first I thought I saw a ghost—”
“We already know about Roderick, Mama. No need to boast,” Sophia half-whispered, glad the staff gave them a wide berth for the awkward reunion.
“I remember Wilhelm as a centurion-like, bookish young man, but my, has he grown into a god!”
“Mama, please—”
“Magnificent. Not as pretty as his brother, but twice as… oh, what is the word? Alléchant? Vigoureux? Comme d’étalon, oui.”
Tantalizing, vigorous, like a stallion? Mercy. “He is standing right here, Mama, and you may be embarrassed to learn his French is quite good.”
“Nonsense. Our dear Wilhelm doesn’t mind, does he? And obviously a romantic, intrepid sort of fellow, if he carries you about like a pirate stealing a wench. What a delightful game.”
Sophia remembered why the English Channel made a proper neighbor between herself and her dear mother.
Martin approached. “Pardon, Lady Devon? Which room shall I—”
Helena gasped. Then she cursed and covered her mouth, her eyes wide. “Lady Devon? Lady Devon!”
“You cannot… You mean you haven’t heard?” Sophia furrowed her brows, wondering how news several months old hadn’t reached Helena Duncombe, hub of information for all current events.
Once her look of shock faded, Helena scrutinized first Sophia then Wilhelm with an expression clearly showing she thought them both insane. Then she smiled, the same gracious conciliatory smile Sophia herself used to rescue awkward moments. “Of course not, darling. I must shock you with the news that I have been mistress of a cellar long enough to have lapsed in my duty. We shall have to debate, you and I, whether your tale of conquest or my fantastic escape should be told first.”
She smiled and winked again, and Sophia finally noticed the strategic tilt of her hat, how it angled the feathers across her cheekbones. Hiding bruises, as always. She seemed a bit gaunt and lacking her usual glowing golden complexion. A humbling reminder that Helena Duncombe had first taught Sophia to smile and carry on.
Sophia squeezed her hand against Wilhelm’s, silently thanking him. Apparently the spy he’d sent to infiltrate Chauncey’s men holding Helena captive had finally managed a jailbreak. He squeezed back and rubbed his thumb up and down her hand.
“How about the India Room, Martin? Mother, you must be exhausted. We shall catch up after you rest. And welcome to Rougemont.” “Or is it welcome back?” she wanted to say.
“Relieved to see you’ve arrived safely,” Wilhelm added, his voice raised in a polite tone, a genteel voice she only heard him use on formal occasions.
“Yes, thanks to you.” Lady Chauncey spoke behind her hand. “He will not be far behind, you know.”
“I assume so,” Wilhelm answered, as though the prospect of Lord Chauncey unleashing his worst upon Rougemont bored him.
Somehow the utterly bizarre situation of hosting her mother, former mistress to Sophia’s husband’s late brother, became lost in a sudden wave of worry. On the upside, whatever disaster loomed over their heads must strike soon and be over with. She could not stand to wait any longer.
Chapter Twenty-Five
On The Value Of Superior Marksmanship
Another night spent with Wilhelm dashing about commanding soldiers, riding out on reconnaissance, plotting over maps and endless stacks of telegrams, and Sophia didn’t sleep well. She tried not to growl at everyone the next day, but tension radiated throughout the house. The energy affected everyone differently. Helena seemed sanguine as always, the other women had become somber, and the men invigorated. They called Wilhelm Iron Wil, his old army nickname. He seemed indefatigable, and it made her tired. His charisma could be too intense.
At least he’d left a red rose draped over the pillow that morning, as he’d done almost every day since his declaration with the colored bouquet. Comforting, the small gesture that meant he thought of her, even through the chaos ruling day and night. She liked it better when he delivered it himself, but she had an affinity for sleep, and he—
Something important had happened, guessing by the commotion in the hallway. Philip, Colonel O’Grady, and Martin all gathered from their posts to meet in Wilhelm’s office when two rather impressive men arrived from London. She glimpsed them as they passed through the hall, intimidating for their powerful physique like Wilhelm’s and the same purposeful stride. Most notably a sharp predatory cast to their eyes, the same false calm and cold disconnect that frightened her when Wilhelm wore it. She would bet the family jewels the men came from the same covert organization Wilhelm refused to discuss.
With her guardians all occupied except Fritz, she had no trouble trailing behind to snoop. The taller man with sun-bleached hair, stunning as the angel Gabriel in a rakish sort of way, seemed to take orders from the stocky middle-aged man with the bearing of a lifelong soldier. They strode into Wilhelm’s office without knocking, without the escort of a servant.
>
Sophia noiselessly turned the doorknob of the room next door to the office, a seldom-used parlor that shared a chimney with the office, meaning it also shared the vents. Feeling childish but ignoring the chagrin, Sophia ducked to place her ear against the slats of the brass vent. Air whistled through the duct, dampering the voices wafting from the office.
“Sir Theodore, Sir Gideon. Thank you coming so quickly.”
She almost laughed out loud — the man she’d dubbed Gabriel was in reality not far from it. A handful of voices exchanged greetings in Latin. She missed the first part but heard fratis — brother. The name conjured a connection to the secretive Brotherhood of the Falcon, and a shot of excitement made her heart kick. She closed her eyes, straining to listen.
“I feared it would be too late.” Philip said that.
Martin’s voice came muffled from across the room. “—many did you have to buy?”
Guessing by his young voice it must be the blond angel, Gideon, who laughed and answered, “Twenty-five thousand copies. Still bound in the printer tapes. One hell of a pile of ashes.” She heard him clearly; he must have been standing close to the vent. His accent sounded more urbane than she’d expected, and Sophia revised her lower-gentry-sea-merchant impression of him to beau-monde-rake-of-the-first-order.
Philip chuckled and quipped, “Wil already bought Eastleigh and half of Hampshire, why not the Times as well?”
Sophia bit back a gasp and missed the next comment. Her home? How?
Wilhelm’s voice came. “You’re certain none circulated?”
A deep voice with a northern lilt answered, “Courtenay’s son will strike the markets tomorrow, and that should cover it. We arrested the journalist and his editor to be sure.” Sophia guessed the wizened Sir Theodore said that. Authority boomed in his voice; he must be the sort of man whom subordinates jumped to obey.
